by A W Hartoin
I think I stopped breathing when he came to that part of the story. November 1938. “Was there anyone with them?” I asked, breathless.
“You know there was,” he said. “An older couple, a pretty blonde woman and her husband. They made a purchase.”
“What did they buy?” I thought I would throw up.
“Monsieur Bergère’s ledger wasn’t specific. They bought a trunk, a cabinet, and a decorative box for a little over 49,000 francs.”
A box.
“Did the ledger name the older couple?”
“Yes, the pieces were to be shipped back to America for Paul and Amelie Boulard. I took note of this in my research, but I didn’t follow up. This was before the war and the resistance, so I wasn’t particularly interested.”
“But The Klinefeld Group got their names when they stole your research.”
“I discovered Paul and Amelie’s heirs were killed in a plane crash that was not an accident when I was trying to figure out how you were related to the Bleds. I knew that I had led The Klinefeld Group to your family.”
“You don’t know for sure that they killed Daniel and Agatha,” I said.
Dr. Bloom looked at me mournfully. “I had to warn you.”
“I know how dangerous they are.”
He squeezed my hand. “They’re after something and they think your family has it.”
“Yeah. They got the Bled Collection inventory when they broke into the mansion and they know it isn’t there. They dropped the latest lawsuit and there’ve been no other break-ins.”
“The Klinefeld Group won’t give up and if they think you have it…”
“I don’t have it and I don’t even know what it is. Do you?” I asked.
Dr. Bloom shook his head and poured me some tea. “I can’t imagine what could be worth such effort. I would say a piece of art, a significant piece, but I believe whatever it is was shipped back to New Orleans by Paul and Amelie with the antiques. The Nazis stole a tremendous amount of art during the war, but this was early.”
“Stella and Nicky wouldn’t have stolen art or anything else.”
“Everything I know about them says that is correct. Nevertheless, there was something in that shipment.”
Why does everything have to be hard?
“I wish Monsieur Bergère was more detailed in his ledger,” I said.
“He was on his receipts. There were two. Paul and Amelie had one and he kept the other in his files.”
I held my palms up. “Well?”
“He burnt it.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“The winter of ’44 was unusually harsh. Monsieur Bergère resorted to burning his furniture by the end of it. The receipts were used as kindling. He said if the winter had lasted much longer, he would’ve burnt the ledgers. If he had, The Klinefeld Group would never have known about your family being in Paris.”
“I don’t understand why they killed them anyway,” I said.
“Why were they flying to St. Louis that day?” Dr. Bloom asked. His face was intensely curious, but I wasn’t about to tell him what little I knew. Just because he was an Oxford professor didn’t mean he was a swell guy.
I shrugged. “To visit my family, I assume.”
He set down his cup. “I’m sure it had something to do with the break-in at their house. They may have been coming to see the Bleds.”
Before I thought about it, I said, “They wouldn’t have known about the break-in. They were already dead when it happened.”
“Not that break-in, the other one.” Dr. Bloom slipped off his stool and went to my sofa. He sat down and began shuffling through the files in his briefcase. Finally, he pulled out a folder with my grandparents’ address written on the tab and gave it to me. “I thought you already knew.”
Inside the folder was a series of police reports filed by my great-grandparents. Agatha reported a man following her through the French Quarter several times. He wasn’t stealthy. He wanted her to know he was following her. Unfortunately, the cops thought she had an old lady’s wistful thinking that some young guy was interested in her. But Daniel was also followed and he caught a man trying to break into the house a week before their deaths. The day before, they came home from a party and discovered the house had been ransacked, but nothing was taken. They told the cops that they’d called their children and would go to St. Louis for a while. The last report was filed by Nana and Pop Pop when they came to New Orleans after the crash. That was the break-in Aunt Tenne had told me about, the missing jewelry and 500 bucks stolen.
I could hardly speak. “They must’ve been so afraid.”
“I’m terribly sorry, Miss Watts. I assumed you knew. The police report indicates that your grandparents knew of the previous break-in.”
I nodded. “They didn’t get what they wanted and then they killed Daniel and Agatha.”
“They must’ve known something.”
“But they didn’t have what The Klinefeld Group wants.”
Dr. Bloom raised an eyebrow. “As I said, it would’ve arrived in New Orleans in January 1939.”
“There’s no reason to think it stayed there. They wouldn’t have brought down the plane if they thought Daniel and Agatha had it. They want to have it, not destroy it.”
“You could be wrong about that. We don’t know what it is,” he said.
“They’re still looking for it. They knew it wasn’t on the plane.”
“Ah, yes. Of course. I should’ve thought of that myself.” He checked his watch and gave me his card after writing his hotel on it. “I must go. I have an interview to conduct.”
I still felt shaken, but I smiled and said, “So you didn’t come all this way just for me.”
Dr. Bloom shook my hand. “You were the greatest reason. I want you to be very careful. You will have me vetted by your people?”
“Er…”
“I know you have people, Miss Watts, because I have people. One dug up those old police reports for me. They weren’t in a computer. Not everything is in a computer.”
“Apparently not. I will have you checked out,” I admitted.
