Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1925

N ine o'clock in the morning found Joe in the gymnasium for the daily lineup. One by one, those who had been arrested in the previous twenty-four hours were led onto a stage at one end of the room. Daniel Bradford was not among them. Joe had been watching for someone matching the art dealer's description.

Most of the men brought into headquarters were between nineteen and twenty-six years of age. Three-quarters of them were drug addicts. Joe and the rest of the detectives wore masks during daily lineups, so they could get close enough to question the suspects without risking being recognized on the street by these men later.

Notebook in hand, he observed the accused. From the stage, they'd go directly to the photographer's studio, so at least he didn't need to record every physical detail. Instead, he wrote their numbers and the charges levied against them, their expressions and demeanor.

An elbow knocked his ribs. Joe frowned at the offender.

"Sorry." Oscar McCormick's voice was muffled by his mask. He tucked in both elbows and continued scribbling.

Joe moved closer to the stage and focused on the next suspect, a part-time waiter picked up in another raid last night, this one a high-class club catering to the very rich, not just flappers and two-bit floozies. Joe still considered raids an ineffective long-term strategy but had started participating again, as much to keep an eye on his own fellow officers as to enforce Prohibition. Last night, he was glad he did. Among the bottles left behind were some that matched Doreen's and Ray Moretti's.

He stepped up to the rope holding the detectives apart from the stage and named the French wine in question. "Where else is that wine sold?"

"I have no idea. I just serve the food, trying to pay my way through college."

"Who supplied the wine to the club?"

The handcuffed young man shook his head. "I told you, I wait tables. How would I know?"

"Have you seen it in the personal possession of anyone? Or is it just in clubs and speakeasies?"

"That's pricey stuff. Only a few regular customers bought bottles to take home with them."

The detective beside Joe stared at him. "Is the wine on trial? Come on, buddy. Don't drag this out."

"Do you know Ray Moretti?" Joe asked. "Was he one of the customers to purchase that wine?"

"Never heard of him."

Figured.

The waiter left the stage as another suspect took his place. It wasn't worth the cost to incarcerate him. The ones who were worth it hardly ever got caught.

After the lineup, Joe tossed his mask into his desk drawer but didn't bother refilling his mug. The coffee this morning had been too weak to deserve its name, but he had enough adrenaline to keep him going the rest of the day. Most energizing—even four days after the revelation—was that Connor had been feeding empty bottles of confiscated wine to Doreen. He had zero plans to leave it alone, as Connor had so hotly commanded.

Questions fired. The notebook he held was full of them long before this morning's lineup began.

Why can't I find a record of that many bottles of wine being confiscated over the last few years?

Was that half-full bottle Doreen caught him with an anomaly, or had Connor collected them full of wine?

If the latter is true, how could he afford it?

If he couldn't afford it, what had he done for the trade?

How did he get them if not through normal confiscation process as he had claimed?

Obviously, Ray Moretti wasn't the only person in Manhattan who favored that wine, but he was more likely than the waiter to know where to get it—without going to France.

Considering how Murphy had responded the last time Joe had brought him a clue related to Connor Boyle, Joe hadn't shared this bit during their meeting earlier this morning. Neither would he confide in just anyone on the force, given the thirsty nature of New York's finest. Who knew if others were in on this? After all, if those bottles really had been confiscated, it could have been a clerk who had made those records disappear. Joe had taken a risk as it was by questioning the waiter in front of the entire detective bureau. He had banked on them not paying much attention. Bigger fish had been arrested last night, too, suspected of violent crimes, petty theft, and drugs.

Which meant there was plenty for Joe to do without this bottle mystery. Still, he couldn't ignore it.

An incessant, repetitive noise from several feet away drew a snap of irritation. "McCormick," Joe said.

The young man jerked his head up, eyes wide, and dropped the pencil he'd been tapping. "Sorry. Habit."

Joe beckoned him over, and McCormick obeyed.

"Pull up a chair."

McCormick did as he was told. It was almost embarrassing how eager he was to please Joe, especially after the way Joe had been treating him. He'd been unfair to the new hire. Perhaps he could make up for that. "A while ago, you started to ask me about something strange you'd found. I brushed you off and had to chase a lead. Did you ever tell anyone else what you found?"

"Oh." He pushed a hand through his hair. "Yes, sir, I did. I told the Property Room clerk since I figured I was reading the records wrong. He said he'd take care of it, and that I didn't need to concern myself any further."

"That's good." Joe sounded about as convinced as he felt, which was not at all. "Well, now you've got me curious. What was that all about?"

