UNCLE MORTY WOULDN’T give me Catherine’s address and he tried to tackle me on my way out the door. He missed and I was in an Uber before he made it down the stairs after me.
“Where to?” asked Justin, a college guy driving the ancient Camry that smelled like beer with a hint of barf.
“Just drive,” I said.
“Where?”
“Anywhere.”
“I need a destination,” said Justin.
“Union Station.”
“Really?”
“I don’t know. Just go.”
“Hey, that weird guy’s yelling at you,” he said as Uncle Morty burst out of the apartment building’s front door.
“Go. Go now.”
Justin hit the gas and I called Spidermonkey. “I need an address right now.”
“What’s wrong?” asked my super sleuth.
“Catherine Cabot, thirty-two, forensic accountant.”
“Mercy, you sound very upset,” said Spidermonkey.
“Are you going to give me that address?” I asked.
“Tell me why you need it.”
“I need it and I’m paying you so please give me the address.”
Spidermonkey went quiet and I could hear some gentle typing in the background along with his wife, Lorraine, talking about something, probably golf.
“I’ve got it, but please tell me what’s happening,” he said in that soft South Carolina accent that was usually so soothing.
“I found out that this Catherine person is involved with my friend’s husband and I’m going there to tell her exactly what kind of crap she is. I hope more people throw urine on her every day and then some.”
“You’re going to throw urine on her? That’s assault, Mercy.”
Justin looked back. “Do you have urine in here? That’s not cool.”
“I don’t,” I said. “Look at the road.”
“I’m going to drop you off.”
“I don’t have any urine. Just drive. I’ll tip you big.”
Justin grinned. I could’ve had urine and feces, and he wouldn’t have cared.
“Mercy,” said Spidermonkey. “I don’t think this is a good idea. What are you planning?”
“Nothing. I might smack her but nothing.”
“Mercy, there is no way I’m giving you this address. You are too—”
I hung up on the voice of reason. I wasn’t having it. I called Mr. Calabasas and to my ultimate surprise I sounded normal. I had to convince him to tell me Catherine’s address. He wasn’t happy about me telling her everything, but somehow, I convinced him that I had to talk to her. I don’t know what I said, but it worked. I got the address and told Justin, a loft in Lafayette Square.
“So you’re Mercy Watts,” said Justin.
“No, I’m not.” I so wasn’t in the mood.
“Yes, you are. You used your own account to order me.”
Dammit.
“Fine. Yes, I am.”
“What happened to your hair?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“It looks funky.”
“Thanks.”
“Do you use conditioner?”
I will kill you.
“Yes.”
“You need to change brands,” said Justin.
Don’t hit him. He’s driving. Arrive alive.
“Sure. I’ll do that.”
Justin was not one to take a hint. He hit me with so many questions. I don’t think he actually bothered to breathe until we pulled up to the front of Catherine’s building, a converted factory that boasted a gym, pool, and a covered parking structure adjacent or so the signs claimed.
“You look great in a bikini. Not today obviously. Not with that hair.”
I tossed fifty bucks over the seat, and he was still talking when I marched up to the entrance and woodpeckered Catherine’s buzzer.
Make me look at pictures of your naked body and know things that nobody wants to know about you. I will make you sorry you ever bought that extra phone. You, Catherine Cabot, are about to—
“Who is it?” a weepy, surprisingly young voice came out of the speaker.
“This is Mercy Watts and I want to talk to you,” I said, not bothering to be kind-sounding or polite. If she didn’t let me in, I was pretty sure I could bite my way through the door.
“Do…I know you?” she squeaked.
You’re gonna and you’ll wish you didn’t.
“It’s about your case,” I said.
“Case?”
“Big Steve Warnock asked me to look into your case,” I said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Catherine, sounding younger than Ellen’s daughters.
I pushed the button again.
“Hello?”
“It’s Mercy again and look there’s one of your neighbors. I wouldn’t want to have to tell him about how somebody threw urine on you.” I was still talking, loud but not yelling. And there was no neighbor. Lying is my forte.
The door buzzed and I banged it open. I bypassed the mini elevator and dashed up the five stories, fueled by the thought of telling Clem.
I pounded on Catherine’s door yelling, “Open up!”
“Go away,” she yelled back in a panic. “I’m not decent.”
“I know,” I said. “If you don’t open this door, everyone will know.”
“Know what? Are you crazy? I’m calling the police!”
“Go for it, Catherine. That’s fine. I’ll tell them all about Joe Hove, Gary Vance, and John Collier. Do you have a license for porn? You might need a license.”
There was a click, the door opened, and a blue eye looked out at me over the chain. “Who are you?”
“I’m the person people call when they don’t want to call the cops.”
“Why are you so angry and how do you know those names?” she asked.
“Open the door and I’ll tell you.” I wouldn’t have opened the door, but Catherine did and I walked in armed with righteous anger, but it vanished the moment I got over the threshold.
