Corpus Christmas (19 page)

“Well, yes, but— Oh, don’t be daft, Sigrid! He was a grotty little man but you can’t think I went back there last night and
sneaked in and killed him?”

“Can you tell me where you were between eight-thirty and one
A.M.
?” Sigrid asked bluntly.

“To be sure, I can,” she said in her Celtic lilt. She brought Thorvaldsen an ice cube wrapped in a napkin and sat down with
her drink at the other end of the couch from Sigrid. “Søren and I finished dinner shortly before ten, then I took a cab to
the Maintenon. Some friends of mine were just going into the lounge when I got in around ten-thirty—George and Bitsy Laufermann—and
they insisted that I join them. We stayed for the midnight show. I’ll give you their phone number, if you wish, and you can
also ask the maître d’. He’ll tell you I was there.”

Sigrid jotted down the names and numbers, then asked, “What about your key to the Breul House? Do you carry it with you?”

“On my key ring, yes,” said Francesca. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to see it.”

She moved so beautifully, Sigrid thought, watching as the other woman crossed to her fur coat. Tonight she wore a dark brown
taffeta dress edged with a stiff, narrow self-ruffle at the neck and wrists, shot with gold threads that gleamed with every
swing of the skirt. Her lustrous hair fell in copper tangles about the perfect oval of her face.

Even as Sigrid went through the formalities of this interview with one level of her mind, another level cataloged Francesca’s
almost flawless beauty. Thorvaldsen’s advances had been clumsy and insulting and she should have decked him harder, but she
could almost sympathize with his basic confusion. How could Oscar Nauman possibly be attracted to her when he’d had one of
the most beautiful women in New York?

Last night she had meant it when she told Nauman she wasn’t jealous of the women he’d known before her. Tonight, on this ship,
she found herself wondering who had initiated their split—Francesca or Nauman?

Francesca Leeds dug into one of the deep pockets and came out with a handful of keys. She detached one and handed it to Sigrid.
It was tagged
EBH
.

“I’d like to keep this for now,” Sigrid said, wrapping it in a clean sheet of notepaper. She quickly wrote out a receipt for
it. “One more question: do you know why Roger Shambley was killed?”

The copper-haired woman resumed her place on the couch and her brown eyes regarded Sigrid humorously. “Because he couldn’t
keep his mouth shut?”

Sigrid looked up inquiringly.

Francesca shrugged. “I only know what I’ve heard.”

“Which is—?”

“Word around art circles is that Roger Shambley liked to know things. He listened and he heard and he was a bloody genius
with insinuations. People often thought he knew more than he did, but by the time they realized he didn’t, it was too late
because they’d already let too much slip.” She looked into her glass and laughed. “Does that make any sense?”

“He was a
røven af fjerde division,
” Thorvaldsen growled, the ice cube still held to his eye.

“That, too, if it means what I think it does,” Francesca nodded. “He liked to know unpleasant things about you and then rub
your nose in it.” She tilted her glass to her lips and drank the rest of her undiluted whiskey. “Or so I’ve been told.”

More specific, she would not be; so Sigrid turned her gaze back to the man, who had taken Francesca’s glass over to the bar
for a refill. “Would you prefer to finish your statement down at headquarters tomorrow, Mr. Thorvaldsen?”

“I thought I had finished already,” he said, pouring Irish whiskey into two glasses.

Sigrid flipped back several pages in her notebook. “You told me you worked until midnight and then went to bed.”

“
Ja.
”

“Yet we have a witness who saw you at the Breul House at midnight.”

That finally got under the shell of amused condescension that he’d adopted since Francesca’s arrival.

His blue eyes narrowed. “He must be mistaken.”

“No,” she answered flatly.

Francesca looked up at him as he returned with her new drink.

“Søren?”

He ignored her. “And if I say he lies, it is my word against his. Then what happens?”

“Then your people here will be questioned. No matter what you think, if you returned after midnight, someone will have seen
you. Lady Francesca’s key to the Breul House will be analyzed. If the lab finds any waxy or soapy residue, that might indicate
that it’d been duplicated without her knowledge. We would probably look more closely into your activities, see if Roger Shambley
had learned something interesting about you—how you acquired all the pieces in your art collection, for instance. And then—”

“Enough, enough.” He turned to Francesca. “I did
not
use your key.”

