Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1925

I t was already dark when Joe parked outside the Met's front entrance. Headlamps flashed in Joe's rearview mirror from a Buick idling behind him. Was the driver waiting to pick someone up from the museum, or was this a tail Joe would have to shake? If Connor's concerns were justified, Joe's investigation had likely attracted the attention of those who'd want to stop it.

Someone could be watching him. Or they could be watching for Lauren. She was the key to his entire investigation, a walking library full of clues. If she was taken out of play, he wouldn't easily be able to continue.

Sleet pinged the windshield. Lauren exited the museum and trotted down the steps, turning her collar up. She spotted him and waved.

Great. If anyone wondered which woman was Dr. Westlake, she'd just advertised herself by hailing the only cop car at the curb. Grabbing an umbrella from under the seat, he left the car and marched toward her, ready to shelter her from the elements and anything—or anyone—else.

A man in a trench coat headed straight for her from behind. A fedora obscured his face, but his movements were too quick, even for one dashing to get out of the weather.

Joe quickened his pace.

So did the man in the trench coat. He reached for her without calling her name.

Joe took the steps three at a time until he gained her position, one hand locked around the still-closed umbrella, the other ready to go for his revolver.

The man sailed past them both and tapped a different woman on the shoulder. "Miss," Joe heard him say, "I thought I saw you drop this on your way out."

Shaking his head, Joe tried to flush adrenaline from his system on a long exhale.

"Eager to see me?" Lauren smiled. "That was quite the sprint up those stairs. For a minute there I almost thought you were going to offer me the use of your umbrella." Laughter danced in eyes framed by lashes spiked with rain and sleet.

Dash it all. He snapped open the umbrella, held it over her, and linked her arm through his. "I thought..." What could he say? He thought a man was going to attack her? Abduct her? With all these witnesses? Nah. "I thought you'd be hungry."

She gave his arm the slightest squeeze. "You thought right. I'm starved."

"Oyster Bar?" The restaurant was inside Grand Central Terminal, a few blocks from Thomas Sanderson's home on Madison Avenue.

She agreed.

The drive down Fifth Avenue took them past the twenty-one-story Plaza Hotel presiding over the corner of Central Park. A few blocks later, they drove by the nearly-as-tall St. Regis Hotel, then St. Thomas Church, and the twin-spired St. Patrick's Cathedral. It was only two miles from the Met to the terminal, but with the weather slowing traffic, twenty minutes passed before they rolled into a parking spot.

They entered the terminal from 42nd Street and walked right into Vanderbilt Hall. While Joe kept an eye out for suspicious characters, Lauren looked up.

One hundred twenty feet above the pink marble floor, the ceiling boasted twelve constellations painted in gold on a background that had originally been sea-green but had been stained darker by cigarette smoke since then.

"First time here?" he teased.

"Do I look like a tourist?" She laughed, but her gaze never left the barrel-vaulted ceiling. At dozens of points in the constellations, light bulbs shone through, completing the effect of the night sky. "Did you know this was painted upside down and backward? But it was too late to do anything about it by the time they realized the mistake."

"I'll take your word for it," Joe said without examining it for himself. Stargazing would supply the perfect opportunity for anyone following them to slip into position undetected. "Let's eat." With a touch to her elbow, he guided her to the ramp that took them to the cellar level.

Beneath the main concourse, the Oyster Bar opened wide its arms with arched and vaulted ceilings covered in creamy terra-cotta tiles interlocked in a herringbone pattern. Lauren started toward the long counter, where they could see chefs shucking oysters at a dizzying speed. It was a marvel to behold, but Joe didn't want his back to the entire restaurant.

"I can see more from one of the tables," he told her. "Do you mind?"

Thankfully, she didn't, and they found one from which he could keep an eye on all doorways.

Red-and-white-checked tablecloths draped the tables. After placing their orders, Lauren folded her long fingers. They were smooth and fair, so different from his mother's work-roughened hands.

Different from his own.

