She repeated the pertinent things Nauman had told her about his lunch conversation with Munson.
“Oh,” said Lowry. “So that’s what he meant when he said we knew where his grandson was when Shambley was killed. And what he was doing there. I thought he was talking about them moving the body.”
“I did, too,” Sigrid admitted.
“I asked Grant about that again,” said Elaine. “He said Rick didn’t want anyone to know he’d been spending the night there because, and I quote, ‘People would say it was sex.’ ”
“And you’re sure that it wasn’t?” asked Sigrid.
“Not on Pascal Grant’s part,” Elaine said sturdily.
They moved on to the possibility that Shambley might have tried to blackmail Hester Kohn and Benjamin Peake over Munson’s forged signature on an inflated tax appraisal, and considered that relatively minor crime in the light of Munson’s assertion that they had instead authenticated and sold forged paintings through the gallery.
It was hard to know which was true, they decided, when everyone who’d known Dr. Roger Shambley agreed that he insinuated, suggested, and implied but very seldom said precisely what was on his mind.
“Look at Thorvaldsen,” said Lowry. “A self-made millionaire like him, he has to be sharp, right? Yet, according to him, he went sneaking back to the Breul House Wednesday night and cooled his heels for an hour, all because Shambley offered him a deal. At least he thinks Shambley offered him a deal. But he doesn’t know what and he doesn’t know why.”
“Or so he says,” Sigrid cautioned. “Don’t forget he also hinted to me that Shambley might have caused him a problem if he stirred up trouble right now. He might have gone there expecting to pay blackmail for all we know.”
“We checked out Lady Francesca Leeds’ story,” Matt Eberstadt reported. “And Hope Ruffton’s. Both were where they said they were unless a lot of people are lying.”
“That takes care of all the checkable stories,” said Lowry in his capacity as recorder for this case. He read from his notes, “Of the people there that night, the ones in the clear are Leeds, Ruffton, the Hymans, the Herzogs, Buntrock, that pianist and the caterer’s people. Munson, Hester Kohn, Thorvaldsen, Mrs. Beardsley, Peake and Mr. Reinicke can’t prove their movements.”
Lowry paused and Sigrid said dryly, “You’ve omitted two people: Oscar Nauman and me.”
There was an interested silence.
“For the record, Professor Nauman and I were together during the pertinent time period. If it becomes necessary, I can supply corroboration. Question?”
“No, ma’am,” said Lowry.
“Moving on then.” Sigrid laid out the blowups Paula Guidry had made of the great hall on Thursday morning. “As you see, the mannequin’s cane is missing. Until we have reason to think otherwise, I think it’s safe to say that’s our weapon. So who’s place is worth a search warrant?” she asked them.
They went down Lowry’s list, from Jacob Munson-“That old guy?” said Elaine. “He may be old, but he’s feisty,” Jim told her-to Winston Reinicke. “Lainey has a theory about him,” Jim grinned.
Lieutenant Harald was not amused by their byplay. This was where she missed Tillie the most. By this time, he would have provided a timetable with each suspect’s movements and motives carefully logged.
“Has anyone heard when Tildon’s expected back?” she asked abruptly.
“They keep saying sometime after New Year’s,” said Matt. “I talked to him two days ago. He was supposed to go to Chuckie’s Christmas play last night, his first time out except to see the doctor.”
Elaine Albee gave Sigrid a sympathetic glance. “You miss him, too, right?”
“I miss his thoroughness,” she answered, with a pointed look at Eberstadt. “I don’t suppose Peters remembered that he was supposed to interview the Zajdowicz woman this morning.”
Eberstadt patted his pockets. “Yeah, he gave me the name of the place and the time. I wrote it down.”
He found the scrap of paper. “Haven Rock on Staten Island. They told him to come after eleven o’clock. That’s when the priest finishes confession. Want me to go?”
“No,” Sigrid decided. “I’ll do it.”
The rest home was in West New Brighton on the north side of Staten Island, so she took the ferry instead of driving to Brooklyn and crossing the Verrazano Bridge.
The sun had burned through the earlier clouds and even on this cold December day, the open rear deck of the boat held many camera-snapping tourists. The ferry still offered one of the most spectacular views of lower Manhattan; and although city lights made it much more breathtaking after dark, daytime wasn’t bad either, thought Sigrid. She stood close to a bulkhead out of the wind and watched the stretch of choppy gray water widen between boat and shore.
As the ferry moved out into upper New York Bay, away from the shelter of land, several passengers who had burbled about the smell of clean salty air abruptly fled inside to search for hot coffee.
Most cameras were pointed back toward the twin towers of the World Trade Center, but a few telephoto lenses were already focussing on the Statue of Liberty off to starboard. No one was paying attention to Brooklyn on the port side of the boat and Sigrid was stirred by a sudden memory of her Great-uncle Lars. He had often treated her and cousin Hilda to rides on the ferry that once ran between Brooklyn and Staten Island before the Verrazano Bridge was built.
If Albee or Lowry had been with her, she would have kept silent; but since she was alone, Sigrid turned to a nearby tourist and pointed toward what would still be the country’s fourth largest city if it hadn’t been annexed back in 1898.
“ Brooklyn,” she said.
The Japanese woman smiled and nodded and a couple of her friends looked up at the thin woman with inquiring faces.
“That tall building is the Williamsburgh Bank,” she said, imitating Great-uncle Lars’s clear didactic tone. “Five hundred and twelve feet high. The tallest four-sided clock in the world.”
“Ah!” said the women. They spoke to their men. A ripple went through the group, then fourteen cameras swung toward Brooklyn.
When Sigrid was escorted to the correct building, a priest was still working his way down Barbara Zajdowicz’s corridor, offering to hear those who wanted to confess and bestowing a quiet blessing on those who did not.
The guide with whom a receptionist at the main office had provided her was a white-haired resident, gossipy and plump and proud of his continued mobility into his ninth decade of life. As loquaciously proud of Haven Rock as if he were a majority stockholder and she a prospective customer, Mr. Hogarty described the various facilities: how residents usually began with an apartment, moved into a comfortable single room in this building when they needed medical monitoring and could no longer manage alone, and, if necessary, finished up in a medical ward for the totally bedridden.
“Me, I’m still in my own apartment,” Mr. Hogarty bragged, “but a lot of my friends are over here.”
“Here” was a clean-lined series of interlocking squares. The residential rooms reminded Sigrid of a solid block set down inside a square greenhouse. Each room opened onto the wide window-lined corridor, a common area hung with flowering baskets and green plants and made homey with clusters of sofas and easy chairs all along its length. It was a pleasant area and one that invited residents and their guests to sit and converse and look out at the small courtyard garden. The clear glass windows were curved to catch every ray of winter sun, and several of the people basking in the bright sunlight exchanged greetings with Sigrid’s guide when they passed.
As they found two unoccupied easy chairs and sat down to wait for the priest to emerge from Mrs. Zajdowicz’s room, Sigrid asked Mr. Hogarty if he knew the woman personally.