The Oni, page 18
“Old man? He’s practically a kid.”
“Didn’t you call in about an old man found dead in a thicket along the river path?”
“My God.” The jogger’s face was ashen. “No. I was looking for a phone when I saw you two. I just found the kid a minute ago.”
No further time was wasted then on questions.
CHAPTER 36
The cashier at the Seventy-Seventh Street entrance to the American Museum of Natural History had developed an automatic routine: collect the ‘suggested donation’ in one hand and hand over that day’s color-coded admission button with the other, in a single smooth motion. Questions were answered with a copy of the museum’s floor plan.
But the plan showed only those areas open to the general public. Francine Cooper had to repeat her request.
The cashier jerked her head, annoyed. Her momentum was broken. “What name?” she asked.
“I don’t have the name. Whoever the police spoke to yesterday regarding some, ah, artifacts that were found at a crime scene. Whomever.” Cooper didn’t know how much information Amos Foster had leaked, or wanted leaked, and she didn’t want to undermine his official investigation if she could help it. She might need the detective’s cooperation at some point, if only to see that the record was set straight.
“Your name?”
Cooper told her.
The cashier reached for the intercom phone under her cash register. Cooper stepped back from the cubicle so that a troupe of pre-adolescents could march through the turnstile while a sour-faced surrogate mother fumbled with her purse. The children’s high-pitched chatter prevented Cooper from overhearing the cashier.
A uniformed museum guard approached the booth. He was a tall, thin, taciturn man with a pitted and inexpressive face. The hairline moustache, far from adding character, increased the hint of anonymity in his bearing.
“The guard will escort you,” the cashier announced.
The last child on line grabbed a fistful of buttons.
Wordlessly, the guard led Cooper to a bank of elevators near the museum shop. He chose a fat, stubby key from the clattering ring at his belt and inserted it in the panel beside the furthest elevator. A sign above the panel read: STAFF ONLY.
Doors whooshed open. The guard inclined his head. Cooper got on.
The ride up was silent. His glazed eyes stayed fixed on the overhead floor indicator. Cooper had nothing to say to the guard, and both of them knew it.
At the fifth floor the car jerked to a stop and the doors slid open. Cooper stepped out into a somber hallway. Her low heels clacked on floor tiles. She was met by a woman who, although her hair was silvery, looked much closer to Lynda’s age than Cooper’s.
“Mrs. Cooper?” The woman was rubbing her hands together, dislodging clouds of dust. She wore faded jeans, a denim shirt, and no make-up.
Cooper conceded the obvious.
The silver-haired woman dismissed the guard with a wave of her hand. Cooper heard the doors thud behind her, and the soft whir of cable as the elevator started back down.
“My name’s Allison Zebar. Please excuse the informal attire, and my not offering to shake hands. I’ve been plowing through a century of records for several hours, along with my too-small staff and anyone I can dragoon. Bill Collins is handling routine public relations for me, but I was told that you specifically asked for me?”
Cooper liked Zebar’s efficient tone. “Not exactly, Miss Zebar. Or do you prefer … ?”
“I sign business letters Ms. Zebar, but in conversation that makes me sound like a character out of Uncle Remus. You can call me Allison or, if it’s easier to remember, the one the cops talked to. My office is down this corridor.”
Cooper had to hurry through the twisting hallways to keep up with sneaker-shod Allison. The latter did not glance back until she came to a full stop before the open door of her office. The room had just enough space for a small desk, two chairs, and a filing cabinet. Homey touches included stray bits of museum property, including fossilized conch shells and a black metal sword. The windowsill doubled as a bookshelf, and thick filaments of ivy obscured the outside world. In summer, Cooper mused, exterior greenery would completely block the view.
“I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot …” Cooper began.
“This won’t take long enough for that to matter.” Zebar scooped yellowing file folders from the visitor’s chair and dropped them on the floor beside it. She settled back in her own chair, propping her feet on the desk. Stuck to the sole of her right sneaker was a brown-and-gray feather. “I’m sure there’s little I can tell you. You’re related to Lynda Cooper, I take it?”
