The Bone Vault

26

The heavily tattooed upper arm of a large man was on the floor inside the glass case.

In the background, a halo of clouds floated over Box Canyon, above a purple haze that set the background for the jaguar diorama. The three carnivorous felines sat self-satisfied among the cacti and shrubs as they had for fifty years, but now they looked as though they had just enjoyed a fresh meal.

The slow-moving security guards had closed the gallery and ushered the frightened schoolchildren out of the building.

Mike and I stood in front of the glass, while Elijah Mamdouba and Richard Socarides had stepped back from the exhibit into the dimly lit corridor. Socarides was doing the curatorial version of “not my job.”

“Elijah, African mammals is upstairs. I’ve not got a thing to do with the Americans. I couldn’t begin to tell you what’s gone on here.”

“Looks like that’s got some age on it,” I said to Mike, bending over with my hands on my knees. “Like it had been tanned, almost, and preserved. Like an animal hide.”

He had stepped away briefly to call his lieutenant and ask for the Crime Scene Unit to come over to do a run.

“Mr. Mamdouba, how do you get into these things, these dioramas?”

“Quite difficult, Mr. Chapman. Most of these are sealed. It’s really a big production to get inside. When we do restoration, or when we touch up those wonderful background paintings, we have to remove the entire plate-glass window.”

“I’m a bit more familiar with these, Detective. If Elijah doesn’t mind. There’s a door on the side of each diorama. Locked, of course. But above each one is a catwalk.”

“A catwalk?”

“Technicians have to get inside every few months to change the lightbulbs. We’ve had terrible problems with lighting, you see. Fluorescent bulbs damaged many of the animals. Faded my poor zebra stripes terribly. It’s narrow up on top, but that would be the way to drop something in with the animals.”

“And the keys to those doors, who would have them?”

“Everyone who works in restoration, most of the tech guys, and there are probably a few masters floating around among curators and even custodians.” Socarides reached into his pocket and came out with a chain, isolating a small key. He started to walk to the bronze door alongside the diorama.

“Whoa, buddy. We got a larceny here. Stolen limb, I suppose, and maybe a trespass. I got a couple of guys on the way over here to dust for prints and retrieve that arm from the case. Let’s not be putting our paws on anything just yet.”

It took almost an hour for the two detectives to arrive at the museum with their boxes of equipment. They set about meticulously examining the doorway before one of them climbed up to the catwalk. It was set fifteen feet above the diorama, so they ended up calling for a custodial crew and directed the removal of the window.

I waited for them to remove the arm with their gloved hands before trying to look it over.

“This guy’s got some miles on him,” Mike said. “Glad to know we didn’t screw up the commissioner’s body count overnight.”

A small sticker was taped to the skin on its underside. Mike read from the tag: “68.3206.”

He turned to Mamdouba. “Looks like a museum exhibit. Year and acquisition number.”

The director of curatorial affairs seemed to be relieved. “That’s a Metropolitan object. It’s not our tracking system. What a cruel joke this is.”

“They got human arms in an art museum?”

Mamdouba shrugged his shoulders.

I wrote the number on my legal pad. We would be seeing Thibodaux later today. I took Mike to the side while the detectives got the information they needed to complete their paperwork from Mamdouba.

“What’s your guess?”

“Sometime between the close of business yesterday, and admission time this morning, some clown decided to feed the jaguars. Is it an unconnected bad joke? Or a message for the two of us? Maybe Katrina’s killer is trying to throw us off guard. Depends on who has control of this grotesque piece of art. Must have been lifted out of some museum storage area.”

“If her killer works here, maybe he’s trying to get us to look harder at someone at the Met,” I suggested. “Or vice versa. Shake us up a bit.”

“He shook Mamdouba, all right. Human body parts, no matter how ancient and laminated, can’t be good for the crowds.”

We waited until the severed arm had been photographed and vouchered as evidence before making our way back down to the underground quarters of the exhibition. It was after two o’clock, and none of the members present for our morning meeting had remained to finish the interviews.

Zimm was around the corner in his office. “Sorry I sounded so freaked out when I interrupted your meeting this morning. You wouldn’t have believed the commotion upstairs. There’s a message for you to call your office, Ms. Cooper.”

I looked at the slip of paper. “Laura called. Good news.”

Zimm offered his desk phone and stepped out of the room with Mike, who was suggesting he keep his ears open to see what the scoop would be about the arm in the diorama.

I dialed Laura. “Just a minute, Alex. I’ll patch you through to Ryan.”

A moment of silence, then, “Alex? It went like clockwork. My Internet perv, Frederick Welch III, is now in custody.”

