Where the Bones are Buried

by Jeanne Matthews

  “Your wife’s death.”

  “Yes. It’s never easy to see the wicked flourish. I stayed my hand as long as I could. And then I thought killing him would be more than revenge. It would be a gift to Viktor.”

  A man who conflated murder and gift-giving wasn’t a man to trifle with. She fingered the “gift” in her pocket and decided she could wait until the stores opened in the morning to get a tape player.

  “I’d like to talk with you again, Dinah. I’d like to tell you about my wife. I would like to explain myself.”

  In the background she heard the doorbell.

  “Will you hold please?”

  There was a pause, followed by the sounds of a muffled argument, as if the shouts were coming from inside a thick wool pocket. Somebody grunted and grunted again. There was a heavy thud and the crack of gunshots.

  “Baer?” But the line was dead.

  A cavalcade of horrors flashed through her mind. She took a deep breath and dialed Thor.

  He picked up on the first ring.

  “I think someone shot Baer Eichen. Meet me at his house off the Schiffbauerdamm as soon as you can. Hurry.”

  “Dinah, wait.”

  “No time.” She clicked “End” and started running.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  The corridor down to the river was empty. She looked up and down the street, expecting to see Thor’s car careening around the corner, or a squadron of police cars, or to hear the sound of approaching sirens. But there were no cars and no sirens, just an invisible bird cheeping and flittering somewhere in the hedge.

  She took the Smith & Wesson out of her purse and rubbed it against her jeans. Just breathe normally, she told herself. The cavalry will be here any second. She held the gun in front of her with both hands and started toward the house. She wouldn’t go inside until the pros arrived. She wasn’t that foolhardy. She would simply keep watch outside the door and ID Baer’s attacker if he tried to flee.

  As she drew closer, she saw that the front door was ajar. Of course. What had she been thinking? From the time she heard the shots, it had taken her what, seven, eight, minutes to get here? The shooter wouldn’t have stuck around. He was probably long gone while Baer lay dead or wounded inside. She edged around the porch and peered into the dark vestibule. Impossible to make out anything from down below. She’d have to climb the steps to see inside.

  She licked her lips and looked back down the path. Where were the police? Thor would have called them immediately. What was taking them…him so long?

  A motorboat thrummed by. A man hung over the side and pointed toward the house. A cop? She lowered the gun and waved for help, but the boat speeded up and scooted out of sight. Whoever they were, they were probably reporting a gun-toting lunatic to the police at this very moment.

  Gingerly, she stepped up onto the porch and with her left hand, eased the door open wider. Something stopped it halfway. Something squashy. She held her breath and peeked inside. A body, crumpled in the fetal position with face to the wall, leaked a slow stream of blood across the wood floor.

  She turned and leaned her back against the outside wall. He might still be alive, but she couldn’t make herself step into that gore and if she did, it would just contaminate the crime scene. She slid down onto her butt and was digging out her phone to call for an ambulance when she heard the sirens. A minute later, Thor was loping down the path with Jens Lohendorf and Sergeant Wegener hard on his heels. She buried the gun in the bottom of her purse and tried to stand, but her knees were like foam rubber.

  Thor bounded up the steps and pulled her to her feet. Without looking, she pointed to the body behind the door. He glanced inside. “If you didn’t look so green, I swear to God I’d smack you, Dinah. Why do you take such chances?”

  Lohendorf and Wegener arrived.

  Dinah said, “It’s not Eichen, Inspector. It’s Florian Farber.”

  Wegener fastened a disapproving stare on Dinah. “What business brought you here?”

  “Later, Sergeant,” said Lohendorf. “Frau Pelerin, you will please remain on the scene until I have a chance to speak with you.”

  “We’ll be here,” said Thor. He dragged Dinah off the porch and walked her to the riverbank. “What did bring you here? Is it about that tape? What were you thinking?”

  “Those are pretty guilt-inducing questions, Ramberg.”

  “They’re the same ones Jens will ask. You may as well practice your answers on me.”

