Hoarded to Death (A Jamie Brodie Mystery) (5 page)

"Yep. He's my brother. Jennifer Graham, whose apartment this is, is Kevin's ex-wife."

Eckhoff's eyes widened. "No kidding."

"No kidding."

"Huh." Eckhoff looked back at Jennifer, who was talking to Belardo, then back at me. "Okay. What's going on here?"

I gave him the whole story; Pete told him about looking into the apartment, seeing the dead guy, and closing the door to preserve the scene. Eckhoff nodded. "Did you recognize the guy?"

"I thought it looked like Wally, the guy who's missing from the junk crew. He had a key to the apartment because he was supposed to meet the cameraman here earlier this morning."

"Okay." Eckhoff put his notepad away. "So, this Graham girl is your ex-sister-in-law."

"Yeah."

"And she's one of these hoarders?"

"Yeah. You saw inside the apartment. It was twice that bad yesterday."

Eckhoff looked mystified. "I've never understood the hoarding thing. Why do they do it?"

Pete answered. "It's a mental illness. Related to obsessive compulsive disorder. It takes a lot of therapy to get them to change."

I tipped my head at Pete, and said to Eckhoff, "Psychologist."

"Ah." Eckhoff grinned. "But you're not the shrink for the show."

Pete laughed. "Oh, God, no. I couldn't work with these people all the time."

"What kind of people do you work with?"

"College students. I'm on faculty at Santa Monica College. I'm just here to help with the cleanup." Pete was watching Eckhoff; I could tell he'd come to a decision. "I was Kevin Brodie's partner when we were officers in West LA. When he made detective, I went to grad school."

"Aha." Eckhoff looked impressed. "I wondered; most people would have gone farther into the apartment than you did. I thought maybe you were just a big CSI fan."

Pete laughed. "Can't stand that show, to tell you the truth."

"Me either." Eckhoff laughed too. "So you were sure he was dead when you looked at him."

"He had a big hole in his chest. I was sure."

"Okay." We all watched as the crime scene and coroner’s vans pulled into the parking lot and the attendants started unloading their equipment. Eckhoff turned back to us. "Let me check with my partner, but I think you all can go. We'll probably come talk to you later today, but we can do it at your place."

"That sounds good." It was 10:00, and I was getting tired of sitting around. "We're not going anywhere today."

"Cool." Eckhoff gave us one of his cards. "So we'll see you this afternoon, then."

The three of us went home, stopping on the way to get a few groceries. We ate lunch and were settled in the living room, watching an NFL game, when Eckhoff and Belardo came to the door.

Belardo hadn’t spoken to us at Jennifer’s apartment. When we introduced ourselves, he gave Pete and me a look of barely disguised disgust. Pete gazed at him impassively; I narrowed my eyes a little to let him know that I’d noticed. It was guys like Belardo that helped speed up Pete’s decision to leave the police force and go to graduate school. Things were a lot better for gay and lesbian cops than they used to be. But there were still plenty of guys on the force, like Belardo, who thought we were deviant scum.

I hoped that we wouldn’t be involved in this investigation beyond today.

Belardo did most of the talking this time and told us that Wally’s name was actually Howard Wallace. He covered the same questions as before, which was what I'd expected. Then he started asking about what had happened the previous day - had we noticed anything odd about Wally's behavior, or anything like that. We told him about Wally’s scrutiny of the magazines and newspapers we were throwing away.

Then he sprang the big news on us.

"We found something clutched in the hand of the body. Does this look familiar to either of you?"

The detective held out a plastic zip top bag, containing what looked at first glance like a scrap of old paper. I took it. The paper was either very old or artificially aged to look very old. It looked like the corner of a larger page, about 4 or 5 inches wide, with decorative writing on both sides. "Wow. This looks like it could be a page from an illuminated manuscript."

Belardo frowned. "What’s that?"

"Illuminated manuscripts are usually all or part of the Bible, produced by hand by monks back in the Middle Ages. It's how the Bible got reproduced in those days, before the invention of the printing press. Some of them were decorated very lavishly, and this looks like one of those."

"Is it old?"