“He went for the whole thing?”

“Showed up at the museum right on time. Met the undercover at the horse’s ass, if you’ll excuse me. Right behind the rear end of Teddy Roosevelt’s steed, on the Central Park West steps. Opened up his overnight bag to show her that he had brought some weed and some pills with him-to relax her, for the first time-and walked right around to Seventy-seventh Street to register at the hotel.”

“And you got it on tape? I mean, saying that she’s thirteen?”

“She was perfect. While they’re walking, she says to him, ‘I lied to you. I’m really not thirteen. I won’t have my birthday for another two weeks. I’m still only twelve.’ He gave her a big squeeze and told her that was even better. He said he’d never made love to a twelve-year-old before.”

“How’d he react when they slapped the cuffs on him?”

“Whimpered a bit. Didn’t start to cry until Harry told him they had to do a lineup. Naked. They wanted to match his penis to the picture he sent on the e-mail. Bawled like a baby. Had to admit it really wasn’t a self-portrait. Oh, Alex, I hope you don’t mind. I asked public info to give the story to Mickey Diamond, for thePost. He says unless you solve your homicide case by midnight, I’m good for page one.”

“Much as I’d like to, I won’t be stealing your ink. What’s he got?”

“A mug shot of Freddie, with a banner that mimics the AOL greeting when you log on to e-mail:YOU’VE GOT JAIL!”

“I like it. Good job, all of you. Oh, Ryan, would you tell Harry I may need to beep him later? We’ve got a witness coming into town who had an on-line relationship with our deceased. I may need a court order to search some of the museum employees’ hard drives, and it could get more urgent by tonight or tomorrow.”

“I’ll tell him to expect you.”

Mike and I trudged up the stairs, through the hallways, and out onto the brilliantly sunlit sidewalk south of the museum. “You could forget what time of day it is in there. No windows.”

“Don’t we need to fortify ourselves before Thibodaux? I’ll buy you a burger.”

We took the transverse across Central Park at Eighty-first Street and drove up Madison. At the corner of Ninety-second Street, we parked and went into “ 92” for a late lunch. I called Thibodaux to make sure that he was in. A woman answered, not Eve Drexler, and confirmed our appointment.

By three-thirty, we had been admitted to the director’s office. “I’ll have to get back to you about that later,” he said to someone, hanging up the telephone. Then to us: “A bit humbling to be doing a job search after landing this position.”

“We heard about your resignation last week, of course. We’ve got quite a way to go with our investigation and we’re going to need-”

“My departure from the museum has nothing to do with your murder case, Miss Cooper. Despite what the newspapers say. And I have no plans to leave town.”

“You already made yourself unavailable to us last Friday by going to Washington for the weekend. Perhaps we should begin by asking for a copy of your schedule.”

“My trip to Washington was canceled, Miss Cooper. I never left the city.”

“But-but Ms. Drexler told us-”

“Well, Miss Drexler was mistaken. I was supposed to deliver the keynote address at the annual meeting of the American Association of Museums. It was recommended to me the night before, as I was packing to leave, that because of the hint ofscandale, as we say in France, it might be best if I developed a mild flu. The twenty-four-hour variety.”

“So you didn’t go to Washington on Friday?” I asked, thinking of Pablo Bermudez and his fall from the museum roof.

“I took the advice I was given and stayed at home.”

“Did you come to the museum at all?”

“I slipped in early to pick up some correspondence that I could take care of from my apartment, but I really didn’t want to deal with anyone here. This is all a bit embarrassing and uncomfortable for me. I wasn’t anxious to be seen.”

Neither did whoever pushed Bermudez to his death.

“I’m sorry Ms. Drexler felt it necessary to lie to us.”

“I’m afraid she did that at my direction. I was not expecting a call from either of you. I just meant for her to hold to the original story. Not that the museum organization would get any press attention, but there would be less opportunity for the piranhas from the media to feed on, if they heard I had backed out of my speech.”

“The man who died on Friday-”

“Another unforeseeable tragedy. Very bad timing for me.”

“And for him,” Mike said.

“Did you know Mr. Bermudez?” I asked.

“He was around these offices quite a bit,” Thibodaux said, motioning in a sweep with his hand. “One of the most reliable workers here, so we used him a lot to help oversee the movement of fragile objects and paintings that had to go from place to place. Bright young man. I can’t tell you I had any more personal relationship with him than that.”

“Mr. Thibodaux, would you mind telling us the reason for your resignation?”