  “I didn’t intend to come to his house. I called to ask him if he’d meet me. When I heard the shot, I just came. Instinctively.” She had a catch in her throat. “I thought I’d find Baer dead.”

  Thor put his arms around her. After a minute, he backed away and looked her in the eye. “Why did you want him to meet you?”

  Either she trusted him or she didn’t. “The tape Jack found was in Alwin Pohl’s pocket when Baer killed him. Pohl had been using it to blackmail my mother. Baer listened to it and, for whatever reason, decided to pass it on to me.”

  Thor’s eyebrows skewed up and she felt a flash of doubt. She had placed her own fate in his hands by owning up to the Panama account. Now she’d placed Swan’s fate in his hands. “What’s that look supposed to mean?”

  “You knew he was a murderer and you called him anyway? Why?”

  “I wanted to borrow his cassette player. To play the tape.”

  “If you’d told me what the tape signified, if I’d known you were that desperate to hear it…” he broke off. His eyebrows returned to their natural line. “Tell me about your conversation with Eichen.”

  “He was saying he wanted to explain himself to me when the doorbell rang. He went to answer. There was an argument, but I couldn’t make out the words. It sounded like they struggled and then I heard two shots.”

  “Do you have any idea why Eichen killed Farber?”

  “Maybe. Pohl was also blackmailing Farber and his partner Hess about their shady art acquisitions. Viktor lived in a world of his own and was late to figure out what Farber was up to, but he mailed a letter to Baer the day before he died. Baer may have told Hess what was in it and Farber came either to buy it back, or take it by force.”

  An ambulance came to a stop on Schiffbauerdamm at the entrance to the path and a pair of medics walked toward the house, no hurry. That could mean only one thing.

  “Stay here,” said Thor. “I’ll go and brief Jens and see if they’ve found the murder weapon or any evidence of a motive.”

  “Thor, about the tape—”

  “Why were you in such a hurry to play it?”

  “I need to know how to feel about my mother. I need to understand how far she was willing to go. Toward the dark side.”

  “You can’t understand anyone by listening to a secret recording, Dinah. That’s the Stasi way.” He looked back toward the house. Lohendorf and Wegener were standing on the porch talking with the EMTs. “Fill me in quick. Did Eichen admit to you on the phone that he killed Pohl?”

  “Yes. It was revenge. Pohl was responsible for the death of his wife ten years ago in an auto accident. Pohl was driving drunk.”

  “That’s all Jens needs to know for now. He’s got more than enough to keep him busy. Hold onto the tape for the time being if you must.” He left her and went to join the police and medics. Everyone slipped footies over their shoes, pulled on gloves, and went inside.

  She turned away and gazed out over the Spree. The river was Baer’s front yard. From his living room, he could look across into the heart of Berlin, a checkerboard of memorials to the murdered, art museums, concert halls, and soaring towers of commerce. It was a composite of painful remembering and willful forgetting. Berliners lived with their ghosts, but they plowed ahead into the future. What choice did they have? The future was the only thing a people—or a person—could do anything about.

&n
bsp; She took the tape out of her pocket. The police had all the evidence they needed to charge Baer with the murder of Florian Farber, and when they found him, she didn’t think he’d deny that he murdered Pohl. So what was this little relic of history worth to her? Would it tell her how her mother felt about her father, or about his death? Would it prove that she had known what Cleon did?

  More police trooped down the path. They cordoned off the house, but didn’t bother her. She climbed over the retaining wall and moved a little closer to the water. Life at this point seemed to call for multiple decisions, all of them irrevocable. How freeing it would be to sail this tape out into the Spree. Could she live with the everlasting doubt of not knowing? Thor was probably right. She wouldn’t understand her mother any better by listening to a few words spoken years ago in unknowable circumstances.

  “Dinah, I’ve been called away.” Thor stood on the bank above. “Jens has gone back to police headquarters to organize a manhunt, but he’d like you to remain here with Sergeant Wegener for an hour or so, until he gets back. He wants to question you, himself.”

