“My father is not the least bit delusional, Mr. Wallace. He has occasional problems with his short-term memory, but he’s quite sound. He’s demonstrates solid comprehension of things he needs to know-just dangle a dollar sign in front of him. Mrs. Astor lived to be one hundred and five, you will recall, and made frequent amendments to her will in the last five years of her life.”
“That’s what tied her estate up in court for so long, isn’t it?” I asked. “Deciding whether her son had taken advantage of her deterioration to divert millions of dollars intended for the New York Public Library to his own pockets.”
“Despite her fortune, Ms. Cooper, she was living in squalor. Her apartment was looted and most of her servants were let go,” Talbot Hunt said. “Don’t lecture me about my father’s condition. There are enough millions to go around. Even for the damn cats.”
“Tell us about the Bay Psalm Book,” Mercer said, moving closer to Talbot Hunt. “We know its significance to your great-grandfather. But how did it come to be in your possession?”
He didn’t like answering our questions, but it was clear that he wanted to stake his claim to the valuable little book.
“Understand, Detective, that the moment my sister comes into the room, this conversation will cease,” Hunt said, fuming as he glanced at the hallway. “This is between my father and myself. It has nothing to do with Minerva.”
“All right.”
Talbot Hunt talked to Mercer. “My father’s instincts were good enough, just several years ago, for him to see the writing on the wall. Our fellow trustees had the gall to start deaccessioning several important objects- paintings, manuscripts, archives of writers who had fallen into obscurity-that kind of thing.”
“The
“Exactly.” Once again, Hunt raised his eyebrows, seemingly surprised that the NYPD was up to speed on art and literature.
“My grandfather kept that prayer book, which celebrated his birth, next to his bed-at home or abroad-for all of his life. He wanted the library to have it, to treasure it as he had. He never expected it would be warehoused or he wouldn’t have willed it to them. When Jonah and his allies wanted to put the book up for sale, my father wouldn’t stand for it.”
“Was that the person your father was referring to?” I asked. “Does he call Jonah ‘the Jew’?”
Talbot Hunt studied me as if to divine my genetic fingerprint.
“Yes, I’m Jewish. I can deal with it, Mr. Hunt. Jonah Krauss came here to discuss the lost map with your father?”
“Apparently so, Ms. Cooper. I wasn’t aware of that. I know he despised Jonah from the time he set foot in the boardroom. No class, new money-that sort of thing. You know what I mean.”
Jewish. That was mostly what Talbot Hunt meant. “So your father made a deal?”
“Yes.”
“With whom?”
“Leland Porter, the president of the library.”
“How convenient that Porter is somewhere in Outer Mongolia this weekend,” Mike said.
“Well, I assume that’s the way Father got the psalm book back. Leland is the only person in a position to negotiate something at that level.”
“Are you telling me you don’t
“The key word is supposed to be ‘transparency,’ Mr. Chapman. But behind the scenes, where many of these transactions occur, it’s thick as mud.”
“Thick as thieves, we say in my business.”
“My father wanted me to have the Bay Psalm Book. In exchange, he told me he was giving the library something they wanted even more.”
“What’s that?” Mike asked, looking to me to vet the credibility of Talbot Hunt’s answer.
“A book of illustrations-twenty rather macabre watercolors-that were done by William Blake in 1805.
“That must be the only complete set,” I said. There had been a major controversy just a few years earlier, when Sotheby’s had broken up a recently discovered group of nineteen plates from the same work-unbound-for sale at auction.
“That’s correct, Ms. Cooper. If you know that, then you’re aware that it’s worth many more millions than our prayer book.”
“And the library owns that volume of watercolors now?”
“The library’s Berg Collection is strong on Blake. They’ve coveted this for a very long time. Pleaded with my father to pass it on to them. The book is in their hands, not to be displayed until after Father’s death-at his own direction-to avoid controversy about the transaction.”
Footsteps in the hallway announced Minerva’s return.
Her gait was firm and fast. She walked past me and directly to her brother, stopping only to slap him across the face before she turned away.
“If you paid any attention to your father you’d know there was an intercom in every room, so the nurses can hear him if he calls for anything,” she said. “What else have you swindled me out of, you selfish bastard? What else, besides that precious little book?”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Mike stood up and stepped between the spoiled siblings.
“No secrets anymore, Mr. Hunt. Looks like your sister trumped you on this one. When did the psalm book disappear from your home?”
“Check with his wife, Detective. She probably took it to the consignment shop for resale, along with those dreadful things she calls clothes. She’d have dug those jewels out with her teeth, were it possible.”
“About three weeks ago, Mr. Chapman,” Talbot Hunt said. “And leave Josie out of it, Minerva.”
“She is out of it, Tally. Always has been. Father despises her. Imagine, Detective, leaving her church-mouse- of-a-husband minister for Talbot Hunt. True love, I’m sure.”
“Why didn’t you report the theft to the police?”
“Not very complicated, is it? I knew it had to be an inside job-someone who understood the personal value of its worth to me. Nothing else was disturbed in the entire apartment. I figured it was about blackmail, and that at the right moment, I’d be contacted. One can’t very well call the police about a theft of an object for which one doesn’t even have proper title. The Bay Psalm Book still belongs to the New York Public Library, in theory.”
“Where were you when the theft occurred?” Mercer asked.
“I was-I mean, we were,” Talbot said, correcting himself immediately to protect his wife from Minerva’s sharp tongue, “we were in Millbrook.”
“The family estate, Mr. Wallace. My great-grandfather bought land in Dutchess County before he died. My grandfather loved it there, too. A big horse farm,” Minerva said. “Just not big enough for all of us at any one time.”
“Who else besides you and your wife lives in the apartment?”
“The children are away at college. It’s just the two of us. And a housekeeper, but she traveled with us to the country.”
“Do you mind if we get some guys in to go over the place with you?”
Talbot Hunt
“You never know. We might catch a break,” Mike said. “Where exactly did you keep the psalm book?”
Hunt stared at his sister but didn’t speak.
“Do you have a library in your home?”
