Yom Kippur Murder Page 10

  “I can see why,” I said. “Did you ever doubt Professor Black’s ownership of the Guadalaxara Haggadah?”

  “Not till we were slapped with an injunction.”

  “What precautions do you ordinarily take to assure that something so valuable put up for auction really belongs to the person selling it?”

  “When you’re dealing with antiques, you have limited resources in that area. Of course, if an owner has purchased the object himself and has a receipt, that’s the best proof. But many people come in with Aunt Jane’s pearls or a piece of furniture that’s been in the family for generations, and there’s really no proof it belongs to them except their word. If they carry it in, it’s probably theirs.”

  “But the Haggadah was a famous book. Did you do any checking on it?”

  “Many people keep the ownership of priceless objects a secret to protect themselves from theft, so it often isn’t known who owns them. Professor Black said he had acquired it in Europe before the war. He was able to document a continuous chain of ownership that satisfied us, dating from his entry into the United States. He had no bill of sale, but then he had fled the continent at a difficult time. We were confident the book was his.”

  “So he brought it in and then what?”

  “My staff and I looked at it to determine its value. We thought it would fetch close to fifty thousand, as I recall.”

  “That’s a lot of money. Was Professor Black satisfied with your appraisal?”

  “To tell the truth, he wasn’t. I think he expected a sum that would enable him to retire. But that’s not unusual. People often have an inflated idea of what their possessions are worth. He argued with me, but it was pointless. My appraisal is only an opinion. If you follow auctions, you may have observed that many items are sold far above their estimated value. I prefer a conservative evaluation. It leaves fewer people disappointed.”

  “So in spite of what he considered to be a low appraisal, he chose to go on with the auction.”

  “That’s right. He consigned the Guadalaxara to us, and we placed it in the next rare book auction, which was a couple of months later. Since this was a very special book, we displayed it quite prominently in the catalog that went out to the collectors on our mailing list. And I must say that since it was such a prized specimen, there was quite a bit of talk about it even before the catalog was mailed.”

  “Did you hear any rumors that worried you?” I asked.

  “Nothing until the day after the catalogs went out, when I got a call from our legal department. When I spoke to Professor Black a little later, I got the impression he expected us to defend his position. We don’t do that, of course.” McCandless smiled. “If there was a question of ownership, that was his legal problem, not ours as long as we hadn’t sold the book. We told him that until he could establish clear title, we were simply unable to handle the sale.”

  “And that finished it.”

  “More or less. Lawyers never do things quickly and cleanly. It took a little while. To be honest, I expected the case to be much more conclusive than it was. The man who challenged Professor Black’s ownership never pursued the case further, which surprised me, I must say, and eventually we were cleared to return the book to Professor Black.”

  “I’ve heard there was a witness who was too ill to testify for Mr. Herskovitz.”

  “Yes,” McCandless agreed, “I think I heard something to that effect myself. As you can probably imagine, the whole world of rare books was buzzing over the incident. Both sellers and buyers got very nervous, anticipating challenges to their ownership. But it all died down. These things are not as unusual as all that.”

  “Tell me about how you returned the Guadalaxara to the professor.”

  “Yes, the return of the book.” McCandless pursed his lips before continuing. “I urged him to allow us to send it by our special messenger service, but he would have none of it. He was a strange, distrustful sort of man. He said he would pick it up himself, and we made an appointment. He came, checked the book, signed for it, and took it. That was the last I saw of him. I heard on the news that night that he had been found dead in the street near his home. There was absolutely no evidence of foul play, and, of course, the Guadalaxara was gone.”

  “Had it been wrapped?”

  “Oh, quite. There was a box made specially to fit it.”

  “And he came for it alone.”

  “As far as I could see.”

  “Mr. McCandless, during the time when the rare book people were buzzing about the Guadalaxara, before the court prevented you from auctioning it, did you have inquiries from interested buyers?”

  “Oh my, yes. There was tremendous interest. It was a very rare specimen, you know. As a matter of fact, privately I revised my estimate of what it would fetch. I wouldn’t be surprised if it had brought seventy thousand at auction.”

  “What do you think it might be worth today?”

  “Ah.” McCandless smiled. “Substantially more. It might go as high as four hundred thousand.”

  The number shocked me. Zilman had had a far more accurate idea of its value than Mr. Greenspan. “I wonder if you could give me the names of the people who were most interested in the book fifteen years ago.”

  “I most certainly could not. Both buyers and sellers are accorded complete privacy here, Miss Bennett. Those are the kinds of secrets that will die with me.”

  He sounded as though he meant it, and telling him that I thought someone might have murdered Nathan Herskovitz over the book wasn’t likely to make him change his mind. “Over the years,” I said, “have you had any inquiries about the Guadalaxara?”

  “I have had inquiries,” he said with a little smile.

  “Then interest hasn’t dried up.”

  “I would say it hasn’t. Do you have any idea of where the book is now?”

  “I wish I did,” I said. But I didn’t have the faintest.

