Death of a Second Wife

by Maria Hudgins

  “Reasonable doubt, Mrs. Lamb. Reasonable doubt. That’s how we’ll have to play this one.”

  * * * * *

  With a long night looming ahead of me and nothing to read, not even a crossword puzzle for diversion, I started to prepare for bed, wondering if a nightgown was standard attire in jail or if one was expected to sleep in one’s street clothes. Lettie had brought me a gown, but what if they came in during the night? Someone needed to write a book on jail cell etiquette. I brushed my teeth at the tiny sink beside the toilet and checked my blood sugar level.

  I heard a commotion.

  Within a minute, I discerned the hubbub was in two or more languages and a good bit of Italian was mixed in. Not just any Italian but the booming voice of Marco Quattrocchi. I couldn’t make out what the argument was about, but I assumed it was about me and the fact that I was here. The shouts continued for a good five minutes, and once or twice I thought I heard something hit a wall. Then, approaching footsteps and the clank of a key in the lock.

  Marco stood there in his black Carabinieri uniform. Epaulets on his shoulders, a red stripe down each leg, and a white bandolier across his chest. I had never seen him in uniform outside of Florence, and even then only when on duty. He had obviously donned full dress for its impact and, on me at least, it was working. I wouldn’t mess with him, and I doubted anyone else would either.

  He stepped across the room and took me in his arms. I didn’t want to cry. I tried to hold it back but after one long, strong, kiss, I couldn’t help it. He held me until I got myself under control. He removed his uniform jacket with all its clinking hardware, folded it lengthwise and laid it across the tiny sink. We both sat crosswise on the cot and leaned back against the wall, my feet sticking out straight, his dangling near the floor. For the fourth time I recited the evidence against me, the ordeal I’d been through, and the reasons I felt my only hope was to find the real killer. “Reasonable doubt, Marco. That’s what my lawyer says is my best bet. I don’t like it. Reasonable doubt is too iffy. You never know what a jury is going to think.”

  “There is another possibility. Can we prove you could not have done it? You did that for your ex-husband. Can we do it for you?” I heard no rancor in his voice, but it occurred to me I had never heard him refer to Chet by name. “What about those videotapes? Your lawyer will be allowed to view them if she asks. What do they show?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What about Lettie? Can she swear you didn’t leave your room in the middle of the night?”

  “Probably not. She was exhausted from her long trip and couldn’t wait to go to bed. She probably conked out as soon as her head hit the pillow.”

  I thought I heard someone coming. Marco sat up straight and shifted forward until his shoes touched the floor. I moved away from him, but heard nothing more. False alarm.

  “I have learned a little about Anton Spektor,” he said. “Interpol has him on their radar screen. He is suspected of being affiliated with the Russian mafia, but he is currently listed as residing in Berne. He owns a flat there. He has a pilot’s license and a Swiss driver’s license. I found a single engine Cessna airplane and a glider registered to him.”

  “Good for you!”

  “It is not much, really. But here is something more interesting. Do you remember what I told you about the gold being smuggled out of South Africa disguised as bars of silver? I have looked into this. Shipments of silver have been imported from South Africa into Switzerland by MWU. This company was owned by the Merz family but it went bankrupt. It opened up again after a reorganization, and now it is not clear who owns it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The owner of record is old Heinrich Merz, but the money it took to set the company back on its feet came from . . . well, it is not clear where it came from.”

  I thought about the money Brian told me was missing from Lamb’s Farm Equipment and shuddered. It was too coincidental not to suspect that Stephanie had funneled it into MWU. And why hadn’t Juergen, acting on behalf of his father, simply ponied up the money from the family coffers? They had millions, some of which Chet had now inherited. I asked Marco about this.

  Marco stood up, walked to the bars that separated me from the free world, and peered down the hall outside. “I think the money came from the Russian mafia,” he said. “When they destroy a company, it is with the idea of taking it over. If the former owners try to save their company by pouring in more money, the mafia does it all again. They pay crooked cops to raid the place, file big lawsuits, make false charges, confiscate records. Or, if all else fails, they simply arrange for the owners or members of their families to disappear.

  “The silver was imported in five kilogram bars by MWU and then transported to a precious metals company in Zurich. But the Zurich company’s paperwork and the paperwork MWU presented to customs officials in Geneva do not match.” Marco turned to me. “There are a few bars missing.”

  “What? How do you know that?”

  “At least on one shipment, they do not match. The weights do not match. MWU imported some one hundred kilograms of silver from Johannesburg and one day later, they sold about eighty kilograms to the Zurich metals company. It looks as if twenty kilograms went missing overnight.”

  “I don’t get it. Who makes the money here? They import silver but it’s really gold. They sell it to the metals company in Zurich, but for how much money? Do they sell it like silver or like gold?”

  “Dotsy, mio angelo. You really have no head for business!”

  “I have a good head for business!” I put on a fake scowl. “I do my own taxes.”

