“Maybe it won’t be for long,” Mercer said. “Maybe Lavinia made plans for these before she became ill.”
“Do you mind if I-?” Will Jarvis wanted to step up with us.
“Stand back,” Mike said. “Just keep away from the door.”
Our voices echoed, but we had no interest in letting anyone else know what was going on.
We were standing at the south end of the faux Park, along the gray stone walk that represented the 59th Street border.
Mike squatted again and picked up the replica of the Simon Bolivar statue, which was closest to him. He turned it over and confirmed that the Gorham and Frost hallmark was engraved in the silver base. “The originals, I’d say.”
Mercer turned left. “Coop and I will take the west side. Why don’t you go east?”
We each used our flashlights to search every inch of the vault. Last year’s visitor may have taken some items-which is what we assumed-but also may have moved others or dropped something along the way.
All three of us were working from memory, since we had no map of the Park. I was running my light back and forth across the surface of the background, checking against my recollection of landmarks that should have been represented.
The Maine Monument was in place at the southwest entrance, so I started north, parallel with Mike, who was on the far side of the vault.
Each of us called out significant markers as we could see them. I reeled off the names of gates and arches that were still in place, just as Mike did from the east-side perspective.
It was Mercer, with the advantage of a head more height than I had, who noticed the first missing piece. “The Carousel’s gone.”
“One of Lavinia’s favorite places,” I said.
“Every kid’s favorite,” Mike said. “Probably Baby Lucy’s, too.”
“Well,” Mercer said, “it’s missing.”
“The Indian Hunter’s here. So are Shakespeare and Balto.”
“The Falconer’s in place,” I said, looking north from the 70th Street parallel. “Daniel Webster, too.”
Mike spotted the 72nd Street roadway first. “The angel is gone.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“But just the angel,” he said, stooping down to examine the base of the fountain. “The top part screwed off. Whoever took these things just wanted the angel.”
And seconds later, when Mike stood by the 72nd Street Cross Drive, he pointed to the gaping holes where both Belvedere Castle and the tall Obelisk used to sit.
Farther along, at 106th Street, I noticed that the so-called Strangers’ Gate to the Park had been removed.
The north gate house-a significant site in Eddie Wicks’s tormented life-was also gone. And as Mercer and I circled to the far end of the Park, it was clear that several other statues, the Warriors’ Gate at the 110th Street entrance, and the remote Blockhouse had also been stolen.
“What do you think?” Mike asked. “Ten pieces missing? A dozen?”
“Easily,” I said.
“Anything left behind?”
“Pretty careful,” Mercer said. “I didn’t see a dropping.”
“Then let’s check out the storage locker that matches the receipt,” Mike said.
Mercer eased himself out of the vault, extending his hand first to Mike and then to me as he helped us down. Then he took the receipt from his pocket and dangled it in front of Jarvis.
“We’d like to see this locker now.”
Mike put his foot in his surviving loafer and limped along.
“But someone was here to empty it,” Jarvis said.
“I’ve got a feeling,” Mercer said, “that whoever it was got this receipt back because the unit wasn’t completely cleaned out. The person was stamped in for one visit but left here still holding the ticket, so we’d like to see what’s in there.”
Jarvis dismissed the workmen and took us down in the elevator to the fourth floor. He had given up wrangling with us and submitted meekly to our request. The foreman, who had all the master keys, accompanied us down.
Again, Mercer showed him the tag with the number on it, and the now-docile man led us to a locker that was about two feet square, resting on the floor with two rows of similar containers above it. Mike asked him to unlock it and step away, along with Jarvis.
Mercer shined his light in, and it immediately caught the glare of a shiny object inside.
“Got a pair of gloves for me, Mike?”
Mike pulled them from his rear pants pocket, and Mercer put them on. He reached into the space and came out with a pair of silver gates.
I read the words engraved on the silver slab. “Strangers’ Gate. How appropriate a name for this investigation.”
“What’s with these?” Mike asked. “They look like stones, not gates.”
“That’s the whole idea. Olmsted and V-”
“Vaux. Like hawks. You only have to tell me things once, Coop.”
“They didn’t want iron railings around the Park-so as not to break up the pastoral look of it, and also not to make it appear to shut out the poor-so they just created these stone sculptures and gave each one a name, like a gate, so people could know where to meet one another.”
“So our guy leaves behind Strangers’ Gate, okay. You know where it is?”
“106 on the west side.”
“Wonder if there’s some significance to that,” Mike said. “Anything else, Mercer?”
Mercer reached his arm in again. “Yup.”
When he brought it out and opened his hand to us, there were two very small silver figures-miniature marionettes like the ones in the Swedish cottage, strings and all.
“Damn. I wonder if that was Eddie’s idea,” Mike said, “or Verge’s.”
“You’ve got to get this to the lab,” I said. “Let them try this FST DNA testing on it.”
“What’ll that do?”
“I thought I only had to tell you things once, Mike. It can pick up mixtures of genetic material, so if two people touched these miniatures, or even three, we can prove who they are.”
“But neither Wicks nor Humphrey is in the data bank,” he said. “We get a DNA mixture, and who do we match it to?”
“If we get our hands on them again-and I assume that day will come-it’s a way of putting this all together.”
Mercer had bagged the tiny puppets and passed them along to me.
“I’m with you, Coop, if you’ll just-”
I heard the shrill voice before the light footsteps of Jillian Sorenson, approaching through the dimly lit hallway. “Put those things down right now, Ms. Cooper.”
By shutting Will Jarvis out of our investigation, we apparently had sent him scurrying back down to his office. Sorenson must have gotten him to tell her where we were. She was steaming mad as she demanded we return the silver objects to her.
“You’re a little bit late for that, Ms. Sorenson,” Mike said. “They’re evidence now.”
“You’ll be sorry you did this, Detective. Harm seems to come to everyone who touches Lavinia Dalton’s prized possessions. Deadly harm.”
THIRTY-FIVE
It was after eight P.M. on Friday evening-past Jeopardy!-and the three of us had lost all sense of time when we pulled into Mercer’s driveway in Douglaston, a handsome neighborhood of private homes in Queens.
Vickee was at the front door, and the moment she opened it four-year-old Logan Wallace ran down the steps in his pajamas-which were printed with brightly colored dinosaurs of all varieties-flying into Mike’s arms and begging for bedtime stories. I got the second-best greeting and held the child’s hand as we walked inside the house.
I stopped short at the sight of Manny Chirico sitting on the living room sofa. Mike was behind me and did the same.
“It’s okay, Mike,” the sergeant said, getting to his feet and walking toward him. “It’s only good news I’ve got. Jessica Pell stepped down from the bench tonight.”
Mike wrapped his arms around Chirico, grabbed his face between his hands, and planted a kiss on his forehead. “Why the hell didn’t you call me?”