“But you did go back to the Breul House,” Sigrid prodded.

“
Ja,
” he sighed and walked over to the windows to stare out at the dark river.

Francesca’s eyes met Sigrid’s and both women waited silently.

With his back to them, Thorvaldsen said, “When I returned to my office last night, there was a message on my machine from
Dr. Shambley. He apologized for what he’d said about Francesca and Nauman and said he wanted to make it up to me.”

“Is the message still there?” Sigrid asked. “No, I erased it.” Thorvaldsen sank heavily into the tawny leather chair opposite
the low oak-and-glass table, his full glass cradled in those strong hands. The red lump under his eye had begun to turn blue.

“Did he say what he planned to do?”

“Not in so many words. Francesca told you before: he could say one thing, but you knew he meant something else.” He looked
at his glass, then set it on the table without drinking.

“This you must understand,
frøken
Harald—I did not get here by following every rule.”

He made a sweeping gesture of his hands that encompassed their luxurious surroundings here on the high deck of this ship and,
by extension, all that it symbolized. “If I’d done that, I’d still be breaking my back under bales of smoked herring on a
dock in Ålborg. Back then,
ja
, maybe I did sail too close to the wind. But that was then and this is now. Now, my money makes more money. All by itself
and all legal. Now, I want things I never dreamed of when I was a kid in Denmark. Now, I have time to learn what these things
mean, and money to pay for them.”

He gestured toward the painting across the room. “Twenty-three years ago, I was walking along a street in København and I
saw a picture in the window of a gallery. A little thing, so”—he sketched a small rectangle with his hands, approximately
twelve by eighteen inches—“and it stopped me cold. I didn’t know why, I just knew I had to own it. It took me two years to
pay for it. My first Nauman picture. Now I own eleven Naumans and they form the heart of my collection. I’ve collected other
artists, of course—two Picassos, a Léger, a wonderful Brancusi sculpture, and a number of works by lesser-known practitioners
of what I call ‘cerebral abstraction.’”

Francesca slipped off her brown high-heeled boots and tucked her legs up under her skirt with a rustle of taffeta, but Sigrid
remained motionless as Thorvaldsen abruptly reached for his glass.

“And for all these works,” he said, “I have documents, bills of sale, certificates.” He drank deeply. “But every now and then,
people come to me with very beautiful, very rare things and they don’t always have documents and I don’t always ask for receipts.
Shambley knew this.”

Thorvaldsen gave Francesca a crooked smile. “Or, as you said,
min dame,
he made me think he knew this.”

“He offered to sell you a stolen painting?” Sigrid asked. “Not in those words, but yes,” Thorvaldsen admitted.

“At the same time, he made me think that if I didn’t come, questions would be raised by others. Just now—”

He broke off and gave a sardonic shrug of his broad shoulders. “Let’s say that at this particular moment, I don’t want controversy.
Any
controversy. Next month, okay. Now, no.”

“So you went to the Breul House?”

“Not immediately. But the more I thought of this other matter, the more I decided I had to go, at least hear what he wanted
to say. I walked over to Eleventh Avenue and caught a cab going downtown. Got out near Sussex Square. He said to come in without
ringing; the front door would be unlocked.”

“Was it?”

His affirmative grunt was halfway between a
ja
and a yeah.

“And the time?”

“A few minutes past eleven, I think. The great hall was dim inside. I called his name. No answer. A light was on in the library,
so I went in there and sat until I almost fell asleep. Finally, I began to think it was some kind of stupid joke, so I left.”

“What time was that?”

“Midnight.” A more genuine smile flitted across his rugged features. “As I came down the steps, the lights on the Christmas
tree in the middle of the park went off.”

Sigrid found it hard to believe that a man like Søren Thorvaldsen would sit meekly in a library and wait almost an hour for
someone like Shambley to jerk him around and she said as much.

Thorvaldsen finished off his drink and set the glass on the table between them with a decisive clink. “Think what you like.
You wanted my statement. That’s it.”

The lump beneath his eye was nearly purple now and Sigrid saw that he winced when he touched it absentmindedly. It was probably
pointless to continue with Thorvaldsen tonight, she thought. Better to wait and get him down to her office when he was less
belligerent. Time enough then to ask if he’d had a look around for whatever shady art object Shambley may have planned to
sell him.

