Cold Hit

24

The Manhattan North Homicide Squad office was virtually empty. Every man and woman, whether on duty or off, had come in to try to crack the attempt on Mercer’s life. Those who were not officially in the field were pounding the pavement, leaning on informants to try to get a lead on which to follow up. The rest were filling the lobby at Saint Vincent’s, even though it was far too soon for all but the closest friends and family to visit with him.

“Cooper and I are go

“Hey, Alex, how’d he get into the system up here without them picking up the Florida case?” Halloran asked me. “How come nobody figured out that Anton Bailey and Anthony Bailor were one and the same before today, huh?”

“Just lucky, I guess.” No one could be arraigned for a felony in New York State without a fingerprint check. But every now and then, all of the automated techniques failed. In some cases, if the interstate computer system was down and the perp used an alias, the fingerprint comparison was never actually made. The fine type at the bottom of the rap sheet, if the prosecutor or judge stopped to read it, said that the results were based on a name check and not a verified latent exam.

If the prior rape conviction had been reflected on Bailey’s record, then the larceny case would have drawn a mandatory prison sentence longer than the time he served. He would not have been free to have sexually assaulted Denise Caxton and to have set in motion the chain of deaths that followed.

“You must be Don Ca

I guessed Ca

“Why don’t you have a seat and tell us a bit about yourself?” Chapman asked. “I’d like to know what you did for Mr. Varelli in his business. That kind of thing.”

“You probably know by now that Marco was the master, the most meticulous workman in his field. Just about every important restoration project in the last fifty years has been offered to him. Those that excited him most, he worked on himself.

“I’m from Sacramento originally. Went to UCLA, have a graduate degree in fine arts. That the kind of thing you want to know?” He looked from Mike’s face to mine, tentatively, to see whether he was proceeding in the right direction. We both nodded.

“One of my professors had worked with Varelli on Guernica, back in the eighties. Do you remember, that was the Picasso that was defaced at the Museum of Modern Art by some deranged fanatic?”

“Yes, of course. Our office handled the case.”

“The professor knew that I wanted to work in restoration, that I hoped to develop a career, go back to the West Coast, and set up shop at the Getty or one of the other museums. To apprentice to Marco Varelli, well, there’s simply nothing better to prepare to learn this business, and no finer credential on a résumé.”

“When did you start to work for him?” I asked.

Ca

“What do you mean, ‘he agreed’? Didn’t people just pay him?” Chapman wanted to know.

The serious Mr. Ca

“How about if the ownership was cloudy?”

“Well then, Miss Cooper, there was simply no way to engage him. I can recall an instance when a collector showed up in the atelier with a Léger. The particular painting had been classified in the Pompidou Center as an R 2 P, which means that it had been seized by the Nazis during the war and later returned to France. To date, no one had been able to co

He looked over at me for an answer, which came instead from Chapman. “You’re watching too much Geraldo. I never met a defense attorney with an ethical dilemma-if the check clears, his client’s not guilty.”

“You said that no one worked for Varelli. Didn’t you?”

“I had the privilege of being apprenticed to him, Detective. An expensive privilege.”

“You had to pay to help him?”

“I had a grant, actually, from a private family foundation. That’s what made the experience possible for me. I certainly wouldn’t have had the means to do it otherwise. Consider it like going to the best school in the world. For close to three years I was tutored by a genius. The skills he has given me are qualities I could never have learned anywhere else.” Ca

“Let me run some names by you. Tell us if you know any of these people, okay?”

Ca

“Start with Lowell Caxton. Ever meet him?”

“Many, many times. I’d guess Marco had known him for as long as I’ve been alive. I think he was one of the few collectors whose taste Mr. Varelli admired. I’ve never been to any of Caxton’s homes, but I understand there were several generations of a great genetic eye for art. Mr. Caxton used to come by for an opinion every now and then. Do you know about the Titian-the one he gave to Marco?”

“Yes. We spent a few minutes with Mrs. Varelli at the funeral home. We expect to see her in the apartment later this week.”

“Marco adored that gift, a real jewel of a little drawing. I think his acceptance of Lowell Caxton had a lot to do with that gesture. It would be hard to dislike someone who had done such a generous thing.”

“Any conflict between them, ever?”

Ca

“He was very good at dismissing me. ‘Thank you so much, Mr. Ca

“To…?”

“The grant covered the expenses of my study, but not an apartment in Manhattan. My girlfriend and I sublet a room in a loft in SoHo. She’s here in graduate school at NYU. When I was free to leave I’d head for the library, an art show, or a movie. But I’d get out of his hair, that much was clear.”