  Marco stepped forward and kissed me again. “Let me explain. MWU pays customs on the shipment as if it is silver. Not very much. They sell it to the Zurich company as if it is silver. About fifty thousand Euros, I would guess. But under the table, the Zurich company gives MWU enough to make the transaction a good deal for both parties. And the money changing hands all along the chain may or may not be dirty money that the Russian mafia needs to get laundered.”

  “You say twenty kilos is missing? Assuming it’s gold, not silver, how much would that be worth?”

  “Do the math. Gold is about a thousand Euros an ounce. Thirty-two troy ounces in a kilo.”

  I scratched invisible numbers in the air with one finger and made cash register sounds. “Six hundred forty thousand Euros. Nearly a million in U.S. dollars. See? I do have a head for business.”

  In the few minutes we had before the guard tramped down the hall and started clearing his throat pointedly, but not actually telling Marco he had to leave, we talked about my predicament. “Someone in the house is working against me, Marco. My pink cashmere sweater is missing. Kronenberg is going to assume it was covered in blood and I’ve disposed of it, but I’m sure it was in my dresser as late as yesterday. Today, it’s gone.”

  Twenty-Seven

  My little barred window was open and the fresh air smelled good. They turned out the lights at eleven, and by that time the smell of lemon floor cleaner was getting to me. Too chilly though. I climbed twice from my little cot to add more cover, using the face towel the jail issued me plus two T-shirts and a pair of slacks from the bag Lettie brought. Then the street noise kept me awake. Partiers, tacking from one bar to another up and down the main drag, yelled nonsense in several languages while dogs from all corners of town barked in protest. I could have reached the window and closed it if the cot hadn’t been bolted to the floor. At some point exhaustion took over and I slept.

  * * * * *

  I awoke with the key to my own freedom! Why hadn’t I thought of it before? It’s funny how the sleeping brain works. Swept clean of all the cares and demands of the day, it roams around through waving fields of unrealized possibilities. Granted, most of them are stupid, but if you can hold on to the rare good one until you wake up, it’s amazing how often it turns out to be the very thing.

  I could hardly contain myself while I washed up at my ti
ny sink and ate the breakfast a new policeman brought me on a tray. I went over and over it in my mind. Making sure I was right. I slipped into the only corner of my cell that couldn’t be seen from the corridor outside and changed clothes. Now, how do I call a meeting? Weren’t you supposed to draw your tin cup across the bars and yell?

  But soon the same policeman who brought my breakfast came back. “They want you in the interview room.” He unlocked me and led me down the corridor and around to the same room as yesterday. I passed Marco, now wearing civilian clothes, in the reception area near the front desk. He waved at me but didn’t follow. Inside the interview room my lawyer sat on the near side of the table opposite Detective Kronenberg and Officer Seifert. My escort dragged in a fourth chair for me.

  Kronenberg said, “Captain Marco Quattrocchi has suggested we visit a small landing strip that lies some one or two kilometers west of the Chateau Merz. He tells us you have been there yourself and have raised questions about the plane and the glider hangared there.”

  “Yes, but before we talk about that, I need to clear up something else.”

  My lawyer extended an arm toward me much like a mother, slamming on brakes, throws out an arm to keep a child from falling forward. She leaned toward me and asked for a synopsis of what I intended to clear up. I explained as succinctly as I could.

  “I need to see my jacket,” I announced. “And that button.”

  Kronenberg’s head jerked. He looked at Seifert. “Haven’t we sent it on to cantonal headquarters?”

  Seifert said he’d check and left the room.

  “I don’t understand. This is highly irregular, Mrs. Lamb.”

  “We have a right to see any and all evidence,” my lawyer said.

  I hadn’t caught her name yesterday, so I asked her now. She told me her name was Something Gaudin, I didn’t catch the first name and at the moment, couldn’t be distracted by such trivia.

  Seifert returned carrying a large brown paper bag. “They hadn’t sent it yet,” he said.

  “Get the button. And we’ll need fresh evidence bags as well,” Kronenberg pulled a Swiss Army knife from his pocket. “I hope you are not playing with us, Mrs. Lamb. This is highly unusual. We have strict rules about the chain of possession of all evidence. This jacket has been entered, dated and signed into evidence, and when we take it out, we must do it all again.”

  “I’m not playing with you.”

  Kronenberg extracted my tweed jacket and plopped it on the table. Beside it, Seifert dropped the clear plastic bag containing my button.

  I spread the jacket on the table so the metal shank, still dangling where a button used to be, was front and center. “Can we take the button out of its bag, too?”

  Kronenberg sighed but did as I asked.

  I placed the button face down, on the jacket. Just as I recalled from my brief look yesterday, the shank was still firmly attached to the button back. “Can any of you explain to me how a button can have two shanks?”

  Attorney Gaudin gasped, threw both hands to her mouth, then laughed. “Oh my God!” She grabbed up both items and put them down quickly, still laughing.