“And when you find that I’m just a historian doing what we do, I hope you’ll see fit to share what you know about Stella.” He grinned at me like a schoolboy. “There’s a great book in her story, I’m quite sure.”
We shook hands again and I opened the door. “By the way, who are you interviewing? Anything to do with Stella?”
“I don’t believe so, but you would know better than I. It’s your lawyer, Steven Warnock.”
I grabbed his sleeve. “Don’t tell him you saw me.”
“Ah, yes. I thought that you would not have told him what you’ve been up to with The Klinefeld Group.”
“How come?”
“He was your lawyer on the suit. He read it and he didn’t tell you what it said.”
I wasn’t sure what to think. Big Steve was a great lawyer. If Dr. Bloom could make out the implications so easily, Steve certainly could, but he didn’t say anything. At least not to me. If he told Mom and Dad, they kept it to themselves. Why not tell me? Being a Bled would be a good thing.
“You must assume that you haven’t been told for a reason,” he said softly.
“I wish people would just say what they know.”
“You’re not.” He grinned at me and then got serious. “Perhaps they think it’s safer if you’re not a Bled.”
I thought of Lester. Not being a Bled didn’t help him any. “Why are you interviewing Big Steve if it isn’t about the Bleds?”
“It is. You know that Mr. Warnock is Jewish and his parents were interned during the war and survived?”
I got a feeling. One of those Dad feelings. Not that something wasn’t right, but that something was going to happen, a creepy chill up the spine kind of feeling. “Yeah, so?”
Without knowing what he was doing, Dr. Bloom solved a mystery that he didn’t even know existed. Steve’s mom was a young teenager during the
war, deported from Paris, and imprisoned in a satellite camp near Auschwitz. At seventeen, Constanza barely survived. She had a multitude of diseases that were treated at a Red Cross station, but she wasn’t expected to live. They tried to help her, but they were completely overwhelmed. For reasons Dr. Bloom could not ascertain, Alekei Bled, Stella’s father, came to the camp and got her. He took her to a hospital in Geneva, Switzerland, where she stayed for six months. When she was well enough to travel, Florence Bled went to Switzerland and brought her back to St. Louis where she married and had Big Steve. She died shortly after his birth. Her body was so damaged from her imprisonment that her kidneys failed with the strain of carrying a child.
“I can see by your face that you didn’t know,” said Dr. Bloom.
“I should’ve known. I should’ve asked. Big Steve always said he was grateful that they survived and that was it.”
“It’s a miracle that they did. His father was in relatively good shape compared to his mother. Without Alekei Bled, she most certainly would’ve died and he wouldn’t be here.”
And that was why Big Steve had been taking care of the Sorkines’ apartment. He didn’t just know the Bleds through my parents. He’d known them all his life. Mystery solved.
Dr. Bloom promised not to mention me to Big Steve and to tell me what he learned, if anything. I closed the door behind him and sank onto the sofa, clutching a pillow to my chest. Constanza Warnock. There were thousands of prisoners like her after the war. What would make an American millionaire seek her out to save? It had to have something to do with Stella, but what?
Chapter Five
DR. BLOOM WASN’T gone five minutes when there was another knock on the door. Thinking that he’d forgotten to tell me something, I flung it open only to find that it was a doctor, just not the one I expected.
Pete, my former boyfriend, stood in the doorway, looking even more exhausted than usual and holding Wallace, his mother’s pug. Wallace growled and snapped. Pete was barely able to keep ahold of her. I should’ve changed my code after we broke up, if only to keep the pug out.
“Sorry,” I said. “I thought you were somebody else.”
Wallace bit the collar on Pete’s lab coat and ripped it clean off. “I’m not,” he said.
“I know. Um…what’s up?” It would’ve been polite to invite him in, but I knew Wallace from an ill-fated trip to Colorado with Pete and his parents. Wallace peed. Usually on me.
“You owe me,” said Pete, almost losing hold of Wallace.
I wasn’t sure that was strictly true. I’d behaved badly. I’d kissed Chuck in New Orleans and the video of it got all over the internet. I screwed up royally, but I wasn’t sure if I exactly owed him. Was that how that worked? I said, “Okay,” Because what else do you say in a moment like that?
Pete stepped over the threshold and shoved Wallace into my arms. “My parents are out of town and the protests are heating up. I’m on call for the next four days. You have to take her.”
I tried to give her back, but he backed into the hallway with his hands up like shields. “You owe me.”
“I’ll give you money. Anything. I can’t take this dog.” I could barely control her. She was trying to bite my neck like a vampire pug.
“I need this, Mercy,” said Pete, pushing his glasses up his nose and inspecting the remains of his collar. “She eats a half a cup twice a day.”
“Of what? Blood? I can’t do it. She hates me.”
“She loves you.”
“She’s biting me right now. Take her to a kennel.”
Wallace sunk her teeth into my carotid and I dropped her. She barked. Skanky hissed and Wallace chased him down the hall. There was a crash that sounded suspiciously like picture frames being knocked off my dresser.
“Pete! She’ll eat my cat,” I said, yanking on his arm. “Go get her.”
