Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1925

M orning light filled the Great Hall at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Outside the soaring windows, snow dusted the trees lining Fifth Avenue and draped a mantle over the great lions flanking the entrance.

Lauren carried a clipboard through the Egyptian gallery, envisioning how she would arrange the space for the upcoming exhibition. Some of the current items would need to be returned to the labyrinthian underground storage space to make room for the themed displays she had in mind.

Anita rushed up to her, cheeks pink from cold, stuffing her mittens into her coat pockets. "Have you seen her in place yet?" she asked, nearly out of breath. "How does she look?"

Lauren smiled at her assistant. "I decided to wait for you." Last night after the museum closed, the carpenter had moved a newly completed display case into one of the Egyptian galleries. "Ready?"

"Aren't I just!" Anita pulled off her wool cap, and static electricity crackled in her hair.

Together, they walked into the New Accessions room. There, on a raised dais with steps all around it, was a glass case containing the anthropoid coffin holding the mummy of Hetsumina, dated from the Greco-Roman period, between AD 90 and 100. Her coffin was lavishly appliquéd with gold-leaf hieroglyphs and painted to portray the young woman wearing a black wig and Roman-style dark red tunic with black stripes edged in gold. The coffin's lid had been removed and set aside so viewers could view the mummy.

Inscribed on the bottom of the coffin's foot were the hieroglyphs that translated, Hetsumina, daughter of Hopikras, died untimely, aged twenty-seven. Farewell.

Lauren had suggested saving the display for the opening of her spring exhibition, but Mr. Robinson had decided they ought to waste no time in sharing this gem with the public as a preview of the upcoming show.

She had to admit it was a good strategy, and she was happy not to delay bringing such artistry to light.

"She's the cat's pajamas, no doubt about it!" Anita sighed.

Voices and footsteps signaled that the museum doors had opened to the public for another day of wonder and discovery.

"I was right to look for you here first, I see." Lawrence's voice turned Lauren toward him in time to see him notice Hetsumina's coffin. His silence as he stepped closer was as eloquent as anything he could have said. He wasn't often speechless.

"She's the berries, isn't she?" Anita beamed. "And you're the first of the public to see her. Lucky you."

"Am I?" With a winning smile, he faced her, then glanced to Lauren, expectation in his crinkling blue eyes.

Right. "Anita, this is Lawrence Westlake of the Napoleon Society." She hugged her clipboard to her chest. "And my father."

Lawrence bowed to Anita as Lauren introduced her, as well.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Westlake. Truly an honor." Anita pumped his wrinkled hand in her smooth one. "Sorry to scram, but I've got a meeting to get ready for. See you then, Dr. Westlake."

"Thank you for acknowledging me," her father said when Anita had gone. "I didn't expect it, and I can't tell you how nice it felt. At the gala, I didn't introduce you as my daughter because you worked hard for your titles and deserve to be known for them and not for who parented you. I also realize that my role in your life has been insignificant. I didn't feel I deserved to claim you. If people recognized that we share a last name, so be it."

"Your role was not insignificant," Lauren reminded him. "It was your passion for Egyptology that started me on this path."

"And look where it has led you." He opened his arms wide before gesturing to the new coffin. "What a thrill."

"It is." She was gratified that he understood. "Even more thrilling would be to find her twin."

"Oh?"

"According to the inscription, Hetsumina had a twin sister named Hatsudora." She walked around the coffin and pointed to the hieroglyphs that told the tale. "They did everything in life together. They were twin princesses. Born on the same day and died on the same day of the same disease. You know as well as I do that sons were prized more highly than daughters. But look at this. These twin girls were absolutely beloved." Lauren wondered what that felt like.

"And were they not buried together?"

She sighed. "That's unclear. The Met team went through the entire tomb, and Hatsudora's coffin was not there. It could be that they were buried in separate tombs, which would make sense if the young woman had married into another family by the time they died."

"Or?" Lawrence prompted, his expression suggesting he'd thought of alternate possibilities himself.

