Murder at the Library of Congress (21 page)

She motioned for Annabel to join her in the office. Annabel stepped inside and Lucianne shut the door.

“You’ve taken over Consuela’s office?” Annabel said.

“Anything to get away from my keepers in Public Affairs. Consuela offered. At least somebody around here makes sense.”

“You’re too hard on Joanne and her people, Lucianne. They’re doing their job.”

“And keeping me from doing mine. Want to know where that hundred thousand to Michele Paul came from?”

“I’d like to say no but go ahead.”

“David Driscoll. Turns out he’d been sending checks to our Michele Paul for years.”

“It’s not a surprise, is it? I mean, your sources said it was Driscoll spreading money around in search of the Las Casas materials.”

“But to Michele Paul? Paul worked for this library. If he was feeding Driscoll information about Las Casas, he violated his agreement with the Library of Congress—didn’t he?”

“I don’t know what agreement Paul might have had with LC.”

“I do. He was an employee, paid by LC. His research belonged to LC, just like engineers inventing something on GE’s time. What they come up with belongs to the company.”

“You’re
assuming
Paul was selling his research findings to Driscoll.”

“What else did he have to sell?”

“Hmmm.”

“Driscoll lives in L.A.”

“And?”

“And this two-bit thief Munsch steals a painting with Columbus as its theme and heads to L.A. with it. Munsch
was no art collector. He had to have stolen the painting at someone else’s behest.”

“That’s what Mac said. David Driscoll?”

“Got any better ideas?”

“Do you know what I decided last night after you left our apartment, Lucianne?”

“That you wouldn’t invite me back?”

“That I didn’t want to spend another minute thinking about the murder.”

“That’ll teach you to invite a journalist for dinner.”

Annabel nodded and smiled. “I think I’ll stick to that decision, at least for the rest of the day.”

“Okay, but remember what you promised, that you’d let me know if you pick up anything I can use about the murders.”

“Murders, plural? Oh, John Bitteman. I didn’t promise anything. But if some startling revelation jumps up and bites me, I’ll pass it along, if I can.”

“Can’t ask for more. Best to Mac. See ya.”

Returning to her work area, Annabel decided that she’d have to tell someone at the library about her conversation with Lucianne, and made up her mind to call Cale Broadhurst later in the day.

26

It was said that you could set your watch by Abraham Widlitz. The seventy-two-year-old art restorer and conservator rigidly adhered to a schedule ingrained in him ever since emigrating to Hollywood from New York City in the late 1940s.

Like so many young men and women seeking fame and fortune in L.A., Widlitz carried with him a change of clothing and a talent, in his case a considerable skill at drawing. He landed work at Columbia Pictures, where he served an apprenticeship in the set design department for small pay, supplemented by the excitement of being close to the glamour of the burgeoning film industry and its famous players.

His technical skills were appreciated at the studio; he stayed there forty years, until someone in the increasingly youthful hierarchy decided he was too old to understand and contribute to modern films and sent him out to pasture with a decent pension and four decades of memories. His wife of thirty-six years, Sylvia, whom he’d met when she was a secretary in the set department, died four months after his forced retirement, leaving Widlitz to fend for himself, which he did quite nicely.

Unlike many widows and widowers, his routine didn’t change following his mate’s death. He just kept doing what he’d done for the past fifty years, up at five, a light
breakfast, an hour devoted to the plants and flowers he and Sylvia took pleasure in cultivating, a walk to a neighborhood convenience store for the morning paper, a second cup of tea with honey while reading the news, a phone call to their only child, Philip, an orthodontist in Pittsburgh, then boarding an RTD bus for the ride downtown to where he had opened his small art restoration and conservation studio in El Pueblo de Los Angeles a year after leaving Columbia.

This morning, like all other mornings, he stopped at a bakery before entering his building to buy for his lunch one
churro
, a Mexican doughnut, and then on to a street vendor’s
puesto
where he purchased a peeled mango and papaya.

Abraham Widlitz was a familiar figure in the lively, multiethnic neighborhood, although few knew him through conversation. Aside from never failing to extend pleasant greetings to others in the area, he kept to himself, seldom leaving his small studio until it was time to retrace his route home.

