Brooklyn Graves (23 page)

“What else have you taken from here?” She sounded belligerent.

“Just a few books. With Bright's permission, of course. Wait. I'll show you, “

I slid the bag off my shoulder, but she was not in the mood to wait. She grabbed for it and all the contents went tumbling out. I winced when the laptop hit the floor with a crash. And then the hidden papers flew out after it.

Bright Skye, puzzled, picked them up. She looked lost as always, but Mercer turned red.

“That is private property.” Her voice became louder. “It has nothing, nothing whatever to do with your historical research. What nerve.” She gasped. “They were thoroughly hidden, you sneaking snoop. I never, never thought anyone would find them.”

When she stopped to catch her breath, Bright, who had been looking at her intently said, “How can they be private papers, Amanda, if you know about them and I don't? In my own house? We collected all that to give to the lawyer. What is she talking about? Was there something that was not given to him?”

“Why, I have no idea! She hasn't shown us anything, has she? Maybe she is saying it just to create distrust?”

Bright looked down at her feet. “I have lots of distrust of everyone by now. Even my oldest friends. I guess that's what they mean by older and wiser. Right now I am not even sure about you, because the first thing you said was ‘that is private property.'” She finally looked straight at Mercer. “Just like you knew what she meant.”

Mercer looked right back at her, tears in her eyes. “How can you talk to me like that? I have been so good to you. And your mother, too. All these years, helping out. Keeping you company when you came back. Dealing with this monster of a mess.”

At that point, her face was in her hands.

I watched, barely breathing.

It was Skye who stepped over to her, pulled Mercer's hands from her face and said in a vicious whisper, “Tell me the truth. Now. No more games.”

The sound of her hand hitting Mercer's cheek rang out. A substantial woman, her smack threw the thin Amanda off her balance and she slipped to the floor.

Skye didn't move. She just stared down at Mercer, panting, her fists clenched, her face a furious red.

Had I told myself not to step into their argument? Did I have a choice? I moved to help Mercer to her feet but Mercer, seeing an opportunity, jumped up and ran to the door. I grabbed her, swung her around and landed a right-cross squarely on her jaw. I hadn't done something like that since I was ten.

It was enough. She fell. By then Skye had pulled herself together and helped. She had the body size to hold Amanda Mercer down.

“You're not getting up until you start telling the truth,” Bright announced. Mercer moaned. “Did it hurt? Good.”

Mystic, spacey Bright Skye had vanished and someone else had shown up. Perhaps the girl who was raised in a deteriorating neighborhood in Brooklyn and learned some playground scrapping. Just as I had. Or maybe she learned some physical skills out there in cattle country along with the mystic chanting.

I took the other shoulder but Skye didn't really need my help. Mercer was well and truly pinned.

“Let me up and I'll tell you.”

We did and she wrapped her shaking hands around her body. “I need a glass of water.”

“After you tell us about the papers I found.”

“I don't know what…”

“I have them right here, if that would help your memory.” I reached one hand into my canvas bag.

At that sight, something in her collapsed. She suddenly looked old instead of somewhere in middle age.

“How can I make you understand?” she began. “There are beautiful windows all over New York, statues too, that are neglected and forgotten. Don't you know that?” She addressed me. “Art, great art, treated like trash.” She put her hands on my arms in a begging gesture. “Old churches that had the money to commission them, back when, and now barely have the money to keep the roof patched. And old monuments, too, with no family left to care.”

“Like the Konicks?”

“Like the Konicks. Many years ago, there was a case. An expert stole some art with the help of a cemetery employee. So I was so tired, getting old, desperate for money, I had the daydream that it could be done again, and I could be both the expert and the employee. And I met someone who knew the right people. He could sell to those right people, safely right out of the country, who would take care of them, clean them, protect them. Rich people who wanted a real Tiffany window of their very own for their new mansions. And it worked. For a time, it worked. The first two times, at other places, it went very well.”

