The Julian secret lr-2

by Gregg Loomis

  No answer.

  She felt a chill despite the building's lack of air conditioning. She forced herself to push the door wider until it bumped against something on the floor. Squeezing between door and frame, she slid fully into the room, looked down to see what was against the door.

  Senor Don.

  Lifeless eyes. seemed to look right through her. His face held an expression of surprise, as though questioning whatever event had taken his life. His head rested in a small pool of blood and a gray jelly she instinctively knew was brains.

  From somewhere came screams. It took her a full minute to realize they were hers.

  "Senorita?"

  Her mind came back to the present and the police cars in the patio like some vibrant nightmare. She was seated at a small, three-legged table in the kitchen, her hands clasped around a long, cold cup of coffee she had brewed because she needed to give herself something to do while the police went through the house.

  She looked up into the craggy face of the chief inspector, a man she guessed to be in his mid-fifties. His most prominent feature was a pair of doleful brown eyes that resembled those of a basset hound. It was as though the violence and cruelty he witnessed in his job had given him a permanently sorrowful expression.

  "Si? I can go gather up the papers now?"

  He shook his head slowly, as though regretting being the bearer of even more bad news. "I am sorry, no. As you saw, papers are scattered everywhere, as though someone, perhaps the killer, were looking for something. We must examine everything."

  He sat beside her and shook a cigarette out of a pack, looking for an ashtray. She brought him a small dish, and he raised his eyebrows in a question.

  "Go ahead," she said.

  He lit up, shaking out a wooden match, and looked at her through a haze of blue smoke before placing a small tape recorder on the table beside a notepad. ''You are Sonia Escobia Riveria?"

  She nodded, supposing he was asking for the benefit of the recorder. She had given her name as soon as he and the other police had arrived.

  He asked her address, employment history, and educational background, questions that, as far as she could tell, had no bearing on the matter at hand.

  After asking how long she had worked for Senor Don, he asked, "Any idea why someone would want him dead?"

  She shook her head and felt the tears she had-given up on brushing away spread across her face. "No."

  The inspector stubbed out his cigarette, staring at the ashtray as though ideas for his next question might be there. "This writing he was doing, what was it about?"

  She shrugged, aware how silly her answer was going to sound. "I'm not sure. I did specific research for him, most related to Franco or World War Two, but he did the actual writing himself."

  "You never asked?" There was a definite note of incredulity in the inspector's voice.

  "Of course I did. At first, anyway. He would laugh and say it was nothing I would care about. Then he seemed to get annoyed when I asked, so I quit. I suppose you could access his computer easily enough."

  The inspector's eyes narrowed, no longer looking sorrowful. "That would be a good idea had not someone taken it apart and removed the hard drive."..

  She stared at him in shock, realized her mouth was open, and shut it before speaking. "He was careful about making backups."

  He was groping for another cigarette. "On what disks, CDs? We found none. Apparently, our killer was meticulous in removing whatever research and writing Senor Huff had done."

  Sonia stood on legs that did not feel like they wanted to hold her. "Not all of them."

  'She retrieved her purse. "I have one here, a CD."

  The inspector's eyebrows came together. "Why would you have it? The man was so secretive in what he was doing."

  She handed it to him. "It was perfectly safe with me. I have no computer at home. Anyway, there are pictures on it, digital pictures he wanted me to take by a photography store and ask if they could lighten some up, enhance others. I was running late, so I planned to take them by this afternoon after the siesta."

  He held out his hand. "We will return it when we finish." Sonia wondered when, if ever, that would be.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Atlanta, Georgia Park Place; 2660 Peachtree Road

  The next evening

  A warm spring breeze gave only a slight hint of the heat and humidity a month or so away. To the two men standing on the twenty-fourth-floor deck, the city below was a handful of jewels stretching to the southern horizon, where aircraft departing and arriving at the airport resembled distant fireflies. Both men took in the scene in silence, each puffing gently on a cigar.

