Under a Gilded Moon(95)

But Vanderbilt turned to her. “By all means, if you have something to add . . .”

Kerry squared her shoulders. “I know comparatively little of the new science of fingerprinting. However . . .” Their blinks of disbelief—so preposterous that a maid would insert what was supposedly her knowledge of science—rattled her only a moment. “We did touch on it in one class at Barnard—how it will become a significant tool for police. It’s a shame the science isn’t further along, since the phylacteries—the black boxes used to accompany prayer—found at the scene might give some sort of clue.”

Leblanc frowned. “Yeah. So make your point.”

Vanderbilt spoke more kindly. “But since those boxes belonged to the victim himself, I’m not sure that would be of much help.”

John Cabot inclined his head. “I suspect she means something more.”

Kerry’s gaze shot to Grant, his hand brushing the square bulges in his pocket again. It was a guess on her part, based only on the square outlines his fingers repeatedly traced and his pointed mentions of the reporter’s being Jewish—but maybe the guess was worth the risk.

She addressed Vanderbilt. “You’re right that Mr. Berkowitz’s prints would of course be there. But so would those of the person who took the items from the scene. Those prints would not necessarily point to the killer, but it’s an interesting question: why, exactly, someone would have taken items related to the victim’s religion and background.”

In a silence that felt dangerous—flammable even, Kerry thought—none of the guests looked at one another.

Kerry shifted her gaze now to Madison Grant, though she continued to address Vanderbilt. “Since one of your guests was clever enough to have brought the phylacteries with him tonight, perhaps he could answer that himself.”

As one, all eyes shifted to Madison Grant. He stood frozen, a bowling ball held poised to aim. His face fast draining of color, he looked as though he might drop the ball now on his own feet.

Slowly, he lowered it. Kerry could see the calculations in the sparking of his narrowed eyes. The whole group was staring at his left pocket.

Now an easy smile slid over his face. “Apparently, Leblanc, we have a potential addition to the Pinkerton force right here on the kitchen staff of Biltmore. She is precisely right that I brought these very items here tonight to show Vanderbilt. Although I’d quite forgotten I had them with me—until this moment.” He turned toward Kerry, the dazzling smile on his lips at odds with the cut and slice of his glare. “Allow me to thank you for that reminder.”

From his coat pocket, he drew out the two phylacteries.

Cracked, Kerry noticed. As if someone took a cudgel to them. As if Grant relished doing violence to them.

Just like someone took a rail dog to the reporter’s head.

Grant relinquished them to Vanderbilt, who turned them over in his hands. “Good Lord, Grant. It’s as if you’d smashed them on purpose.”

Leblanc elbowed his way closer. “Worse for the damn wear, I’d say. Maid here’s actually right: there’s work in some parts of the world—Argentina, for one—where fingerprints have solved a crime. Change the whole game if they can perfect it. Match fingerprints to that rail dog, for instance—and presto, murder solved.”

“Interesting,” Madison Grant observed, “that you would associate the Italian word presto with murder. How fitting.”

Leblanc turned his heft on Grant. “My feelings exactly. Although I got to say: it’s odd as hell you’d have these. Anybody tell you that you can’t take souvenirs from a crime scene?”

John Cabot sent a searching gaze toward Kerry—as if he was trying to guess how she’d known. Leblanc spun to him.

“And you, Mr. John Quincy Cabot. Did a little background research on you. You and this Berkowitz, you were students at Harvard at the same damn time.”

The bowling alley stilled again.

“Yes,” Cabot said quietly.

“Yet,” Leblanc demanded, “you didn’t manage to speak up when that idiot sheriff here was asking if anyone knew the deceased or had information—anything?” He blew air out of his mouth. “It’s not even necessarily my case, this thing at the train station, but I can tell you right now there’ve been plenty of lies. Plenty of people not speaking up with what they know.”

Kerry watched John Cabot’s eyes grow hard again, and look away.

Grant lifted a ball casually. “Ridiculous to think it might be Cabot. But certainly, whoever the killer was, he would have to be athletic to wield a thing like that rail dog.”

Leblanc shot both hands in his coat pockets as his gaze swept the room, stopping on each one of the guests. “The thing about detective work . . .” No one else moved. “You think you’re getting nowhere, and then . . . presto.” He fixed Grant with a look. “Suddenly something falls into place.”

Grant seemed to coil back into himself, eyes narrowed. Like a rattler, Kerry thought, before it strikes.

Leblanc’s gaze swung over the guests again now.

Skipping, Kerry noticed, only Lilli Barthélemy, who stood haughty and distant.

The lady raised her chin. “That will be all now, Leblanc.” She spoke icily—but also as if she had some sort of connection with—or power over—the man.