One Coffee With

15

SIGRID and Tillie had listened to Harley Harris's shame-faced account of his copied letters in astonishment.

When he'd finished, Tillie broke the news of Riley Quinn's death, something neither seemed to have been aware of before. Mr. Harris was instantly and indignantly on his guard when he realized that they were interested in his young son not because of his letters full of wild accusations but because they suspected him of murder.

"Okay, so he sent those dumb letters," he told Sigrid. "Dumb! Dumb! DUMB! he reminded Harley, who flinched beneath his father's verbal blows. "But," he said, swinging back to Sigrid, "just because he's dumb doesn't mean he's stupid."

"He uttered a threat in the presence of witnesses," Sigrid said mildly.

"But I didn't mean it!" wailed Harley.

"Shut up!" said his father. "Don't say another word. I'm calling our lawyer."

"If you wish," Sigrid said, pushing the telephone toward him, "but really at this point we're only interested in getting a descriptive statement from your son. The same sort of statement that everyone else who was there yesterday has given us quite freely. Of course, you know best for Harley, and if you feel you want a lawyer present, that's certainly your right."

Again she gestured toward the telephone, and this seemed to mollify the elder Harris. "Tell the lieutenant what she wants to know," he directed the boy.

Point by point Sigrid and Tillie took him through a recital of the previous morning's events.

No, he hadn't touched the cups, and he couldn't tell you what Nauman or Quinn or any of that bunch drank while they were wasting time up there. He was always too busy working down in his studio-"I'm a painter, not a coffee guzzler"-to hang out with those loudmouthed bull tossers. He wouldn't even have been up there yesterday, except that he'd had an appointment with Nauman. An appointment they had broken, he might add. Afraid to face him with the real reasons why he wasn't getting an M.F.A. degree. If his work wasn't any good, they should have warned him back in December. Oh, yes, Professor Leyden was his advisor, and yes, he'd told Harley the rest of the department didn't like primitives-not that he really was, you understand, but-

"Keep to the point," growled his father.

Okay. Yeah, he remembered seeing the tray on the bookcase. Two white foam cups from the cafeteria with writing on the lids. No, nobody'd touched them while he was in the office until Quinn came in. "At least, I don't think anybody did," he qualified nervously. His father snorted derisively. "Okay! Nobody!" he cried.

Tillie brought out the tray and handed Harley the two snap-on lids. "Could you arrange these lids the way the cups were sitting yesterday morning?"

The boy gnawed his thin lips apprehensively. "They were just there, side by side. I don't remember anything special about whether one was in front or anything like that."

"Christ!" said Mr. Harris. "Call yourself an artist, and you don't notice details? I can tell you every shoe in Foot Fair's windows for the last three years."

«r «i

"I'm not a window designer," whined Harley.

"Oh, yes, you are!" his father said meaningfully.

Pressed hard, Harley admitted remembering that Quinn had reached behind him to take a cup before closeting himself in the inner office.

'The one nearest you?" asked Tillie.

'I guess." Quinn had been on his high horse, he told them; and Nauman was just as rude, acting like he had nothing to do with getting him canned out of the graduate program.

"Jeez! Two years just down the drain, and what I'm going to do now-"

"You'll come into the business with your brother and me as you should've done six years ago," said Mr. Harris.

"But my art-"

"You can paint at night if you want. Or on Sundays. Look at Churchill. Look at Ike. Both of 'em decent painters, but did it stop 'em from winning the war or from running their countries and earning a good living?"

"They were hacks."

"And you're Michelangelo?"

It was evidently an old battle, and Sigrid stepped into it long enough to extract Harley's promise that he'd let them know if he remembered anything else.

When the Harrises, père et fils, departed, they were separated by more than a foot of open air; yet Sigrid was left with the distinct impression that Mr. Harris was pulling his son along by the ear.

Tillie rubbed his round chin and admitted that Harley Harris was probably out of it. "That makes it one down and seven tog o."

