‘The Christmas Mystery’ Chapters 5-9

 

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 other- wise, 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 really 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: over- cooked vegetables, flannel sheets, and whenever K. Burke is right about something.

This next day is one of those times.

We arrive at 535 Park Avenue at 8:00 a.m. There is still a “modified police presence”—one NYPD officer at the corner of Park and 61st Street, a second officer in the small mailroom, a plainclothesman in the lobby. It’s the usual set-up for a post-homicide scene.

Burke and I bring with us two big evidence cases marked “NYPD.” These will be used to carry the forged Lichtenstein and Hockney. When the elevator opens at the Dunlop apartment we exchange hellos with Ralph Ortiz, a smart up-and-coming rookie who’s stuck guarding the crime scene.

“Allons-y,” I say. “Let’s go.”

“I know what allons means, Moncrief,” she says. “I’ve only told you a few thousand times. You do not have to translate for me. I know French. That’s one of the reasons they teamed us up.”

“Ah, oui,” I say. Then I say, “That means ‘yes.’ ”

Burke ignores me as we walk toward the hallway.

And then... son of a bitch! The paintings are missing. Softly Burke says, “Goddamnit.”

I turn quickly and rush down the hallway to Officer Ortiz.

“How long have you been on duty?”

“Since midnight,” he says. Ortiz senses that something’s not right. He immediately answers the question I would have asked.

“Nobody’s been in or out. Nobody. Not a soul,” he says. And then, because he’s as sharp as any kid I know in the NYPD, he says, “And I never heard anyone. I never saw anyone. I checked on the master bedroom and the other rooms every hour. I know...”

“Okay, okay,” I say. “I’m sure nothing got by you.”

“Only something did get by him,” Burke says. “A bunch of officers and detectives on surveillance and two paintings disappear.”

“Listen, these things happen. These things...” But she cuts me off.

“Goddamnit,” says Burke. “I should never have listened to you. We should have gotten the info to Elliott and then together the three of us could proceed. But you. You have your own ways. The goddamn instinct.”

My anger about the paintings, along with Burke’s rant, now makes me explode.

“Yes. And my ways are good ways, smart ways. History proves it. My ways usually work!”

Burke shakes her head and talks in a calm, normal voice.

“The operative word here is ‘usually.’ I’m going back to the precinct house.”

“I’ll join you shortly,” I say. We are quiet.

I know this brief two-sentence conversation is as close as Burke and I will come to signing a peace treaty.

As soon as K. Burke leaves, Ortiz and I check the apartment, walking the rooms for any detail that might stand out. Nothing. Pantry. Maid’s rooms. Butler’s pantry. Service hall. Nothing. Silver closet. China closet. Powder rooms. Nothing. Dressing rooms. Kitchen (and impressive wine collection). Office. Dining room. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

I rush back to the hallway wall where the Lichtenstein and Hockney once hung. I study the two empty spaces of the wall—as if the paintings might magically have reappeared, as if I could magically “wish” them back to the wall.

Finally, I say to Ortiz, “I cannot stay in this apartment any longer. If I do, I will explode like a human bomb.”