Beyond The Window: A Fast Paced Crime Thriller (Private Detective Heinrich Muller Crime Thriller Book 2)

by Robert Brown

  At last, they found themselves back at the hotel one evening several days after the fight in the farmhouse. Heinrich and David sat talking quietly in David’s room as Arizona slept.

  “I hope she’ll be all right,” Heinrich said, watching her small, sleeping form.

  “I’ll hire the best child psychologist I can find,” David replied.

  “Good. Is Brixton coming over?”

  David shook his head, his usually hard features softening a bit. “No. It’s best if he stays where he is. At least he’s finally seen sense and is filing for divorce. I’ve retained a good lawyer. Considering the circumstances, he tells me that Brixton will get custody and won’t even have to pay alimony.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “You know, I still feel bad for Casey. As much as I despise and distrust her, I’ll be praying for her.”

  “I can’t think of anything that would piss her off more.”

  David gave him a sad smile. The preacher extended his hand. Heinrich took it.

  “I can never thank you enough, Mr. Müller. Shall we fly back together? I think Arizona would like that.”

  “I’d like that too, but I’m heading to Warsaw.”

  “Another case? I heard about the Nazi train. Quite the adventure.”

  “No, not a case, but one hell of a challenge. During that case, I saved a teenage boy from a neo-Nazi group. A local friend helped get him into a halfway house. He’s gone from being a violent skinhead punk to a halfway decent kid in just a few months.”

  “So, you’ve been visiting this boy?”

  “As much as I can. We have Skype calls twice a week. I’m trying to keep him on track, but it’s not easy. He still gets into fights sometimes and his grades suck and he won’t stop smoking and—”

  “No parents?”

  “None worth mentioning.”

  “Just you.”

  “Yeah, as sad as that sounds.”

  David Murphy put a hand on Heinrich’s shoulder and smiled. “I don’t think that sounds sad at all. I think you’d make an excellent father.”

  Heinrich blinked. “Father?”

  “A bit on the rough side,” David said with a shrug, “but you have a good heart. You’d have to clean your mouth out first.”

  “You should hear how he talks. But listen, I can’t be Jan’s dad. I’m not up for it, and besides, I live on the other side of the Atlantic.”

  “The Lord can always find a way. But man can lend a helping hand, too. I’ll wire you a $2,000 bonus. That should pay for a nice extended vacation in Poland. Lord knows you’ve earned it.”

  “Thanks. That’s really nice of you.”

  “I wanted to give Britt some money too, but she asked me to donate it to a charity for abused children instead.”

  “That sounds like something she’d do.”

  The minster cocked an eyebrow. “A strange woman.”

  “Man.”

  “Whatever.”

  David got up. Heinrich followed suit.

  “Now I must bid you goodnight. I need some sleep, and no doubt you do, too. Take care, Mr. Müller, and remember—the Lord works in mysterious ways. Perhaps He put you in this boy’s path so you can save him.” David opened the door for him and added under his breath, “Or the other way around.”

  Heinrich blinked as David closed his hotel room door and left him alone in the hallway.

  What the hell was that supposed to mean?

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Warsaw’s vintage record fair was bigger than Heinrich had imagined. In fact, it was one of the biggest he’d ever seen. Long lines of stalls took up a large section of one of Warsaw’s parks. While most of the vinyl consisted of old 33s and 45s, like in every vintage fair, there was a fair scattering of 78s and a few stalls specializing in the really old stuff. One even had a good selection of Edison cylinders, the first music format released to the general public in the 1880s.

  Heinrich was having the time of his life, and Jan was trying his best to hide his overwhelming sense of boredom. Luckily, there were some concession stands, so Heinrich managed to keep Jan from dying of teenage ennui with a regular supply of hamburgers, fries, and soda. They fed them too healthy at that halfway house, anyway. Kids needed junk food.

  “That stall looks promising,” Heinrich said, heading to a long table under an awning. Stacks of records sat next to several old phonographs.