“Skanky will be fine. He’s tough.”
“No, he isn’t. He’s a cream puff with legs. Go get that nut job and kennel her.”
“I did take Wallace to a kennel. Three of them. They kicked her out.” He pointed at me. “You owe me big time.”
Then he turned on his heels and trucked down the hall.
“Pete! No! I’m leaving town!” I yelled, torn between chasing him or chasing the pug.
I decided on Pete. Skanky could jump. He practically lived on the fridge. I ran to the top of the stairs. “Seriously. I can’t take that crazy pug! I’m leaving!”
“Take her with you. She travels great,” he yelled over his shoulder before running out of sight.
“The only thing she’s great at is peeing!”
A faint echo of laughter bounced around the stairwell.
I called everyone I knew, trying to find someone to take Wallace. But I’d ruined my own chances. I’d told people about her after Colorado. If I’d kept my mouth shut, I could’ve unloaded her. Next, I tried the kennels, but all the kennels already knew about her. She was on some kind of doggy blacklist. I was so desperate that I almost called Uncle Morty, but he was never home anymore. He was dating Mrs. Papadakis’s cousin. Nobody could quite believe it. Dad said it was a sign of the coming apocalypse. He didn’t understand how it happened. I did. Nikki told Morty that they were dating and he was so surprised that he didn’t say no. He tried to get me to break up with her for him because he wasn’t getting enough writing done, but I wasn’t doing that. First, she kinda scared me and second, she’d cleaned his apartment from top to bottom. For that alone, we were all grateful. Mom baked her a cake.
So Uncle Morty was a no-go. Usually, he’d do anything for money and I didn’t know anyone else like that. I pocketed my phone and trudged into the bedroom. Wallace had finally given up on chasing Skanky, who was staring at me with abject hatred from the top of my dresser.
“I didn’t volunteer to keep that thing.”
Hiss.
Wallace ran at my bed, jumped, and bounced off the side.
“You aren’t very smart,” I said.
Bark.
“What am I going to do? I can’t take you to Sturgis. I can’t take you anywhere. You’re crazy.”
Bark.
“Glad you agree.”
My phone rang and I whipped it out of my pocket with high hopes.
Please be a dog person.
“Hello, hello,” I said in a rush.
“Mademoiselle Watts?” said a husky French voice.
I dropped backward onto the bed. Not a dog person. “Monsieur Masson?”
“You are unable to talk?”
“No, I’m okay.”
“You do not wish to talk,” he said, sounding sad.
“I can totally talk. I’m just having dog issues. What’s up?”
Monsieur Masson was working hard on the Sorkines and he told me joyfully that he and his friends didn’t think that they’d been deported from Paris. There were other less-used locations in France, but most deportees went through Drancy and they found no evidence that the Sorkines had ever been there. He thought they’d left the country. That gave him hope that they’d escaped the fate that befell so many others. It was just a feeling, but I had no such hope.
“What else may I do?” he asked.
“You’ve done a lot already,” I said. “Those records are huge. Thanks for going through them.”
“It was an honor to help. What else may I do?”
“Are you sure you want to stay involved?” I thought of my great grandparents, the Berlin cop, Werner Richter, and Lester. The Klinefeld Group didn’t like people who got in their way.
“We are sure. What else do two old men have to do? Play boules and get fat? Non. I want to work and find out what happened to the Sorkines.”
I agreed after reminding him of the risk. He scoffed and I asked him to try and figure out the numbers we’d found written on a piece of paper in the Sorkines’ apartment. We thought maybe they were a train schedule. It would be a total nightmare to match those numbers with trains in 1938. I wouldn’t know where to be
gin, but Monsieur Masson was excited by the puzzle. Because he was so into it, I asked if he would mind looking into the SS officer that I’d heard was some sort of enemy of Stella’s.
Monsieur Masson’s normally cheerful voice got low and gravelly. “He would have worked for Heinrich Himmler. You know Himmler?”
“I know more than I want to. I’m sorry I brought it up. Never mind.”
“Why do you think this officer, Peiper, is part of the Sorkines’ story?” he asked.
I just told him that Peiper was an enemy of someone who may have known the Sorkines.
I could hear him drumming the table with his big, beefy fingers. “I will do it.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. I will ask my friend about this person. If he was high in the Nazis, he will know him.”
We hung up and like every time I thought about the Sorkines, a darkness fell over me, a sadness like mourning, but I didn’t know them. Why did I have to worry so much about what happened to them?
My sadness didn’t last too long. Wallace yipped and spun in a circle before hitting the side of the bed six more times. She was going to hurt herself, so I broke down and took her for a walk. We hadn’t made it half a block before a low-life journalist named Colin Carter ambled up and shoved his phone in my face. “Mercy, working on any new cases?”
“We’re not on a first-name basis. Get lost,” I said, skirting around him.
He darted in front of me, blocking my path. His piggy brown eyes bored into me. “So that’s a yes. What are you working on? Is it another terrorist? Been kissing any new cops? When will you be performing with DBD again?”
Jeez. Pick a story, loser.