by Medora Sale
If the woman in the trust company where her mother had set up an account for her was surprised at a request for $2,500 in cash from a girl in tattered jeans and a sweater that clearly didn’t belong to her, she was too inured to surprises to let it show. Veronika took the pile of brightly coloured bills and shoved them carelessly in a lump in her pocket, unable to overcome her sense that it was all play money. Not like marks. Marks were real; they bought serious things, like real estate and stocks. Canadian dollars were for splurging on anything you wanted.
“From the skin out,” muttered Nikki as she left the trust company and headed into a small lingerie shop where she scooped up panty hose and panties in a variety of colors and patterns. That was the easy part. Her clothing had always been, as it were, anti-clothing. Her mother, for all her wealth and elegance, bought her clothes from conservative shops in Munich and looked exactly like what she was: a well-dressed, middle-class Bavarian. For years, Veronika had refused to wear anything that looked even faintly like something her mother might buy. In consequence, her closet contained almost nothing but jeans. A new Veronika needed something more than that, but it mustn’t look like Mamma’s clothes, either.
Sanders was sitting in the study face-to-face at last with Clara von Hohenkammer’s lawyer. It had been his first piece of luck that day. When he had arrived on the doorstep that morning, he had found Lohr alone in the house, working quietly on something or other in connection with the estate. Now he folded the flimsy white paper he had been reading and handed it back to Sanders. “Yes,” he said. “This is from me. It is my most recent letter to her.” He smiled affably. “Have you read the rest of our correspondence from this summer?”
Sanders shook his head.
“Then I can understand your confusion, Inspector.” Lohr paused expectantly.
“Maybe you could fill me in, then,” said Sanders impatiently.
Lohr gave him a puzzled look. “Ah, yes. Fill you in. With information, you mean. Yes, of course.” He leaned back in his chair. “I must think a minute. Yes, Clara left Munich on the first of March this year. That was early for her; she did not enjoy Canadian winters. But she intended to stay with friends in Majorca for a month before traveling to Toronto. That would bring her here at her usual time. Normally I would expect to receive one letter from her between the end of March and the middle of October. It would be filled with instructions about her property and investments in Germany and questions of all kinds.” Here he paused again, sorting out his ideas. “These letters were dictated to her secretary— that man Whitelaw—and signed by her after they had been typed. She always added a long and affectionate note in pen to both of us when she signed. That is what she had done the previous four summers that she spent in Canada.” Again he paused. “This summer was different. I received a letter from Toronto even before she was supposed to have left Majorca, which means that her visit to her friends had been cut short for some unexplained reason. That was odd. Then she requested that I sell a certain large block of shares and transfer the money to a new corporate account that she had established here. I was not happy about that, since I felt that these particular shares should not have been sold at that time, but I was not too alarmed. Then I received two letters in June.”
Sanders interrupted him for the first time. “Did you carry out her instructions?”
“Of course. But in my reply I mentioned that I was not sure she was taking the wisest course. But, as I was saying, I received two letters in June, one requesting the sale of a small block of shares and the other asking me to forward an account of her market position at the moment.”
“Did that seem reasonable to you?”
“No.” He shook his head. “She always has kept very close account of what she owned. I also found the letters odd. There were no handwritten notes, no news of the family. It was as though somehow we had offended her.” Lohr frowned. “And then, when I returned from my holiday at the end of August, I discovered a letter that had been written in late July requesting that I sell off several major blocks of shares, representing now the bulk of her liquid holdings in Deutschmarks. I was horrified. Marthe and I decided that perhaps she had fallen into the hands of an unscrupulous lover—although she was a sensible woman, you know, even the most sensible people do bizarre things when they are in love—and he was systematically using up all her funds.”
Something else occurred to Sanders as he listened to Lohr speak. “Could another person have written those letters?” he asked.
Lohr cocked his head. “We thought of that. The letters were unlike her, but the signature was hers. Or looked like hers. We didn’t have it checked. Instead, I wrote that letter, insisting that I come and discuss all this in person. I was afraid, if she had a lover, that he might open my letters, and so I adopted that rather dramatic trick of sending this one in an envelope addressed in her sister’s hand. She liked melodrama; anyway, I believed it would amuse her.” For a moment the lawyer looked humanly upset. “She must have received it shortly before she died. I don’t know what she thought when she read it.”
“I think,” said Sanders thoughtfully, “that must have been when she called her accountant.”
“Indeed,” said Lohr. “Very interesting.” The words were spoken in the tone of one who is used to ending interviews and to having his agenda followed. He stood up, and Sanders followed suit.
Just as Sanders was reaching for the handle of the front door, there were rapid footsteps on the gravel outside, and it flew open. He scowled at the vision in front of him. “Oh, hello, Inspector,” said Klaus Leitner. “My cousin home yet?”
“Doesn’t seem to be,” grunted Sanders.
“Oh, that’s right,” said Klaus, looking at his watch. “She said she was having lunch with Harriet.” Sanders, who had been unsuccessful in his efforts to get in touch with the said Miss Jeffries over the past twenty-four hours, glared at Leitner. “But anyway, I was just about to call you, Inspector. I’ve been at my cousin Theresa’s all morning . . . and . . .”