Those lofts were expensive. Not ridiculous but expensive. Young professionals could afford it and that’s who lived in that building. Normal people. Up and comers climbing the ladder. They cared about their address and what was in it. I don’t know who the hell was living in that loft, but they were jacked.
Catherine Cabot stood there, wearing a ratty robe that might once have been pink. Her eyes were nearly swollen shut and her nose was bright red and dripping. “I wasn’t expecting visitors,” she said.
I wanted to say, “No kidding,” but the words didn’t come. We were standing in an area about the size of a Paris elevator, surrounded by piles of magazines, newspapers, and boxes so haphazardly stacked that I was worried that if I breathed too hard they might topple over and crush me to death. It smelled strongly of cat pee so breathing deep wasn’t happening. All that in eight months. That took commitment.
Catherine clutched her bathrobe, gathering it around her neck. “So you know Big Steve?”
“Yeah,” I managed to get out.
“And he told you about this morning?” Big tears dripped down her cheeks.
“Something died in here.”
“No. I don’t think so,” she said. “It’s clean. I just have a lot of stuff.”
Something definitely died in there. I’d smelled death and it’s not a smell that you forget, but it wasn’t human, thank goodness.
I shouldn’t have said it, but things pop out sometimes. “Have you counted your cats lately?”
Catherine drew back and her face got blotchier.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “It’s been a rough day.”
She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I know about that.”
“Is there…some place we can talk? Do you have a balcony or deck? I have allergies.”
I didn’t have allergies, but there was no way I could stay in there. The walls were closing in. I couldn’t take it.
“Why do we need to talk?” asked Catherine.
Stay calm. You’re fine.
“I have information about your situation. It won’t be easy to hear, but you need to hear it.”
A phone rang somewhere in the depths of the loft.
“Alright,” she said. “I have to get that. Follow me.”
Catherine ducked under two stacks that had fallen together, forming a kind of rickety archway and stayed up by what could only be magic. I’ve never been so reluctant to go anywhere in my life and I’d been in some gross places, crack houses and the like, but Catherine’s place was different and so much worse. Unhappiness pervaded the place, a deep-down misery that went on and on.
There must have been a kitchen, but I didn’t see it. There were pizza boxes and food containers on every available surface and the smell of rotting food joined the cat pee and dead whatever. I saw the end of a sofa, but so many boxes and Christmas decorations were stacked on it, there was no way a person could sit there. Cats peeked out of cubbies, looking as unhappy as cats possibly could. I thought of my Skanky. He was called Skanky because of the condition I found him in. Now he was fat and happy, constantly cleaning and always on the hunt for something to eat that he shouldn’t. Catherine’s cats looked like they’d given up and it hurt my heart.
“Here it is,” she said somehow finding a cellphone under a collection of Tupperware, only some of it clean. “Hello?”
I spotted a thin strip of a slider door with a balcony beyond. I pointed at it as Catherine said she wasn’t coming into work after all and she nodded at me. I did my best not to run for it. I may not have succeeded. I don’t know. I was that desperate to get out. I pulled back the drapes and unlocked the slider, preparing to squeeze myself out when Catherine said, “Everything’s fine. I have a guest.” She glanced at me. “Mercy Watts.”
I went through the opening and found myself on a deck that did not belong to the same person. It couldn’t. It was clean with matching furniture and a little barbecue that didn’t have so much as a smudge. I took a deep breath and tried to shake off the interior as I checked out the view, a nice one over a small park with other lofts on the other side. If anyone was looking at Catherine’s loft they’d see a perfect place. There were drapes on the inside of the slider, hiding the inside completely.
“Mercy?” Catherine looked out.
“Uh huh?”
“He wants to talk to you.”
“Who?” I asked.
“My boss, Mr. Calabasas.” She gave me the phone and disappeared inside.
“Hello,” I said.
“Did you tell her?” he asked.
“No. Have you been here?”
“Where?”
“Here,” I said. “Catherine’s place.”
He hadn’t been there. Catherine was a private person and didn’t have parties. He was anxious to tell me that she came to his house and that she was lovely. Mr. Calabasas sensed something was off, but he didn’t want to know.
“What about her father?” I asked.
He paused and then said, “Why do you ask?”
“He needs to come here.”
“Why?”
“Trust me.”
“Are you going to tell her about the pictures?” he asked.
I said I would and he was worried that I would be harsh with her. I wouldn’t. I hated what Catherine did, but I didn’t want to hurt her anymore. She was hurting herself. Living in that place was punishment enough.
“Everything alright?” she asked me through the opening in the slider.
“Yes and no,” I said. “Can you come out?”
“I’d rather you come in here.”
Nope. Can’t do it.
“Can we please talk out here? It’s nice out. Crisp and the leaves are beautiful.”
