“I have no idea. I don’t know if she would have told me if they were sharing a room.”
They all sat down at the table, but the Stroganoff didn’t stimulate much conversation. Jack provided most of the commentary. He was excited about the fortieth annual Berlin Marathon, scheduled for tomorrow. He asked Thor if he was going to run. Thor said no, he hadn’t had time to train. They talked about the Kenyan who was favored to win and set a new world record. Dinah listened with only half an ear. Her thoughts shuttled from Panama to Georgia to Egypt to the Adlon. How much of what everyone had said was the truth, how much mostly the truth, and how much flat-out lies?
Jack’s phone rang. “It’s Mom.”
Thor said, “Go talk to her in the other room. Be sure to tell her I’m working on your application to the English language school and ask how your granddad came through the surgery.”
“Okay.”
Thor topped up Dinah’s wine and smiled, but somehow it didn’t allay her doubts. She said, “You’ve barely tasted your wine. Does that mean you’ve changed your mind about running the marathon?”
“No. It’ll be a late night. Jack got antsy and I didn’t finish my report. I’ll help you clean up and then I’m going back to the Embassy to work.”
“That’s awfully conscientious of you. If I had a pal on the police force, I’d duck out to hear all the poop about his big bust. I’d buy him a beer and get him to tell me what Hess had to say about his relationship with my mother and with Margaret. I’d pump him for everything Hess has said verbatim.”
“Don’t be sarcastic, Dinah. If you don’t believe me, say so.”
“Tell me you’re not going to call Lohendorf the instant you walk out that door.”
“I am going to call him, and buy him a beer if he’s willing, and pump him for everything I can get out of him. First, I’m going to the Embassy to finish my report. Like I said, I’ll be late getting home.”
She supposed she couldn’t blame him for doing exactly what she’d do, if she could. She put the food away and washed the dishes. He dried, stacked the plates in the cabinet, ordered Jack to behave himself, and split. Peevish and at loose ends, she carried her wine into the living room. She should try again to prepare for her class, but she couldn’t gin up any enthusiasm. If Tuesday arrived and she wasn’t in handcuffs on her way back to the States, she’d have to wing it. She picked up the paper and ran her eyes over the day’s headlines, but she couldn’t concentrate.
The cuckoo flew out and HOO-hooed ten times, exacerbating her peevishness. There was no sign of K.D. She dialed her mobile, but the call went to voice mail. “Get your buns back to the apartment by midnight, K.D. Thor says to tell you, you can’t stay if you don’t follow the rules.” The fact that no rules had actually been set was an oversight. Dinah went to find a pen to put a few into writing.
Margaret had apparently succumbed early to the Monkey. Her snoring rumbled and wheezed, rumbled and wheezed. It was maddening. She was about to pop a CD into the Bose to drown out the noise when her phone jingled. Baer Eichen.
Her forehead contracted. She was still mulling his suggestion of two murderers.
“Hello, Baer.”
“I hope I didn’t call too late.”
“No. I was just relaxing with a glass of wine.”
“I don’t want you to think I’ve been trying to mislead you.”
“About what, Baer?”
“The man you saw at my front door this afternoon was Reiner Hess.”
“Is that so?”
“You seemed alarmed. I thought you might have recognized him.”
“I thought it was he who seemed alarmed.”
“He was. I don’t know if you realized, but it was Reiner. He constantly fears arrest. I hadn’t seen him in months. I didn’t know until he told me that Stefan has been hiding him in his hotel under a false name. He came to offer his sympathy about Viktor.”
She hadn’t a clue why he was telling her this. “Since you’re Hess’ friend, I don’t suppose you plan to inform the police.”
“No.”
“Aren’t you afraid that by telling me this that I will?”
“It wouldn’t matter. He moved out of the hotel this afternoon and plans to return to Cyprus tomorrow.”
She could have put him straight about Hess’ altered status, but why spoil the surprise. “Did he concur with your opinion that Viktor committed suicide?”
“Yes, he thinks it was either suicide or an accident.”
“Does he think Viktor was tormented by guilt for killing Alwin Pohl?”
“We didn’t speak about Alwin.” His delivery became formal and stilted. “I wanted to inform you that I received a letter from Viktor postmarked the day before he died. In it, he stated that Florian had procured certain items that Viktor should have identified as stolen. He asked for my forgiveness.”
“For helping Farber fence stolen art or for killing Alwin Pohl?”
“For depriving other cultures of their sacred heritage and, as I choose to believe, forgiveness for what he was about to do, which was to end his life. He said that after your visit, during which you suggested the idea that Pohl was blackmailing Florian, he found certain acquisition documents that had been falsified. He also discovered a number of payments to Pohl, which confirm your suspicions.”
She said, “Are you going to give the letter to Inspector Lohendorf and try to clear Viktor’s name?”
“No.”
“But why? If Florian murdered Pohl, don’t you want to see him brought to justice?”
“Alwin Pohl has caused enough grief. Where Viktor is, he will not mind that his reputation has been soiled.”
“If you’re not going to give the letter to the police, why tell me about it?”
“Think of it as my final contribution to your investigation. Your guesses have been validated. And now I will say goodnight to you, Dinah.”
