Chapter 31

CHAPTER 31

MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 1926

A lmost two weeks had passed since Lauren had last seen Joe. So when he surprised her by coming to her apartment, she was overjoyed to see him and afraid something was wrong all at once.

Judging by the way he kissed her before even taking off his coat, he'd missed her as much as she'd missed him.

Giggling drifted toward them from the direction of the living room, and Lauren placed a hand on his chest, gently pressing him away. "Not in front of the kids," she teased, turning around and winking at Elsa and Ivy, whose girlish behavior totally earned the remark.

"Ooh! What's in the bag, Joe?" Unfolding her legs from beneath her, Elsa scrambled from the couch.

Ivy quickly followed. "What'd you bring us, huh? Huh?"

"Anyone here like cannoli?" Joe held a paper bag aloft, resembling a father who stayed away too long and won back affection with treats. Lauren would have laughed had she not been staring at a variation of her childhood.

But this was Joe. And cannoli was cannoli. Her mood lifted again as the pastry flaked apart in her mouth, releasing the sweet ricotta.

"Oh, Ferrara's," Ivy sighed around a mouthful. "It's good for what ails you, that's what. Here, kitty." Ignoring Lauren's protests, Ivy let Cleo lick her fingers clean.

Minutes later, Elsa announced that she and Ivy had somewhere they needed to be. "We'll be back any moment , you two, so don't get too used to the privacy." She grinned.

As soon as the door shut behind them, Joe's expression sobered. "I've been looking into some potential forgeries these last couple of weeks, meeting with people and taking photographs of their items. Would you take a look at these and see what you think?" He sat on the couch, and she joined him.

"Of course." They had agreed she would stop consulting on forgeries in person, but looking at pictures at home seemed a low risk, indeed. Joe wouldn't ask if it weren't important.

He handed Lauren a stack of photographs.

Every one of them showed some angle of a scarab. "Are these images duplicates?" she asked.

"No, that's the front and back of six different scarabs from six different owners."

She looked closer. "Then we're looking at six different forgeries, all made by the same forger."

"You're sure?"

"It's the same mistake in the hieroglyph text in every one of them. I'll spare you the finer points of translation, but trust me, these are fakes."

Joe passed her three more photographs, each showing a section of a papyrus. "And these?"

"The same mistake is in all three photos. Is it the same papyrus?"

"Three."

The cat twisted between her ankles, likely hungry for dinner, but Lauren ignored her. "I'd bet anything the forger of the scarabs forged these as well. The articles don't match the pronouns. In the Egyptian language, articles are feminine or masculine according to what they're referring to. These don't match. No literate Egyptian would have made such a mistake."

"That's what Peter Braun said, too."

Lauren blinked. "You asked him?"

"I wanted to see what he would say when I showed these to him. He wasn't as quick with his verdict as you were, but he landed on the same one. I've ruled him out as a suspect. The forger wouldn't tell me his workmanship was fake."

"I agree." She exhaled, somewhat relieved. "But how did you find nine forgeries in less than two weeks, especially if they were all owned by separate people?"

Joe pulled from his pocket his father's brochure from the Napoleon Society and pointed to a list of charter members on the back panel. "I met with as many as I could. Every one of these artifacts had been given to them as part of their membership package."

"Oh no, are you sure?" But of course he was sure. She held her head in her hands. That made ten forgeries that the Napoleon Society had channeled. "This is terrible. Did you check the provenance? Was it the same dealer in Luxor? He must have sold the society a large batch of artifacts all at once. How embarrassing."

"You mean, how criminal."

She straightened, heat creeping up from her collar. "The board certainly didn't mean to pass off forgeries. The Napoleon Society is as much a victim as any of its members."

"The provenance documents vary." He gave her a stack of paper to look through while he explained. "Some of them say the scarabs were purchased from Sayed, while others say they were excavated by a Napoleon Society board member. But every document uses the same language to describe the finds. How is that possible unless Dr. DeVries is behind it? There's no doubt that he's lying when he says some of these fakes were uncovered in Napoleon Society digs. Forgers don't bury their fakes. They sell them."

He was right.

Lauren paced the living room, trying to wrap her mind around this information.

