The Zurich Conspiracy

by Calonego, Bernadette

Three days later Josefa wasn’t so sure if it was a good idea to remind her former team member about the earring. On December twenty-second, her birthday, she went to the mailbox to get her mail. Not that she was expecting any congratulations; nobody gave a thought to anybody’s birthday three days before Christmas. And it was the same this time too: no cards, no packages, no gifts. The little girl in her could have wept. Josefa didn’t even know who she was going to spend Christmas with. She had organized a dozen Christmas banquets, but she hadn’t been invited to one herself. She had no desire to see her father and his wife, and Helene had flown off to be with her boyfriend in Canada for a few days. Paul Klingler’s “Christmas party” wasn’t until the middle of January because his company was too busy before the holidays. So Josefa buried herself in work—at least she had plenty of that—and in a plan to rent at least four videos over the holidays.

  The doorbell rang at four in the afternoon. She looked through the peephole expecting to see Sali’s bright face and saw a tangle of green instead. Flowers! When she opened the door, the delivery man from the flower shop presented her with a giant bouquet and a small package with a card. Josefa gave him a healthy tip and eagerly read the note.

  I have wanted to thank you for so long for the great times we had together. I miss you and hope that life will treat you with all the best.

  Lots of love,

  Joan

  Josefa had to take a seat. Joan Caroll, of all people, remembered my birthday! When Josefa quit Loyn, she’d notified Joan’s agent that she was leaving. But Joan had never called back. And now this.

  Josefa opened the little package with trembling hands. It was almost as small as Sebastian Sauter’s gift. She opened the lid, and what she saw just about took her breath away: two earrings on white satin. Rubies in the shape of flower petals set in gold. Each had a transparent stone in the center. A diamond-like teardrop was dangling from it.

  Pamela Hartwell’s earrings.

  Christmas. The telephone interrupted her in the middle of Fargo.

  It was Markus, calling from London. “We’re playing a club here. A real good gig, it’ll keep me alive at least to the end of February.”

  Christmas in a jazz cellar. Not much celebrating there either.

  “I wanted to wish you all the best for your birthday,” he continued. “How old are you now anyway?”

  “Six years older than you,” Josefa shot back.

  “Touché. Hey, I’ve got a hot bit of news for you. Apparently Hans-Rudolf Walther was seen here a few months ago in a gay bar. A friend named Pierre was visiting from Switzerland and he told me.”

  “Oh, those are just nasty rumors, the usual gossip around the scene,” she replied. “Walther’s been married twice.”

  “As if that means anything, Josefa, you can’t be that naïve!” Markus sounded crushed. “But you don’t have to believe it. I just thought it would amuse you.”

  “We are not amused,” Josefa said, imitating the Queen of England. And deep down, she did not think it funny at all. At the moment she didn’t want to hear another word about Loyn. Nothing that she couldn’t explain and pigeonhole. But Markus didn’t have a clue about the turmoil Josefa had been experiencing lately. He lived in a completely different world.

  After hanging up, she made some popcorn, adding butter and salt to the little white-and-yellow puffs before returning to the sofa. Walther in a gay bar. How interesting. Did the cops know? If it were all true, then he could be blackmailed; he’d be on the defensive. Then he’d come crawling to her: “Frau-Rehmer-I’ve-made-a-huge-mistake,” and she’d answer: “Unfortunately-this-comes-too-late-for-me-Herr-Walther.” His picture would be all over the newspapers: “Well-known Swiss Businessman Outed.” He might have to retire from Loyn’s management. Whipped, destroyed, crushed. Just what he’d done to others—

  The phone rang again. This time she let the answering machine take it.

  “Hi, Josefa, this is Claire. It looks like you’re not home. I wanted to let you know that I’m still alive before I go off for a few days. We close over the holidays, but you know that of course. I’ve been stressed out for seventeen hours a day, but things are going well. No sense in panicking. We’ve got everything under control. We’ve got to find Bourdin’s replacement as fast as possible, and I think we will. I hope you’ll have a quiet time over the holidays, and we’ll certainly have a talk soon. All the best for the New Year.”

