Three-Day Town

“No problem,” he said easily. “Miscommunication on my part.”

“We’re on our way over there in a few minutes. Will you still be there?”

“If I haven’t totally worn out my welcome here, sure.” She heard an exchange of male voices, then Buntrock said, “Bryant says we’ll keep the coffee hot.”

Five minutes later, they were looking at a picture of the Al Streichert maquette, the scale easily discernible because of the hands that held it. The picture filled the screen.

“Holy shit!” said Lowry, and Albee giggled. “Talk about cocksuckers.”

As their focus switched from the penises to the caricatured faces, their grins faded and Albee, who was Jewish, took an involuntary step backward as she worked out what it depicted. One of the black detectives said, “This is your grandmother’s?”

“I haven’t talked to her yet,” Sigrid said. “I don’t know why she had it.”

He flashed her a cynical look. “She’s Southern, isn’t she?”

Sigrid’s cool gray eyes met his warm brown ones. “Not all Southerners are racist, Johnson.”

“If you say so, ma’am.”

“I do say so.”

Ray Johnson shrugged and turned back to the screen.

“Make some printouts,” Sigrid told him as the others went back to work. “It’s disgusting, but it may be valuable and it may also be our murder weapon.”

Lowry broke the tension by handing her a list of sixty-seven separate names that had been gathered at the murder scene. A touch typist, he had entered the names into the computer, with Albee and Urbanska double- checking to make sure none were left off. He finished sorting them alphabetically and printed out several copies to take over to the apartment building.

Sigrid pointed to two of the names. “Elliott Buntrock and Charles Rathmann are both tied into the art world and should be able to name any others. Buntrock’s still at the building, but call Rathmann and invite him to come down and help us.”

She took a copy for herself and told them to leave the handwritten sheets and a printout on Detective Tildon’s desk. Tillie shone at detail work like this and Sigrid planned to turn him loose on the list when he came in the next morning. She was quite sure he would soon have each name cross-referenced five or six different ways so that he could eliminate any guests who had been together all evening and could alibi others.

By the time Hentz got back with the search warrant, Lowry had signed out a car. Broadway was clear enough for them to make decent time, although the windshield wipers had to labor to push the falling snow aside. While it helped that today was Sunday, which meant fewer vehicles on the streets, the sidewalks were lined with piles of snow so high that with the thickening flakes it was hard see the jaywalking sledders and skiers headed for the park before they stepped out into the street.

The detectives were two blocks from Luna DiSimone’s apartment building when Sam Hentz’s phone rang. He answered, then murmured, “ME’s office.”

He listened intently for a moment or two and his face registered total surprise. “What? The hell you say!”

He hung up the phone, shaking his head in disbelief. “Turns out that the Phil may be short for Phyllis. Lundigren was a woman.”

CHAPTER

8

Possibly the dining room is the most useful room in the whole apartment, aside from the kitchen.

—

The New New York

, 1909

I awoke Sunday morning to silence. No honking horns, no sirens, no pulsing beeps from big trucks backing up. Even without lifting my head from the pillow, I could tell by the quality of light coming from the window that the world was white outside. The bedside clock read 10:40.

10:40? Even on my days off, I almost never slept past nine anymore. I rolled over to kiss Dwight good morning and found his side of the bed empty. Although the bedroom walls were thick and the door was solid, the smell of coffee and bacon somehow managed to reach my nose.

I was up and dressed in five minutes and when I walked out, Dwight and Elliott were at the dining table working on a breakfast of Danish pastry, crispy bacon, and scrambled eggs. I was fairly sure that neither eggs nor bacon had been in the refrigerator before we went to bed last night. Both men were dressed, but I saw that Dwight was in his stocking feet.

I paused in the archway on my way to the kitchen for the biggest coffee mug I could find and fixed my husband with a stern eye. “I’m guessing that those damp boots over there by the door mean you’ve already been to that market again?”

Dwight nodded sheepishly and Elliott finished ratting him out. “I thought I was the first one up, until he came walking in with a couple of Fairway shopping bags.”

“Well, we couldn’t offer you stale bagels, could we?”

They waited till I was back with my coffee to tell me that Sigrid and a team of detectives were on their way over.

Elliott passed me the bacon and pastries and said, “She wants me to tick off the names of anyone who might have recognized that Streichert maquette, so I’m afraid you’re stuck with me a little longer.”