“I’m more comfortable in here,” she said.
That said a lot about Catherine and it freaked me out. She was more comfortable in that stink hole. Not a good sign. I wanted to hate her. But how do you hate someone like that? I didn’t know much about hoarders, just the little mentioned during my psych classes and rotation. I thought it was an obsessive compulsive disorder linked to depression, but I’d never seen it, unless you counted Uncle Morty and collections. I didn’t after meeting Catherine. She wasn’t coming out of that self-made hellhole and I was trying to figure out if I could gracefully climb down the fire escape to avoid going back in when I left.
“How about you stay there and I hang here?” I asked.
She breathed out a tense breath and agreed. I turned a chair around and calmly told her why I was there, starting with Big Steve roping me in. She didn’t interrupt. She barely blinked.
“So,” I said, “I told Big Steve that you need security until we catch the guy. It might take a while and I think it’s a mistake not to involve the police, but he insisted that I try my hand before we involve them.”
“You’re making this up,” she said finally. “It’s ridiculous.”
“I agree, but here we are.”
Catherine held herself tightly, crossing her bare feet over each other, and scrunching her head down into the fat collar of her robe. “Why would you believe those things about me? What did I ever do to you?”
“Are you saying nobody threw urine on you this morning?” I asked.
She bit her lip.
“Catherine, I saw the pictures and my expert convinced me that it’s you. He doesn’t have a motive to do that. Nobody wanted it to be you.”
“It’s not.”
“He matched your stretch marks and your birthmark. There wasn’t any doctoring of the photos. It’s you.”
“No.”
A flame started inside me, white-hot and sizzling. “You’re having sex with my friend’s husband. I’ll help you because you desperately need it, but don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not having sex with anyone but my boyfriend.”
She emphasized the word sex and she looked me in the eye when she said it. Catherine didn’t think she was having sex with those men. She really didn’t.
“So if you’re not having sex with those men, Theo knows all about them?” I asked. “Has he seen the pictures?”
She swallowed hard.
“That’s what I thought.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“With married men.”
She wrinkled her nose. “It’s not my fault they’re married.”
“That’s a weird way to put it,” I said. “You know and you do it anyway. Why?”
Catherine sank to the floor and blubbered into her knees. “I don’t know. It’s just something I do.”
“Okay. We’ll leave it at that.”
“You hate me,” she said.
“I don’t hate you.” Much.
“You do. I can tell. Girls always hate me,” she wailed.
Imagine that.
“Has anyone ever threatened you before?” I asked.
She wiped her nose on a very used tissue she pulled out of her pocket. “Maybe.”
“Catherine, you’re killing me. Who threatened you?”
“Joe’s wife.”
“Joe Hove?”
“Uh-huh.”
Patty Hove tracked down Catherine and showed up at the loft. She told her to leave her husband alone or else. The “or else” was not defined, but Catherine had no intention of getting back with Joe. She was the one that dumped him. Interestingly, Patty had confronted Catherine two months ago, right after Joe was dumped. Patty wasn’t shy. She didn’t muck about with emails, Facebook, or even a phone call. She looked her rival in the eye and she wasn’t afraid to do it. Didn’t sound like a urine thrower to me.
“It was only the one time?” I asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“Anybody else?”
There had been a few harsh words over the years, but Catherine seemed genuinely mystified about the pain she caused. As far as she was concerned, they were consenting adults and she didn’t make anyone do anything. She had a point, but I tried to explain that there’s a sisterhood and you don’t betray the sisterhood. She didn’t understand that. Catherine wasn’t in the girl club. The last female friend she had was her mother and that made me so sad I found it difficult to focus on how much I loathed her.
“You need a friend,” I said after a moment.
“I have friends.”
“Those men aren’t your friends.”
She watched me with those swollen eyes and I was at a loss to explain what she was missing out on. I had male friends, of course, but it wasn’t the same as Ellen. I needed that warmth that only a best girlfriend had.
“Tell me about your work,” I said after a moment.
That’s when she brightened up. Work was her salvation. She loved it. The detail. The organization. The hunt for the hidden. She was working on a special project at the moment and expected it to take months. It was confidential and she wouldn’t give me even the smallest of hints about it.
“It’s a big deal then?” I asked.
“I can’t say.”
“You just did.”
She bit her lip.
“Okay just nod if the answer is yes,” I said.
“I can’t. It’s confidential.”
“General questions. That’s all.”
Catherine pulled her knees in tight to her chest and nodded.
“Is there a possible crime?” I asked.
Nod.
“Murder?”
She shook her head.
“White collar.”
Nod.
“Big money?”
Nod.
“Huge money?”
Nod.
“I really can’t tell you anything, Mercy, and I don’t see what it has to do with anything.”
I stood up and looked off the balcony. “Money and sex are the biggest motives there are and now we have both.”