  Josefa refused to pick up the receiver. She didn’t want Claire to think of her as a poor soul in a vale of tears. Besides, she couldn’t stand her busy, excited chatter at the moment. Claire had never asked her if she wanted to come back to Loyn, even out of pure politeness. Out of sight, out of mind, that’s how fast things move. But what did she expect? Claire didn’t need her anymore, and neither did Loyn.

  I’m a female pariah, outcast and alone. That’s how I’ll live, that’s my fate, Josefa thought, taking a certain satisfaction in her wretchedness.

  Josefa had just gotten back to the movie when she was interrupted yet again, this time by the doorbell. Josefa looked at her watch: half past nine. Who could it be? Hopefully not the Albanian family; they’d be shocked by her casual clothes. She tiptoed over to the door and peeked through the peephole.

  Josefa opened the door. Her neighbor had on her little black dress. A gold ring held her dark hair back. “I heard you come home and thought I might share this with you,” Esther said, holding a cake in her hand. Josefa saw whipped cream and vanilla sauce and cone-shaped biscuits and capitulated. A St. Honoré cake!

  “Come in,” Josefa exclaimed. “I’ve got a cold bottle of Sekt.”

  They sat down on the sofa with plates, forks, and glasses—two lonesome souls on Christmas Eve. Apparently Josefa wasn’t the only one with worries; Esther confided that her last dance gig had been eight months ago.

  “I’m getting older, and it’s harder and harder to get into a permanent troupe.”

  “Have you any savings?” Josefa asked.

  “Savings? What are you thinking! In my job you earn next to nothing.”

  “And what are you doing now?”

  “I’m living off unemployment insurance. And I keep looking.” Esther emptied her glass in two gulps. “And I do forbidden things. Things I’ve never dared to do before because I was afraid I’d get hurt.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Skating, for example. This week I was on the rink at the Dolder.” She bit so hard into the piece of cake that cream spurted out the sides. “And who do you think I saw there?” She looked at Josefa in triumph. “The detective.”

  “What detective.”

  “The one you were with at the zoo.”

  Sebastian Sauter. The lone champion of the good cause. But of which cause? What crime was he investigating?

  For three evenings she’d done laps around the Dolder ice rink, and there was still no sign of the rusty-red ski jacket Esther had described. Maybe Sebastian Sauter didn’t come here regularly. Josefa felt ancient among all the girls and boys. A tall blonde, her hair blowing behind her, was skating just ahead. She obviously had great fun shaking off her admirers with daring caprioles. But it wasn’t long before her persecutors were snapping at her heels once again.

  Josefa’s feet were tired. She decided to take a break and have a hot chocolate. She glided over to the exit, where a young man was just putting a foot on the ice.

  “Hi, Josefa,” someone called to her. She had to look twice before she recognized him under his colorful knitted cap.

  “Hey, Joe,” she replied with a grin. “You surf on the Web and on the ice too?” She held on tightly to the rail, thinking that Joe looked like a Nepalese Sherpa in that hat.

  “Never thought I’d meet you up here,” was his rejoinder. “But it’s perfect timing. I was about to e-mail you anyway. Because of that business…”

  Josefa had repressed “that business” with a mighty effort the past few weeks. The unknown e-mailer hadn’t sent one of his disturbing
messages for some time. But remarkably, Josefa found the sudden silence just as scary.

  “Were you able to find out anything?” she asked reluctantly.

  “Yes and no.” Joe tried to scratch his head, unsuccessfully, given his gloves and hat. “The only thing I can safely say is that one sentence was a quotation from an English writer, Oscar Wilde. My friend Jack in England told me.”

  “Oscar Wilde?”

  “Yes, but it refers to men, not women.”

  “So it’s a quotation, a well-known quotation.”

  Joe nodded. “And Jack says a couple of the other messages sounded like quotations too.”

  “That’s really interesting,” Josefa muttered.

  Joe seemed happy about her reaction. “Are you going home already?” he asked.

