I curled up in bed, basking in the quiet after a boiling shower and a bar of chocolate Aaron had donated to my cause before he went off to the Stuttgart Christmas market with Moe and Grandma. It took some doing to get them to leave me, but I did have a plan and I couldn’t be moved off it.
The pictures Keith gave me were spread out on the bed and I opened my laptop to Google a map of Sindelfingen. The ATM Anton used was in the center of town not far from the Marktplatz. There were three cafés close by and two had small hotels in the vicinity.
There was a knock on the door, forcing me out of bed. Novak stood in the hall, wearing pink and green striped pajamas and what looked like a shower cap.
I flung open the door and yanked him inside. “What are you doing out there like that?”
“Like what?” Novak asked.
“Like a weirdo. Germans don’t wander the halls of hotels like that.”
“Do Americans?”
He had me there. Novak wasn’t normal in any society.
“No, but we have Walmart, so there’s that,” I said.
“I’ve heard about Walmart and I am not that odd.”
I poked the shower cap. “Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
“I’m doing my hair mask. You don’t expect me to dry out just because I’m traveling, do you?” He touched one of my ringlets. “You really need a mask. Your hair isn’t happy.”
“That is its natural state in Germany.” And Paris, and Honduras, and New Orleans.
“I thought it was only Paris,” he said.
“It’s worse there.”
He did a circuit around me. “What are you sleeping in? Did you rob a bag lady?”
“It’s a tee shirt. Leave me alone.” I marched back to the bed and got in while stuffing chocolate in my face. “Do you have something or do you just want to criticize me?”
“I can do both,” said Novak.
“Swell.”
“I have good news and bad news.”
“Bad news first,” I said.
“The plants on Anton’s laptop originated from a laptop in Berlin,” he said.
“Crap.”
He pulled out his phone and laid it all out. The plants came from a laptop used in one location, a small library. The user accessed Anton’s computer from that location and only that location. Remotely, the user went into the Incel sites and 4chan. The pictures that were found on Anton’s computer were downloaded at the library and uploaded from there, too. There was no set pattern to when Anton’s computer was accessed. Novak couldn’t find the user’s IP address anywhere else and he put some associates on it. He concluded that the laptop was purchased for one use only and then trashed when the job was done.
“That’s less amateur than I would’ve thought,” I said.
Novak nodded. “I agree. They knew how to do it and cover it up, but they didn’t put much effort into the actual plants. It wouldn’t have been hard to comment on posts and deep dive into those sickos fantasies, but they kept it surface. In and out.”
“They…wanted it to be discovered?” I asked.
“I considered that, but they did bother to go to quite a few sites. I think they just couldn’t be bothered or were in a hurry. If I had to guess it was a woman.”
I pulled back. “Why?”
“A man would spend more time,” he said.
“Because dudes are so detail-oriented? Come on.”
“No, because a man would’ve looked out of curiosity if nothing else.”
“Did you?”
He sat down on the bed and stole some of my chocolate. “Yes, I did. I’m not into that stuff, even a little, but I looked out of curiosity.”
“Gross,” I said.
“Very. I think a woman would be less likely to look at that kind of thing than a man. Like I said, it was very surface.”
“Like they didn’t want to see it.”
“Correct.”
“Interesting.” I took a bite of super dark chocolate and then said, “I might be off base here, but that sounds less pro and more favor.”
Novak smiled. “I think so, too.”
“So not The Klinefeld Group?”
“We can’t rule them out, but they are nothing if not pros. This did take skill. They knew what they were doing.”
“How skilled?” I asked.
“Impossible to tell. Not their best effort.” He took a look at my screen and asked, “What’s this about? Did you get something?”
I told him about Sergio Tarantina possibly being the origin of the rumor and the girl named Alison.
“Those are the pictures I got,” I said.
Novak picked them up and said, “I’ll scan them and see what I can find out.”
“Are there cameras in Sindelfingen? I wonder if we can see if one of these kids was out and about when Anton was getting his money.”
