Death Angel

THIRTY-TWO

“Nobody’s where they’re supposed to be,” Mike said.

“What do you mean?”

“Tanner and Wicks walked away from the nuthouse, you’re AWOL from the office, I’m being held by my short hairs, and Mercer’s out of cell range.”

“Maybe he’s still in the attic of the Dakota,” I said, getting back into Mike’s car with two hot dogs from a stand on First Avenue.

“Guess so.”

“I just texted him to phone me.”

We were halfway through our tube steaks when he called back. “Where were you?”

“Time traveling back a century, up on the ninth floor. No reception there. Sorry.”

“So Eddie Wicks can’t help us,” I said. “Don’t tell his mother or Jillian Sorenson yet, but he took a hike during the hurricane last fall.”

“He what?”

“I think we need to make sure that once the department issues an alert for him-if Scully thinks that’s necessary-there’s a bodyguard at the Dalton apartment, for his mother’s sake.”

“We’re fresh running out of bodyguards,” Mercer said.

“So I have this idea,” I said. “If it’s okay with Vickee, why don’t I spend the weekend at your house?”

Mike threw his head back and started talking. “Nightmare on Elm Street. There they were, planning a nice romantic weekend together, and you throw yourself into the mix.”

“Don’t choke on the dog,” I said to Mike. “They’ve got a toddler. No such thing as a romantic weekend.”

“We’ll be fine with that,” Mercer said.

“Frees up the two rookies who were sitting on me to hold Bernice Wicks’s hand if we flush Eddie out of hiding. Meanwhile, I’m safe and sound with you two.”

“How can you just invite yourself to their home?” Mike asked.

“Because the department thinks I have to be protected against Raymond Tanner, and because I have no plans for the weekend, Mr. Chapman,” I said, covering the phone with my hand. “Care to change that?”

“Not in the stars right now, Coop,” Mike said, chewing on the hot dog. “I’m a eunuch for as long as Manny Chirico wants me to be. Ask Mercer if Crime Scene got anything out of the room.”

Mercer heard Mike ask me the question and responded. “The coffee cups are going to the lab for possible DNA in the saliva. They’ve done imaging of the footprints, which appear to be an adult male-not a sneaker but some kind of rubber-soled shoe. Size twelve. Newspaper fragments from late May, early June. Snack food wrappers.”

“Generic debris,” I said.

“Except for one little slip of paper,” Mercer said.

“Oh?”

“Stuck in the fold of one of the newspapers was a ticket-like a large manila tag you’d use to label something-from a storage warehouse on Second Avenue: Day & Meyer, Murray & Young,” Mercer said. “Ever hear of it?”

“Of course. It’s on 61st Street, just north of the Queensboro Bridge.” My friend Joan Stafford’s grandmother, one of the wealthiest heiresses in the city, used to roll up her most valuable Oriental carpets and take down her collection of Old Masters every summer, before moving up to Newport, to be stored at Day & Meyer. The carpets were shelved in cedar to repel moths, and the paintings kept in climate-controlled vaults. “It’s where the richest New Yorkers have stored their most precious possessions for a hundred years.”

“Would you guess Lavinia Dalton?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me.”

“The tag has no name, but it does have a number. Surely they can track that.”

“Have you asked Jillian Sorenson about it?” I said.

“No need to tip my hand to her,” Mercer said. “I just don’t trust her. But I’m going to take a run over to the storage place myself.”

“We’re a straight shot up First Avenue. Meet you there in ten minutes.”

“Meeting where?” Mike asked when I clicked off the call.

“61st and Second. That monolith of a building that straddles the block on the east side of the street.”

Millions of New Yorkers passed the Day & Meyer neo-Gothic tower every day, most never knowing the treasures that were housed behind its mostly windowless façade were as valuable as the contents of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“Have you been there?”

“Never inside. But they used to pick up all of Joannie’s grandmother’s most precious belongings and-”

“Pick them up? What do you mean?”

“I remember being at Grandma Stafford’s home-that incredible duplex on the river-when the men from Day & Meyer came to collect her living room one time.”

Mike pulled out into the uptown flow of traffic. “What in her living room?”

