In these three short months, his German has become quite fluent. He has made great friends with Papa’s friend, Herrn Witt, one of the directors of the new art museum, and a visit to that magnificent institution is his dearest treat. Herr Witt asked him how he came by such a fine eye for art at so early an age and young Erich replied, “
I will always regret,
Letter from Sophie Furst Breul to Erich Breul Sr., dated 6.20.1899. (From the Erich Breul House Collection)
VII
Sigrid had dropped Albee’s sequin top at a dry cleaners near headquarters and waited to have the claim ticket stamped paid, so she was a few minutes late for work. Jim Lowry, Matt Eberstadt, and Elaine Albee were already in the staff room with coffee and doughnuts and the morning papers. Sigrid had tucked the costume jewelry into a small plastic bag and she handed it and the ticket to the young blonde with a quiet, “Thanks again, Albee. And thank Quarante for me, too.”
Any other woman in the department and Elaine Albee would have asked how the evening went. With the lieutenant, discretion was always the better part of valor, so she smiled and said, “Any time, Lieutenant,” and went back to reading aloud the
They had reprinted earlier pictures, including one of Detectives Harald and Lowry as police officers who appealed to the public for any information about former occupants from forty years earlier.
“ ‘Baby-killer still stalking East Village?’ ” read Albee. “ ‘Area residents mum.’ ”
“
Matt Eberstadt regarded the empty box with mild sorrow. Now in his late forties with a wiry, iron gray hairline that had receded to the top of his head, he’d been put on a strict diet by his wife Frances-“You’ll lose six more pounds before Christmas or no strudel for you this year,” she’d threatened-but his heart wasn’t in it.
“The problem may be finding any longtime residents, talky
Eberstadt shifted his girth in the chair and slipped his thumb into his waistband. Not as snug as last month, but not nearly loose enough to satisfy Frances. He met Lieutenant Harald’s gaze and hastily reported, “Those fingerprints we found on the newspaper have been on the wire almost a week. Nothing so far.”
“And I don’t suppose Cohen has anything more for us yet?” Sigrid asked. “No? Okay, on to other matters.”
The next twenty minutes were devoted to cases still pending, then Albee and Lowry settled into paperwork while Eberstadt went off to review his testimony for a court hearing.
Bernie Peters returned with some names he’d dug out of public records. Now that his infant son was finally sleeping through the nights, he seemed to have more energy for work again.
“That block was mostly Polish and Ukrainian in the thirties,” he said. “Still is, to some extent.”
By cross-referencing real estate and tax records, he’d learned that the house was sold in 1934 to a Gregor Jurczyk, who’d converted it to an eight-unit tenement. Old telephone directories turned up a single telephone listed in Jurczyk’s name, at that address, until he died in 1963 and left the house to his sisters, Angelika Jurczyk and Barbara Jurczyk Zajdowicz. Even after his death, the telephone continued to be listed in his name until 1971, which would lead one to believe at least one of his sisters was still in residence there until the property was sold to a developer who went bankrupt in 1972, at which time the house was taken over by a bank.
“And after that I didn’t bother,” said Peters. “I called a friend of mine in Vital Records. Angelika Jurczyk died in 1970, age sixty-seven. No death record for Barbara Zajdowicz.”
Sigrid jotted the figures down on her pad. “That would have made her forty-four in 1947 when the last infant was put in that trunk. Any idea of the age of her sister?”
Before Peters could answer, they were abruptly interrupted. A patrol officer in Sussex Square had requested the assistance of investigators at the Erich Breul House where a dead male had been discovered.
“
“ Sussex Square,” Elaine Albee repeated. “Wasn’t that where you were last night?”
Patrol cars had driven up onto the bricked walk around Sussex Square and eight or ten uniformed officers clogged the doorway when Sigrid arrived with her team.
“Too many unnecessary personnel,” Sigrid said crisply, as they entered the vaulted marble hall. “Clear them out, Cluett.”
Detective Third Grade Michael Cluett was an old-timer from Brooklyn who’d been wished on her by Captain McKinnon. He didn’t seem to resent taking orders from a woman, but he was too close to retirement to worry about impressing anyone. His only ambition seemed to be finishing out his forty years on the force without screwing up. He hitched his belt up around a belly that sagged worse than Eberstadt’s and moved off to carry out the lieutenant’s instructions.
Dr. Benjamin Peake was speaking to a uniformed officer at the rear of the hall and his handsome face grew bewildered at the sight of Sigrid.
“Miss Harald!” he exclaimed. “I’m afraid we’re closed-”
“Lieutenant Harald,” she said, pointing to her badge. She was almost as surprised to see him. They’d been told only that a man had been found dead under suspicious circumstances at the Breul House, not who the man was, and for no good reason she’d halfway expected it to be Peake. “Who-?” she asked him.
“Dr. Shambley. A dreadful accident. Dreadful. Fell down the attic stairs. I’ll show you, ” Peake said.
“That won’t be necessary,” Sigrid told him.
Elaine Albee was beside her as she started up the wide marble staircase. “This is one of the places I keep meaning to come see,” said the younger woman. She noticed the rich details of the dress worn by the female dummy on the landing. “How did Breul make his money? Railroads? Oil?”
“Canal barges, I think,” Sigrid said, threading her way past the uniformed officers who loitered in the second- floor hallway frankly sight-seeing at the moment. She could only hope they’d had the sense to keep their feet out the actual crime scene.
“That’s nice stained glass,” Albee said, pausing beneath the oval Tiffany window where spring flowers blossomed on this December day.
Tiffany glass seldom appealed to Sigrid and she didn’t break her stride as she continued up the last flight of steps to the third floor.
“Through there, Lieutenant,” said a patrol officer, who was posted to limit access to the rear half of the third floor.
They passed through the frosted glass doors which were blocked open and at the end of the hall found Officer Paula Guidry already photographing the body, which lay sprawled on the bare floor at the base of some steep wooden steps. A frosted glass window high in the rear wall flooded the area with cold north light.
Across the wide landing, a mannequin dressed in the long bib apron and starched white cap of an old-fashioned maid smiled at them serenely.
Sigrid was glad to see that the end of the hall was roped off and that everyone seemed to be respecting the integrity of the crime scene. “Who was responding officer?” she asked.
A uniformed patrolman in his late twenties stepped forward. “Officer Dan Monte, ma’am.”
Without being asked, he flipped open his notebook and described how he’d been dispatched to number 7 Sussex Square in response to a call placed by a Miss Hope Ruffton, the secretary here.
“This place opens at ten a.m. and a Mrs. Eloise Beardsley- I think she’s a volunteer-came upstairs at