"Or tomb robbers had already been in the tomb and taken her. Hetsumina had been hidden under a mudslide that required painstaking excavation. I wouldn't be surprised if robbers took the twin they could reach without realizing the other was hidden beneath the mud."

"Any number of things could have separated this pair," Lawrence added.

"They ought to be together. Can you imagine? I do believe the Met would pay almost any price if the missing twin were ever found. It would be a highlight of my career to reunite them."

Visitors pressed in around them, and Lauren gave way. When her father beckoned her to the side of the room, she joined him. Fleetingly, she wondered about his stamina these days. He didn't complain, so she had no idea what age had done to his joints or ability to stand for long.

His knee popped as he lowered himself to the bench and patted the space beside him. "Was attending the gala helpful for your friend Joe? Did he find what he was looking for?"

Lauren sat. "He met a lot of people who might be able to help. I'll follow up with them and encourage cooperation."

"If I didn't mention it yet, I really appreciated having you there."

She nodded. "I enjoyed seeing the artifacts you brought."

"I knew you would. Just like I know you would enjoy seeing such things in the field even more. You deserve it. Please, reconsider coming on the Napoleon Society expedition with me. You've always wanted to do this. Now's your chance."

But the board wasn't satisfied with her existing credentials. They wanted more. Part of her wanted their approval. The other part of her wished she didn't care at all. Seeking affirmation was exhausting.

"You know how busy I am." She'd already spent too much time chatting with him this morning. "I'm getting ready for an exhibition almost single-handedly, and now my evenings will be occupied helping Joe. If the work I'm already doing doesn't stand on its own, then I don't know what else I could possibly do. Why are you smiling?"

He slapped his knee. "Because, my dear girl, you did not say you don't want to go. You said that, given your busy schedule, you don't know how to impress them. But I do."

Lauren waited.

"Write about your work with the detective. Outline how you can tell if an artifact is fake. Publish your articles. Write case studies of what you're already doing. How long would it take you for a five-hundred-word piece for a newsletter?"

"Whose newsletter?" The Met had its own bulletin, but her father had no say in what they published.

"The Napoleon Society newsletter," he answered. "The editor is always looking for content, and the board would get to see fresh samples of your work. At least you'll get some credit for all you're doing pro bono for the police. Wouldn't more publishing credits be good for your résumé, too?"

His newsletter was not an academic, peer-reviewed journal, so she wouldn't actually be adding to her credentials. But there were other reasons to consider. Articles would reach far more people than she could otherwise. If she could teach them how to spot forgeries before they paid for them, all the better. Still, she wasn't sure she was ready to attach her name to her father's publication. "I'll think about it."

Standing, she cradled her clipboard in one elbow. He pushed himself up with a grunt, and she supported him.

He clasped her hand. "Thank you."

She felt in his grip the warmth she remembered. The warmth she had dreamed of when he was away and clung to upon his every return.

And her father had returned. Yes, he'd stayed away too long and at all the wrong times, but he was here now. She could not fulfill her mother's dying wish to redeem their relationship if she rebuffed him forever.

Here was her chance to do better. To stop pushing away what she longed for most of all. "Do you, by any chance, have plans for Thanksgiving?"

His smile trembled. "I would like to spend it with my only daughter." His voice was hoarse. "For whatever you have in mind."

At the police station, Joe tipped the last of his coffee down his throat while perusing the logbook to see what he'd missed during the night shift. There'd been domestic disturbances, theft at a filling station, vandalism, drunk and disorderly behavior. All the usual nocturnal activities. There'd been another raid on a speakeasy, too, but thankfully no murders in the precinct. That was something.

But two phone calls had come in right around the same time, and both had reported a situation for the same address. One mentioned the sound of breaking glass. The address was one of the antique shops he'd visited weeks ago. Yet the owner had not called the police to report anything himself.

Maybe there hadn't been time. According to the log, Officer O'Neal had called the shop owner after receiving the complaints. That was protocol. A telephone call from the police often sufficed to put a cork in whatever was brewing. The department simply didn't have the numbers to pay a personal visit every time they received a complaint.