"Seven? Oh, yes, Mike Szabo," Sigrid said dubiously. She had shared with Tillie the background information on Szabo that Nauman had furnished the night before. "He probably had access to the poison closet, but I really don't see how he could have known which of those four cups was for Quinn."

"Still…" said Tillie, who hated to leave even the smallest pebble unturned.

Sigrid agreed that it probably wouldn't hurt for him to chase Mike Szabo down and get his statement on the record. "For all we know someone else could have been standing by the bookcase when he brought the tray in and left it."

"If that's the case, I bet I can tell you who it was."

"Who? David Wade?"

Tillie looked deflated that she'd thought of that angle, too, but he pressed on. "That Keppler girl looks like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, but I bet she'd lie for Wade without blinking those baby blue eyes."

"When you've finished with Szabo, you might stop by Vanderlyn and ask Keppler where David Wade was yesterday morning; see what her reaction is. And while you're at it," Sigrid added, "better see the dean of-" She had to search through her notes to find the right title. Tillie nodded thoughtfully as she explained what she wanted to know.

For the next couple of hours Sigrid worked steadily at the accumulation of reports on her desk. Gradually the pile dwindled, disappeared; all except for a media query, which she carried to Captain McKinnon. "Do I have to keep doing these interviews?" she asked sourly, remembering Andrea Ross's gibe about being the Police

Departments's showcase model.

McKinnon looked at the innocuously worded request. It was from a women's magazine, one slanted toward a readership of women who, if they held jobs, worked more to supplement the family's income than to carve out careers of their own. He tossed it back to her.

"What's wrong, Harald? You ashamed to talk about police work?"

"Of course not! If that's what they'd ask me about," Sigrid said tightly, "but they won't. They'll ask about my personal life-you know, does-my-husband-mind-my-being-a-policewoman sort of thing-and they'll probably think it a waste of time when they find out I haven't got a husband. Anyway, aren't there enough women police officers around that we're not a novelty any longer?"

"Apparently not," McKinnon said heartlessly. "I don't see the problem, Harald. You've conducted enough interviews to know how to steer one."

He held up his hand to forestall further protest. "Look upon it as building up Brownie points for the department. Public relations. The commissioner appreciates good public relations."

Sigrid marched back to her small office grimly and telephoned the magazine. Upon being connected with the junior editor who'd requested the interview, she summoned a cordial tone to her voice and expressed her willingness to talk. "Unfortunately my only free time is tomorrow morning at eight A.M."

Silence from the editor, then timidly, "What about lunch, Lieutenant? On us, of course."

"Sorry," Sigrid said. "I have a previous engagement."

"Well, we're not in that big a hurry. What about day after tomorrow. We could meet-"

"I'm afraid I'm booked rather solid," Sigrid said firmly. "Perhaps you'd have better luck with someone in a different department. Now Sergeant Louella Dickerson over in Missing Persons…"

"Oh, no, Lieutenant. We're all so intrigued with the idea of a woman chasing down murderers, almost a female Kojak. Eight o'clock? I'll certainly be there."

She sounds like a gusher, Sigrid thought pessimistically. She glanced at her watch.

Ten-forty and she was due in court at eleven.

It was an appearance connected with a case completed two months before. Routine, but time-consuming. Despite the district attorney's previous promise, she wasn't called to testify until after lunch. She wasn't on the stand very long. The defense lawyer had come up against her before, so he didn't try the court's patience by attempting to confuse her in cross-examination. The last time he'd tried that, her cool dignity and unruffled professionalism had convinced a teetering jury of his client's guilt.

She was free a little after two and decided against going back to the office just then. Somehow facing another round of reports seemed unbearably dreary, though she would have denied any touch of spring fever.

Last night's rain had scoured sky, air and pavements, and in the afternoon sunlight the sky looked bluer than usual, buildings seemed more sharply edged, and Central Park 's spring foliage shone greener. These things Sigrid barely noticed as she drove uptown. A short while later she parked by a fire hydrant almost in front of Riley Quinn's brownstone and flipped down her sun visor to reveal a discreet notice that she was on official police business. As she stepped from her car, what her practical mind did appreciate about last night's rain was that it had washed the sidewalks so clean that one didn't have to watch where one was putting every step-a true boon considering the city's canine population.