She slipped on her coat, stowed the pad in one of its pockets, and pulled out her gloves.

“Did you leave a trail of bread crumbs coming in?” Francesca asked.

“No,” Sigrid smiled, “but I think I can find my way out.” As she said good night and opened the door, Francesca suddenly slid
on her boots and said, “Better let me point you toward the nearest gangplank. Back in a minute, Søren.”

They walked down the wide passageway to the elevator. Sigrid said, “Do you suppose the ship’s doctor is on board tonight?
Someone ought to take a look at that eye.”

Francesca was amused. “I’m sure Søren’s had worse knocks than that. He made a pass at you, didn’t he?”

“Not exactly.”

They rang for an elevator and Sigrid felt the other woman’s appraising eyes as they waited.

“He’s really not like that,” said Francesca. “You probably won’t believe me, but I’ve been seeing him for two months now and
underneath all that diamond-in-the-rough facade, he’s been a perfect gentleman.
Too
perfect, in some respects.”

The elevator arrived and they stepped inside. “In fact,” she added, “I was beginning to wonder if he marched to a different
drummer or if I was losing it.”

“You?” Sigrid murmured, feeling like a drab country mouse next to Francesca’s rich shimmer of brown-and-gold taffeta.

As the elevator doors opened for them, Francesca laid her hand on Sigrid’s arm. “Does it make a difference to you, Sigrid?
About Oscar and me, I mean? I saw your face last night when you realized what Roger Shambley meant.”

Sigrid was silent. She rather doubted if Francesca Leeds had seen any more in her face than the redhead expected— or wanted?—to
see; and she had never felt comfortable exchanging girlish confidences.

Evidently Francesca felt differently. “What Oscar and I had was wonderful while it lasted, but it’s been over for more than
a year.”

And what, Sigrid wondered mutely, was the proper response to that? I’m sorry? I’m glad? Were you glad when it ended? Was Nauman?

“Ah! There’s the door I came in,” she said, pulling on her gloves and raising the hood of her coat. “I think I can find my
way out from here.”

And beat a coward’s quick exit.

It was after nine when Sigrid got home. She’d stopped off at a bookstore along the way to begin her Christmas shopping. This
was a young cousin’s first Christmas and she couldn’t decide whether to get him a traditional
Mother Goose
or a lavish pop-up book, so she bought both. Baby Lars had been named for her favorite great-uncle, but she couldn’t neglect
the other five in Hilda’s brood, especially when one stop could take care of the whole Carmichael family so simply.

She had spent a happy hour browsing through
Wind in the Willows, The Secret Garden, Watership Down, Treasure Island
, and
Charlotte’s Web,
leafing through dozens more before adding a newly published and beautifully illustrated book of fairy tales for Hilda, who
collected them.

A book for Hilda’s husband wasn’t quite as simple. What does one give a CPA who has everything? Impulsively she chose a book
on building Chinese kites. A man with six children might find that diverting.

Laden with bundles, she arrived at number 42 1/2, a sturdy green wooden gate set into a high nondescript wall on an equally
nondescript street full of rundown buildings at the western edge of Greenwich Village. She unlocked the gate and found Roman
Tramegra stringing lights on the dogwood tree that stood in the center of their small garden. He was bundled against the icy
December night in a bizarre white ski mask, multicolored scarves, and three layers of sweaters and he greeted her gaily in
his deep booming voice as she piled her packages on a stone bench.

“Ah,
there
you are, dear Sigrid! Had I realized you’d be home so soon, I would have waited. No matter. I shall be the president and
you
can be the little child that leads us.”

It had been almost a year since this late-blooming flower child, to use Nauman’s phrase, had wandered into her life and, by
an odd set of circumstances, wound up sharing with her an apartment he’d acquired through arcane family connections.

Although only a few years older than she, he had adopted an avuncular manner and by now felt free to comment on her clothes,
her hair, her makeup, and whether or not she was eating properly and getting enough sleep. He was so easily deflected, however,
that Sigrid, by nature a solitary person, found him less of an intrusion than she’d feared. She discovered that she enjoyed
coming home to a well-lit apartment full of occasionally entrancing dinner aromas—Roman was an adventurous cook; not all his
adventures had a happy ending—and his magpie curiosity and verbal flights of fancy kept her amused more often than not.