McCormick shifted in the chair. No, he squirmed. "It's probably nothing."

Right. "If it's nothing, then there's no harm in explaining it to me, is there?" When he didn't respond, Joe tried a different tack. "I get the feeling he told you to keep whatever you found to yourself. If he made a mistake, maybe he's scared of getting in trouble. Losing his job, even. But here's a free tip. Your job isn't to look out for his. Your job, at the moment, is to answer my questions. Capisce ?"

A small smile edged the young man's lips. " Capisce ."

Joe didn't bother correcting him. By now, other policemen had noticed their little meeting. Maybe they were listening, too. "Let's take a walk."

Outside, both men turned up their collars as they descended the steps from the police headquarters. After heading south on Centre, they turned east on Grand.

Whipping in from the west, damp wind carried the smell of the Hudson. The cold seeped through clothes and soaked into bones.

"How far are we going?" the kid asked.

"Not far." Joe wasn't hungry for lunch, but he always had room for cannoli.

As they approached Mulberry, Joe pointed north, toward Kenmare. "You ever hear about the Bootleggers Curb Exchange?"

Crossing the street, McCormick looked at the corner Joe indicated. "Is that where it was? Two blocks from police headquarters?"

Joe nodded. "In the early days of Prohibition, speakeasy owners and illicit alcohol distributors gathered right there, buying cases of rum and beer off trucks right in the street." He jerked his thumb toward the opposite end of Mulberry. "At 121, they would gather to discuss and plan alcohol sales."

"Wasn't there a big raid on that place three years ago?" McCormick asked.

"There was. Police found thousands of liquor bottles and barrels of rum. Thousands."

"They should have known better than to operate so close to headquarters. Right?" McCormick added, as if suddenly unsure of himself. Perhaps he'd realized that the bootleggers did know what they were doing in choosing such locations.

"A lot of cops were on the take to protect them," Joe said. "Looked the other way, but with open palms ready to be filled with cash."

McCormick's face shadowed. "Not you, though. You never took a dime."

"You sure about that?"

The younger man's brow furrowed, and he slowed his steps to a halt, standing in a spread of slush.

Joe decided to put him out of his misery. Smiling, he elbowed McCormick. "You're right."

"I knew it." McCormick relaxed again and resumed his stride. "I've been wondering if your moral compass rubbed off on Boyle."

"How do you mean?"

McCormick stuffed his fists deeper into his pockets, dipping his chin into the folds of his scarf. "From what I know of you, your moral compass has a true north, and his seems relative to his environment and the attitudes of those around him."

That was more articulate than Joe had been expecting. "Based on what? You never had a chance to meet him, did you?"

"Let's just say I've rubbed shoulders with those who knew him pretty well. I'd heard about that tunnel running from below HQ to Callahan's across the street so police could get their drinks without being seen entering through the front doors. I had to check it out myself."

"I bet you did." Joe squinted into the wind. "I've got a nice lecture ready to launch at you right now, McCormick, about the pitfalls of keeping the wrong kind of company. Anyone who flouts the law, especially cops who do, are the wrong kind of company. Disagreeing with the law doesn't give them license to—" Joe stopped himself before he delivered the entire speech. "I'm guessing you know the rest. So tell me. What did you learn about Connor at Callahan's? Was he a regular customer before his arrest?"

"Apparently he was, but two years ago, he stopped going completely. I figured it was your good influence on him that made him stop."

"Well, it would be news to me." Whatever good influence he'd had was obviously not enough.

Joe opened the door to Ferrara's, and warm air rushed to greet them as they stepped inside. Ferrara's smelled of sugar and yeast, and the best coffee in Little Italy. For generations, the Caravellos had loved this place. So had Petrosino, and the Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. In fact, Ferrara's had been founded as a place to relax after the opera.

With two espressos and a plate of cannoli, Joe and McCormick settled into a corner booth in the back, with a clear view of the door.

"All right," Joe said. "Now, what did you find in the Property Room?"

"It's what I didn't find that bothered me." McCormick sipped his drink. "I was looking something up in the files and came across the receipt for a raid that had been made several months ago. According to the receipt, ten guns had been seized. They were itemized by type of weapon and listed individually."

So far, all of that was normal. "And?"

"There was a photograph with the file showing all the confiscated guns laid out and tagged, but there were only nine guns in the photograph. The clerk said it was a clerical error and not to bother anyone else with it."

"A clerical error?" Joe repeated, dubious. He took a bite of cannoli, and flakes of pastry scattered to the table.