  “Should I demand a lawyer?” She held out her hand for a boost up the bank.

  “Not yet. It’ll be a friendly talk. Either he or the sergeant will drop you off at the apartment after your interview. I’ll try to get home in time for the ‘family dinner,’ but nothing’s sure.”

  “Tell me about it.” They walked together back to the porch. “I hope Wegener lets me wait upstairs where I can sit down. I feel as if I’d run the marathon.”

  “I’m sure she will. The house has been searched and guards posted around the perimeter.”

  “I know it sounds perverse, but I wish I could talk with Baer again before he’s hauled him off to jail.”

  “The way you say his name makes me think you actually like the man.”

  “I think I did like him. I’ve known someone very much like him before.”

  “I’m on my way, kjære. Can I trust you not to pull any more death-defying stunts?”

  “Absolutely. I’ve learned my lesson.”

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Dinah averted her eyes from the bloody area where Farber had fallen and followed Wegener up to the sitting room. She paused to look at the shelves where Baer displayed his model car collection. He probably had a replica of the car he’d been driving when Pohl crashed into him. She wondered if some of the hate he felt for Pohl was displaced guilt for taking his pregnant wife for a spin around the “green hell” racetrack. Not that being pregnant turned a woman into a fainting flower. Sabine might have craved speed and adventure as much as Baer.

  “You are free to sit if you like,” said Wegener.

  “Thanks. Is it all right if I get a glass of water?”

  “Yes, of course.” She couldn’t keep the tone of disapproval out of her voice, or didn’t try.

  Dinah went behind the bar, found a glass, and held it under the tap. There was a staircase on the far side of the bar. From the outside, the house appeared to be four stories. This room was the second floor. The bedrooms, bathroom, and kitchen must be on the upper floors.

  Wegener unfolded a large map and spread it open on the coffee table. She studied it minutely, apparently lost in thought.

  “Where’s the bathroom, Sergeant?”

  “On the floor above.”

  “Am I permitted to go alone?”

  “The rooms have been searched. So long as you do not leave the house, you may go as you please.”

  The carte blanche gave Dinah an instant infusion of energy and curiosity. She drank her water and sallied off to explore the rest of the house.

  The third level consisted of one large bedroom with a small adjoining bath. Like the room below, there was a huge window, although this one was shuttered. Photographs of a young woman with dark hair and eyes and a faintly mocking smile covered one entire wall, almost like a shrine. This had to be Sabine, the dead wife. In one or two of the photos, Dinah saw a resemblance to herself. It made her skin crawl. Baer had been flirting not with her, but with the ghost of his wife.

  The room was furnished simply—a bed, a side table, a chair, and a dresser. She couldn’t help thinking about Viktor’s letter, in which he admitted that Farber had bought and resold stolen art. Baer said he didn’t intend to give it to the police. Maybe that was because, after reading it, he began to suspect that Farber and/or Hess had something to do with Viktor’s death. Had he used it to lure Farber here and carried out another act of revenge? If he hadn’t destroyed it, he’d probably hidden it somewhere in the house. The police had been over the place with a magnifying glass and fine-point tweezers or Wegener would never have turned her loose to mouse around, but had they looked specifically for the letter?

  She gave the dresser a cursory search, glanced inside the drawer of the bedside table, and did a double take. A Sony microcassette recorder nestled on a blank notepad at the back. She slipped it in her pocket and proceeded to the fourth floor.

  On one side, modern stainless steel appliances attested to Baer’s interest in the culinary arts. There were two ovens, two refrigerators, a marble island with sink and beside the sink, a fancy espresso machine. She opened the refrigerators. One held fancy mustards and condiments. The other was well stocked with eggs and cheese and sausages. A mahogany dining table sat in front of the huge window overlooking the river. She wondered if he had entertained der Indianer club up here, or his many banker friends. His metamorphosis from bon vivant to murderer seemed paradoxical. Usually it was the loners who cracked.

