Corpus Christmas

Rick Evans had been located at the Kohn and Munson Gallery, and an equally protective Hester Kohn had accompanied him downtown. Three minutes after their arrival, they were joined by the gallery’s attorney, a tall, brown-haired woman in what looked like Eskimo mukluks, a deerskin parka lined with fur, and gold-rimmed gra

The two lawyers immediately went into a huddle, then requested and were given a private room in which to confer with their respective clients.

It was long past lunchtime, so Sigrid and her team took advantage of the lull to send down for sandwiches. Mick Cluett had been sent off to check Shambley’s apartment and to notify his next of kin; but Eberstadt, back from court, joined them with an enormous corned beef on rye.

“If Frances could see that,” said Bernie Peters, shaking his head.

“Salads are for summertime,” Eberstadt said defensively. “In December, a man needs something that’ll stick to his ribs.”

“Just what you need.” Elaine Albee gri

Eberstadt laughed and as they ate, the others filled him in on Roger Shambley’s death amid such Victorian surroundings.

They had taken a set of elimination prints from staff members at the house. “Just eyeballing it, I’d say the Grant kid’s the one who left prints on the dumbwaiter,” said Peters.

“You should see his bedroom down there in that basement,” Jim Lowry told Eberstadt. “Looks like a Chinese whorehouse-red velvet and gold satin, snaky lights, and art posters or calendar pictures on every square inch of wall space.”

“Calendar pictures?” Eberstadt leered. “Art posters?”

“Get your mind out of the gutter,” Albee told him. She reached across the table to commandeer his kosher dill pickle. “He’s talking abstract art, not Playboy art.”

“Yeah, it’s fu

“Probably sees enough of those upstairs,” said Albee. Between crunches of Eberstadt’s pickle, she described for him the tiers of gilt-framed pictures that lined the walls of the main galleries at the Erich Breul House.

Matt Eberstadt savored the last morsel of corned beef and licked his fingertips. “ Frances keeps saying we ought to go tour the place. She likes old things,” he said, wiping his hands on a less than clean handkerchief.

“Like you?” gibed Peters.

Sigrid ate her own tuna sandwich swiftly and quietly, with one eye on some paperwork and only half an ear for their give and take. Casual camaraderie had never been easy for her, although now that Nauman had entered her life, she found these unofficial sessions a little easier than before.

She skimmed through one report a second time, then passed it down the table to Bernie Peters. “The neighborhood canvass turned up someone who remembers the Jurczyks.”

The others looked at her blankly, trying to place the name.

“Oh, yeah,” said Peters. “Those baby bones.”

He read the highlights of the report aloud. “Mrs. Pauline Jaworski remembers the Jurczyk sisters from her childhood in the fifties. Thinks her mother may still be in touch with Barbara Zaidowicz. Mother’s name, Mrs. Dorota Palka. Currently resides at Lantana Walk Nursing Home up in Queens.”

Elaine Albee’s head came up. She had briefly worked undercover there back in the spring. “Lantana Walk? Queens? I thought they put that place out of business last spring.”

“The director testified against his partners and got off with a suspended sentence and a hefty fine,” said Sigrid, who had followed the situation and been disappointed by its outcome.

As they wadded up foam cups and paper napkins from their impromptu lunch, word came that Pascal Grant and Richard Evans were ready to make their statements. Sigrid checked her watch. “Lowry, I want you and Albee to sit in on this, too. Peters, see if you can get a statement from that Palka woman.”

“Just how I wanted to spend the afternoon,” Bernie Peters grumbled to Eberstadt when the other three had gone. “Freezing my ass off on the F train to Queens.”

“Better than surveillance,” replied his partner, who had done his share of sitting in cold cars on icy winter streets.

Flanked by their lawyers, Pascal Grant and Rick Evans each appeared very young and very intimidated when they entered the interrogation room; but once all the legal formalities and stipulations were out of the way, their statements were quite straightforward.

They were questioned separately and then together. The second time around, Rick Evans did all the talking at first, in a soft voice full of southern inflections. Sigrid listened without questions as he described again the noises they had heard the night before, his impression that someone had left through the basement door, Pascal Grant’s discovery of the body, and his own decision to move it to the third floor using the dumbwaiter.

When he finished, Sigrid said, “Do you have anything to add to that, Mr. Grant?”

Looking like a frightened Raphael angel, Pascal Grant darted a quick glance at her through thick sandy-blond lashes, then bit his lip and shook his head.

“You didn’t set the burglar alarm, therefore anyone who had a key could have walked in without your knowing. Is that right?”

He nodded without lifting his eyes.

“What if that person didn’t have a key?”

Puzzled, Pascal Grant looked at her. “He couldn’t come in?” he guessed.

“No,” Sigrid said patiently. “I meant what would happen if someone rang the bell? Would you hear?”

“Oh. Yes,” he nodded vigorously. “It’s right over the door in my room. Makes a real loud noise even if my tapes are on.” He hesitated. “Or did you mean the bell board in the kitchen? It’s nice. The bells jingle and a little flag comes up to show which one it is. Mrs. Sophie had a bell and Mr. Erich and-”

“No, I meant the doorbells,” Sigrid said, interrupting his enthusiastic description of how Victorian employers had once summoned their servants to particular rooms of the house.

“The doorbells ring in the office and they buzz in my room,” said Pascal Grant. “A big buzz means it’s the upstairs door and a sort of littler one means it’s the spiderweb door.”

“And did you hear either buzzer last night?”

Pascal shook his head.

“You’re sure of that?”

He nodded solemnly.

The two youths described how they had returned to the Breul House from an early showing of Round Midnight, entered through the basement door, and headed straight to Pascal Grant’s room without going upstairs and without seeing anyone.

“So you were in your bedroom listening to jazz tapes,” Sigrid said, “and you heard someone outside. What time was this?”

Pascal’s smooth brow furrowed in concentration. “Around ten-fifteen, I think. Maybe ten-thirty.”

“Yet you didn’t go out to investigate?”

“I thought it was Dr. Shambley,” Pascal said slowly.

“Did Dr. Shambley often come down to the basement that late?”

“He was everywhere.”

“Did you like Dr. Shambley?”

“No,” said the golden-haired janitor before his lawyer could stop him.

“My client’s personal feelings toward the deceased had nothing to do with his death,” said Harvey Pruitt.

“Then you won’t mind if he tells us why he disliked Dr. Shambley?” Sigrid asked.

“I’m afraid I can’t allow that at this time,” Mr. Pruitt said austerely.

“Very well. What about others at the house, Mr. Grant? Who else didn’t like Dr. Shambley?”

“Mrs. Beardsley didn’t like him.”

“Why not?”

Mr. Pruitt started to object, then sat back.

“I don’t know,” said Grant. “She said he got her place or something.”

Sigrid looked at the lawyer, but Pruitt shook his head. “This is sheer hearsay, you realize?”