Chapter Seven #2
“God no! It’s—it’s just shameful. Who wants to tell people your grandfather stole priceless art, historic jewelry, and worse, did it just to lock it away like—like some finger-tapping miser.
Plus, we promised, all of us. We take promises seriously.
You don’t make one unless you know absolutely you can keep it.
“Not even some casual thing,” she added with a little smile. “Like, ‘Hey, Dad, will you bring home some ice cream?’ He’d always say he’d try, or he’d make a note of that. Because what if he fell and broke his ankle, or had to help deliver a baby?”
At Eve’s expression, she laughed. “Honestly, that’s the sort of thing he’d point out.
So when you promised, you had to mean it all the way.
And we promised, no one said anything about it to anyone until we figured out how to make it all right again.
And it hurt him, Lieutenant, because he knew we had to make it right again, and it would stain his father’s name.
The father he’d just lost. It hurt, but he was going to do it. ”
She took a breath. “Before you ask, Anya wouldn’t, either.
We barely talked about it when we were alone because it’s painful.
” She looked back out to where security loaded packed items in the armored truck.
“It’s going to hurt. I worried about that, about how I’d handle the talk around campus when it came out.
Now? It’s nothing. The sooner it hits, the better. ”
“Can you think of anyone who your grandfather might have told?”
“I don’t know. I know he didn’t tell my father or Aunt Joy.” She let out a sigh. “He liked women—you probably know that. Dad called it Henry Barrister’s ‘Asinine’ Heel. Kind of a joke, a play on Achilles’ heel.”
“I get it.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s impossible he might’ve said something when he was, you know, caught up. But if he did, I don’t know who, I don’t know when.”
“Did you ever meet any of his friends or his ‘Asinine’ Heels?”
That got another little smile. “Now and then. Once he decided we were old enough to behave at a dinner party, we got to come sometimes. He liked entertaining, especially if he had a new beauty to show off. Always young. I think thirty-five to forty was the cutoff. It was the money. Not that he wasn’t charming, interesting, even dynamic nearly to the end.
But no thirty-year-old’s going to get naked with a man seventy years older unless he’s rich. ”
She shrugged. “He knew it, Granddad wasn’t stupid. But it didn’t bother him. In fact, he got a charge out of it. He loved us, Anya and me especially. That was real. He was always so good to us. But he was a selfish, dishonest man. I know that now. We all have to live with that now.”
She looked back toward the house. “I need to get back to my mother. If you come up with more questions, or if you get any answers, we’ll be here. I’m going to have what Anya and I need sent from college.”
“You’re not going back?”
“Not now. We’ll take a pass this semester. Mom will fight that, so we’ll compromise and take some classes remotely. But we’re moving back for now. She needs us. God, we need her. So we’ll be here.”
“All right. I’ll be in shortly.”
“Did I help at all?”
Eve met her eyes. “Yes.”
“Something else to hold on to.”
When she went back in, Eve tracked down Lowenbaum.
“It seems to be moving along faster than I figured once I saw the vault. There’s a frigging Cézanne in there.”
She’d started to speak, but now just stared at him.
“What? I know stuff. The jewelry? I can tell you it’s really shiny. The statues and that? Either hey, pretty, or wow, weird. But the paintings? I know stuff. He’s got a Cézanne in there, a Degas, a Renoir, a Corot, I think an early Picasso, and that was just at that initial scan.”
“I sense unplumbed depths.”
He grinned at her. “I got some that are plumbed, too. Anyway, Morbelli runs a tight, efficient ship.”
“Good to know. I’m going to take another run at the household. If she’s not done when I am, I’m leaving it in your hands.”
“We got it covered.”
“I wouldn’t leave otherwise. You could tag me when everything’s moved and secured.”
“Can do. What the hell was that guy thinking? Locking all that away?”
“Mine,” Eve said. “All mine.”
When she went back in, Roarke met her in the foyer.
“The widow went up to lie down, her youngest with her. The older daughter just went up to check on them. The sister’s using the widow’s office to draft a statement.”
“The staff?”
“About their duties. I asked that they stay available to you.”
“That works. I’ll take the sister now. Listen, you don’t have to hang around for the rest of this.”
“It’s rather fascinating.” He glanced back toward the crime scene. “I’ll go when you go.” Despite the recorder, he touched her cheek. “Haven’t eaten since breakfast, have you then?”