Catherine tried to give me tea, but I couldn’t force myself to accept it, making a lame excuse. She looked at me with a hint of hope. She thought I could be a friend. I couldn’t be her friend. Clem would never forgive me. Heck, I wouldn’t forgive myself.
So I refused the tea and got a few more details on the men. Catherine didn’t believe for a moment that any of them would hurt her. She dumped some. Some dumped her. Wives and girlfriends found out, but for the most part they sounded like rational people.
When I ran out of questions, I did what Mom would consider unforgivably rude. I don’t remember what I said or what excuse I gave. I’m sure it was stupid. Unforgivable was probably spot on, but I did it anyway and I’m not proud. I climbed down the fire escape, feeling saturated with unhappiness and guilt. I shouldn’t have done it. I should’ve sucked it up, but I didn’t. The misery was seeping into my skin and taking ahold of my heart. The last two months had been hard enough. I couldn’t take anymore.
With my feet on the ground and breathing clean, crisp air, I called Uncle Morty. I’d have to work my way through Catherine’s list, unless he came up with something fast. There were about a million things I’d rather do than talk to Catherine’s lovers.
“You again,” Uncle Morty said. “Didn’t I just get rid of you?”
I stopped at the side of the building and leaned on a parking structure pillar. “I need you to get into Elite Accounting and find out what Catherine’s working on.”
“Aren’t you there? Friggin’ ask her.”
“I did. It’s confidential and she takes that seriously,” I said.
“So she’s alive?”
“Puhlease.”
“You were the maddest I’ve seen you since Tommy charged that boyfriend of yours with Grand Theft Auto,” he said.
“First of all, he wasn’t my boyfriend and second, he went joyriding in his aunt’s Pontiac.”
“He was a bad seed,” said Uncle Morty.
I rolled my eyes. “He was fifteen and an honor student.”
“Bad seed.”
“Since when do you believe in bad seeds?” I asked.
“Since that kid’s doing five to fifteen on felony assault,” he said.
Dammit.
“Are you going to look into Catherine’s accounts or what?”
“Don’t we think this is personal?”
“People take money very personally,” I said.
Uncle Morty grumbled, but he agreed. I hung up and started to walk to the entrance of the covered parking, but I didn’t get far. Standing just inside were two people I hoped never to see together. I considered turning tail and running, but I had to face the music or in this case the anger and recriminations.
Mom and my super hacker, Spidermonkey, watched me silently. He looked rather horrified in his lime green cashmere sweater and elegantly tied scarf. Mom was pissed with hot pink spots of indignation on her cheeks that were barely visible above the upturned collar of her heaviest coat.
“Carolina Watts.” Mom pointed at me.
“Sorry, Mercy,” said Spidermonkey. “I didn’t know she’d be here.”
“You’re cheating on your uncle. How could you?”
“Well…it’s not really cheating,” I said.
“Does he know that you’ve hired his rival?” Mom asked.
“Why does my luck always suck?” I asked. “Other people have good luck.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Spidermonkey. “When I realized we were both looking for you, I should’ve left, but I didn’t, and she recognized me.”
Mom patted his arm. “It’s not your fault. You’re lovely. Get over here, Mercy.”
I dragged my feet, but I went over to smacking distance. “How in the world did you recognize him? Most people think Spidermonkey is a skater.”
“Not Morty,” said Mom. “He used to have a dartboard with Spidermonkey’s picture on it.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Morty called me,” she said. “He thought I could talk to you and stop you from doing something rash, but you didn’t answer your phone.”
“I’m going to do something rash to him.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind.”
“Why didn’t he just come?” I asked.
“I told him I’d send Grandad so he gave me the address,” said Mom.
“And people wonder where I get it from.”
“You’ve been lying to me, your father, and Morty for months. I can’t believe you’re my daughter. I taught you better than this.”
I put my hands on my hips. “You obviously didn’t. You’re here. Where does Dad think you are?”
She put her nose in the air. “That doesn’t matter.”
“Mom.”
Dad thought Mom was at my apartment because she was for a little while. Mrs. Sims called. My Alexa went off again and she had had it. Dana, Big Steve’s temp, talked Dad into letting Mom go and I could’ve kicked her for it.
“I thought Chuck unplugged it,” I said.
“Well, he didn’t and here I am,” Mom said. “I can’t believe you.”
“How did you get here?”
“I took an Uber.” Mom gave me the stink eye. “How did you get here? We discovered each other because we were both searching for your truck. I thought Morty was wrong. But you’re here. Where’s your truck?”
I told her the truth because she knew better than anyone Dad could not find out about my truck. Then I went through the Catherine stuff because I’m crazy like that and saying it out loud helped me to think.
“You gave this to Morty?” asked Spidermonkey.
“Well, I had to. Big Steve already told him about it. Why wouldn’t I?”
Mom took my arm and stifled a yawn before asking, “How is he?”