Chapter Thirty-three
Dinah put Jack to bed on the sofa, dimmed the lights, and after trying twice more without success to reach K.D., she went across the hall and caught Geert just as he was leaving for the club.
“I’m worried about K.D., Geert. Do you know where she is or who she might be with?”
“Nein. Before she went to sit with that tiger Lena, she danced with a regular at the Noise, a boy named Dolf. If they come tonight, I will knock heads and send her home.”
“Thanks, Geert.”
Feeling inadequate on a dozen different levels, she meandered through the apartment and back to the refrigerator. The Kummerspeck had zapped her again. Someone had wedged a new tub of chocolate ice cream in the freezer next to the icemaker. She scooped out a dishful and ate it standing up, elbows propped on the counter.
If Viktor had found documents that incriminated Farber, then Farber had as much motive to kill him as he had to kill Pohl. Baer said Viktor found the documents after her visit. Did he remove them from the files in Farber’s desk? Oh, God. What if her snooping had gotten Viktor killed? Florian could have noticed them missing the night she broke in. Maybe he assumed Viktor had taken them and staged a break-in to cover his tracks. Hess said, “I’ll take care of it,” and a few hours later Viktor was dead.
A discrepancy in one of the slides Farber had shown her grated on her. Something had registered subliminally, but what was it? Something out of place or incongruous. She flogged her memory. Maybe if she saw the pictures again, with all she had learned in the interim, the significance would sink in. Those photos had been made immediately before, or just after, Pohl’s murder. Lohendorf had made copies and maybe Thor could finagle a way for her to look at them again.
Stuck here with a head full of guilt and unanswered questions was almost like being in prison. She couldn’t stand it. She had to do something or she’d go stir crazy.
She went into the bedroom, switched on
the overhead light, and pushed Margaret’s eye mask off her face. “Margaret, wake up.”
She emitted a disgruntled snort and resumed snoring.
Dinah went to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. When it had brewed, she poured a mugful and went back to the bedroom. “Margaret, wake up and drink this. I have to go out and I need you sober in case Jack wakes up and needs something.” She shook her shoulder and patted her cheeks.
One bloodshot eye bobbed open like a red jellyfish. She lifted the other eyelid with one finger. She seemed to be goggling at Dinah from twenty leagues under. Gradually, she focused. “What time is it?”
“Elevenish.”
“Where’s Thor?”
“At the Embassy. Working.”
“While you stay home with his kid?” She blew a raspberry. “If this is how it’s going to be, I’d make damn sure I got a marriage license and a joint bank account out of the deal.”
“Come on, Margaret. Jack’s asleep on the sofa. He won’t be any trouble.”
She pushed herself into a sitting position. “The last time Jack and I talked, he asked me what it felt like to shoot a man.”
“What did you say?”
“If you shoot the right man, it’s very satisfying.”
“Margaret, please tell me you’re joking.”
“I’m joking.”
Dinah handed her the mug of coffee and went to see if she could find Farber’s home phone number. Calling him at this hour was a little over-the-top, but maybe he was a night owl. A lot of thieves and smugglers were. And if he’d heard that his partner Hess had been nabbed, he’d be wide awake and worrying. They were equally strong candidates for the murder, or murders. She didn’t intend to accuse either one of them or mention Viktor’s letter. But if she could persuade Farber to meet her in a public place and show her those photos again, she felt sure she would have her answer.
She needed a decoy. Somebody who was at the powwow. Somebody whose picture was in the slideshow, but that Farber didn’t care about. The schnapps guy. What was his name? It would come to her. She fished out a business card for the gallery with three contact numbers. She dialed the last one first, assuming it was the number of last resort.
A hoarse voice growled in her ear.
“Is this Florian Farber?”
“Who is this?”
“It’s Dinah Pelerin, Herr Farber. I apologize for calling so late, but I’ve figured out who murdered Alwin Pohl.”
“Amsel told me the police believe it was Viktor. He killed Alwin, then himself.”
“The police are wrong.”
“Viktor is dead and the business is over.”
He sounded as if he were about to hang up. She revised her plan. “The murderer is a member of der Indianer club. Show me those pictures again and I can prove it.”
There was a sharp intake of breath followed by dead silence.
“Herr Farber?”
“Who? Who did it?”
“Burning Torch.”
“Luther?”
“That’s him. Luther Wurttemberg.”
“But why? How do you know this?”
“I’ll have to show you. I have to see the pictures. I’m sure you want to put this nightmare behind you as quickly as possible. Can you meet me tonight?”
There was a pause during which she could almost hear the cogs in his brain spin and whir.
She threw in a sweetener. “And if you will show me the certificate of authenticity and the price, I know a collector who may be interested in the katsinam mask.”
“All right. I will meet you in the gallery in a half-hour.”
“The FBI Bar on Augsburger Strasse would be more convenient.”
“Very well. I will see you there.”
The FBI bar would be packed on a Saturday night, but in an excess of caution, she tucked the Smith & Wesson into her purse on the way out the door.