  I went back to the West Side, where I had left my car, and went up to see whether the police had finished with the Herskovitz apartment. Sure enough, the crime scene tape was gone, and the door to the apartment next door had been sealed with plywood. So much for security. It wouldn’t take much to break in, but I supposed that was all Metropolitan Properties was prepared to do. I made a mental note to call Mitchell this evening and tell him what had happened.

  I went down and said hello to Gallagher. He said he had seen two handymen from Metropolitan the previous afternoon and he had watched them fixing up the broken wall to Nathan’s apartment and sealing up the door next to it. We chatted briefly and then I left.

  On my first try, I didn’t get very far. As Ian locked his three locks behind me, I heard the drumming I had heard on Wednesday. It was coming from one of the empty apartments that I would have to pass to get to the stairway. I stopped dead. I was on the third floor, two flights up from the lobby. I could probably make it if I tried. And if I went back to Ian’s and asked him to call the police, whoever was waiting for me would be long gone by the time they came, even if they were nearby.

  I decided to chance it. I pressed my left arm tightly over my bag and held my flashlight in my right hand. If worst came to worst, I had a weapon. Then I lit out for the stairs.

  I didn’t make it. He darted out of an open door, looking like a dark shadow in the unlit hall, and grabbed me. I took a deep breath and screamed as loudly as I could, hoping Gallagher would hear me. Then I pulled and tugged against my assailant, who was behind me and who slapped a hand over and into my mouth, nearly choking me. A dirty, smelly hand in or near your mouth is one of the more disgusting things you can experience. I came down hard with my teeth, hoping I wouldn’t throw up. I heard an “Ow!” and then he moved the hand down the front of my body and squeezed my breast.

  God forgive me, I was ready to kill. I screamed again, “Ian! Ian!” and pushed backward fast, hoping to force his body away from me. Then I raised my foot and kicked backward as hard as I could.

  I don’t know
whether I hit anything vital or not, but at that moment Gallagher opened his door, said, “Oh, dear God, I’ll get the police,” in that wonderful brogue of his, and went back inside.

  My assailant pushed me down and fled down into the stairwell.

  The police came very quickly. I was downstairs by then with Ian, and I opened the locked front door for them. They tried to be helpful, but I was in the embarrassing position of not being able to identify the man who had assaulted me, or even describe him very well. Nor could Ian.

  “You gotta be careful here, ma’am,” one of the policemen said. “This is a dangerous building to be walking around in alone.”

  I knew that. I explained what my business there was, and he shrugged. I sympathized with his frustration. All he could do was tell me; he couldn’t offer protection, and he couldn’t keep me from entering the building. They promised to drive by more often and alert the patrol car teams on the next tour, but Franciotti had promised that last week, and what good had it done?

  Finally, after answering all the questions required for the complaint report, I walked over to Broadway to use a pay phone. I wished I had access to Nathan’s apartment, just for a place to sit down, use a bathroom, and look over my notes, but of course, he had given me the wrong keys or badly made keys and I had to improvise.

  I started trembling as I walked, probably a delayed reaction. My mouth felt dirty, and I could still feel the pressure of his fingers on my breast, as though each one had left an individual bruise.

  To calm myself, I had a cup of coffee in our favorite coffee shop and pulled out my list of Nathan’s mourners. The next name was Strauss down on Seventy-second Street, and I had written a question mark for the first name. When I finished my coffee, I called Jack first and got him at his desk.

  “Glad you called,” he said. “I talked to a guy at the precinct and asked about your missing address book. They don’t have it.”

  “OK.” I suddenly felt a lot better. “That means whoever broke into the apartment took it. And I’ll bet it means his name’s in that book.”

  “Assuming you’re right, how’re you going to reconstruct the entries in the book?”

  “I can’t, but it means someone who knew Nathan killed him.”

  “Possibly.”

  I hate caution when I think I’m on a roll. “And it’s even possible it was someone who went to the funeral.”

  “Also possible.”

  “And I’ve got all their names and addresses, and I’m interviewing all of them.” I tried not to sound as smug as I felt.

  “Terrific,” the love of my life said dryly. “Every time you knock on a door, it’s opened by a potential killer. You’d better check in with me before tomorrow night in case I need to look around for a replacement for dinner.”

  “You’re overreacting,” I said, stifling a giggle. “I haven’t spoken to anyone under seventy so far, and the seventy-year-old looked like a kid compared to the others. I don’t think old men commit violent murders.”

  “I just wish you wouldn’t play Sherlock Holmes. Can’t you be happy teaching poetry? Jesus, sometimes I think that sounds like the greatest life in the world.”

  “It is, but I cared about Nathan Herskovitz. If Arnold Gold thinks Ramirez may not be the killer, someone’s got to look into it, and I seem to have gotten the job by default.” My quarter dropped, and I started fishing around my purse for more change.

  “OK, we’ve both gotta go. I’ll see you at six tomorrow.”

  “Bye, Jack,” I said as the operator came on, rather proud of myself for keeping the attack a secret from him.

  13

  I pulled out the battered phone book, found B. Strauss on Seventy-second Street, and called the number. A woman answered. I introduced myself and got a sign of recognition.

  “You’re the girl from the funeral,” she said.

  “Yes, I was there.”

  “So you were a friend of Nathan?”

