Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1925

D oes this remind you of your homeland, Detective Caravello?"

Joe stuffed down a chuckle and smiled at Agnes DeVries. "Manhattan is my homeland, ma'am. Born and raised here. But this is nice. I like it." At the rear of one of the Hotel Astor lobbies, The Palm Café was designed as an Italian garden. Twenty-two feet above them, the ceiling had been painted Mediterranean sky–blue, and it was partially obscured by vine-covered pergolas. Violet light spilled from hanging lamps.

"But where were your people from?" Mrs. DeVries pressed. Behind her, a fern basket dangled, and Italian landscape prints covered the walls.

"Union Square." When he saw that wasn't going to satisfy her, he smiled again and told her what she wanted to know. "My mother's family is German. My father's came from the north of Italy, long before immigration waves from poverty-stricken southern Italy and Sicily poured into New York. We've been here four generations."

"The north of Italy," she repeated approvingly. "There's so much culture there! Florence, Venice, Rome!"

Actually, Rome was in the middle of Italy, but Joe wasn't about to correct her.

Lauren sent him a knowing smile as Mrs. DeVries launched into a detailed account of who she'd seen over the holidays and what they wore. At the mention of clothes, Joe fought the urge to pull his collar away from his neck. He'd hoped that since he'd finally bought his own tuxedo, cut to his own measurements, he wouldn't feel so confined. It was better than that borrowed penguin suit he'd been forced to wear for the gala but still uncomfortable.

Lauren, on the other hand, looked perfectly at ease and stunning in a black-and-gold number that didn't hide the fact that she had a waist, not to mention other curves. He couldn't understand the current fad among young women these days. Why were dresses that looked like rectangles so popular?

He shouldn't be thinking about Lauren's figure right now, not with her father sitting right there beside her. Or how good she smelled. He definitely shouldn't think of how comforting it had been to see her at the end of a long and terrible day. Or daydream about making that a permanent arrangement so that he wouldn't need to leave her after saying good-night.

She caught him watching her and smiled before returning her attention to Mrs. DeVries, while Dr. DeVries monopolized the men's side of the table.

Stifling a sigh, Joe added cream to his cup and stirred until his coffee was the right shade of brown. Be polite , he reminded himself, though he was nearly bored out of his mind.

Nearby, water rippled softly from an imported fountain. With his shoe, Joe nudged the box holding the fake horse and rider, deliberately bumping it into Lauren's foot. He was here for answers, and so far, he wasn't getting them. "Wait until after the meal," Lauren had warned him upon his arrival, "or we'll all have indigestion."

"Look at what Daniel gave me for Christmas," Mrs. DeVries was saying. Then she opened the locket she wore, revealing two small portraits, one of herself and one of her husband. "Would you believe he painted these himself?"

"But they're so small!" Lauren gasped. "We have a collection of miniatures like this at the Met. They're astonishing, painted with one horsehair at a time."

"That's how I did it, too." Dr. DeVries squared his shoulders. "It's all about using the right tools to achieve the desired effect."

"Here, Detective, you must take a look." Her voice dripping with pride, Mrs. DeVries unclasped the locket and passed it across the table to him.

Joe almost couldn't believe what he was seeing. "This detail is incredible," he admitted. It looked as though a life-sized portrait was simply shrunk down to fit this locket, while retaining every brushstroke. He handed it back. "You're very talented, Dr. DeVries."

"Oh." He shook his head a little. "I dabble."

"He's being modest." Mrs. DeVries refastened the locket. "He's a surgeon, and a right fine one, too. But sometimes I think he missed his calling, although his patients are better off for it."

"So are you, dear," he added.

Finally, this was getting interesting. "How's that?" Joe prodded.

"Oh, let's not get started on that old tale, shall we?" Lawrence said with a familiarity that attested to years of friendship. "We'll bore the young people silly."

"When we first met, he was an art student in Florence," Mrs. DeVries said, ignoring Lawrence.

"And then I came to my senses, lucky for you, since my paintings would have never afforded you the lifestyle to which you've grown accustomed."

"And how would you have known that way back then?" she asked.

"Let's just say your ‘trappings' while you were on your grand tour made an indelible impression."

"It was the Gilded Age, after all," Mrs. DeVries insisted. Diamonds sparkled in her hair combs. "Besides, it isn't fair to place demands on art, anyhow, is it? Isn't that what you always say? Art isn't cranked out in a factory to pay the bills. We can't all be Vermeer."

"Not even Vermeer himself," Lauren interjected. "That is, he was recognized as a master painter and the head of his painter's guild, but his art was even more broadly celebrated and valued after his death."

"And now the Met pays untold sums for his canvases." Lawrence's voice pitched higher. The look he directed at Lauren was that of one demanding a confirmation, even though she had nothing to do with European paintings. "Right?"

