“Rebecca?”
She puffed out a breath. “What a lovely name. Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca. Who are you? You’re not a racer.”
He admitted he wasn’t. He told her his name and sat opposite her, fascinated by her half-and-half coloring, but trying not to stare like everybody. He added that he was a policeman, hoping it might reassure her.
Her face lit up. “You’ve come to protect her. How wonderful.”
“Does she need protection?”
She nodded sagely. “I saw the gunman. He’s a devil.”
For the next fifteen minutes, he listened as Jasmine explained her fears for Moore’s safety. The girl was truly disconcerting. Part of it was the contrast between her too-wise expression and the childish patter. She couldn’t describe the gunman’s face. Instead she prattled on about devils and spells and her mystic connection to Rebecca, rolling the name over her tongue like a sour ball. She was clearly infatuated with Moore. He couldn’t get a handle on why. He tried the direct approach and asked her.
The girl gave a quick shrug. “Racing must be like flying. High in the sky like a pterosaur.” Her arms shot out, circled like a pilotless plane caught in a crosswind. “I want to race.”
“Rebecca doesn’t.”
“She does. I saw her.”
He remembered the photographs Moore had shown him the night he arrived. In one she was sitting in the race car; in another, she was just taking off the helmet. She’d admitted to circling the Brickyard at one hundred and fifty miles an hour just for a lark. She made it sound like a one-time thing. He should have known better. She probably took it for a spin every time she put a screwdriver to the carburetors. Why was he wasting his time protecting her? She was suicidal.
Jasmine bobbed her head up and down watching him. “I did so see her. And she’s a woman. Like me. And she stands outside the circle. I have adopted her to teach me to race.”
Okay, we have a clear case of feminist hero worship viewed from afar through the eyes of the very young. He started to ask Jasmine why the photographs, why not just introduce herself. Then he considered the girl’s discoloration. He thought it was cute. She might not. Girls tended to be touchy about being different. She caught him staring.
“It’s called vitiligo. It’s incurable.”
Mick returned her stare. “Never heard of it.”
“Most people are ignorant. Show me the photograph, please. That’s why I’m here.”
He fetched the damaged print from the kitchen counter, flipped it picture side up and presented it on the paper towel. Jasmine sighed loudly. She slipped out of the chair and darted toward the gate. He swiveled, ready to stop her if she ran. No need. She only went as far as the patch of leggy Pachysandra. There she retrieved a small knapsack she must have dropped during her aborted escape. It was black and white, cow print. She squatted in the vegetation and unzipped a side pocket. She found what she was looking for and held it aloft for his inspection. It looked like a wafer of black plastic, maybe an inch square.
She bobbed her head with delight. “We’ll take it to Mr. Groen. He’ll fix it.”
Twenty-five
Rebecca called for a cab from the front desk of the hospital. She half-sat on the rim of a concrete planter, waiting for it to arrive. The soil in the planter was littered with cigarette butts. In the center was one struggling yellow mum that no one had bothered to pinch back. A few limp blossoms on thin stalks above yellowed leaves. She never claimed to have a green thumb, but she hated to see cultivated plants being ignored. Why plant them if you’re going to let them die?
It was the same abhorrence she felt about victims in inner city slums. Youths abandoned by city leaders who needed splashier causes to generate funding; ignored by parents with too many troubles of their own. Why did people who couldn’t afford to raise children—either financially or emotionally—do so little to prevent having them? In light of the AIDS epidemic it seemed unimaginable that couples continued to have casual sex without using protection. Pregnancy was one of the most benign things that could happen, if you didn’t care about the resulting child.
As she plucked off a dead leaf a wave of guilt washed over her. Her parents, the ones she never knew, weren’t married when they’d conceived her, yet they stayed together. Given the times, they probably considered themselves free spirits who didn’t need a formal ceremony, or society’s recognition. The truth might have been that they were two near-strangers trapped by the birth of a child and making the best of it. Had they wanted a child? Had they loved her?