“I told you. The living room. Every piece of furniture she’d bought in Europe’s finest antique markets over the years, the baby grand piano, the rug all those things were sitting on, the Delft porcelain that lined the walls, the family portraits as well as the Mary Cassatt and the minor Van Gogh. And on and on. When the men were done, the room was absolutely bare.”

“And they moved that stuff how?”

“Ah! What they’re famous for at Day & Meyer is the Portovault system.”

“Panoscan I know. What’s a Portovault?”

“Think of each Portovault unit as a steel safe-about eleven feet long and as tall as the ceilings at the Dakota, and weighing about a ton.”

“Like a shipping container?”

“Pretty much. Except that these are on wheels, and they’re impenetrable. They’re loaded onto an armored truck-armored, okay?-and taken to the client’s home, where the men pack them up, lock them-so that the owner can watch-and return them to the building on 61st Street.”

“Where they’re unloaded again?”

“Or not,” I said. “The building has an interior rail system-that’s why the units are on wheels-so each one goes from the loading dock to a freight elevator and right into an assigned space, like the most gigantic safe imaginable.”

“Locked and loaded. And then the whole room just sits as it is, waiting for its owner to send for it someday.”

“When the season at Newport ended, Granny Stafford used to call for her vault, and everything was dusted off and put back into place.”

We reached 61st Street before Mercer did. My cell mailbox was full, and I was happy to ignore everything incoming, most of which had to be from an angry Battaglia. I dialed Nan Toth’s office number and was pleased that she was at her desk and picked up.

“Glad you’re still there,” I said. It was almost four in the afternoon.

“Yeah, but where are you?”

“Field trip. Don’t ask.”

“I am asking. Laura’s tearing her hair out with worry.”

“I’ll explain everything later. Will you be there a while?”

“Yes, unfortunately. I have a witness on my d.v. case who can’t come in until after work at five.”

“Great. Can you hammer out some creative subpoenas for me while you wait?”

“How creative?”

“I’m meeting Mercer in a few minutes,” I said, leaving Mike out of the mix in the event Battaglia or McKinney pressured my good friend Nan on my whereabouts.

“A break in the case?”

“To be honest with you, I don’t know what it is. We may be chasing rainbows-or shadowy figures in windows and shoe prints in dusty rooms-but that’s all we’ve got to do at this point.”

“Okay. What do you need?”

“Mercer’s got a receipt for something that’s in storage. You know Day & Meyer?”

“The Fort Knox of storage facilities. I’ve heard of it.”

“We’re about to go in to try to access a particular container.”

“Because?”

“Some guy who had the receipt may have been watching the police remove the dead girl’s body from the Lake in the Park. We have a picture of him checking out the crime scene at seven A.M. last Friday morning, the time the body was bagged and the guys were scouring for clues.”

“Go on.”

“And there were several items of value-stolen items which are part of a larger collection-that may be connected to the girl’s death. We’re betting this storage container holds the key to connecting the dots to the killer.”

“So you want me to draft a search warrant for the container?” Nan asked.

“That will take way too long.”

“And no judge in his right mind would sign it.”

“That, too,” I said. “All I’m asking you for is a grand jury subpoena. No judge’s signature required. There’s an open investigation. It’s all legal.”

“And that subpoena would be-?”

“A ‘must appear’-to the manager of Day & Meyer, to show up on Monday, before the grand jury, with the contents of the container. As soon as Mercer gets here, I’ll give you the number on his receipt.”

“On the theory that it will be way too much trouble for the manager to get inside the storage vault, and he couldn’t possibly bring the contents-whatever they are-with him to the courthouse, so he’ll just roll over and let Mercer have a look.”

“Something like that.”

Nan paused for several seconds. “Alex, how far out on a limb are you going to go?”

“Probably not much further. Battaglia has a chain saw, and I can hear him buzzing while he tries to cut me off. I get it if you can’t come along.”

Nan sighed. “Just a subpoena.”

“Thanks. I’ll call you once we’re inside.”

Mike was out of the car, directing Mercer to a parking spot across the street from ours. As he made his way to us, he showed us the large manila ticket, bearing the name Day & Meyer, which was in a small plastic bag.

“Let’s get inside before they close,” Mike said.

