Pippa almost regretted coming. Only two weeks ago she had stood with Mr. Dumfrey and the others here, as the smell of freshly baked Plätzchen floated out to them. She felt as though by going inside, by seeing, she would be making it true: Freckles was dead.
But Mr. Dumfrey took off his hat, and followed Schroeder and Gilhooley into the hall, and she followed after them, her heart knocking heavily against her ribs with every step.
And then: they reached the studio and her heart squeezed up into a small, hard knob. The beautiful, sunny space, filled with statues and plaster models and sketches, had been destroyed, ransacked, ruined.
“Crill,” Max breathed, which was another one of her made-up curse words.
All of Eckleberger’s work had been smashed. The ground was littered with plaster and crumbled clay, shattered bits of ceramic, and flakes of paint. The table around which the children had gathered to eat cookies had been knocked over. The drawings were torn from the wall. His pencils had been snapped in half. The drawers of his dresser had been removed and overturned. The fluffy white cat, whose name they had never learned, was crouching under the bed, mewling piteously.
Pippa had a strange sense of unreality, as if she had walked into a dream.
“It’s wrong,” Thomas spoke quietly, as though echoing her unconscious thoughts.
“I know.” Pippa laid a hand on his arm. She was glad, at least, they had already removed the body. She wasn’t ready to see it. She wasn’t ready to accept it.
“No. I mean—” Thomas frowned. “It’s too much. Like . . . like a stage show. No normal break-in leaves this much damage. Why is the stove pulled out from the wall? Why are the drawings torn down?” He shook his head. “This wasn’t random. It was personal.”
“Unless the thief was looking for something specific,” Max said. Thomas looked at her, blinking several times, as though she’d just materialized.
“Maybe,” he said.
A group of men was conferring on the other side of the room. When Pippa and the others entered, they went silent, staring with either hostility or suspicion or both. Now one of them crossed the room, clomping mindlessly over the shattered remains of Eckleberger’s lifework, his fedora pushed back on a large, shiny forehead. Pippa’s stomach tightened. Detective Hardaway.
“Dumfrey,” he spat out, as if the word were a bad taste in his mouth. His eyes, clear and pale as ice, swept over the children, and his lips curled in disgust. “I see you’ve brought your . . . wards along.” He emphasized wards as though to make it clear he wished he could use another, more insulting word instead.
Pippa dug her nails into her palms. Hardaway had arrested Dumfrey several months earlier, convinced that Dumfrey was responsible for poisoning Potts, the janitor. And he’d basically accused the children of being mixed up in the whole business. Furthermore, he’d made it clear what he thought of the performers at the museum: that they were freaks of nature and would be better off dead. Pippa could only imagine what he would think if he knew that she, Sam, Thomas, and Max had been made in a laboratory, like Frankenstein’s monster.
Just thinking about it made nausea rise up in her throat.
“Ah! Detective Hardaway.” Mr. Dumfrey bowed. His smile didn’t extend to his eyes. “As perceptive as ever, I see, and a credit to the police academy and the fine state of New York. It’s a wonder that the crime in New York City hasn’t been entirely obliterated!”
“Yes—well—yes,” Hardaway grunted, missing Mr. Dumfrey’s sarcasm. He crossed his arms. “So. You were the last to see Eckleberger before he kicked the bucket.” It wasn’t a question.
“We”—Mr. Dumfrey gestured to the children—“came to pay Siegfried a visit, that is correct.”
Hardaway took a step forward so he was only an inch from Dumfrey’s face. He leaned in and spoke in a low voice, directing his words straight into Dumfrey’s ear, so neither Sergeant Schroeder nor Officer Gilhooley would hear. But Pippa, who was standing next to Dumfrey, could make out every word.
“Listen, Dumfrey. It wasn’t my idea to bring you down here. Got that? If I had my say, you’d be leaving this room in a pair of cuffs. Eckleberger’s the second friend of yours to get bumped on my watch, and I don’t believe in coincidences.” He drew back as another man, whom Pippa didn’t recognize, joined their group, extending his hand to Mr. Dumfrey.