She pushed off from the planter, paced the length of the platform. It had been ten minutes since she phoned. How long could it possibly take to get a cab in Indianapolis? Stupid question. It was the Saturday before a major race; the city was bustling.
As she slowed to a stroll her thoughts drifted to the scene upstairs in the hospital room. Peyton had seemed genuinely perplexed as to who his attacker was, or what he wanted. Not money. What else? Why play a tape that your victim can’t understand? Or was Peyton lying about not comprehending German? He admitted to selective words: mother, father, the name Kauffman. Then there was the word beginning coro—corroded, coronation, Coronardo, Corona beer, what? Was it the start of a German word? Did it relate to the preceding mention of a painting? Maybe it wasn’t part of a word, but a whole one and he’d been trying to say Corot, as in the artist? That was almost too easy.
She leaned against the pillar. And what was the tension between father and son? Madison senior entered the room and his son oozed into the mattress, a spineless vegetable. Dad seemed more upset by her presence than by his son’s physical condition.
Too many questions; no answers. And she was too drained to concentrate.
Cursing Hagan, she pulled out the phone to call the cab company again. It rang as she flipped it open. She and Frank said hello at the same time.
“Frank, is that you? Is everything all right?”
“There a reason it shouldn’t be?”
“You don’t often call. Where are you?”
“Feeding your cats. What you think I’m doing, stealing laundry detergent?”
Frank Lewes had been the head mechanic at Vintage & Classics for two decades, starting a week after he was released from prison. For almost the entire time he pretended to dislike whatever stray cat Uncle Walt had taken in, and there had been a string of them. It was a bogus act that fooled no one. When Billy Lee joined the staff with his Doberman, Maurice was moved from the shop to the house. Frank missed the darned cat so much he often snuck up the hill during lunch hour to play with him and the rambunctious kitten.
She swore she could hear Mo purring in the background. “Why isn’t Jo taking care of the cats?”
“You’d know if you ever returned phone calls like folks expect. You do that, I wouldn’t have to track you down.”
“What phone calls?”
Apparently, Jo had called all over that morning hunting for her. He claimed to have left a message with Hagan. Chalk up another one he hadn’t given her. Hagan could have forgotten—he was doing that a lot lately. Or he could have done it intentionally, a petty attempt to thwart her relationship with Jo.
Frank ended his harangue by saying she could reach her lawyer on his new cell phone, which she would know about if she had bothered to check in earlier. He recited the number. She started to thank him, but he wasn’t finished with her.
“In case you’re interested, Val and Juanita have set a date for the wedding. You remember them? Val works for you, short blond kid, drives a motorcycle. Juanita’s the slip of a girl used to live in the house with you, the runaway your uncle took in. Collects New Age music. For some peculiar reason, they’d like you to be at the church service. You might want to call and congratulate them, if you have the time. And you got a new customer arriving next week, who expects to meet you in person.”
Her cheeks were burning when she hung up. It was a toss-up as to whether Frank or Jo was more annoyed with her for leaving town. N
either one was about to overlook the infraction.
She leaned against the cooling concrete, stared at the scribbled phone number as if it were in code. Jo had said nothing about buying a cell phone. If possible, he’d communicate via letters sealed with wax and sent by carrier pigeon. What was going on? She bit at her lip. I’m losing touch with Jo when I don’t mean to.
As opposed to not communicating with her family, which was intentional. She folded Jo’s number and put it away. She would call him later when there would be time for a long talk. Right now, she needed to speak with her grandmother.
When Peyton Madison had begged her to help, she hadn’t promised. She wasn’t sure he deserved it. Nor did she want to become more embroiled with his stalker. But the clues he’d revealed were tantalizing—a tape in German, a man named Heinrich Kauffman, and maybe a painting by Corot. Dorothea Wetherly knew more about art than most gallery owners. If there was a link connecting the German with the French painting, she would know. Or find someone who did. And, she’d be thrilled to do it.
