Murder at the Falls (11 page)

“You’ve been holding out on us,” said Charlotte good-naturedly once the introductions had been dispensed with.

“Who me?” said Voorhees, a meaty hand spread over his chest.

“You didn’t tell us a word about the dispute between Randy and Bernice Spiegel,” she said accusingly.

“I wanted to see what you would find out. What did you find out?”

Charlotte proceeded to recap what Diana had told them, leaving out their trip to le Club Parisienne. Though she thought Randy’s death might have been linked to his attack of nerves, she doubted that Voorhees did, and she didn’t want her theory dismissed before she’d had a chance to pursue it.

“Now, what do you know that you haven’t told us?” she asked.

“Only that we think the victim was thrown in the river behind the Falls View. There was a particular kind of vegetation caught in the aprons that he was tied up with and in the backs of his sneakers, which only grows in a few places along the river, one of them being behind the Falls View.” He consulted his notes: “
Polygonum cuspidatum
, commonly known as Japanese knotweed.”

Charlotte was familiar with it: a tall weed, reaching a height of eight or ten feet, with hollow, jointed stems, and a pale, greenish-white flower. It was common in New England, where she had grown up. Cultivated by the early settlers, it had become a vicious weed that was practically impossible to eradicate, as she had once discovered. “I know it,” she said. “But we always called it bamboo.”

“Another name for it is Japanese bamboo,” Voorhees said. “It’s native to Japan. The medical examiner theorized that the victim had been dragged shoulders-first through this bamboo before he was tossed in. We found the probable site this morning: a path from the parking lot to the river bank where the stalks had been laid flat. The intake for the raceway system is only fifty feet down river from there.”

“Any other evidence at the site?” asked Tom.

“Only some vomitus at the edge of the parking lot. We figured the victim may have thrown up before he passed out. Unless he’d eaten something really distinctive like blueberry pie, which he didn’t, there’s no way to tell if it was his vomitus. But it’s a good bet that it was his puke and that the place where the bamboo was flattened was where he went in. The nearest place this bamboo stuff grows is three-quarters of a mile up river.”

“Do we know who else was at the diner?” asked Charlotte.

“We’re working on that. But suffice it to say that we’ll have no shortage of suspects. The guest list for the post-opening party runs to about twenty-five people. Plus there’s the diner staff.”

As he spoke, another car drove up and parked behind the police cruiser. A woman got out and headed down the street toward them. She was a middle-aged woman, carefully made-up and with straight black hair in a Cleopatra cut. She wore a simple, expensively cut black suit, and a white silk blouse.

“Bernice Spiegel,” Voorhees explained. “She’s why we’re here. She claims that the paintings that her brother gave to Goslau—the ones that were the subject of the legal dispute—have been stolen.” He looked over at his assistant. “Brace yourself, Martinez. I think we’re about to catch some shit.”

Bernice was walking very fast, with her hands clenched at her sides. Her head, which was square in shape, was thrust forward, and the skin on her forehead was pinched in a frown. Charlotte was reminded of Diana’s reference to a pit bull. Had she been on a leash, she would have broken it.

“My paintings are missing,” she shrieked as she drew near. “They are worth eight million dollars.” By now, she was face to face with Voorhees. “Did you hear me?” she said, thrusting her face into his and pointing her forefinger at his chest. “Eight million dollars. You were supposed to be guarding them.”

Now that she was closer, Charlotte recognized her as the woman who had made the remark at the opening about Randy going off the deep end again.

“If you don’t recover them,” she threatened. “I am going to sue the city of Paterson for every last cent of their value.”

Taking her gently by the arm, Voorhees steered her to a bench on the brick sidewalk. “Now, Ms. Spiegel,” he said quietly as he took a seat next to her, “Why don’t you tell us all about it?”

Bernice glared at him.

“Well, if you’re not going to cooperate, we might as well go home.” He looked up. “What do you say, Martinez? We have better things to do.”

Martinez made a move toward the car.

“Okay,” said Bernice. She took a deep breath, and then spoke. “I know that you told me that the studio would be protected, but I was worried about the paintings. All those people going in and out; somebody could so easily have walked off with one of them. So this afternoon I came over …”

“When was that?” asked Voorhees.