He went to work immediately in the outer room of the two-room studio on a small, damaged oil a customer had picked up in a thrift shop. The painting was of a garden and featured a frog in the lower left-hand corner; the client collected anything depicting frogs, including coffee mugs, jewelry, bric-a-brac, and pictures. A tree overhanging the frog had suffered water damage and Widlitz carefully repainted its leaves.

He completed the task by noon, and after consuming the fruit and doughnut went into the back room where he’d spread the Reyes painting on a large flat surface. He’d started work on it the previous day, going over every inch with a jeweler’s loupe, through which he examined the pigments the artist had used, seeking visual evidence that the scene of Columbus kneeling before the
king and queen might have been painted over another work of one sort or another. Heavy coats of varnish had been applied to the entire painting; Widlitz judged the most recent to be no older than fifty years, probably done when the painting was last put up for sale. He also noted that the original, finely woven canvas had been lined with an equally fine canvas with an aqueous adhesive.

He worked in one corner, carefully removing the varnish—he now realized there were at least three distinct and separate layers—until exposing what appeared to be two lines that were not part of the painting itself, unless, of course, they had been drawn by the artist while making initial sketches. If so, the lines evidently had not been incorporated in the finished work.

He extended the square until it became three inches by three inches. As he worked, he muttered to himself about the artist’s crude brushwork and clumsy rendering of the figures in the painting. Abe Widlitz realized years ago that he would never become an artist of note—dozens of classes at local colleges and studios convinced him of that. But he knew good art when he saw it, and this painting didn’t qualify.

The task was tedious and tiring for the aging craftsman. Ordinarily, such a project would be attacked over many weeks. But Widlitz knew from previous experience that his client was not a patient man. He’d handled a number of projects for Driscoll, put off by his abrasive, demanding demeanor but appreciating how quickly and generously the multimillionaire paid for the work Widlitz performed on his behalf.

He continued using solvents to remove the varnish in the painting’s corner until the area had been expanded to approximately two square feet. From what he could ascertain, the only material contained beneath Reyes’s
painting was, with few exceptions, preliminary pencil sketches of the scene.

At precisely five, he put away the materials he’d used that day and sat down at his desk to pay bills that had arrived in the mail that morning. At 5:45, he washed the few dishes he’d used, put on his jacket, adjusted the blinds on the windows, and prepared to depart the studio, leaving just enough time to catch the 6:02 bus.

He set the burglar alarm, opened the door, and came face-to-face with two men in suits and two uniformed officers from the LAPD.

“Abraham Widlitz?” one of the suits asked.

“Yes.”

“We have a warrant to search these premises.” He showed Widlitz a piece of paper and his badge.

“Search?” said Widlitz. “Why would you want to search my studio?”

“Excuse me.” The man led his plainclothes partner inside and snapped on overhead lights. One of the cops in uniform escorted Widlitz back into the studio while the other officer remained in the hall.

“Please, would you explain to me why you are here?” Widlitz said, hands outstretched. “What are you looking for?”

“My partner and I are with the LAPD art squad, Mr. Widlitz. We’ve been told you sometimes turn your back on who really owns some of the paintings you work on.”

“That is not true.”

“If it’s not, we’ll find that out. In the meantime, why don’t you just sit down and relax. If our information is wrong, maybe we’ll see something we like and buy it from you. If our information is right, we can all go down to headquarters and have a little heart-to-heart about art and artists. How’s that sound to you?”

“Am I allowed to make a phone call?”

“Your lawyer?”

“My son. He will know what to do.”

“Sure. Call your boy.” He surveyed the larger, outer room. “Lots of stuff here, Mr. Widlitz. Business must be good.”

Widlitz didn’t respond as he dialed the number in Pittsburgh with a hand that trembled in rhythm to his heartbeat.

27

“So, where are we?”

