Lethal Legacy

THIRTY-SIX

“So everybody’s keeping secrets from me, huh?” Mike said, combing his fingers through his hair. “First Minerva Hunt and then you. All of a sudden I find out you’re so worried about my temper, you won’t even call me when one of the Griggs takes you for a ride. Do you honestly think I’d do something stupid to compromise Kayesha Avon’s case after eight long years?”

The three of us were standing in front of Tina Barr’s building. Mike had been on his way to the apartment when Mercer reached him as we left the hospital room.

“I apologize,” I said. “It just seemed smarter at the time to let someone else in the squad handle last night’s episode.”

“It would have seemed smarter to me at the time not to get in the frigging cab with Anton Griggs. He’s got a rap sheet longer than the Holland Tunnel.”

“You didn’t mention that when you testified at the hearing.”

“Don’t give me attitude, Coop. Anton doesn’t bother with his birth name too often. He’s got a different alias for just about every arrest. Most of the collars are in Jersey, so I missed it first time around, okay?”

“What’s the plan, Mike?” Mercer asked, ever the peacemaker. “I told Alex not to call you. Let her be.”

“Falling on your sword for her again, huh? Do it too often and there’ll be permanent puncture wounds in your heart,” Mike said, tapping his fingers on his chest. “Don’t say anything, Blondie. It’s only a joke.”

I felt a pang of guilt and looked away.

“Bea Dutton is on the subway, on her way to meet me here. She wants to show me the historical footprint of these buildings.”

While we waited, Mercer told Mike the details of our interview with Jane Eliot.

He had barely finished the story when Mike pulled out his cell phone.

“Slow it down,” Mercer said. “Who are you calling?”

“Carmine Rizzali. If I find that useless thug who she pays to protect her, we’ll know where Minerva Hunt is.”

I could see Bea walking from Lexington Avenue, waving as she saw us standing on the steps of the brownstone.

Mike slapped the phone shut. “Doesn’t even go to voice mail. Guess he’s catching on,” he said. “Yo, Bea. What have you got for me?”

“Can we go inside, so I can spread out my maps?”

“Sure,” Mike said, leading us down to the basement apartment-the scene of Tina’s assault and Karla’s murder. Crime scene tape was still draped across the doorway, but Mike had brought a key with him.

When we reached the kitchen table, Bea unzipped her bag. “What do you know about these buildings?” she asked.

“Only that there’s lousy karma in this basement lately.”

“It didn’t start out that way,” she said. “You know something about the Hunts, I take it?”

“Nothing good,” Mike said. “Educate me.”

“Jasper Hunt and John Jacob Astor became partners in the real estate business. What Manhattan properties Astor didn’t buy, Hunt did.”

Bea Dutton spread out one of her maps on the table.

“Here’s where we’re standing,” she said, pointing at East Ninety-third Street on a copy of a fairly primitive map of the city. “This row of brownstones was built in 1885. Pretty swell digs at the time.”

Mike squinted and looked at the writing. “Now, how can you tell when it was built?”

“I did the vertical search for you,” Bea said, knowing she had captured Mike’s interest. “The 1884 maps don’t show any of the structures. The next year, here they are.”

“Why were these maps created annually?”

“Did you ever hear of the Great Fire of 1835?”

Mercer and I were shaking our heads, but Mike answered, “Yes. It destroyed hundreds of buildings in lower Manhattan.”

“That’s right,” Bea said. “Everything that was in today’s Wall Street area. These are called Sanborn maps, made by a company right after that fire. They were done for insurance purposes, for claims. Sanborn had the idea for these very detailed maps, showing every structure on the island. Can you see?”

Her finger pointed from building to building as she talked. “The brick buildings, like these, were colored in pink. Things built for industrial use were green. And down the block a bit, you see the yellow ones? Those represent wood frame houses-more likely to burn, less likely to get a good insurance rate.”

“Why is this one both pink and yellow?” Mike asked.

“A brownstone, but with a wooden porch in the backyard. I want you to hold that thought, because it’s going to come in handy a few maps down the road,” Bea said. “In the meantime, I can also tell you why these homes were built.”

“We’re all ears.”

