The Heir Hunter

by Chris Larsgaard

  Malloy leaned out the bedroom window and listened to the screech of spinning tires. He slammed his hand down on the windowsill and swore. He couldn’t believe he had missed. Bad angle or not, he normally made shots like those in his sleep.

  He hurried from the bedroom and approached the flight of stairs. He was one step down when the sound of the police radio halted him in his tracks. Cop lights were shining through the curtains. He heard a car door slam.

  He drew back into the shadows as the front door opened. A single cop entered, his service revolver ready. Malloy cursed. He hadn’t planned on this. But he wouldn’t be the one left holding the bag. He raised his weapon, fixed the sight on the officer’s chest, and squeezed the trigger.

  In fifteen minutes’ time, they pulled safely into Alex’s garage. From all appearances, the getaway had been clean. Nick collapsed onto the living room couch. He shook his head, still unable to calm himself completely. Alex was too nervous to sit.

  “What happened, Nick?”

  She wanted a comforting response, something to slow her throbbing pulse. Nick could only shake his head.

  “I’m not sure. Whoever that guy was, you can be damn sure he was no cop. He was opening up on me when I was hopping fences.”

  “He was shooting at you?” asked Alex, the horror thick in her throat. “But I didn’t hear any—”

  “Silencer,” replied Nick. “A good one too. All I heard was the fence popping all around me.” He looked at her. “They were watching that house, Alex.”

  “Who was?”

  “Somebody.”

  Alex looked overwhelmed as she paced the carpet. “Everyone on that street must have seen us tearing out of there, Nick.”

  “No plates, remember? Stop sweating it. This was about as clean as it gets.”

  “Who would stake out that house, Nick?”

  “Wish I knew. Why do it at all?”

  “My God,” said Alex. “If that guy wasn’t a cop, what happened when the real cops found him in there?”

  “Hopefully they nailed him for the break-in. We’re scot-free, Alex. Forget about it.”

  “Sure, Nick. You nearly get killed, we nearly get arrested. Forgotten—just like that.” She stopped pacing and leaned up against the wall, raising her face to the ceiling. She took a moment to gather herself. “Did you find anything in there?”

  He stood and grabbed the backpack. “Christmas came early this year.” He removed a mess of papers from the backpack, waving them emphatically. “I think we may have hit the jackpot.”

  “What have you got?”

  “For starters, we got letters from someone named Claudia in Germany. Looks like our man Jacobs was German. I don’t suppose you know any Deutsch, do you?”

  “Any what?”

  “Never mind. I’ve got some photographs and some other documents out of his garage. I don’t know what they are or if they can help us, but they’re interesting. C’mon, get away from the curtains and get over here.”

  He pulled the manila envelope from his backpack and put it aside. Alex joined him, and the two of them focused on the letters.

  “Looks like we’ve got two solid contacts,” Nick said. “Otto and Claudia. Claudia intrigues me the most. She addresses Jacobs as Mein Liebling. Mein I know is ‘my’—what’s Liebling?”

  “No idea. What kind of dates do we have here?”

  They both shuffled through their small piles. Nick waved one triumphantly.

  “This one’s June 5th of last year. Fifteen months ago! We’ve got a return address in Germany. Schönes Luft, Bernauerstrasse 445, D-8340 Berchtesgaden.” He looked at her. “Who do we have for a translator around here?”

  “I’ve got somebody downtown,” said Alex.

  “We’ll call them at dawn.” Nick began to pace about the room and continued to speak, as much to himself as to his partner. “We fax these letters to the translator at daybreak. We have them completely translated and dissected. If it looks good, I’m on a plane to Germany to meet Claudia.”

  “Not a cheap flight,” commented Alex. “How are we doing on money?”

  “We’re set. I just had Rose transfer twenty thousand from the line of credit to our business account. We’ve got another thirty grand on top of that if we need it.” He cast his eyes about the room. “Where’s your atlas?”

