Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1925

J oe wasn't Catholic, but that didn't seem to bother the priest who welcomed him inside Old St. Patrick's Cathedral between Mulberry and Mott Streets.

Rainbows spilled from stained-glass windows. Lining both sides of the nave, Gothic chandeliers hung between the cast-iron columns supporting the eighty-foot vaulted ceiling. A long table held a forest of votive candles, some of which flickered in their red glass holders.

At three in the afternoon, barely anyone else was here. A few other souls prayed or meditated in the sanctuary, and low tones drifted from a confessional booth. Joe slid into a pew polished to a high gleam. He needed quiet. Needed to think.

The police commissioner resigned today. Joe had known it was coming, but Richard Enright's parting still left him unsettled. Enright had been commissioner for eight years, since before Prohibition began. In the last couple, he'd tried to press charges against more than a dozen police detectives, deputy detectives, and captains for failing to enforce Prohibition. The charges didn't stick. In frustration, he resigned. How the new commissioner would handle police corruption, Joe could only guess.

Police corruption had brought Joe here today.

This was the pew he'd shared with Connor the day he'd followed him here, a little more than a year ago. Connor had been acting strangely, disappearing for unaccounted-for periods of time and then returning pale-faced and cagey. Whatever was wrong, he'd kept it to himself.

So one day, when Connor had been particularly distracted, he'd left headquarters without a word, and Joe followed him. All the way into St. Pat's, where Connor slumped in a posture of defeat.

Not knowing what troubled Connor, Joe had simply told him he was in the right place for forgiveness.

"Problem is, Joe, I'm not ready to repent," Connor had said. "And I have the decency not to ask for absolution until I am."

"Too thirsty?" Joe had asked, knowing full well where Connor stood on Prohibition. No constitutional amendment could entice him to give up the drink.

Connor had looked at Joe with red-rimmed eyes. "Promise that when something happens to me, no matter what, you'll take care of Aunt Doreen."

Not if , but when . He knew his sin would catch up to him.

The organist began to practice, and "Ode to Joy" unfurled to fill every corner of the sacred space. Beethoven's methodical notes led from one to the next in constant, mathematical progression. Joe's own notes progressed in the same even rhythm, only he didn't like how they were adding up.

He rested folded hands on the back of the pew in front of him and lowered his head to meet them. He had cross-checked raid reports against property seizure receipts and photographs. In addition to the four discrepancies McCormick had found, Joe had found dozens more. Just as in the cases McCormick had identified, there was one missing gun from a photograph of weapons reported as seized in a raid.

They'd all occurred between 1923 and August 1925. Even more telling, Joe noticed by the serial numbers on the guns that several had been confiscated more than once.

Of all the officers listed in the reports, the only one present at all of them was Connor Boyle.

The weight of Connor's sin hung heavy on Joe's shoulders. No, he didn't have proof that Connor had been the one to steal every missing weapon and sell it to criminals. Not enough proof for a prosecutor, anyway. But at least in Joe's mind, the evidence pointed to Connor.

Why?

Was Connor being blackmailed? Or did he have some outrageous debt he needed to pay off before harm came to him or his aunt?

Who had been killed by the guns Connor had supplied to criminals?

Sitting up straight, Joe looked at his palms and wondered if their blood was on his hands, too. If he had dug deeper with Connor right here on this church pew, all those months ago, could he have stopped what Connor was doing? Could he have turned him back toward the light, or had Connor already passed the point of no return?

Years ago, Joe used to think there was no such proverbial point. That anyone could be redeemed and rehabilitated, no matter what he or she had done. Anyone could be forgiven. These days? He wasn't so sure.

The door to the confessional booth opened and closed, and a parishioner made his way down the aisle to exit the church. Joe's gaze traveled to the crucified Christ, hanging in front of the stained-glass window. Christ forgave the thief on the cross beside Him. He forgave the ones who hung Him on that tree. Christ would forgive anyone, and as a follower of Him, Joe knew he ought to do the same.

He'd work on that.

But actions still had consequences.

Joe bowed his head in wordless prayer and let the organ music wash over him. When he rose at last, he was as ready as he'd ever be to write a report of his discoveries and submit it to the attorneys on Connor's case.

From behind the altar, wooden sculptures of the saints looked at him. Judas Iscariot, of course, was not among them. A twinge of guilt condemned Joe for betraying his friend, but he quashed it. Judas had betrayed the innocent Son of God for thirty pieces of silver. What Joe was about to do gained him nothing but a chance at justice. Connor Boyle was many things, but he wasn't innocent.

Lauren drank in the crisp, fresh air of Central Park, the long shadow of Cleopatra's Needle pointing to the museum from which she'd just come. During the new acquisitions meeting, she'd shared the news she'd received yesterday from the head curator, Mr. Lythgoe, who was still in Egypt. The coffin and mummy of Hatsudora, Hetsumina's twin sister, had been found on December 1.