“Jasper Hunt-the great-grandfather of Tally and Minerva-wanted a residence for his mistress. Close to Fifth Avenue, but not so close his wife would be able to smell her perfume,” Bea said.

“Now, how do you know that?” Mike asked, patting her on the back.

“I’ve got a library card, Mr. Chapman. It serves me well. There were tabloids even back in those days. Five buildings in this row. The one we’re in was completed first, and then the one next door was built for the mother of his mistress-a deal the young lady was smart enough to insist upon. The other three weren’t quite as grand, but Mr. Hunt built them for servants and staff.”

“And Minerva was still using the basement for the hired help,” Mercer said, referring to Tina Barr.

“The next structural change to note is in 1912,” Bea said, layering her maps on top of each other. “Something very interesting has been added to the rear of this building.”

“What’s that?” Mike asked. “Can we see it?”

“Look closely. Attached to one side of the pink drawing that represents the house, there’s a small black rectangle.”

“Got it,” Mike said. “But what does it mean?”

“It’s an indication that some kind of chamber was added out in the yard-something that would be impervious to fire and water. That’s what the black color code tells us. It’s not as deep as the basement we’re in, which was really helpful for me to know.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Remember yesterday, when Mike made me cancel my meeting with the Department of Transportation about the flooding in the Empire State Building? The men were coming to study the Viele map, so that gave me the idea to search out this site on that.”

“I know you’re the map maven,” Mike said. “But I’m trying my best to follow this.”

“Let me make it easy for you,” she said. From her briefcase she removed another thick paper, which she unfolded, revealing a vividly colored reproduction of a topographical map of Manhattan. “See there? Egbert Viele, 1865.”

This one had a street grid superimposed on the island, but no structures or buildings. Instead, it showed a city full of ponds, natural springs, and streams, from its southern to northern tips, before it was paved over and populated.

“This is Greenwich Village,” Bea said. “You can see Minetta Stream coursing below Washington Square. And there’s a creek, just underneath Broadway in the Twenties. This blue line, up in Harlem, right around One Hundred and Fortieth Street? That’s also a stream.”

And then her fingertip led our eyes to First Avenue, just east of the Hunt buildings. “And that, my friends, is an underground pond, where water pools and collects-to this very day, no doubt. The stream that leads from it comes right below our feet. You can’t possibly trace them today, but every architect in the city still uses this map-like an X-ray of the island-to find out where the leaks are coming from.”

“So what’s your deduction, Sherlock?” Mike asked the diminutive librarian.

“Elementary,” she said. “Who owned the buildings by 1912?”

“You’ve got better sources on the Jasper Hunts than I do,” Mike said.

“Jasper Junior had just come into his own. Don’t forget, he did his world tour, visiting all the European principalities, in 1905. By 1912, according to the yellow journalists of the day, Junior took over where his father left off. He moved his late father’s mistress in with her mother, next door, and brought his own to live right here.”

How had Minerva first described the predilections of the Hunt men? Rare books, expensive wine, and cheap women. Jasper Hunt Jr. had a wife, a mistress, and, later in life, perhaps an inappropriate interest in young girls like Edith Wharton Eliot.

“So what is this chamber he built in the backyard made of-Kryptonite?” Mike asked.

“Not so deep as this basement, where we’re standing,” Bea said. “After all, if something was likely to flood in here, it would be ruined. Seems to me, if a man had valuables he wanted to protect-”

“And if Jasper was more than a little bit eccentric, enough so not to entrust things to a bank vault…”

“Maybe he built his own vault, right in his babe’s backyard?” Bea said. “Maybe that’s where she kept her jewels.”

Mike straightened up and smiled for the first time that afternoon. “Or maybe that’s where he kept the panels of the great map of 1507. High and dry, locked in a waterproof, fireproof chamber where nobody was likely to look. Had to get past his lady love to get to the yard. Buried his treasure under his father’s favorite garden ornament.”

“Don’t tell me Billy Schultz didn’t know what his neighbor was digging for,” Mercer said, crossing the kitchen floor in three strides to open the back door.

Mike was on his tail just as quickly. “That’s a pretty deadly vertical search that landed Tina Barr so permanently horizontal.”