“But no one else would ever see them again? Instead of the art being available to everyone? And you actually stole from Green-Wood Cemetery?” My indignation was in my voice. “Where you worked all those years?”

Her face hardened. “Worked? I might as well have been a volunteer, for the pathetic amount I was paid. And they never gave me a job that matched my expertise. I know everything about that place.” She gave a creepy little giggle as she added, “I know where all the bodies are buried! Now that's an appropriate joke. But of course I don't have those credentials that they respect so much. I was always just that strange old lady with a history hobby. Well now I have some money in the bank after all!”

I took a deep breath. “You said an employee. Was Dmitri Ostrov involved?”

“Dmitri? No.” She grinned rather slyly. “No, he was too much of a goody-goody. But he was my connection to someone who could get the jobs done. Not that he ever knew that.”

I didn't like that smile. Not at all. I shook her. “Were you there when he died? Was he killed there after all? Was he?”

“No and yes. Yes he was. Me? I was safe in my bed where I belonged.” She looked at me with surprise. “Do you think I did the labor myself? Look at me! I am a lady and the brains of it all. I was not there to get my hands dirty.” She giggled again. “My little pun. ‘Hands dirty.' In both senses. I had big, strong men, of course. With tools. Dumb, but strong. Too dumb that night.” She came to a dead stop and looked at me, and then Bright, and then at me again. “Most people look at me and see the mask, the sweet, eccentric old lady with gray hair.” Her smile had a bitter edge. “Vladimir knew me for what I was almost immediately. It went well until it didn't. Nothing lasts.” She stopped again and glared at us. “I don't have to say any more. I should not have said anything but you were hurting me. I'm done.”

“No, dammit, you are not. I want to know about Dima! And everything about the stolen window. And I want to know what you know about poor Ryan.”

“I want to know why you kept the papers in my house. I don't understand this at all,” Bright said.

Mercer looked at Skye with some sadness, and said one last thing. “But don't you see? Your junk shop attic is the perfect place to hide anything at all. And that way, it wasn't connected to me.”

Then she shut her mouth, folded her arms, and looked down at her knees. I was considering slapping her.

A phone shrilled into the silence and we all jumped. It was mine. Irritated, I let it go. There was no one I could talk to right now. Ah, yes there was. I jumped up to dig it out of my purse and caught Henderson just as he was leaving a message.

I told him where I was and why. “Come quick.”

Then Bright Skye never moved. She sat there in awkward silence, guarding Amanda Mercer, who was not actually trying to get away anymore. She had closed her eyes and may even have passed out. She was still breathing and smelled of alcohol.

Skye finally said with her voice shaking, “I used violence. After all these years of daily spiritual practice. I will have to talk to my master about how to cleanse my spirit.”

“I'd say she had it coming. After all she's done? And she was trying to run away!”

“That is her karma, not mine.” Her expression was resigned. “I did not have to take on her wrongdoing.” She was silent for a long moment. “I can't wait to go home. I hate this place, this house, this city.”

I kept my mouth shut. Sedona might have a few flaws, too, but it was obvious that for Bright, it was home. Myself, I'm with Billy Joel. My mind is always in a New York state.

It wasn't long before Henderson came through the unlocked door, followed by a colleague and uniformed cops. He seemed surprised to see us on the floor, hands still on the elderly woman who was breathing but not talking.

He knelt next to me and with a few quick questions had a complete grasp of the situation. He called an ambulance for Mercer and moved us so his team could handcuff her. He talked to me and to Skye and saw we confirmed each other's statements and would swear to it. I gave him the papers I had found, and told him where to find the metal box and he summoned another cop to go up to the attic with me and bring it down.

The situation was finally in good hands. I realized I was shaking but I knew I had finally found some answers. I was sure there would be more.

Chapter Twenty-two

Eventually Mercer did have a quite a lot to say. As Henderson described it to me one night, when he pointed out that there might be murder charges, and they could certainly make a charge of accessory stick she saw that she'd better tell her story her own way.