  “Up in my office. I’ll get it.”

  Alex bounded up the stairs and came back down again almost immediately, carrying the large book. Nick took it from her and thumbed through the pages to the map of Germany. He ran his finger down it.

  “Berchtesgaden is in the state of Bavaria in southern Germany. Salzburg, Austria, looks like the nearest airport.” He reached for the phone. “Yes, I’d like to know if you have any flights available to Salzburg, Austria. The sooner the better. I’ll hold. . ..”

  Alex was looking at the photographs. Nick placed the phone down and clenched his fist.

  “There’s a flight to Frankfurt, Germany, out of JFK tomorrow. From Frankfurt I’ll catch another flight to Salzburg. I’m all set.”

  “I’m going too, right?”

  “What do you mean? I need you here, Alex. If Claudia gives me names of relatives, I’ll be passing on the information to you. You may be making the approach.”

  She put her hands to her hips. “You’re doing all the good stuff and I’m stuck here being your little errand girl.”

  “Alex, are you listening to me? I said you may be approaching the heirs. What more do you want? Don’t give me a bad time here.”

  She slowly turned back to the photos. “Where did you find these pictures?”

  “Under the floorboards in his bedroom.”

  “What? Under the floorboards?”

  “Believe it or not. There was this . . . compartment hidden under his bedroom floor. Found it by luck. I’m telling you, this old guy was a lot craftier than we’ve been giving him credit for.” He took several of the pictures and glanced them over. “These photos are strange.”

  “They look like surveillance photos,” said Alex.

  Nick studied them and saw that that was exactly what they looked like. They were high-quality color snapshots of half a dozen men in suits. They were congregating by two large cars and talking in small groups. The setting was parklike, with trees and shrubbery in the background.

  “Some of these people look familiar,” commented Alex.

  “Not to me they don’t,” replied Nick. “Which ones are you looking at?”

  Alex pointed at one of the faces. It was a youthful, skinny face, serious eyes behind black-rimmed glasses. He seemed to be glaring directly into the lens.

  “Doesn’t he look familiar? Kind of?”

  Nick stared hard but didn’t recognize him. He put the pictures down on the table and shrugged.

  “Nobody I’ve ever seen.”

  Alex’s eyes suddenly widened. “Oh my God, Nick-look at this one.”

  She gave him another picture. It was the same group of people, but this time a withered old man stood in the middle of them. He was stooped and the only man not wearing a suit.

  “Where’s our file photo?” asked Nick quickly.

  Alex handed it to him. Nick compared the coroner’s photo with the new photos. There was no doubt in his mind.

  “It’s Jacobs, all right. He must have hired someone to snap these photos. Why, though? These men don’t seem to be doing much.”

  “It’s not what they’re doing that’s important,” said Alex. “It’s who they are. These people are obviously important to Jacobs in some way. Hmm . . .” She studied the back of one of the pictures and offered it to him. “This is sweet. Look.”

  The photo was an enlarged face shot of the skinny man Alex had just pointed out. Jacobs was standing next to him. On the back, in smeared black ink, someone had printed Cut Taylor’s throat!

  “Lovely sentiments,” commented Nick.

  “What’s that all about?” Alex asked, looking a bit chilled.

  Nick
shook his head helplessly and then began sliding the photos back into the envelope.

  “Let’s not waste time on these right now. We know Jacobs was nuts, probably paranoid as hell. Let’s just concentrate on this lady in Germany. I think she’s our family link.”

  Alex was looking over the greeting card from Geneva.

  “This Otto character is a friend of Jacobs.”

  “We’ll be checking him out too.”

  “I can’t believe you found all this.”

  “That ain’t all either.” He handed Alex the three small passport photos. “Something else I came across . . .”

  “Monica 1935,” she read. “Sister maybe?”

  “I’m optimistic.”

  “Anything else?”

  He shook his head, then stiffened. “Damn! I just remembered.” He reached for the tiny tape in his pocket.

