But Remember Their Names Page 7

  “Maybe. But wherever he left it, someone took something out of it between the time he put it down and the time he picked it up.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because it had to be empty when he tossed it on the passenger seat of his Prius. Otherwise, the seat belt buzzer would have gone off when he turned the car on, and it didn’t. And why would you carry an empty attaché case into someone’s house?”

  Mendoza bristled, which meant that he wanted to just blow this stuff away but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it.

  “If I didn’t know you better,” he muttered, “I’d say you were trying to promote yourself into a trip to New York City on the firm’s dime.”

  “The Foundation’s dime.” I had him there.

  Chapter Eight

  “Okay, kids, it’s showtime. Whattaya got?”

  This question came from Mendoza at fifteen seconds after three o’clock. Same crowd as this morning, same configuration around his desk, except this time we were sitting down.

  “Time of death was between five and nine Monday night.” Waters spoke without notes and with minimal gestures in a dry, low-key voice. “They might refine that later on, but they’re cutting themselves some slack for the moment because the museum keeps the temperature in that room down so the wax thingies won’t melt. Body was not, say again, not moved after death. They’re guessing forty-four or forty-five caliber on the bullet, but it somehow got beaten up something fierce penetrating all that soft tissue. Figure that out. No exit wound. Not sure what he had for breakfast, but his last meal was going to be lobster salad.”

  “So Bradshaw and his killer both got into the museum on a day when it was closed to the public?” Mendoza asked.

  “Right. Probably means he knew the killer. Bradshaw had a key-card for the place and knew the security code because he was organizing an exhibit on something or other, and odds are he let the killer in.”

  “So think the cops?”

  “Yep. And so thinks Ricky Waters.”

  Mendoza frowned. So did I. So did everybody else except Waters, who gazed with eerie calm into the middle distance and flicked a minute bead of perspiration form his deep brown face.

  “Has the murder weapon turned up yet?” Mendoza asked him.

  “If it has, they aren’t saying.”

  “It would make sense for Bradshaw to chill at the museum for a while if he wasn’t quite ready to be handcuffed by state troopers,” Mendoza mused. “He couldn’t expect that to last long, but maybe he just wanted to buy a couple of days.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “So have they found his car yet?”

  “They have, actually—in a garage on East Thirty-ninth Street in Manhattan, just north of Park Avenue.”

  “How did he get home from New York?”

  “Excellent question.” Waters nodded just slightly. “First rate question. Really. He didn’t come by plane unless he did it under an assumed name, and that’s not easy to bring off these days. He doesn’t sound to me like the Greyhound Bus type. Trains takes forever and they also require an i.d., for some damn reason. So I’m guessing he got a ride from someone.”

  “Okay.” Mendoza sighed and sank back in his chair, then shifted his gaze to Sal Brentano. “You’re on.”

  “The State Police are buttoned up pretty tight. The affidavit supporting the search warrant application, though, mentioned an intercepted conversation mentioning l’aigle finial.”

  “Who’s Layla Finial?” Mendoza asked, approximating Brentano’s pronunciation of the French word. “President of the Strippers With Funny Names Club?”

  “Not who, what,” Brentano said. “L-apostrophe-A-I-G-L-E. Object of art, apparently, and I’m guessing a pretty pricey one. Also, almost all strippers have funny names, so a specific club would be pretty redundant.”

  “L’aigle finial” rang a very faint bell deep in the recesses of my memory, somewhere between Torts and Civil Procedure from my first year in law school. I unholstered my Droid as discreetly as I could and Googled the term while Mendoza asked Brentano how he knew so much about strippers and Brentano said he believed in supporting single moms. I’d had about forty seconds on the web when Mendoza scowled in my direction.

  “You got something for us Jake, or are you just checking out your boyfriend’s tush?”

  “A finial eagle—l’aigle finial—was one of the fine arts objects stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1995,” I said. “Along with paintings by Vermeer and Rembrandt and some stuff by Degas and Manet.”