He could still hear her aunt's voice, that day he'd gone to the Reisner mansion when he hadn't found Lauren at the museum. Lauren had been in mourning for her mother, but Joe didn't know that yet. "You're the young man she's been meeting at the museum?" With naked disdain, she looked at his hands. They were clean but chapped red from working at the boardinghouse and scabbed from delivering thorny-stemmed flowers for Doreen. Joe's response had revealed an accent Mrs. Reisner didn't like, either. "You stay away from her. Stay with your own people, your own kind." She'd made it clear that Lauren was better than Joe. But he knew that already.

Picking up a lemon wedge, he squeezed too much juice into his goblet and took a sour drink. "How's the Napoleon Society coming along?" She'd told him about the fire over the phone.

"I almost feel sorry for my father. The fire damaged more than the roof. Newport society—which is really New York society in a different location—associates him with what they see as gross negligence for ‘allowing' a fire to harm one of their historic homes. He feels like he's been branded a failure even before the doors opened."

Joe leaned forward. "If it's image they care about so much, they'll come around again once the Napoleon House is restored and polished to a shine."

"Throwing money at a problem doesn't always make it go away."

Spoken like someone who'd always had enough of it. He huffed a laugh. "Goes a long way, though."

Understanding sparked in her eyes. "I'm sorry if that came across as insensitive. Do you want to tell me how it's been with your family?"

Joe pulled a slice of steaming bread from a basket and began slathering it with chive butter. "It's not so bad waking up before the sun to help them in the kitchen or helping clean up at the end of the day. The cooking alone is worth it." He took a bite of the sourdough and let it melt on his tongue.

"Free room and board?" Lauren asked. "Can't beat that."

"I insist on paying rent like everyone else. They enjoy having me around, and I like keeping an eye on them. When something breaks around the place, I don't want Pop trying to fix it at his age. It's a real song and dance routine most of the time, since Mama and I don't want him knowing there was anything to be fixed in the first place." He paused to take a drink. "I make it sound like I'm doing them a favor to stay, don't I? But it's no trial. It's the least I can do."

He scanned the environment again, alert to being watched. All his helping around the boardinghouse would amount to nothing if he were ever to lead danger back to their doorstep.

Unaccountably, tears lined Lauren's lashes. "You are rich, Joe Caravello. So much richer in love and family than I've ever been. You have what I always craved. A place to belong, and the people to go with it."

Joe scratched behind his ear and wished with all his might she wouldn't cry. It unraveled him when she did that.

"Please, Lauren," he whispered. "Please don't cry." That sounded more ardent than he intended. "People will blame me and throw me out before I have a chance to taste my salmon."

Her eyes squeezed closed, and she laughed silently, shaking her head.

"See now, that sort of looks like you're sobbing." He shifted on the bench, totally out of his depth here. "Your condition seems to be getting worse."

This time she let her laughter break free and reached across the table to clasp Joe's hand. "My condition?" Her smile was convincing. "Yes, that's right. It's called the human condition, Joe. Not just facts but feelings, too. You didn't used to be so squeamish with them."

His thumb grazed her knuckles. "I've grown very fond ... of facts."

"Yes, Detective. There, there. We'll do our best to find you some more tonight." With a wink and a squeeze of his fingers, she released him and sat back as the waiter returned with their dinner.

———

Inside Thomas Sanderson's mansion, Joe visibly relaxed. Or at least, Lauren noted, he had stopped looking over his shoulder. Hypervigilance, she figured, was an occupational habit for any police officer.

"If you'll follow me, please." Mr. Sanderson's butler led them to a reception room paneled in dark walnut wood and appointed with chairs upholstered in aged leather. "Mr. Sanderson will be with you shortly."

Lauren warmed before the crackling fire. Marble pillars on either side of the grate were carved to look like Greek goddesses with arms stretched overhead to support the mantel. In a corner of the room was another marble statue, probably of Greek or Roman origin.

When Mr. Sanderson entered through the double doors with a manila folder, his prize-winning German shepherd came with him. "You don't mind if Governor joins us, do you?" he asked.

"Not at all." Lauren held out her hand for the dog to sniff.

Joe did the same, engaging Mr. Sanderson in small talk about the breed while Governor wagged his tail and looked up at his master with liquid brown eyes.