She crossed the street, lightly dodging a chauffeured limousine. There was a spray of white carnations tied with black satin ribbons on the gleaming oak door, a homely old-fashioned symbol that Sigrid hadn't expected of Riley Quinn's wife.

The woman who answered the doorbell was short and stout with iron gray hair, which ballooned improbably around a plain face made even plainer by tear-blotched skin and swollen red eyes. Hers was the first sign of real grief for Quinn's death that Sigrid had seen.

The woman seemed to assume that Sigrid had called to offer condolences. "I'm Millie Minton," she said, taking Sigrid's hand in hers and pressing it sadly as she drew Sigrid across the threshhold,

"Riley's sister. It's so good of you to come."

As tactfully as possible Sigrid retrieved her hand and identified herself.

"Police!" Mrs. Minton's eyes widened, then flooded with fresh tears. "Oh, poor Riley! How could anyone have killed him? It's just dreadful. What a horrible way to die!"

"I'm sorry to intrude," Sigrid said uncomfortably, "but if I might speak to Mrs. Quinn?"

"Yes, of course, Lieutenant." She blew her nose again with a sodden handkerchief and smoothed her black dress down over well-corseted hips as she turned.

Beyond the grieving woman the living room was crowded with earlier callers who had lapsed into discreet conversation. It needed only the tinkle of ice against glass to be mistaken for a well-bred cocktail gathering, though none of last night's bottles and glasses were visible this afternoon. Yet there was soft laughter from one group, which quickly hushed when Mrs. Minton led Sigrid past the open archway. Sigrid found herself scanning the gathering for a tall white-haired figure and was annoyed with herself when she realized what she was doing.

Across the room Jake Saxer flushed and turned away as the full force of her scowl fell on him. Sigrid had been unaware of him until his movement of withdrawal, and her eyes narrowed. Why was he afraid to meet her gaze, she wondered, unconscious of her formidable frown.

Mrs. Minton opened the door to Quinn's study at the end of the wide entrance hall. "I'll tell Doris you're here," she said.

Left alone, Sigrid circled the leather-bound study with interest. Riley Quinn's domain was more or less what she would have expected-pretentiously academic, almost a stage set, yet showing signs of serious work in that rear wall of counters and files. Some partially open file drawers struck a jarring note in the otherwise precisely ordered room. Had Quinn removed a folder hurriedly on his way to Vanderlyn yesterday morning? And what had he used that crowbar for? Surely it was an odd tool to find standing in the corner of a scholar's study? Visions of monumentally stuck drawers were put aside for the time being, however, as the door opened and Doris Quinn entered.

She was followed by her uncle, courtly and dapper in a gray silk suit and dark red tie. J. Duncan Sylvester was completely bald and had small pointed ears and thick white eyebrows, which he used for emphasis. He looked like an intelligent, wizened elf, and he raised one tufted eyebrow in surprise now. Riley's sister had merely said that a police officer wished to see Doris; she hadn't specified that the lieutenant was female. The publisher of The Loaded Brush was a thoroughgoing chauvinist where his niece was concerned, and he'd accompanied her to keep some hard-nosed male officer from bullying her. Fleetingly he wondered if he might not be superfluous in this interview.

A second look at Lieutenant Harald's cool gray eyes made him decide he'd better stay after all. Sylvester doted on his niece, but he had no illusions about her mental stature, and this severe-faced young woman looked quite capable of making mincemeat of Doris. He introduced himself, clearly intending to guide the interview.

Sigrid responded politely, but her fullest attention was on Quinn's widow.

