“Quite so,” LePointe said. “Where they usually belong. This house is climate-controlled and the light is regulated carefully. If the hurricane comes and breaches the levees, all of the art here will be high, dry, and secure. The Turner is one my father purchased for next to nothing that was owned by a collector who fell victim to unfortunate circumstances. The Pollock is one my mother bought in the fifties from the artist himself. She was quite taken with the Moderns.”
Casey said suddenly, “The letter from Gary is a fraud, Alexa.”
“How can you be so sure?” LePointe asked, turning his eyes on his niece.
“Gary never types. He only writes letters with fountain pens. He thinks typing is impersonal. He never even uses e-mail.”
“That’s hardly proof,” LePointe scoffed. “I imagine he knows how to type.”
“Secondly, he wouldn’t send it to you, of all people.”
“Why not?” Alexa asked.
“He hates Unko. He thinks he’s-let me quote: ‘a pompous, controlling, egocentric, self-important windbag.’ Which he is. God, I should have known!”
LePointe stiffened. “Gary’s a man in crisis. I’ve seen this a thousand times. Self-destruction due to the fact that he’s standing at the verge of something life-altering that he knows he doesn’t deserve. He can’t handle the prospect. He’s crying out for ‘poor me saddled with all of this attention’. Anxiety. Self-loathing. Inferiority complex. Mania. Insecurity. Round peg in a square hole, et cetera, ad nauseam.”
“You are so full of it,” Casey snapped. “If that were the case, Gary would have told me yesterday at lunch, or before. I’d have known if he was having problems. Unlike you, I pay attention to those around me. And that letter isn’t in his voice at all. Emotional turmoil? Inner feelings? My future? Never could Gary be so selfish. He would never let me worry like this or leave Deana without her knowing he was coming back soon.”
“So, if he didn’t send it, who did?” LePointe asked.
“Gee, I don’t know,” Casey said. “Maybe it was some pompous ass-bite windbag who wanted to get the authorities off the case. Better to die because nobody’s searching for you than cast a shadow on the immaculate LePointe name,” Casey said, raising her voice. “Obviously it was someone who thinks I’m dumb enough to accept such an obvious crock.”
“May I see the letter?” Alexa asked.
LePointe tossed a folded sheet of typing paper across the desk. Alexa used her ballpoint to open the letter, then read the single-spaced paragraph. Dr. LePointe, Please tell my wife that I am sorry if I’ve caused her any emotional turmoil, but I needed a few days alone in order to evaluate my position in this life and contemplate my future. Please do not involve the authorities, as I am fine and should be home on Saturday, or Sunday at the latest. Give my wife and daughter my love. Gary
“‘My wife and daughter’? It’s clinically impersonal,” Alexa said.
“He didn’t use our names! Impossible,” Casey said sourly.
“The envelope?” Alexa asked.
LePointe looked in the trash can beside his desk, pulled out an envelope, and placed it beside the letter. It was a plain security envelope, available by the hundred anywhere office supplies were sold. It had been opened using a sharp blade. The flap was one that used peel-off tape instead of needing to be moistened to activate the adhesive. The stamp was also a peel and stick. Obviously there would be no DNA to extract.
“Do you have an envelope?” she asked LePointe. “An unused one.”
LePointe opened a drawer and handed Alexa a large envelope made of expensive white paper. Alexa opened the envelope and slid the letter and its envelope into the larger one before she folded it closed. “I’d like to take the letter, if you don’t mind,” Alexa said.
“What is the point of taking the letter?” LePointe asked.
“I’m going to have it analyzed for Gary West’s fingerprints to see if he ever had it in his hands. If he didn’t, I want to know who did. Casey, I’ll need to have something Gary has handled.”
“His prints should be on file,” Casey said. “He was arrested for protesting in New York when he was at NYU.”
LePointe raised an eyebrow, as if Gary West had been arrested for a serious felony.
“Giving me something he’s handled recently might actually be faster than going through AFIS.”
“AFIS?”
“Automated Fingerprint Identification System. I imagine the crime-scene lab needs them anyway in processing the prints found in and on the Volvo.”
“No problem,” Casey said. “Gary has silver accent pieces on his desk-a letter opener, cigarette holder, and lighter. He plays with the cigarette holder when he’s at his desk.”
“What about my fingerprints?” LePointe said. “I handled that letter.”
“Have you ever been arrested?” Alexa asked.
“Of course not! I’ve never even been fingerprinted,” LePointe snapped.
“I would have thought maybe the Secret Service or the Bureau might have printed you for security clearances,” Alexa said.
“They didn’t print me. I suppose I am well-enough known to make that unnecessary,” he said, having missed the point of her barbed comment.
“Another one of your envelopes, please, Dr. LePointe?” While he got another envelope, Alexa opened her purse and took out a spare magazine for her Glock. Using a handkerchief, she carefully wiped the magazine clean and set it on the desk.
“Rub your fingers on your nose. The oil transferred to the pads of your fingers will help make your prints stand out. Just grip that magazine by placing your thumb on one side of it and your fingers firmly on the other, then lift and release it,” Alexa told the doctor.
“You’re not serious.” LePointe acted as though Alexa had asked him to provide her with a stool specimen.
“Uncle William,” Casey said. “It’s important.”
“This is absurd,” LePointe sputtered.
“I’m sure you want to know, as badly as I do, who wrote this if Gary West didn’t,” Alexa told him.
He wiped his nose, reached out, and squeezed the loaded magazine, then took his hand away.
Alexa gripped the magazine by its base, looked at the sharp prints on the polished steel, then dropped the heavy magazine into the fresh envelope.
“I touched the letter and the Volvo,” Casey said. “Do you have another magazine?”
Alexa used her second spare magazine to obtain Casey’s prints just as she had LePointe’s. She placed the second magazine in a separate envelope and wrote Casey’s name on it.
“Now the lab will have exemplars for comparisons,” Alexa said.
LePointe sat silently, his eyes unfocused. Something was bothering him.
“If you’re worried, Dr. LePointe, the lab will be instructed to destroy your print records after they’ve used them for this.”
“It’s just that someone else also handled the letter,” LePointe said. “My investigator. Kenneth Decell. Naturally he read it.”
“I’m sure his prints will be on file with NOPD,” Alexa said.
“So, you’re going to keep looking for Gary?” Casey asked.
“My initial feeling is that this letter is a fraud, perhaps intended to discourage the police from looking for him. I’m not sure what the motive is, but I’m certain, based on the physical evidence alone, that he was the victim of foul play. Even if he did write and mail that letter, somebody attacked him brutally with a pipe afterward. The good news is that this is obviously an amateur production, and I’m certain we’ll be able to figure out who’s behind it. You don’t have any objections to the NOPD and me continuing to look for Gary, do you, Dr. LePointe?”
“Of course not. Why should I?”
“I’ll notify Detective Manseur,” Alexa said. “He’s in Algiers Pointe investigating the death of a retired psychiatric nurse. A woman named Dorothy Fugate.”
LePointe locked his eyes with Alexa’s. What he was thinking was impossible to guess, because his face, although draining of color, was devoid of expression.