Three-Day Town - By Margaret Maron Page 0,38

into the dining room and retrieved the envelope we’d left on the table beside the magazine pages. When Elliott realized what was happening, he hastily set the box back on the table and joined us.

To my disappointment, Sigrid merely turned the envelope in her hand, then put it and the magazine article in the pocket of her white parka.

“Come on, Sigrid,” Elliott complained. “Aren’t you going to tell us what she said?”

“It’s not addressed to me,” she said coolly. “Shall we go see how Miss DiSimone’s getting on with her guest list?”

Okay, I had wanted them to clear out and leave Dwight and me alone, but it was frustrating not to know what was in Mrs. Lattimore’s letter.

Elliott slipped on his jacket and gathered up his overcoat. “Thanks again for sheltering me from the storm. If you’re free one night, perhaps you’ll let me treat you to dinner?”

“That would be great,” I said before Dwight could say no.

We exchanged phone numbers, and when everyone was gone, Dwight shook his head in amusement. “You don’t fool me, honey. You’re hoping he’ll find out what Mrs. Lattimore wrote.”

“Aren’t you at all curious, too?”

“Maybe, but I’m more patient. Besides—” He took a business card from his pocket and flourished it. “Detective Hentz gave me his card. He’s playing at that jazz club down in the Village tomorrow night. I thought perhaps we could buy him a drink.”

CHAPTER

11

There is the reach for happiness—the attempt to gain it by and through possessions.

—The New New York, 1909

SIGRID HARALD—SUNDAY (CONTINUED)

Last night, apartment 6-C had seemed as packed with festive beachcombers as a Hamptons jitney on an August weekend. Today, through the open front door, it looked more like Coney Island on the Tuesday after Labor Day. Plastic wineglasses and half-empty drink cups littered the surfaces. Bits of food had been ground into the planks of the floor and the colored toothpicks that had held tasty morsels were scattered everywhere. Several black plastic trash bags were heaped in the middle of the oversized living room. One was stuffed and already tied shut. Luna was still adding to the other three: wine and liquor bottles in one, aluminum cans in another, while a fourth bag almost overflowed with food-smeared plastic plates, napkins, and other party detritus.

With dainty fingers and an expression of distaste on her pretty face, Luna DiSimone lifted a napkin filled with olive pits by the edges and dropped it into that trash bag.

“Miss DiSimone?” Sigrid said as they paused in the doorway.

“Yes?” She brushed a tress of long blonde hair back from her face and her frown turned instantly to sunshine. “Are you the police Elliott said wanted to talk to us?”

“I’m Lieutenant Harald and these are Detectives Hentz and Urbanska,” she said, “and yes, we did want to speak to you. And to Mr. Marclay, too?”

Sigrid cast an inquiring eye in the direction of the stocky man wearing a flat cap and received a sour nod. She had given the guest list sheets a quick scan on the drive over. Nicco Marclay’s name had appeared so often throughout the evening, she was fairly certain he could not have left the party during the relevant time.

“Excuse the mess and come on in,” said Luna DiSimone. “I had a party last night and the caterers stiffed me on the cleanup part.”

“Didn’t I see you here last night?” Marclay asked.

“Yes,” Sigrid said, surprised that he would have noticed her amid so many.

“Charlie Rathmann said something that ticked you off and—hey, wait a minute! Lieutenant Harald? You’re Sigrid Harald, aren’t you? You and Oscar Nauman?”

Sigrid gave a tight nod.

“Well, I’ll be damned! You really are a police detective. I thought that was some gallery hype to make you seem more mysterious. Why the interest in which art people were here last night?”

“That isn’t something I can talk about right now,” she said.

Elliott Buntrock hesitated in the open doorway. From the neutral look Sigrid gave him, he realized that he was not supposed to mention the missing maquette. He entered without speaking and sat down on a green Adirondack chair. If he was going to have to mark names on a list, the chair’s broad flat armrest would act as a desktop.

Sam Hentz explained what they wanted from the two men while Urbanska huddled with Luna DiSimone to go through the contact list on her phone and text the pertinent names over to their computer back at the station.

“You won’t tell anyone where you got their info, will you?” the