The building was about fifteen stories high. The walls were solid to the rooftop, except for a double row of windows that formed a strip down the middle. The Portovaults were probably parked on both sides of that. Many prisons looked less forbidding than this private fortress.

Once inside, a security guard directed us to the manager’s office. When the three of us entered, he raised his eyes from his desk to ask how he could help us.

“NYPD,” Mercer said, showing his blue-and-gold shield and introducing each of us.

The man was unperturbed. He pushed his reading glasses to the top of his bald head and listened to our request. The plastic sign on his desk said WILL JARVIS.

“I’m trying to get some information about Lavinia Dalton’s account,” Mercer said.

“Then you should speak with Ms. Dalton. We’re not in the business of giving information.”

“It’s about a homicide investigation,” Mike said. “You might be aware that Ms. Dalton isn’t able to help us.”

“You should talk to Ms. Sorenson, then,” Jarvis said.

“We’ve done that.”

“She’s given permission for me to answer your questions?”

“No need to ask her permission. She’s a witness in our investigation. She doesn’t get to call the shots.”

It was obvious the man was quite familiar with the Dalton account, seeing as how he had Jillian Sorenson’s name at the tip of his tongue.

“She’s a witness to murder?”

Mike leaned both arms on the manager’s desk. “We’re not in the business of giving information, either.”

Will Jarvis reached for the telephone on his desk, opened his old-fashioned Rolodex, and started to dial a number. I assumed it was Lavinia Dalton’s home.

Mike put his finger on the button to stop the call from going through. Then he turned to me. “Ms. Cooper, you got that subpoena you were talking about?”

“If Mr. Jarvis will kindly give me his fax number, I can have it sent through in a matter of minutes.”

Jarvis wasn’t happy to hear the word “subpoena.”

“A search warrant,” I said, “will take five or six hours longer.”

“We close at six.”

“The warrant won’t get done until night court,” I said. “We’re used to waiting it out.”

“And the subpoena?” Jarvis asked after slowly reeling off the fax number as I wrote it on a Post-it from my tote.

“Much easier,” I said, stepping back near the doorway to call Nan and tell her what to ask for and where to fax it.

“What’s the information you want?”

“Basic stuff,” Mike said. “I’m not looking to break chops. It’s not about you, Will.”

“Like what?”

“Like how many storage units does Ms. Dalton maintain here?”

Jarvis’s computer was on a table behind him. He swiveled his chair and logged on, searching the database for the accounts while I whispered to Nan.

“The accounts are held by the Dalton trust, actually,” Jarvis said. “And there are eight vaults.”

Even if all the Daltons going back to Lavinia’s grandfather had been collectors, that was still a massive amount of possessions to hang on to.

“How many does the building hold?” Mike asked.

“Five hundred vaults,” Jarvis said. “About fifty per floor, and then we have special areas climate controlled on other floors for things like paintings. The eight Dalton units are together on the twelfth floor. Archer Dalton was among Day & Meyer’s first customers in 1928. We take their family business very seriously, if you get my drift.”

“I’m drifting with you,” Mike said.

I stepped closer. “That fax should be coming through momentarily.”

Mike and Mercer continued to ask questions about the building-obviously impressed by the level of security offered to customers-warming Jarvis up enough that he offered to tour them through to show them how the rail system worked.

Three minutes later, his fax machine lit up and set its gears in motion, and a copy of the subpoena rolled out of the printer.

Will Jarvis picked it up, read it, and lost every trace of good humor Mike and Mercer had just lured out of him.

“You’ve set me an impossible task. There’s simply no way I can produce all the Dalton records, all the receipts of entry for the Dalton vaults-and it’s preposterous to suggest that I can take out the contents of a locked vault that belongs to a customer.”

“Stay calm, Mr. Jarvis,” Mike said. “By all means don’t get all herky-jerky here.”

“This document says I have to appear before the grand jury on Monday. That’s not an option, Ms. Cooper.”

“Options,” Mike said. “I like options. Prosecutors can be so damned unreasonable. You want to discuss the options with us, Coop?”

“I certainly didn’t mean to impose a hardship on you, Mr. Jarvis. Let’s take this one step at a time.”

