Linda Fairstein - Lethal Legacy

“She’s a lightweight, Mr. Chapman. A complete cipher. Minerva’s a girl who was handed every advantage in life on a silver plate, and she still hasn’t worked out what to do with it all. Other than the income she derived from it, the family business never interested her. Books were Tally’s thing, so that put her off becoming a bibliophile. But even on a personal level, I know she’s been a great disappointment to Jasper,” Herrick said. “He confided that to me years ago.”

“How long have you known Jasper Hunt?”

“My goodness. Half my life, I suppose. It’s a small world we collectors live in. Very few of us with the means to indulge ourselves in this market. Jasper used to keep a flat in London, where I have a house. He was always there for the big sales and auctions. I learned a lot from him, from the time when I was just an eager young man. Jasper Hunt had a brilliant eye.”

“When did you first meet Tally and Minerva?” Mike asked.

“I think they were both still at university. Tally at Oxford, where his father had done a year as well. The old man had his eye on me for Minerva,” Herrick said, shaking his head at the thought. “He introduced me to her one weekend. She was in her first year at Bryn Mawr then.”

“So you dated?” Mike asked.

“Heavens, no. I was already engaged at the time. You’ve met her, haven’t you?”

“Yes, briefly.”

“Tough as nails, is that what you Americans say? I don’t know about you, Detective,” Herrick said, smiling at Mike, “but I like my women a bit softer.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Mike said, winking at me. “Fragile. Almost vulnerable.”

“Indeed.”

“Did you see Tina this week, after your return?”

“She was here on Monday,” Herrick said. “She was working upstairs in my study.”

“On what?” Mike asked.

“She finished her first big project for me-I let her audition on a piece of moderate value. And then she’s been sorting through some of my recent acquisitions, trying to help me determine which items are candidates for restoration.”

“When did you talk with her next?”

Herrick put his right hand in the deep pocket of his sweater, lowered his head, and started to pace around the perimeter of the room.

“Not again,” he said. “I haven’t spoken to her since.”

“Were you concerned when she didn’t show up yesterday?” Mike asked.

“Not at all. No. She wasn’t supposed to come in. She was planning to spend the day at the library. Tina was only working for me part-time. Due back today, actually.”

Herrick paused in front of one of the chapel’s stained-glass windows. The tapered conical ceiling rose almost thirty feet over his head, and although he was a tall man, he seemed almost overwhelmed by the space of the once-hallowed room.

“Have you done anything to try to find her?”

“I should think, Mr. Chapman, that responsibility falls on you. I barely know the woman, and if she chooses to take a holiday as a result of the break-in that Jill Gibson described to me, there’ll be plenty of work for her when she returns.”

“Mr. Herrick,” I said, standing to approach him, “what does Tina Barr have to do with Minerva Hunt?”

“I haven’t any idea, to be honest with you. Tina told me she’d met Minerva at Jasper’s home. The woman frightened her, quite frankly. I told Tina that she frightens lots of people.”

“You’ve done business with Minerva?”

“I’d hardly describe it as business. Every now and then she goes after something I’m keen on. She’s got in my way from time to time. Nothing serious, mind you.”

“But I thought you said she doesn’t collect?” I said.

“Not books, Ms. Cooper,” Herrick said, doubling back to the fireplace, crossing in front of it, pausing beside an enormous wooden stand, almost as tall as he, in which an antique globe was mounted. “Maps. Minerva Hunt likes to dabble in rare maps.”

“Like you.”

“I’m not a dabbler, Detective. With me, it’s a passion,” Herrick said. “I’m trying too hard to point out the differences between us, that’s true. There’s nothing scholarly about my interests. They’re purely visual. Very different from book collecting, I can assure you. I just go after the best-looking things.”

His self-deprecating comment was meant to belittle Minerva Hunt.

“You’ve got hundreds of books here, too,” Mike said, pointing up to the balcony from which we’d descended on our way in.

“Atlases mostly,” Herrick said. “You can circumnavigate the globe with those books, Mr. Chapman.”

“Did Jill Gibson tell you about the murder in Tina’s apartment last night?” I asked.

“She did. She called me a little while ago. Minerva’s maid, was it? Carrying one of Tally’s books. Something like that. I’m just glad Tina wasn’t at home when the bastard got there. Looking for something valuable, no doubt. How did the woman die?”

“Fractured skull, Mr. Herrick,” Mike said. “Split her head in half and crushed her brain. No use for the patron saint of the suffering, ’cause she didn’t suffer very long.”

Herrick didn’t react. “You think the killer knows Tina Barr?”

“I don’t know anything about him at this point, who he knew or what he wanted. Only that he was at least your height, ’cause the woman was tall, and the blow that took her down struck the crown of her head.”

“Heavens, Detective. The world is full of people as tall as I am. Even Minerva Hunt fits the bill.”

“I’d say you’d need a pair of strong arms to heave that thing,” Mike said. “I think Minerva would be afraid she’d ruin her manicure.”

Mike was baiting his subject, trying to get a rise out of him.

Alger Herrick took his hands out of his sweater pockets. There was a glint of metal against the dark wooden globe as he reached to spin it. The oceans and continents began to whirl around on the solid wooden stand, and I could see that where his left hand should have been there was only a single hook.

“Did I startle you, Mr. Chapman?” Herrick asked. “I don’t want you putting me at the scene of the crime without getting to know me a little better.”

“You called me on that one, sir. I’m sorry if I was rude.”

“Just obvious, Detective. I was born without a hand-a defect the doctors assume was caused by the medication my mother was taking during pregnancy. I’m used to people’s stares and gasps. I’ve got a modern prosthesis I wear when I’m out, in case you’re wondering. But this is what I had when I was growing up, and it suits me fine. Now what were we discussing?”

“Mike and I are trying to get to know the world that Tina Barr moved in,” I said. “It’s hard to imagine that books and maps, and the quiet reading rooms of the public library, would expose her to danger, but the two attacks this week took place in her apartment. Perhaps you could tell us about some of the people she worked with. You, Mr. Herrick, tell us about yourself.”

Herrick crossed the center of the long room and seated himself at a desk near my chair. I wanted to understand Tina Barr, and if my appeal to his vanity guided me to learn about things in which she had immersed herself, it would be time well spent.

“I don’t like talking about myself, Ms. Cooper, but I can tell you all you want to know about these beautiful things,” he said, sweeping his good arm around in a circle.

“When did you start collecting?”

“My life has been a matter of great good luck, after a very bumpy start,” Herrick said. “I was deposited on the steps of an orphanage in Oxfordshire, or so I’m told, by a single mother-a teenager herself-who must have been overwhelmed at the prospect of taking care of a child as handicapped as she thought I would be. I don’t remember anything about that part of my life, so you needn’t imagine all sorts of stories about eating gruel and being forced to pick pockets as a child. Shortly before my fourth birthday, I was adopted by the Herricks, a local family who had lost their only son to polio about five years earlier.