by Gayle Lynds
"Wait here." She climbed the narrow steps to sit at the organ. She stretched her hands. Astonished, she noted the brown makeup on them. They were foreign. All at once sitting before a keyboard seemed like a happy dream from someone else's life.
Then her heart speeded up. Abruptly music rushed through her. Lush and exciting, it filled her cells and catapulted her back to another life, to an almost forgotten "her" that had been lost in the violence and pain of the past three days since her mother's death. Was it only three days? It seemed an eternity.
"Are you all right?" Sam was standing below in the aisle, looking up at her, his sweat-streaked face worried.
"I'm terrific." She knew what to play for her grandfather—George Gershwin's "Shall We Dance?" As she made the decision, the music flowed into her fingers. It was all so natural, so effortless, so right. Creighton's evil recessed from her mind. She began to play, and each showboat note of the powerful organ filled the church and boomed out the open doors and across the grounds calling to her grandfather.
52
1:48 PM, MONDAY
OYSTER BAY, NEW YORK
As Julia played, emotions continued to wash over her. The church remained empty except for Sam who stood alert in the shadows under the loft beneath her. She segued into the jazzy tune "I Got Rhythm" and hummed along. Gershwin had uncommon harmonic inventiveness, and even now, decades after he'd written the song, it seemed oddly fresh and appealing.
As she listened to the music, she watched the sanctuary. Hoping—
There was no sign of her grandfather or anyone else.
She wracked her memory, and then another of Gershwin's hit songs came to her. Without pause, she started "Our Love Is Here to Stay." The notes sang through the church.
In time the Rockies may tumble,
Gibraltar may crumble—
They're only made of clay,
But our love is here to stay. . . .
The movement was tiny at first. A door at the side of the sanctuary had moved. Then a shadow loomed out into the sanctuary itself, and a Franciscan priest in a brown habit ambled into her clear view, the hood up to cover his head and most of his face.
Julia's fingers froze. The music died.
The Franciscan pushed his hood back. "Don't stop, dammit. I like that one."
Lyle Redmond's white hair seemed like a halo to Julia. His wrinkled face with the big bones was studying her. The sight of him rocked her. She was elated, and yet she didn't quite believe—
A smile broke out across her face, and quickly she resumed playing.
He tapped his foot. He looked over at Sam. "You Sam Keeline?"
Sam repressed a grin. "I am. You Lyle Redmond?"
"The same. Let's listen."
As soon as Julia finished, she ran down the staircase. She was relieved and enormously excited. The old man was waiting. He enveloped her in a hug. He'd never hugged her. She could feel his heart beating strong and somehow eager, and he smelled of sleep and prayers. But his body trembled, and when she pulled away, she could see why. His faded eyes were glistening with tears. She couldn't imagine her tough, irascible, iron-willed grandfather weeping, and it touched her deeply.
He saw her surprise. "When you get old, you cry whether you want to or not. It's a pain in the butt. But then, the alternative to aging is less pleasant." And he gave a toothy grin. "How in hell did you find me?"
Sam interrupted, "First you've got to get your Father Michael to move his van. It might as well be a sign that says, 'I've Got Lyle Redmond.'"
Lyle nodded brusquely, instantly understanding. "The padre's in the rectory. Come on." As they left the sanctuary, he glanced shyly at Julia. "I'm glad you can see again, kid. Damn shame you were blind so long."
"Thanks, Grandpa." She couldn't wait any longer. She asked, "What happened the night of my debut that would've caused it?"
His white brows lowered and he seemed confused. "They told me it was audiences."
"It wasn't," she said. "I know that now."
He frowned, thinking. "Your father died, of course, while you were asleep. But that's the only other thing I remember about that night. It was damn well enough."
"There weren't any big fights?" she persisted.
"Sorry, child. It was just an ordinary party. Can't say your father seemed to be enjoying it much, though. As I recall, he was in a lousy mood."
"He was?" She didn't remember that. "Why?"
He shrugged. "Who knows. Probably Dan was giving him a hard time. Dan did that. You know, father-son stuff. God knows I'm guilty of my share, too."