Jarvis was fuming. He eyes darted back and forth between us. He reached for the receiver again, and again Mike tamped down the button. “Let’s leave Ms. Sorenson out of this.”

“I’m calling our lawyer, Mr. Chapman. He’ll have something to say about this.”

“That’s fine. Go right ahead.”

The number rang five times before going to voice mail. Jarvis slammed the phone down without leaving a message.

“What about the record keeping you do here for each account?” I asked. “Perhaps if you explain it to me, we can put that issue to rest.”

Will Jarvis was on high alert and reluctant to trust me. He thought his answer through before speaking. “We’ve been computerized for twenty-five years, Ms. Cooper. Before that, everything was done by hand.”

“So you can call up the Dalton account right on your computer?”

“If I chose to do so, yes. It would give me a quarter of a century of information.”

“So a family or individual with eight vaults, would the contents of those vaults be listed?”

“Never. Do you tell the bank what’s in your safety-deposit box?”

“Is there a date when each vault was rented?”

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

“And a record of every time the Portovault leaves this building to go to an account and make a pickup?”

“Or a delivery,” Jarvis said. “Yes.”

“And a notation when an account holder comes to this building to get access to his or her vaults?”

“Just like a bank, Ms. Cooper. A record is made, signed by the holder or his representative, and countersigned by one of our agents, too.”

“And what if something is added into a vault during one of those visits?”

Will Jarvis took a few seconds to answer. “That wouldn’t be information we’d know. That’s our client’s right.”

“How about if something is removed?”

He scratched his head. “Removed from his or her own vault? You don’t seem to get my point, Ms. Cooper.”

“So you don’t issue receipts for that kind of thing?”

“We’re very discreet, you understand. The customers entrust their objects to us-everything from moose-head mountings to Queen Anne furniture to solid-gold Krugerrands. If they want to pay a visit, we ask them to sign in-we have a signature card with assorted permissions for family members or trustees-and we provide an armed guard to secure their visits, their transactions,” Jarvis said. “We don’t issue receipts, Ms. Cooper. This isn’t a pawnshop.”

Mercer removed the plastic bag from his jacket pocket and put it on the desk, under Will Jarvis’s nose. “Now, what do you call this little tag?”

The middle-aged manager’s face reddened as he leaned forward to look at it.

“Day & Meyer, right?” Mercer asked. “Sure looks like a receipt to me.”

“This-this would be a different sort of circumstance,” Jarvis said.

“Exactly what?”

“It would mean that someone authorized on the account paid a visit-a visit to one of the vaults.” Jarvis paused, moistening his lips as he struggled for an explanation. “Someone authorized, I remind you. He or she removed something from the Portovault-I couldn’t possibly tell you what that was-and stored it with us for a period of time in a safe. A small safe. A service we offer our clients for smaller objects and short durations of a hold. It’s occasionally more convenient for people to put items here-securely-without going through the trouble again of opening an entire vault. That’s why we offer the alternative of smaller safes.”

“And this receipt?” Mercer asked.

“That would have been used to retrieve the object from a safe. There should be a stamp on the back of the tag,” he said, reaching for the plastic bag.

But Mercer got there first. “There is a stamp on the back. And a date,” he said. “The date is May 10th.”

“So the only thing missing is for you to tell us who signed for this receipt,” Mike said. “Who had access to one of Lavinia Dalton’s vaults in the weeks or months prior to May? And is that the same person to whom this receipt was issued?”

Will Jarvis didn’t budge.

“We want a name, Mr. Jarvis. We want to leave here with a name.”

“If I give you this information, I don’t have to appear before a grand jury?”

“That sounds fair,” I said.

“And you won’t tell Jillian Sorenson about this?”

“We have no reason to.” Although I was interested in what his relationship was with Sorenson and why he seemed so fearful of her reaction to our visit.

“Then would you please read me the account number on that receipt, Mr. Wallace? It’s the first set of figures.”

Will Jarvis turned his back to us to face his computer. He entered the numbers, and results appeared on the screen. He printed out several pages of paper.

“In the spring of last year-during the month of April-the trust commissioned two Portovaults to go to the Dakota. Four guards escorted the trucks, and they were returned at the end of the same day. They were added to Lavinia Dalton’s account as vaults number seven and eight.”