  The shorter of the two, a black man wearing a sports shirt open at the neck to display a golden crucifix, rubbed his stomach appreciatively. "Deorum cibus!"

  The other, also informally dressed, chuckled. "Food for the gods, indeed, Francis. At least you appreciate my cooking. After all, Ieunus raro stomachus vulgaria temnit."

  "Horace does tell us that an empty stomach rarely declines ordinary food, but that dinner was awesome, anything but ordinary." Father Francis Narumba wrinkled his eyebrows in mock suspicion. "But then, the quality of food around here has improved dramatically since Gurt came along. I don't mean to preach, Lang, but…"

  Langford Reilly contemplated the ash of his cigar. "Then don't, Francis," he said good-naturedly. "We heretics don't take the same view of living in sin as you papists. Ever heard of capistrum maritale?"

  It was Francis's turn to chuckle, the sound of a breeze across dry leaves. "As a priest, I've escaped Juvenal's marital muzzle. But your first marriage was a good one. Had Dawn lived…"

  Realizing he might well have touched a place still raw, Francis puffed on his cigar. Dawn, Lang's wife, had suffered a lingering death from cancer years ago, long before the priest had known his friend.

  Francis broke the silence that was threatening to lengthen. "Gurt going to be here indefinitely?" Judging by Lang's scowl, the priest had made another conversational misstep. "Ask her."

  Francis sighed and turned to face his friend. "Look, Lang, everything I say tonight seems to upset you. Maybe it would be better if I-"

  Lang moved to put an arm around the priest's shoulder. "Amicus est tanquam alter idem, a friend is just like a second self, Francis. I guess I'm a little touchy tonight."

  Reassured, Francis smiled, the white teeth doubly brilliant against the dark face. A native of a country among the worst of Africa's pestilential and violent West coast, Francis had gone to seminary and been appointed to minister to the growing numbers of Africans in Atlanta. Though white, Lang's sister, Janet, had converted to Catholicism and become one of his parishioners.

  Lang embraced no particular religion, but he and the black priest had become good friends with more in common than most white Americans and black Africans. Lang described himself as a victim of a liberal arts education, bored by the usual business degree. Ancient history and its languages had been his passion, a neat fit with the priest's knowledge of Latin and medieval history. Swapping Latin aphorisms had begun as a game and become a habit.

  "Perhaps you are now ready for dessert and coffee?"

  Gurt was silhouetted against the interior of the condominium. Even half in shadow, she could have graced the cover of any number of men's magazines. Or a bottle of St. Pauli Girl beer from her native Germany. Her height, nearly six feet, accentuated a perfectly proportioned figure she seemed to maintain without effort. Sky-blue eyes and shoulder-length hair the color of recently harvested hay could have come straight off a German travel poster. In public, she got more attention than a joint chief of staff on a military base.

  "We have also strudel freshly baked," she added with just enough accent to make the mundane sexy. Francis rolled his eyes at Lang. "Appreciate your cooking?"

  "Well, I did make the salad," he grunted defensively.

  Inside, a small square table occupied that part of the living/dining area of the one-bedroom
unit. Before Gurt's arrival, Lang had taken his meals on the open bar that separated the cramped kitchen. The table had been her addition, something she had found in one of the junk shops she haunted. It was one of several additions she had made to the home Lang had bought after Dawn's death.

  Under the table, tail wagging furiously, was Grumps, the large, black, and otherwise' nondescript mongrel that had belonged to Lang's nephew, Jeff. The dog, was the only tangible thing left of the little boy, and Lang had every intention of keeping him despite the regular bribes to the building's concierge staff to ignore the limitations on pet size specified in the condominium's rules.

  Gurt's mention of strudel had awakened Grumps, and he was waiting for the handout he knew would be coming from Francis despite Lang's protest that the animal needed no additional food. Lang supposed that had he a child, the priest would be equally ruthless in spoiling the infant, too.

  Francis leaned over the table, sniffing appreciatively. "Peach, you've made a peach strudel?"

  Gurt nodded. "And why not? In Germany, plentiful are apples, not so much peaches. Here there more peaches than I shake a stick at."