  Brentano whispered something blasphemous and whistled. “That was the biggest art heist in history. Five hundred million dollars. Never solved, and none of the stolen art has ever been recovered.”

  “What’s a finial?” This was Mendoza’s question, directed at me.

  “A decorative ornament that you put on top of a flagstaff.”

  “What was this one made of—solid gold?”

  “Don’t know. But the flagstaff it came from belonged to Napoleon. The eagle was one of his symbols. And that eagle finial was probably designed by somebody famous. That’s what makes it so valuable.”

  “Oh-kayyyy.” Mendoza chewed that over for a second. “So maybe Bradshaw was fencing something from a real life Topkapi caper. It’s a big deal. I get that. But why are state troopers taking time out from writing speeding tickets on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to dabble in an art theft fifteen years ago and two states north? Why wouldn’t the Feds be walking point on this?”

  “Maybe the Feds have other things to do these days.” Brentano shrugged. “Nine-eleven and all that. Maybe they’re more worried about Al Qaida than l’aigle.”

  Mendoza took half-a-minute or so to digest that. Then he grinned and shook his head. He was smiling broadly when he looked over at Becky the Techie. “Top that.”

  “Wendy Sommers. Thirty-six. Divorced, no kids. Criminology degree from Penn State. Went through on an ROTC scholarship. Six years on active duty, four of them with the Criminal Investigation Division. Two tours in Iraq. Punched out with an honorable discharge. Made a run at the FBI based on the CID experience, but they rejected her. Caught on with Wackenhut for a couple of years, then went out on her own.”

  “What’s Wackenhut?” My question drew stares telling me I was the only one in the room who didn’t know.

  “One of the biggest private investigation firms in the world,” Becky said. “Offices everywhere.”

  “How’s she doing as a PI?” Mendoza asked.

  “Making a living, apparently. Works out of her house. Pays her bills. Leases a midsize car.”

  “Does she cheat on her taxes?”

  “Not enough to draw an audit.”

  “Is she known to the police?”

  “No record, except for a couple of speeding tickets.”

  Mendoza frowned thoughtfully. He did the thing where he leans back at about a forty-five-degree angle and examines the ceiling. He looked like he wanted a cigar.

  “Okay. Check her out for boyfriends, especially long-term relationships with guys who are mobbed up. See if she’s living beyond her means.”

  “Got it.”

  “By the way, did Jake tell you about our client’s killed-my-brother crack?”

  “Yeah,” Becky said. “Bradshaw had two boys by his first wife. They’re both in their thirties, alive and well. One is living in Chicago and the other in Dallas. No evidence that Ariane has had any other kids.”

  “So if we’re gonna come up with a Caitlin sibling, even loosely speaking, we’ll need a mistress or a hooker or at least a fling somewhere for Mr. B.”

  “Right. I’ll add that to my to-do list.”

  “Okay.” Mendoza slapped his hands on his desk. “Now how about Learned?”

  “Born
July 16, 1949 in Washington, D.C. Father was a diplomat, mom was a diplomat’s wife. Apparently divided his childhood between D.C. and various posts in East Asia where dad was stationed. High school diploma from Gonzaga Prep in D.C., but he actually only studied there during his senior year. If he attended any universities he didn’t hang around long enough to pick up a degree. According to a business card that Jake finagled from him, he’s associated with a limited liability company called Ars Longa, which owns the Prius he was driving.”

  She stopped. Everyone waited. Nothing happened for probably ten seconds that seemed like sixty. Mendoza finally spoke up.

  “What else?”

  “That’s it.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “No jobs, no marriages, no divorces, no children, no lawsuits, no arrests, no convictions, no professional licenses, no residential address, no phone number, no bank accounts, no credit cards?”

  “Nope.”

  “Where is Ars Longa registered?” This was still Mendoza asking the questions.

  “Delaware.”

  “Is Learned a shareholder?” Waters asked.

  “LLCs don’t have shareholders, they have members,” Mendoza said. “They aren’t corporations. Neither their members nor their officers are public information.”

  “Right,” Becky said. “The registered address for the LLC is a lawyer’s office in Dover. The lawyer is the listed managing agent.”