“Could you have made it stick?”

“Maybe. That's the DA's call. But don't forget, as I was happy to tell her, there is still the not-so-little matter of the thefts. We had a few different departments involved.” He grinned. “Gridlock in the interrogation room.”

He had explained to her how easy it would be to get rough translations of the documents. “Of course we'd have to have them all translated officially, nice and conclusive, but we could have started on it right away. I told her we had a Russian-speaking secretary on duty in the morning and my friend Sergeant Diaz already said the Spanish paper is documentation for the purchase of a Tiffany window. We knew she provided both the art and the background information—it seems there are photos attached—and someone paid her a whole lot of money.”

“What did she say? What could she possibly say?”

“That it was not so much money.”

He met my incredulous gasp with a grin.

“Oh, yeah, she protested that.” In a little lady voice, he went on, ‘But I had a team to pay off, and it was split with the go-between who found the customers.' So then we had a conversation about that mystery man, but that wasn't me. It was the art-squad guys. They're salivating to get his name. So right then was the point where she started thinking she had said too much, and we laid out for her the benefits of full cooperation.”

This was cop talk over dinner with Henderson, whose first name was Mike. I loved getting the whole story at last. There was an advantage to dating a cop.

“And Vladimir? What was his role? Was Natalya right all along?”

“It's a definite yes and no.” He grinned and I smacked his hand. “Of course the macho Vladimir spent a long time telling us he knew nothing and we were only harassing him because he was an immigrant. So we told him how we were harassing Mercer. That threw him and Mercer's story did him in.

“They did meet through Dima, one time when Vladimir was visiting him at the cemetery. Mercer sized him up and saw her chance, and it didn't take long for a deal. He provided the muscle and tools.”

I put my fork down, suddenly unable to taste the lasagna. “Did he kill Dima? That was your real job, wasn't it? Dima.”

He put a hand over mine, still gripping my fork, and said, “Not exactly to the first question, and yes to the second. His story was that he wasn't there that night. He wasn't about to rob his own brother at work.”

“But I bet he knew all about the place because of visiting Dima.”

“Ah, clever girl. He did the planning and collected the men, but he wasn't there himself.”

“That's a mighty fine line!”

“Yah, well, these guys don't exactly think like the rest of us. The deal was they weren't even supposed to use guns. Vladimir's no dope. He knows the difference between larceny and homicide. However, one bozo got nervous and brought a gun and used it. We've got him, too, by the way. Evidently Dima tried to be a hero, when he stumbled on them mid-job. Poor bastard. You can imagine what Vladimir said about his good, stupid brother!”

And I could.

“So he was happy to give up the guy with the gun and explain that he'd stayed in touch with Mercer, planning more work, so he could trap her and get his own revenge.”

“What? That's ridiculous! Did you or anyone believe him?”

Mike shrugged. “Kind of yes and no. Because he kept notes, like a diary, of his findings about Mercer and his plans. Kind of backed up his story and they're very useful to us. Seems he blamed her for the whole thing.” He helped himself to salad. This disturbing discussion didn't upset him at all. “That's because she was there that night.” He saw my surprise. “Yes, she lied to you. She was there that night. According to Vladimir she liked the excitement almost as much as the money.”

“What's going to happen to him? Volodya?”

He shrugged again. “The legal eagles will be working that one out. Not clear for now.”

“So Dima died because some stupid punk got nervous?” I felt sick.

Natalya did too when she found out. I was there, and not by accident. Mike had given me a heads-up that he was calling on her that day and I was able to just drop by for a little mom time.

Mike described the botched robbery, implied Dima was a hero for standing up to them, expressed admiration and sympathy. I could tell he had done this before.

Natalya, turning pale, then red, cut to the core.

“My Dima died for that?” Her voice seemed to get higher with each word. “Because a criminal couldn't even do his own crime right? It is that stupid?”

Mike nodded, warily.