“Just a little while ago. I asked the police officer who was guarding the door if I could just take a peek. When I looked in, none of the paintings was there.” She clenched her eyes shut for a second, as if reliving the painful experience, and then sighed. “I couldn’t believe it.”

“Ms. Spiegel, there are paintings there. I saw them myself.”

“Those are Randy’s paintings. I’m talking about my brother’s paintings. There were twelve of them: they were hanging on the back wall. Lieutenant, those paintings are worth eight million dollars.”

“I know,” he said. “You already told me.” He sighed, and stood up. Then he introduced her first to Martinez, and then to Charlotte and Tom. She was too upset to question what Charlotte and Tom were doing there. Finally he said: “Why don’t we go take a look?”

He then led them down an alley between the mill and the neighboring building, a small brick Victorian house. At the rear of the mill, a cop was sitting on a chair next to a door. At the sight of Voorhees, he sprang to attention. “Hello, Lieutenant,” he said. He eyed Bernice warily; she must have given him a piece of her mind too.

Voorhees proceeded to grill the cop on the arrangements for guarding the premises. According to the cop, the building had been “secured at all times” since the discovery of the body. Then they entered the building. The door opened onto a stairwell, at one end of which was a thick metal door—the door that Bernice had had installed to keep Randy out of the rest of the building. Then they went upstairs to Randy’s second-floor studio apartment.

The first thing to strike Charlotte’s eye was the yellowing eviction notice hanging on the door. The next was the TV monitor whose lens was aimed at the door. There was also a burglar alarm system, which Martinez deactivated. Randy must have been very afraid of break-ins. The door opened onto a large space that ran the full width of the back of the building. To their right was a small kitchen and living area, and at the far end was the door to a bedroom.

“The paintings were here,” said Bernice. She led them over to the interior wall, and pointed to a series of hooks surrounded by faded rectangles marking the spots where the paintings had once hung.

“And those?” said Voorhees, nodding at the paintings on the far wall.

“Those are Randy’s diner paintings,” she replied icily.

Voorhees sauntered down to the end of the studio, and stuck his head in the bedroom door. “Those are Randy’s paintings in there, too,” said Bernice. “I looked everywhere,” she added as he wandered around, peeking in closets and behind couches and bookshelves.

“We’ll have to go through all of these papers,” said Voorhees as he passed a desk in the living area. He nodded to Martinez, who made a note. Then he pulled out an album from a rack of half a dozen on the desk, and opened it. “Will you look at these!” he said, as he leafed through the pages.

“That’s his collection of old diner postcards,” said Bernice.

“Is that right?” said Tom casually as he flew to Voorhees’ side.

“How about the rest of the building?” asked Voorhees as he idly riffled through the rest of the papers on the desk, leaving Tom to the postcard albums. “Or in your brother’s house. Could he have hung them somewhere else?”

“I don’t know.” The police officer wouldn’t let me look. He couldn’t have put them downstairs after I installed the steel door, but he might have done it before.”

“Can you describe some of the missing paintings?”

“Yes. The biggest was ‘Horn & Hardart.’ It was of the interior: a close-up of the shiny little stainless steel doors with the windows for viewing the food. Then there was one of the W. R. Grace Building, and one of the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge …”

“Okay,” said Voorhees, “We’ll go take a look.”

Led by Bernice, the four of them toured the rest of the building, which was divided into a large living area, a cavernous studio, and a second-story mezzanine, which overlooked the studio. None of the missing paintings was hanging on the walls, nor were they in the storage rooms.

Next they toured Spiegel’s house, the little brick Victorian that had formerly been the mill superintendent’s residence. The living area in the mill had been Spiegel’s public living space—the scene of the ongoing party that Diana had described—but this little house was where he had actually lived. The paintings weren’t there, either.

“Okay,” said Voorhees after they had completed their tour. “I think we can conclude that the paintings aren’t here. Which means one of two things: either Goslau disposed of them before his death, or someone broke into his studio and stole them.”