The sunny afternoon had turned into a cool, drizzly night. The humid cold seeped through her raincoat and raised goose bumps on her skin. She opened the garage and hoped that the Golf would start. It hadn’t been driven since Pohl rammed it into the bridge. She needn’t have worried. The engine started without a hitch. While it warmed up, she reevaluated her plan. The worst thing would be a failure to see the photos again and leave without a clue. She didn’t think that would happen. She buckled up, backed out into the street, and got rolling.
The car pulled stubbornly to the right as she tooled along Lietzenburger Strasse. The crash had obviously buggered the alignment. The rational, cautious part of her brain also pulled slightly to the right. At every cross street, a still small voice told her to turn right, back off, go home and wait. But curiosity trumped caution and she had too much momentum to stop.
She parked in an alley three blocks from the FBI bar and walked. There were lots of people milling about, lots of potential rescuers should the need arise. Yellow crime tape decorated the window of the FBI, whose logo featured the barrel of a gun extending from the top of the letter “I.” She opened the door and looked around for Farber. All of the tables were full and a double row of people clustered around the bar, but she spotted a free stool at the far end facing the door and claimed it.
Everybody was laughing and talking and the noise made it hard to hear.
A busy bartender leaned across the bar and placed a napkin in front of her. “Was haben sie?”
She ordered a vodka martini with a twist and checked her watch. Waiting brought out the bugaboos in her imagination. Had Farber agreed too easily to this get-together? Would he come alone? Had he sent someone ahead to watch her? Every minute that passed amped up the tension. Maybe this was God’s way of telling her to get while the getting was good. She stripped off her raincoat and pulled out her mobile to see if Thor had called. He hadn’t.
She munched a handful of salted peanuts and sized up the other patrons. Most were male-female couples. There were two tables with only men, but she was pretty sure that one pair was gay. Two plausibly straight guys in business suits sat across from one another in the corner. One of them looked up and caught her staring. He gave a little nod of invitation and she turned away, embarrassed.
The martini came, but she was afraid to drink it. She needed her wits about her. Well, one sip to wash down the peanuts.
And then he walked in the door. He wore a fedora and carried a small briefcase. His eyes didn’t so much survey the room as strafe it. She took another sip of the martini and held up a hand. He saw her and threaded his way through the crowd to the end of the bar.
He said, “This place is too crowded. There are no tables and no room to open the laptop on the bar. We must go to another place. My car is outside.”
She jerked her head toward the table in the corner and improvised. “My boyfriend came with me. He’s having a drink with a friend while we talk. Here, you sit and I’ll look over your shoulder.”
He shot a suspicious glance at the alleged boyfriend.
“Let me hold your hat,” she said.
He took it off and handed it to her, then took the computer out of the case and sat down. The case was in the way and Dinah stuck it under her arm. Farber moved her drink out of the way and opened the laptop on the bar. “This is preposterous.”
She smiled. “It won’t take long.”
He waved off the bartender, moved her martini still farther out of his way, and started the show. “Ask what you will.”
The first picture was of Viktor. It was hard to look at his earnest face as he stood beside the bonfire, hard to look at Lena, too. She wore a cheeky smile, unaware in that frame that her life was about to change, or already had.
Farber clicked on the next picture. “There is Hans Oostrum and Luther. What has made you suspect Luther?”
“Hang on. Tell me again the items he brought to the powwow.”
/> “The grill and the lanterns.”
“It’s a large grill. How did he get it up the hill?”
“Hans has a transportwagen.”
“A dolly?”
“Yes. It rolls. He also rolled the keg up.”
Next up was a picture of Stefan Amsel in his porcupine roach.
“What was Herr Amsel doing in this picture?”
“He is trying to set up a folding table for the food, but he is already drunk.”
Or pretending to be, she thought. She took another sip of her martini. None of this paraphernalia rang any bells or suggested any bright new ideas.
“What about Baer Eichen?” she asked. He stood apart from the others, his avant-garde glasses at odds with his red-fringed ghost shirt and rows of beads.
“As you will see in several of the photos, Baer helped with every chore as needed. He was friendliest with Viktor, always. They arrived together. Viktor carried the glow logs, Lena carried his drum, and Baer carried the cooler with the sausages and the box with the cups and plates.”
She studied the slides one by one as they flashed by.
The door opened, letting in a surge of wet, cold air. She shivered and set the martini back on the bar.
Farber frowned and moved it safely away from the computer. “Is that all you wish to see?”
“Did no one offer to take a picture of you, Herr Farber?”
He gave her a scathing look, but called up two photos from a different file she hadn’t seen before. One of them showed Farber assisting Hans Oostrum into the eagle-feather war bonnet. In the other, he was feeding chips into the grill.
“I thought it was the photos of Luther that interested you.”
“Yes. They did interest me. Thank you.” She had seen what it was that bothered her. She handed Farber back his hat and his laptop case and scrapped her previous assumptions. The pictures didn’t prove anything, of course. But she knew in her heart who had killed Pohl and her instinct told her that the reasons were more convoluted than she’d thought.
The guy she’d said was her boyfriend brushed past on his way out the door. Farber gave him a quizzical look. “Your friend is leaving.”
Where the Bones are Buried Page 23