He stood at the window looking out over Fifth Avenue, his jaw clenched and his stance rigid. “It has to do with an inquiry, an antiquities dealer who’s about to be indicted by your federal counterparts.”

“What for?”

“There were a number of laws passed in the last twenty years, in countries all over the world, preventing the sale of ancient objects that would take them out of their respective countries. Our Egyptian man, Timothy Gaylord, for example. He can’t acquire anything unless we know it was taken out of Egypt before 1983.”

“What’s the purpose?”

“Bleeding hearts argue that rich nations like ours are robbing the poorer ones, the ancient civilizations, of their cultural patrimony.”

“Aren’t you?”

“You think things are safer when they’re left at home in some of these impoverished, politically unstable environments, rather than made available for the world to see and learn from, Detective? You think the Taliban’s destruction of those magnificent Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001 was better than moving them out of Afghanistan? Imagine the risk some of these works of art are exposed to when left in their natural habitats.”

“And the indictment?” I asked.

“This dealer had a habit of getting some unique treasures out of very undesirable locations.”

“Smuggling?” I thought of Katrina’s file that we had retrieved from Bellinger’s office-the flea market fiasco-and how appalled she had been that Thibodaux had arranged to have the small ivory piece smuggled out of Geneva.

“Am I under oath, Miss Cooper?” He glared at me. “This dealer, they say, went so far as to create phony collections. Made up a fancy tale about an Edwardian collector in London who had owned the antiquities in question since the 1920s. Even baked the descriptive labels of the objects in an oven to give them some age.”

“And you bought them.”

“With a good number of other museums bidding on them. Yes, we actually bought some of them. I mean, think of it, Miss Cooper. Had this kind of legal reasoning taken hold a century ago, the museums of this country would be pitiful places. Wouldn’t be a blessed thing in them.”

“Is this about export policies or is it about theft, Mr. Thibodaux?”

“I’m stepping down, Miss Cooper. I’m hoping, quite frankly, that there will be a place for me back at the Louvre.”

“Shit, what an advantage your paisanos had. They’ve been stealing for centuries. Napoléon wiped out the Egyptians in his 1789 campaign. Brought boatloads back to France.” Mike removed a Polaroid photo of the severed arm that the crime scene guys had taken for us. “This appendage has one of your acquisition tags stuck on it. I’m sure it’s mismarked but I’d like you to see it.”

Thiboudaux looked at the mottled limb. “Someone’s having a bit of sport at your expense. President Raspen must be wild.”

“Why?”

“Actually, it was my idea to send this over to be used in the bestiary exhibition. A most unusual treasure for a great art museum like the Metropolitan.”

Who figured Thibodaux for a loony sense of humor? “A human arm? A real one?”

“I can’t tell you how we fought to get this piece. It came from the Hermitage, which had a stunning collection of Scythian objects.”

“Scythian? I’m not familiar-”

“It’s a remote mountainous region in western Siberia. They left great treasures of solid gold. Much of it was appropriate for the joint show because they were known for their decoration of mythical beasts. The Russians wound up with all this art, which is little known by the rest of the world.”

“And you brought it here?”

“My predecessors did, Montebello and Hoving. The Scythians were great fighters and kept herds of Mongolian ponies. So there were wonderfully worked leather saddles and gilded horse paraphernalia.”

“The arm, sir, what the hell is that doing here?”

“These people lived in the Altai mountains, where the temperatures were quite frozen in the winters. Birds, animals, entire human bodies were preserved for centuries, more perfectly than in the dry deserts of Egypt.”

Once again I was thoroughly confused. Would Katrina Grooten have been in such pristine condition because she had been in cold storage, or a warm, desiccated crypt? And why was it that all these cultural mavens knew as much about safeguarding bodies as a forensic pathologist?

“This is the arm, Detective, of a Scythian warlord, probably third centuryA.D. Somehow, they preserved these human hides, just like animals.” He put the photograph down on the windowsill and pointed at the serpentine tattoos that covered the deep brown skin. “See the combat motif, Mr. Chapman? Two stags facing off, muscles taut and legs poised to leap. And there, an eagle swooping down to grab its prey in its beak.”

The mere mention of the wordwarlord had caught Mike’s attention. “This guy’s got something to teach all these tattoo-crazy broads today. If I see one more shamrock or rose or heart on the cheeks of somebody’s ass or hiding in their cleavage-I mean, so pedestrian.”

Thibodaux glanced up at Mike.

“I’m not talking romance or my personal life. I’m talking dead bodies I come across. This one’s got style. So where was it?”