“Yes, Mr. Leitner?”
“Well, it’s about her husband. Milanovich. He’s gone. And his wife doesn’t know where he is.”
Sanders headed back to the study and reached for the telephone.
Once returned to the haven of his desk, Sanders checked the time and tried to decide if the agony in his stomach was psychic or physical. Just as he had rather pragmatically concluded that it was probably hunger, the telephone rang. He listened intently to the voice at the other end of the line, scribbling notes as he went, until with a final “Thanks” he slammed down the receiver.
“That’s it,” he said. There was triumph in his voice.
“What’s it,” said Dubinsky, sounding even less impressed than usual. “Your horse come in or something?”
“Better than that. That was Tom Gardiner with a message from Volchek. It seems the owner of Rawlinson’s Gold Exchange called in. He’s just been offered a valuable gold ring containing a large emerald and two diamonds in what they call a fantasy setting. Very distinctive.”
“Mrs. Wilkinson’s?” said Dubinsky cautiously.
Sanders nodded. “Sounds like it. They have a security camera by the cash, and they taped the person who brought it in. But after a couple of minutes he got twitchy and ran. Volchek’s on his way over there now.”
“I wonder which one it is?” said Dubinsky.
“Volchek said it sounded like Walker, the one at Mid-City. Get a team to check his alibis. Carefully this time.” Dubinsky scowled and picked up the phone. “And then I’m going for lunch. You coming?”
Carlos was beginning to wish that he hadn’t changed his clothes when the phone call had come. His shoes were pinching his feet, and his tie had taken on a malevolent life of its own, growing tighter and itchier as he darted back and forth, following the goddamned girl from one narrow little shop to another. Without a chance to close in on her, either, not a
fter that impulsive and abortive try at the corner. So far, she had been into almost every women’s clothing store on Bloor Street, and whatever she was looking for didn’t seem to exist. At last, she had wandered into a place that sold mostly Irish tweeds; she had been there for over thirty minutes, and now he was getting nervous.
Veronika looked at herself in the plum-coloured suit and slightly darker silk shirt and smiled. She liked it. The sales clerk held her breath. It was the eighth complete outfit she had put together for this girl. “I’ll take it,” she said.
“The suit?”
“Everything—suit, shirt, belt, scarf.” She stepped into the changing room and began to strip. “And I’ll wear it now,” she added. “Just take the tags off.”
“You wouldn’t have shoes, would you?” asked Veronika a few minutes later as she stepped out of the dressing room in her stocking feet, carrying her brightly coloured cloth purse and Klaus’s sweater.
“I’m afraid not,” said the clerk. “And that came to thirteen hundred and eighty-nine dollars,” she added, handing her the bill.
“Ah,” she said, pulling out her cash and peeling off fourteen hundreds. “And could you put this sweater in a bag for me? The rest of the clothes in there you can throw out. Oh, except my running shoes. I’ll need them to get to a shoe store.”
New shoes and a matching purse took the better part of Veronika’s remaining cash, but not of her time. She had an hour and twenty minutes before she was to meet Harriet, and she was, at the most, ten slow, ambling minutes from the museum. She stood on the sidewalk and looked around her for inspiration.
After a brief and unsatisfactory lunch, Sanders sat at his desk, brooding. Volchek had clearly staked out the matter of Mrs. Wilkinson’s ring. Dubinsky had dispatched a team to deal with the disappearance of one of the key witnesses in the von Hohenkammer case, although Sanders was willing to bet that Milanovich was flying over some ocean or other by now. His current problems must have made foreign travel seem irresistible. In short, Sanders had delegated himself out of legwork. Everything else to be done was going to require perception, enthusiasm, and thought. He looked at his watch. It was getting on to three o’clock. He reached for the phone and checked the motion. He couldn’t face hearing that smug little message one more time. “I’ll be back later,” he said to anyone in the room who cared to listen, and headed out the door.
The third hairdresser whose establishment Veronika von Hohenkammer visited in this little corner of town admitted that he could arrange for her to have her hair washed and dried, and her makeup done, before ten minutes to four. Since it was, after all, a Tuesday, and Tuesdays weren’t that busy. She lay back in the chair, quiet, like an obedient child, and let people do whatever they wanted with her for the next fifty minutes.
Manu stepped off the bus across the street from Mid-City Security Systems and stopped to check the time. Almost three o’clock. He considered what kind of approach was likely to gain him access to Don. Humble friend desperate to see him? He shook his head. Arrogant would-be customer unhappy about an estimate? That was infinitely more promising. But while he was mulling over his approach, circumstance pulled a fast one on him.
Three white-and-blue patrol cars drew up onto the sidewalk in front of the building; six uniformed officers climbed out of the cars. Manu began to stroll along the street away from the bus stop, staring with casual interest at what was happening.
Ten minutes later, as Don Walker was being hustled into one of the patrol cars, Manu left his observation post at the front table of a grubby little café, paid his modest bill, and headed across the street to catch a bus back to the vicinity of his flat.
