Next of Kin Read online

  He listened to the coffee brew. He liked the sound, even liked the wait, the anticipation. He saw the manila envelope at the end of the granite counter by the phone. He reached for it, pulled open the flap, and withdrew the papers. He counted eight of them, and spread all eight across the counter.

  All used the same form, printed in a language he assumed was German.

  All included the name Gerhardt Bruch halfway through.

  There was less than a page of writing on each sheet.

  Leaning closer, he studied the documents. At first he couldn’t make out any of the language, not even the names above Gerhardt Bruch. They were foreign and handwritten in an ornate cursive that made it difficult to know where one letter ended and another began.

  But looking more carefully, he saw names he could decipher and did recognize.

  One of those names was Rembrandt.

  Hadn’t Carl pointed out a Rembrandt self-portrait as he’d stood with Carl and Rebecca in the family’s gallery?

  Less than a page of writing to transfer ownership of a Rembrandt that was worth millions today. It seemed to Buddy there should be more—more documentation and a photograph.

  The coffee maker beeped. He poured himself a large mug and set it on the counter above the bills of sale. Steam rose, curling out of it. He lifted the mug, brought it up to his nose, and inhaled deeply. His eyes misted over, just briefly, and he thought he could make out an unusual name—Ranem Baum—on the bill of sale closest to him.

  Ranem Baum, he thought. What can you tell me?

  Setting down the mug, he hurried into the living room, found Mei’s laptop, and brought it into the kitchen. He set it on the counter to the left of the photocopies and opened a browser. He typed “lists of Holocaust victims and survivors” into the browser window and clicked the “Search” button.

  At the top of the results was the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.

  He clicked on that link, which took him to the museum’s website. He clicked again on a link that led him to the Survivors and Victims Resource Center, and found the Survivors and Victims Database with a search feature by name.

  Clicking on that link led him to a search feature with fields for exact name, details around birth, death, places of birth, places prewar and during the war and at death, prisoner number, and nationality.

  His heartbeat jumped.

  He stepped to the side, leaned down, and studied one particular bill of sale further. Then he filled out the search fields, to the extent he could, for Ranem Baum. For “places” he listed Berlin. He left “death place” empty.

  He clicked on the search bar.

  He sipped his coffee.

  The results showed on the screen.

  He narrowed his eyes and read that Ranem Baum had lived in Berlin and been sent with his family to Auschwitz-Birkenau in February 1944. He’d died there in November 1944, yet he’d had a child or children—the database didn’t specify—and one or more of them had survived the war and now lived in places unknown.

  Places unknown, Buddy thought, his eyes lingering on the phrase.

  Europe?

  Or America?

  Or New York City?

  He straightened and refilled his coffee mug. He needed to focus his search.

  Victims, he reasoned, wouldn’t be relevant to his investigation, as long as they had no offspring or surviving relations. The family line, and any claims on family property, would have ended in a horrific way.

  But this wasn’t the case for survivors. If any of the sellers had descendants who’d survived Auschwitz, those descendants might have reason to take revenge and even to claim some of Carl Brook’s paintings.

  And the art of Alton Brook and Bruno Brook as well, if not their lives.

  He drank more coffee. He thought that in his career, he’d never come across a motive that extended over so many years but was so completely, utterly understandable.

  Yes, understandable.

  But leading to a horrifying evil.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  The solitary figure standing on the condominium tower pressed the crown button on his wristwatch.

  It was 2:24 a.m.

  He’d be in position by 3:30.

  He’d strike by 3:35.

  Using gentle footsteps, he circled the skylight above the room the family used as an art gallery. From his black backpack he removed two large sharp anchor screws, a hammer, and a vise grip. On one side of the skylight, he set the sharp end of an anchor screw. He took up the hammer and swung it hard—once, twice—driving the screw through the roof membrane. The sound of metal on metal was drowned out by the wind whipping around the tower.

  Wearing form-fitting climbing gloves made of goat leather, he used the vise grip and turned the screw tighter and tighter, until it held and didn’t give when he pulled at it.

  After repeating the process three more times—on the three other sides of the skylight—he removed three short ropes from his backpack and a stainless steel ring. He tied one end of three of the short ropes to the anchors and one end to the center ring.

  Then he laid the ropes off to one side and pulled out the same glass cutter with the diamond tip he’d used in the attack at Greenwich, and set it on the skylight. Just as he’d done at Ward Mills’s mansion, he used the diamond-tipped blade to cut a wide circle.

  He lifted a single disc of cold glass and set it on the roof. But as the skylight was a double-pane, he repeated the process for the interior pane, and set that one beside the first. Reaching through the opening, he used a short knife to cut the fabric of the interior louver.

  Then he attached one end of the fourth short rope to the fourth anchor screw and the other end of that rope to the center ring, and shifted the ring into the center of the hole in the skylight.

