Still As Death (14 page)

“Now that’s what I’d call a Boston accent.”

Sweeney turned to Ian. “What?”

“Your cop friend. He’s got quite an accent.”

Sweeney waited a beat. “And you’ve got quite an accent yourself.”

His face fell a little. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Okay.” They stared at each other for a minute, and she relented. “I’m sensitive about Boston accents, I guess.”

“I like
your
accent.”

“Well, I don’t really have one.” Ian just raised an eyebrow.

She was too tired to pursue it. “Let’s go over there.” She pointed to where their fellow detainees were sitting on folding chairs at the other end of the gallery.

“I wonder how long we’ll have to stay here,” Fred was saying. “I mean, what can we really do? If anyone had seen them, they would have already told the police, don’t you think?”

“They’re probably trying to get a time line in place, so they can figure out exactly when it happened,” Sweeney said. “They’ll want to know where we all were, who we remember being here, that kind of thing. And they’re going to have to talk to each of us individually, so you’d better count on being here a while.”

“I’m sure there are security cameras,” Ian told them. “They’ll be able to look at the tapes and at least see who entered and left the building. Whether they’ll be able to track down the stopper is another question. It’s amazing how quickly artifacts disappear into underground networks. I doubt it will ever be recovered. I’ve seen it
many, many times. Though I suppose it’s worth much less separated from the rest of the chest.”

“It was incredibly bold,” Willem said, “trying to take it when everyone was here.” He sounded personally offended, as though the art thieves had done it as an affront to Willem.

“That was probably the point,” Ian said. “Think about it. Your security is much more lax during something like this than at any other time, right? It was quite clever, actually.”

Willem didn’t say anything. Sweeney could see him eyeing Ian, making the judgment that he was a little arrogant, a little too sure of himself.

“But think about all the people who were coming and going.” Lacey wrapped her shawl a little more tightly around her shoulders. “Anyone could have come down at any time.”

“Jeanne and I did go down,” Sweeney pointed out. “And Olga did too.”

There was a long silence. Sweeney knew that both she and Jeanne were thinking the same thing. If they’d gone down a little bit earlier, it might have been either one of them surprising the thief or thieves.

“You didn’t see anybody, did you, Jeanne?” Fred asked.

Jeanne shook her head. Someone had found a sweatshirt for her to put on over her bloodstained dress. It was sized for a large man and came nearly to her waist, her hands disappearing inside the sleeves.

They watched Tad approaching them. “I’m allowed to go, apparently,” he said. “But they want to talk to everybody.”

“What did they ask you?” Fred asked in a low voice. Something in his tone made Sweeney turn to look at him. He seemed nervous, his eyes darting back and forth between Quinn and the other people waiting to be questioned.

“Oh, just where I was, did I see anyone going downstairs, did I see anyone leaving or anyone who seemed nervous or anything like that. I couldn’t offer a whole lot. I had gone to get more seltzer for
the caterers. I was in the supply closet on the main floor, so I didn’t see anybody at all.” He gave a long sigh, as though he was relieved. “Well, I’m going to get going. I’ll see you all tomorrow?” They nodded and he flashed a rare smile—Sweeney realized she’d seen Tad smile only a handful of times—and turned to go.

But he didn’t make it very far before he was stopped in his tracks by the voice of one of the uniformed cops who were rushing up the stairs. “Detective Quinn,” he called out. “We need you downstairs. Right now. I think we’ve got something.”

They all watched as Quinn and the young woman raced out of the gallery and disappeared down the stairwell. Despite the fact that there was a uniformed cop guarding them, everyone left in the gallery went out onto the open hallway and looked down over the balcony. The voices floated up and reached them where they stood.

“We found the other head,” one of the uniformed cops was saying. “Someone dumped it in the trash can by the door. And it’s covered in blood.”

“SHE WAS A SOVIET JEW. From Moscow, I think,” Willem Keane was saying. “I’ve known her for thirty years now, and I never heard the story of how she ended up here, but you know there were a lot of them who came over in the late seventies. Remember the refuseniks?”