  “I really wanted to…” she began, but then a distinctive cap caught her eye. Like hell it was a rusty-red ski jacket—Sebastian Sauter’s ski outfit was dark blue. “…go around one more time,” she finished her sentence.

  “Thanks, you helped me a lot,” she called to Joe. “You’ve got a good bottle of wine coming,” she promised before gliding away.

  “Make that vodka,” she could still hear him say.

  Josefa went on the trail of the dark blue skater, who was maneuvering rather shakily over the ice. “There’s something familiar about you,” she said when she caught up to him.

  Sebastian Sauter was so surprised he made an unintended turn and almost lost his balance. “Yes, I know, the skates.”

  “The skates?”

  “Yes, you’ve got some too.”

  Josefa laughed. Not bad for a detective, she thought.

  “Come this way, we’re holding up people around us.” He took her by the sleeve and skated with her over to the rail. “And how long have you been admiring my clumsy attempts at slipping and sliding?” he asked, fishing out his handkerchief.

  “I saw you just this minute,” Josefa confessed. “Are you going for the national championship?”

  Sauter blew his nose. “My son wants to play hockey with me so I’ve got to practice a bit. I don’t want him to lose respect for me.” His expression changed into a questioning one. “And what are you doing here? I’ve never seen you at the rink.”

  She didn’t answer but suggested they go to the cafeteria instead.

  Josefa blew over her hot chocolate for a while and then finally screwed up her courage enough to ask Sauter something that had been bothering her for a long time. “Tell me, Herr Sauter, what section do you in fact work in at the police department?”

  Josefa used the eternity it took him to answer to examine this man a little more closely. The top of his ski suit was folded down so that she could see his broad shoulders—and the start of a little paunch, as he sat across from her, slowly stirring his pitch-black coffee. At last he said, “I thought you’d ask me that someday.”

  “That’s a very vague answer, if I may say so.”

  “You’re right there,” he remarked, turning very serious. “I’m with Criminal Investigation but get involved with burglary in exceptional cases. Right now I’m working with the feds on a political crime.”

  “Do you mean to say the break-in at Esther Ardelius’s was a political crime?” Josefa’s hands suddenly felt cold despite the warm cup she was holding.

  “There was suspicion that it might have something to do with a political crime. Frau Ardelius was probably not the burglar’s intended victim.”

  “Who was, then? Maybe me?” Josefa was getting nervous.

  “No, not you. Somebody else.”

  Josefa stared at him inquisitively. Sauter met her gaze. “Don’t you read the papers, Frau Rehmer? About foreign political factions bringing their wars to Switzerland when they come here?”

  “So it’s the people below me? Sali’s parents?”

  “They’re not his parents, they’re his aunt and uncle. Sali’s parents are dead. Murdered.”

  “Good God!” Josefa put down her cup. “Who murdered them? And why?”

  “Do you remember that attack on a restaurant in the Fourth District? Hand grenades were tossed into it? Sali’s parents were in the restaurant. It was a favorite meeting place for Kosovo Albanians.”

  “That’s unbelievable! And who did it?”

  “We have our suspicions, but that’s all I can say. Political factions fight in the Balkans and here too. Sali’s parents and some of their friends were targeted because rival ethnic groups were settling scores.”

  Josefa recalled hearing about the terrible incident. Militant Serbian immigrants were said to have carried out the attack at the time.

  Sauter continued without taking his eyes off her, “We want to know if more people are in danger. The boy’s aunt and uncle, for instance—and maybe Sali too. That’s why we’ve been monitoring the building for a while.”

  “Monitoring? What does that mean?”

  “There’s a hotel across the street. That’s made it easier, but unfortunately I can’t say anything more than that.”

  Josefa took a deep breath. “Then you know all my habits, my visitors—half my life.” She was upset.

  “No, it’s not that bad. We only monitor suspicious persons.”

  “And who’s been following me all this time? They were your people, or weren’t they?”

  “No, they were protecting Sali, people from his uncle’s party. They probably wanted to be sure that the boy isn’t in any danger. They’re just very distrustful.”

  Josefa froze. “Or contract killers,” she said sarcastically.