“Morty? I don’t know. Weird. I mean, weirder than usual.”
She and Spidermonkey exchanged a look.
“What?”
“You don’t remember Jodie, do you?” asked Mom. “She was Morty’s wife. Briefly.”
I didn’t remember Jodie or that Uncle Morty had ever been married. Apparently, they divorced when I was four after Uncle Morty discovered she’d been cheating on him with several men. According to Mom he went into a tail spin that lasted a couple of years.
“That’s why he doesn’t work on cheating wife cases,” Mom said.
“He does,” I said.
“Name one.”
I couldn’t. “Are you sure that’s why he’s sweating and acting weird? It’s a lot, a whole lot.”
“That’s why.”
“I can take it over,” said Spidermonkey. “This has to be painful for Morty. The cheating was pretty bad.”
“So you knew about Jodie, too? Does everyone know?” I asked.
“No. Clearly, Big Steve doesn’t. He thinks they fell out over money,” said Mom. “Morty didn’t tell people obviously.”
“I only know because Morty stopped working for a period of time and I got curious about why.” Spidermonkey took Mom’s other arm. “You’re tired. I’ll drive you both home.”
“Why did you come?” I asked him.
“You sounded like you might hurt someone.”
We got in Spidermonkey’s Jag and Mom said, “Catherine sounds pathetic. Why would you want to hurt her?”
I considered not telling Mom about Clem’s husband, but if anyone knew what to do, it would be her. “So I have to tell her, right?”
“No.”
“What?”
“Tell John that you know and it’s his job to confess,” said Mom.
Spidermonkey nodded and drove without comment.
“What if he won’t tell her?” I asked.
“Then you tell her,” she said.
“This sucks.”
Mom reached over her seat and I took her hand. “It does, but maybe they’ll be stronger for it.”
“You think?”
“Could be,” said Mom. “Now let’s discuss our next move.”
“We don’t have a next move. You’re going to nap and I’m going to see John at La-Z-Boy.”
“I meant about The Klinefeld Group.” She looked at Spidermonkey. “What have you got?”
He glanced back at me and I shrugged. “I told her everything.”
“Except about me.”
“Except that.”
Spidermonkey drove into the Central West End as lunch was winding down. “Can you use a hot chocolate? I could.”
“Mom doesn’t like to be out in public,” I said.
“She’s out right now.”
“I am,” said Mom. She seemed surprised by the fact. “I had to find out what you were up to and I didn’t think about it.”
“That’s kind of good,” I said.
“I guess it is. I wasn’t self-conscious at all. What do you have in mind, Spidermonkey? Aaron does hot chocolate for Mercy, but we can’t go to Kronos. It will get back to Tommy or Morty eventually. You’re quite striking.”
“Mom, don’t flirt with Spidermonkey,” I said.
“I’m not flirting. It’s a fact. People will remember him.”
I couldn’t deny that. Silver hair and a lime green sweater combined with us. Forget about it. Spidermonkey chose what he called “the competition”, Handcrafted By Bissinger’s, and Mom agreed, buoyed by her recent boldness but mostly because she didn’t think she’d see anyone she knew.
I was less enthusiastic although I’d loved Bissinger’s since the first molasses sucker Grandad gave me. Pure pleasure. That was back when Bissinger’s was on McPherson and I still missed the original shop that was pure chocolatier with the icy dark interior and the wall-to-wall dark wood cases where I’d get to pick a treat if I was very good, which wasn’t very often I’m sorry to say.
The venue was different now. You could sit down in a chic spot, still with dark wood but not quite the same. I only went there on the rare occasion because Aaron caught the scent of a stranger’s hot chocolate on my breath once and it was like I kicked him in the heart. I went when he was out of town at Star Trek conventions or Dragoncon or Nerdcon or whatever, but I still felt guilty about it for days.
That day Maryland Plaza was hopping and we had zero hope of parking in front on a Saturday afternoon. We ended up by the library. Sadly, there was plenty of parking there. I questioned again whether Mom was up for it and her response was to pull two hats out of her enormous purse. I got a floppy oversized beret and she got a kind of fuzzy winter fedora.
“What’s this for?” I asked.
“Yours is to cover that hair. It’s hurting my eyes. And mine is a guard against being recognized.” Mom pulled her hat down low and made sure the collar covered her face as much as possible.
“You really look great, Mom. Nobody can tell,” I said.
“I can and the hot chocolate is bound to make the left side of my face go completely numb.”
“It still does that?”
“My speech therapist is working on it, but I know it’s permanent.”
I took her hand. “We don’t have to go.”
She gave me a squeeze. “It’s fine. If I’m with you no one will think I’m you and ask me questions about DBD or Kansas or anything.”
“How often does that happen?” I asked.
“Not so much since the stroke.”
“Is that because you don’t go out?”
“Pretty much.” Mom texted Dad and said she was going to take a nap at my apartment.