Quinn had no idea what he was talking about, but he nodded and let Keane go on. “She was a very private person, not particularly friendly. She hid behind the language barrier sometimes, I think. Her English was actually pretty good, but she would pretend she didn’t understand so she wouldn’t have to talk. She was afraid of people, of personal interactions, I think.”

“Did you know anything about her family? Was she married? Where did she live?” Quinn asked him.

“Oh, no. I don’t think she had anybody. We can check the personnel file, but I believe she rented an apartment somewhere in Jamaica Plain. She’d moved around a good bit while she worked for us. Perhaps she had friends in the Russian or Jewish community, I don’t know. She never talked about anything beyond her job here at the museum.”

“How did you come to hire her?” Quinn asked.

“It wasn’t me, but I was here then. I believe it was through a benefactor. We can find the name for you if you want. He had taken on the cause of Russian Jews who had come over and was helping them find jobs. In those days, I think it was easier for someone just to call up and say he wanted to find a job for a friend. He’d given a lot of money to the museum. Now Olga would have to go through personnel like anyone else. She was very satisfactory, though. She did her job well.”

“Who should we notify? About her death?”

“I was thinking about that,” Keane said, crossing his legs and leaning back comfortably in the chair. “She never mentioned anyone. I suppose the only thing to do is to go to her apartment and see if any of her neighbors know anything more, see if there are any letters at the apartment, anything like that. I’d be happy to help in any way I can. I liked her very much.”

“And of course it looks like she may have saved your chest from being stolen,” Ellie said. She had been silent up until now, following Quinn’s instructions as they’d come in. Both Quinn and Keane turned to look at her.

“That’s right,” Keane said. “I’m grateful, though of course if I had my choice, I would prefer she hadn’t had to sacrifice her life.” He said it just a little too fast, as though he was embarrassed that Ellie had reminded him.

“Right,” Quinn said. “Of course.” Ellie’s comment had thrown him off. “If you could tell me about the security procedures here at the museum …?”

“Yes.” Keane settled back in his chair, on firm ground now. “Certainly. You’ll want to talk to our director of security and the company that handles it for us. After the theft here twenty-five or so years ago, we improved our security a lot, though there’s always more that can be done. Basically we have extensive video surveillance in all of the galleries and at all points of entry or exit. Then there’s security at every door leading from the administrative offices and the storerooms
into the galleries. All staff have electronic passkeys that they wave in front of the device and then enter a password. I’m sure there are tapes from the cameras.”

“Yes,” Quinn said. “We arranged with Mr. Moran to contact the security company to get all of those tapes. We’ll be viewing them as soon as possible.”

“Good. Of course, we have a state-of-the-art alarm system as well. All points of entry. That’s for when the museum’s not open. But many of our display cabinets are alarmed as well. I attended a conference on security a couple of years ago that led me to insist on the extra protection. College and university art museums are extraordinarily vulnerable, apparently. They have some priceless art and artifacts and are usually woefully unprotected. It’s a miracle there haven’t been more thefts like this one.”

“Attempted thefts,” Ellie said.

“Yes. Right.” Keane glanced at her. “Attempted thefts.”

Quinn paused for a moment, in order to figure out where he wanted to go next. Thanks to Sweeney, he couldn’t help wanting to know more about the 1979 theft, but Keane probably wasn’t the person to ask. Quinn was sure he’d have his own prejudices and theories. He looked around the office, which was decorated with what looked like castoffs from the museum’s collection, a couple of rugs hanging on one wall, a piece of fabric covered in symbols and drawings of women on another. Keane’s desk had a few small Egyptian artifacts on it, a golden woman’s head and a small buff-colored pyramid. Quinn assumed they were copies. “Have you had any threats or unusual communications of any kind?”

Keane gave him a sardonic look. “You mean has anyone written me a note telling me they’re going to rob my museum? No. I can assure you they have not.”

“Okay. Now, can you tell me what you did tonight. Just give us a time line of your evening.”

Keane looked around the room, as though he couldn’t quite believe
he was being asked to do this. Quinn gave him what he hoped was a stern look. “Certainly. I was upstairs for most of the evening, talking to guests. At about six o’clock, I took Mr. Hutchinson down to see the chest.” He said it as though he’d already explained all of this to them and they were annoying him by asking him to repeat it.