  "Can shake a stick at," Lang corrected.

  She shrugged, despairing of ever really understanding English. "And why would I shake sticks at peaches, anyway?"

  Lang rolled his eyes while Francis made no effort to hide a smile.

  "If supply's the criterion, I suppose peanut strudel is next," Lang finally quipped, drawing an elbow in the ribs from Gurt.

  Ever the diplomat, Francis changed the subject as adroitly as an NFL running back avoiding a linebacker. "You got your work permit?"

  Gurt looked up from cutting the pastry. "Yesterday came what you call the green card." A look of puzzlement flickered across her face. "But it was not green."

  "It used to be. The name stuck," Francis offered. "So now…"

  Gurt twisted her face into an expression that told Lang that she was having trouble with the idiom of a name adhering like some sort of glue. The literal nature of her native language made American slang difficult.

  "Now," she continued, "I will teach German at the school, Westminster."

  Francis gave an appreciative whistle as he accepted a slice that could have been a meal itself. "You started at the top. That's the ritziest prep school in the city."

  There was a sudden silence, the interruption of conversation as each person looked into their own thoughts.

  Lang spoke. "So the Braves going to do it again?"

  Both Lang and the priest were ardent baseball fans.

  "If anyone can, Bobby Cox can," Francis said, referring to the manager of the Atlanta team. "Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, loyal and neutral, in a single moment? No man."

  Lang thought for a second. "Shakespeare, Macbeth?"

  "You got it."

  "We'll see. It's only April. 'The end crowns all and that old common arbitrator, Time, will one day end it.' " Francis wrinkled his brow. "Shakespeare?"

  "Troilus and Cressida. "

  Both men were delighted with the new game: Shakespeare on baseball. The possibilities were endless. Lang was thinking of the Roberto Alomar incident of a few years ago, the umpire asking in the words from King Richard III, "Why dost thou spit at me?" Francis had in mind the ubiquitous beer ads around the park and King Henry VI, Part II, "Make my image but an alehouse sign."

  Gurt was standing over them, watching the verbal contest. "And what is next, Mein Herren, Goethe and ice hockey?"

  "Humor is not a logical part of human behavior," Lang said.

  "Shakespeare?" Francis asked.

  "Mr. Spock, Star Trek."

  "Who?" Gurt asked.

  Francis started to reply, but was interrupted by the shrill intrusion of the telephone. Francis looked at Lang. "Somebody's in trouble, I'll bet."

  Lang's law practice consisted largely of defending the criminal elite-corporate executives with sticky fingers, or accountants of dubious veracity, tax cheats, those involved in what was referred to as "white-collar crime."

  Lang stood, wiping crumbs from his lips with a napkin. "My clientele don't usually get arrested on a Saturday night; they can afford a lawyer who arranges a voluntary surrender during normal business hours." He put the napkin down. "Besides, I'm not taking much new business. Too involved with the foundation."

  The foundation. Specifically, the Janet and Jeff Holt Foundation, a charity funded by some European company. Why a commercial venture, one Francis could never find on any stock exchange, would pay an annual ten figure sum in honor of Lang's late sister and nephew was a question that troubled the priest. Even more mysteri0us was the fact that Lang had left Atlanta about this time last year to seek the persons responsible for the deaths of Janet and her adopted son, returning some months later as the sole director of an incredibly wealthy charity that spent hundreds of millions of dollars solely to provide medical care to children in Third World countries.

  Lang had also returned with Gurt, a woman he had apparently known before his marriage. The specifics of their previous relationship, like the foundation, were quickly established as off conversational limits.

  That was one of several areas that puzzled Francis. Among others was the fact Lang had gone to law school in his thirties and had never attempted to explain the intervening years between his practice and college. All enigmatic; none worth risking a friendship by unwanted inquiry.

  Lang returned to the table and sat without a word. He was either deep in thought or stunned by the conversation. Both Francis and Gurt paused, waiting for some explanation, but none was forthcoming.