  Sauter stretched his back. “We do our best to keep Switzerland safe for everybody. Unfortunately our world is no paradise, and we must learn to live with that.” He put a hand on her arm but immediately withdrew it, as if he’d changed his mind about something. Josefa stared off into space.

  Sauter cleared his throat. “Sali’s relatives place an extraordinary amount of trust in you, Frau Rehmer, in spite of everything.”

  “Trust? When I’m being shadowed? That’s a laugh.”

  “They’ve trusted you with their little boy—a person they barely know, a woman from a completely different culture.” Sauter stopped for a moment. “In my book, that’s practically a minor miracle.”

  Josefa raised her eyebrows. “Indeed. Me, of all people, who thinks headscarves are dumb and pashas ridiculous.”

  “We have our pashas too,” Sauter said.

  His words did not miss their mark. “And you…Do you think I’m trustworthy, like Sali’s par—like Sali’s relatives do?” Josefa inquired.

  He looked at her squarely with his narrow, gray eyes. “I trust you not to pass on what I’ve told you.”

  “I’m not able to bear so great an honor,” she exclaimed but did not look away until Sauter got up.

  “I think you can bear a heck of a lot.” He slipped into the sleeves of his ski suit.

  Josefa stayed seated. She took another drink, but the chocolate tasted bitter now. Was he thinking of the maelstrom at Loyn when he said that? That subject, she knew, was taboo between them. A detective would never talk about an ongoing investigation, even if his colleagues were carrying it out and not him. Besides—the lower her profile in this business, the better. There were things she dearly wanted to know, to be sure, but she kept herself in check. Instead she said, “Sali has never spoken about his parents. I wonder if he knows if they’re dead or how they died.”

  “Better leave that to his relatives. You already know too much as it is, Frau Rehmer.”

  Josefa went right on talking as if she hadn’t heard him. “Sali only talks about his skis. I mean, about the skis he did not get for Christmas. Everybody else in his class got them.”

  “My son’s got two pairs of new skis and never feels like skiing. He only wants to play hockey.”

  “Why two pairs?”

  “A mix-up. One of many between me and my ex, me…and other people.”

  Josefa was afraid he’d tell her a whole divorcé’s tale
of woe, but Sauter simply said, “I dare you to go back on the ice.” He was standing before her completely dressed now, his cap on his prominent skull.

  “I dare you,” Josefa shot back.

  He just grinned.

  The sun was melting the last vestiges of snow in places where there had been some shade. Swampy puddles lurked in ambush everywhere. A car whizzed by and sprayed dirty water all over Josefa and her new, light-blue winter coat. That was her punishment for daring to wear a color like that in this weather. She cursed loudly at the departing driver.

  Josefa was in a fighting mood even before this affront. A woman cannot be careful enough in the choice of her enemies. She’d printed out the whole batch of the anonymous e-mails; they were even more depressing on paper than in electronic form. A woman can also use her enemies to serve her own purposes, she thought to herself.

  She decided to pay her father a visit. Verena’s house—it was still hers alone, in Josefa’s eyes—exuded a proud sedateness as always. Those walls had lasted for three hundred years; you could literally breathe in the past in its grand rooms. Verena put a glass of water on the kitchen table every night. “Each wandering soul must know that it is welcome at our place,” she once explained to Josefa, which was sufficient evidence not to ever take her stepmother too seriously.

  There was no glass of water on the table this afternoon, although Verena was entertaining a poor soul. “May I introduce you?” she said as she took Josefa into the little parlor. “This is Anita Schulmann.” His mother.

  Frau Schulmann had a surprisingly strong handshake. “Pleased to meet you,” she said in a loud voice. She was much younger than Josefa would have suspected, perhaps midforties. Her hair was dyed red. What are you supposed to say at a moment like this? My condolences? Or, I’m very sorry for you? Josefa could never have gotten those words out. But Anita Schulmann saved the day. “Verena is an old friend of mine; she has surely told you that, hasn’t she? She is so good to me. I could hardly have made it through these last few weeks without her.” Verena squeezed her friend’s hand reassuringly.