They were striding three abreast down the sidewalk toward the rectory. Sunlight streamed through the naked tree branches and made lacy patterns on the walk. Sam and Julia were watching warily all around.
Sam asked, "You've been here since last night?"
Lyle nodded. "The padre drove straight here, after we'd had a bite and a couple of good cigars. Which reminds me. Be good kids and don't tell Father Michael I've been swearing. I'm trying to reform, but it's like turning a meat-eater into a vegetarian. My brain's with the program, but my innards keep revolting. It's not easy to change what you've been all your life."
Julia hid a smile as they climbed the steps to the rectory. It was a white-stuccoed building with a pitched roof and rows of sparkling clean windows. She was eager to ask about the earrings, ring, and box she'd seen in Sam's book about Königsberg Castle, but she'd have to wait for the right moment.
She said, "You're like your old self again, Grandpa. Not the way you were when Mom and I visited. They must've kept you drugged a lot."
The old man muttered, "Sons of bitches. And I don't mean just Reilly and his apes. All those drugs 'for my own good.' That's why visitors had to make appointments to see me. It gave Reilly time to dope me to the eyeballs."
Sam had been listening. Now he asked, "Why were you in the church, not with Father Michael in the rectory? Is there anything wrong here—?"
They stood at the big rectory door. "Nah. Father Michael parked me back there so I wouldn't let it slip who I really was. The monsignor and a few of the others know, because Father Michael told them. But it's not general knowledge. Or maybe he was afraid my loving sons would send someone looking for me at the rectory." Another tear appeared in his eye, and he gazed at Julia. "Thank God it was you, child."
In the rectory, Sam told Father Michael the danger posed by the van, and the friar left quickly to move it out of sight. Lyle introduced Julia and Sam to the pastor, the Reverend Monsignor Jerome O'Connell, as young relatives of his. "The monsignor was in Rome with Father Michael a long time ago, and they got to be good friends," he explained. "So when Father Michael sort of retired, he came here for a while."
"We've enjoyed having him." The monsignor was a man of medium height with a prominent nose and dancing brown eyes. He wore a black suit with a white clerical collar just like the priest Julia and Sam had seen in Hell's Kitchen. He smiled as he shook their hands. His gaze lingered on Julia in her dark makeup and Salvation Army clothes. "Do I know you, miss?"
She'd seen him infrequently and always among a horde of other Redmonds, but just two days ago he'd shook her hand and expressed his sympathies at her mother's death. "I think we've met," she said noncommittally.
He nodded and turned his gaze back onto Lyle. "Take the sitting room down the hall, why don't you? Father Michael often uses it as his writing room. It's quiet, and you can have a good visit."
The old man led them along the hallway, and Julia had a sudden awareness of the passage of time, and how little they had if they were going to stop Creighton. Tomorrow morning the polls opened, less than sixteen hours from now.
As her grandfather settled into a rocking chair, she closed the door quickly. "You've heard about Creighton?"
The furniture was comfortable and simple—a sofa, an overstuffed chair, and the rocking chair arranged around a low walnut coffee table. The window overlooked the backyard. There was a desk in front of it, and on it lay a
closed, spiral-bound notebook. The cover was battered, as if the priest had carried it with him on his travels for years. It gave the clean, white room a sense of intimacy, as if God's work never stopped.
"Hell, Julia, who hasn't? He used to be such a little twerp. And now he's going to bulldoze himself into the Oval Office. I underestimated him." He grimaced. "My fault. He always wanted to be me. I figured he didn't have the balls." He looked at them morosely. "He's outdone me in all my worst traits. I guess I've got a lot to be sorry about." A glance at Julia. "Not your mother, of course. She was a winner."
A knot clenched Julia's throat. "Creighton had her killed I'm sure of it."
The old man's head sagged, and tears again rolled down his cheeks. "I did it. I sent her the packet. You, too, Keeline. Glad you're not dead, too."
Sam said, "He's trying to get me, and I expect you're just as high on his list. Maybe higher."
The old man's voice was suddenly strong. "Guess I am."