“It left the Met months ago. You ought to check with Mamdouba’s people. Someone must have pinched it out of the exhibition stock to stir up trouble over at Natural History.”

“Who knew it was there? Any of your people on the committee?”

“All of them, I would think. But all of Mamdouba’s folks, too.”

Thibodaux seemed to have charmed himself with his presentation of his knowledge of Scythian art and history. He was more at ease than when we had arrived.

Then Mike took another direction. “We found out an interesting little fact on Friday that we thought you could help us with.”

The director tilted his head and nodded, confident he had gained Mike’s respect.

“Katrina Grooten didn’t exactly have a formal send-off. Nobody got to go to her apartment and pick out her favorite suit or little black dress to be laid out in. It was a kind of come-as-you-are deal, you know?”

Thibodaux tensed again.

“She had on some cheap woolen slacks and dingy old underwear. But the odd thing is-and Ms. Cooper here is my expert on retail-she had on a cashmere sweater. Hand-knit, high-end, ritzy Madison Avenue label. So we check it out. Is this just a coincidence or do you know somebody named Penelope Thibodaux?”

“My late wife, Chapman. I assume you were smart enough to make that connection yourself.” He was angry now, almost spitting out words in Mike’s direction.

“So you didn’t know the Grooten girl, but your wife did?”

“My wife never met her. Look, I didn’t recognize that photograph you showed me the first day. Surely you understand that. That-that-death pallor and, how do you say, that morgue shot, it didn’t look anything at all like the young woman who worked here. I swear to you I wasn’t trying to mislead you. And even then, I didn’t remember her name. The last time I saw Ms. Grooten, she looked so full of life, so-”

“When was that?”

“Believe me, I’ve tried very hard to recall the circumstances.”

“The sweater, you wanna tell us about that?”

“That would have been last summer. Late in August, perhaps. Eve can give you a date. It was at my apartment. Not what you’re thinking, Detective. A cocktail party, a celebration for some of the trustees.”

“And Katrina, why would she be at something like that?”

“We were courting donors for the Cloisters, trying to raise interest-and money-for some items coming on the market. Bellinger put the whole thing together. I’m sure it was his decision to include staff. And to decide which staff.”

“Why at your place?”

He pointed out the window. “The apartment we live in-excuse me, I live in-is owned by the Met. It’s a penthouse on Fifth Avenue. We do a lot of entertaining there. On this particular occasion it was a very warm night. I had the caterer set the bar up out on my terrace. The view is quite magnificent, looking over the museum and the entire park. I remember that a girl, an employee, that is, was cold. Actually shivering.”

“But you said it was warm.”

“That’s what was so unusual. Everyone else was enjoying the chance to be outside. I noticed how uncomfortable she was.”

I thought of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress. This would only have been two months after Katrina’s brutal assault. I thought also of the signs of arsenic poisoning that Dr. Kestenbaum had described. Chills had been one of them.

“I offered her the opportunity to go inside, of course. But she felt that Hiram Bellinger very much wanted her to be part of the conversation with the trustees, since she was so knowledgeable about the pieces.” He fidgeted a bit. “I told her that I still had some of Penelope’s clothes in the apartment. I’m afraid I still hadn’t absorbed the finality of my wife’s death.”

“So you took her into the bedroom?”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Detective. No. I went in and found this sweater in one of the drawers. Quite frankly, I didn’t know what it was made of, if it’s the value that concerns you. I brought it out to the young woman and told her I’d be pleased if she kept it. It would be a favor tome, since Penelope was-well-gone.”

He thought for a moment and then went on, “I believe I inquired about whether she felt well enough to stay on, and if she had a way home. If I’m not mistaken, she lived near the Bellingers and told me that Hiram would see that she got home safely.”

“You knew, of course, from Hiram that Katrina had been raped leaving the Cloisters one night last June?”

“That was the girl? But I never put that together.” Thibodaux was agitated now. “I have a vague recollection that he told me about some incident in the park. That the employee in question didn’t want the police involved, didn’t want anyone to know what happened. What was I to do, Miss Cooper, violate her wishes? No, I had no idea that was Miss Grooten.”

Mike was practically in the face of the director. “How about back at the Louvre? Want to tell us about your trysts with Katrina in Paris or Toulouse?”

“You’ve got a wonderful imagination, Chapman. But you’re out of line. Dead wrong.”

Mike opened his notepad and read the date, almost three years earlier, that Grooten had been hired at the Metropolitan. “That’s exactly two months after you settled in here, isn’t it?”

“There’s always a turnover of staff with a new director. Check the numbers, you’ll see that my predecessor took dozens of young scholars with him to his new posting. I’m sure there were many openings around the time of my arrival.”