“I’ll get something when we’re done here. If you’re staying, maybe pick the best spot for me to talk to the staff, separately, housekeeper first.”
She walked to the second office, where Joy Barrister sat at the desk, staring at the monitor. She’d done her makeup, Eve noted, and carefully, but the strain showed through.
“I have to interrupt you.”
“It’s fine. I can’t get my head around it. I can’t ask Aileen to help. She’s just not up to it. And I don’t want to call the PR team who’d usually … it’s too personal. But we have to have something. It’s going to hit the media soon. We have to be ready.”
“I’m going to give you the name of our media liaison.”
“Roarke’s?”
“No, NYPSD’s media liaison. He’s very good, and it’s best if you coordinate with him anyway. On the statement, on the time and the place to give it.”
“Oh yes. Of course.” She lifted her hands. “I need to do something, but I’m not doing very well at this. Do I need to go over everything about last night again?”
“No, unless you remember something else.”
“I wish I did.” On a sigh, she pressed her fingers to her eyes. “I wish I’d gotten up. If it had been Nate I heard walking down the hall, I wish I’d gotten up, gone down with him. Maybe … Well, maybe doesn’t count.”
“Ms. Barrister, someone knew about the vault, at least some of the contents.”
“Yes, that’s painfully obvious.”
“Your brother told you.”
“Yes. He asked me to come over, and said it was important. When I got here, he took me into the office, shut the door. When he locked it, I was not just surprised but a bit anxious. He looked upset. Then he opened the panel.”
She pushed at her hair. “Honestly, I was delighted. A secret vault! What fun, I thought. He told me our father had done something criminal, something we had to deal with.”
She rose, began to pace. “I said something about don’t tell me he has bodies of ex-wives we don’t know about, but he didn’t laugh. Nate loved a joke, but he didn’t laugh. He opened the vault.”
Joy stopped, stared out of the window.
“At first, I was just stunned. I didn’t understand.
I couldn’t understand why our father had all those beautiful things locked away.
Why weren’t they on display? And Nate told me they were stolen.
That when he found them, he looked up every item, and every one had been stolen, and over the course of decades. ”
She shook her head, rubbed her arms, paced again.
“I didn’t want to believe it. But he showed me the tablet.
It was all there. Now, I was horrified, and I admit my first instinct was to lock it away again.
Lock it all away and forget it was there.
I thought of our name, our reputation, the business.
I thought of all that first. Nate didn’t, and of course, he was right. ”
She stared down at her hands, then pressed her fingers to her eyes again.
“I did ask—begged—for time. We needed to find a way to return everything discreetly. Even, if possible, anonymously. We needed to research how it could be done. Find the best way, then work through the lawyer. If I hadn’t pushed for that time, that discretion, it might have been done quickly. This would never have happened.”
“You were shocked, upset.”
“I was. God, I was.”
“Did you tell anyone? A trusted friend, a confidant?”
On a half laugh, Joy shook her head. “I don’t trust anyone that much. What my father did was shameful, and that shame could fall on us if we didn’t handle it all perfectly. No, I told no one.”
“Did your brother? Is there anyone he’d have trusted enough?”
“Not for this. We swore, as a family—the girls, too—that we wouldn’t speak of it to anyone until it was time to contact the lawyer, or whatever intermediary we’d chosen.”
“It had to be hard to live with.”
“When something’s that hard, you find ways to put it away, to compartmentalize. Otherwise, you’d go crazy. Nate and Aileen did talk about it, in private.”
“Here, with three live-in staff?”
“In the office, or in here, with the door closed. Or at my condo, just the three of us. Aileen started to research the laws in every country where something was taken. I don’t think it was overreacting to want to be sure we wouldn’t be charged, to want to protect ourselves.
We all agreed it was worth the time, that these pieces had been in there, some for decades. What would a few weeks matter?”
She closed her eyes. “In the end, it mattered far too much.”
When Eve stepped out again, Roarke waited.
“Uma’s ready whenever you are. The small sitting room off the entrance would do. There are pocket doors you could close if you needed to.”
“Okay. Would you mind sending her in?”
“Why don’t I send her in with coffee?”
“Even better.”
As she walked down to the sitting room, her ’link signaled. One glance at the readout had the slow beat of a headache pulsing in her temples.
“Nadine, I’m busy.”
