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Gil was sipping a cup of decaf in the breakfast area of The Hampton Inn & Suites in Greenfield. Lili was already standing and putting on her jacket. “I can’t believe you’re going into work,” said Gil. “I can hardly even move with this jet lag.”
“I feel fine, maybe because I drink real coffee. Anyway, Karen asked me to help expedite processing some of the evidence in the tunnel murder. But, I’m only planning to work a half day. This afternoon, you and I have a meeting with Jeanie to talk with more of Martha’s DNA relatives. Mayet’s coming, too.”
“That may put me back to sleep, unless something really interesting pops up. Good luck with the guns.”
After finishing his coffee, Gil decided to take a walk. It was a warm and sunny spring morning. He walked along the broad sidewalks of Main Street, where some of the shops were opening up for the day. Most of the proprietors were cheerful and greeted him as he walked by. He heard a car beep from the other side of the street. Micky Tindall, Gil’s old high school friend, stopped his car and yelled, “Coffee at Brad’s?” Gil waved and nodded.
Micky was Detective Karen Tindall’s father-in-law. He and Gil sat at the counter on old-fashioned chrome stools, upholstered in red. “The town’s all abuzz about the Indian treasures you found,” said Micky. “Unbelievable! Karen says you want to give them back to the Indians?”
“Well, I don’t know if they’re mine to give, but that’s what I recommended to Chief Reyes. It’s impossible to right the wrongs of the past, but it would be a nice gesture. Have you ever read about the massacre at Turners Falls? It was horrible.”
“I don’t really know much about it. I don’t think anyone around here does. Can you send me something to read about it?”
“Sure. I think the Indian side of that history wasn’t taught in schools here because, until recently, most of the local people didn’t question the story that our ancestors fought a righteous war. Did you know that many of the Indian people in New England that we didn’t kill, we sold into slavery to work in the Caribbean sugar plantations?”
“Well, it isn’t really ‘we.’ I didn’t have any ancestors here until the late eighteen hundreds. Did you?”
“No. Mine came over in the early nineteen hundreds. But it’s still a ‘we’ from a white man’s perspective, and you and me are definitely a couple of old white guys. The American Indian wars are a part of our history now. It seems to be part of the unchanging story of humanity. Invade, conquer, and subjugate. Based on today’s war in Ukraine, people haven’t changed. The Turners Falls massacre can’t be erased, but it could at least be understood and acknowledged. I’m sure there’s a lot more that could be done to help the Indigenous Americans, but I definitely don’t know very much about the subject.”
“Maybe you could team up with a local Indian and help give a talk about it at the local schools. More coffee?”
“No thanks. Two decafs a day is my limit or it will affect my sleep.”
“What can you tell me about Lili’s kidnapping?”
“Not a lot. We still don’t know who’s behind it. She’s physically okay, but I’m worried about her having PTSD or something. She went to work today to help with Karen’s investigation.”
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LILI PHONED KAREN. “I’ve matched the murder weapon on Paul Combs, the tunnel guy. It’s a twenty-two caliber rifle with a suppressor. One subject’s DNA appears on all of the confiscated weapons, presumably from the owner, Keith Wyman. However, most of the DNA on the murder weapon is from a son of Keith Wyman. I still need DNA samples from Wyman and his son to compare.”
“Keith Wyman only has one son, as far as we know.” said Karen. “His name is Steven Wyman. His mother was raped and murdered in Dorchester when Steven was a young child. That may have something to do with Keith Wyman’s state of mind. I already have a BOLO on Steven. The guy that was killed, Paul Combs, was a known bad guy. So, Steven may actually have killed him to prevent him from killing someone else, like his father or Katrina Ryu. I gotta go. Thanks so much for expediting this.”
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LILI MET UP WITH GIL, Jeanie, and Mayet at the Main Street Bar & Grill in Greenfield. They had lunch while Lili and Gil went over what they had learned from their meetings in the UK. “Gemma Wells knew she was adopted, but she no information on her biological parents,” said Lili. Apparently, she was stolen from them right after she was born. Martha was told that the baby was stillborn. Morag Wilson is the daughter of Martha’s half-sister Sarah, and her husband, Ian Duncan. Sarah was one of Frieda’s three children. Neither Morag nor Sarah had any knowledge of Martha’s existence.”
“I expanded Martha’s family tree based on the information from Gemma and Morag,” said Jeanie.
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“I HOPE WE GET TO SHOW this to Martha soon.”
“What kind of a name is Morag?” asked Gil. “It sounds Hungarian or something.”
“It’s a Scottish girl’s name,” said Jeanie. “It isn’t uncommon. Morag Wilson grew up in Glasgow. Morag also happens to be a girl’s name in Israel. I’ve reserved a conference room at the library. Today we’ll be talking with Jonas Mauk, who lives in a city called Niterói in Brazil. It’s across the bay from Rio de Janeiro. Jonas may be the son of a half-sibling of Martha’s. It’s two hours later in Niterói.”