I wasn't sure what she would do next—maybe start throwing things—but she surprised us by collapsing into a ball on a chair and weeping, silently at first, then with great sobs. Finally she stopped, accepted the box of tissues I handed her, and sat up straight.

“I am done. I thank you, Detective. And my dear Erica. I am done for now. He will go to jail for a very long time?”

Mike nodded again.

“Good. You will make sure of that? Perhaps someone will kill him there for just such a stupid reason—that would be justice—but for now, he is not my concern. Erica, come. You have time for lunch? We will talk about our children. Or fashion. Or house decorating.”

Later I learned the NYPD found the stolen window while searching Bright's house for more evidence. It was wrapped in moving blankets and stashed behind a massive Victorian wardrobe. It was a perfect place to hide it until it was time to ship it out to a customer in Qatar.

So it seemed Mrs. Mercer's friendship with Bright Skye was even more calculated than I thought. Bright's house provided a perfect hiding place, right next door where Mercer could keep an eye on it. And I thought all along she merely planned to profit from the sale of Bright's antiques.

After those discoveries, I heard a different team of officers went to work on Mercer about Ryan. When forensics put her there at the scene, she finally admitted to everything. She had been tracking him online, me and Flint too, wanting to know everything we learned from Skye's letters, and she saw Ryan's own foolish words. There would be a fortune in her pocket if she could lay hands on a lost Tiffany window. She already had an interested buyer. She hoped some of the information was at Flint's house and she knew Flint was socializing. She insisted Ryan was never supposed to be there. She even claimed to feel badly about it. There was a tussle, she said, that ended with his head hitting a corner of the elegant marble countertop, entirely an unfortunate accident.

And she'd slipped the boxes of letters back into Bright's house because, after all, she was fond of her and wanted her to have them after she'd made copies. Or so she said. Perhaps it was part of her fantasy that she was a good person. Bright Skye still believed there were higher powers at work.

I went over to see Natalya and Alex one Saturday. We walked along the beach and Alex skimmed rocks on the surf while Natalya laughed at him because it was too windy and called him “You American boy!” When our hands turned blue in the cold fall wind, we repaired to a café for scorching glasses of hot Russian tea and a round of cherry blintzes. The look of sadness in their eyes was still there and I knew it would remain, but I had seen them laughing together that day.

Walking back she told me they had already had a simple funeral for Dima. “I did not invite you because it was all Russian. We got through it, me and Alex together. Just barely, but we did. We will have a memorial service soon, I think, maybe at school, for all our American friends. No, I mean, for all Dima's American friends. He had a lot.” She paused. “Alex told me Dima and Volodya were sort of working on making up. So,” she shrugged, “we will see. It was Alex saying it, so I had to believe him. You know? Even if I didn't believe it. It's my son talking.”

“I know.”

I certainly did know. My own offspring came home one day, just like that. She walked in, dragging her big duffle bag, and said, “I'm back. Don't ask me questions. I don't want to talk.” She went upstairs, cranked up some music and that was that.

I was too surprised to ask her anything then, and later my father claimed he had no idea. Chris had simply asked for a ride home. I was torn between begging her to talk, forcing her to talk (the power of the allowance might help there), and just letting her slide back into normal life, hers and mine. Was it cowardly to choose the latter? Maybe, but I was exhausted by all the recent drama in my life and glad to have her home. For a time, she made a special effort to be thoughtful to me, and I knew it was her way of apologizing. I'd take it.

One day Dr. Flint sent me a link to a page at Pratt's website. Yes, Dr. Flint. I assumed he must have found a new assistant. It was a memorial page for Ryan. His funeral had been back home in Nebraska, but there was a contact for his parents. I wrote to them on dignified writing paper, a hard note that took me many days to get right. I received a printed thank-you and that was that.

Almost. Because one day Flint showed up and said, “Come with me now. I have a driver.” Ah, the old Flint was back.