If Doris Quinn had shed any tears that morning, no traces of them were visible now. Her leaf green eyes were clear, her skin creamy perfection. She wore an oatmeal-colored dress whose simple cut enhanced her own generous lines and made Sigrid feel stick shaped and ill clothed. She knew, too, that Doris Quinn had sensed her discomfort, for the blonde had visibly relaxed as if she held a secret weapon that made her invulnerable.

Oh, no, you don't, thought Sigrid. She was stung into murmuring coldly, "I'm glad to see you're feeling better this morning, Mrs. Quinn."

Unfazed, Doris smiled sweetly. Long ago she had learned that the best defense is not defense at all-polite apologies and no explanations. "I'm sorry I couldn't speak with you last night, Lieutenant Harald. So inconvenient for you, having to come back twice."

"Not at all," Sigrid said, ashamed of her flash of cattiness now that she had herself back under control.

Unaware of the undercurrents, Sylvester knitted his thick white eyebrows at her. "How close are you to discovering who did this terrible thing, Lieutenant?"

"That's difficult to say, sir. I was hoping Mrs. Quinn might be able to help us."

"Me? How?"

"Were you aware of any conflicts your husband might have been having lately? Did he mention anyone who might have hated him enough to want him dead?"

"No, of course not," said Doris, but her eyes sought her uncle's counsel.

"Marc Humphries was furious about Riley's review last month," Sylvester said after brief concentration, "but I know for a fact that he's been in Japan since last week. What about Karoly's nephew?"

"That funny little Hungarian?" asked Doris. "Riley fussed about him being at the college, but they weren't actually fighting still. Not lately."

Sigrid heard the dubious tone in her voice. "There was someone more recent, wasn't there?"

"We-ell… Oh, but I'm sure it didn't mean anything."

Sigrid persisted until Doris finally said, "He and Jake Saxer had a fight the night before last." She described what she'd overheard between the two men, and Sigrid had the impression that she was repeating words she'd spoken before-though not to her uncle. Sylvester's keen blue eyes darted attentively back and forth between the two women.

"Arguments are almost inevitable between collaborators," he interposed smoothly, "especially when a book is taking its final shape, and one has to be ruthless about what's included and what must-by the exigencies of space-be omitted. Each tends to play devil's advocate for every example the other wishes to exclude."

Sigrid let that pass undebated. "And you can think of no one else, Mrs. Quinn? Did he ever mention conflicts with students or colleagues?"

Doris Quinn shook her elegant blonde head emphatically, but Sigrid still sensed a holding back. Who was she protecting? Leyden? She started to frame another question, but they were interrupted by Millie Minton, who seemed flustered as she opened the door.

"There's a person here who-"

The person in question was stocky and pugnacious, dark of hair and broad of face, and he elbowed past Mrs. Minton, who still stood in the doorway, nodded to her genially and closed the door, leaving her outside. "Mrs. Quinn?" he asked, looking from Sigrid to Doris.

Doris nodded, and the young man strode across the study's Persian rug to hand her an official-looking document.

"What's that?" cried Sylvester.

"A restraining order barring the sale and/or disposal of any artworks of any kind allegedly belonging to the estate of the late Riley Quinn," the stranger said cheerfully. His beautifully cut dark green suit and crisp striped tie contrasted with his cocky street-fighter body, and Sigrid caught a hint of smugness in his tone.

"Allegedly?" she queried.

The man had merry black eyes that twinkled when they met her gray ones, as if the two of them shared a very rich joke. Sigrid began to suspect they might, and she moved aside as J. Duncan Sylvester beetled his tufted brows angrily and demanded to know who he was, and what he meant be barging into a house of bereavement like this?

"My name is Stephen Laszlo," said the stocky stranger, handing Sylvester a card.

"An attorney? Whom do you represent?"

"Michael Szabo," smiled the lawyer, "nephew and rightful heir of Janos Karoly."

"Oh, for God's sake! Is he digging that up again?" Sylvester turned to Doris. "Riley must have had a copy of Karoly's will here someplace, honey. See if you can find it for Mr.-" He looked at the lawyer's card distastefully. "Ah, yes, Mr. Laszlo."