"That's a pretty big one as far as clerical errors go, right? And it happened more than once. I saw three other instances of it. There was one gun missing from the photograph. Or one extra gun listed on the receipt of seized guns."

"Did you tell the clerk about all four cases?"

"Only the first one. I found the others after he told me it was no big deal."

Joe tasted the espresso, his head filling with pressure. "Four times this happened. That's not an error, McCormick. That's a pattern, and that is a very big deal. The guns on the receipts but not in the photographs never made it into the storage chests." Wooden chests were used to hold confiscated knives and guns. When they were full, the contents were dumped into the east river.

"Then where are those guns now?"

"If whoever is doing this isn't stockpiling his own personal arsenal? Sold on the black market to the highest bidder would be my guess." Joe sat back, trying to grasp what this meant. This level of corruption was so much worse than policemen accepting bribes to ignore Prohibition violations. Supplying guns to the black market not only put weapons in criminals' hands, it stymied detectives' attempts to find them.

Joe cut his voice low. "The market for guns is bottomless," he told McCormick. "Serial criminals use a weapon once and dispose of it. Maybe they throw it in the East River. Sometimes they even wipe it off and simply leave it at the scene of the crime. The result is the same. First, getting rid of the weapon means it will never be found close to the criminal, implicating him. If we can't link a weapon to the criminal..." He spread his hands.

"I get it. That means they need a new one. But they're not going to walk into one of the gunsmiths on Centre Market Place to purchase one."

"You got it." He took another bite of cannoli. "Did you get a good look at the signatures on the receipts?"

McCormick brushed a crumb from his coat. "I couldn't read all of them. It's almost like they were trying not to be legible. Although, you might make them out, being more familiar with the officers than I am."

Joe grunted in agreement. A scrawl instead of a signature was a way of covering one's tracks. "Those receipts only have the signatures of the officer submitting the seized property and the clerk receiving it. We need more information than that anyway. If you can remember the dates of the raids, I'll look up the typed reports. Those will have a record of all the involved officers, not just the one person tasked with turning in the weapons." He finished his cannoli and downed what remained in his mug. "You did the right thing in telling me. I'll look into it. For now, let's keep this between the two of us, okay?"

McCormick agreed.

By the time they returned to headquarters, bells were ringing for mass from Old St. Patrick's Cathedral a few blocks north on Mulberry. For Joe, it was a tocsin of dread for what he was about to find.

The train rumbled over the tracks, hurtling through evening's darkness toward New York City. Outside the window, a mantle of snow reflected the moon's glow. But if Lauren shifted her focus from the eerie blur beyond the pane, she saw her own reflection instead.

"Come away from the windows. Come away, I said. Lauren!"

She shuddered from the memory of her father's warning last night. At first, she'd thought Dad was joking. But the fear in his eyes left no room for humor of any kind. He'd only ever yelled at her once before, when she was walking atop a fieldstone fence and about to make a misstep. He'd seen danger then that she hadn't. Was the same true again?

In the Napoleon House, she'd hurried back to his side and asked him what was wrong. But his stumbling response had been so devoid of substance she couldn't bring it to mind, even now. All she was left with was dread.

The train rocked, and her body swayed to its rhythm. In her lap, she held open The Age of Innocence but couldn't retain a single line. A newspaper rustled across the aisle from her. A young woman with pink cheeks and bobbed hair walked up and down between the compartments offering cigars, cigarettes, magazines, newspapers, and Hershey chocolate bars.

Lauren bought two of those, saving the one with almonds for Anita. Once the salesgirl had gone, she sank back into her own private world of thoughts.

Setting aside the novel, she peeled back the candy wrapper, broke off a creamy rectangle of chocolate, and popped it into her mouth. Was Dad's behavior unusual for him? She didn't know. How could she when up until this fall, she'd been estranged from him for years? If her father had been displaying signs of nervousness, fear, or uneasiness, she wouldn't have been around to see them.

Obviously, he hadn't been himself when he arrived from Newport the day after Thanksgiving. But that cause was plain as day. He'd just returned from seeing the roofless Napoleon House. As if that hadn't been enough, he'd also fallen from the platform onto the tracks at Grand Central. Thank goodness he hadn't been injured worse.

Lauren stared at the empty seat across from her and wished her father had agreed to come back with her this evening. She couldn't miss any more work, but that didn't mean it was easy for her to leave Dad alone in that empty mansion, knowing he wasn't at ease. Either he had no reason to fear or he did and he wasn't explaining it to her.