"The Napoleon Society could be a front," Joe said. "The entire organization may be a fraud."

"No, not entirely." She hated that her voice sounded like she was pleading. "I admit Dr. DeVries seems to be guilty, but Dad would never be part of something like this. He was the one who invited me out to Newell St. John's house on Staten Island so I could look for forgeries."

"And where did Newell's forged ointment jar come from? Your father's old rival, Theodore Clarke. Is it possible he already knew that? Could he have found satisfaction in your discrediting him? Or could your father have planted a fake jar in place of the real thing for this express purpose? Maybe he knew that word would get out about it. Maybe that's what he wanted. Maybe he leaked that himself."

"No! Joe, you're going too far. He'd never—he wouldn't do that. Dad practically begged me for those articles on forgeries, but we didn't print anyone's names, least of all Clarke's. His goal was only to protect his members from forgery."

Joe stood, placing himself in her path. "Can you think of any other reasons Lawrence might have wanted you to write those articles based on your findings with me?" The way he asked, the way he looked at her, made her think he already had an answer. All these questions bewildered her. There were so many, and they were coming so fast, she scarcely could keep up.

"He—he wanted to work with me," she said. "He wanted me to gain credibility so the board would approve me as a member of their upcoming expedition. But that wasn't the only reason I did it. It might have started that way, but I wanted to help. I wanted to be close to him, Joe. You, of all people, should understand that."

"I do." He wrapped her hands in his. "But this isn't about your motivation and purpose. It's about his. So let's talk about the articles you've already given him. What was the subject of the first one?"

"I wrote about the St. John forgery without smearing Theodore Clarke."

"Right, that had nothing to do with the Napoleon Society, and he already knew that. And the second article?"

"That's at the printer right now, but I saw the proof last week. It's about plaster molds being passed off as wooden carvings."

"And that was based on Vincent Escalante's forgeries. Again, it doesn't point to the society. Have you written others?"

Unspoken questions loomed in Lauren's mind. She forced herself to answer only the one Joe had voiced. "When my father stopped by to show me the proofs, I mentioned I'd finished another article but submitted it to the Met's Bulletin instead. The content focused on hieroglyphic errors and seemed rather academic, so I thought it better suited to my employer and colleagues than the Napoleon Herald subscribers."

"Hieroglyphic errors. Such as feminine and masculine articles?"

She nodded.

"How did he respond to the news?"

Lauren sat in the armchair behind her. "He lost his temper," she said quietly. "He said he was upset because I'd promised articles to him, but I reminded him that I am employed by the Met, not the Napoleon Society. I even said he could reprint it later if he really thought it matched his newsletter's demographics. But that wasn't good enough for him. I couldn't understand it."

Joe knelt before her, still holding her hands. "Sweetheart, remember when you brought me to the Tomb of Perneb on Christmas Eve? You explained how three different teams of people worked together on the murals and suggested we may be looking not for one master forger but for a team whose combined skills could include painting, carving, sculpting, and more. I think you were right."

She blinked back the sting in her eyes. "You think the team is the Napoleon Society."

Gently, he pressed kisses in the valleys between her knuckles. "I do. I think they've been using you to train them on how to make their forgeries more convincing. But we don't know how the other two members of the board feel about it. There might be an internal power play among the board."

Everything in her railed against the entire idea. She jerked her hands from his and folded her arms. He was taking away what she had so longed for—the trustworthiness of her father, and the relief it had been to know that, at long last, she was redeeming their relationship, as Mother had wanted. As she wanted now, too.

Over the past few months, Lauren had taken down, stone by stone, the wall she'd built to protect her heart from further hurt from her dad. She felt every one of those stones where they still lay in a pile in her chest. She felt them shift. But she would not build that wall again, could not jump to another conclusion that could shut Dad out forever. Against her will, however, doubt stacked upon doubt, past hurts the mortar between them. The wall grew.

With all her strength, she kicked at it. "How could you say such a thing? How could you, Joe?"

Then she realized she already knew. Joe's father had deceived his family in the past. Joe had felt betrayed by that, and if her hunch was right, by his friend Connor, as well. He never talked about it, but Greta had mentioned on Christmas Day that Doreen's nephew had been Joe's friend. They'd worked together on the force, and now he was in jail. That was all she knew, but it was enough.

