Linda Fairstein - Cold Hit

“No painting. Off she went. At least, that’s the version we got down here.”

Mike rested his elbow on the counter and looked at Elsa. “So, where did Mrs. Caxton stop on her way downstairs, so that he got to the lobby before she did, even though she had a good head start, huh?”

“Maybe she popped into one of the other galleries, to see a friend?”

“I’ll follow up on that. See if I can get the date of the squabble from this Genevieve, when we find her.” He paused. “But if Mrs. Caxton didn’t pay a social call, and just supposing for the moment that she was trying to take a valuable item out of the building, can you think of any likely place to hide something between the thirty-fifth floor and the lobby?”

Elsa had worked in the salon for more than fifteen years. She had probably inspected every exhibit and office and nook of the Fuller Building during that time, shunning the elevators in favor of the back staircases, as she often told me, for exercise and to relieve the tedium of standing all day at a stationary place behind her work chair.

“I know where Denise used to go to sneak a cigarette,” she said softly.

“Whaddaya mean?”

“Even before the city passed laws about smoking, Lowell never let anyone light a cigarette in the gallery. He had all kinds of special air controls for the maintenance of the art, especially because he had so many old paintings. Most of the staff would go all the way down to the ground floor and stand out in front on the sidewalk to smoke. Denise wouldn’t bother to go that far. She’d mooch a cigarette-I don’t think she did it very often-and she found my secret hideout. That’s where we ran into each other from time to time.”

“You smoke?” Mike asked, like he was interviewing her as a prospect for a date.

“No. But I like to clear my head every now and then. The fumes of these hair dyes can get to you after a few hours. I just go up there for a breath of air, some peace and quiet, and a great view of the city.”

“What is it, like a balcony?”

“Not even close. In fact,” she said, giving Mike the onceover, “I’m not certain you’ll fit. I’ll show you if you’d like.”

We left the salon and Elsa pressed the button to go to the eighteenth floor, which was the highest level we could reach from the eastern bank of elevators. She led us to the large gray fire door and pressed her weight against the long metal bar that opened it onto the staircase. Together we walked up to the nineteenth floor, which was basically a darkened hallway connecting the two sides of the building.

The only illumination came from the glare of the cherry red neon exit sign above the doorway we had just entered. My eyes tried to adjust to the gloomy corridor as I followed behind Elsa, with Mike bringing up the rear.

Two-thirds of the way to the far end, there was a pocket in the wall on our right. Had Elsa not turned toward it, I doubt I would have noticed it at all. She moved surely in that direction and cautioned me to watch the two steps that she climbed, coming face-to-face with another, smaller fire door. As she turned the knob and pushed outward, the door gave way and a sliver of the gray midday sky appeared over her head.

Beyond where Elsa stood was a perch, no more than two feet wide and three feet long. It extended like a small lip, high above the street and out from the side of the building, completely open except for a small iron railing that stretched across it at chest height. My delicate friend stepped onto the ledge, held the bar, and leaned forward to look over the rooftops below.

Then she stepped back and suggested I do the same. “ Vertigo,” I said. “Not for me.” I held on to her arm and tried to stand close to the rail with my eyes open, but I couldn’t bear to stay out there. There didn’t seem to be enough barriers between me and the sidewalk, nineteen stories down. I offered the post to Mike but he declined, crouching on the floor with his fingers outstretched, trying to measure the size of this exterior shelf.

“What are you doing?”

He stood up. “Great place to stash a painting, then come back to pick it up later on. Does the building stay open after the galleries close?”

“Sure. Our salon has much later appointments than the businesses do. Same for the dental offices. The only other office on this floor is the Malaysian Travel Bureau. It keeps regular hours but I’ve never seen much traffic there.”

“Not that many people knocking each other down to get to Malaysia,” Mike said.

Elsa smiled. “I guess not. Of course, lots of the dealers see people by private arrangements, anytime that’s convenient. That’s why there’s always someone at the booth in the main lobby. Denise Caxton was well known to everyone here. She could walk in and out of this building whenever she wanted, without a problem. I just can’t imagine her stealing a painting, or anything else for that matter. That’s why I didn’t think the story was anything serious. The way Genevieve told it, the manager was either simply trying to embarrass Mrs. Caxton or he was making a fool of himself.”

“Suppose she wasn’t ‘stealing’ anything,” Mike suggested. “Maybe it was something that was hers, a painting Lowell didn’t know about that she had warehoused at the gallery. Or that she had hidden up there in one of his storage areas.”

Elsa didn’t know anything about the Caxton business dealings, so now Mike was talking to me. “Maybe it was something that she felt she had every right to take, but Deni knew that Lowell’s people wouldn’t let her leave his place with anything. She goes in with lots of bags, makes her rounds, gets what she’s after, and walks out before his manager can check what she’s got. Then she stops by the little ledge and leaves this package-which I expect is wrapped in something protective. Am I safe in guessing this spot isn’t very well trafficked?”

“I’ve never seen anyone here except Denise Caxton. I’d be willing to bet that ninety-nine percent of the people who work in this building don’t even know it exists.”

“She makes the drop and continues on to the lobby. Lowell’s guy is waiting for her there. He either assumes, or she tells him, that she stopped off to see someone else in another gallery. Gives her a perfectly valid excuse for a short detour on her way downstairs.

“Then she comes back that same night or the next day to pick up her painting. Hell, she could even have circled the block in the cab and gone right back for it ten minutes later. Everyone says she was a risk taker.”

Elsa looked concerned. “I hope this has nothing to do with her death. It was such a silly story-it didn’t seem worth repeating when I heard about it. I never connected the two things.”

“No reason for you to have thought anything about it,” I assured her. Mike squinted to look at the number displayed on his beeper, which must have been vibrating on his waistband, while I went on talking. “At this point, we’re just grasping at anything. It’s good to know about this.”

“Let’s get back to the phone. The lieutenant’s looking for me. This’ll go over big when I tell him I’m at your hairdresser’s.”

We retraced our path back to the kitchen, where I had left my handbag. Mike called the squad while I asked Elsa to keep her eyes and ears open for information about the Caxton Gallery’s closing and move.

Mike started singing the opening bars of Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” as he hung up the phone. “Either make yourself comfortable and let Elsa lighten up your silken tresses, or I’ll get you some escorts from Midtown North to take you back to work. I’m off to beautiful downtown Piscataway.”

“What’s there?”

“Man checked himself into the local hospital this morning. He’s got an infected wound in his groin that’s festering away. Told the E.R. staff that he had an accident on a construction site, but the X rays show there’s a bullet inside. Right now the Jersey troopers are holding him. Could be that Mercer hit the bull’s-eye after all. Patient matches the description of Anthony Bailor.”