Twenty-six
Jo slammed the door of his car and leaned against it, easing the muscles in his neck. He’d driven to Dorothea Wetherly’s home on Maryland’s eastern shore directly from landing at National. The trip to Bryantown had involved jousting through erratic traffic on Route 50, then merging with hordes of day-trippers clogging the bridge leaving Annapolis. If he could afford it, and rationalize the extravagance, he’d sell his car and use a livery service. The highways were increasingly jammed with SUVs, pickup trucks and minivans. The bullies of the world were winning. There was little respect anymore for finesse and style. That made Rebecca, zipping along in a battered MG, all the more remarkable. He was thankful that she was nimble and quick enough to get out of the way.
The destination, however, was worth the trip. The early-nineteenth-century home was as stately as the old woman’s bearing. Ancient magnolias, with branches so heavy they had to be supported by braces, stood between the house and the lapping waters of the Wye River. Late-blooming roses surrounded a brass sundial set on a pedestal beside the front walk. The lawns bordering the right wing of the house were tiered; the lowest level displayed herbs arranged symmetrically in a cloverleaf pattern of green and gold sprigs amid silver artemisia.
Dorothea Wetherly opened the thick door herself, smiled as he crossed the porch to greet her. She seemed younger than when they’d first met. Having found her granddaughter she was letting go of her self-hatred, one memory at a time. He was pleased for her. He’d be more pleased once Rebecca accepted the situation.
They were sipping sherry in the day room when the phone rang. Without inquiring, Talmadge handed the receiver over to his employer. The lines of her face turned upward with pleasure. She mouthed, It’s Rebecca.
Jo shook his head frantically. He did not want Rebecca to know he was there, meddling in her affairs for the second time that day. Still, he tried to eavesdrop. What he could hear sounded like ordinary chitchat.
When Dorothea hung up, she was frowning. “Counselor, did I ever confess that I don’t much like women? In my day they were either dyspeptically weak and simpering, or nasty and underhanded. Rebecca is neither. She’s very direct and inquisitive.” She tapped a fingernail against the thin bowl of a stemmed glass to get Talmadge’s attention. He went to the sideboard.
Jo leaned forward. “Are you going to expound on that comment?
“She asked about my day.”
“And?”
“My day included lunch and a dreadful art exhibit with Marlene Kauffman. Before I could describe the wretched cubist landscapes, Rebecca blurted out, ‘Any chance she’s related to Heinrich Kauffman?’ What a queer thing to say.”
Dorothea took a sip from the replenished glass, held it tilted at the same angle as her head, lost in her thoughts.
Jo stood the silence as long as he could. “Is she? Related to Heinrich Kauffman?”
“Who’d want to be related to Marlene? Though, as I told Rebecca, I do know of a Heinrich Kauffman from a long time ago. Not likely it’s the same person.”
She picked at a strand of white hair, yanking it back from her cheek. “The Heinrich Kauffman I recall was a prosperous German scientist who had disappeared after the end of the Second World War. He wasn’t the only one. At the time, scads of missing Germans were wanted for questioning about missing works of art. Leon served on several committees or commissions, or whatever they called themselves, trying to locate valuables that had been stolen from Jewish families. You know, of course, about the ERR?”
Jo admitted his ignorance, settled back in his chair, ready to be enlightened. Leon Wetherly had been an art dealer of international fame from the nineteen-forties through the seventies. Dorothea had traveled with him, shared his love of quality paintings and had herself become an art authority. She clearly knew more about misplaced German art than Jo would ever care to know. This was his chance to learn.
ERR, the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, was an operation headed by and named for Alfred Rosenberg. It was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler. A frustrated painter, Hitler planned to make his home town of Linz, Germany, the artistic centerpiece of the world. To achieve that, he tasked Rosenberg with acquiring Old Masters from Jews in the Netherlands, France and Austria. Hitler preferred Dutch or Italian and certain prized German paintings. Modern art, which he considered degenerate, was also to be confiscated, to be traded for better pieces.