“Might be a bit of a long shot, but we can give that a try,” said Novak.
“Did you happen to access the ATM footage?” I crossed my fingers.
“I did, but Anton was always alone.”
“Can you go back in?”
He sat back against the pillows. “I can. What are you looking for?”
“Direction. He met someone and handed over the money. It’d be nice to know which way he headed,” I said, looking at my screen. “I’m thinking he met them in one of those three cafés. They’re close and I can’t think of a reason he’d go farther afield since he was on foot.”
“Nice. There wasn’t a whole lot of street surveillance, but I’ll see what I can get.”
I had a big chunk of chocolate before I asked my next question.
“Did you find any evidence of inappropriate behavior on Anton’s old phones or laptops?” I asked. Please say no. Please say no.
“Rest easy on that one,” Novak said. “I didn’t find anything and those bricks date back fifteen years. Anton Thooft had no sexual interest in kids that I could find.”
“Thank God,” I said.
Novak raised a brow at me.
“I didn’t want to have to tell his sister he was a child molester. Flipping nightmare. This is bad enough.”
“That rumor is nothing. Just kids talking.”
“Yes, but I still think somebody saw Anton in a café with someone and that someone could be our guy.”
“A teenager?”
“Or it could be a coincidence. Anton’s there to meet the blackmailer. Kid comes up for a chat with their favorite teacher. It gets seen differently after he attacked me.”
“So…”
“The kid might’ve seen who Anton was meeting. At the very least, they can say which café. I can interview the people working there and Spidermonkey can see about credit card charges.”
“Could be your blackmailer brought his laptop and stayed a while,” said Novak.
“Wouldn’t that be sweet?”
“Very.” Novak poked his shower cap and said, “Time to rinse. You seriously need one of these.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I pushed him off the bed. “I have to call Spidermonkey.”
“I’m going.” He went for the door. “Do you want info tonight, if I get it?”
“I will kill you if you wake me up,” I said.
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“Do that.”
He left and I called Spidermonkey to give the names I had. He’d check out Sergio’s finances but doubted a teenager would be using cards much, especially in Germany where cash was often preferred. There was some good news. Spidermonkey had checked out Ella’s situation and found out that the rumors about her were purely that, rumors. The young cat sitter had no connection to anything.
I breathed a sigh of relief and hung up just as Grandma lurched in. “We’re back!”
“I noticed. How was the Christmas market?”
“Enormous.” She tossed her coat toward a chair and missed before flopping down on the bed to take off her boots. “I had the worst drink under the sun.”
“You can’t be talking about Glühwein,” I said.
“Glühwein is wonderful. We had four kinds. One was apple.”
“Nice. What was the bad stuff?”
“Eierlikör. I thought it was eggnog, but it was like angry egg schnapps.”
“That’s pretty much what it is,” I said.
“Do you like it?”
“It’s too strong and also weird.”
“Oh, my God,” she said. “I don’t want to get up.”
I yawned and closed my computer. “Don’t.”
“We have to do our routine,” said Grandma.
“Routine?”
She rolled over and slapped my shoulder. “Have I taught you nothing?”
Um…pretty much.
“What’s the routine?” I asked.
“Hello. Our skincare routine.”
“Do we have one?”
Grandma looked at me and narrowed her eyes. “Oh, right. It’s you.”
“That’s right. It’s me. Mercy Watts. Your granddaughter,” I said. “How much egg liquor did you have?”
“Hardly any. I was thinking you were one of the girls.” Grandma rolled out of bed and landed with a thump beside it.
“Holy crap!” I ran around the bed and found Grandma lying on some throw pillows, looking startled.
“Do you think I broke a hip? That’s how Mabel Grossman did it.”
“Are you in horrible pain?” I asked.
She thought about it. “No. I feel fine.”
“Could be the liquor talking.” I checked her out and got her to her feet. “Don’t do that again.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose.” She took my hand and started to drag me to the bathroom.