Once inside the flat, he made a phone call, walked into the kitchen, poured himself a small glass of red wine, and sat down at the table with a pad of paper in front of him. He considered the causes for the alarm he was feeling at the moment and decided that they were sound and real: Carlos was a dangerous fool; Don, a weak, greedy, frightened fool; the fence was on the point of betraying them. He had tried on the bus to reckon up the number of hours that Don would withstand police interrogation and concluded haste was essential. He set down his observations and conclusions in brief, reasoned language, reread them, made a few revisions, reached for a battered copy of the works of Miguel de Unamuno that sat on the shelf, and swiftly cast the letter into a simple code. That done, he showered, shaved, put on a sober business suit, packed one small suitcase, and threw the copy of Unamuno into the briefcase containing the money. From a drawer he took a new passport, slipped it into his inside jacket pocket, picked up the letter, and ran lightly downstairs. Once outside, he turned toward the backyard, where a wiry boy of eleven was practicing indefatigably with a battered soccer ball. He handed him a twenty-dollar bill and the letter, made him repeat the address twice, and watched him head off to deliver his message to the buru. That taken care of, he set off at a brisk pace for the subway and the airport bus.
Completely processed, Veronika glanced at herself in the broad mirror behind the cash desk. She was indeed a new her; so new as to be barely recognizable. She regarded the phenomenon with interest but without emotion or opinion. Tomorrow would be time enough to judge whether she liked the new her or not. The receptionist counted out her change with an automatic smile. “You look marvelous,” she said. “Simply marvelous. I hope you have a good time tonight.” She leaned back and studied the young woman critically. “Actually, Toni didn’t do a bad job on you. Your husband should like it.”
“My husband?” said Veronika, and turned to stare, hard, for the first time at her image in the mirror. It was a shock. Considering the violence of the change in her appearance, she would not have been surprised to discover that both outer and inner self had suffered drastic upgrading. Perhaps she had magically acquired a husband, and even an occupation of some sort. She shook her head, bemused.
“He came by earlier to find out how long you’d be,” she said. “Made me promise I wouldn’t tell you he’d been here. I think he wants to surprise you. I’ll bet you didn’t even know he was downtown, did you?”
Veronika shook her head slowly. “No . . . no, I didn’t.”
“Good-looking, too,” she said. There was disapproval in her voice. Maybe girls who walked around with shaggy hair and shiny faces didn’t deserve to marry handsome men. “You’re lucky.”
Suddenly, Veronika’s brow cleared. Klaus, the seducer of many, in pursuit of his sweater. She smiled. “I suppose he is, if you like the type,” she said. “Sort of—”
“All dark and brooding,” interrupted the receptionist. She grinned. “Men like that give me shivers down my back.”
“Dark and brooding?” Nikki pushed some bills into the little jars on the counter marked with the names of lesser personnel in the establishment and, puzzled, went out the door. You might call his soft brown hair dark, she supposed, though it would be a strange description of it, but anything less brooding than Klaus Leitner she couldn’t imagine. Besides, how did Klaus know where she was? She stepped onto the sidewalk and looked up and down, searching for her cousin. Not a sign of him. If he had been into that establishment, he hadn’t bothered waiting. She shrugged and headed for the museum.
Chapter 11
Sanders leaned on Harriet’s doorbell. No response. He rang again. Nothing. He raised his fist, hit the door, and stumbled forward as it swung open under the force of his blow. Now he stopped, feeling for the reassuring bulk of his pistol. He listened, motionless, his eyes fixed on the staircase for any sign of movement. Nothing. He stepped across the patch of light flooding in behind him and quietly pulled the door shut after him. He padded silently through the ground floor. Bedroom, darkroom. All empty, all neat and undisturbed, except for a few pieces of clothing draped over a chair and on the bed. Up half a flight, the bathroom was empty. He moved up the staircase without a sound, pausing when his head reached floor level to check the second floor. No one. Even the dust curls w
ere undisturbed. Bloody Harriet, in addition to driving him mad for two days, had walked out for her lunch date with that murdering brat Nikki and left her front door open. He headed for the refrigerator, helped himself to a beer, sat down in her most comfortable chair, and stared out onto the deck, letting his mind roam where it would.
Harriet frowned as she parked behind an anonymous-looking blue car. It had to belong to John. With his usual arrogance, he had abandoned it a foot from the curb right in front of her door, blocking access to her driveway. Unsure whether she was more annoyed or amused, she looked up and down the street to see where he was lurking, ready to pounce, but he must have found waiting too boring and gone off for coffee. Bastard. Now thoroughly irritated, she flicked her hair out of her eyes and began to pile equipment onto the sidewalk. It had already been a frustrating day. She had awakened at nine o’clock that morning in her motel room, looked at her watch, and panicked, positive that she would never get that damn shoot finished today. Everything she had left to do needed morning sun; the project would be a washout after eleven-thirty. She had exhausted herself working well into the night, doing the south and west faces before sunset and then tackling the interior shots of the model suite. She had spent hours shifting enormous pieces of hideous furniture out of her way. But when she had twitched aside the heavy curtains that had allowed her to sleep so late, she saw that the weather had changed. It was raining. She had packed up her gear, eaten breakfast, and headed back to Toronto.