A ridge formed between Lauren's brows. "Well, as I don't happen to know the figure paid for our few Vermeers, then yes, the sum is untold, at least to me."

"Millions," Dr. DeVries muttered into his coffee. "Millions."

Joe schooled his features to remain neutral, despite his growing fascination with the staid-looking surgeon. He wished he could stay here until midnight to catch any other stories that would shed light on who Dr. DeVries was, and more importantly, what he was capable of. But Joe had somewhere else to be.

———

Lauren could tell Joe was getting restless. To be fair, he'd waited from the crab cake appetizers all the way through the cheesecake dessert, all shared at a small round table ideal for four people, not five. She couldn't put it off any longer. At her signal, Joe lifted the box from the floor and set it on the celadon-green table.

So much for avoiding indigestion.

A hand to her churning middle, she said, "Speaking of art, I need to show both of you something." Briefly, she explained that Sal Caravello had become a member of the Napoleon Society and had been sent an artifact in accordance with the level that he'd paid.

"And this is your father?" Agnes asked, looking at Joe.

"He is." He removed the lid, and Lauren lifted out the horse and rider.

"It wasn't until yesterday that I realized there was a problem. This is dated a few hundred years before horses were introduced into Egypt." She pointed to the inscription and passed out the provenance as well. "If it hadn't been for the dating, I never would have guessed this wasn't genuine," she added, hoping to soften the blow. Her father's experience was in exploring and excavation. She didn't expect him to have memorized every point of Egyptian history. Lauren had a doctorate in this, and still it had escaped her notice at first. Truly, she didn't blame Dad or Dr. DeVries, whose knowledge of Egyptology was even less.

No one spoke, and the fountain's murmuring magnified. Her father's complexion paled.

Dr. DeVries turned pink. "What are you saying, young lady? Are you questioning the integrity of the Napoleon Society?"

The quiet words trumpeted his doubt, jarring Lauren. It was the opposite of the deferential stance he'd taken days ago, when apologizing for his secretary's mistake with her byline.

She felt Joe tense beside her and placed a hand on his knee to stay his temper.

"With respect," she said, "I am only calling false the integrity of this one particular piece. We haven't informed its owner yet because we wanted to give you a chance to determine your response."

She hazarded a glance at Dad, who seemed at a loss for words and dwarfed by the veined marble columns behind him.

"Are you going to let your daughter make this accusation against the society?" Dr. DeVries asked. "I, for one, won't take a woman's word quite so easily."

Lauren felt as though she'd been struck, though reason told her the man was reacting in shock to the news that they'd been fooled. He was upset at the situation, she guessed, not at her.

"Dr. DeVries," Dad said, "I trust the assistant curator of Egyptian art implicitly, and so does the New York City Police Department. That is why she's been their consultant on forgeries for months, and why I commissioned her to write a series of articles for the good of our subscribers. The fact that she happens to be a woman, who happens to be my daughter, plays into it not at all. In fact, knowing how much she supports me and my work, I trust her opinion on this matter all the more. She would not bring this to us if she were not certain. Now, I wish this hadn't happened, but it has, and we have the opportunity to make it right for Mr. Caravello."

Lauren bowed her head in gratitude. Beneath the table, Joe covered her hand, apparently understanding how much it meant for her father to defend her.

Joe laced his fingers with hers. "Dr. DeVries, Mr. Westlake, obviously you're not under arrest. You're not who we're after, here."

"I should say not," Agnes exclaimed behind the fan she pumped. Fern fronds quivered in the basket hanging behind her.

"But we would like to hear what you have to say on two points," Joe continued. "The first one is simpler. How do you propose to resolve the fact that one of your members spent a large sum of money on a near-worthless carving?"

Dad looked at Dr. DeVries. "We're cash poor right now, Daniel, with the ongoing renovations in Newport. I suggest a replacement artifact. One that Dr. Westlake verifies before we offer it. Perhaps we find two, and let our member choose which suits his fancy best."

Dr. DeVries nodded his assent. "Fine. The other point?"

"We'd like to have that in writing, by the way," Joe added. "A simple letter to Mr. Caravello informing him of the mistake and how you'll make it up to him will suffice. Please make a carbon copy for my own records and mail it to me at 240 Centre Street."

Dad agreed.

Lauren squeezed Joe's hand, satisfied with their cooperation so far. "The other question we must ask," she began, "is how you acquired this in the first place. What is your process?"

The narrative that followed revealed nothing out of the ordinary. The Napoleon Society relied heavily on Sayed Mohammed, a dealer in Luxor, and upon artifacts board members had picked up on their own personal excavations from years ago.

"Our members are getting antiquities for an enormous discount," Dr. DeVries added. "They have no idea how much these items are really going for these days. That's a benefit of membership that can't be found anywhere else. It's what makes the Napoleon Society inimitable. Member investments in the society are indelible, both for our educational purposes and for their own long-term security."

