The Christmas Mystery Read online

  “What’s your plan, Moncrief?” she asks.

  “First, I think we should return to my home and finish our dinner.”

  “And then?” she asks.

  “And then I’ll call my friends who collect art.”

  Chapter 4

  K. Burke likes to do things by the book. I like to do things by the gut. This is our professional relationship. This is also our ongoing problem.

  “It looks like we’ll be spending the day at this desk, Moncrief,” she says. Do I detect a note of smug satisfaction in her voice?

  But of course I do.

  Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Almost everyone will be open for what America calls door-busting sales, but the truly fashionable establishments—certainly the 57th Street galleries—will be locked up tight. No wealthy collector is going to be shopping for a Jasper Johns today.

  “I have been at this desk for thirty minutes, and I’ve accomplished nothing,” I say to Detective Burke.

  “Try turning the computer on,” Burke says.

  I stand and inform her that I’ll be doing a little “on-the-street wandering.” Burke simply shakes her head and smiles. She knows by now that both of us will be better off if I’m out doing “my kind of police work.”

  Twenty minutes later I am entering a shop at the corner of Lexington Avenue and 63rd Street, J. Pocker, the finest art framer in New York City.

  “I think you may have used us before,” says the very gracious (and very pretty) Asian woman who greets me.

  “Yes,” I say. “A few years ago. You framed two photographs for me.”

  “Yes, you’re the Frenchman. You brought in those Dorothea Lange portraits. Depressing, but very beautiful,” she says.

  “Isn’t that sometimes the way?” I ask. I feel myself shifting into Automatic Flirt.

  I look through the glass partition behind the huge measuring table at the rear of the shop. Two bearded young men are working with wood and glass and metal wire.

  “So, how may I help you today, sir?” the woman says.

  I pull out my personal cell phone. A photograph of a painting by Gary Kuehn comes up. It is essentially a pencil, ink, and oil drawing of a slice of the moon. The moon is a deep dark blue. It hangs against an equally dark gray-brown sky. It is beautiful, and it hung in the bedroom that Dalia and I once shared.

  “I need to have this piece reframed. The frame is a cheap black thing. I had it done in Germany some time ago, when I bought the piece.”

  “It’s a Kuehn,” she says. “I like his work.”

  She walks to the measuring table and pulls out a sample of maple and one of thin shiny steel.

  “I think either of these would be worth considering. I prefer simple subject matter to have a corresponding simple frame. I know that the French prefer contrast—a Klee inside an ornate Renaissance-type frame, but consider…”

  I cut her off. “The Frenchman agrees with your suggestion.”

  “Please take the samples with you. You can return them after you’ve made your choice.”

  I thank her, and as I am about to leave she says, “I’ve seen a lot of Kuehn’s work lately. He’s older. But he’s become very popular recently.”

  “As a fan of his, I must ask, how much of his work have you seen recently?”

  “Certainly three or four canvases,” she says. “Many of them—I think—are similar to the one you own. Curves. Circles. A sort of defiance of space.”

  Ah, the babble and bullshit of the art world.

  “Yes,” I repeat. “A defiance of space.”

  She smiles.

  I tell her that I will be back. Yes. I will definitely be back.

  Chapter 5

  I watch the shoppers. Today’s shopping could be classified as a sort of athletic event. People barely able to carry their exploding shopping bags. Huge flat-screen television sets lugged by happy men. Packs of happy people, angry people, exhausted people.

  I have seen the videos of women punching one another to snatch the last green Shetland sweater at H&M. Entire families—mothers, fathers, wailing children—waiting outside Macy’s since four in the morning so they can be the first to race down the aisles.

  I take in all the madness as I walk the six blocks down and one avenue over from 63rd Street to 57th Street. I turn right. Yes, Namanworth Gallery will be shut tight, but I am so close that I must visit.

  An ornate carved steel door covers the entrance. The one front window holds a single easel that holds a single large impressionist canvas. It is famous. A painting by Monet. The painting is framed with baroque gold-leaf wood. It is one painting in Monet’s series of haystacks.