  “We went to that one already,” Jan said, trying and failing to keep a petulant whine out of his voice.

  “No we didn’t.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll see the military museum tomorrow. Then a movie.”

  Jan looked at him. “Promise?”

  “Promise. You’ve earned it.” Heinrich slapped him five. “But no more fighting.” Heinrich jabbed a finger at Jan’s chest. “I almost didn’t get to take you out today.”

  “Gerik is an asshole.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “He stole my dessert.”

  “That doesn’t mean you get to pour chicken stew down his pants and punch him.”

  “You would have done the same.”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” Heinrich said. Actually, he would have at that age. Except for the Nazi crap, which Jan had dropped as soon as he’d discovered what they were really like, the kid was no worse than Heinrich had been.

  But Heinrich had been a little shit, and he didn’t want Jan to be the same.

  “You lost your boxing lessons, kid.”

  Jan’s face fell. “But you promised.”

  “I promised to teach you if you were good. Burning another kid’s crotch and decking him doesn’t count as good. I’m not going to teach you boxing if you’re going to use it on your classmates.”

  “If I don’t get in any more fights, will you teach me next time?”

  Heinrich smiled. “If you don’t get in any more fights—or any other trouble—this week, I’ll teach you next week.”

  Jan looked confused. “Next week?”

  Heinrich had been meaning to save the surprise for a good moment. Now seemed as good as any. “My last client gave me a big bonus. I’m here for two months.”

  “Awesome!” Jan leaped into the air, forgetting that he was holding records. A dozen 78s fell to the ground. A collector toting his own purchases nearby gave the kid a scandalized stare.

  “Oh, shit.” Jan bent down and gathered the records. “I don’t think any are broken. They fell on grass. Sorry, my parents are right. I’m such a fuck-up.”

  Heinrich knelt beside him. “You’re not a fuck-up.”

  “Sorry,” Jan mumbled, stacking the records on the ground.

  Heinrich took his chin and made the kid look at him. “You are not a fuck-up.”

  Jan gave him a shy smile. Heinrich smacked him upside the head.

  “Now be more careful with my records.”

  The call tone on Heinrich’s tablet sounded.

  “Is that your friends?” Jan asked.

  “Yup.”

  His music collectors’ club, Old Farts Who Love Old Tunes, had wanted to see the Warsaw vintage fair, so Heinrich had brought along his tablet. He answered the Skype call and Jan looked down at the screen. Heinrich tensed as his friend Jordan Carter appeared. Jordan was black, and Jan had been goose stepping and giving the fascist salute not six months before.

  The kid didn’t bat an eye, though. He shoved the pile of records into Heinrich’s hands, nearly making him drop them, and grabbed the tablet. “Hey, welcome to Poland, old farts!” Jan said. He turned the tablet over so they were looking at Poland upside down.

  “You must be Jan,” Jordan said, laughing. “I’ve heard lots about you.”

  The other members crowded in front of the camera.

  Jan panned the camera, keeping it upside down. “Heinrich made you call at the wrong time. There aren’t any hot chicks here. Just old farts like you.”

  “Hey, buddy, turn the camera to that stall behind you.” That was from
Neil Balfort, a lawyer with a fine collection of early ethnographic recordings. He’d spotted some folk records from twenty feet away—or, really, a few thousand miles away.

  Jan turned the screen back and forth like a steering wheel on a winding road.

  “You’re going to make me throw up my Scotch, kid,” said Avram, another member.

  “I’ll show you that stuff if you tell me something embarrassing about Heinrich.”

  Avram grinned. “You know how he’s a boxer? Well, he once got knocked out by a woman.”

  Jan doubled over with laughter. “He got beat by a girl?”

  “It was Roxy,” Heinrich objected. “She owns the gym I train at. That bull dyke’s right cross can knock out an elephant.”

  Jan kept laughing. Heinrich heard his friends laughing on the other side of the ocean. Bastards.

  “I’m learning to box from the wrong person,” Jan said, turning the tablet so his friends could see the stand.