That might have corresponded to the storage of the Dalton silver collections-one vault for Archer Dalton’s train set and the second for Lavinia’s Central Park.

“At some point in May,” Jarvis said, “Jillian Sorenson signed in to our facility. She spent the better part of an hour on the twelfth floor. The two newest containers were opened for her. There isn’t any more information than that, as I would expect.”

Jarvis studied the paper from which he was reading to us-and signature cards that appeared to have been scanned into the system.

“Then in June, one year ago,” he continued, “a visitor came to the building and spent an hour or so here, also signed in to the newest vaults. Both were opened for her, but one was closed immediately. She spent time in the other one.”

“She?” I asked.

“Here’s the signature card, Ms. Cooper.” Jarvis was nonplussed now. “I don’t know the woman personally, but she must be the one on the list of proper signatories, you can see that for yourself.”

He slid the paper across from me. The name on the line for the June 8th visit of the year before was Wicks, with simply the capital letter B after it. The authorized list of signatures, which Jarvis also showed to me, had Bernice’s full name printed out and signed.

The person who’d written her name on June 8th had a much firmer hand than Bernice.

“Bernice Wicks,” I said, “is one of Lavinia Dalton’s housekeepers.”

“Then that makes sense,” Jarvis said.

“But the signatures don’t appear to match, Mr. Jarvis. And no one seemed to require Mrs. Wicks’s full name on this June 8th record.” I passed the record to Mike and Mercer.

“It must have been a busy day. Mistakes happen. Let’s see what the signature is when the items on that receipt were picked up. That will be the numbers in red, Mr. Wallace.”

The next paper printed out.

“So, the receipt shows,” Jarvis said, “that the items were claimed on November 5th.”

“One week after Hurricane Sandy,” I said. “And who signed for them?”

He looked up from the paper. “B. Wicks once again.”

Of course Eddie Wicks would have known that his mother was a trusted signatory of the Dalton properties. He had probably seen the dramatic arrival and departure of the Portovaults many times while staying at the Dakota since his youth.

“Mr. Jarvis,” I said, with renewed urgency, “how about the video surveillance you have inside this place? There must be cameras everywhere. There would have to be.”

“That’s not something we advertise, Ms. Cooper.”

“I understand, but it would be stupid to think you didn’t need them in this day and age.”

Jarvis didn’t know whether to give it up or not. “We have other measures of security that are quite sufficient. Our clients prefer privacy-and a great measure of discretion. There are no video cameras to record their comings and goings.”

Mike was practically on top of him. “Do you take photos of people who come through your front door?”

“No. That would be ridiculous. We get deliveries and service people and inquiries that have nothing to do with-”

“Go back, please, to that November 5th sign-in sheet, will you?” I said. “I’d like you to print out a copy of the signature.”

Will Jarvis didn’t lift a finger.

I picked up the plastic bag and waved it in his face.

“The number again, please?” he said.

I read the four digits that were handwritten on the bottom of the tag. “8521.”

“What? That can’t be right,” Jarvis said. “Our identification numbers are longer sequences than that.”

“Not those handwritten numbers on the tag,” Mercer said to me. “Give him the figures in red print.”

I found them and read them aloud while Jarvis entered them in his computer. The printer groaned again and rolled out a copy of the signature of a B. Wicks.

“Maybe Eddie Wicks came here right after the storm of the century,” Mike said, “to pick up something he must have wanted pretty badly.”

“He’s one possibility,” I said. “That’s for sure. But why is Jillian Sorenson so arch about all this? She certainly didn’t want us up on the ninth floor and in the room where this receipt was found. If she didn’t want to be caught with her hand in the till, what better than to sign Bernice’s name?”

I looked to see whether Will Jarvis reacted to my speculation about Sorenson, but he was stone-faced.

“You both seem to be ignoring the fact that Vergil Humphrey has known Eddie Wicks-and Bernice-for a very long time,” Mercer said. “And he claims to have been the keeper of the black angel.”

“What about it?” I asked.

“Well, the angel was found in the Park with both of the silver pieces. I’m just sayin’-because a man is toothless doesn’t mean he can’t write.”