  “I was, and I’d like to ask you some questions. We’re not sure the police have arrested the right man.”

  She agreed to see me, and I walked down Broadway to Seventy-second and then east toward Central Park. There are some fine old buildings there, including the Dakota, where I gather an apartment can cost a million dollars. Mrs. Strauss lived in one of the less affluent-looking buildings, but one with character nevertheless. I rode a shaky elevator up to her floor, and I heard the click of locks as I walked down the hall toward her apartment.

  She was a modestly plump woman with a fresh, good-looking face and still-dark hair streaked with gray and wound up in a bun. We introduced ourselves, and she led me into a large living room with a grand piano that occupied a whole corner of the room.

  “Do you play?” I asked when we had sat.

  “It’s not so easy anymore,” she said, stretching out the fingers of both hands, then making fists and stretching them out again. “When you get to my age, a lot of things hurt, a lot of things don’t move the way they used to. I still play, but it’s not like it was.” But even as she said it, her face glowed with a happiness that made me feel she had replaced her piano playing with something that gave her equal pleasure.

  “I’d like to talk to you about the way some things were.” I went through my little monologue about Nathan’s murder and some of the things I was interested in. “Were you a friend of his?” I asked at the end.

  “My husband knew him from the early nineteen thirties. My husband was a little younger than Nathan. If he were alive today, he would be eighty-one. I’m a little younger than that. I got to know Nathan in the late thirties, and of course, in a way, we owe him our lives.”

  “He helped you leave Europe.”

  “Not just us, a lot of people. But us, too.”

  “Did he give you a book?”

  “Oh yes, a good one. Wait, I’ll show you.” She got up with agility, left the room, and returned with a book which she laid in my hands.

  The leather cover was extremely worn, and I felt nervous holding it, as though it were someone’s newborn baby. Gingerly I opened it about halfway. Most of the page was taken up with an illuminated letter. “It’s very beautiful.”

  “Would you believe he wouldn’t take it back?”

  “I thought Nathan was a generous man,” I said.

  “There were times when he could have used the money. The first years in New York weren’t the easiest.”

  “Mrs. Strauss, did you know Nathan’s first wife in Europe?”

  “So you know about Renata.” She said it with resignation, as though she had already decided that that would not be a topic of our conversation. “I knew her, yes.”

  “Do you know the story of the person who was supposed to get her out and—”

  “And didn’t but accepted payment for it. I know. I wish my husband were here; he would tell you.”

  “You tell me,” I said softly.

  Her face took on a troubled look. Where Zilman had delighted in denouncing Nathan in his version of the story, Mrs. Strauss was unhappy that Professor Black had done what she was convinced he had done. I got the feeling that it hurt her to recount the dishonorable act of another person, a person who should have been beyond reproach. “He was not a common laborer,” she said at one point of Professor Black. “He was a member of the academic world. To us, that is sacred.”

  But her story was essentially the same as Hillel Greenspan’s. Nathan had contracted with Black for the latter to escort the three Herskovitzes to safety, and Nathan had paid him with the Guadalaxara Haggadah.

  “How do you know all this?” I asked when she had finished.

  “Because Nathan Herskovitz was no fool. He had my husband as a witness to the agreement with Professor Black, and he gave the book to my husband, so that my husband would give it to Black when Renata was safe.”

  “Then your husband was the person who was too ill to testify in 1975 when Nathan took action against Black in court.”

  “So you know all that.”r />
  “I was at the auction house this morning, Mrs. Strauss. I talked to the man who was head of the rare book division fifteen years ago.”

  “Please,” she said with a smile, “call me Bettina.”

  “What a lovely name. I’m Chris.”

  “Thank you. In this country I’m often called Betty, but I much prefer my given name. There was a famous woman in the Romantic period named Bettina.”

  “Bettina Brentano,” I said.

  Her face lit up. “So you know a little something about literature.”

  “A little something,” I repeated. “Yes.”

  “That’s good. It makes me feel closer to you. Yes, yes, it was my husband. You see, we were scheduled to leave with Professor Black and Renata Herskovitz and her children. We were picked up by a hay wagon, and we hid under the hay. We thought the farmer would go to the Herskovitzes after he picked us up, but instead, he went right to the border. We were being pulled by a horse and it was very slow, so it was hard to tell how far we’d gone. By the time we asked Black what was going on, it was too late to turn back. He made up some story about why he hadn’t picked up Renata, but I think he didn’t want the responsibility. At one point my husband attacked him physically. If you had known my husband, you would know how ridiculous that was. He was a beautiful person, but he hated violence; it repelled him. For him to grab that terrible man and shake him was a watershed in his life.”

  “So the three of you made it to safety.”

  “You put very simply what was really very long, very frightening, very complex, and very dangerous. Somewhere along the way some soldiers stopped the farmer and made him take a detour to get them somewhere they had to go. They actually got on the wagon on top of the hay, almost on top of where we were hiding. They were rowdy and drunk and disgusting, and we feared every moment that we would be found and shot—or worse. That’s the way it was then with refugees. But yes, we made it to safety, and no, Renata and her children didn’t. When I realized what had happened, I sat back and cried. I knew as surely as I see you now that I would never see her again.”