Family Jewels

44

Stone met Jamie Niven and his people at Carrie Fiske’s apartment the following morning. The Sotheby’s people were very impressed.

“I’d like to sell the entire contents,” Jamie said.

“I’m afraid I sold all three of her houses yesterday, and most of the art and furnishings.” He gave Niven a listing of the others. “Here’s a list of the unsold pieces, with photographs. You can add them to your auction.”

“Right. I’ve got people at the Palm Beach house right now,” Jamie said, “and we’ll get to the East Hampton property tomorrow.”

They went into Carrie’s dressing room, and Stone opened the safe for Niven and his jewelry appraiser.

“This is quite a collection,” Jamie said.

“It’s three generations’ worth,” Stone pointed out. “Why don’t you have a look through the clothes, as well — you might want to include some of the things in the auction with the jewelry.”

“We’ll do that. My people are going to be here most of the day,” Jamie said.

“And here’s something nice.” He gave him the box for the necklace.

“We’ll touch it up a bit and display the necklace in it.”

Stone gave him keys to the properties. “The Hockneys and a Modigliani went to the buyer,” he said. “Lock up here when you’re finished.”

“I’ll bring you the key and a receipt for whatever we take with us.”

“Good enough.”

Stone went back to his office and entered through the street door.

“Another unannounced Cabot,” Joan said.

Stone went into his office and found Lance Cabot stretched out on his sofa, sipping coffee and reading the Times.

“Good morning, Stone,” Lance drawled. Lance seemed always to drawl. He had succeeded Kate Lee as director of Central Intelligence.

“Mind if I sit down?” Stone asked.

“Oh, shut up.”

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Lance?”

“You’re interfering with one of my people, and I thought we should have a chat about it.”

“I haven’t spoken to any of your people recently,” Stone said. He was under contract to the CIA as a consultant, though he still wasn’t sure what that meant.

“I’m referring to Harvey Biggers,” Lance said.

Stone sank into his chair. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“I’m not surprised that you’re surprised,” Lance said. “You weren’t meant to know — even his wife didn’t know.”

“Do you understand that the police are looking for him? That he’s a suspect in the murder of his ex-wife?”

“That’s a load of horseshit, Stone, and the police are not looking for him. I had a word with Dino and with that bumpkin from East Hampton. If you knew Harvey, you’d know that he would never have killed her.”

“I know no such thing.”

“Please cite for me the evidence of his guilt.”

“He was seen in Santa Fe the day before she was murdered, fifty miles away.”

“So what?”

“He threatened Carrie.”

“That’s her story. Lots of women feel threatened by their ex-husbands.”

“Then he came here and told me that she was trying to kill him, not the other way around.”

“Oh, that story was just a little tradecraft. Harvey probably thought it would throw you off his scent. He’s always had more imagination than was good for him.”

“I thought Harvey was something in finance, not a CIA officer.”

“He used that as a cover — so did Holly Barker, when she had to reveal all to a co-op board to buy her apartment. We established the firm twenty-odd years ago, and it’s entirely fake. Harvey is a career officer. We recruited him right out of Yale. He was Holly’s operational deputy in the New York station, before she went to the National Security Council.”

“Well, all that is wonderful, but how do you know Harvey didn’t kill his wife?”

“Because, on the afternoon of the day Harvey was spotted by your friends in Santa Fe, he boarded an airplane for D.C.”

“And how do you know he was on that airplane?”

“I know, because I sent the plane for him. He was needed at the interrogation of a former asset of his. And he arrived on time. The Agency is the family business for Harvey — his grandfather was OSS, then CIA.”

“Tell me about the grandfather,” Stone said.

“Ah, Henry Biggers, what a character! Henry was an associate in Bill Donovan’s law firm. When Roosevelt decided we needed an intelligence agency during the war, he appointed Wild Bill to run it, and Bill pretty much staffed it out of his own address book. Henry had some language skills, and he was sent, first to London to learn what the Brits knew, then into France as an agent. He roamed far and wide, doing pretty much whatever he wanted to, and he was very productive.”

“Was he ever a paratrooper? Harvey told me he was.”

“That’s nonsense. Henry told people whatever they wanted to hear — this was at the end of the war, when he was running around in various military disguises, chasing Nazis.”

“Did he have anything to do with capturing Goering?”

“No, he was too late. He got to Goering’s house on the Obersalzberg less than an hour after Hermann had fled. When the first American troops arrived at the house they found Henry Biggers sitting in the dining room, wearing the uniform of an army colonel, eating a large steak, and washing it down with — legend has it — a Lafite ’29 from Goering’s cellar. Shortly after that, he drove away in one of Hermann’s cars, a nifty Mercedes Roadster, with several pieces of Louis Vuitton luggage strapped to it, allegedly containing various valuables from the house and quite a lot of Swiss francs.”

“Was one of those pieces of luggage Frau Goering’s jewelry box?”

“Indeed, it was. Henry motored down to the Swiss border, changing clothes along the way, and passed himself off as an American diplomat, which wasn’t difficult, since he had a diplomatic passport, among several pieces of identification, all of them in different names.”

“How’d he get the car into Switzerland?”

“Oh, he had a nicely forged bill of sale for it, on Goering’s personal letterhead. Anyway, he looked up his pal Allen Dulles, who was OSS station chief in Bern, and moved into his place for a few days, while he got things squared away. He sold several loose stones from Frau Goering’s collection, bought a lakeside villa, and with Allen’s help, secured a Swiss passport and opened an account in a rather elegant private bank, where he deposited his cash and put the jewelry box in the vault. Word was, that he put Harvey through Yale with the proceeds from that box.

“He worked for Allen until Dulles was sent to Berlin, then discharged himself from the OSS and lived the life of Riley in Bern, until Dulles summoned him home to help out at the Agency in 1950, after Beetle Smith took over as director.”

“All right, then, if Harvey didn’t murder Carrie, who did?”

“Someone else, I expect. That’s for you and that county sheriff in New Mexico to figure out.”

“Lance, tell Harvey for me that the necklace his grandfather lifted from Goering’s house is being sold at Sotheby’s next month, for the benefit of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, and there’s not a goddamned thing he can do about it, and to stop calling me.”

“I’ll pass that on, dear boy,” Lance drawled, then excused himself and left, taking Stone’s Times with him.