  The subtle beauty of color and craft eludes me. I cannot help myself. I examine it purely as a possible forgery.

  I pull up the series of paintings on my phone and quickly find the one I’m looking at. I know I am on a fool’s errand. The tiny phone photo and the gorgeous real painting cannot be compared. Is a straw out of place? Is that smudge of cloud identical to that smudge of cloud?

  Wait. What about the artist’s signature?

  I recently read that a woman had a Jackson Pollock painting hanging in her entrance hall for twenty years. No one—not the woman, not her guests—ever noticed that the artist’s signature was spelled incorrectly: “Pollack” instead of “Pollock.”

  No such luck. A big bold signature: Claude Monet. Not Manet. Not Maret.

  “Monet” is “Monet.” How could I expect to be so lucky?

  I decide to take a few photographs of the painting. I am not sure why I need photographs, but they might somehow someday come in handy. I move to the left, then right. I try to avoid the glare on the window.

  Now I hear a voice from behind me. “You taking a picture for the folks back home?”

  Mon Dieu! I have been mistaken for a tourist.

  I turn and see a portly middle-aged man. He is wearing an inexpensive gray suit with an inexpensive gray tie. He wears a heavy raincoat and a brown fedora. He is smoking a cigarette.

  “Beautiful painting,” the man says.

  “It certainly is,” I say, as I slip my phone into my suit jacket.

  “I’m one of the security people for Namanworth’s,” the man says. “You’ve been looking at that picture for quite a while.”

  There is no threat in his voice, no anger.

  “I have a great interest in Monet,” I say. “The Haystacks series in particular.”

  “Apparently a lot of people have an interest in this stuff,” the man says. “I work out of that second floor front office. Just me and my binoculars.”

  He gestures in the direction of the elegant stationery store across the street. It is the same store where I have my business cards engraved.

  “I just thought I’d come ask what’s so intriguing about that painting. It seems to have caught a lot of attention today. Not just the usual shoppers and tourists,” he says.

  “Well, who else, then?” I ask as casually as I can.

  “Well, there was a man and a woman, a young couple. They were driving a Bentley. Double-parked it. Then they began shooting their iPhones at the painting. Little later two guys in one of those Mercedes SUVs jumped out; these guys had big fancy cameras, real professional-looking. Then I saw you…and anyway, I needed a smoke.”

  “And do you have any idea what the others wanted?” I ask.

  “Just art lovers, I guess. Anyway, they looked kinda rich. Sorta like you—now that I see you close-up. I guess you’re too fancy to be a tourist.”

  A twinge of relief. Then the security man flicks his cigarette onto 57th Street.

  “Did you record the license numbers of the cars?” I ask.

  “No. They weren’t doing anything that unusual. Could be they were thinking of buying it. I’m just here to make sure nobody breaks the window…though it’s as unbreakable as you can get.”

  “I’m sure it is,” I say.

  “Well, you have a good day,” the man says. He walks to the curb
, looks both ways. He turns back toward me and speaks.

  “You’re French, right?”

  “I am, yes.”

  “I thought so.”

  I am so obviously French that I might as well have a statue of the Eiffel Tower on my head. But the man is pleased with his detective work. Then he crosses the street.

  I take a final look at the Monet.

  I am about to make my way to Madison Avenue when, without warning, I think about Dalia. I freeze in place. People walk around me, past me.

  Suddenly I am overwhelmed by sadness. It is not depression. It is not physical. It is…well, it is a sort of disease of the heart. It always comes without warning. It is always dreadful, painful.

  Fortunately, I know just what to do.

  Chapter 6

  Shopping is the answer. For me it is almost always the answer. So I join the holiday madness. An uncontrolled shopping spree, for some unfathomable reason, always brings me peace.

  My mind clicks madly away as to how I can best visit the many extraordinary stores on 57th Street.

  Like a recovering alcoholic who studiously avoids bars, I almost always avoid this area. The merchandise is so tempting, so upscale, so expensive.