Mr. Lythgoe and the Met team, however, had not been the ones to find her. As such, Hatsudora's final resting place would either be at the Cairo Museum in Egypt, or in France, if the French team that uncovered her had their way. The news had been a stinging disappointment to receive, let alone deliver to the rest of the staff in a long meeting made insufferable by cigarette smoke.

Lauren needed a break to clear her mind, and the Egyptian obelisk behind the Met was the best place for it. She thought of the inscription on the foot of Hetsumina's coffin and wondered if Hatsudora's had one to match. Hatsudora, daughter of Hopikras, died untimely, aged twenty-seven. Farewell.

It was not a far leap from the notion of an untimely death to all she'd been pondering related to Joe Petrosino, and then to her Joe. Lauren hadn't seen him since Christmas. They'd spoken on the phone since she returned from Newport, but there was a strain to the conversation. She could tell he was deeply troubled by something at work, but he wasn't allowed to talk about it. Keeping secrets was part of his job. But not the worst part.

With Greta's story of Adelina Petrosino fresh in Lauren's mind, she acknowledged that her own Joe's life could be cut short anytime, and the days he had left belonged to the NYPD and the city of New York for as long as he was a detective. That was a hard truth to live with.

But living without Joe, when they loved each other, seemed a criminal waste of time. After all, what relationship did not pose a risk? There was no guarantee for anyone's number of days under the sun. Death was a part of life, and no one could predict its coming. "Died untimely" could happen to anyone.

Loving Joe would mean bracing herself every day for the possibility of losing him. Unless she could figure out a way to live without surrendering to dread and fear.

Wind whipped the hair from her pins and brought water to her eyes. Putting her back to its chilling blast, she headed back inside the museum. Whatever she needed to resolve in her mind and heart could not be done on a ten-minute break anyway.

Smoothing her hair back into place, Lauren couldn't resist a quick visit to Hetsumina's coffin in the New Accessions room. Less than a week ago, she'd been here with Sal and Greta, confiding that she hoped to find the twin. Joe's parents had expressed more interest in all things Egypt than Lauren had ever expected. She smiled to think that now Greta owned a piece of antiquity herself, thanks to her father's Napoleon Society.

Her smile faltered, however, the more she thought of that horse-and-rider carving. Something had struck her as slightly off that morning, but Lauren hadn't been able to determine what.

But now...

The provenance. The provenance had identified the carving as being from the fifteenth or sixteenth dynasty. Was that right? When had Hyksos introduced horses from Asia into Egypt?

Five minutes later, she was in her basement office, looking it up in a textbook she'd kept from her studies at the University of Chicago. According to Dr. Breasted's A History of Egypt from the Earlier Times to the Persian Conquest , Hyksos brought horses to Egypt in the seventeenth or eighteenth dynasty, which meant that carving couldn't have been produced before then.

She rubbed at a swelling headache. Maybe she'd misremembered the date on the provenance. Or possibly it was a typographical error. She had to be certain but didn't want to alarm Greta or Sal, especially given that Sal had been swindled before.

Surely she was being paranoid. That artifact had come from the Napoleon Society, after all, and they procured items directly from Egypt. Then again, Ray Moretti's papyrus had obviously been forged before crossing the ocean.

Picking up the telephone, she asked the operator for Joe's exchange at police headquarters.

"Lauren? Is everything okay?" His tone was distant and preoccupied, and suddenly she felt as though she were intruding.

"I'm fine," she told him, deciding to get straight to the point, "but I need to see that carving of your mother's along with the provenance. The sooner the better."

He paused long enough for her to wonder if they'd lost connection. At last, he spoke. "Don't tell me my father lost another sum of the family's money by buying a fake from the Napoleon Society."

Lauren bristled in defense of the father she'd been so quick to mistrust last week. Hadn't she promised she'd never jump to conclusions again?

"I don't know," she replied truthfully. "That's why I need to see it. I want to check the dates again." Dread coiled in her middle. "Can we meet somewhere?"

"I'll come to you," he said, but the words were more weary than warm. "I've got some things to take care of first. I'll be at the Beresford sometime after dinner."

She agreed to the plan, hung up the phone, and breathed deeply to calm her nerves.

If something was wrong with the horse and rider, it wouldn't be her father's fault. He'd find a way to make it right with the Caravellos, of course, and yet it would be another stain on his society.

After work, the hours piled up until "sometime after dinner" seemed as though it would never come. But he'd warned her about this. Here was a chance to practice taking his delay or cancellation in stride. When the clock struck ten, she gave up waiting, changed into her pajamas, and braided her hair into a loose plait for the night.

The knock finally came at a quarter past ten. Lauren wrapped a robe around her, resolving not to ask where he'd been as she rushed to open the door.

"I got here as soon as I could," he said. Half-moon shadows hung beneath his eyes.

After closing the door behind him, she stepped into his open arms, then quickly stepped back again, nose wrinkling. "Why do I smell gin?"

Joe rubbed his jaw, which was in need of a shave. "I was working on a case, and that's all I can tell you. Trust me."