  “If you keep messing up at school, you won’t learn to box at all,” Heinrich warned.

  “Weird to hear Heinrich acting parental,” Avram said.

  “Very weird,” Jordan replied. “He’ll be helping him with his homework next.”

  “He’s already doing that,” Neil said. “Hey kid, zoom in on that stack there. No, the one to your left.”

  Jan moved the tablet closer to the stack. “Now I tell you something. Last time Heinrich was here, he took me to the zoo, and he let off a fart right in front of the monkey cages. The monkeys started screaming and running around their cage.”

  “That never happened!” Heinrich objected, but his friends were already laughing.

  “He did that at my annual BBQ last year,” Jordan said. “Right in front of my poor dear mama.”

  Heinrich flushed. That actually had happened. Something about Jordan’s homemade BBQ sauce set him off.

  “Why don’t you go get a snack?” Heinrich asked, handing Jan some money.

  Jan snatched the banknotes. “Can I get a beer?”

  Heinrich raised an eyebrow. “What do you think?”

  Jan tried—and failed—to look innocent. “They don’t care. It’s not like America.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m American and I care. No beer.”

  “I can get you a beer if you want,” Jan offered.

  “It’ll be half gone by the time it gets to me. No beer.”

  “All right, no beer,” Jan moped, walking off. When he got a few steps away, he looked over his shoulder and grinned. “But you didn’t say anything about vodka!”

  Then he ran off.

  “Little shit,” Heinrich chuckled.

  “You better go after him,” Avram said.

  “Nah, he won’t have a drink. He does what he’s told. Most of the time.”

  “Could you pan the camera over those stacks?” Neil asked. “Oh hey, see that folk recording on the middle stack? Open the sleeve and check its condition.”

  Heinrich checked.

  “Looks good,” Neil said. “Could you get that for me?”

  “Sure.”

  “So, are you getting Jan into old music?” Avram asked.

  “He thinks it’s boring as hell.”

  “Too bad. We could have him over for a meeting. I know you’d love to show him New York.”

  “I’d love to show him old New York. Not much to show these days. But anyway, he’s a minor. I can’t take him out of the country.”

  “Oh well,” Jordan said. “He’d have drunk all our Scotch anyway. You have a real handful there, my friend.”

  Heinrich nodded. “I sure do.”

  “Enjoy your vacation.”

  “I will,” Heinrich said. They’d already planned a few daytrips, plus Jan was giving him a systematic tour of all Warsaw’s hamburger joints. Heinrich looked over at the lanky, distant figure waiting in line at the concession stand, the money clutched in his hand. When he’d first met Jan, he’d had a bomber jacket, combat boots, a shaved head, and a seriously bad attitude. Now he was a regular kid with hair, jeans, and a normal t-shirt. Just a happy, normal kid. Well, almost.

  “Yeah,” Heinrich said. “I think I’m going to have a good time.”

  Free Bonus Chapter of Purity Pursuit by Robert Brown

  Heinrich Müller did not like the sound of this assignment.

  The widow sitting in front of him, with her frail voice scratchy and warbling as if it came from an old 78 record, was telling him the most remarkable things, none of them good.

  The decor matched the widow. They sat in her stuffy drawing room—she was old enough to call it a drawing room—drinking weak tea from fine china while surrounded by oaken bookshelves, oil paintings, and glass cases filled with knickknacks.

  All typical decor for a wealthy senior citizen, except that the bookshelves were crammed with titles in German set in Gothic typeface circa 1940, the oil paintings showed Aryan heroes in full military regalia smiting caricatures of Russians and Americans, and the knickknacks were all Iron Cross medals and rusty Lugers.

  Heinrich Müller had never punched a woman in his life, and he had never punched a senior citizen, but he felt like breaking both rules today.

  What the widow told him kept him from doing it.

  “My husband’s case has been closed. A routine mugging, they said. I know that’s not true. I know it was them. I know it was the Purity League.”