  Where to start? That’s so easy. The Namanworth Gallery is a block away from Robinson Antiques. Surprisingly, it’s open. This shop is only for the wealthy cognoscenti of New York—eighteenth-century silver sugar shakers, Sheffield candelabras that hold twelve candles, a rare oil painting of a cocker spaniel or a hunting dog, another of a Thoroughbred at Ascot. A mahogany wig stand, one whose provenance says that it was one of twenty that once stood in the Houses of Parliament. The distinguished-looking old salesman says, “May I help you?” Five minutes later I have become the proud owner of four sterling silver Georgian marrow scoops. $7,300.

  The salesman wants to explain the insignia of King George III on the reverse side of the scoops. I tell him to please hurry. “I have to be someplace.”

  The place “I have to be” is also nearby—Niketown. One of the first things K. Burke said when we began working together was, “You are the only person I’ve ever met who can find sneakers that look as if they were made by a Renaissance artist.”

  Burke was right. The sneakers she had seen were black high-tops with a small brass clasp, Nike by Giuseppe Zanotti. Today the store manager escorts me to “The Vault,” a small room in the back of the very busy store. When I leave the Vault I am wearing a pair of black Ferragamo Nikes—black with thin white soles, the distinctive Gancini buckle. As I exit Niketown I think, “I must be insane. Except to play an occasional game of squash, I never wear sneakers.” This thought, however, lasts only for a minute. By then I am back across 57th Street at Louis Vuitton where I’m examining an oversized overnight bag. It is made with simple soft brown leather. It does not have the ostentatious LV pattern on it. It is beautiful. It is perfect. Not at all like my life.

  Now I am only a few yards from the Van Cleef & Arpels entrance at Bergdorf Goodman. I can do some real damage here.

  The Van Cleef doorman is still holding the door open when my phone buzzes. The red light. Burke.

  “Your day’s just beginning, Moncrief,” she says.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I see you’re at 57th and Fifth.”

  “Right,” I say.

  “Get over to 61st and Park, number 535. Somebody decided to murder the elderly Mrs. Ramona Driver Dunlop. Or as they still call her on the gossip blogs, Baby D.”

  “Ramona Dunlop?” I say. “I didn’t know she was still alive.”

  “She’s not,” Burke says.

  “Good one, Detective. Very good.”

  Chapter 7

  I expect the usual homicide pandemonium. But this is over-the-top madness. Twice the sirens, twice the flashing lights, twice the news reporters. I should not be surprised.

  After all, this was Baby D. In 1944 she was Debutante of the Year. In 1946 she married Ray Dunlop, a Philadelphia millionaire who had inherited extremely valuable patents on ballpoint pens and mechanical pencils. In 1948 she divorced Dunlop and took up with a waiter from the Stork Club.

  The lobby of 535 Park is cluttered with the usual detectives and forensic folks. An NYPD detective holds up four fingers. Then he nods toward the elevator. An elevator man takes me up to the fourth floor. The elevator doors open directly into the foyer of the Dunlop apartment. K. Burke is standing with four senior officers. She waves at me, and then approaches.

  “You waved?” I say. “Did you think I wouldn’t be able to find you in that ocean of blue?”

  Burke ignores my comment, glances at my shopping bags and says, “Little man, you’ve had a busy day.”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes,” I say.

  “Follow me,” she says. Burke and I turn right and walk down a long narrow hallway.

  These hall walls are cluttered with photos and paintings and framed documents: an invitation to President Kennedy’s inauguration; a cover of LIFE magazine that verifies Baby D as “New York’s Debutante of the Year.” Then I see a large Lichtenstein cartoon panel. It hangs next to a much smaller Hockney diving board and swimming pool. I linger for a moment and take in the paintings.

  Then we are in Mrs. Dunlop’s bedroom. Also in the bedroom are Nick Elliott and assistant ME, Dr. Rosita Guittierez.