"If it's authentic, it is. There are ways to reproduce them and make them look old when they're not. An expert would have to look at it."

“You’re not an expert?”

“No. My degree is in ancient history, but I don’t know how to tell the good fakes from the real thing.”

"How old might it be?"

I thought. "Well, the European Middle Ages lasted for about a thousand years, from the fifth to the fifteenth century. Any time within that time frame. So at least 600 years. Again, if it's authentic." I handed the bag to Pete, who started examining it. “I can't imagine what Jennifer would have been doing with a page from an illuminated manuscript. Or, in this case, the corner of a page.”

Belardo nodded. “The way the vic was holding it in his hand, it looked like there had been a struggle that might have resulted in the paper being torn. The argument may have been over the paper.” He looked at me. “If it’s authentic, would it be worth a lot?”

“Oh yeah. Depending on how old it is and what book it’s from, it could be worth a good bit.”

Pete turned it over, frowning. “The writing is in Latin.”

“Yeah, this is really elaborate.” I pointed to the page. “And the ink here looks faded. And this is some kind of stylistic animal.” I raised my head and stared at Pete, not seeing him. “No. No way.”

Belardo leaned forward. “What?”

I shook my head. “It’s not possible. The Book of Kells is missing about thirty leaves – sixty pages – but they went missing around a thousand years ago, in Ireland. I don’t see any way possible that a page from the Book of Kells could have made it to an apartment in Culver City.” I took back the bag and looked again. “My bet is that it’s a reproduction. It’s beautiful, but it’s probably not authentic.”

Pete, Belardo, and Eckhoff all looked confused. Eckhoff asked the question. “What’s the Book of Kells?”

“It’s an illuminated manuscript of the four gospels of the New Testament. It was created around the year 800, at a monastery on Iona, an island off the coast of Scotland. When the Viking raids on Scotland started, it was taken to Ireland, to a monastery at Kells, for safekeeping. It was stolen from the monastery in the year 1007 and found a couple of months later, with the gold cover and several pages missing. Now it’s kept in the library at Trinity College, Dublin.”

Pete asked, “What makes you think of the Book of Kells?”

“The colors, and the art, especially the figures and animals. Other illuminated manuscripts were done with very fancy writing and colorful alphabet, and sometimes some pictures, but the Book of Kells is known for its colors and the way animal and human figures are woven into the text itself. Very unusual.”

Eckhoff still looked mystified. Belardo said, “But it’s as you say. How would pages from a thousand year old book in Ireland end up in the possession of a schoolteacher in LA?”

I shook my head. “I don’t see how that’s possible. This has to be a reproduction.”

“Do you know anyone who might be able to determine whether this page is authentic or not?”

“Yeah. We actually have a copy of the Book of Kells in our special collections at the library. The special collections librarian would be a good place to start.” I handed the bag back to Belardo.

Eckhoff said, “Is there any chance this page is from the book in your library?”

“No. It’s intact, and it’s behind several layers of security. If anything had happened to it, I’d have heard about it.”

Belardo looked at the scrap again. “The dead guy, and whoever tore the other piece off, must have thought it was pretty valuable.”

“It was stupid to tear it, though. If it is rare and old, tearing it has decreased its value right there. And if it is from some famous manuscript, especially the Book of Kells or something similar, it would be impossible to sell on the open market.” I looked at the detectives. “You’d be talking about a private collector. It would be like an art theft. LAPD has an art theft detail, right?”

“Yeah, we do.” Belardo frowned. “We don’t usually cross paths with them, but in this case it might be a good idea. Maybe one of your UCLA guys is a contact for them, and we can start there.” He sighed. “Suppose it is something famous, one of these illuminated manuscripts. It would have to be from Europe, right? Any idea how your sister-in-law would have come across it?”

“I doubt that she knew she had it. If she had, I think she might have sold it herself, as bad as she’s hurting for money. Usually, the way these things happen, an old manuscript ends up in a box in someone’s attic, and the box gets passed down from generation to generation…” It hit me what I had just said. “Jennifer inherited a bunch of old books from her teacher’s aide that died five years ago. Jennifer said the books were in boxes in the guest room. We were going to go through them today to see if there was anything valuable in them.”