  Those two final words hit him like a beer bottle smashed across his face. He’d heard of the Purity League. Its so-called purity had sullied the one pure thing in his life. He decided to give her a second chance. The enemy of my enemy is my friend as Genghis Khan once said.

  “So your husband dealt in this trash,” Heinrich said, nodding at a bust of Hitler on a side table. “And you’re surprised that some neo-Nazis came after him for it?”

  The widow shook her head with a disdainful air. She’d had a disdainful air ever since he’d stopped by. He was the hired help, and she made sure he knew it. He might as well have been cleaning the pool out back.

  “The Purity League has the funds to buy my late husband’s entire collection, if they didn’t have many of the items already. No, they wanted the one thing they couldn’t buy.”

  “And what’s that?” Heinrich asked.

  “First, I need to know if you will take the case.”

  “Investigate the murder of a dealer in Nazi antiques? No thanks, lady. But thanks for the tea.”

  Heinrich rose to leave.

  “Where are you going?” the widow asked in a tone that made her sound like a schoolteacher telling a student they hadn’t been dismissed.

  “Anywhere but here. I don’t work for neo-Nazis.”

  “Aaron and I are not neo-Nazis,” the widow said.

  Heinrich raised his hands to show all the items on display.

  “This is just business,” the widow said. “It sells very well.”

  “Business you used to decorate your living room? Yeah, I’m sure it sells well, lady, but you ain’t selling to me.”

  Heinrich started to leave.

  “Fifty million dollars.”

  Heinrich stopped. Turned.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Fifty million dollars in gold and gems. That’s what at stake.”

  Heinrich shook his head. “I don’t believe for a minute you’re offering me fifty million to find who murdered your husband.”

  The widow straightened up, looking insulted.

  “Of course not. You’ll only get one percent, that’s still half a million dollars. The rest will go to charities that benefit gypsies and homosexuals.”

  Heinrich paused. This had gotten just weird enough to catch his interest.

  “Back up. You got my attention with the gold and gems, but lost me on the gypsies and homosexuals.”

  “They’re the forgotten victims of the Third Reich. The Nazis killed millions of them. As far as I know there’s only one monument to homosexuals killed in the concentration camps, and that’s in Amsterd
am. There is no monument to the gypsies.”

  “So you’re not earmarking any money for the Jews, eh?”

  The widow looked like she had bitten something sour. “The Jews have plenty of money.”

  “Somehow I knew you’d say that.”

  “Young man, what you think of me and my late husband Aaron is irrelevant. You do not know us and cannot judge us.”

  Young man? Well, compared to you I guess I am. And yes, I can judge you, Heinrich thought. The widow, Amethyst Briggs, went on.

  “We have made a good living selling these items, that is true, but most of our sales have been to museums and amateur historians. We have never sought out members of the far right.”

  “I’m sure they’ve sought you out. I checked your online catalog. It’s one thing to sell World War Two memorabilia, it’s another thing to sell only Nazi memorabilia.”

  Her eyes misted over.

  “It was one of the great epochs of world history.”

  “Yeah, real great.”

  “By great I mean important, powerful.”

  “So tell me about all these gold and gems.” Heinrich’s finances were in such a state that an offer of big money almost balanced out the bitter taste in his mouth. Almost.

  “Have you heard of the Nazi gold train in Poland?”

  “Vaguely. I’m a private detective, not a historian.”

  Although history keeps blindsiding me, Heinrich added to himself.

  “It was a train filled with treasure hidden by the Nazis in January of 1945, when the Russian hordes were sweeping in from the East to rape and pillage the Reich. The treasure was mostly jewelry and gold taken from the conquered territories. A German general was entrusted with bringing the train back to Berlin but all the bombing and partisan activity kept the train from making the journey. Fearing he would be surrounded, and the treasure taken, he decided to hide it in the southeastern part of the Reich, in a region that has since been taken by Poland. There are several tunnels there dating from the war, used by the Germans as air raid shelters and storage depots. Some of them even had railroad tracks so that entire trains could be hidden in them during the daytime to avoid Russian dive bombers.”