Joe cleared his throat. "Well, it's a benefit when the artifacts are genuine."

Dr. DeVries's expression soured. "Indubitably. This unfortunate incident with your father's artifact is an isolated one."

"And we'll fix our mistake at the earliest possible opportunity," Dad added, looking from Joe to Lauren.

She reached across the table and gripped his hand. "I know you will. Thank you. The Napoleon Society will come through this none the worse for wear." She smiled.

Joe didn't.

Joe could picture it. Right now, while he swayed on a smoke-filled subway car, Lauren was still warm at the Hotel Astor, navigating another round of small talk with Agnes DeVries while Lawrence and Dr. DeVries swapped more stories from their long-lasting friendship. In fifteen minutes, they would all bundle into their furs, go to the roof, and join in the countdown until the ball dropped from the top of the Times Tower.

Couples would kiss and cheer in the new year.

Ah well. Joe wouldn't have been able to kiss Lauren like he wanted to with her father present anyway.

Instead, Joe had dropped off the horse and rider at headquarters, changed clothes, then caught the subway at Spring Street to get out of the cold for the four more stops to city hall.

Canal Street.

Worth Street.

Brooklyn Bridge.

At each station, more passengers boarded, smelling of gin rickeys and cigarettes as they squeezed around Joe. When the train ground to a halt under city hall, the doors clanged open, and everyone spilled out.

The lead-glass skylights were dark, but exposed electric bulbs shone from green-and-white-tile arches, and chandeliers hung from vaulted ceilings that resembled those in the Oyster Bar at Grand Central.

Emerging into the cold winter night, Joe maneuvered through a teeming throng to the southwestern point of City Hall Park. A few hundred feet to his northeast stood the domed, Federal-style city hall, completed in the 1800s. In the opposite direction, across from the southern tip of the park, a single spire rose above the colonial St. Paul's Chapel, where George Washington had worshipped. And just across Broadway, the world's tallest building—the Woolworth—scraped the sky. Not a bad view, if one knew how to read silhouettes in the dark.

But Joe wasn't here for architectural history. Here, he'd promised to meet with Big Red, the informant he'd talked to last night at Callahan's, in the meeting he couldn't tell Lauren about. Murphy would say it was a meeting he shouldn't have had at all, since it had to do with Connor. But he had to know. He had to ask.

Joe searched for Big Red among the half-lit faces beneath the streetlamps. Last night at Callahan's, Joe had confirmed Oscar McCormick's story with the bartender, that Connor had suddenly lost his taste for whatever Callahan's was serving. Then when Big Red arrived for a drink at his usual time, Joe beckoned him into a shadowy booth and gave him a list of the guns that had gone missing when Connor was supposedly turning them over to the Property Room. He'd listed their types, their serial numbers, and the dates they'd disappeared from police control. If anyone could find out what happened to them, Big Red could.

At least, that's what Joe was here to find out.

It must be getting close to midnight. More boisterous than the folks in Times Square, this crowd gathered to ring in not only the new year, but the new mayor, recently elected. Jimmy Walker was a known opponent of Prohibition, and these thirsty New Yorkers were here to celebrate what they believed would be the end of Prohibition's enforcement in Manhattan.

There. Joe spotted Big Red in a black stocking cap but didn't wave. The man would reach him in his own time, and the less attention they attracted, the better.

At five feet seven, Big Red had to crane his neck to look Joe in the eye. "No dice," he said.

"Come again?"

"You heard me."

"Figured that was a joke."

Big Red cupped his hand around a cigarette and lit it. "Those guns didn't enter the black market. I talked to the dealers on Centre Market, too. Nobody brought in a single one of those guns for resale." Smoke puffed from his mouth.

"You're telling me they vanished?"

"Nah, guns don't vanish. What I'm telling you is that they went somewhere I couldn't follow. Sorry I couldn't help this time."

Joe watched him walk away, cigarette smoke leaving a ghostly wake. What on earth had Connor done with dozens of guns if he hadn't sold them?

Laughter and shouts rang in his ears as Joe made his way back to headquarters, less than a mile away. The brisk walk north on Centre Street would clear his head, he hoped.

Upon reaching headquarters, he jogged up the five stairs and pushed through one of the doors as the clock tower struck midnight. The roar from the crowd down the street at city hall followed him inside until the door shut behind him.

Happy birthday, 1926. What secrets would the new year keep, and which ones would finally be unraveled?

Joe unwrapped his scarf as he made his way through the marble lobby. Passing the stairs to the basement, he heard a few jailed men ushering in the new year by rattling their mesh steel cages. Before the night was over, every one of those cells would be full. They always were on this night.

