In the middle of the book, just after the last of the photos, was a roughly torn square of paper, so fragile with age that it would crumble if I touched it. The left side was filled with equations. Most of the page was covered by a drawing that looked like a deep-fat— No. It was a pencil sketch of a ferromagnetic core for a computer, showing the direction of electric currents through the wires that extended from it. “Speicher” was printed next to it in tiny faded letters, and on the left side, some fifteen rows of equations appeared. In the bottom right was a small design so faded that I could only guess it showed a pair of linked triangles.
I stared at it in utter bewilderment. How had Julius come by the BREENIAC sketch? It had already disappeared before he got to the Breen mansion last night.
I couldn’t think straight about this. I’d been assuming that Cordell Breen had hidden the sketch himself, putting the blame on Martin for its disappearance. Maybe Julius was a regular visitor to the Lake Forest estate. He lived here in Edward Breen’s old coach house, the two men had grown up together. I suppose Breen’s wife or housekeeper could have let Julius in if he showed up unexpectedly one day; they’d assume he was an acceptable, if not a welcome, visitor of Cordell’s.
Was this the crime that Julius felt weighed down by, this BREENIAC drawing? Or the computer itself?
I undid the binder rings in the album and lifted out the page that the sketch lay on. I carefully slipped it into the folder with the letters I’d copied at the library. When I caught up with Julius, telling him I had the drawing might finally persuade him to talk to me.
On my way out, I used my picks to do up the double lock on the front door. The children, a girl and a boy about eight and ten, stopped their game to stare at me.
“Your mom home?” I asked.
The girl yelled “Mom” several times, without bothering to go up to the house. After the third shout, a young woman appeared, still in work clothes, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel, a phone tucked between her shoulder and her ear.
I walked over and introduced myself; the woman told her phone she’d get back to it and gave her name in turn, Melanie Basier.
“I’m looking for Julius Dzornen, Ms. Basier, and I’m worried because he hasn’t surfaced today. His front door was unlocked; do you know if that’s normal for him?”
Ms. Basier made a face. “I think he usually locks it, but to tell you the truth, I try not to pay too much attention to him.”
“I don’t know him well,” I said. “Is he disruptive?”
“Nothing like that, just—he’s so strange. He’s never worked, he lives on disability or something. My husband doesn’t mind him; he says I’m being unreasonable. The two of them talk about birds—Julius has all those feeders up—but—” She gave a nervous laugh. “I always think he’s one of those guys who looks quiet on the outside but turns out to be an ax murderer.”
“Disturbing,” I agreed. “Why do you let him live here?”
“It wasn’t our idea: he was already here when we moved in. Our house was cheap because of the bizarre legal arrangement about the coach house. We could never have afforded it otherwise, but I sometimes wish we’d moved to South Shore or even Forest Park, where we wouldn’t have such a creepy man on our property.”
My brows went up. “It sounds extraordinary. How on earth did this deal get set up?”
“It was in old Edward Breen’s will. He didn’t sell the coach house when he moved out in 1961, just the big house. When Julius’s mother died, the Breens said he could move into the coach house and live the rest of his life there. If he dies or moves out, we have the first right to buy it from the Breen family, thank God! Anyway, we bought here three years ago when my husband took a job in the anthropology department, and I guess that’s why he’s okay with Julius—my husband looks at him as if he were a science project.”
Her phone rang and she started talking into it.
“Ms. Basier—I’ll get out of your hair in a minute, but when did you last see Julius?”
She told her phone she’d be right with it and put a hand over the face. “I can’t remember. Sunday, maybe, when he got back from bird-watching. He started making a huge racket out in the alley. When my husband went to look, he was breaking china into a garbage can. I didn’t see him myself. Okay? I’ve got to go.”
She started talking to her phone again.
“Was someone else in the coach house today? Someone besides me?”
“Cece, someone keeps interrupting me; I’ll have to call you back.” Basier turned to me. “I’m at work all day. Does it matter?”
“It does, rather. Julius Dzornen’s half sister was murdered last week and I’m investigating her death.”
Basier looked at her children, her expression changing from annoyance to alarm. “You think he killed her?”
“No. But there’s something in his and her past that has been weighing him down, making him the disturbed and disturbing man he is. I think someone was in his house while he was out today, but it’s hard to tell. You could call the police, of course, but with no sign of a break-in they won’t do much about making it a crime scene.”
Basier bit her lip, looked at the children again, and asked me to wait where I could keep an eye on them. She went into the house and returned with a young woman, about college age.
“Mindy is one of my husband’s graduate students; she does a little housework for us and looks after the kids between the end of school and dinner,” Basier explained.
I went through my spiel again. Yes, Mindy had been in the kitchen around one o’clock and seen someone at Julius’s door.
“I think it was the police, though, checking up on him, because the man turned around as he was opening the door, and I saw he was wearing a shoulder holster. I was kind of freaked out, seeing a gun, but then I looked out front and saw the police car double-parked outside. So I went back to work.”