“Rosenberg was given full license, you understand. Some pieces he acquired by forced purchase. Some he simply took when they were abandoned by families fleeing their homes. Others were, what was that silly term? Oh, yes: Aryanized. Sounds like it should come in an aerosol can for use in the bathroom, doesn’t it? Only it wasn’t anything sanitary.” Her foot bounced, the pace increasing with her agitation. Like Rebecca, even seated, she couldn’t stay still.
Aryanization was the practice of Jews being forced to sell their valuables to approved Gentile families. It began around 1939, when the Nazis were first exerting their power. Jews, denounced as inferior, were not permitted to own fine works of art. Some families agreed to sell their treasures in the hopes that later they could retrieve the property. Those families were as naive as they were optimistic. For most of them, there would be no later.
“Heinrich Kauffman was known to have Aryanized art for several families in the area south of Stuttgart. Though it seems to me it was sometime later, maybe in the mid-fifties, that he made the newspapers.”
“Why?”
“The usual reason. He and the artwork he’d acquired had vanished.”
“Interesting.” Joe stretched as he stood. “But what possible connection could Rebecca have with that man.”
It was then that Dorothea told him about the attack on Rebecca’s boss, his torture and the scratchy tape in German. She was surprised that Jo didn’t know about it, until she remembered that he’d been traveling. She nodded toward his briefcase. “Did you bring me a present from Boston?”
He smiled. “We’ll share it over dinner. Right now I want to know what Rebecca is up to.” He crossed behind her. “So, I repeat: Is there any reason to suspect that her boss was referring to that Heinrich Kauffman?”
Dorothea shrugged. “Rebecca’s mind seems to work like mine. She strings things together with the flimsiest of threads, which often hold. Peyton described the tape as old. The speakers on it were German and repeatedly mentioned Heinrich Kauffman. I know of a World War Two scoundrel from Stuttgart named the same. So the idea that they are connected is not impossible—to Rebecca. Plus, there could be an art angle. Where are you?”
She craned her neck backwards to find him. “Rebecca overheard a guest at the party last evening tease Peyton about a wager, saying that if he lost he could always sell his art. And, if I let my imagination run amok—which Talmadge cautions me against doing—I can throw something else in the pot. What does Corot mean to you?”
He bent close to her ear. “Jean Baptiste Camille Coro
t—that Corot?”
Dorothea laughed. “You’ve been very well educated.”
The sentence ended with an upward lilt. He assumed it was a subtle probe, an invitation to disclose more of his past. Or, she could have been expressing her disbelief that a mixed-race refugee from the islands had been educated in the gentler arts. Would it matter to her if he came from nothing and had worked his way up? Or would she prefer her granddaughter’s lawyer to have sterling-silver place settings in his past?
She waved away his nonresponse. “Rebecca’s not certain what Peyton was trying to say. He bit off their conversation abruptly when his father appeared. The last word, or partial word, sounded like coro. After forty years of listening to Leon, my mind leapt effortlessly to the French painter. That, and of course, I own one.”
“You own a Corot?”
“A tiny thing, an anniversary gift from my husband. A sketch of frolicking nymphs for the Idylle. He did not steal it from a doomed Jewish family. I promised Rebecca I would quiz my friends, ask a few questions. It could be fun tracking down an odious felon after all these years. Care to help?”
Twenty-seven
The black square, Jasmine explained with much eye rolling, was an xD card from her digital camera. It contained all of her recent photographs. It had a billion, gazillion gigabytes. Mr. Groen, Sammy to his friends, would make a print to replace the ruined one. Then Mickey could see the gunman.
Mick cringed at the epithet, but agreed that developing another copy of the lost photograph was a good idea. They flipped an acorn to see whether they would go by bike—Jasmine riding hers; Mickey walking behind—or by car. Having never flipped an acorn before, it was difficult to discern whether it landed heads or tails. He took her word for it that it came up tails when she announced that he could drive her. Before they left, Jasmine asked if there were any peanuts for Fred. Mick had no idea who Fred was, but he knew there was no edible junk food of any variety in the house. He promised they would buy peanuts on the way back.
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