  Francis dabbed at the crumbs on his plate.

  "You would like more?" Gurt asked.

  The priest held up his hands in surrender. "No, please. It was wonderful, but I've eaten too much."

  She stood, taking the platter away. "Then I will wrap it for you to carry with you. Homemade takeoff."

  "Takeout," Lang corrected, still thinking. "Does he not take it off, away?" Lang didn't reply. He despaired of Gurt's logical mind mastering the American idiom.

  While Gurt wrapped the remains of the strudel, Lang brought two glasses and a bottle of single-malt scotch to the table. He set a glass in front of Francis and offered the whiskey.

  Francis stood, aware that, whatever its nature, the phone call, not company, was on his friend's mind. "No, thanks. I've gotta drive home, and I don't need a DUI."

  Lang gave him a crooked grin. "No papal dispensation for driving under the influence?"

  Francis accepted the rest of the strudel from Gurt, nodding thanks. "The police of the apostate cut us true believers no slack." He opened the door to the hallway and elevators, turning to speak over his shoulder. "Although a clerical collar has spared me the occasional speeding ticket."

  "Okay, then," Lang said. "But at least let's check the score. Ought to be somewhere in the middle innings out there in La-La Land." The Braves were playing a series against Los Angeles, three time zones distant.

  "For just a minute," the priest conceded, stepping back inside and closing the door. "But keep that scotch out of reach, my reach."

  Both men sat back down at the kitchen table as Lang turned on the small television set on the breakfast bar. No matter how many times he saw it, Lang still regarded the transfer of images across a continent to be every bit as magical as anything the ancient gods might have done.

  They had hit the end of an inning, and a car ad began to unfold, the announcer shouting in perpetual excitement. As the shiny new vehicles available at LOW, LOW, UNBELIEVABLY LOW PRICES faded, a familiar figure appeared, a silver-haired man holding a Bible, his ice-blue eyes staring earnestly into the camera.

  "My fellow citizens," he began, "it is high time for us to take back our country from the godless courts and those who would crush our Christian heritage. When I am your president, we will work together for these things and to make America, once again, the first among nations…"

  Both Lang and Franci
s had heard it before. Harold Straight, candidate for his party's nomination in the upcoming presidential election. His determined face faded to strains of "God Bless America."

  "I'm sure the Jews of this country find his message comforting," Lang observed wryly.

  "Not to mention Muslims, Buddhists, and everyone else," Francis added. "Also, any country that dares to think it's number one is likely to find the Marines on its national doorstep."

  Gurt, abandoning her usual posture that television was a sure cause of brain rot, moved to look at the fading screen. "This man has a chance to win?"

  Lang shrugged at the unpredictability of American politics. ''A lot of people believe he can put the Ten Commandments back in courthouses, stop the teaching of evolution, and reverse Roe v. Wade."

  "And this is good why?" Lang glanced at Francis, who smiled back. "I'm sure Francis here would advocate the end to abortion-"

  "Not at the price of having Straight in the White House," the priest interjected.

  "And," Lang continued, "his message about his dad dying in World War Two to save American values hits home, too."

  "This is normal, to get into politics because of what your father did?" Gurt was incredulous. "There wasn't a war convenient for this guy to get into when he was in the Army," Francis explained. Gurt turned and went to the sink to wash dishes, a pastime both more interesting and useful than politics.

  As the image of Dodger Stadium returned to the screen, Francis said, ''After seeing Mr. Straight, perhaps I will accept your kind offer of a little scotch."

  In spite of multiple scotches and dinner wine, Lang could not sleep. Instead, he watched shadows of light from the street below form abstract patterns on the ceiling. Finally, he gave up. Moving carefully to avoid waking Gurt, he slipped out of bed and stood on the deck just outside the room. Absently, he observed the golden ribbon of traffic moving along Peachtree Street, his mind miles and years away.

  He was startled when an arm encircled his waist from behind. "The phone call, yes?"

  He reached a hand over his shoulder to touch Gurt's face. ''Yeah..''