“Huh.” Eckhoff looked intrigued. “There were several boxes open in that room. You guys didn’t get to any of the boxes yesterday?”

“No. When we finished, the boxes were still hidden under a pile of clothing.”

Pete chimed in. “How would Wally have known what that was? And where to look for it?”

Eckhoff shrugged. “No idea. Junk men get to be experts, sometimes, though, in what’s valuable and what’s not.”

Belardo stood. “Well, we’ll be taking a close look at the dead guy’s background. If he turns out to have a degree in art history or something, that’ll give us an idea.” Pete and I shook hands with Eckhoff; Belardo didn’t offer. Eckhoff said, “Thanks for all your help. We’ll talk to Art Theft first, then go to whatever experts they send us to. Probably end up at UCLA.”

I ventured, “If you are at UCLA, would you mind stopping by my office and letting me know what’s going on with the investigation? I’m really curious as to whether this is the real thing or not.”

“Sure, no problem.” The detectives said their goodbyes and left. I turned to Pete. “Feel like a ride to campus?”

“To do what?”

I grinned. “What else? A little research.”

Val needed to head for home; the following day was a school day for my nephews. We saw her off, then drove to UCLA. The special collections area was closed on Sundays, but no section of the library was ever closed to its librarians. We walked in the front door of the library, and I stopped to say hello to Connie Bright, who was working at circulation. “Hey, Connie, how’s it going?”

“Good. It’s been busy today. What are you doing here?” She looked at Pete with interest.

“This is my boyfriend, Pete Ferguson. Pete, Connie Bright. We’re going down to Special Collections for a few minutes.”

“Okay. Let me know when you come back up. Nice to meet you, Pete."

We waved and went downstairs. At the door of Special Collections, I swiped my BruinCard and opened the door. I logged into the computer, and the steel gate that led into the collections area clicked open. I had looked up the call number of the Book of Kells from home; I led Pete to the Z section and we found the book.

“This is beautiful. But why is a facsimile in special collections?”

“There weren’t many made, only around 1500 or so. And the process by which they made them allowed them to be very close copies, and it was expensive. Each of these cost several thousand dollars. They were made so that scholars could study the book without having to access the original. So it’s down here to limit access. It’s in special collections because it’s special.”

“Ha. Funny. Okay, so are the missing pages in here?”

“Well, no, because this was made from the original as it currently exists, and no one knows exactly what the missing pages look like. But some of them are from the end of the gospel of John, so it would look similar to this.” I turned to the last existing page of the gospel.

Pete examined it. “It looks a lot like the fragment that the detective had, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, it does.” I looked at the pages in front of me. “But it’s extremely unlikely to be one of the missing pages. It’s even extremely unlikely to be a page torn out of one of these books. It’s probably a page from a book about the Book of Kells that someone thought they could pass off as the real thing. Or it could be some other illuminated manuscript that’s not even related to the Book of Kells.”

I signed out of the computer, and swiped my card to get out of Special Collections. The door locked behind us and we headed upstairs. Pete mused. “I never crossed paths with the Art Theft task force when I was a cop. I always thought it was interesting that there was enough art theft in this town to keep an entire task force employed full time.”

“Well, sure. Think about all the museums we have here, and the galleries, and all the rich folks who have collected art over the years. And it’s not just art; it’s sculpture, and all that stuff. And there are always collectors who are willing to buy stuff on the black market, so to speak, that don’t really care where it came from.”

“Yeah.” Pete sighed. “So this torn bit that Wally was clutching. It looks like there was a fight over that. He had an accomplice of some sort, and something went bad.”

“It won’t be worth as much, torn like that. And now it’s easier to identify – the remnant, I mean, if it is something very rare or expensive and the other section shows up.”

When we got seated, I told Pete, “I didn’t care for the look on Belardo’s face when he figured out we were a couple.”

“No.” Pete frowned. “But it’s not surprising. It still happens, usually with guys on the force who are older. Societal shifts take longer to make inroads into the police force than elsewhere. Similar to the military, I guess. But a lot of the younger cops are more accepting. Like Eckhoff.”