They told him what had happened since Friday night—Maya Stern's murder of Marguerite, her murder of Orion Grapolis, her attack on Julia in the Romanov Theatre, Pink's betrayal, and Julia's escape from the nursing home.
The old man's face lit up. "You pepper-sprayed that bastard Reilly? Wish I could've seen that!"
Sam leaned forward. "We need hard evidence against Creighton that doesn't come from just us. I'm painted as a renegade, Julia's nuts, and you're senile. We need something to guarantee Creighton's not going to win tomorrow, and then we can worry about bringing him to justice on everything else. Was there real proof of wrongdoing in those journals you wrote? And what about the Amber Room? From the little I read of your letter, you seem to know what happened to it."
Inside, the old man resisted. It was an opportunity to reveal everything, but all of a sudden he didn't want to. Not yet. He'd kept it locked up in his gut for more than a half century. The Amber Room. Nobody alive knew, except Creighton—and him.
Julia prodded, "You must know something about the Second Himmler Treasure. That jeweled box in your retreat came from the castle. And my alexandrite ring and mother's emerald earrings, too. Did Grandpa Austrian give you the box? Did he steal the Amber Room?"
The old man's face turned inscrutable. "I guess you could say that."
"What happened back then, Grandpa?"
The wrinkled old man sat silently, his fingers absentmindedly pulling at the Franciscan skirt.
Abruptly Julia stood, crossed the room, and crouched beside him. She peered up into his rheumy eyes. "You're our last chance. Think of Mother. I know you wanted to get your journals out, or you wouldn't have sent pieces to Sam and her. What was in them that you wanted the world to know?"
He looked at her. "How did you know about the journals?"
"Mrs. Schwartz. I think she's still a little in love with you."
"Silly old woman." But he sat up a little straighter.
She urged, "You can't let Creighton and John Reilly win. Why did you want to reveal the journals, Grandpa?"
Old Lyle hesitated like a hungry animal who'd avoided good food a long time because he'd been told it was poisoned. But he knew inside it wasn't poison . . . it was heaven. During the trip here, he'd decided that avoiding hell wasn't enough anymore. Heaven with its pearly gates and angels and his sweet wife, Mary, and everything good he'd once believed in . . . that's where he wanted to go.
To get there, he had to put his past to rest. He had a lot of wrongs to right. He shifted in his chair. Determination flowed back into his body.
"You're a couple of smart kids. And you're right. No one's going to believe us. But there's something everyone's going to want to know. . . and believe—"
JUNE 1945, ON THE SWISS-GERMAN BORDER
They were a strange match, but it made perfect sense to them: Captain Dan Austrian admired young Redmond's ability to charm and wheedle equipment. Sergeant Lyle Redmond was awed by the older Austrian's cool savvy and connections. The captain was a wizard at cutting through red tape. Lyle liked that.
By June, the war was over, and Captain Austrian, Sergeant Redmond, and their company were on detached duty from the Quartermasters Corps to supply the art experts through southern Germany who were trying to sort out the vast number of looted valuables.
Then Captain Austrian got lucky. But it was also because he spoke German: In an Alpine village near Lake Constance, he overheard two villagers talking about a special train on its way into Zurich in the last weeks of the war. As soon as they'd heard the rumors, they'd gone to see what was so special Instantly it was obvious: Each boxcar bore the name of the feared Heinrich Himmler and the black markings of the SS. The train was paused for the tracks to be repaired. An SS colonel jumped down in his tall black boots and called out, "And keep your sticky fingers off this, Maas." The villagers still wondered what the train had been carrying, but they'd been too afraid to stay longer. The only other thing they'd learned was that "Maas" was a Zurich banker.
It excited Austrian. He'd been with the arts experts long enough to see for himself the vast amounts of treasure the Germans had stolen—particularly the Nazi leaders. He'd called around under the pretext of army supply business and found a banker by the name of Selvester Maas. He'd gone into Zurich and talked with the man, drunk with him, whored with him, and finally convinced him to admit that, yes, he'd seen some famous paintings, some fabulous jewelry, and perhaps greatest of all—a masterwork of inestimable value—the legendary Amber Room.