“Good to meet you, Mr. Dumfrey.” This man was older, with bushy white eyebrows, like small clouds tacked to his face. “I’m Captain Burke. NYPD. Heard a lot about you. Been meaning to bring the wife and kids down to the museum. Someday, someday. When people stop bludgeoning one another to death and shooting at strangers in nightclubs.”
Pippa liked Captain Burke immediately. He didn’t speak to Mr. Dumfrey like other grown-ups did, as if every word was a code for something else that was much worse. And when he looked at the children, he did so with only mild curiosity, instead of a gaping stare or a sneer of disdain. He was wearing a neat suit that looked like something Mr. Dumfrey would own, and he smelled like peppermint.
“I know this must be rough on you,” he was saying. “But the idea was to have you take a walk around, see if you can spot anything that looks weird or out of place.”
“My dear fellow,” Mr. Dumfrey said. “The whole place looks out of place!” He gestured helplessly to the dismantled studio. “Are you sure you’re dealing with a homicide, and not a hurricane?”
“Whoever broke in did a number on the place,” Captain Burke agreed. “Maybe looking for something specific.” Max smirked. That had been her idea, too. “Maybe trying to keep us from figuring out what he was after. Or maybe just the violent type. That’s why we asked for your help.”
Mr. Dumfrey shook his head. He looked unconvinced. “I’ll do my best,” he said.
“That’s all we can do,” Captain Burke said, and Pippa decided that if she ever got murdered and needed a cop to search for her killer, she hoped it was Captain Burke. “Now, Mr. Dumfrey, why don’t you just come this way. . . . We’ll start over here by the kitchen. . . .”
Captain Burke shepherded Mr. Dumfrey across the room and Hardaway stalked after them, glowering from beneath the brim of his hat. The cops in the corner returned to their conversation. Several men crouched and scurried across the space like crabs, snapping pictures of every surface. The children were forgotten.
“Well”—Pippa took a deep breath—“what do we think?” No one answered. She looked around and saw she was alone. Sam was trying to get the cat out from under the bed, and succeeding only in terrorizing it further. Max was sifting through a pile of splintered clay that had once been one of Eckleberger’s statues, as though hoping to divine its original shape. And Thomas was standing very still, and staring at something on the ground. Curious, Pippa made her way over to him, stepping carefully around the debris strewn over the floor.
“What is it?” Pippa said.
“Rachel Richstone,” he said in a strange voice. He bent and scooped up a half dozen photographs, loosely bound with an elastic band. “I guess Freckles managed to get some photos after all. Check it out.”
Pippa fanned the photographs out on Eckleberger’s worktable. Even though every newspaper had featured a photograph of Rachel Richstone for the past few weeks, these photos were totally unfamiliar, taken when Rachel was probably no more than nineteen or twenty, though in a few she looked even younger. It was something to do with the wildness of her hair, and the freckles, which in later pictures she must have carefully concealed with makeup.
“See?” Thomas pointed. In two of the photos, Rachel was grinning at the camera, revealing a wide gap in her teeth. “I knew Freckles didn’t make a mistake.”
“I don’t understand.” Pippa frowned. In every printed picture she had seen of Rachel Richstone, she was showing off a mouthy grin full of perfect teeth. “Where did the photos come from?”
There was a cough. Pippa and Thomas turned around. Officer Gilhooley was standing behind them, shuffling his feet.
“That was my doing,” he said. The large pouches under his eyes gave him the look of a very thin, very pathetic bloodhound. “I knew old Eckleberger. We all did. He did some work for us back in the day, helped us out on some sticky cases. We’d give him a description of a suspect and he’d whip up a bust, realest thing you ever saw. Would never have nabbed Sol Bumstead if it wasn’t for him. Best safecracker in the business, at least until Eckleberger helped us get him. I never seen a guy who could make clay come alive like Eckleberger did. The statue was the spitting image of our guy, the spitting image. All based on what some doughnut-shop owner saw from his bathroom window.” Officer Gilhooley shook his head. “Old Sticky Fingers Solly wasn’t too happy about it. Swore revenge on Eckleberger even as he was heading to the pen. Got sent up to Sing Sing for ten years, all because of good old Eckleberger.”
Thomas frowned. “How long ago was that?”