“Mr. Hutchinson?”

Keane came close to rolling his eyes. “I told the other cop. Mr. Hutchinson donated the chest and I took him down to show it to him. When we were done, I escorted him back to the main floor and said good-bye, and then I came back upstairs.”

“Did you see Mr. Hutchinson leave the building?” Hutchinson hadn’t been on the list of people in the museum at the time the body was found.

“Yes.”

“We’ll need to get in touch with him.”

Now Keane looked angry. “We are talking about a seventy-nine-year-old man, a banker and distinguished alumnus of this university, who has given a priceless gift to the museum. Surely you can’t be suggesting that he is also an art thief.”

“No, but he may be a witness,” Quinn said. “So you said goodbye to him and then you came straight upstairs? Did you see anything unusual?”

“I did visit the restroom on the lower floor,” Keane said. “But I did not see anything unusual. In fact, I did not see anything usual, either. There was no one down there.” He held his head a little higher, and Quinn decided that he now knew where the phrase “looking down his nose” came from. There was real arrogance in Keane’s voice, as though he couldn’t understand why this cop was suddenly in a position of authority over him.

He and Quinn stared at each other for a minute, and then Quinn said, “Mr. Keane, I am trying to find out who murdered one of your employees and tried to steal what I understand is a very expensive piece of art. I don’t know why you are reluctant to answer my questions, but if you continue to be so, I will find myself wondering
about it even more.” It was the kind of speech he always wanted to make but could never quite think of at the time.

Keane inclined his head a bit and said, “You’re right. I’m sorry. Of course I want to help you.”

“Okay. What time was it when you went down to the basement and found it empty?”

“I would say it was about six thirty-five or so.”

Quinn looked at Ellie. That was only twenty-five minutes before Jeanne Ortiz had found Olga Levitch’s body. They’d pinned the murder down to a twenty-five minute window. Now the security tapes would actually be useful to them. “Go get Jimmy and those guys to start viewing the tapes,” he told Ellie. She nodded and left the room.

“And after you showed Mr. Hutchinson the chest, you locked the cabinet back up again, right?” In their initial investigation of the cabinet, it had appeared as though it had been broken open. The wood near the lock was splintered and gouged, and the crime-scene services was taking castings of the marks to try to figure out what kind of a tool had made them. It was one of them who had called Quinn over and said, “The lock was open, Tim. Look, you can see that it’s disengaged. Whoever made these marks was trying to make us think that he’d broken in, but it was as simple as lifting the top.”

Tad Moran had been adamant that Keane would never have done something as careless as to leave the cabinet unlocked, but Quinn was betting that he had.

Now, faced with the question, Keane looked offended. “Of course I did.”

“The cabinet was damaged, but the lock appears not to have been broken.”

Keane didn’t seem to get what he was saying. He just sat there.

Quinn prompted him. “Mr. Keane, the lock on the cabinet was open when the cabinet was damaged.”

“Well, I know I locked it when I took Mr. Hutchinson back upstairs.” But he sounded less sure this time.

“Is there any possibility that you left it open? I’m sure you can appreciate how important this is. If you are absolutely certain that you locked that cabinet, then we’re looking for someone with a key. How many other people in this museum have keys to that cabinet?”

He seemed to grasp the point. “I don’t know how I could have …” He blanched, as though he’d just realized that if the chest had been stolen, it would have been his fault. “I suppose that … I was very excited about it and it was just a temporary exhibit, so I’m not accustomed to locking them. The newer ones lock automatically. Oh, God.” He put a hand to his heart. “If it had been successfully stolen …”

Quinn decided to go for it and ask Keane if he had any ideas about the 1979 theft. “Did you have any suspicions about who it might have been?”

“Well, I guess it isn’t any secret that the FBI suspected it was the same people who later broke into the Gardner. Some kind of organized crime.”

“And that made sense to you?”

“I suppose. It certainly seemed like a professional job.”

“Okay, that’s all I have for now. I’m sure we’ll be in touch in the next couple of days. And we will need your help in locating family members for Olga Levitch.”