  From his backpack he removed a black twenty-foot rope. After attaching one end to the center ring, he slowly eased the rope into the condominium below. He looked through the hole, listening, watching.

  But he heard nothing, saw nothing.

  At last, it was time.

  He felt infinite calm, as if nothing could slow or distract him. His concentration was total.

  Looping the straps of the pack over his shoulders, he stepped through two of the short ropes, lowered himself through the glass hole, and slid on the black rope almost noiselessly into the living room.

  Landing, he crouched low. Felt the warm air of the room loosen his muscles.

  He had no exposed skin. His hair was under a tight-fitting nylon cap. His face was hidden by a mask. From his forehead he pulled down night-vision goggles—goggles with lenses made by Brook Instruments—that made the condominium and everything in it different shades of green.

  He stayed there, listening, watching.

  He was a ghost. He was the angel of death.

  Slowly he rose, standing to his full height. Without removing his backpack, he reached behind his neck, unzipped the flap of the largest compartment, and withdrew the hatchet.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Buddy stood in the dark living room, looking out at the lights in the buildings on Central Park South and all the way to Time Warner Center. He saw that many windows in the hotels still glowed and wondered if the guests were awake. Or if the bright rooms were empty.

  He considered the town houses owned by Ben’s parents and by Bruno Brook and his wife. They must be heated and perhaps cleaned and repaired by staff, and yet the families that had lived in them were gone forever. They’d be silent tonight, cavernous and dark.

  He breathed out, turned from the windows, and went over to the small bar in the corner of the room. He saw the bottles arranged in neat rows. Below them, the crystal tumblers Mei preferred. Taking one, he held it up and watched the faint light from the kitchen refract in colorful jags. So many ways of seeing, he thought.

  Setting the tumbler on the bar, he poured two fingers of whiskey and gulped it down.

  As his stomach warmed, he thought about emptin
ess and the lost, the missing, the destroyed. Of the more than seventy years since the most terrible crimes ever committed. So much time for the desire for revenge to cool—too much time for what he’d seen since his visit to Camp Kateri.

  The killer wasn’t angry only about events in the distant past, Buddy had come to believe, but about events today. Motive might include the deaths at Auschwitz and possibly the theft of paintings, yet there must be a recent wrong, still new and raw—a wrong the killer witnessed frequently, perhaps each day. Only that strange combination of the past and the present could explain the calculated, deliberate planning and the hot fury of the hatchet.

  He set the tumbler on the bar and poured another ounce. Drank it quickly.

  He didn’t need to look outside to see the gathering storm. He could sense it. The electricity in the air—the current he’d sensed in the lobby of Ray Sawyer’s building—had descended over the entire city, infesting everything with a tang of dread.

  Before the storm hit, he needed to find a single family with three characteristics. First, it had sold—under duress—paintings to Gerhardt Brook. Second, it had suffered Auschwitz but in part survived. Third, at least one survivor was now in New York City.

  Yes, Buddy thought, setting down the tumbler. Here.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Ariel Brook woke. A strange noise came from the other side of the wall.

  She sat up in bed, rubbed her eyes, listened.

  It sounded like people were wrestling in the bedroom next to hers. Grunting. Threatening.

  Now someone was thrown against the wall.

  She heard a groan.

  She heard a shout. “No!” Her brother’s voice.

  Then his scream.

  A cold terror filled her chest. She knew that what had happened to her uncle Alton, aunt Brenda, and cousin Ellen-Marie was happening to her family tonight.

  Her hands began to shake.

  She held her breath and heard the clicking noise of someone trying the handle of her bedroom door.

  Her throat seemed to close up.

  She saw the dark outline of her mobile phone on the night table.

  Crash! Crash!

  Someone was trying to kick in her door. She had so little time.

  She grabbed the phone and darted around the bed to the armoire on the other side of the room. She opened the two large doors above the four drawers. Putting her toes on the edge of the front of the drawers, she climbed up, gritting her teeth. When she was standing on the shelf on which the television sat, she swung a leg onto the top of the armoire.

  For a moment she clung there, almost falling. Her arms hurt. Her heel was hooked over the edge, slipping on the smooth wood.

  She dug her heel in, hurting herself, but she didn’t cry out.

  Pulling hard as she could, she curled her body over the edge to the top.

  Sitting, she reached down with both hands and closed the armoire’s doors.

  Now standing, she touched the ceiling. But it was drywall, and there was nowhere to go.

  She was caught and could do nothing but hide.

  Quietly she lay curled up on the top of the armoire, hoping to be invisible, her back against the wall. She sensed dust on the wood near her face, but tried not to sneeze.

  She unlocked her phone and dialed 911.

  The dispatcher came over the line. It was a woman with a friendly voice.

  Crying silently, she whispered, “Help me. Please help me! I think I’m going to die.”

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Buddy returned to the kitchen, found a pad of paper, and set it below the eight bills of sale.

  Though unable to read the documents, he did his best to decipher the handwritten names of the paintings’ sellers. After entering into the database of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum those names and any information he could assume, he studied the results.