When I’d thanked the two women, Ms. Basier was still worried enough to ask Mindy to stay outside with the children. She wasn’t worried enough to stop talking to her phone: as I rounded the corner of the house I heard her having an animated conversation with it.
42
CRASH LANDING
THE MAN WHO LOST CONTROL of his car on Sheridan Road early this morning when it flipped over into a ravine has been identified as Julius Dzornen, only son of Nobel Prize–winning physicist Benjamin Dzornen. He is in critical condition at Evanston Hospital.”
I was half listening to the news as I sat in heavy traffic on Lake Shore Drive, but that jolted me so much that I almost lost control of my own car. The announcer moved on to a story about a lost dog returning home after thirteen months. I tried other stations but couldn’t get any more news on Julius’s accident.
An SUV riding my tail honked loudly. I realized I’d committed the sin of allowing a car length to develop in front of me. Instead of closing the gap, I inched over to the right-hand lane and exited at Navy Pier.
I drove out to the end of the pier and sat looking at the water. Julius had been angry when he arrived at the Breen estate last night. In any meeting between Cordell and Julius, Cordell would always have the upper hand because he was the cool, successful guy; Julius was the angry dropout living on Breen family charity.
He’d driven up furious about someone using his name at the library, but maybe that old Metargon sketch played a role in the quarrel as well. However the conversation went, by the time he left, Julius must have been in a blind rage, so angry he drove off the road.
A gull swept down to the water in front of me, screeching over a piece of garbage. Four other gulls arrived, all of them screaming, pecking each other out of the way until one rose triumphant with a french fry.
Breen was the tough gull. Nice gulls finish last. Julius wasn’t a nice guy, merely one who found life overwhelming.
I left the pier and rejoined the slow crawl n
orthward. The hospital where they’d taken Julius was only half a mile from Max’s home. I stopped there on my way.
Julius was in critical condition, they told me at the front desk.
“I’m a niece,” I said. “He doesn’t have any children or family of his own. Is it possible for me to see him?”
They sent me to the sixth floor, where I repeated my tale of being a niece. The ward head told me my uncle had suffered fractures to both arms, his pelvis, and he had a crushed cervical vertebra. He’d been unconscious when he was removed from his car, but scans didn’t show damage to the brain.
“He’s heavily sedated so he may not wake up, but he will hear you talking to him, so talk about things that are positive, that will soothe him and reassure him—happy family memories, or a favorite pet of his.”
I nodded guiltily, since my real hope was that Julius would be in a frame of mind to unburden himself of his own guilty secret. However, talking about it might soothe him more than chatter about a dead cat. I followed the ward head’s directions through a set of pneumatic doors.
Julius Dzornen looked like a knight in white armor, so completely was he casted. His breath came in short, heavy rasps. IV lines were inserted through the plaster. The only visible flesh was his face, which looked waxen and unreal. In repose, free of the bitterness that consumed him when awake, he looked younger.
I pulled up a chair next to his head and leaned over. “Julius, it’s V. I. Warshawski. Vic. I’m sorry you were injured. The ward head said to talk to you about your pets. Your birds are all eating well, Julius; I was just at the coach house and they looked pretty darned happy. I’ll get the Basier kids to keep the bird feeders full while you’re on the disabled list, Julius.”
I kept repeating his name, hoping it would rouse him. He seemed to stir a little, but maybe it was my imagination.
“Cordell is an angry and arrogant guy, isn’t he, Julius?” I said. “You must have really pissed him off, taking that BREENIAC sketch away.”
He mumbled something, but I couldn’t make out any words.
“Julius, it was Martin Binder, not Cordell, who went into the library using your name. He found Ada Byron’s letter to your father. Julius, did you know Ada Byron? Was she another of your father’s lovers?”
His eyelids started fluttering and his pulse increased.
I was sweating, scared about whether I was doing him harm. I’d make one more effort and then leave him alone.
“Gertrud Memler. Is that who she really was, Julius?”
“Mem,” he mumbled. “Mem-ler.”
A trace of spittle fell out of his mouth. I took a tissue and wiped it.
“Memler, Julius? Where is Memler?”
“Root.” His lips were cracked and the word came out in a guttural; I wasn’t sure I was hearing it correctly. “Root. Sell.”
“What are you doing here?”
I jumped at the unexpected voice. Herta Dzornen Colonna had come into the room and was furious at seeing me bent over her brother. “They told me one of Julius’s nieces was here. I thought it was my daughter Abigail, but it’s you. Get out of here at once.”
I got meekly to my feet, but didn’t apologize. “I saw your brother arriving at Cordell Breen’s house late last night, Ms. Colonna. He was very angry.”
“Julius?” She was so surprised she briefly forgot her own rage. “He hates Cordell.” Her face tightened again. “How do you know? Were you following him?”
“No, ma’am. Cordell had summoned me to Lake Forest to chew me out. Julius arrived as I was leaving. He accused Cordell of impersonating him to gain access to your father’s papers at the University of Chicago Library.”
“That’s unbelievable.”
“Which part?” I asked.
Julius moved restlessly within his carapace and said again, “Root . . . Sell.”