Our destination was, I hoped for the very last time, Green-Wood. I followed him to the Konick mausoleum. He had a bag of equipment and he measured and tapped and used some small tools, conferred with a man who met us there. The focus was the white-washed side wall that threw the whole design off so oddly. He finally explained with a big smile, “It's a false wall. It hit me just the other day that it might be.” He shook his head at his own stupidity. “I must have stopped thinking for a while. It's so obvious now.”

The other man, an architect, had a couple of workmen with him to take the wall down, very, very carefully, and there it was, emerging bit by bit: the lost Tiffany window.

It depicted a tidy Dutch garden, with tulips streaked with flames of color and others shaped liked lilies. There were carnations, and perhaps roses. Or peonies. There was a windmill in the far background, to tell us we were on Dutch land. Just beyond the low brick garden wall was the great untidy wilderness, with trees and wildflowers and a few animals peeping from under the leaves. I recognized the tulips, the iris, the ironweed, the wild turkey family and the fawn from Maude's sketches.

It was a work of art, of craft, of history. It told a story about the planned and the wild, the neat and the natural, two kinds of beauty. Maude didn't show us which side of the garden wall she was on. Perhaps she wanted both.

It was dusty and grimy and had a few cracks and it was beautiful. We all stared and stared as the last piece of the wall came down. The two men conferred. There would be cleaning and stabilization of the frame and who knows what else. I just looked at it and whispered, “Nice work, Maude. You did it.”

A full-size reproduction of the window became the highlight of our museum exhibit about Maude. We called it “Lost Tiffany Girl, Lost Tiffany Window” and it was quite a success. I had a credit, assistant curator, and I did most of the work.

And then of course I behaved like a scholar (or scholar-to-be) and wrote a scholarly paper, too, my first publication. Dr. Flint, in an unheard of fit of modesty, did not want to be my co-author, and so I mentioned him as a consultant. Ryan was listed as the co-author. I sent a copy to his parents and hoped they found some meaning in it.

And I found my own parental meaning in this: Chris threw me a birthday party. She planned it all herself, with some advice from Darcy and, I suspect, financial help from my dad. Natalya came with a warm hug for me, and a huge cake; Alex and Melanie, Chris' best friends; Mel's parents; and Darcy, with fabulous stylish shoes for a birthday gift. Joe came without that redhead from the glass shop, and just shook his head when I asked him about it. I caught him looking at me when Mike Henderson came in with a big hug of his own and a bigger bouquet of roses. My dad was there and he actually brought a funny card from Leary and a book of old newspaper cartoons.

That wasn't quite the end though, because Darcy had another gift for me, a phone number for the Konick descendent she knew.

“He's expecting to hear from you.”

He heard from me that night.

So a week later I had tea, tiny sandwiches and all, at a very old private club in Brooklyn Heights, with a very old, charming man, James Gerard Konick. He told me a story about his uncle who was the skeleton in the closet when he was growing up. How no one would explain what had happened to his father's oldest brother and the less they said, the more curious he was. How, when he was all grown up, he had an interest in genealogy and tracked Gerard to a beautiful house in a suburban area of Brooklyn.

Gerard and his wife Maude turned out to be charming and warm, not at all like his parents. They encouraged his interest in art and his dream of studying in France. Gerard had a successful career as an architect and she painted all her life and was active in arts programs for schools. He remembered how she chided him when he expressed doubt about uncultured, foreign public school students. She said—and he never forgot it—“Do you think art is only for the wealthy? Like your conventional grandparents? Art is for anyone who has eyes.”

They only had one child, a daughter. They had lost another daughter in the flu pandemic and there were never any others to fill up the big house with many bedrooms. Gerard's parents never spoke to him again after he jilted the Beekman daughter for Maude, but he was not completely cut off from the world of his childhood. Years later their daughter married the descendent of another old Dutch family, John Opdyke. And then I knew that their daughter was Ginny Updike, Bright Skye's mother. Bright was Maude's great-granddaughter.