“What are we doing?” I asked.
“The routine. I taught the girls and now I’ll teach you.”
The routine was Noxzema. She washed her makeup off with it and then slathered a thick layer of the cold cream on her face.
“Let it sit for a minimum of five minutes, but it’s better to do ten. Then we’ll put on our creams and serums.”
I did as instructed and asked, “So who are the girls? Not Millicent and Myrtle.”
“Goodness no. The girls. Sorcha, Bridget, and Jilly.”
“You’re telling me that the trio uses a four-dollar pot of Noxzema, not some potion made in the Swiss Alps out of goat placenta?”
“They did, but it was sheep placenta,” said Grandma.
“I was joking, but that’s gross.”
“I know, but then I taught them and it’s the routine. They have beautiful skin and it’s hard considering how fair and sensitive their skin is.”
“When did you teach them?” I asked.
“During a trip.”
“A trip?”
It turned out Grandma J had been taking trips with the Troublesome Trio for years. It started with a trip to the Grand Canyon for Sorcha’s high school graduation and became an annual thing, but the Noxzema was a recent lesson that happened in Key West. My grandmother took three of her four granddaughters on a trip to Key West and I never even knew it happened.
Grandma poked the cream on my face. “See how nice that feels?”
It feels pretty crappy.
“Yeah, the cream is nice.” It was, but I barely noticed it. “So where was I?”
“When?”
“During the Key West trip,” I said.
“Honduras, I think.” She turned on the water and said, “Now wash it off.”
I washed it off and tried to think of a way to ask why she never asked me to go anywhere, but nothing came to mind.
“Chuck texted me,” she said.
“Swell,” I said.
“He thinks you’re mad.”
“He managed to detect that, did he?” I asked.
Grandma instructed me in her serum application. “He said it wasn’t serious between him and Natalie.”
“They were engaged and he just sent me there without a clue. It was embarrassing. She obviously knew all about me.”
She patted my back and said, “I know. It was a big mistake on his part, and I told him to give you some space, but you should call him.”
“Hard pass.”
“Why not talk to him? He loves you.”
“I get to be mad,” I said.
Grandma smiled at me. Her face was remarkably soft and unwrinkled, considering her age. “My girls are feisty.”
“Am I one of your girls?”
She lurched out of the bathroom, saying over her shoulder. “Of course, you are.”
I followed her out, fully intending to question her on the trip thing, but it was too late. My beautiful grandmother collapsed into bed and began doing sweet little snores almost instantly.
Thwarted, I called my mother, who picked up on the first ring. “Are you okay? How’s your head?”
“Fine. Just a little headache. Why do you sound so panicked?” I asked.
“You never call me when you’re working on a case,” Mom said.
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t. You’re just like Tommy in that. I watch the news or call Fats now if I want information.”
Am I a jerk?
“Who are you calling this time?” I asked.
“Grandma J. Why?”
“Did you know Grandma takes trips with the Troublesome Trio?”
“Of course.”
I was quiet, and Mom asked, “Are you upset?”
“Well, yeah. Why didn’t I get invited?”
Mom thought for a minute, and I did my best not to pummel her with petulant questions.
“You had The Girls and the trio had Janine. That’s just the way it was,” said Mom. “I never thought much about it. You traveled more than they did and got so much.”
“The trio wanted to be invited by The Girls,” I said. “They told me.”
“Really? I didn’t know that.”
“Why weren’t they?”
“That was down to Uncle George. He didn’t want The Girls’ help. He was weird about it.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He always had a chip on his shoulder about being self-made as if anyone truly is,” Mom said. “So how’s the trip going?”
“It’s good. I might be getting somewhere. It’s hard to tell, but I have a good feeling.”
“So…is Grandma trying to split everything?”
“She is. What the heck is that about?”
Mom started laughing and telling me stories about Grandma trying to split everything from a chicken leg to an ice cream sandwich. I laughed so hard I almost forgot to be hurt. Almost.