Mayet said, “We still don’t know the identity of your kidnappers, Lili, but we’re getting close to identifying the woman who was preparing to torture you. She’s known to Interpol by several different names. We don’t yet have any identification on who is behind the attempts on Martha’s life. We are, however, closer to finding the leak that compromised Martha’s security in WITSEC.”
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A MIDDLE-AGED MAN APPEARED on the video monitor, along with an elderly woman. “Hello, Senhor Mauk? This is Jeanie Peridot.”
“Yes, I am Jonas Mauk and this is my mother Liesl Mauk. Is Martha Eames there?”
“No, I’m sorry Jonas. This is Agent Lili D’Amico from the Massachusetts State Police. We are calling on behalf of Martha. She is currently being protected because someone has tried to kill her, several times. We are trying to find out if anything in her past could be related to these attempts on her life. In addition to Jeanie and me, we also have Gil Novak, a police consultant, and Special Agent Elsayed from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Jeanie is the genealogist who is helping Martha build her family tree.”
Jonas translated what was said into German for his mother. She looked quite alarmed. She spoke to Jonas in German. “My mother asks how Martha is related to us.”
“We think Martha is your mother’s half-sister,” said Jeanie. We think Martha’s father and your mother’s father were the same person.”
Jonas translated. Liesl smiled and asked something in German. Jonas looked shocked. “My mother asks if Martha is Jewish. Does this make sense?”
“Yes, Martha’s mother was Jewish,” said Jeanie. “Martha didn’t know this until she took the DNA test.”
Jonas interpreted and his mother started to speak at length in German. Jonas listened with wonder and drank a lot of water. After a few minutes, he said, “I wish I had something stronger to drink. My mother’s father was named Horst Weber and he was from Germany. This I knew. I knew my grandfather. But in Germany, his name was Horst Konig. My grandmother’s name was Helga Konig in Germany. I didn’t know they changed their names.” Jeanie was taking notes.
Jonas asked his mother some questions before continuing. “She says that she thinks Martha’s mother must be a woman named Frieda Meyer. Frieda was the nanny for my Uncle Wolfe and my Aunt Elsa who were very young children in Germany. My mother wasn’t yet born. She was born in Brazil.” Liesl talked some more, and Jonas translated. “My grandfather was an officer in the German Army. He was stationed in Paris during the Second World War. When it became too dangerous to be in France, my grandfather sent my grandmother back to Germany with my Aunt Elsa and Uncle Wolfe. They couldn’t send their nanny Frieda back because she was Jewish. She would have been killed.” Jonas asked some more questions in German. “My mother says that Frieda and my grandfather had a child together whom they named Rebecca. My grandfather smuggled Frieda and Rebecca out of France to a ship in Lisbon. He was supposed to find them later in Rio, but he never found them again. He later smuggled my grandmother, aunt, and uncle to Rio to be with him. He had deserted the German army and changed his name to Weber so they wouldn’t be able to find him.”
“How does your mother know this?” asked Gil.
Jonas asked his mother. “She says that, when Uncle Wolfe was grown, my grandfather told him the story and asked him to help find Frieda and Rebecca. After my grandparents died, my uncle told his sisters. I think maybe that is why I received this DNA test as a gift for my birthday.”
Jeanie said, “This is a remarkable story. Martha doesn’t know any of this. She was adopted as a baby in England by a family named Stone. Frieda must have gone to England somehow instead of Brazil, and given Rebecca up for adoption. After that, she ended up in Glasgow, Scotland. She married and had two more children.”
Everyone was looking at each other, not knowing what else to say. Special Agent Elsayed asked, “Senhor Mauk, do you have any idea why anyone would be trying to kill Martha?”
Jonas spoke to his mother. “We both say absolutely no. We would love to meet her! She is like a mystery to our family.”
Lili said, “Well, I think we’ve all learned everything we can from this discussion. You and your mother have been very helpful. Hopefully, we will arrange a meeting between you and Martha, once it is safe. If you have any more questions, please contact Jeanie.”
“Thank you so much for arranging this meeting,” said Jonas. “I wish you luck in solving your mystery.”
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IN THE WANING DAYLIGHT, Carrick set up his equipment in the London flat he had rented. It was across the street from Gemma Wells’s corner townhouse. From the flat, he could see directly into her kitchen. Carrick watched Gemma arrive home from work. He had carried out surveillance over the past two days by walking around the neighborhood and watching video from the webcam he had set up in his flat. Her children would already be home, but he didn’t expect Gemma’s husband home for another hour or so. He waited half an hour more, when darkness fell. He set up his rifle’s bipod stand on the windowsill and aimed the gun toward the kitchen window.
Suddenly, a whining sound filled the air and a small drone came down from above and shined a bright light directly into his scope. The door behind him crashed open, and he found himself surrounded by tactical police officers. He raised his hands and let his rifle clatter to the floor. Although he’d agreed to take a cyanide capsule in the event of capture, he never had any intention of doing so. Instead, he intended to escape from prison, again.