She folded her arms over her robe and felt a small distance wedge between them. She would have to get used to this part of his job as well. It would be a challenge since Lauren's inquisitive mind wanted to know everything there was to know about the subjects that interested her.

And she was more than interested in Joe Caravello.

"I wasn't drinking," he added, "but I had to get close to those who were."

"How close?"

Setting down the box he'd carried in, he stripped off his gin-scented coat and embraced her again, one hand cradling the back of her head. "About like this," he teased, and she laughed, savoring the security of his embrace.

"A new interrogation technique," she said, pulling back to look up at him. "How innovative. I'll bet all the flappers love to be questioned by you. Lucky girls."

"The flappers aren't out this early." A smile hooked his cheek. "It's good to see you."

Lauren reached up and brushed his hair off his brow. "It's good to see you, too." They were such small words, so mundane they might have been exchanged between any two people meeting by chance on the street. But the yearning in Joe's eyes when she touched his face infused the moment with longing and restraint.

He caught her wrist and pressed a lingering kiss to the sensitive skin inside of it. "It's late. I shouldn't stay long," he said, breaking the spell with a dose of common sense.

Her face flushed and heart hammering, Lauren agreed and wrapped her quilted robe a little tighter. She reached for the item she knew would throw cold water on them both.

Bringing the box to the living room, she sat in one armchair while Joe took the other. Carefully, she pulled the horse and rider and the provenance document from within and inspected both. Her stomach hollowed.

"Oh, Joe. This is dated too early. I thought maybe the provenance was in error, but the inscription on the horse itself matches. This could not have come from the dynasty it claims because horses weren't introduced to Egypt until one or two dynasties later."

He leaned back in the chair. "Could it be that horses weren't common yet, but someone, somewhere had a few? I mean, can we say universally that there were absolutely no horses in Egypt yet?"

"I don't like it, either. But in this case, yes, we can. This is dated a few centuries before the first horse arrived. So there's no way this is genuine. At least we know this forger isn't Peter Braun. The Napoleon Society should have known better than to acquire this, but they did—possibly in a large batch they acquired all at once, the way the Met is bequeathed large collections with varying levels of value."

"Do you know how much money my father spent on that fake?" He left the chair and paced the living room, muttering, "What am I going to tell him? What am I going to tell my mother?"

"My father will make this right, Joe. If not a refund, a replacement, and one I'll personally inspect before it's offered to your parents." She bit her lip, ashamed that she hadn't noticed the problem with the carving when she'd first seen it on Christmas morning. When she apologized for that, Joe shook his head.

"It would have ruined the entire day to find out right then and there. No, this isn't your fault."

"It's not my father's, either," she said.

He spun to face her, green eyes blazing. "Then whose is it?" Accusation edged his tone.

Lauren stood to deflect it. "I understand why you're upset. But this is different from what happened before. This might even work in our favor."

Joe frowned. "What do you mean?" Weariness settled in the lines on his face, reminding her that he shouldered cares he couldn't speak of. They were matters of far more importance than forgeries, of that she could be certain.

"I'd like to see if the dealer who sold this carving to the Napoleon Society is the same one who sold the Book of the Dead papyrus to Ray Moretti. I'd have to go back and check with the Morettis, of course, but if it's a match, the NYPD could alert the authorities in Luxor, right? And they could investigate, potentially preventing other forgeries from being sold by that dealer." It was a small glimmer of hope, but she snatched at it.

"You're not going there alone."

"I don't have to go anywhere if he's willing to cooperate," she countered. "I only need to see the provenance document. He could send it with his personal secretary, and I could look at it in my office. If I want an answer quicker, I could call and ask for the name of the dealer. Then again, this is too important not to see it for myself."

Joe leaned an elbow against the fireplace mantel, pinning his gaze on the glowing embers. He stood there without speaking for so long Lauren wondered if he'd fallen asleep on his feet.

At last, he said, "No, we'll both go. If you can set it up, I'll come with you." Then he picked up his coat from where he'd dropped it and put it back on. "I want to talk to your father about this, too. I want to hear what he has to say before bringing this up to my folks."

Lauren swallowed. "Of course. He'd appreciate the chance to explain how this could have happened, I'm sure. I'm eager to hear it myself."

"Is he in town?"

"He will be. My father and I are meeting Daniel and Agnes DeVries tomorrow night for dinner at the Astor for New Year's Eve. Join us. Eight o'clock. We'd love to have you, and you can get all your questions answered. Dr. DeVries is one of the Napoleon Society board members and the editor of the newsletter. But once you finish talking business, will you at least try to enjoy yourself?" She wouldn't say so, but he looked like he needed a break.

"Is this another tuxedo shindig?"

Lauren chuckled. "I'm afraid so. But don't worry. I'll be there to fix your bow tie if you still haven't gotten the hang of it."

"Is that a promise?" Grinning, Joe replaced his hat and kissed her on the cheek. "Count me in."