“Then how could they now be fakes?”
Nikki sat on the arm of a sofa that cost more than most people’s cars. “The appraiser took her own set of photos of the collection as notes. We found her camera and her pictures didn’t match the insurance shots. She had documented a roomful of forgeries.” Heat paused to let that sink in. “Sometime between the purchase and her appraisal, someone switched the art.”
“That’s unbelievable. You’re sure of this?”
“Absolutely. And Barbara Deerfield would have come to the same conclusion if she had lived to study her pictures. In fact,” said Nikki, “I’d say that the reason Barbara Deerfield was killed was because somebody didn’t want it to get out that the sixty-?million-?dollar Starr Collection was bogus.”
“Are you saying Matthew was trying to palm off fakes?”
Heat shook her head no. “Matthew never would have hired an appraiser if he knew they were fakes. And after all the money and ego he invested in his Little Versailles? He’d have had a meltdown if he ever found out.”
Noah’s eyes widened in revelation. “Oh my God. Kimberly…”
Nikki rose and strolled over to the John Singer Sargent oil of the two innocents, enjoyed it for just a glance, and said, “Kimberly beat someone else to stealing that art collection. I arrested a second crew that broke in here later, during the blackout, and they found nothing but empty walls.”
“Everyone went to a lot of trouble just to steal something that’s worthless.”
“Kimberly didn’t know the paintings were worthless. The grieving Mrs. Starr thought she was scoring her multimillion-?dollar Lotto hit for a shitty marriage.”
“Obviously the other burglars thought it was valuable, too.” Paxton gestured to the art. “Otherwise why would they try to steal it?”
Nikki stepped away from the painting and faced him. “I don’t know, Noah. Why don’t you tell me?”
He took his time before he answered, looking at her to gauge if she was asking a rhetorical question or something with more stink on it. He couldn’t have liked the way her eyes were boring into him, but he went for rhetorical. “I could only guess.”
If her session at the medical examiner’s that morning was theater, for Nikki this was Brazilian jujitsu and she was done boxing. On to the grappling. “Do you know a Gerald Buckley?”
Paxton squeezed his mouth into an upside-?down U. “Doesn’t sound familiar.”
“Curious, Noah. Gerald Buckley knows you. He’s the overnight doorman here.” She watched him work his earnest face. Nikki found him almost convincing; he wasn’t bad. She was better. “Here’s a refresher. Buckley’s the man you hired to set up the second burglary during the blackout.”
“That’s a lie. I don’t even know him.”
“Now that is truly weird,” said Ochoa from the archway. Paxton was edgy. He hadn’t seen the other two detectives return, and he flinched when Ochoa spoke. “Me and my partner took a drive up to Tarrytown this afternoon. To a bar there.”
Raley said, “Place called the, uh, Sleepy Swallow?”
“Whatever,” said Ochoa. “Guess that’s your regular hang, right? Everybody knows you. And the bartender and a waitress both ID’d Mr. Buckley sitting at your table for a very long time a few nights ago.”
“During the blackout,” added Raley. “About the time Buckley should have been in for that shift he canceled.”
“Buckley is not your strongest point man,” said Heat. Noah’s eyes were getting less focused and he whipped his head from detective to detective as each spoke, like he was following the ball at a tennis match.
“Dude caved like a sandcastle,” added Ochoa.
“Buckley also says you called him up and told him to hurry over here to the Guilford and let Pochenko in the rooftop door. That was just before Matthew Starr was murdered,” said Nikki.