They were standing on a small patio at the rear of Spiegel’s house. It reminded Charlotte of the garden of her own townhouse: a little oasis of green in the midst of the urban congestion.

“Since the studio has been guarded since his death, we’ll work on the first assumption,” said Voorhees. He had taken a seat on one of the patio chairs. Leaning back, he rubbed his neck. Then he asked, “Is there anywhere else that Goslau might have stored the paintings?”

“Out at his camp,” said Bernice, who had finally calmed down. “It’s out in Warren County, near the Pennsylvania line. I doubt he would have displayed them there—they were too valuable to hang in a place that was unoccupied most of the time—but he might have hidden them out there.”

“Why would he have hidden them?” asked Voorhees.

“He might have been afraid that I was going to take them.”

“Had you threatened to?”

“Yes. They’re mine. My brother was planning to rescind the gift agreement under which he had given Randy the paintings. He told me so.”

“But he hadn’t done so at the time of his death,” said Voorhees, adopting a chastising tone. “Moreover, they were the subject of a legal dispute.”

“No, he hadn’t,” replied Bernice, subdued.

“Is there anywhere else that Goslau might have hidden the paintings?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Is there a possibility that he may have sold them?”

“The court ruled that they weren’t to be sold until after the settlement,” said Bernice, “But he might have sold them anyway. In recent months, there was no predicting what he might do.”

“Okay,” said Voorhees. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I presume that a detailed description of the works in question was drawn up in connection with the lawsuit: title, size, description, and so on.”

Bernice nodded.

“Do you have a copy of it?”

She nodded again.

“Martinez here will follow you home, and you’ll give him a copy. We’ll notify the art squad in New York that the paintings are missing. Once we get the list, we’ll send it along, and they can notify galleries to be on the lookout for the missing pieces.”

“What if they went overseas? Don had collectors in Europe and Japan.”

“The art squad will also notify the FBI, which will notify Interpol. Meanwhile, I’ll go out to Goslau’s country place and look for the paintings. I was thinking about going out there anyway. I’ll let you know as soon as I get back what I’ve found.”

After a few more minutes of discussion, Bernice got into her car to leave. After closing the door for her, Voorhees handed her his business card through the window and said: “If you think of anywhere else the paintings could be, give me a call.”

Seemingly satisfied, Bernice took the card with an effort at a smile.

Charlotte was impressed at how well he had handled her, but she supposed he’d had years of training in dealing with irate people.

After Bernice had driven off, followed by Martinez in the police cruiser, Voorhees rejoined Charlotte and Tom in front of the mill. Stretching out his arms, and sniffing the sweet air, he said: “Anyone for a ride out to the country?” He looked over at Tom. “Maybe we’ll find a good diner along the way.”

Charlotte didn’t need to check first with Tom to see what his answer would be. She could already sense a new book in the works.

“Where exactly is Randy’s country place?” Tom asked.

“Blairstown,” Voorhees replied. “Out near the Water Gap.”

Tom’s eyes gleamed. “I know just the one.”

6

Tom and Charlotte followed Voorhees in the Buick. It took them a little over an hour to get to Randy’s camp, which was at the end of a long, winding dirt road on the wooded banks of the Beaver River—in western New Jersey. What had once been a fishing camp—the kind of weekend retreat where New York stockbrokers used to go to drink and spit to their heart’s content—had been transformed into a rustic trailer park for old diners. As Randy had already told them, there were five of them, arrayed in a semicircle around the original building, a log cabin lodge with a fieldstone chimney that looked as if it dated from the twenties. There were two diners on one side, these set fairly high above the water, and two on the other side, lower down. The fifth, the diminutive Short Stop, was set on a small island in the river, which was reached by a wooden bridge. Neatly manicured gravel paths led from one building to the other, and the woodsy grounds were beautifully landscaped with plantings of native trees and shrubs interspersed with flower beds of zinnias and marigolds. The effect was peculiar in the extreme: it reminded Charlotte of the tourist courts, the predecessors of modern motels, that could still be found on old highways, except that these structures were sided with stainless steel and porcelain enamel instead of clapboard or rough-hewn logs.