So whatever had happened at the shop to cause the noise, the owner could have filed a report when O'Neal called. Pushing back from his desk, Joe walked over to the clerk.

"Help you, Caravello?"

"Logbook says O'Neal made a call to an antique shop early this morning." Joe gave him the address. "Did he file a report or any notes from that conversation?"

The clerk flipped open a file folder and thumbed through a stack of papers. "Here's O'Neal's paperwork from last night. There's no report here for that address."

Odd.

Antique dealers weren't known for their rowdiness, let alone noise during the night. What he had learned of them so far, however, was that they were meticulous about their property.

"I'm going to check it out," Joe called over his shoulder, already walking away.

Twenty minutes later, he was parking a police car in the only space available in a three-block radius of his destination. He walked past a bakery, a laundry, and a bookstore before finally arriving at Feinstein's Antiques. The glass had been broken on the front door. A sheet of cardboard covered the hole.

"Hello?" He stepped inside, the bell clanging overhead. "Mr. Feinstein?"

When there was no reply, Joe stopped and listened for movement. His hand went to the sidearm holstered beneath his jacket. The lights had not yet been turned on, and the windows remained shuttered.

The soft sound of snoring drifted toward Joe as he maneuvered between tables piled too high with old things. There, in a Queen Anne chair, Mr. Reuben Feinstein sprawled with his jaw hanging open in sleep. Mismatched socks peeked from beneath the hem of his trousers. A nasty lump swelled at his temple, a cut slashing through its middle.

"Mr. Feinstein?"

He startled awake, then slid his spectacles up his nose and frowned. "What are you doing here, Caravello?"

So he did remember talking to him before. "It's good to see you again, too. Your door was unlocked, and it's normal business hours. I let myself in."

Gripping the arms of the chair, Feinstein pushed up and squinted at the cuckoo clock on the wall to his right. "I dozed off after opening the shop." He shuffled off, pulling cords and switching on lights.

"Are you here to shop this time?" Feinstein asked. "Christmas is coming, after all."

Joe schooled his features not to give away his surprise. The shop had clearly been broken into last night, and Feinstein was injured. He knew Joe was a police detective, and yet he didn't mention the crime. If anything, Feinstein seemed bent on distracting him.

"Is that right?" Joe played along, allowing him to show brass candlesticks, a silver tea service, a dresser set complete with a button hook made by Tiffany & Co. All of these were valuable.

None of them had been stolen.

Joe was finished playing dumb. "What happened here this morning around two o'clock?"

Feinstein turned away to fuss with some kind of jeweled chess set. "I already talked to the police about that. Officer O'Neal called, and it's taken care of."

"Did you file a report of the break-in?" Joe asked. It was possible the report had been misplaced.

"No, no need for that."

Right. This man was hiding something, and something big. Joe locked the front door and turned the sign so it declared the shop closed.

"Mr. Feinstein, this will go better if you tell me the truth."

"They were only hoodlums. Youths gone astray."

"So you saw them?" Joe began to fill in a form on his clipboard. "How many were there?"

Feinstein licked cracked lips. "I'm not filing a report."

"Why not?"

"I-I didn't get a good look. At least not good enough to guess, so you see, I have nothing really to report."

Joe reviewed the notes he'd made before leaving the station. "But you've filed reports before in order to claim damages to your property." He named two dates in the last five months. "The most recent was in October when eggs had been thrown at your building."

"Do you know how damaging raw eggs are?"

"I do. You told me all about it. The other report you filed was when someone had used the public trash can on the street corner to dispose of rotting meat. You claimed the stench was keeping customers away. But in neither of those cases did you see the people who had done those things. It didn't stop you from filing a report."

His composure flickered, and then he lifted his chin. "Did the police ever catch those people? No. So filing reports is a waste of time. Mine and yours, I might add."