  “Where’s Nicole Reeves?” I ask. Elliott understands, of course, that I am referring to the fact that Guittierez is an assistant, while Reeves is the big boss.

  “She must be out shopping,” Elliott says.

  “Like everyone else,” Burke adds.

  The late Mrs. Ramona Driver Dunlop is resting, very dead, in her king-sized bed with the powder-blue satin-covered headboard. Mrs. Dunlop is covered with protective plastic police cloth, from her shoulders down to and including her feet. What’s left exposed is the dry bloody slash that begins at the jawbone below one ear and extends the entire width of the neck to the other ear. The face is thin and, as with many women of a certain age, has the high-puffed chipmunk-like cheeks that only a significant facelift can guarantee.

  Burke asks Elliott for the details. Elliott hands the floor over to Rosita Guittierez.

  “Looks like we’re talking about six o’ clock this morning when this happened. Sharp-bladed instrument, probably a knife. You can see the wound is U-shaped. So it got all the jugulars—internal, external, posterior. It got the carotids. She partially bled out. No sign of force. They got the old girl while she was still asleep.”

  Burke listens carefully. I pretend to listen, but I am more interested in looking around the room—light-blue walls matching the satin on the headboard, an ornate crystal chandelier more appropriate for a ballroom, mock Provincial side tables, and bureaus with random dabs of white and gray paint to give a distressed antique look. And one odd detail: Except for a full-length mirror behind the bathroom door, nothing is hanging on the walls. Absolutely nothing.

  Chapter 8

  We learn what little else is left to learn.

  Mrs. Dunlop spent most of Thanksgiving Day at her son and daughter-in-law’s house in Bedford. The only other person who was in the apartment after her return was a maid. The maid discovered the victim at the time she always woke Mrs. Dunlop.

  Three medical staff police now pack up Mrs. Dunlop and wheel her out.

  Elliott speaks.

  “What do you guys think?”

  “My guess is that it’s a burglary gone bad,” says Burke. “Holiday weekend. Lots of places empty. The intruder could have had inside information. What do you think, Moncrief?”

  “Perhaps,” I say. “Always perhaps. I see nothing to prove otherwise, but I also see nothing to support the theory. So for the time being, let’s embrace Detective Burke’s theory.”

  Elliott nods and says—as only an American detective can say easily and without irony—“I’ll see you guys back at the morgue.”

  He leaves, and K. Burke speaks. “Thanks for supporting my theory. I wasn’t real
ly expecting that.”

  I smile. “Don’t get used to it, K. Burke. I am not so concerned with this murder as I am concerned with the circumstances surrounding this murder.”

  “And that means?” says Burke.

  “The victim was almost ninety years old. May God bless her and welcome her into His paradise. Baby D has lived a life of enormous pleasure and wealth. But…fresh off our investigation of the Namanworth Gallery…I notice something interesting. Hanging outside her bedroom are paintings by Lichtenstein and Hockney. Only they are forgeries. The small dots in the ‘talk bubbles’ on the Lichtenstein are too neatly spaced to be authentic. And the swimming pool in the Hockney should be more rectangular.”

  Burke says exactly what I am expecting her to say.

  “You can’t be the first person to have noticed that.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. But I don’t think that too many art connoisseurs traverse that hallway. The possibility may also exist that Baby D knew that her pieces were forgeries and it made little difference to her. Like a print of the Mona Lisa in a small apartment in Clichy. It brings the owners joy. Perhaps the same was true with Madame Dunlop and her modern masterpieces.”

  “We need to tell Elliott about this,” Burke says.

  “I don’t want him breathing down our necks. At least not yet. We will return tomorrow morning, let the others finish the interviews. We’ll have more information and more space to examine the apartment closely, see what we can see, find what we can find.”

  “This is not going to end well, Moncrief. I don’t like doing things this way.”

  “I know you don’t,” I say. “That’s what makes it such an adventure.”

  Chapter 9

  There are only three things in this world that I truly hate: overcooked vegetables, flannel sheets, and whenever K. Burke is right about something.

  This next day is one of those times.