“Her mother.” Cooper tore her gaze from the feather and sat down. Her beige wool skirt itched. She’d hoped to buy more comfortable clothes that morning, but the only nearby boutique that opened before the museum did had very little stock to choose from. Just finding the right size was a victory, though she considered her build average. “Did you know Lynda?”
“Not at all, as I told Lieutenant Foster, whom you should be talking to.” She coughed. “However, I’ll use any excuse to give my dust-filled lungs a break. I’m sorry I can’t be of help, Mrs. Cooper …”
“Francine. Fran, if you like. Fair is fair, Allison.”
Zebar clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. Francine Cooper knew how to get things. She’d have to be alert.
“Fran, then. I’d never heard of your daughter until Lieutenant Foster mentioned her name.”
“You knew Gary Cross, though.”
Zebar shifted her buttocks on the hardwood seat. The foot with the feather dropped to rest on the edge of a partly-open drawer. She frowned.
“You’re not related to him, too, are you? A secret marriage the police haven’t uncovered, or something?”
“Nothing so tangible.”
“Personnel records are confidential, if that’s what you’re after.”
Cooper leaned forward, cradling her purse in her lap. “Allison, all I know from Foster is that Cross sold illicit drugs. He dismissed Lynda as a client or accomplice. The police don’t care about her true status. I do.”
“What are you getting at?”
Cooper sighed. “I don’t know. I’m just collecting data, trying to make sense out of my daughter’s murder.”
Despite her own wariness, Zebar liked the older woman. “Murder never makes sense, Fran. I know platitudes aren’t very helpful, but that one’s true. You’ll only wear yourself down.”
“It’s my way of coping with the loss.”
Zebar stifled a sneeze. She brushed a cloud of dust from her denim shirt. “I still can’t help you.”
“I’ve already filled in some blanks on Cross. I know that he was a janitor here between May and July, and that he has not worked since. Nor did he apply for unemployment insurance, since he was ineligible. In 1978 he was involved in a scheme to defraud the state unemployment office.”
“My God.” Zebar’s liking became tinged with awe. “How did you learn all that? I’ll bet Foster doesn’t have half those details.”
Cooper hesitated a fraction of a second. Her occupation had so far only made it more difficult to persuade people that her interest was personal. However, she wanted Zebar’s confidence. To gain that, she had to show her hand.
“I’m a professional researcher, Allison. A few minutes at a library and a couple of telephone calls to the right people. That’s all it took.”
Allison found a mechanical pencil in the clutter on her desk. She twirled it slowly between two fingers, a miniature baton. “I relish this less and less.”
“Before you jump down my throat, I am not gathering background for an insider’s view of the killing. The idea disgusts me.”
The pencil clattered on the floor. Zebar ignored it. “I hadn’t thought of that. Of course, such an unasked-for denial immediately excites my suspicions.”
“I have to take that chance, if I expect you to take a chance on me.”
“I believe you, but I still can’t tell you anything. Let me show you back downstairs, Fran. I’ve got a shitload of files to wade through. I’ll be clocking overtime through the New Year’s holiday as it is, and the museum can’t afford my overtime.”
Cooper flattened a hand palm down on the smooth desktop. Blue veins stood out in sharp relief.
“I’ll strike a bargain, Allison. Talk to me about Gary Cross, and I’ll lend you my researching expertise.”
Zebar moistened her lips. She’d been begging for any kind of aid for the past twenty-four hours. An offer of professional help was more temptation than she should be subjected to.
“Assure me again. This really isn’t for publication?”
“Word of honor.”
Son of a bitch, Zebar thought. I do believe her! “Ask.”