Joe was trying to protect her from what he'd experienced. But he was wrong.

"My dad is not your dad," Lauren said.

A spark of understanding flared in Joe's eyes. "You're right about that. Pop was a victim." He left it there, but the implication swung between them, too bright and harsh to look upon directly.

"You're so sure my father is at the core of a forgery ring? Without even giving him the chance to explain himself? I don't know why this happens over and over, but somehow, he is made to look like a villain. He's misunderstood. When he's allowed to share his side of the story, we always find him not guilty."

Joe sat back on his heels. "One or two forgeries might be a mis take. But all of the ones I showed you tonight—that's a pattern. It points to intention."

Lauren stood. If Joe stayed here any longer, said any more, she'd come apart inside. "Leave," she whispered. "I can't do this, Joe. I can't believe this of him."

He rose. "You can't? Or you won't?"

Unable to bear his searching eyes, she looked past him to the fireplace mantle. "Don't do this to me," she said to the father staring back from the photograph.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1926

The Brooklyn Bridge passed over Joe. Or rather, he passed beneath it. Through the web of steel cables and Gothic arches, a full-bellied sky promised snow.

The chests of confiscated guns and knives kept in the Property Room were full again, which meant they needed to be disposed of to make room for more. Joe had volunteered to escort the weapons on the city's tugboat Macom on their way to the Narrows, the strait between Brooklyn and Staten Island. Oscar McCormick had come with him.

At the moment, Joe's thoughts traveled over the bridge, back into Manhattan, and landed at the Met, with Lauren. He had known she'd be upset when he told her his theory about the Napoleon Society and her father. He wasn't surprised she'd put up a fight. But he hadn't expected her to throw him out.

Lauren needed time, he reminded himself. Joe had been uncovering evidence of her father's betrayal without her, piece by piece, and she'd learned about it all at once. That was a shock. He got that. How long had it taken Joe to get over Connor's betrayal?

Maybe that was the wrong question. One didn't get over something like that. The best one could do was get through it.

"What did the new commissioner say?" McCormick's voice brought him back to the main deck of the tugboat. Joe knew he was asking about the meeting he'd had to discuss everything he'd learned about Connor, the guns, and the wine.

The pilot inside the wheelhouse couldn't possibly hear them. With the tug chugging down the East River, they could barely hear themselves. It was a luxury to speak freely. As reluctant as Joe was to trust other policemen, the kid hadn't been around long enough to turn. Maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he'd learn from Connor's example and take a stand for what was right and good.

"He took it seriously," Joe told him.

"You didn't get in trouble for looking into it?"

Joe shook his head. Wind chapped his face, and the smell of exhaust from all the river traffic clung to him. "McLaughlin said that since Moretti's connection to Connor's case isn't yet proven, I'm free to watch for anything suspicious where he's concerned. His file is clean, but his brother's isn't."

McCormick sniffed and ran a handkerchief under his reddened nose. "He has a brother?"

"Tony." Joe wondered if he'd seen him. Had he been at the Christmas party? If so, had he been wearing normal clothes or disguised in French silk and powdered wig? "No convictions, just charges, but none have stuck."

"Like what?"

Joe shifted his weight. A wooden chest did not make a comfortable chair. "Mostly accomplice and accessory type charges. But combined with all these other loose ends, it's enough to warrant keeping an eye on him."

"Four eyes are better than two," McCormick quipped. "That is, if you're planning a stakeout. I don't think you're supposed to do those alone."

Joe chuckled. "Yeah, Mick. Okay."

They stared out over the tug's wake, since the wheelhouse blocked the view forward anyway. All Joe could see was where he'd been. Snowflakes formed and flurried, disappearing in the dark grey river.

Finally, nine miles south of the Brooklyn Bridge, the tugboat reached the Narrows. As it slowed and made a wide turn, Joe and McCormick shoved a wooden chest to the rear of the deck, opened it, and dumped the contents into the drink. The East River splashed as they emptied one chest after another.

He tried again to imagine what Connor had done with guns like these, and why.

Maybe Murphy was right that Joe didn't know when to let go. Of this, of the forgery cases, of Lauren. If anything, he held on tighter.