Herta moved to the bed and put her fingers against her brother’s neck. “Don’t worry about it, Jules. Just rest and feel better.”
She looked at me. “I don’t know why Cordell would want to see Father’s papers, unless he thought there was an expired patent he could exploit. He and Julius never got on, but after the launch of the BREENIAC, they couldn’t be in the same room. Our families stopped having Thanksgivings together. It wasn’t long after that Edward Breen moved up to Lake Forest. But if Jules was really angry, I suppose he might have gotten drunk for courage and driven up to confront Cordell.”
She sighed and patted the part of her brother’s head that lay exposed. “I suppose that’s how he lost control of his car.”
“If he hated Cordell so much, how come he’s living in the Breen’s old coach house?”
Herta’s nostrils flared with annoyance. “He moved there when Mother died. Bettina and I were beside ourselves! Julius was forty and until Mother’s death, he still lived in his old bedroom. He wanted to stay right where he was, but Bettina and I insisted on selling. Julius didn’t work, he couldn’t even have paid the taxes, let alone upkeep.
“Then Cordell invited Julius to live in the Breen family’s old coach house down in Hyde Park. Bettina and I both told him it was a terrible mistake, but all Julius would say is that Cordell wasn’t charging him any rent to look after the place. Cordell, and Edward before him, treated the coach house like it was a sacred place—because it’s where Edward perfected his first computer. After Edward died, Cordell hung on to the coach house, too! Bettina and I kept telling Julius he’d never get out of his depression if he didn’t find an apartment of his own and learn to work for a living, but you might as well talk to a block of wood.”
Julius stirred again next to her and she absently patted his head again.
“He keeps saying, ‘Root, Sell,’” I said. “Do you know what he’s talking about?”
Herta seemed to regret talking to me so frankly. “Whatever it is, it’s his business, not yours. I’m not calling the nurse to tell her you were impersonating my daughter, but that’s only because you could make some sense out of why Julius was on North Sheridan Road. You’ve still been invasive and even dangerous and I want you to leave.”
I mustered what dignity I could and left.
43
TEDDY BEAR, TEDDY BEAR, TOUCH THE GROUND
IT HAD STARTED to drizzle again while I was with Herta. As I trudged along the dark streets back to the Subaru, a squad car rushed toward me, its lights flashing. I leapt out of the way but my legs still got soaked. The car was tan, not one of the Evanston force’s white-and-purple. Perhaps the hospital’s security service, trying to look important.
When I got to the Subaru, I was wet all the way through. I turned on the heater and got a blast of cold moldy air. Better to shiver.
Lotty had arrived at Max’s almost an hour before I got there. She was curled up in a large armchair in front of Max’s fireplace, looking more like a street urchin than a surgeon with an international reputation. I squatted in front of the fire, warming my hands.
“You’re wet,” Lotty said. “Take off your shoes and socks; Max can find you some slippers.”
My teeth were starting to chatter. Max hurried into a back room and returned with a blanket and a pair of wool socks. Lotty went into the kitchen and brought me back a cup of hot lemon water.
“What happened, Victoria?”
“Julius Dzornen.” I explained how I’d happened to know he was in Lake Forest last night.
“Julius drove up there last night, loaded for bear, but as always happens in a confrontation between him and Cordell Breen, Breen won.”
“That makes it sound as though you think Breen caused Dzornen’s accident,” Max said. “I find that impossible to accept.”
I looked at Max and smiled ruefully. “Nothing would surprise me about any of these people, but Breen is so clever that if he wanted to get rid of Dzornen, he’d use a method that was dead-certain to work, not rely
on tampering with Julius’s car, or putting Ambien in his brandy. And as it turns out, Julius did survive. He’s in rotten shape, but he’s alive.”
Max nodded. “When you called, you said you wanted me—us—to look at some documents?”
“Oh.” I’d been so upset by Julius’s accident that I’d forgotten why I’d been on my way to Evanston in the first place. “I went down to Hyde Park this morning to look at Benjamin Dzornen’s papers. I found three letters that may be from Martina Saginor, and one from the address I remember Lotty saying she shared with them. Even if I could make out the script, I can’t understand German.”
I took the folded copies from the folder and handed them to Lotty. She looked at them and looked away, her face contorted in pain.
“Lotty!” I dropped to my knees next to her.
“Victoria! I—that letter—where did it come from!”
She broke off and Max forced her to drink a little wine.
“I’m so sorry,” I said helplessly. “If I’d known they would distress you this much, I would never have brought them to you.”
“It’s not that.” Lotty blinked back tears. “It’s—this—my Opa—”
She swallowed another mouthful of wine. “It’s from my Opa, my grandfather, Felix Herschel. It’s as if the ghosts in my head suddenly came to life.”
She tried reading the letter, but finally handed it to Max, who was standing at her other side. He translated it out loud, stumbling over some words where the photocopy was too faded to read easily.
My dear Professor Dzornen,
I hope you and Frau Dzornen are well. As winter approaches, the damp in Vienna becomes raw and bitter, especially here near the canal. Food is hard to find as well.
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