She couldn't decide which was worse.

Lauren did decide, however, there was no need to tell him about the note she'd received on Christmas Eve, which would only scare him further.

Ready to put those thoughts behind her, she reached for the novel again. It opened to the place where she'd tucked a letter from her mother. She'd forgotten until now it was there. She unfolded the page. This one had been written when Lauren had been fourteen years old. A year before Mother's death.

This letter was short, and Lauren wondered if Mother's strength simply would not hold on for longer. It didn't mention anything about her health or decline. She had read several other letters between her parents by now and had noticed that Dad's response to news of the disease's progress had either been dismissive, unrealistically optimistic, or absent altogether. Perhaps by the time Mother wrote this letter, she'd given up informing him about what he clearly did not want to hear.

What Lauren read in the second paragraph stopped her cold.

It's not Egypt Lauren wants but you. Egypt is just the way to your heart, and she knows it.

The words pursued and pressed against her. But it was not a weight intended to hold her down. It was a wrist to her forehead, a hand to her cheek, an ear to the wall of her chest, listening. It was her mother diagnosing the daughter she loved. It had taken nineteen years for the verdict to find her.

And Mother was right.

Truly, Lauren loved Egyptology and the privilege of working at the Met. If she had the chance to travel to Egypt, she would take it. But her quest to get there had been a quest to be close to her father, or at least to earn his approval if not his outright affection.

Maybe this was why she hadn't felt more enthusiastic when Dad had mentioned the expedition. The closer she grew to him, the less important that trip became. A relationship with her dad was more important than anything. Reconciliation and redemption, as Mother had wished, were more important even than Egypt. The hole he'd left in her life for years could only be filled with him.

And if she was going to avoid creating a similar void in her own family someday, she had to find a way to be close to him that didn't involve following too closely in his footsteps. She'd still like to go to Egypt, but she wanted to come home and live with the people she loved, who loved her in return. If God saw fit to give her a husband and children, she would not abandon them to the same fate she and Mother had suffered.

What a lonely life Dad had led. Lauren had spent so much time thinking about how his choices hurt Mother and her, she hadn't considered how Dad's running had isolated him, too. Her heart stretched and pulled to make room for a growing compassion. Was it possible that his stories and posturing were his attempt to win back Lauren's esteem? He needed to know he had that already. They needed to begin again.

Exhausted, Lauren tucked the letter away and ate another piece of chocolate, letting it melt on her tongue. She closed her eyes and leaned back. She would be in New York soon.

A soft thud announced her novel had slid to the floor. When she opened her eyes to retrieve it, she caught a quick movement accompanied by a short flash of light. Odd. She couldn't spy a camera from where she sat, but if someone had taken a photograph by accident, he or she was surely ruing the waste of film.

Twenty minutes later, the train pulled into Grand Central Terminal. Lauren gathered her things, pulled on her coat and hat, and joined the passengers shuffling off the car and onto the platform. Red Caps were at the ready, helping travelers with luggage and hatboxes.

"Help you, miss?" one of them asked Lauren, his smile bright in his dark complexion. The name on his uniform was Morris Williams.

"Thank you, but I can manage what I've brought. It isn't much." Her valise wasn't large, and the hamper was now empty. "However, I would like to thank the man who helped my father off the tracks the day after Thanksgiving," she added.

Mr. Williams tilted his head. "Here?" he asked.

"Yes, it would have been right around here, I suppose. He was on the train coming back from Newport on November 27. I wasn't here, but he told me he lost his balance in the crush of the crowd and fell in the gap. He's about my height, age seventy. White hair."

A train whistle pierced the air. Lauren and Mr. Williams began walking away from the tracks, toward the main concourse, where they could more easily be heard.

"Miss, if there's ever an accident," he told her, "even so much as a shaving kit tumbling to the tracks, let alone a human being, I know about it. I'm the assistant supervisor for all the Red Caps. They report to me, immediately. I haven't heard a single report or rumor from any Red Cap about this."

Lauren paused inside the entrance to Vanderbilt Hall. "I don't understand. Apparently my father's fall attracted a small crowd, and he specifically said it was a Red Cap who helped him out. He came home from the terminal with scrapes and cuts. Perhaps someone forgot to tell you about the incident?"

Mr. Williams widened his stance and folded his hands in front of his brass-buttoned uniform. "That's highly unlikely. When something like that happens, the passenger could sue, so I need to know about it right away. If I find out a report is delayed in getting to me, the Red Cap is fired. These are good jobs for these men. They make good money here, enough to fund their higher education. No, it's highly unlikely any of my men would risk termination by not reporting an incident like that."