  “So, bottom line, this is the invisible man we’re talking about here.” Mendoza’s tone was incredulous. “He has lived for four decades since graduating from high school without leaving a footprint anywhere. I mean, you Google me you get, what, twelve-hundred hits anyway, and I’m nobody. But you Google him and you get nothing.”

  “Google Walter Learned and you get links to an architect in Palo Alto and a dentist in Nashville and a number of other gentlemen, but not to anyone with art or in New York City.”

  Mendoza swiveled toward me.

  “You know what, Jake? If we can somehow find an address for this guy somewhere, you might get your butt sent to the Big Apple after all.”

  When I got to Streetdreamer around seven that night, I whiffed off eight lines about how driving a Cadillac Citera—“the Caddie with zing!”—had reminded me that I’m not ready to be fifty-two years old yet. I signed off with, “No way I’m even thinking about owning a car my first ten years in NYC.”

  I did all this to the aroma of roasting chicken breasts. Tuesday is Vince’s short day—“short” being a relative term meaning that he finishes his route and gets home before five-thirty. So he always fixes dinner Tuesday nights, and it’s always his one and only non-grill specialty: herb-roasted chicken breasts. He splits the breasts all by himself, brushes them with garlic butter, sprinkles on pepper, salt, and savory, pops them in the oven in a deep roasting pan, turns them over once while they’re cooking, uses a turkey-spritzer to baste them twice with their own juice, and thinks he’s Julia Child. Guys—you gotta love ’em.

  I was setting the table when Paul called. Fortunately, I can set the table with one hand.

  “Twelve hundred words.”

  “Twelve hundred in one day? That’s, like, a record or something, isn’t it?”

  “Personal best. Any news from Calder & Bull?”

  “Nope—and that’s the way I like it. Nothing in the mail, and not a whisper on ‘Above the Law.’”

  “So how was your day?”

  “Fantastic, actually. I was doing real, hands-on law with high stakes on a human scale. I was pumped all afternoon.”

  “Why would you want to trade that for reviewing thousands of pages of documents on a computer screen?”

  “Hundred-and-a-half a year to start.”

  “That is so Harvard Law School.”

  “Well, lover,” I pointed out, “that’d figure, wouldn’t it?”

  “I can’t believe I said that. Actually, I didn’t say that. I was channeling a Yalie I dated before I met you. She used to say that Harvard lawyers make money but Yale lawyers make history.”

  “She’s right. Yale Law School produced Hillary Clinton, and she became the first Secretary of State in American history who’d flunked a bar exam.”

  “ouch! owwwweeee! Burn, baby, burn! Thank you, ma’am, may I have another?”

  “Don’t get kinky, Paul. This is a mobile phone. By the way, don’t pack your bags yet but there’s a chance I might be able to squeeze a trip to New York out of the thing I’m working on now and even tie our epic quest for housing into it.”

  “Are you kidding me? That’s fantastic! How did you bring that off?”

  “I haven’t brought anything off yet. But save your chits for a couple of days off next week.”

  This chatter would probably have gone on for another half-hour, but Vince showed up in the doorway with two sizzling chicken breasts on a china platter.

  “As the Meals-on-Wheels driver said when he skidded onto the sidewalk,” Vince intoned solemnly, “‘Dinner is swerved.’” The first time I heard that from Vince I was about eight years old. He was serving chicken breasts that time, too.

  “Gotta go, tiger,” I told Paul. “If your Yalie calls, feel free to drop my line on her. You don’t even need to footnote me.”

  Less than three minutes later Vince was saying grace over the platter of chicken breasts, a bowl of mashed potatoes that ten minutes ago had been freeze-dried flakes in a pouch, a bowl of yellow gravy, ditto, a margarine dish, and a small plate holding four slices of Wonder enriched white bread. Not even brown ’n serve dinner rolls. Vince doesn’t believe in frills. Green vegetables are a frill. He’d gotten himself a Coke to drink, and I was sitting there with ice water. Not bottled water, straight from the tap. No matter how much money I make, I am never going to pay for something you can get for free out of a water fountain.