"Don't bother," said Laszlo cheerfully. "I've seen it."

"And you doubt its authenticity?" Sylvester's tone was glacial.

"Certainly not!" said Laszlo, feigning shocked anxiety. "You don't, either, do you? I must warn you we can bring witnesses who will vouch that it's in Karoly's handwriting."

It was the proper approach, thought Sigrid appreciatively, watching Sylvester's face change from anger to caution. "If you accept its legality-" he began.

"Accept? My client insists upon it," beamed Laszlo, thoroughly enjoying himself.

"I don't understand, Uncle Duncan," Doris said plaintively. "Riley always said the pictures were his. Aren't they?"

"Of course they are!" Sylvester snapped.

"No, no," said the lawyer. "On that point we must disagree."

Until then all had remained standing. Now Laszlo considerately offered Doris Quinn one of the leather armchairs and seated himself in another, placing his briefcase on the table between them. Sigrid's lips twitched as he offered to bring a chair for her; she shook her head, preferring to lean against a bookcase where she could watch the comedy unfold. J. Duncan Sylvester, his tufted eyebrows beetling furiously, found himself seated behind Riley Quinn's desk.

"You see, Mrs. Quinn," the young lawyer began confidentially, "we have to ask ourselves why Janos Karoly would leave his entire estate to your husband and completely disinherit his own blood nephew?"

"He. liked Riley," said Doris. "Riley helped him, and it was Karoly's way of repaying him."

"Now, Doris," said Sylvester, "that was before you met Riley and-"

"But he told me all about it," Doris said indignantly. "Karoly trusted him and wanted him to have the pictures."

"'Karoly trusted him!'" Stephen Laszlo repeated her words as if they were a gift from heaven. He smiled at Sylvester and Sigrid. "I do hope you'll both remember that if you're called upon to testify." He turned back to Mrs. Quinn. "Of course he trusted your husband. It was a noble thing Dr. Quinn did-helping Karoly come to America, giving him a place to live and paint. But why did he come to America at all, Mrs. Quinn? Do you know?"

Sylvester drummed his fingers on the leather desk top impatiently. "We've no need of history lessons, Mr. Laszlo. You know as well as anyone else that he came because the Communist takeover in Hungary made it unsafe for him to remain there."

"You're quite right, Mr. Sylvester, I do know." Deliberately Laszlo forced their awareness of the almost imperceptible accent that underlay his own speech. "In 1956 it became unsafe for anyone to mention freedom in Hungary. In speech, in literature and in art. Had he remained, Janos Karoly would have been shot, his paintings burned as decadent trash. It was that way in '56, '57, '58, '59."

The numbers fell like hammer blows, and Sigrid decided he was probably an excellent courtroom lawyer.

"And it was still so in 1960," Laszlo continued inexorably, "the year Janos Karoly, knowing he was an old man who could not outlive the Communist regime, made his will and died."

"A will that left everything to Riley Quinn," Sylvester repeated doggedly.

"Because he trusted Quinn to hold them for his nephew!" Laszlo thundered.

"Rubbish!"

In lieu of further argument Stephen Laszlo opened his briefcase and took out several papers. He gave one to Doris Quinn and two others to the bald publisher. "I have extras," he told Sigrid, his black eyes dancing again.

"Would you care to see one, Miss-"

"Lieutenant," corrected Doris, automatically remembering the duties of a hostess. "This is Lieutenant Harald from the Police Department."

"Uh-oh!" said the lawyer. Then he shrugged and gave Sigrid a copy anyhow.

"Uh-oh, indeed!" said Sylvester grimly. "Where did you get this?"

it

it.

What is it?" cried Doris. "I can't read it"

"Here's a rough translation, Mrs. Quinn," he said helpfully, handing her a copy of the second paper he'd given her uncle.