  “Is that—”

  “Yes, it is. Where’s your little tape player?”

  Nick followed her upstairs into the office. She found the recorder and inserted the tape. Nick took a seat as she pressed play.

  Beep. . . click . . . bzzzzzz . . . beep . . . click . . . bzzzzzz . . . beep . . . click . . . bzzzzzz . . .

  A dozen times, the pattern.

  “Somebody didn’t want his voice taped,” commented Alex.

  “Makes you wonder if—”

  The sound of a voice silenced Nick. It was a male voice, a bland monotone.

  “Mr. Jacobs, we have a message from Taylor . . . we’re coming to see you. . ..” Click . . . bzzzzzz . . .

  Nick was about to comment when another male voice came through.

  “Yeah, Jacobs—it’s Demello . . . I need you to gimme a call today . . . it’s important . . . call me . . .” Click . . . bzzzzzz . . .

  “What do you think?” asked Nick.

  “I think they’re up to no good,” replied Alex. “The way they talk. Short, unrevealing sentences. They’re being careful what they say because they know they’re being taped.”

  “I think so too. It’s—”

  Another message interrupted him. This time the voice was quick and agitated. A rough tone—a voice from the streets.

  “Yeah, Jacobs—it’s Demello . . . pick up the phone . . . don’t play around, old man . . . call me back or I’ll be at your goddamn doorstep. . ..”Click.

  “Same guy,” said Nick. “And he’s pissed this time.”

  The tape ran out after half a dozen more hang-ups and clicked itself off.

  “Two dozen hang-ups, three messages,” said Alex thoughtfully. “Jacobs had some people upset with him. That Demello guy especially.”

  “And once again we have Taylor. Jacobs took pictures of him for some reason, and now we have him calling the old man.”

  “These messages are scary,” Alex said. “I wonder about this bathtub accident, Nick.”

  Nick slowly nodded. He rubbed his chin and thought for a few seconds. “Let’s say that Taylor or Demello bumped off Jacobs. Would they be dumb enough to leave their names on his home answering machine?”

  “Demello doesn’t sound like an Ivy Leaguer to me.”

  “True, but Taylor’s caller sounds smarter to me, kind of refined. I wonder if . . .” He bit a fingernail for a moment, then waved his hand in the air. “This is all very interesting, but all I’m concerned with right now is Claudia.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s late. I’ve got a long flight ahead of me. I need to close my eyes for a little while before morning.”

  “It is morning.”

  Nick took the tape player and headed for his room. His eyes stung, and his ankle ached from hopping the fences. He reached the bed and spread out on his back. Alex appeared in the doorway.

  “I really need some sleep, Alex.”

  “We didn’t talk about these yet.”

  She was waving the bank documents he had found in the garage. His head fell back to the pillow.

  “I pulled those from his garage. I think they’re bank statements.”

  “They’re more than that,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “You know what these are? Authorization letters. Swiss bank accounts, Nick. Ownership certificates.” She looked at him quickly. “Jacobs might have another twenty-two million over in Switzerland.”

  “And it doesn’t mean a damn thing unless we find heirs.”

  Alex was paging through them rapidly. “Every one of these has the name Ludwig Holtzmann on them. Maybe Jacobs is Ludwig Holtzmann.”

  Nick sat up. He took a small stack from her and scanned through it. “There’s a bunch of other names listed too, though.”

  Alex kept turning pages. “But Holtzmann is the only name I see on all of them. Jacobs has to be Holtzmann, Nick.”

  Nick lay back down on the bed. “Could be, but we’ll need more than that to go on. There must be hundreds of Holtzmanns in the database. No—we need to check this woman out in Germany. That’s the next step.”

  He draped a rolled-up T-shirt over his eyes. Alex crossed her arms on her chest.

  “You’re crazy if you think you’ll actually be able to sleep.”

  “Not with you blabbing in my ear.”

  “When are you going to call Doug?”

  “In the morning. Now beat it.”