After five minutes, Cooper decided that Cross’s only redeeming features were passably good looks and a superficial sophistication. Allison Zebar had discouraged more than one attempt of his to pick her up, and Cooper thought the public relations woman’s tastes were likely similar to Lynda’s. The two shared a common-sense attitude and responsible maturity. Perhaps Lynda simply drank too much that night, or there was an external factor yet to be uncovered. Possibly both. Cooper hoped the external factor wasn’t the same one Amos Foster had postulated, but she was beginning to despair of ever pinning it down.
Zebar described Cross’s clumsy effort to seduce an apprentice modeler beneath the stuffed elephants in the Hall of Africa.
“Is that why he was dismissed?” Cooper asked.
Zebar laughed. “I would have fired him then, but that’s not my department. The last straw … well, it’s not exactly a secret, but we’d prefer it didn’t get around. Bad publicity, and embarrassing as hell.”
“Rape?”
“Nothing so violent. Cross was stealing from the basement inventory. We never knew how much until yesterday. A night guard had caught him with a brontosaurus skull under his jacket.”
Cooper sat upright. “A what?”
“Actually, it was an intrinsically worthless plaster cast. Not even accurate. You may have heard of the recent flap when paleontologists determined that for decades the wrong skull has been attributed to the thunder lizard. Naturally, the things are being replaced throughout the world’s museums as fast as casts from a known authentic skull can be made. Our old skull was put into storage. Cross took a fancy to it.”
“Why, if it was worthless … ?”
“Intrinsically worthless, Fran. It still represents an investment of time and materials, and it’s a footnote to paleontological history. There’s also the principle of the thing—can’t have employees walking off with museum property—and the fear that Cross may have been making a dry run. If he’d been able to lift an awkward piece of junk, he might try for something more valuable, such as a few pieces from our gem collection.”
“Which someone did manage over the Labor Day weekend,” Cooper interrupted.
Zebar nodded. “The police tried to tie Cross to that, but he had an alibi, I forget what. Of course, we know now that the skull wasn’t his first theft.”
“Then the artifacts found on his houseboat belong to the museum.”
Zebar ran a hand through her silver-blond hair. “We’re fairly certain. One of our anthropologists identified a West Indian doll he’d purchased in 1968. That was luck. There’s a hell of a lot of stuff in our basement, and more in various storage rooms. It’s hard to tell what’s missing without an exhaustive search of inventory records.”
“The project you’re grousing about,” Cooper observed.
Zebar grinned. “Am I that obvious? Yes, we’re going over records of expeditions and acquisitions back to the founding of the museum, even to when we didn’t have a museum and everything was stored downtown at Brown Brothers.”
Cooper worried her lower lip. “The police are holding the objects as evidence, aren’t they? How can you match them up?”
“They sent us photographs.” Zebar reached across her desk to grasp the topmost of the stack of manila envelopes, and skimmed it to Cooper. “You’d better have a set of prints if you’re helping us look.”
Cooper bent back the clasp, slid the glossies out and spread them flat on the desk. Zebar lowered her feet to the floor. “Ready?” she asked, starting to rise.
Cooper shook her head. “I have to talk to a couple of Cross’s earlier employers.”
Zebar slumped back in her chair, disappointed but resigned. She couldn’t force Francine Cooper to honor her promise, and she had to admit the information on Cross was worth little. Although she’d warned the older woman that would be the case!
“Beggars can’t be choosers. I’ll leave word with the guards to admit you when you return.” Her tone said if, not when. Cooper could not miss that.
To reassure the young woman, Cooper said, “Can we go over the photographs quickly before I leave? That’ll give my subconscious something to work on.”
Zebar blinked. She couldn’t refuse a token of good faith. “Sure.” She tapped the first photograph with an unpolished nail. “That Mayan stone pot is probably the most valuable of Cross’s collection, worth about a grand to the right collector, yet it’s so common and in such poor condition we never missed it. Not suitable for public display.”
“Why steal such things?”
Zebar grimaced. Good faith! The older woman was still trying to understand Gary Cross, or at least what it was about the former janitor that might have attracted her daughter. Zebar had walked into the trap with eyes open wide. Might as well go through with it.
