Quick & Dirty

26

After breakfast Stone went back to his house and entered through the street door.

“Good afternoon,” Joan said.

“It’s ten past nine.”

“Your mail and messages,” she said, handing them to him.

“Do I detect a whiff of disapproval?” Stone asked.

“I don’t disapprove of anything you do,” she replied. “Even when it’s stupid.”

“Oh, thank you.” He went to his office. The message on top was from Arthur Steele. Stone called his direct line.

“Good morning, Stone. Have you found my picture?”

“Not yet, Arthur, and I’m going to need another ten days.”

“That’s a negotiating tactic,” Steele replied. “You want another week.”

“No, Arthur, I need another ten days. I know your deadline won’t expire before then. You were just building in an edge. I also know that your eighteen months runs not from the day of the theft, but from the day a claim was filed.”

Steele ignored that. “Are you making progress?”

“Yes, in the sense that I’m eliminating possibilities.”

“Oh, all right, you can have another ten days,” Steele said, “but that’s about it.”

Stone knew the “about” meant he had longer than that. “Thank you, Arthur. I’ll be in touch.” He hung up before Steele could ask any further questions.

Joan buzzed. “Art Masi to see you.”

“Send him in.”

Masi came in looking desolate and flopped into a chair. “I’m done,” he said. “I can’t meet your deadline.”

“It’s all right, Art,” Stone said, “I got us another week.”

“How did you do that?”

“Never mind, I got it. We’re making progress, Art, don’t be discouraged.”

“Why shouldn’t I be discouraged? Every idea I’ve had has been a dead end.”

“You’re eliminating possibilities, Art.”

“Name a possibility I’ve eliminated.”

“Mark Tillman didn’t commit suicide. That was a possibility.”

“How do we know that?”

“Because he wouldn’t send himself a package containing a sixty-million-dollar work of art if he didn’t expect to be there to receive it.”

“He would have expected his wife to receive it.”

“Then he would have addressed it to her.”

“It wasn’t even insured.”

“Not with FedEx, maybe, but his household insurance covered it as a listed piece of art, and because it’s listed, he wouldn’t even have to pay a deductible.”

“That is correct.”

“Oh, by the way, I checked with the doorman this morning, and he says they never received a FedEx package for Tillman on or about that date.”

“But FedEx says a doorman signed for it.”

“They don’t know the doormen — anybody could have signed for it.”

“How about the maid?” Art asked.

“Nope, she’s there mornings only, gone by one o’clock. The doormen never delivered it to the apartment.”

“You think the doormen are art thieves?”

“Maybe. They know more about what goes on in the building than anybody else, including who owns important art.”

“Okay, I’ll investigate the doormen.”

Stone handed him a card. “This contains the names and numbers of everyone who’s employed by the building. I took it from a tray on the front desk.”

“While I’m at it, I’ll see if I can find out why they didn’t see Pio Farina and Ann Kusch enter the building the afternoon of Tillman’s murder.”

“Don’t bother. Pio and Ann rang Tillman’s bell at the service entrance, and he buzzed them in. They left the same way.”

“How do you know all this stuff?”

“Because I’ve spent more time in the building than you have,” Stone replied. “I’ve come to know how it works. I’ll give you an example. Suppose you wanted to buy an apartment in the building. Who would you call?”

“I’d find out which realtor sold the last unit that went and call her.”

“No, a waste of time, and very expensive. You’d be smarter to let a doorman know that there’s ten thousand dollars in cash available if you can find the right apartment there.”

“How would the doormen know?”

“Because they know everything that goes on in the building. They know who’s having an affair and whether it’s with someone in the building. They know which couple is about to divorce. They know which tenant is chronically late with his maintenance payments, meaning he’s had a downturn in his business and can’t afford the place anymore. They know who’s dying, creating a vacancy. They don’t have to wait for the obituary to run in the Times. Did you know that when the news got out that Marilyn Monroe had died, there was a long line of people waiting to bribe the doorman for a shot at the place?”

“I didn’t know that,” Art said.

“The doormen hold the keys to the kingdom, especially in a building as desirable as that one. You find a doorman who has a low credit score, or who owes his bookie too much money, and that will be the guy who’s helpful when it comes to making a package disappear.”

“I see your point,” Masi said.

“Mark Tillman, before he sent the package to himself, would have crossed a doorman’s palm handsomely and said, ‘I”m expecting a FedEx on Wednesday. Don’t deliver it, just put it in my storage unit,’” Stone said. “By the way, did you search Tillman’s storage unit? Every apartment has one, and the doormen have a key.”

“We had a look around the storage area, but we didn’t have a key to the Tillman unit,” Masi said. He excused himself and left.

Stone picked up the phone and called Pio Farina’s house in East Hampton. Ann Kusch answered. “Yes?”

“Ann, it’s Stone Barrington.”

“Good morning, Stone.”

“I have a question for you. When you and Pio went to Mark Tillman’s apartment on the day he died, how did you enter the building?”

“Through the service entrance. Mark said there was some work being done on the elevator, and that it might not be working. He told us to go to the service entrance, call him from downstairs, and he would buzz us in.”

“And how did you depart the building?”

“The same way.”

“Thank you, Ann, that’s all I need to know.”

He hung up. He had been right when he had told Art that.