Detective Marcus Shorter took a bite of his burrito and washed it down with a sip of Coke. He and his partner, Frank Nastasi, had spent the morning in the old Librarian’s office interviewing a dozen people from LC, including the two researchers who occupied work spaces adjacent to Michele Paul; Dolores Marwede for the second time; members of the public affairs department; General Counsel Mary Beth Mullin; the intern, Susan Gomara; and John Vogler for the third time. It was Nastasi’s day to choose where to eat lunch, and he had opted for Burrito Brothers, nestled in the string of inexpensive restaurants on Pennsylvania Avenue, a block from the library.

“Where are we?” Shorter repeated, pulling a pad from his jacket pocket on which he’d made notes that morning. “Let’s see. Kelman made no bones about not liking the deceased, but he’s got an alibi the night of the murder. I have a feeling it’ll check out. Same with Ms. Warren.” He laughed. “Another hour with her and we’d know everything we’d ever want to know about burying people.”

“Go figure, a pretty little thing like her loving buried bodies. She admits she went out with Paul a few times—”

“Twice. For drinks.”

“But no sex, right?”

“Right, and no alibi either, home alone all evening, but a call to her father in Denver around eight. We’ll have her phone records this afternoon.”

“Had a relationship with the guy, though,” Nastasi said. “Maybe they did get it on and he failed the test, ticked her off.”

Shorter shrugged and finished his burrito. Nastasi’s was long gone.

“The intern—what’s her name? Gomara?—cute kid. Said the guy verbally abused her but I’m sure she didn’t whack him in the head. Too sweet, and for real. I’m not sure she could even lift the weight that whacked Paul.”

Shorter consulted his notes. “She was working in the main reading room until nine-thirty. Checks out.”

Nastasi nodded. “Let’s leave this burritoville before I eat another.”

They paid and slowly walked back to the Jefferson Building, continuing to discuss the morning’s interviews as they went.

“That Ms. Graves from Public Affairs is an impressive piece of work,” Nastasi said, stopping to prop a foot on a bench to tie a shoelace that had come undone. “What ’a you think of Mrs. Smith?”

“I like her,” said Shorter as they resumed their walk. “Her husband was a big-shot attorney in D.C. years ago.”

“Yeah, I know that. He got off a scumbag I collared. He was good, smooth as silk. Should we look at her again? She found him.”

“No. She’s off my screen. I keep going back to Vogler. He swears he never went that night to where the murder took place, but Marwede swears she saw him there. He sure had motive.”

Nastasi nodded and—he knew he ate too fast—belched against his fist as they reached the main entrance.

“What do you think Broadhurst will do about the money this Mr. Driscoll was sending Michele Paul?”

“No idea. When he said he’d follow through on it, he tried to act like it was nothing but he was shaken. You read that, too?”

“Uh huh. Maybe Paul got greedy and wanted more.”

They flashed their badges at the library security guard but were made to go through the metal detector anyway, and went directly to what had been their home since the murder, the handsomely appointed, genteel old Librarian’s office. Waiting there for them was John Vogler, chief of the manuscripts division.

“What can we do for you, Dr. Vogler?” Nastasi asked.

“I’d like to speak with you.”

Shorter checked his watch. “We have a few minutes before our next interview. Come on in.”

Sue Gomara knocked on Consuela Martinez’s closed office door.

“Yes, Susan?”

“I don’t want you to think I’m unhappy or anything,” Sue said, “but I was wondering whether I could do something else in Hispanic besides the Cuban newspapers.”

Consuela smiled. She’d been waiting for the young woman to assert herself and ask for greater responsibility.

Sue continued with her pitch: “I could still do the newspapers some of the time, but not all of the time. Maybe you could get another intern to help out—if that’s possible.”

“What sort of things would you like to do?” Consuela asked.

Sue shrugged, said, “I don’t know, like maybe go
through one of the collections, catalog it, feel like I’m helping to do something important.”

“Keeping track of the Cuban newspapers
is
important.”

“Oh, sure, I know that, but …”

“I think it’s a fine idea that you branch out a little.”

“You do?”

“Yes, I do. Tell you what. We have dozens of collections sitting in the stacks just waiting for someone to go through them carefully, make notes on what’s in them, that sort of thing. Make up a preliminary inventory, a simple report.”

“That would be great, Dr. Martinez. I’d love that.”