"But let us begin," Mr. Sanderson said, and led them out into the hall and up one side of a double spiral staircase. Governor matched his pace to theirs as they entered a second-floor gallery wide enough to hold receptions.

Lauren relished a slow walk through the chandelier-lit space. "It's like visiting old friends," she murmured. Then she added for Joe's benefit, "Mr. Sanderson was kind enough to loan some of these artifacts to us for previous exhibitions."

"That was generous of you," Joe said.

It was, though Lauren wondered if Joe realized how beneficial Sanderson's generosity had been to the collector's status among his set, not to mention his own sense of self-importance. Sanderson's name had been printed in the exhibition catalog and on description cards placed with every display of the pieces he'd loaned. Most collectors found that an enviable ego boost indeed.

She stopped short in front of a set of canopic jars made of indurated limestone. All four had lids that were human-headed. "These are among your newer acquisitions?"

After commanding Governor to sit and stay, Mr. Sanderson joined her, his polished oxfords tapping the marble floor. "Yes, I couldn't resist the complete set of all four. You see the cracks in this one, and a missing chunk out of that third one there, but given their age, I'd say they've weathered the millennia quite well. I'd considered having that lid restored, but there's a certain charm in showing the jars as they were found in Egypt."

"There is." Out of habit, she pulled a pair of white cotton gloves from her purse and put them on before picking up the lid and reading the text carved inside.

"You could restore it?" Joe asked. "How would you go about doing that?"

"Oh, not me, my good man. I'd have to find someone who has both the technical skill and knowledge of the ancient art so it could be done right. There's no one I trust more than the team who works at the Met. There's none better. Wouldn't you say, Dr. Westlake?"

"Yes, of course, but they're quite busy with museum work as it is without taking on private projects," she told him, bracing herself for the news she was about to deliver. She could only imagine what he'd spent on four matching canopic jars.

"Come again?" Joe looked at her. "The team at the Met?"

Lauren removed her gloves and slid them back into her purse. "That's right. The Egyptian department has its own underground facility to support what you see in the galleries. We have rooms for inventory that we rotate in and out of the galleries, and workshops for carpentry and minor restorations."

"But made with considerable skill and care," Sanderson inserted.

"For example?" Joe prodded.

"You've seen the little blue hippo made of blue faience, with black line drawings of lotus blossoms all over him. Only his front left leg is original to him. The other three legs were restored so he can stand properly."

"The hippo has three fake legs?"

"That doesn't make the hippo a fake," Lauren assured him. "It's a common enough practice among museums, Detective. But restorations are only done in particular circumstances. The object needs to be mostly whole already, it cannot suffer any harm during the process, and the restoration must be helpful enough to the overall work to warrant the effort."

She could see that Joe had more questions, but this conversation could take far more time than they had. Turning back to Mr. Sanderson, she said, "May I see the provenance for this set, please?"

He withdrew a document from the folder he'd been carrying and passed it to her.

It didn't take long for Lauren to make her verdict. "I'm sorry, Mr. Sanderson, but this entire set was forged."

The color leached from his face. "But how can you be so confident?"

"Inside the lids are the typical identifying labels." She waited while he picked up the first lid and stared at hieroglyphs. "That says that these jars held the remains of a woman who was a mayor's daughter during the twentieth dynasty, which was the Ramesside period. The provenance document agrees, dating these pieces to sometime between 1184 BC to 1070 BC."

"I believe you, Dr. Westlake," he said tentatively, "but I fail to see the problem in any of this."

She glanced at Joe, who was taking notes, as usual. "During the Old Kingdom, canopic jars had simple disk-shaped or hemispherical lids. Then, from the late First Intermediate Period to early Middle Kingdom, lids became human-headed, like these. But as I've said before, according to the dates on the lids, these jars claim to come from the Ramesside period. But from the Ramesside period on, the lids always represented the four sons of the god Horus. One was human-headed, another hawk-headed, another ape-headed, and the last jackal-headed."

She took a breath, waiting to see if he understood that a talented forger had made a big mistake.

His crestfallen expression said he did. "Is there any chance it could simply be a clerical error?"