“Investigating Nathan Barrister’s murder. I’m aware. I’m at the gates. SWAT and armored vehicles aren’t usually deployed post-homicide. What’s the story?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss the particulars of the investigation at this stage.”
“So you want me to go on air with the report of SWAT and security swarming the Barrister estate, the armored vehicle?”
“No, I don’t.”
“I have to do my job, Dallas.”
Eve turned, started back toward the office. “Why are you at the gates?”
“I have very good sources. I may be the first here, but that won’t last.”
“I’m putting you on hold.”
“Dal—”
Eve cut her off, then stepped to the doorway. “Morbelli, I need an estimate. How much longer before you’re packed, loaded, and on the way?”
“This isn’t a process that can be rushed, Lieutenant.”
“Not asking you to rush, asking for an estimate. Certain elements have leaked. I need to stall.”
Morbelli’s hard eyes narrowed to sharp shards of steel. “This is a very efficient team. Another twenty minutes.”
“All right.” Eve started back to the sitting room, took Nadine off hold. “I’m going to ask you for a solid.”
“All right.”
“Hold off until the armored vehicle heads out. About twenty minutes. Do that, and I’ll give you a one-on-one when I’m done here or can break.”
“All right. Did you get any sleep?”
“Couple hours.”
Uma walked in with a small tray holding a fancy cup and saucer. “Gotta go. Have a seat, Ms. Acker.”
“It’s Uma.” She set down the tray, sat, folded her hands. “How can I help?”
“You stated at least since Henry Barrister’s death, you cleaned the office.”
“That’s correct.”
“And you never happened upon the panel over the vault?”
“No. I want to say, if I had, and had seen the vault, I wouldn’t have been surprised. This is an old and important house, it was a museum in part of its history. I don’t think I’d have been surprised. Though I would have assumed he knew, I would have told Mr. Barrister—Mr. Nathan.”
“And your coworkers?”
“Yes, I believe I would have mentioned it. It would’ve been so interesting.”
“And finding it interesting, you might have mentioned it to a friend, a relative.”
“Absolutely not. Lieutenant, you can’t keep a trusted position for more than two decades if you tend toward gossip.
I understand whoever broke in, whoever did this horrible thing had to know about the vault and what was in it.
They didn’t just stumble onto it, that’s implausible.
But I didn’t know about it, and if I had, that knowledge wouldn’t have gone outside this house. ”
“In your statement early this morning, you indicated that Henry Barrister had approached you regarding a personal relationship with him.”
“You mean sexual relationship, and yes, he did broach the subject when I began working at Barrister House. I demurred; he accepted that. It never came up again.”
“How did you demur?”
She sighed first, then let out a half laugh.
“All right. I’m not sure how it matters after all these years.
I gave him three reasons, all carrying— as I told him—about the same weight.
First, I wanted to keep my job, and felt such a relationship could compromise my position.
Second, he was old enough to be my grandfather.
Third, when I considered an intimate relationship, I preferred women. ”
Uma lifted her shoulders. “He took it very well, and we had a very pleasant, professional, and friendly relationship until his death.”
“Okay then. You would’ve worked here through a couple of ex-wives, some romantic partners.”
“Mr. Barrister was between wives when he hired me.”
“Which ones?”
The faintest hint of a smile touched Uma’s mouth. “His third and fourth. Since this is a police investigation, I will say, yes, he had some romantic partners before he married again. I believe the fourth marriage lasted about five years. Possibly six—I’m not sure.”
“Not important.”
“Mr. Barrister, the senior, certainly enjoyed a number of other intimate relationships after his final divorce. He also traveled extensively and, I believe, enjoyed brief relationships while doing so.”
“You knew him fairly well. His habits, his likes, his dislikes.”
“Yes, or I thought I did.”
“Would he have told any of the women he was intimate with about the vault?”
“I’ve asked myself that over and over. I can’t say absolutely not.
Lieutenant, in the last year or two, he wasn’t as vigorous, physically or mentally, as he had been.
A bit—sometimes more than a bit—forgetful, occasionally confused.
He recognized it, and it frustrated him.
The physical limits of his age frustrated him.
But recognizing those limits is a reason he began to turn over more and more of the business to his children. Or so I believe.
“He was proud of what he’d built, had every right to be proud. I don’t know why he filled that vault with what didn’t belong to him, could never really belong to him. I don’t know.”