“Dad will go for that?” I asked.
“Dana will talk to him until he does.” Mom grinned at me and her smile wasn’t quite so lop-sided. Maybe being bad helped.
“What does that mean?”
“She likes to talk.”
“More than Dad?”
“She puts your father to shame. Half the time I don’t know how we got on a topic. We start out on hiring the new detective and end up on squid ink pasta. Anyway, she has Tommy cornered in the office. I figure I’ve got a good two hours.”
Spidermonkey offered Mom his arm. “Is she any good?”
“I don’t really care. She keeps him occupied. This is the first break I’ve had. After Claire comes back, I might hire her to come over and just visit.” She took my arm and she was a little unsteady but determined to have rogue hot chocolate and I swore them both to secrecy.
We found a table in a corner and we ordered three drinking chocolates and an assortment of macaroons. Heavenly and I was assured there wouldn’t be a surprise pepper floating around in there or powdered mango or a shot of some rare liquor. Everything Aaron concocted for me was stellar, orgasmically good, but sometimes a girl just wants what’s expected. I don’t need crab in a donut. I really don’t.
“Why are you calling this Aaron’s competition?” I asked after letting the chocolate seep through my veins and force out Catherine’s misery.
“He’s having a hot chocolate bar in the new bakery,” said Spidermonkey.
“How do you know that?” asked Mom.
He gave us a grin and said, “I make it my business to know and I like Aaron.”
“You’ve met Aaron?” I asked.
“I’ve been to Kronos. Anyone who’s anyone has.”
Mom raised her cup. “To being anyone.”
We clinked and sipped.
“Are you fortified and ready to hear my information?” asked Spidermonkey.
Mom’s eyes twinkled. “I am. What have you got? I bet it’s not as good as what I found.”
Spidermonkey extended his hand. “I’ll bet you a second drinking chocolate and the last raspberry macaroon.”
They shook hands and Mom said, “Just so you know. I was going to eat that anyway.”
“Fair enough.” Spidermonkey leaned forward as if someone else among the clientele cared about what happened to strangers in WWII. “Mr. Masson called. It’s confirmed. The Sorkines went to Venice. He’s positive.”
Mr. Masson was the former manager of the Sorkines’ apartment building. The mysterious apartment intrigued him during his entire career and he was the one who let Chuck and I in. We found a scrap of paper with what looked like train times on it under a tea cup in the Sorkines’ apartment. The only other clue was a telegram from an ‘A’ saying that he’d arrived in Rome. We assumed the A stood for Abel, Stella and Nicky’s tour guide. If they believed he was in Rome, Italy made sense. Mr. Masson said he was going to figure out those train times, but I was flabbergasted that he actually did it.
“It must’ve taken forever to figure out train schedules from 1938,” said Mom.
“A Herculean effort, but Mr. Masson considers finding out what happened to them a kind of duty. He owes it to them and all the others like them.”
“Well, that’s pretty good,” I said. “Can you top it, Mom?”
“I’m not done,” said Spidermonkey with a tone that said it wasn’t good news.
“You said he confirmed it. How exactly did he do that?”
Once Mr. Masson found trains that corresponded to those times he went the extra mile. He enlisted the help of an Italian friend and they went through the Venetian papers. Il Gazzettino wasn’t archived online and they had to dig through editions manually at the headquarters in Venice. It took days of searching, but it paid off.
“Take a look at this.” Spidermonkey pulled up something on his phone. I was afraid to look but I did, Mom and I together, our foreheads touching.
“I don’t see it,” said Mom. “My eyes aren’t doing so well today.”
I expanded the image. “Here it is.”
There in faded black and white was a name, Raymond-Raoul Sorkine. I could make out a few words like ospedale and canale. It wasn’t good whatever it was.
“What does it say?” I asked.
“In short, Mr. Raymond-Raoul Sorkine was shot in the abdomen on the Rialto Bridge. He fell into the canal and was taken to the hospital,” said Spidermonkey.
Where he later died.
“And?”
“That’s it,” he said. “They couldn’t find another word about him.”
“What about the hospital records?” asked Mom.
“They didn’t get that far. They needed to return to France, but Monsieur Masson says he will go back.”
I rolled my cup in my hands. “They were there.”
“And someone knew it,” said Mom.
“He died,” I said. “Gunshot to the abdomen and canal water. Talk about infection.”
“You never know.”
I know.
I didn’t know why I cared so much about these people, these strangers, from so long ago, but I woke up at night wondering and praying I was wrong. They didn’t die. They were the lucky ones. The ones that got away. Now I knew they didn’t. At least, the father didn’t and it hurt more than I thought it would.
“Anything else?” I asked almost hoping my phone would ring now. Catherine’s troubles were pedestrian compared to the Sorkines.
“A little something, but I can hold that for later,” said Spidermonkey.