  Of the eight sellers, or “grantors”—which seemed to be the same word in English and German—five appeared to have perished at Auschwitz along with every member of their families. Not just immediate family members but all members.

  Buddy shook his head and breathed deeply, trying to tamp down the beginnings of nausea.

  For a moment he turned away and poured another mug of coffee.

  Then refocused.

  The lines of five families broken by the Nazis.

  But that meant that in three families, at least one member had survived.

  Their names?

  Ranem Baum, Yetta Morgenstern, Nessa Meyer.

  The database indicated they’d remained in Poland. They hadn’t returned to Germany. The families of these three might have died out over time, after the war. But the museum’s database lost track of them after Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet troops on January 27, 1945.

  Buddy wished something about the names was familiar to him, but there was nothing. He’d never heard these last names before.

  He stared at the names. “Tell me something!” he said aloud. “Tell me!”

  But they didn’t resonate. He couldn’t make the connection.

  He knew he needed help.

  Waking the laptop, he opened another browser window. He searched for information about Holocaust survivors in Poland, and in the search results, found the Polish Institute for Holocaust Studies in the Bronx.

  He’d contact the institute after it opened for business later that morning. He’d ask Ward to accompany him to a meeting. Ward spoke Italian and maybe knew some German, and was always reading books about European history.

  He looked at the time on the top right of the laptop screen: 3:40 a.m.

  He was tired now. His mind buzzed with information and possibilities but also fears that he’d chosen the wrong path, one that would take too much time and lead him away rather than toward the killer. But there was no more he could do tonight.

  He closed the laptop and carried his mug out into the living room. He stared unthinkingly at the darkness of Central Park.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Ariel’s teeth chattered as someone kicked in her bedroom door. Lying on her side, only her left eye could see over the lip on the top of the armoire. She saw a figure clad in black. The figure wore a black mask and goggles.

  She held her breath.

  Clenched her jaws together.

  She pressed the button on her phone to end her 911 call. She clutched the phone screen to her chest to hide its white light.

  She lay perfectly still.

  The figure circled the room and knelt down, checking under the bed. Then it stood and moved with a faint swoosh of fabric into the bathroom.

  She heard the cabinet doors under her vanity open and close. Two soft sounds.

  And then she saw the figure return.

  The figure turned toward the armoire, toward her. The goggles rose until they were looking directly at her.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  The solitary figure regarded his work.

  Let the air out of his lungs.

  His pulse remained steady and slow.

  The boy had been unexpected. A light sleeper who’d come to the door just as he was opening it. Others might have panicked because the boy was strong. But he’d remained cool. He’d put enough distance between them, shoved the boy against the wall, and swung.

  He’d been colder with the girl. He’d seen her fearful shivering on the top of the armoire. Yet he’d felt no pity.

  Now in the hallway, he listened. Heard nothing. No sirens, yet. He’d seen the girl’s cell phone and assumed she’d called 911.

  He had three or four minutes, no more.

  As he’d practiced so many times, with one motion he put the hatchet back into the largest compartment of his backpack and zipped the compartment closed.

  Rapidly he retraced his steps.

  Standing in the picture gallery by the rope, he recalled all he’d done. Every step, every door opened and closed, every swing of the hatchet. Satisfied he’d made no mistake, he saw the object that
was his—his family’s—and moved toward it.

  Moments later, his feet and his leather-gloved hands wrapped around the rope, and he slithered up until he reached the skylight. Grasping its stainless steel frame, he hauled himself up and into the cold and the churning winds outside.

  Nearly tripping, he moved his feet outward. Got purchase on the roof. Regained his balance.

  Then he brought up the rope, coiled it, and stowed it in his backpack. Went down the interior roof-access stairs to the freight elevator. In the elevator he removed his nylon clothing to reveal the uniform of the laundry company. He put on the Yankees cap. In the loading bay he walked purposefully toward the laundry truck, stepped off the dock and into its rear compartment. Picking his way past white bags of now-dirty linens and towels, he hid.

  Sometime later the truck driver rolled down and fastened the cargo door, climbed into the cab, and drove the truck out of the loading bay and into the street.

  From the rear the figure heard sirens grow louder and louder and then pass the truck on the way to the condominium tower.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  At four in the morning, Buddy’s phone rang. He ran into the kitchen to answer it.

  Worry slid into his chest. Calls at this hour meant bad news.

  “Yeah?” he answered.

  It was Chief Malone. “Buddy, I need you at Carl Brook’s place in Time Warner Center.”

  “No,” Buddy said.

  The chief sighed into the phone. “I’m sorry.”

  “Goddammit,” Buddy said. “Goddammit.”

  Twenty minutes later he joined Chief Malone in the penthouse’s elevator lobby. Malone wore a rumpled suit without a tie. His typically ruddy face was ashen. He handed Buddy a pair of booties.