TUESDAY, AMY 1 1—LINCOLN PRAIRIE
Marti returned the earring to Evidence before going to role call the next day. She requested several photos of it, including a close-up of Otto Von Weiss’s mark. Vik raised his eyebrows when he saw the Ace bandage wrapped around her left hand and wrist. She mouthed the word “later” and he nodded.
“Wrong shoes for marble stairs,” she explained when the sergeant asked her what happened. “I slipped and grabbed the railing.” Her hair covered the bump on her head.
“Big Mac,” Slim said as she walked into their office. He favored her with a caramel-sweet smile that showed off both of his dimples. “What’s the little lady done to her hand?”
She told him the same thing she told the sergeant and didn’t elaborate.
“Coffee’s brewing,” Cowboy said. “I’m trying something new. Tell me if you like it so I’ll know not to make it again. You’re all too mellow for me this morning.”
Vik’s wiry salt-and-pepper eyebrows almost met across the bridge of his nose.
“Watch it, Jessenovik,” Slim told him. “That came damned close to a smile.”
The coffee was delicious. “Yuck,” Marti said as she poured her second cup.
Cowboy tipped his five-gallon hat in her direction.
“Tastes like you used sewer water,” Vik agreed as he headed back to the coffeepot.
“I finally made something that even the Dyspeptic Duo doesn’t like. Looks like I’ll have to make it more often.”
“Don’t make it too often,” Vik cautioned. “Three cups of this and I’ll need a stomach pump.”
As soon as Slim and Cowboy walked out the door, Vik said, “So, what’s this about the earring? You sounded like you were falling asleep when you called me last night. You really think someone was trying to get their hands on it?”
“Yes.” She told him what happened.
“You do know it is one hell of a stretch to get from taking an earring to Jeweler’s Row to being pushed down the stairs at the Harold Washington Library. Maybe, it was a routine mugging and nothing is missing from your purse because there wasn’t anything worth taking.”
“Look, I agree with you, it is a stretch . . . but . . .”
“But,” Vik said. “That’s not what your gut says.”
“No. My gut says jewelry.”
“Okay, I’ll go with your gut. We focus on the earring.”
Marti pulled out the copies she had made at the library. “Now,” she began, “Otto Von Weiss was a jeweler. The first jeweler I went to recognized his work as soon as he looked at the earring. Then he showed me Von Weiss’s mark on the back. Von Weiss was Prussian, by the way.”
“Old Germany,” Vik said. “Did he make this in this century?”
“Probably in the nine teen-thirties.”
“In this country?” Vik asked.
“No. Von Weiss never left Eastern Europe.”
“Did people from this country go to him?”
“The jeweler said he wasn’t that well known outside of Eastern Europe.”
“Hmm.”
“Right. How did it get here? I have no idea. That’s one reason why I went to the library.”
Vik got them both another cup of coffee, then asked, “Did Von Weiss survive World War Two?”
“Apparently not. He disappeared in the early forties. There’s no record of his death, no grave.”
“Prussian.” Vik tapped the eraser end of a pencil on his desk. “We could be talking Germany, Hungary, Russia, Poland. Then there’s also Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald . . .”
Marti shuddered.
“How old would he be now if he was alive, MacAlister?”
“One hundred and seven.”
“That takes care of living somewhere under an assumed name.”
“So, find out anything useful yesterday? Other than how to fall halfway down a flight of stairs without breaking anything?”
When she told him, he said, “That’s it? Maybe Miss Savannah Jones knew something useful.”
“Could be,” Marti agreed. In their line of work it wasn’t that unusual to learn more from the dead than the living.
Vik leaned back in his chair, clasped his hands behind his head, looked at her for a moment or two, and then said. “Okay. What aren’t you telling me? You weren’t thinking about an earring when you headed down those stairs, and you’re too good a cop to let someone come up behind you and get that close.”
Marti considered that. “I was thinking about Ben.”
Vik didn’t say anything.
She told him about the PSA test results.
“The results of the first test,” he reminded her. “When did you find out about it?”
“Late last week.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Marti?” He put his hand up, shook his head. “You don’t have to explain. I’ve been there with Mildred. The longer you take to say it out loud, the less likely it is to become real. That doesn’t make sense, but it’s all you’ve got.”
Marti picked up her mug, raised it in a small salute, and drank the cold dregs of the coffee.