Linda Fairstein - Cold Hit

Mercer added the truck incident to his list.

“May we spend a few minutes with Valerie?” I asked, hoping to get a closer handle on personal life in Denise’s wing of the house.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t think of it before I excused her for the day. I told Maurizio to let her go after she prepared my tea. She’ll grieve enough for all of us, Miss Cooper. I’ll let her know you’ll be contacting her, of course.

“Now I’ve got to ask you to leave so I can get ready for tomorrow. I must arrange for the services at Frank Campbell. Find a minister. Suggest an appropriate psalm. That sort of thing. I’m afraid the closest Deni ever got to a church was her frantic scrambling to buy that incredible Velázquez of Innocent the Tenth.”

Caxton opened the door to the landing that put us at the elevator. “You know, Miss Cooper, there’s a poignant fact about values in the world in which Deni and I lived that very few people realize. More than ninety percent of the art sold in America will never again fetch anywhere near the same price when the buyers attempt to resell it.” He paused, not quite ready to turn his back on us. “It was like that with Deni, too, and I think that fact was even beginning to dawn on her. She had invented herself once-brilliantly-and sold the stunning result at the very top of the market. I’m not sure she could have done as well-repeated her success, if you will-the second time around. Very sad, that, don’t you think?”

This time he closed the door behind him without waiting for us to be gone.

It wasn’t even noon when we emerged from the lobby of Caxton’s building onto the pavement in front of the Fifth Avenue co-op. The temperature was already over ninety degrees and the humidity was best measured by the tiny ringlets that formed instantly at the nape of my neck.

“Hate to say it,” Mike remarked, “but even this feels like fresh air after an hour with that pompous jerk. Where to?”

“I’ve got to spend the day at my office. I’m supposed to finish-up the hearing tomorrow, and I need to put the finishing touches on the brief I’m submitting after the argument.”

“Is P. J. Bernstein’s air-conditioned?”

“Yeah.” The delicatessen near my apartment was my morning hangout on weekends.

“Let’s grab some breakfast while we break up my to-do list. Then one of us can shoot you down to your office, okay?”

I rode the short distance to Third Avenue with Mercer, who parked at a meter in front of the deli, a feat that could be accomplished only in August. Midtown Manhattan was a ghost town on summer weekends, between vacationing New Yorkers, others who commuted to beach houses and shared rentals in the Hamptons or on the Jersey shore, and daytrippers who made their way to Jones Beach or the suburban pool of a friend or relative.

The three of us sat at a table in the rear, near the kitchen, each of us taking out a pad to make lists and notes for the next week’s work.

“Any point in my gracing the funeral?” Mike asked, after we ordered.

“The best reason to go,” Mercer offered, “is to try and get a look at-maybe even a copy of-the list of attendees. See if you can scope the sign-in book. They’ve always got one of those at Campbell’s. Might give us a jump start on some of the people in her business, beside what we hope we’ll get from her friend Bryan Daughtry.”

“Already thought of that. There’s always some sweet old mick used to drink at my father’s bar who runs the show at that funeral home. If I spread a little cash around, I’m sure they’ll make a copy of the guest list.”

The beeper attached to my waistband went off just as the waitress returned with my iced coffee. Mercer saw me slip it off the belt of my slacks and lift it to check the callback number. “Trouble for us?” he asked.

I laughed when I read the dial. “It’s Joan Stafford, and she even added a nine-one-one after Jim’s number.” Joan, one of my closest friends, was vacationing with her fiancé on the Outer Banks off the coast of North Carolina. “Either of you want to guess what she thinks is so urgent she’s got to talk to me immediately?”

Mike grabbed the cell phone from my hand after I dialed and heard it ringing. “Get your skinny ass out of bed with that foreign policy wonk and c’mon home to me. It’s lonely here without you-just the Cooperwoman to give me orders all the time. What’s with the emergency beep, kid-half-price sale at Schlumberger you gotta tell her about?”

Chapman looked up at Mercer and me as he repeated Joan’s answer. “You wanna dish about a dead woman? Well, now that it’s been on CNN this morning, I guess all you art mavens will be calling in with useless information.” He paused to listen to something Joan was telling him, then glanced back at us as he said good-bye and turned off the phone.

“It’s not enough we gotta deal with you. Nancy Drew’s on board, too. Joan just gave me the names of three of Deni’s clients and a couple of her lovers,” he said, writing in his notepad as he talked, “and also has the story about why Caxton was no longer welcome at Sotheby’s. She’ll be up this week-dinner on Tuesday. Y’think this is some of her fiction, or should we run with it?”

Joan was a playwright, just back from London, where her latest satire had opened to brilliant reviews and full houses. “Go to the bank with her on this one. It’s the world she was raised in. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if she knew most of the players in the gallery scene-she’s got a marvelous collection herself, plus she’s been shopping the auctions to redecorate Jim’s place in Washington.”

I looked at the list on my pad. “I need to do a search warrant for some of Deni’s things and have it ready in case you connect with her partner by tomorrow. The appointment book and calendar, records of sales and purchases-”

Mercer interrupted me. “We’ve got to assume a lot of this stuff is on computers. Be sure you draft the warrant so we can walk out of there with the hard drives, disks, and anything else in the office. The guys can download the data and get information that way, too. We’ll search the gallery first to let you know what’s there.”

“I can always amend the warrant if you see more than we’ve thought of by the time you go in,” I said.

“I’ll reach out for Daughtry,” he continued, “and call the funeral home for details on the memorial service.”

I finished my Raisin Bran while Mike worked his way through an omelette, home fries, a side order of bacon, and toast and Mercer picked at a bagel with cream cheese. “Who’s going to check out Lowell Caxton’s shooting incident in the Nineteenth?”

“I’ll swing by there later tonight,” Chapman said, barely coming up for air between bites of his breakfast. “I’ll also take care of the ladder manufacturer-see how common the brand is and who sells it.” He aimed his fork at Mercer. “You see if you can run raps on all the employees at both galleries, and work on the art hijacking in June. What was it-Della Spigas? Who’s Della Spiga, Coop?”

“I’ve got to go back to the books for that one. Ask me again at the end of the day.”

“What’s your schedule like this week?”

“Once I knock off the brief on Reggie X this afternoon and argue it tomorrow, I’m free. It’ll take the judge a couple of weeks to make a decision and write his opinion. The sooner I get downtown, the faster I get it out of the way.”

Mercer pushed off from the table and took the check from the waitress, while Mike dredged the last few fries through the ketchup.

“No point in you taking me,” I said. “My car is right up the street. Just keep me posted.” I waved good-bye and walked to my garage. I pulled the Jeep out and made my way over to the FDR Drive, while the all-news radio station wedged the story of Denise Caxton’s identification as the murder victim between the Yankees’ doubleheader victory last night and reviews of the Spice Girls’ concert in Central Park. Maybe Chapman wasn’t entirely crazy-live fast, die young, and be a good-looking corpse. Deni’s fortune hadn’t seemed to offer her very much more.