  She prospected in the buffet and under the flatware drawers without success and returned to the sitting room. Wegener was behind the bar, her back to the mirrored panels, talking on her cell. Dinah drifted toward the bookcases on either side of the mantle. Hanging across the arm of the chair where she’d sat and noshed Leberwurst, was the bolo tie with the big hunk of turquoise. She picked it up and the polished stone felt cool and smooth. Idly, she began to roll it between her palms as she read the titles in the first bookcase.

  Philosophers lined the top shelves. Kant, Schopenhauer, Schiller. The middle shelves were devoted to history, the world wars, and biographies of famous generals and politicians. Titles by Karl May dominated the bottom shelves. A book about Winnetou would be a fitting place to bury Drumming Man’s last words. She hung the bolo tie around her neck and felt about, between and behind the books. At random, she took out Im“wilden Westen” Nordamerikas with a cover showing an Indian chief standing defiantly on a rocky precipice gazing across a desolate plain. A cowboy, presumably the chief’s faithful German sidekick Old Shatterhand, lay on his belly and aimed a long rifle into the distance. She flipped through the pages, which were in German, when a question percolated out of the sediment of her brain. “Did you search the bunker?”

  Wegener was still gabbing on her cell. She looked up with a start. “What bunker?”

  “Downstairs in the entryway. Behind the coat rack.”

  She spewed a salvo of German into the phone, including quite clearly der bunker, and signed off. “Show me.”

  “You’ll need a flashlight,” said Dinah.

  She took one from her utility belt and charged downstairs.

  Dinah followed, careful to step around the place where Farber died, and pointed. “Behind the coat rack”

  Wegener rolled it aside and pulled on the iron ring.

  “You have to wrench it hard to the right,” said Dinah. “The door slides right.”

  Wegener grabbed the ring and wrenched. Nothing happened. She looked chagrined, set her jaw, and tried again. The door opened. She drew her gun out of the holster. “Have you been down there?”

  “No. Baer showed it to me when I visited. He said the original builder preserved it as a possible tourist attraction.”

  Wegener shone her light into the pit. She looked back in frustration, as if Dinah held her
on a leash. “I have my orders to remain with you and guard you until the Inspector returns, but it is also my duty to capture Eichen if he is down there. You will follow me and do exactly as I say. Is that clear?”

  “As the sky over Berlin. But I’ll need a light. My phone has an assistive light app. I’ll run back upstairs and get it.”

  “Hurry.”

  She ran upstairs, took her phone out of her bag, and turned on the mini-flashlight. It wasn’t big, but it was bright. She hung the shoulder bag with her gun over her neck and shoulder and went back downstairs.

  “Shine this light on the ladder for me as I go down,” said Wegener. She grabbed onto the ladder, and descended into a well of darkness.

  Dinah aimed the light on her feet, but Wegener had trouble holding onto the ladder and the gun at the same time and several times she missed a rung and almost fell. When she got to the bottom, she said, “Drop the light down to me. The floor is earthen. It won’t break. I will shine the light for you.”

  Dinah dropped it. She heard it hit and Wegener picked it up and shined it on the ladder for Dinah. Descending wasn’t easy with the phone clutched clumsily in one hand. Even with the light, her feet groped for each rung. The smell of dust and mold grew stronger and the temperature dropped. At last, one foot found the floor.

  “You stay here,” ordered Wegener. “Do not move until I call you.” She took the flashlight and vanished into the darkness.

  Dinah shined her puny beam around and tried to get her bearings. The only thing she saw was a painted phosphorescent arrow on the wall in front of her. It pointed through what looked like a tunnel. Tunnels were among her least favorite things and this one looked particularly ugly.

  A minute ticked by, and then two. Two minutes in this black hole was a long time. If Wegener didn’t call soon, should she go back up the ladder to the house? Should she go forward and see where she’d gone? Maybe she’d called and Dinah hadn’t heard. Hell, what was one more misdemeanor in a lifetime of insubordination?