Gilhooley scratched his forehead. “Let’s see now. Must have been eight or nine years ago now . . .”
Thomas and Pippa exchanged a look. She knew exactly what he was thinking: if Sticky Fingers Solly had been sprung from jail early, he might very well have come looking for revenge. It was obvious, however, that the idea hadn’t occurred to Gilhooley. He was still blinking at them blearily, as if awaiting instruction.
“Okay, so, Eckleberger came to you and asked for some old photographs of Rachel?” Pippa prompted.
Gilhooley nodded. “He wanted something special—the private stash, you know, that hadn’t been picked to pieces in the papers. I knew I coulda got in trouble. But he was a friend, kinda. I couldn’t say no.”
“But where did you get them?” Thomas asked.
Officer Gilhooley looked uncomfortable. “The Richstone place is still a crime scene,” he said gruffly. “Even though everybody knows her husband did it. Plenty of people going in and out. I didn’t think one more or less would make a difference. I told Eckleberger he could poke around.”
“He must have found her secret stash,” Thomas said musingly. He bent down and scooped up a picture frame missing its photo. The glass was shattered. “Look at this,” he said, passing it over to Pippa.
“It musta got knocked over when the thief was trashing the place,” Officer Gilhooley said. Thomas just frowned. Pippa could tell he was puzzling over something—he had the same look on his face as when he was trying to solve one of the riddles from his book—but she couldn’t for the life of her imagine what it was.
Pippa shrugged and handed the picture frame back to Thomas. “He’s probably right.”
Thomas didn’t look convinced. “Then why was the photograph removed?” he asked.
“Does it matter?” Pippa said sharply. Eckleberger had been killed, and all Thomas could think about was a stupid broken picture frame.
“Maybe not,” Thomas admitted. But as soon as Gilhooley had turned away, Thomas carefully wiggled a finger between the broken glass and the frame, and extracted a torn piece of brown paper, which looked as though it must have been part of the backing. Someone had jotted down a note on the paper. It read RVW, June 28. “RV,” Thomas mulled out loud. “RVW. What’s RVW?”
“Give it up, Thomas,” Pippa said. She was feeling hot and useless and miserable. They were here to help the police catch Eckleberger’s murderer. But they weren’t helping. Sam was still squatting sullenly in the corner, trying to get the stupid cat to do something other than bare its teeth. Mr. Dumfrey was shaking his head, looking bewildered, while Detective Hardaway smirked.
So far their best lead was on Old Sticky Fingers Solly. But how on earth would they find him?
Pippa had a sudden, sickening realization: Eckleberger’s murderer would never be caught.
Across the room, she spotted Max poking around a set of Eckleberger’s old tools, probably looking for something she could pocket. Pippa left Thomas still fiddling with the picture frame and stalked toward Max. Max saw her coming and rapidly moved away. Pippa squinted, concentrating, as she did whenever she was reading the contents of someone’s pockets or handbag; first, she had to think her way into their minds, into the dark folds of their awareness. In Max, she sensed a blockage, a foreign mass that her mind was trying to wrap itself around and conceal. Something hard. Made of metal.
But before she could figure out what it was that Max had taken, the door to the studio banged open and her concentration was broken. She heard the sound of cheery whistling. It was like hearing giggling at a funeral, and everyone turned, surprised.
Chubby sauntered into the studio, a bag of newspapers slung across his chest, his cap pushed back on his forehead. He froze when he saw the police and all the damage. His eyes did a quick spin around the room, so fast that they briefly crossed.
“What—what’s happened?” he sputtered.
“What’s it look like?” Hardaway practically growled. “There’s been a break-in.”
“And what in the devil’s name are you doing here?” Sergeant Schroeder said, puffing out his chest like an over-preening robin.
Chubby’s whole posture had transformed. He looked even more frightened than when Andrea von Stikk had approached him in the street. “I—I deliver Mr. E’s papers. I brought ’em today, same as usual.”
Captain Burke spoke up. “I’m afraid you’re too late,” he said softly. His eyes never left Chubby’s face, and Pippa was reminded of a dog carefully examining a toy, just before chewing it apart. “Mr. Eckleberger’s been murdered.”