By his gentle tone of voice, it was obvious he didn't relish telling her that her father's story rang false. He had nothing to gain by it, either. In fact, some would cry foul that a black man dared to contradict a white woman's claim—or the claim of her white father. Realizing that made Lauren appreciate that Mr. Williams explained the truth to her when he easily could have accepted her gratitude and moved on.

"I'm not calling you or him a liar, mind you," Mr. Williams added. "Perhaps he was confused. Perhaps he'd taken a tumble at the station of his departure, instead, inflicting injuries before he arrived at Grand Central."

Lauren summoned a smile, attempting to put him at ease. "Per haps he did. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. Good evening."

He tipped his red cap. "If ever I can be of service, you let me know."

After thanking him once again, she headed for the 42nd Street exit, walking beneath that upside-down night sky painted on the ceiling. Above the teeming travelers, cigarette smoke lifted in a mass of dirty fog, dimming the gold constellations.

A different fog gathered in Lauren's mind as she tried to make sense of Mr. Williams's revelation. She ruled out the possibility that her father had been injured at the Newport station. His mind was sharp, and he'd specifically said it was Grand Central, which was much busier than the Newport station. He wouldn't have confused that.

So if he didn't fall to the tracks, how had he been injured? And why had he lied about it?

Lauren slowed her pace. With a sickening dread, she thought again of the fear he'd displayed last night inside the Napoleon House. What was he so afraid of? And did it have anything to do with the real cause of his Thanksgiving injuries?

Footsteps echoed in Vanderbilt Hall, and cigarette smoke clogged her throat. A baby's cry yanked her attention to the left—in time to see a man with a camera aimed at her. She wondered if he was the person on the train who'd wasted a frame already.

He kept the camera in front of his face, obscuring her view of his features, shifted slightly, and took a snapshot, then another. A tourist, she thought. He was trying to capture Vanderbilt Hall, not her, and it would take several adjacent frames to complete a panoramic view.

Doubt niggled, then grew broad and deep. She teetered on its edge. Dad had warned her to come away from the window because he hadn't wanted her to be seen. Was it possible this man had truly intended to capture her in a photograph? Was it possible that he'd taken a picture of her on the train?

That made no sense. It couldn't be so.

Mr. Williams passed by her, now carrying suitcases behind a rotund gentleman, presumably out to a cab.

Activity flurried. She was surrounded by other travelers and Red Caps. Nothing could befall her here.

Adrenaline surged anyway. She tried to reason herself into a calmer state as she continued toward the exit. After all, if that man was taking a photo of her and saw that she'd caught him in the act, wouldn't he try to hide?

But there was nowhere to hide in Vanderbilt Hall, unless one ducked into the information desk in the center of the room. Other than that, there were no benches, no pillars, no columns. It was all one wide-open space, so travelers could crisscross the pink marble floor from any and all directions. If the photographer had wanted to hide, he could only do so behind the camera.

A few yards from the 42nd Street exit, Lauren made a sharp left turn. On the slim chance that her suspicions were founded, the last thing she wanted was to lead this potential voyeur out into the night after her, right to her apartment building.

Was her father's paranoia contagious? Was this how he'd felt the other night? The hairs lifted on the back of her neck, as though she could feel the man watching her. Capturing her likeness on film. Why? Was this related to the note she'd found on her desk on Christmas Eve?

She looked behind her.

He was still there, the camera still covering his face. Though his steps halted, he was closer than he had been.

And what was her plan? She wasn't about to lead him in circles around the hall all night. Instead, she went straight to the information desk beneath the four-sided clock. From there, she could see all angles of the room. Better yet, the clerk at the counter had a phone.

"Can I help you, miss?" the young man asked.

She was sure he could. But before she'd decided exactly how, Mr. Williams breezed in from an exit and came directly to her. "Miss? Can I get you a cab?"

"Yes, please." She scanned the hall, hoping she could slip away with Mr. Williams without being noticed. She saw no camera, but the man behind it could have simply tucked it into a bag. She had no idea what his face looked like, only the black wool coat he wore, and there were plenty of those.

He could be watching even now, and she wouldn't know it.

Or she could have simply absorbed her father's fears and made them her own. There might be nothing at all the matter.

"Yes, please," she said again, venturing away from the information desk toward 42nd Street with one more look over her shoulder. She couldn't wait to be home.