  “Nighty-night, grouchy.”

  She closed the door behind her. Nick opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. In his mind he could hear the voices from the tape

  “Call me back or I’ll be at your goddamn doorstep. . ..”

  He thought of the drowning accident in the tub. Was it just an innocent slip of the foot? With the events of that morning, he greatly doubted that now.

  He raised the recorder in his hand and pressed Rewind. He listened to the gadget’s whirling and again thought of the gunman in Jacobs’s home. Adding him to Taylor and Jacobs meant he had three mystery men to ponder now, and he didn’t have the foggiest idea who any of them might be.

  He pressed Play. The battery was weakening, the voice draining away like a dying man.

  “Mr. Jacobs, we have a message from Taylor . . . we’re coming to see you. . ..”

  CHAPTER

  10

  ON THE CORNER of Pine and Broadway in Albany, the man named Kragen held a cup of coffee and watched the early morning pedestrians go about their business. He was operating on maybe four hours’ sleep, and they had been a lousy four hours. He was in a nasty mood over the events of that morning.

  When the limousine eased to the curb in front of him, he ditched the coffee and climbed inside. His contact this time was a familiar face, a pale, skinny man who liked expensive ties and white dress shirts. Something about this tidy little man rubbed Kragen the wrong way. He disliked even sitting next to him, but there were few people whose company he enjoyed.

  “What the hell happened, Kragen?”

  “Take a deep breath, chief. I get nervous when people raise their voices at me.”

  The limo moved into traffic again as they both glared at each other. The smaller man blinked nervously, then lowered his voice.

  “Tell me what your people saw.”

  “They were watching the house,” Kragen explained. “Just like you wanted. About one-fifteen, this guy walks up out of nowhere and goes up to the place. He disappears up the steps and then they hear this noise. Like a crash.”

  “A crash? What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said—a crash. You know, like someone kicking a door in or something.”

  “Somebody broke in?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So what did they do?”

  “They were set to go in after him, but a minute later a cop shows up.”

  “Oh Christ,” said the man, sitting back and rubbing his forehead. “Then what?”

  “The cop walks up to the front door, and then they hear the shot. Took a few seconds to figure out what happened. Turns out this burglar had a gun. Apparently he was waiting for the cop inside. Second the cop reached the front door, he went down.”r />
  The man rolled his eyes in dismay and looked straight ahead. The car moved by Kiernan Plaza, drawing a honk and a shouted curse. The driver, blocked from sight by a darkened divider, didn’t respond.

  “Are you sure about this? How do you know the cop was the one who got shot?”

  “They said they drove by and saw him lying there in the front doorway.”

  “Dead?”

  “Couldn’t tell you.”

  “Did they see the prowler take off?”

  Kragen shook his head. “Must have run out the back. He never came out the front.”

  “Why didn’t they chase him?” demanded the man. “He shoots a cop and they let him just walk away?”

  “My boys weren’t there to play hero, chief. Besides, it’s not like they had a lot of time to think things over. Five minutes after the cop went down, there were squad cars everywhere.”

  The stranger looked distressed by what he was hearing.

  “No one told us this was going to happen,” said Kragen, angry but restrained. “Your friend at the park yesterday morning said there wasn’t going to be any trouble. My men didn’t expect anything but a little surveillance. What’s the deal here?”

  No response came.

  The car was heading south on North Pearl now. Kragen was tired of sitting next to the little man. His head hurt from lack of sleep. Money or not, this guy was hard to take.

  “What time did the break-in occur?” asked the man suddenly.

  “Must have been about one-fifteen.”

  “And the cops showed up right after this burglar broke in?”

  “Couldn’t have been more than five minutes.”

  “So he couldn’t have been inside any more than five minutes—is that what you’re saying?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  The man nodded. He reached forward and rapped on the divider with his pen. The limo eased to a stop at the curb. Kragen could tell his host was upset. He could see little balls of froth at the corners of his mouth.