"If it was only the provenance that got it wrong, I would have thought it possible. But the etchings on the lids themselves say the same thing. It's simply impossible."

"Could someone have reused the jars, centuries later?"

It was a valid question. "If that were the case, they would have modified the label, crossing out the original name and adding the new one. So no, that's not the situation here. I am certain these are extremely well-made forgeries."

Mr. Sanderson brought a handkerchief to his brow. "Well, this is why I asked you to come, after all."

Lauren caught Joe's eye and detected a hint of something approaching compassion, or at least regret for the whole situation. From all appearances, the Sandersons were fabulously wealthy. But appearances could be deceiving, every forgery a case in point. Perhaps the loss of the money invested in these fakes would hurt them more than one might imagine.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Sanderson," Joe said. "You've been the victim of a crime, and thanks to your cooperation, we have more evidence to hang on the one who did this to you as soon as we apprehend him."

"My reputation will be ruined when people find out. What will they say?" Mr. Sanderson groaned. "What will my wife say?" Moving as though the starch had gone out of him, he sat on an upholstered bench and signaled Governor to come.

The German shepherd trotted over and rested his head on Mr. Sanderson's knee. While Joe joined them and began his line of questioning, Lauren continued to walk the length of the gallery. She was pleased not to find anything else amiss.

Lauren thought again of her father's suggestion to write up her notes as an article for the Napoleon Society newsletter. With what she'd written from this visit alone, she could protect people like the Sandersons.

Suddenly, it felt selfish not to.

By the time she returned to where Joe and Mr. Sanderson were seated, they were deep in conversation.

"Daniel Bradford," Joe said as Lauren took a seat alongside him. "Spell it, please?"

Mr. Sanderson obliged, and Joe wrote it in his notebook before catching her up to speed. Bradford was the dealer who'd sold the canopic jars. At last, a lead.

"I'm sure Mr. Bradford couldn't be to blame." Sanderson rested a hand on his dog's head. "He brings art back personally from Cairo and Luxor, and supplies only the best high-end art dealerships in Manhattan, like the one I favor on Madison and 76th. It's run by Aaron Tomkins."

Joe wrote that down. Lauren wondered if the art dealer was involved in the forgeries. Tomkins almost certainly worked with more than one buyer. Were others selling forgeries through him, too?

"Bradford knew what I was looking for before he made his last trip," the collector continued. "So he picked these up and offered them to me directly without going through Tomkins. Saved me a percentage of the cost by skipping the middleman. These must have been forged in Egypt before he brought them back. He'll not suffer any consequences, will he? He's as much a victim as I am in this. Please, please, take care in how you speak with him. I'd hate for him to refuse to work with me after this."

"Of course." Lauren gentled her voice. "We only want to make sure this doesn't happen again. Only the forger himself is to blame."

"Could you describe Bradford's physical appearance for me?" Joe asked.

"Oh, he's about five eleven. Grey hair. In his sixties, I'd guess, but he somehow manages to keep himself fit and trim. Brown eyes. A gentleman's hands, with neatly manicured fingernails. When he's agitated, a muscle twitches under his left eye."

Joe looked up from writing. "You've seen him agitated? Do you recall the reason?"

Color crept up Mr. Sanderson's neck. "Too many questions."

"It could be important, sir. We're almost through here."

"No." Mr. Sanderson shook his head. "What I mean is, Bradford gets that twitch when I ask him too many questions."

This interview grew more interesting by the minute.

"I see." Joe's expression remained impressively neutral. "And what was the nature of the questions that provoked him?"

"I don't know. Just ... questions about the artifacts. Where he found them, what they mean, what they're worth."

"All the usual questions one should be asking," Lauren said, hoping to put him at ease. "You're right to ask those things."

"You've been most helpful, Mr. Sanderson," Joe told him. "I'll take it from here. What's the best way for me to get in touch with Bradford?"

"Oh." He patted Governor again and fed him a treat from his pocket. "I've only ever contacted him by sending messages through Tomkins, and then Bradford gets back to me when he can. I have no idea how to reach him directly, and I get the feeling he likes it that way."

Deflating, Lauren locked gazes with Joe. They could only pray that Tomkins would cooperate.