“And trustees who have told us they saw Katrina with you, at parties at the Louvre?”

“Fou!I would say to them in French. Completely mad.”

“They would be wrong?”

“Look, Miss Cooper, can I tell you that Katrina Grooten was never at the Louvre, when you tell me she was working in France at the time? We had receptions there-two, sometimes three nights a week. Openings of exhibits, receptions for artists, historical celebrations. I had to be at every one of them. Was she ever there? I don’t know. Was she with me? Certainly not. I would like to know who is telling you this rubbish. I’ve got enemies, for sure-”

“This information came from a supporter of yours, actually,” I said. “That’s one of the reasons I credited it.”

Mike cut in, sensing Thibodaux was on the ropes. “Is that information more or less reliable than the fact that when you went to London in January, to the British Museum, you were seen there with Katrina Grooten?”

He reddened and shouted at Mike, “Seenthere, Detective? I seriously doubt that.”

“I’ll make it crystal clear for you. I can prove that you signed in. And I can prove that Hiram Bellinger signed in with you. And even though I think my favorite medical examiner is gonna tell me Katrina was all boxed up in her sarcophagus, I can prove that you were cavorting around that museum with someone who was using her name. Dead girl walking?”

Thibodaux circled around Mike and sat in the chair behind his desk. “Hiram Bellinger’s plan. Foolish and quite unnecessary.”

“Which was?”

“The pieces we had gone to examine were French. Medieval French. We had a similar problem with their provenance, so it was going to be a little dicey to bring them back. Bellinger figured that if we decided to buy the collection, it would be wise not to do so in either of our names. To protect our reputations, of course.”

“The girl’s reputation didn’t matter, right?”

“Face it, Detective, she didn’t have one. She was just a beginner in this business. In her case, it could have been the harmless mistake of a young graduate student. Wouldn’t ruin her career, as it could ours.”

“So you’re telling us that Bellinger did this, knowing Katrina was dead?”

“Absolutely not. He assured me it was safe to do because she had just resigned from the Met and left the country a few weeks before our trip, at Christmas. She had mailed back her identification tag, as required, which was all we needed.”

“And Eve Drexler used it, to get into the British Museum with you and Bellinger.”

“Drexler’s twice her age. Didn’t anyone check the photograph?”

Thibodaux’s arrogance was unquenchable. “Now who do you think would bother to look at her plastic tag once they recognized me? There I am, director of the Metropolitan Museum, bringing two members of my staff to an executive meeting.”

Chapman knew now that Thibodaux had been lying the first time we met him, when he looked at the photograph of Katrina but denied knowing who she was. “That title, director of the Met-the title you used to have-you think that cloaks you with the power to do whatever you want, say whatever suits you?”

Thibodaux ignored him. But what did his lies conceal? Some knowledge of Katrina’s fate, or just a strategy to keep himself out of a brewing scandal?

I thought of Katrina’s letter of resignation that Bellinger had showed to us when we were first in his office. The single initial of the signature had appeared to be so easy to imitate.

“Did anyone else impersonate Ms. Grooten after her disappearance last winter?”

“Her resignation, Miss Cooper. We believed that she had left us voluntarily. She hadn’t gone missing, so far as we knew. And no, I’m not aware of any other instances.”

“Her employee identification, what became of that?”

“Miss Drexler would know. Or perhaps Bellinger. I never gave any more thought to Katrina after that day.”

Few people had, it seemed to me.

“Before we go, Mr. Thidobaux, we’d like to make arrangements to see the museum’s private vaults this week.”

“Ah, now I know the culprit, Mr. Chapman. You’ve given up your source. Madam Gerst? A pity how a little jealousy can stir up such a pot of trouble. Arthur Paglin’s vault.”

“That one, and the others.”

He looked Mike straight in the eye. “Which others, in particular?”

“I’m expecting you to tell us that.”

“I’ll have to check with our patrons, of course. It is not our privilege to enter them.”

“It’ll be my privilege with a search warrant.”

I’d need a lot more specificity about their location to get any judge to sign off on a warrant, but I didn’t blame Mike for trying.

“I’ll get to work on that first thing in the morning. There are only two that I know of presently, besides the Paglin estate.”

“It’s an interesting concept, these vaults. Didn’t anyone ever try the same gimmick over at Natural History?” I asked.

Thibodaux seemed delighted to point a finger across the park. “Every museum has its hiding places, Miss Cooper. Secret compartments, if you will. Elijah Mamdouba hasn’t shown you the skeletons in his closet?”