  Vince finished grace, I said amen, and we dug into the meal.

  “You sound like you’re in a good mood, Dad.” I said this to distract his attention as I unobtrusively cut the dark brown skin off my chicken and hid it near a mound of potatoes.

  “This was a good day. You oughta see their eyes light up when they see that deluxe tool box. Like kids in a candy store. I got four or five good leads today alone. I bet I move half-a-dozen of the things by Christmas.”

  “Sounds great.”

  “You gonna eat that?” He pointed with his fork at the cholesterol-laden skin lurking behind my potatoes.

  “No—and neither are you.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  He had speared the thing and transferred it to his plate before I could flex a muscle.

  Damn.

  “Speaking of poultry,” I said, “why don’t you give me the keys to the Chevy right after dinner? I saw some eight-pound turkeys at Sully’s over the weekend. If we get one of those in a pan of cold water in the fridge before bedtime tonight, it should be thawed in time for us to get it in the oven Thursday morning.”

  “Uh, yeah.” He lowered his eyes. “That’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. I was, uh, thinking we might, uh, you know, have Thanksgiving dinner with Mrs. Banacek over on Gentry Street. I mean, neither of the guys can come home this year, and, uh, you know, I was just thinking.”

  “Does Mrs. Banacek know about this interesting thought?”

  “She, uh, actually, she, uh, invited us.”

  “‘Us?’”

  “Well, me—but you’d be welcome. She’d love to have you.”

  “Vince!” The light finally dawned. “You’ve got a girl!”

  “You pissed?” His voice was actually sheepish.

  “Are you kidding? I’m thrilled.” I put the puzzle pieces from last night together—the shower and the guilt-tripping about Mom and even
the defensive sensitivity about me.

  “You mean you’d, like, be okay with going?”

  “No, Dad, I’d rather work my butt off in the kitchen all day so that I can serve a meal that won’t be half as good as the ones Mom made. That’d be a lot more fun than sitting on someone else’s couch and watching two football games while I surf the net on my laptop.”

  “So, that’s a yes?”

  I reached over and squeezed the big guy’s hand.

  “That’s a yes, Dad. And if Mrs. Banacek would rather have you all to herself, I’ll be totally fine having Chef Boyardee right here.”

  “That ain’t gonna happen.”

  “One tip, Dad. After dinner, offer to help with the dishes. She’ll say no, and you’ll score like a gazillion points with her.”

  Chapter Nine

  “So who we gonna blame for this?” The richly cadenced question, amplified by nothing but the Reverend Demetrius McKenzie’s lungs, echoed with resonant depth off the church’s white plaster and brown oak walls. “How ’bout the guards who didn’t spot that shiv? We gonna blame them? Maybe the laws that treat crack like first degree murder and powder like a traffic ticket. Tell ya, there’s a reason they call it white powder. We gonna blame them? How ’bout the judge who sentenced TIE-rell? Or the prosecutor who threw the book at him? Or the cops who arrested him, or the snitch who fingered him? Maybe we should blame them. Yeah, let’s put this on them.”

  The rev wore a purple silk gown with a black velvet collar, which would have been a pretty bold fashion statement most places but fit right in here on Ohio Street at the First African-Methodist-Episcopal Church of Pittsburgh. Interesting to learn that my client’s first name was pronounced TIE-rell, treating the y like a long I and stressing the first syllable. In the four months or so I’d represented him I’d always called him Tih-RELL.

  Just for the record, going to Tyrell Washington’s funeral wasn’t my idea.

  “It’s called closing the file, Jake.” That’s the way Mendoza put it just before nine Wednesday morning when he told me someone should represent the office when Washington got his final send-off—and it couldn’t be Mendoza, because he’d scheduled Caitlin Bradshaw’s interview with the cops for later that morning. “He was a client of the firm when he cashed in his chips, so we’ll be there when they sing “Dies Irae” for him—or whatever African-Methodist-Episcopals sing at funerals.”