Mercer removed the plastic bag from his jacket pocket and put it on the desk, under Will Jarvis’s nose. “Now, what do you call this little tag?”
The middle-aged manager’s face reddened as he leaned forward to look at it.
“Day & Meyer, right?” Mercer asked. “Sure looks like a receipt to me.”
“This-this would be a different sort of circumstance,” Jarvis said.
“Exactly what?”
“It would mean that someone authorized on the account paid a visit-a visit to one of the vaults.” Jarvis paused, moistening his lips as he struggled for an explanation. “Someone authorized, I remind you. He or she removed something from the Portovault-I couldn’t possibly tell you what that was-and stored it with us for a period of time in a safe. A small safe. A service we offer our clients for smaller objects and short durations of a hold. It’s occasionally more convenient for people to put items here-securely-without going through the trouble again of opening an entire vault. That’s why we offer the alternative of smaller safes.”
“And this receipt?” Mercer asked.
“That would have been used to retrieve the object from a safe. There should be a stamp on the back of the tag,” he said, reaching for the plastic bag.
But Mercer got there first. “There is a stamp on the back. And a date,” he said. “The date is May 10th.”
“So the only thing missing is for you to tell us who signed for this receipt,” Mike said. “Who had access to one of Lavinia Dalton’s vaults in the weeks or months prior to May? And is that the same person to whom this receipt was issued?”
Will Jarvis didn’t budge.
“We want a name, Mr. Jarvis. We want to leave here with a name.”
“If I give you this information, I don’t have to appear before a grand jury?”
“That sounds fair,” I said.
“And you won’t tell Jillian Sorenson about this?”
“We have no reason to.” Although I was interested in what his relationship was with Sorenson and why he seemed so fearful of her reaction to our visit.
“Then would you please read me the account number on that receipt, Mr. Wallace? It’s the first set of figures.”
Will Jarvis turned his back to us to face his computer. He entered the numbers, and results appeared on the screen. He printed out several pages of paper.
“In the spring of last year-during the month of April-the trust commissioned two Portovaults to go to the Dakota. Four guards escorted the trucks, and they were returned at the end of the same day. They were added to Lavinia Dalton’s account as vaults number seven and eight.”
That might have corresponded to the storage of the Dalton silver collections-one vault for Archer Dalton’s train set and the second for Lavinia’s Central Park.
“At some point in May,” Jarvis said, “Jillian Sorenson signed in to our facility. She spent the better part of an hour on the twelfth floor. The two newest containers were opened for her. There isn’t any more information than that, as I would expect.”
Jarvis studied the paper from which he was reading to us-and signature cards that appeared to have been scanned into the system.
“Then in June, one year ago,” he continued, “a visitor came to the building and spent an hour or so here, also signed in to the newest vaults. Both were opened for her, but one was closed immediately. She spent time in the other one.”
“She?” I asked.
“Here’s the signature card, Ms. Cooper.” Jarvis was nonplussed now. “I don’t know the woman personally, but she must be the one on the list of proper signatories, you can see that for yourself.”
He slid the paper across from me. The name on the line for the June 8th visit of the year before was Wicks, with simply the capital letter B after it. The authorized list of signatures, which Jarvis also showed to me, had Bernice’s full name printed out and signed.
The person who’d written her name on June 8th had a much firmer hand than Bernice.
“Bernice Wicks,” I said, “is one of Lavinia Dalton’s housekeepers.”
“Then that makes sense,” Jarvis said.
“But the signatures don’t appear to match, Mr. Jarvis. And no one seemed to require Mrs. Wicks’s full name on this June 8th record.” I passed the record to Mike and Mercer.
“It must have been a busy day. Mistakes happen. Let’s see what the signature is when the items on that receipt were picked up. That will be the numbers in red, Mr. Wallace.”
The next paper printed out.
“So, the receipt shows,” Jarvis said, “that the items were claimed on November 5th.”
“One week after Hurricane Sandy,” I said. “And who signed for them?”
He looked up from the paper. “B. Wicks once again.”
Of course Eddie Wicks would have known that his mother was a trusted signatory of the Dalton properties. He had probably seen the dramatic arrival and departure of the Portovaults many times while staying at the Dakota since his youth.
“Mr. Jarvis,” I said, with renewed urgency, “how about the video surveillance you have inside this place? There must be cameras everywhere. There would have to be.”
“That’s not something we advertise, Ms. Cooper.”
“I understand, but it would be stupid to think you didn’t need them in this day and age.”
Jarvis didn’t know whether to give it up or not. “We have other measures of security that are quite sufficient. Our clients prefer privacy-and a great measure of discretion. There are no video cameras to record their comings and goings.”
Mike was practically on top of him. “Do you take photos of people who come through your front door?”
“No. That would be ridiculous. We get deliveries and service people and inquiries that have nothing to do with-”
“Go back, please, to that November 5th sign-in sheet, will you?” I said. “I’d like you to print out a copy of the signature.”
Will Jarvis didn’t lift a finger.
I picked up the plastic bag and waved it in his face.
“The number again, please?” he said.
I read the four digits that were handwritten on the bottom of the tag. “8521.”
“What? That can’t be right,” Jarvis said. “Our identification numbers are longer sequences than that.”
“Not those handwritten numbers on the tag,” Mercer said to me. “Give him the figures in red print.”
I found them and read them aloud while Jarvis entered them in his computer. The printer groaned again and rolled out a copy of the signature of a B. Wicks.
“Maybe Eddie Wicks came here right after the storm of the century,” Mike said, “to pick up something he must have wanted pretty badly.”
“He’s one possibility,” I said. “That’s for sure. But why is Jillian Sorenson so arch about all this? She certainly didn’t want us up on the ninth floor and in the room where this receipt was found. If she didn’t want to be caught with her hand in the till, what better than to sign Bernice’s name?”
I looked to see whether Will Jarvis reacted to my speculation about Sorenson, but he was stone-faced.
“You both seem to be ignoring the fact that Vergil Humphrey has known Eddie Wicks-and Bernice-for a very long time,” Mercer said. “And he claims to have been the keeper of the black angel.”
“What about it?” I asked.
“Well, the angel was found in the Park with both of the silver pieces. I’m just sayin’-because a man is toothless doesn’t mean he can’t write.”
THIRTY-THREE
Fifteen minutes later we were on the twelfth floor of the massive storage facility.
Will Jarvis had acknowledged the giant security breach and admitted that whoever signed B. Wicks’s name had forged it. He agreed to let us eyeball the contents of Dalton Portovaults number seven and eight, in light of the subpoena, and because whoever visited a year earlier had been unauthorized to do so.