The Cloisters(69)

“How did your conversation with the detective go?”

Leo had been called down to the precinct for a second time, and it seemed inevitable Rachel and I might be next. He didn’t look up, but penciled a note in the margin.

“Fine. She wanted to know if anything was missing from the gardens. If I had seen anyone.”

“You didn’t, did you?” There was still some part of me, then, that clung to the idea that the whole investigation would resolve as an accident—an overdose, an allergic reaction.

Leo shut the magazine and set it down. “I told her I hadn’t seen anyone in the gardens, except for the thousands of people who march through them every day. None of whom I think murdered Patrick.”

I made myself at home on his threadbare couch and curled my knees against my chest to watch him. As much as Leo was part of The Cloisters, he wasn’t of the place the way Rachel and I were, the way the curatorial staff and the preparatory staff were. He was able to keep to himself, mostly, shuttling between the sheds and the gardens. He could—and did—spend whole days climbing the trees and trimming their branches. All of it incredibly romantic. To be the keeper of medieval gardens in one of the busiest cities in the world, to spend the day moving your body and growing things that gave people joy. But Leo could be touchy about it too, this distance between our roles, our futures at the museum.

“I didn’t mean—”

“I know. I’m sorry. And even though you want to go to the High Line, I thought we could do something a little more Old New York. Why don’t we go down to the Village instead?”

“I’d like that. Do you think we could go to the bar where Helen Frankenthaler and Lee Krasner used to hang out?”

“The Cedar Tavern became condos in 2006. They sold the bar itself to a guy who rebuilt it in Austin.”

“Oh.” If that was the case, I wasn’t sure why we couldn’t go to the High Line.

Leo got up and poured himself another cup of coffee. “Why don’t you get dressed and we’ll get out of here.”

I went back into the bedroom and changed into a sundress with thin straps and a spray of flowers. The things I intended to leave at Leo’s I wedged between his hamper and an old amp at the back of his closet. On the top shelf were a stack of straw hats, the kind Leo wore when working. I reached up to grab one, wondering how it would look with my dress, but the stack was so high I had to stand on my toes to get a finger onto a brim. When I pulled, the entire stack came lilting down, including something that made a hard cracking sound against the wood floor.

I paused to see if Leo had heard, but he was in the kitchen, washing dishes and putting away plates from breakfast. The image of myself, emerging from the bedroom, wearing his work hat, the way some girls wore their boyfriend’s shirts—a casual borrowing of apparel that seemed to reinforce intimacy—played through my head. That’s what I wanted, a symbol of where we might be going. But as I restacked the hats and searched the room for something to stand on, I also found the thing that had produced the crack.

It was a delicate object, one that I was surprised to discover had made the fall intact. It was an ivory carving of a woman dressed in flowing robes, a sleeping lion curled at her feet. On her head, she wore a crown, and around her neck an intricately carved crucifix. It was no more than three or four inches tall, a private devotional figure, meant to be held by whoever owned it. Clearly it was antique. If I hadn’t found it in Leo’s closet, I could have easily imagined it on display at The Cloisters.

“Are you almost ready—” Leo swung into the door, his hand on the jamb. He stopped when he saw me, the carving in my hand.

“Where did this come from?” I said, holding it up in the light and turning it over, its etched areas deep and browned with age.

“Saint Daria,” he said, walking over and taking the figurine from me. He placed it on the dresser.

“It’s amazing.”

“It was my grandmother’s.”

“Have you had it appraised? You should really get it insured; it looks old.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Do you know where she got it?” I didn’t know why I was pushing. Part of me wanted to leave and head to the Village, to walk arm in arm past stately brownstones whose heavy wooden doors were inlaid with leaded glass windows. But another part of me had studied art long enough to know that this figurine was the real thing, something precious.

“I think my grandfather bought it in Europe when he finished his tour during the Second World War.”

I nodded. That seemed plausible.

“My mom always wanted to take it to Antiques Roadshow, but she never got around to it.”

“I know an antiquities dealer on East Fifty-Sixth who could appraise it for you.”

Leo gave me a funny look.

“Are we going to get out of here or what?” he asked.

I threw on one of his straw hats, and he playfully dipped the brim. I wanted him to say it looked good on me, that he looked good on me.

“You should grab your stuff,” he said. “I don’t know if we’ll be back here tonight. I have a thing.”

He hadn’t mentioned a thing. I thought of the bag I had just hidden at the back of his closet, of the fact that only a few days ago he had told me I had a place there too.

“Actually,” he said before I could protest, “you can leave it. I’m sure you’ll be back in a few days.”