Then something extraordinary happened. Chubby opened his mouth, as if to speak. But instead of saying a word, he turned around and bolted from the room.
Instantly, everyone was shouting. The police tore after Chubby, and Sam didn’t realize that he, too, was running until he was standing in the street, blinking in the sun. The crowd rippled like water where Chubby parted it. Sam sprinted after him, but by the time he reached the far side of the street, he saw both Chubby and Thomas disappearing around the corner of Fortieth Street. But even Thomas lost him. He reappeared a moment later, shaking his head.
“I lost sight of him for a second and he was gone,” he panted.
Hardaway caught up to them a second later, and let out a curse when he saw that Chubby had disappeared. Sergeant Schroeder waddled out of the thick knot of people a second later, huffing and red-faced.
“I knew it,” Hardaway said. “I knew that piece of garbage had something to do with this.”
“Chubby?” Sam turned to Hardaway, incredulous. He had no idea why Chubby had fled, but he knew for sure that there was no way he’d had anything to do with Freckles’s death. “You can’t be serious.”
But Hardaway wasn’t listening. He had turned to Captain Burke, who had also forced his way through the crowd, followed by a winded Mr. Dumfrey. “That little turd’s been running an illegal operation on the sly for the past six months. Bet-taking, game-rigging . . . he’s a hazard, Chief. I’d bet my boots he’s in this up to his neck.”
Sam wanted to say that Chubby barely had the brains to keep a penny in his pocket, much less to plan an elaborate crime. But he felt that would be disloyal—and besides, he knew Hardaway wouldn’t listen.
“All right,” the captain said quietly. “See if you can round him up and bring him in for questioning.”
Sam’s stomach sank. He hoped that Chubby would be smart enough to lie low for a couple of days. Maybe by then, the police would find the person truly responsible for Eckleberger’s death. But watching Sergeant Schroeder and Gilhooley argue about who got to drive the squad car back to the precinct, Sam seriously doubted it.
They took the subway rather than walk or ride back to the museum in the squad cars, and Sam was glad. He’d had more than enough police for the day. He’d had more than enough police for a lifetime.
Mr. Dumfrey was uncharacteristically quiet. Every so often he shook his head and mopped his face with a handkerchief and murmured “Poor Freckles.” Sam felt strangely exhausted, as if someone had reached into his insides and wrung all the j
uice from him. Thomas was lost in thought, and even Max had nothing to say, although both times Sam met her eyes she looked quickly away, as if she felt guilty about something. Pippa spent the whole ride gnawing the ends of her sleek black hair, a habit she’d picked up since it had grown longer. Not for the first time, Sam wished he had her talent for mind reading so that he would know what she was thinking.
She didn’t speak until they were almost in front of the museum. “Mr. Dumfrey, I was wondering,” she said in her sweetest voice, “whether you’d ever heard of a man named Sol Bumstead?”
Mr. Dumfrey raised an eyebrow. “Old Sticky Fingers? Sure I have! Crackerjack bank robber, one of the best in the business. Funny you should mention it—I was just thinking of him the other day. Poor, dear Freckles made the bust the police used to nab him. I used to have it somewhere but for the life of me can’t think of where it might have—” Suddenly, he broke off with a small gasp. He turned and glared at Pippa. “No,” he said. “No, no, and no.”
“What?” Pippa blinked at him, obviously doing her best to look innocent. She did a pretty good job of it, Sam thought. Much better than Max, who always looked as if she’d just swallowed your favorite watch.
“I know what this is about.” Mr. Dumfrey placed both hands on his hips, blocking nearly the entire sidewalk. A woman scurried past, shooting them an infuriated look. “I want you to promise me—I want you to swear—that you’re not going to go looking for Freckles’s killer.”
Sam felt a jolt, as if he’d been socked in the stomach by that gorilla he’d wrestled. Was that what Pippa was after?
“No, no, of course not,” Pippa said quickly.
“We would never,” Thomas added.
“Don’t look at me,” Max said, crossing her arms, when Dumfrey glared at her.
“What about you, Sam?” Mr. Dumfrey glared sternly down at Sam, his eyebrows doing their best to meet in the center of his forehead. “Can you promise me you won’t go looking for Eckleberger’s killer?”