“Let’s hear it now,” said Mom. “Turning away won’t change it.”
“For what it’s worth, it’s good news. Dr. Bloom’s friend got in touch and she found something on Gerhard Müller,” he said. “Well, it may be something.”
It took me a second. Gerhard Müller wasn’t a name that I’d given an ounce of thought to. “Peiper’s assistant? Is he the same person as the boy Father Gröber said beat him in the House Prison?” I asked.
“She thinks it’s likely.”
Mom pulled a little flowered notebook out of her purse. “Go on.”
Dr. Karina Bock was a historian specializing in Nazi political prisoners among other things. She was fascinated by the priest’s story of being beaten by Peiper and a fifteen-year-old boy for information about another prisoner she believed to be Stella Bled Lawrence. That the name Gerhard Müller was on official orders naming him a civilian and an assistant to Peiper was very unusual and she’d been searching for that name ever since. Father Gröber thought Peiper and Müller might be father and son, but Peiper never had any children that she knew of, so she started looking at Peiper’s background and family. The Peipers were a well-off Berlin family that sent their children to excellent schools and traveled extensively. Karina got in touch with the last surviving family member, Claudia Heutel, a university student in Stuttgart and distant cousin to Peiper. She said the family had a bonfire in the fifties of anything related to the Nazi regime and the family was completely ashamed to have been in the party. Her mother refused to help Karina in her research, but Claudia had a different view. She thought the family had to own what happened so she smuggled out a collection of letters that the family had saved. They were prewar, mostly written in the 1920s, and a complete correspondence between Peiper’s mother and her sister, Claudia’s ancestor.
Karina would’ve considered them a bunch of nothing if not for one small, seemingly insignificant detail. The Peipers took a trip to Scotland in late 1923 to visit friends. In one of the letters, Magda Peiper wrote that they had met a lovely German family by the name of Müller. The father was working at a brewery as a sort of consultant.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
“Let me guess,” I said. “The father was Gerhard Müller.”
“But he’d be way too old,” said Mom and she yawned, her left side drooping.
Spidermonkey ordered more drinking chocolate.
“But I didn’t win,” said Mom.
“I’ll risk it.” He turned to me. “I bet you’ve already figured it out.”
I chewed on my lip for a minute for effect but I had. “Helmut Peiper was on this trip?”
“Yes. He was nineteen at the time.”
“The elder Gerhard had a daughter?” I asked.
“Of course,” said Mom. “I should’ve thought of that. Peiper got the daughter pregnant, but that’s odd, isn’t it?”
“How do you mean?” Spidermonkey’s face was guarded. He knew where Mom was going.
“It was 1925. The Müllers don’t sound poor or powerless.”
“Solidly upper-middle class.”
“Why didn’t Peiper marry her?” Mom asked. “That’s the normal thing. She wasn’t a servant girl he could easily walk away from.”
“Jutta Müller was fourteen in 1923 and by the time her pregnancy was apparent the Peipers were back in Berlin,” said Spidermonkey.
“But Peiper knew and he still didn’t marry her,” I said.
“There’s no evidence that he did know.”
Karina went to Edinburgh and spoke to the Müller family and Jutta’s baby was a well-guarded secret, only an elderly Great Aunt knew about it. She said the family regarded the incident as a rape. Jutta was sent to a hospital out in the country to have her baby and a farm family was paid to raise him until he was sent to a boarding school at the age of six. Jutta had no contact with the child and neither did anyone else in the family, but they did pay the bills.
“But Jutta named him after her father,” I said.
“She did. Karina found the financial records naming the child on the bills.”
Karina traced Gerhard Müller through school records until the age of fourteen. He was enrolled in the extremely tough and somewhat infamous boarding school, Gordonstoun. Prince Charles went there and reportedly called it “Colditz in kilts.” Not exactly a compliment and I would’ve felt sorry for Gerhard if he hadn’t moved on to beating priests.
“What happened after fourteen?” I asked.
“That’s the mystery. According to school records, a ‘friend of the Müller family’ signed out Gerhard Müller in December 1937 and never brought him back,” said Spidermonkey.
“Well,” said Mom. “Who signed him out?”
“The signature is illegible and the school kept it very quiet.”
“I guess they didn’t want it known that students were being kidnapped,” I said. “Did they do anything to recover him?”
“Local police were called and the Müllers were told. No trace was found.”
Mom accepted her second drinking chocolate, sipped it, and then said, “I doubt they tried very hard. Poor boy. No wonder he ended up where he ended up.”
“So we think it was Peiper that took him?” I asked.
Spidermonkey smiled. “It was a woman who signed him out. German and described by the staff as pretty but unacceptably mannish.”
“Peiper had to be behind it,” I said. “I wonder how he found out about the kid.”
“No doubt it ruined the boy’s life,” said Mom.
