Linda Fairstein - Lethal Legacy

“From the U.S. Attorney’s Office?” I asked. The feds had jurisdiction over matters involving culturally significant works of art, but it was unusual for Battaglia to want to share a major investigation with them.

“Nobody mentioned the feds, did they?”

“Who did you assign to it, Paul? I’ll work with him,” I said. “We’ll make it a joint investigation. Whatever has been going on might have something to do with Barr’s assault, or the murder of Karla Vastasi.”

“Someone’s been stealing from the library, Alex,” Jill said. “That’s the reason I called Paul for help. Whoever it is-or they are-has got to be stopped. We’ve got treasures under our roof worth millions of dollars, some of them not even cataloged, and we’re starting to bleed from the losses.”

Now I felt guilty for holding back the information about the jeweled book that had been found under Vastasi’s body.

“What do you know about the Bay Psalm Book?” I asked.

Battaglia’s eyes narrowed as he listened to Jill’s answer. “It’s a very rare piece of Americana. Interestingly enough, the Puritans considered Hebrew to be the ‘mother’ of spiritual languages and used it in many of their services. The book is a makeshift translation of David’s Psalms from the original Hebrew into English, printed in Massachusetts when the first presses were set up. It’s one of the most important items that came to the library with the Lenox collection.”

Now Battaglia shifted his gaze to me. “I guess your memory’s improving, Alex. Is that the book the cops found last night?”

“Can’t be the same. The one they vouchered came from the Hunt collection, not from Lenox. Minerva was quite emphatic about its history.”

Jill Gibson’s elbows were on the table and she rested her head in her hands. “The police have it? Is it covered with precious stones?” she asked without looking up.

“Yes.”

“That will be another blow to Leland Porter,” Jill said, referring to the library’s president. “I don’t think anyone’s aware that the Hunt piece had gone missing.”

“Stolen or deaccessioned?” Battaglia asked. “We’ve got to know that before we go looking for bad guys. You’ll check on that, Jill. Does it literally have jewels on the binding?”

“Yes, it does. Jasper Hunt took a perfectly interesting piece of history-not important literature-and turned it into a garish little objet d’art, a personal vanity. It’s been locked away in a library vault for as long as I can remember,” Jill said. “The only one we display-the one that scholars work with-is the Lenox version of the Bay Psalm Book. Thank you, Alex, for letting me know about this.”

I couldn’t tell whether my revelation would come back to bite me or not.

“Do you know where Tina Barr is?” I asked Gibson.

“No, I don’t.”

“But you know her, don’t you?”

Jill grimaced as she looked to Battaglia again. “I’m sorry I lied to you before. I, uh-I wasn’t sure Paul wanted me to tell you the story. Yes, she used to work in our library. She trained there as a conservator.”

“What exactly do conservators do?” I asked.

“It’s a field that requires great skill. They’re responsible for the preservation of all our rare documents and books. They’ve got to be knowledgeable about the history of the materials, and have enough scientific education to understand the structural stability and characteristics of whatever they’re working on. Tina’s young, but she’s one of the best.”

“When did she stop working at the library?”

“She was full-time with us until a year ago. Then she started working with Jasper Hunt,” Jill said. “But that isn’t unusual. All the private collections of that quality have conservators, and because we have our own lab, many of them-like Tina-do their work right in our facility.”

“So it wasn’t a problem that she went to work for Hunt?”

“Of course not. We viewed it as an advantage for Tina to catalog everything in his home. We expect to get the rest of his collection some day. It’s been promised to us.”

“Unless one of his children convinces him to change his will,” Battaglia said.

“But Tina’s no longer working for Mr. Hunt,” I said. “That’s what Minerva told us.”

“I didn’t know anything about her current situation,” Jill said. I thought her voice was beginning to tremble. “I had no reason to, until she called me this week.”

“When did she call?” I asked, looking at Battaglia out of the corner of my eye.

“It was very early yesterday morning, the day after she was attacked. She awakened me, in fact, on Wednesday.”

No wonder Battaglia had known about Barr’s assault when he called me into his office a couple of hours later.

“What did she say? What did she tell you?”

“That she was terrified,” Jill said. “She told me she was going to take some time off, leave the city for a while. I guess Tina thought of me as an ally, from the old days when she was first hired at the library. She wanted to know if I would help her get her job back when she returned.”

“Did you agree?”

“Certainly. I told her to come in to see me that very day. I wanted to make sure she was all right. I even mentioned that I knew the district attorney and perhaps he could help with her case. I had no idea that you had been called out on the matter during the night.”

“And did she come in?”

“Tina said she’d be there yesterday,” Jill said, lowering her voice, “but she never showed up. Then Paul called me late last night to tell me about the woman who was murdered in Tina’s apartment. To ask if I knew her.”

“Did you?”

“No, no, no. Absolutely not.”

“I’m going to ask you again,” I said, trying to make eye contact. “Do you know where Tina is now?”

Jill pursed her lips and shook her head.

“Do you know whether she had taken another job? Was she working for someone else?”

This time Jill nodded, just as someone knocked on the door.

“Come in,” Battaglia said.

I turned my head to see Patrick McKinney, the head of the trial division, striding toward the table. He was senior to me, and although I reported directly to Battaglia on sex crimes, McKinney had oversight for all homicides and other felonies. The district attorney respected his investigative abilities, but McKinney was rigid, humorless, and small-minded, and made it his regular business to stab me in the back whenever an opportunity presented itself.

“Morning, boss. Sorry I’m late. Good morning, Jill,” McKinney said, shaking hands with her. Battaglia must have put him in charge of the library issues that Jill had brought to him. “Alex, I wish you had called me last night. I just spent fifteen minutes getting up to speed with the chief of d’s. He had to fill me in on the Vastasi murder himself. You talking about Tina Barr?”

“I was just explaining to Alex that she had recently left Jasper Hunt to start working for another one of our patrons,” Jill said.

“Who is he?” I asked.

“His name is Alger Herrick. She was quite happy,” Jill said. “It was actually a much better fit for her than Jasper Hunt.”

“Why is that?”

“Herrick is also a collector, with a special interest in cartography.”

Battaglia’s lips drew back again. “Maps.”

“Most conservators have a specialty, Alex. The work has increasingly become so technical that they usually develop an expertise in one area. For Tina, it’s been rare maps,” Jill said. “And Alger is much younger than Jasper Hunt. He’s in his mid-fifties-a very vibrant personality.”

“You’ve talked to him about Tina?” I asked, glancing from Jill Gibson to Pat McKinney.