Joe silently watched him until perspiration beaded the older man's brow. Nodding to the cut on his temple, Joe asked, "How'd you get that?"

"I fell."

Joe didn't buy it. "Here I was thinking that whoever broke into your shop last night had also struck you when you came to see what the commotion was. But if so, you'd have gotten a good look at him, seeing as you weren't hit from behind. But you already told me you didn't see anyone, so yeah, you fell. Okay."

Reuben Feinstein looked so miserable Joe almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

"What did they steal?" Joe pressed.

"Pardon?"

"Even common hoodlums don't break into places for no reason, taking a risk without any reward. I see they left those silver things behind, so what did they steal instead?"

"Only a few things. A gold-rimmed bone china teapot, the matching sugar bowl, and a few teacups and saucers that went with the set. See for yourself."

Joe followed him to the sales counter, and Feinstein lifted a box that held a creamer and three cups and saucers, all of the same pattern.

"It's little good to me now," Feinstein said. "The value was in having the complete set all together. No one will want to pay much for these odds and ends, even if they did belong to Eliza Hamilton once."

So why would any thief run off with a partial tea set, when the whole was there for the taking? Feinstein was spinning tales faster than he could stay ahead of them.

"But your shop is insured, I take it."

The color bled from Feinstein's face. "It is."

"So you can file a claim with your insurance company to recoup the cost of the tea set and the glass to replace the pane in the door."

Feinstein swallowed. "I can," he said. "Later." But Joe could tell that he wouldn't, otherwise he wouldn't have reacted so strangely.

Why would anyone not file an insurance claim for something like this?

Because there would be an investigation, and Reuben Feinstein didn't want to answer questions. Not Joe's. Not anybody's. The man looked scared.

"Why are you pushing so hard for this to be a bigger crime than it was?" Feinstein squeezed his hands together in front of a rumpled vest.

Joe wanted to ask why Feinstein was so intent on lying to him. But the terror in his eyes stopped him. Feinstein knew something but didn't want to say what. If Joe pressed much more, he might bolt.

Had someone threatened him? It seemed the only likely reason for his uncharacteristic behavior.

With a sinking gut, Joe recalled the Black Hand Society, an Italian Mafia that had held shopkeepers like Feinstein in a choke hold. They demanded kickbacks from innocent civilians and promised violence for those who didn't cooperate. The extortion ring had started off targeting small businesses in Little Italy and expanded until no one was outside their reach. The NYPD had rooted out the Black Hand Society by 1920. Had a new group stepped in to fill the power void left behind?

So far, there was no proof of that. But it was possible. If a group like that had gotten to Feinstein, no wonder he didn't want to be questioned. Maybe his shop was being watched even now to see if Feinstein would squeal.

"If you think of anything later that you'd like to share, please call the station," Joe said. "I'll see myself out."

He ambled through the store, alert for clues. Something white poked out from beneath a claw-foot tea table. Bending, he picked up a small C-shaped object. It was a teacup handle. He looked again at the tea table beside him. It held nothing but a thin layer of dust and silhouettes where no dust had fallen at all. Scallop-edged circles matched the saucers he'd just seen. Other shapes could well fit a teapot, creamer, and sugar bowl.

The cups he'd seen were all intact. But no thief would steal a cup without a handle if he were looking for monetary gain.

Pocketing the broken piece he'd found, Joe decided not to waste any more time asking Feinstein for an explanation. Instead, he bade him good day and left.

And went straight to the public trash can on the street corner. Inside, he found one answer and a whole new pot full of questions. For there, scattered over a greasy newspaper, were shards of bone china. Joe reached in and picked up a fragment that matched the pattern from the Eliza Hamilton set. There were enough pieces here to put together a teapot, a sugar bowl, and three cups and saucers.

These antiques hadn't been stolen. They'd been destroyed. Whoever had done this wasn't the same person who had swept the remains into a dustpan and deposited them in the trash can outside. Faced with one more lie from Feinstein, Joe had a feeling he'd stumbled onto a bigger problem in Manhattan than a forger.