We sat there sipping and letting that sink in. Twists of fate were everywhere. I’d had more than my fair share. If Peiper hadn’t found his son, the boy might’ve grown up fighting for the Allies. He might have been decent.
“Enough of that,” said Spidermonkey. “Carolina, what’s your news? Please let it be more cheerful.”
Mom flipped a few pages in her notebook. “I think so.” She handed the notebook to me. “My eyes are gone now. Sugar does it. Can you read that?”
I scanned the page and slapped my forehead. “I’m an idiot. I can’t believe I missed that.”
Mom kissed me on the cheek. “I’m glad I’m not totally useless.”
“Nobody would ever think you’re useless.”
“Don’t leave me in suspense,” said Spidermonkey.
I kind of wanted to, just to bother my cyber sleuth, but I read it out anyway. Mom went through Stella’s book with a fine-toothed comb, seeing connections that I didn’t. She noted that on Stella and Nicky’s original honeymoon itinerary Greece wasn’t mentioned. But in a telegram sent to The Girls’ mother, Florence, Stella said that “Abel insists that we visit Greece.”
“They didn’t go to Greece, did they?” asked Spidermonkey.
“No,” I said. “Stella sent another telegram from Venice saying they were going to Vienna. They checked into the Hotel Blechhammer on the eve of the Kristallnacht and disappeared for two weeks before they turned up in Paris where they met Amelie and Paul.”
“But…” said Mom with a smile that was huge and bright and smacked of the old her.
“But?” asked Spidermonkey.
“Stella went to Greece in 1940.”
“Right after we believe she was tortured in the House Prison,” I said.
Spidermonkey crossed his arms and leaned back. “I fail to see the significance. She went to Greece. So what?”
“She fled to Greece,” said Mom. “She was injured. Father Gröber heard her screaming. She couldn’t make for the Allies.”
“She probably would’ve been followed,” I said. “They really thought she was a spy.”
“So she went to neutral territory. Greece. Thasos to be exact. That’s the island she mentioned in her telegram.”
Spidermonkey smiled. “I see. She knew someone.”
“Or Abel knew someone,” I said.
“Somebody needs to go to Greece,” said Mom.
Not you, woman.
“We need to find out who Abel is,” I said.
“I’d rather go to Greece.”
“Mom, you can fly across the Atlantic when you’ve got your Warfarin under control.”
“That could be never.” Mom’s clotting factors fluctuated wildly. I wanted her off the rat poison, but her docs didn’t agree.
“We’ll get it figured out,” I said, looking down at Mom’s notebook. There was something there. I was missing something. It was on the tip of my brain. Abel. We had to find Abel. But we’d tried everything we could think of. Monsieur Masson and his friends had searched the deportation rolls in Germany, Austria, and France. Nothing. He was Stella and Nicky’s tour guide, but we couldn’t find a bill or a payment to him. Abel was real. He existed, but we couldn’t find so much as a picture.
Mom put her head on my shoulder. “We better. I want to go places. Do things.”
“You seem more tired than before,” I said. “Have you been sleeping at night?”
“Like a rock.”
Spidermonkey stood up. “I think we should—who on Earth is that?”
Standing outside and peering in with his hands cupped around his eyes was Jimmy Elbert.
I groaned.
“Is that the new one?” asked Mom, slurring terribly from the sugar.
“Yeah, that’s him.” I stood up and pointed at my douchebag stalker. The second I did, Jimmy jumped back and, in a panic, ran straight into a couple of ladies laden with packages. Packages went flying and Jimmy dashed out of sight without helping the ladies like a half a dozen other people did.
“I think I should look into him,” said Spidermonkey.
“Don’t bother. Uncle Morty did. He’s okay,” I said.
“Are you sure?” asked Mom, rubbing her cheek. “He probably broke your window.”
“Yeah, he’s done this to a couple of actresses and then gets bored and moves on. It’s fine.”
Spidermonkey wasn’t satisfied with that, but he just said, “Time to get you home.”
“Not yet. Dana will have Tommy busy for a while,” said Mom.
“But if you go home voluntarily, it will be easier to escape next time.” I helped Mom to her feet and Spidermonkey offered to drive us home, but I had unsavory things to do.
“You don’t have to go to John today,” said Mom. “There’s no hurry.”
“I want to rip off the Band-Aid.”
“Don’t go to his work,” said Spidermonkey. “The man will have a meltdown in front of his colleagues.”
“Not my problem,” I said. “Besides, it’s not like he’d want me to tell him at home.”
“You could meet him somewhere,” said Mom.
I told them I wasn’t pussyfooting around. John screwed up. It wasn’t up to me to make the big reveal easy on him. We said goodbye and I got an Uber to John’s La-Z-Boy store in Brentwood.
It wasn’t far, and by the time I got there, I was ready to make his life hell and I didn’t care who heard me. But John Collier was already in hell and his flesh was sizzling.