After the banker let him see a panel, stealing the cache was all Austrian could think about. But it was too big a job for one man. He needed Lyle Redmond's help.
Redmond had never been shy about his longing for money. When you're born poor, you never expect to the poor. But most who're born in poverty do die in it, and Redmond knew the chances were high he'd be no different. So he negotiated a deal with Austrian for an equal split.
At which point Austrian arranged for Redmond to meet the banker Maas. But when Redmond arrived at the appointed Zurich warehouse, he found a young boy tearing away as if the hounds of hell were on his heels. Fear stretched the child's face white.
Inside the warehouse, the banker lay dead, his blood splattered red on a wall.
Daniel Austrian was standing over him with a carbine. "Maas got suspicious. He was going to kill me." Austrian's face was flushed with anger. He had a violent temper.
"Yeah? So where's the guy's gun?" Redmond didn't believe Austrian for an instant.
But the deed was done. The booty was there for the taking, and it hadn't been the banker's in the first place anyway. So Lyle Redmond helped his friend carry the corpse to his car, and Austrian dumped it in what passed for the red-light district in Zurich. He returned to help Redmond repaint the crates and stencil them "U.S. Government Property." They labeled the smaller ones as kitchen supplies, white the huge ones that held the Amber Room were bridge trusses. Promptly at 0800, big private trucks rented from a Zurich firm arrived. The trucks carried the cases over the border into Germany, where U. S. enlisted men transferred them to quartermaster trucks, which hauled them east.
For six months the Second Himmler Treasure sat in an overcrowded army depot in Paris. Austrian had handled the paperwork. Redmond had seen it was executed. They were a team, each superior at his task, and they could rely on one another.
When Lyle Redmond was to be mustered out, Dan Austrian arranged for the crates to be shipped home on the same ship as army surplus. Shortly after the treasure arrived at Fort Dix in New Jersey, the newly discharged Lyle Redmond showed up with proof of purchase. Like a lot of Americans, he was buying army surplus to help start his new postwar life. And it turned out to be a very lucrative one.
Austrian made a connection with a longtime family friend who owned an art gallery on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Through him they sold many of the pieces. Avid collectors with a sudden infusion of postwar money were buying art with questionable ownership all across Europe. It was pleasantly convenient to acquire it here i
n the United States.
Austrian and Redmond were launched. The sky was the limit, and with Austrian's name and Redmond's savvy their property-development company made enough to buy the sun, the moon, and as many of the glittering stars in the firmament as they wanted.
Until now. Lyle Redmond had discovered wealth couldn't buy peace. He'd acquiesced to murder and participated in grand theft. The only solution was to tell the world. And if the world didn't believe him, all it had to do was look at the dozen masterpieces still hanging in Arbor Knoll.
OYSTER BAY
There was a long silence in the small room in the rectory. It was everything Julia had feared and more. Her grandfathers had stolen the Second Himmler Treasure, and they'd had the Amber Room. They'd been responsible for a man's death—Selvester Maas, although her grandfather Austrian had been the one who'd actually shot him. She remembered his mercurial temper and the well-bred urbanity that usually hid it.
But the information wasn't enough. Despite the fact that part of the treasure was still in the family's possession, she could see no way it'd bring down Creighton. It wouldn't outweigh the charges that Douglas Powers was a predator of children.
Her chest tightened. She and Sam had reached another dead end.
Father Michael had slipped quietly into the room while Lyle talked. He sat at the desk, one square-fingered hand resting on the spiral-bound notebook. His aging face was sober, and the bags under his eyes seemed to grow darker as Lyle finished.
He said quietly, "You did not tell them Selvester Maas had intended to give the treasure back."
Lyle was puzzled. "I didn't know he did." He seemed very tired. "Did I tell you that? I've forgotten."
Julia sighed. "Grandpa, how could you have let Grandpa Austrian get away with murder like that?"
Her grandfather lowered his head. "Greed. I got no excuses. I still see Maas lying there dead. It was horrible."
Father Michael said quietly, "But now you deeply regret it."
"More than I can convey. I'm going to report it as soon as we get Creighton under control."