At his desk, he removed his coat. Slapping his notebook on the blotter, he wrote in it what Big Red had told him, then flipped back through his notes from the Hotel Astor.

Then he pulled out the desk drawer and thumbed through the files until he came to the ones related to the forgeries. After rewriting his notes from tonight and tucking them into a folder, he flipped back to the first reports he'd filed once Lauren had started consulting with him.

Frustration surged that he still hadn't found the art buyer Daniel Bradford. Bradford had to be an alias not yet registered with the police. Joe withdrew another file folder, this one containing all the information he had on Bradford, scant though it was.

—Buyer who supplies pieces for Tomkins.

—Private dealer for Thomas Sanderson, who purchased from him the set of four canopic jars.

—Physical description, given by Mr. Sanderson on Dec. 5, 1925:

About 5′11″. Grey hair, brown eyes. In his sixties. A gentleman's hands, manicured fingernails. Muscle twitches under left eye when agitated.

Joe stared at the description. How many men in Manhattan were in their sixties and had grey hair, brown eyes, and trimmed fingernails? That nervous twitch wasn't something that would show up in a photograph or measurement, even if they had that. He could be any one of the men Joe saw a hundred times a day. He could be Dr. Daniel DeVries, for pity's sake, were it not for the fact that Joe already knew he was a surgeon.

A surgeon who, like all other surgeons, had a gentleman's hands and neatly manicured fingernails.

A surgeon who'd studied art in Italy and continued to paint with those long, steady fingers.

A surgeon who happened to be on the board of an organization that had sold a forged antiquity.

Whose first name happened to be Daniel.

That was a lot of coincidences.

Unbuttoning his cuffs, Joe rolled up his sleeves and pulled out the provenance documents for the forgeries owned by Thomas Sanderson, Sal Caravello, and Newell St. John. The latter had never been under investigation, but Joe was nothing if not thorough with his paperwork, and he had made a copy of it just in case. All three documents indicated that their respective artifacts had come directly from Egypt.

He reread the narratives describing all three, looking for something that could tie them together. Years ago, before the Italian Squad had taken down the Black Hand Society, copycat criminals sent notes to citizens, claiming to be the Black Hand and trying to extort them. But the detectives could tell the difference. Though it could have been different members of the Black Hand Society who had written their notes, the same speech patterns, the same wording, and the same symbols were in each one.

These provenance documents had no symbols, but Joe studied them afresh for similar speech patterns, wording. Words.

On the document for the horse and rider that came from the Napoleon Society, Joe read, The carving of this horse and rider creates an indelible impression of movement, power, and strength so associated with the Egyptian people .

Indelible . He'd heard Dr. DeVries use that word twice tonight. Everyone had their favorite words, Joe supposed, and this one was obviously one of the doctor's. Finding it in this document wasn't a revelation, since it was no secret this artifact came from Dr. DeVries's Napoleon Society.

He moved on to the other provenance documents. One called Mr. Sanderson's particular canopic jars both indubitable and inimitable . He checked again the document for St. John's ointment jar and found none of these words. The style and vocabulary were completely different.

Indelible. Inimitable. Indubitable . These were uncommon words, and yet he'd heard Dr. DeVries say each of them in one night. Did that make him the author of both provenance documents? Did it mean the surgeon had a double life as an art dealer named Daniel Bradford?

That seemed like a stretch, but it wasn't outside the realm of possibility.

Joe blinked at the documents splayed on his desk. He unearthed his notebook and began writing.

Why would DeVries masquerade as an art dealer? What does he gain?

Is he knowingly working with a forger and profiting financially?

Why resort to illegitimate means of income when a surgeon's salary ought to be more than comfortable?

Is he not just an art dealer but a forger, too?

After all, it wasn't the art dealer's job to write up the provenance documents. Those documents were provided by the seller, and the dealer simply passed them on to the buyer.

If DeVries forged the horse and rider for financial gain for the Napoleon Society, or even if he simply knew it was fake and sold it anyway, could he have done the same thing to other new members that he's done to Sal Caravello?

Anger smoldered at the notion. But all of this was speculation. He had no proof, just a hunch, based on three uncommon words. Yet his thoughts continued to spin at an almost reckless speed. If DeVries was committing fraud, he wondered if Lawrence Westlake knew about it.

Was he in on it?

Was Lauren?

Joe's blood pumped hotter, faster. He tossed down his pencil, his thoughts falling into the dark trench that held memories of people close to him, their secrecy and deception. His father had betrayed the family by secretly letting them crash into financial ruin. Connor had betrayed the entire police force, it seemed. But that didn't mean that the only woman he'd ever loved was lying to him, too.

It didn't mean that Lauren was covering for her father because she was desperate for his approval.

In fact, all of his suspicion could amount to nothing at all. But would he still investigate?

Indubitably.