Sigrid quickly scanned her two sheets. The first was a photocopy of a page from an artist's notebook, about fourteen inches square. There were small pen-and-ink sketches on the page, some partially obliterated by a spiky European handwriting. The first half of the page, dated 3 août I960, was in French and seemed related to problems illustrated by the sketches. The bottom lapsed into a language she didn't understand but suspected was Hungarian.

On the second sheet was a translation of the entire page. She skimmed through the part about the drawings-something about a 'nexus'-which seemed to have continued into Hungarian as it became more technical about color theory and the mathematics of wave patterns. Abruptly the subject changed from the abstract to the personal:

… today have I written my will, trusting all to R. The hellhounds who ravage my homeland will have nothing of me. When I am dead, my pictures will begin to be worth much. R. has promised to help my nephew escape and come also to this country. When he comes, my paintings will be a rich inheritance for this child of my sister. Blood of my father's blood. It pains me that I cannot write this in my will, but R. says that to do so would be to endanger my nephew's chances of ever escaping. That the government here would have to send my pictures there because he is still a citizen of Hungary. O my country! How thy son grieves for thy interconnected hills, nexus of my life…!

The writing returned to technical problems of light and color.

" Doris," said Sylvester in an odd voice, "where did Riley keep Karoly's notebooks?"

The blonde widow looked blank. "Notebooks?"

"Did he have a safe?"

Doris shook her head. "Would they be on the bookcase?"

"Try the file cabinets," Sigrid suggested, pointing to a drawer that was still open,

"but I'd use a pencil if I were you. There might be fingerprints."

The drawer included the K section of the alphabet, and it was obvious that at least two inches of material were missing.

"By thunder, you're a witness, Lieutenant!" Sylvester cried. "Arrest that man! He and Szabo have stolen the notebooks."

Doris Quinn chose that moment to discover the crowbar. "What's this thing doing here?"

"Put that down!" her uncle ordered crossly. "It probably has fingerprints, too."

"I doubt it," said Laszlo. "Anybody who's ever watched a week of American television knows enough to wear gloves."

"There, you see? He admits it," said Sylvester. "They arrive like vultures the minute Riley is dead, use a crowbar to break in, ransack the files, steal the notebooks-"

"Was the door forced?" Sigrid asked. "I didn't notice."

"It was unlocked when P-" Doris caught herself. "When I opened it this morning," she amended.

"It seems to me you aren't taking this very seriously," Sylvester told Sigrid.

"If you think there's sufficient evidence for arrest," Sigrid answered, "then you should call your local precinct station. This isn't my jurisdiction, and I'm not in Burglary."

"But there's the crowbar." He noticed a metallic labeling tape on the tool and bent his round bald head closer: "Property of Vanderlyn College, CUNY.' That proves it."

"What does it prove?" asked Laszlo. "Dr. Quinn could have borrowed it himself."

"Well, he sure as hell didn't lend Szabo those notebooks! How do you explain that?"

"I don't," shrugged the lawyer. "How they entered my client's possession is not my concern, and unless you can prove culpability," he added sternly, "I should remind you of the laws of slander. Anyhow, my client no longer has them. They've been turned over to the custody of the courts, and there they'll remain until legal ownership of Janos Karoly's estate is settled."

He nodded to Sigrid, bowed to Doris. "Good day, Lieutenant, Mrs. Quinn. I'll see myself out, thanks."

"What does he mean, Uncle Duncan?" asked Doris when the lawyer had gone. "Karoly's estate was settled. Riley even sold some of the pictures to pay the inheritance taxes."

Sylvester seemed not to have heard her. He was staring at the photocopies Laszlo had given him. "Poor Riley," he said at last. "I used to wonder why he didn't publish the notebooks. In spite of everything he was a true historian. He must have known Karoly mixed in damaging personal remarks when he wrote in Hungarian, but New World Nexus was Karoly's greatest painting, and he couldn't bring himself to destroy any of the artist's notes on the creation of such a masterpiece."

He picked up the restraining order Stephen Laszlo had brought and looked over at his niece. "We shall have to get you a very good lawyer, my dear."