“Abnormal psychology is not my field. Possibly Cross swiped more than was found on his boat, and kept what he couldn’t sell.”
“No discretion.”
“No brains, which is why I never really believed he had anything to do with the Labor Day robbery.” Her fingers moved. “This one here is a bitch and a half. A trilobite fossil. No way to prove that’s one of ours. A chip is missing where our code number would have been. The police may give us the benefit of the doubt. Those Siberian sleigh bells appear to be from our last great Russian expedition at the end of the nineteenth century. I’ve got two staffers re-reading the handwritten diaries and comparing them to inventory lists. This blobby thing is, or was, a Japanese tsuga—a swordhilt. It’s in terrible condition, but interesting because it’s over a thousand years old and forged in cast iron, rather than carved from wood or ivory. This was the only item in Cross’s collection to show extensive recent damage. Seems to have been pried open. I suppose he could have used it for hiding drugs, but you can’t fit much in that narrow hollow.”
The photograph captured Cooper’s attention. One side of the tsuga was etched with Japanese characters. Cooper spoke little Japanese and read none, but the calligraphy conveyed an uneasy air of menace. She shivered. An eddy of air stirred below her knees.
Zebar paused, eyes narrowing. “Are you all right, Fran?”
Cooper nodded. She took a deep breath. “Just a draft.”
“I felt nothing. Close the door behind you, if you like.”
Cooper did not move to the door. Her gaze focused on the dark object that leaned against the wall, under the windowsill. She looked at the last photograph again.
“I see why you’re so sure about this hilt. It looks like a spare for that blade.”
Zebar turned to follow Cooper’s line of sight. She frowned. “That’s odd. I don’t remember bringing that up here. Yes, I do. I think.” She waved a disparaging hand. “We stumbled across the sword yesterday, but the hilt had already been identified. A senior administrator remembered it. The museum had been threatened with a lawsuit over a group of objects that included the tsuga … and that sword. That was only about twenty years ago, so the documentation had been duplicated in a more accessible area.” She glared at the sword again, wrinkling her nose. Her fingers moved to the next photograph. “Now, this fragment …”
“Stop a moment, Allison. This bothers me.” Cooper picked up the tsuga photograph and turned it in her hands. Light shimmered from the glossy coating. She resisted an impulse to reach for the sword itself. “Doesn’t it seem strange to you that the only museum piece damaged on Cross’s boat was part of a recent lawsuit?”
“Twenty years ago isn’t that recent,” Zebar protested, “and the suit never reached the courts.”
“Unlikely connections sometimes bear interesting fruit. What was the lawsuit about?”
Zebar sighed. Compliance would take less time than argument. She flipped through pages on her desk until she came to a yellowed file folder. Its tag was in smudged pencil. She opened it flat in the center of the desk and scanned the brittle contents.
“A Japanese-American,” she began, “named Matthew Kura claimed the museum had illegally obtained certainly family heirlooms that were his by right of inheritance.” She looked up, meeting Cooper’s cool gaze. “Since it’s my job, I feel obliged to justify the museum’s position. I won’t say there weren’t a lot of shady deals involving museums a century ago. At least as many as there are today in spite of modern safeguards. However, this particular purchase was completely legal, even if the museum’s representative took unfair advantage of the chaos following the Meiji Restoration to pick up swords and art objects at bargain prices. Samurai families were struggling for daily food. Kura claimed a dozen items all together, including some exquisite netsuke, a lacquer cabinet, a samurai court costume, two fine swords, and that iron weapon you keep staring at, which was likely reserved for ceremonial functions. It’s totally useless for battle.”
Cooper nodded thoughtfully. “How was the case resolved?”
“The museum’s lawyers were negotiating an amicable out-of-court settlement with Mr. Kura when the old man died. He’d suffered poor health since World War II, which he spent in a relocation camp in Idaho. Not one of our government’s better ideas. His only survivor, a son, let it drop. Oh, I didn’t notice that before.” Zebar unfolded a crackling, legal-sized sheet of thin paper.