  It took the men a minute to get it. Seifert and Kronenberg lapsed into German as they talked it over, man to man. Seifert pointed to the back of the button and brought the shank on the jacket up alongside it. Soon, both agreed and admitted—the button they found frozen in ice near the bunker door had not been ripped from that jacket.

  “May I suggest you go to my room at Chateau Merz and locate the little envelope that came with the jacket? It should have a sample of thread and an extra button, but I’ll bet the button is missing.”

  * * * * *

  I waved to Marco through the window when I returned to the front desk. He’d gone outside and taken up his vigil on the wooden bench. I didn’t demand my jacket and button back, because I thought I’d let the police keep them a couple of days. They might make use of them in a training class as an example of why evidence should be carefully examined. But Kronenberg insisted. Along with my watch, purse and jewelry, he pressed the former evidence into my hands.

  I didn’t want to go back to Chateau Merz just yet. Patrick had to be dealt with first, then Chet, and I needed some down time to gather my thoughts before tackling either. I wondered if Patrick had slept off the sedatives Lettie so recklessly slipped him the night before.

  Marco met me outside the police station and we walked through the town, arm in arm. The day promised to be lovely, with bright blue skies and the slightest nip in the air. Marco told me he was staying at the hotel on the far end of the street. We passed the little Catholic Church where Patrick and Erin would have been married, and I recalled Lettie telling me about her visit to the cemetery. Diverting our path, we walked through, reading epitaphs and enjoying the flowers planted in each tiny plot. A few of the epitaphs were in English but most were in German, French, or Italian. Marco translated these for me. I had to laugh at one that touted the mountain-climbing successes of the occupant, who nevertheless did fall off the Matterhorn on his last climb. We found a bench and sat.

  “Now that I’m in the clear, we still have to find out who did it.” I laid my blue plastic bag of clothes on the bench beside me. “Do you think Kronenberg will let me go home now?”

  “No, I do not. You are not in the clear, Dotsy. All Kronenberg knows now is that your button was deliberately planted, probably by someone who intended to throw suspicion on you. It has nothing to do with whether you actually did it. You are still under suspicion as much as anyone else in that house.”

  It seemed the sky had suddenly darkened. “What do I have to do, for heaven’s sake? Can he keep us all here until the case is solved? What if it’s never solved?”

  “I suppose there is a limit. He has to let you go sometime. And if Kronenberg checks out the leads I have given him, he should be able to solve it fairly soon. It has to be connected to the gold smuggling operation.” Marco planted his hands on his knees and squinted out toward snow-capped peaks in the distance. He chewed on one side of his mustache. “Has to be!”

  “One problem. Who swiped my pink cashmere sweater? Obviously someone inside the house did, and I don’t think Anton Spektor or any other members of the Russian mafia could be wandering through without someone noticing.”

  “And who, other than Kronenberg and his assistant, knew the sweater was about to be taken in as evidence?” Marco said.

  I thought about it. “This is probably way off the mark, but Odile, our cook, seems to know everything the police know. Might she have a friend at the station?”

  “Talk to her. Find out.”

  “From the very beginning I’ve bounced back and forth between insider and outsider. Were the murders done by someone staying at the house or by someone else? It’s almost unbelievable, but I still don’t know.”

  “Why were Gisele and Stephanie up there at that time of night anyway?” Marco asked, using their names as familiarly as if he had known them. “Exactly when did the murders take place?”

  “Between eleven-thirty and four a.m., they say. I know Stephanie was in the bunker at eleven-thirty, pulling wine for the house. No one saw either of them after that.”

  Marco stood and stretched. Holding out a hand to me, he pulled me up and we resumed our graveyard tour. “Tell me about Juergen.”

  “He’s rich, of course. He’s spent most of his adult life as an adventurer, climbing mountains and things like that. I think he chafes a bit at being forced to stick close to home since his father got too old to oversee the family businesses himself. His family is important to him. You should have seen how Stephanie’s death and his father’s death told on his face. He loves astronomy. He keeps a telescope at the chalet.”

  “Astronomy?” Marco put an arm around my shoulder.

  “It’s logical, I think. An adventurer who hates being tied down. Climb mountains. Reach for the stars! If you can’t reach the stars, stand on a mountain top and look at them. Maybe that’s why he’
s never married.”

  “What was his relationship with Stephanie?”

  “Funny you should ask. Odile told me they fought like cats and dogs when they were children.”

  “That means nothing. Most brothers and sisters fight.”

  “Plus, Stephanie was a woman who got her own way and stuck her nose in other people’s business. She was about to tell Patrick about Erin’s previous marriage—although I’m grateful to her for that. Funny, I wonder how she did find out. And why she apparently waited until she got to Switzerland to call the Cook County Vital Records place.”

  “And you suspect Juergen and Gisele were having an affair?”

  I didn’t recall telling him that, but supposed I must have. “Gisele had a boyfriend here in town. A guy named Milo. By the way, Brian told me yesterday that he was going to pay Milo a visit. I wonder if he did.”

  “Go on. What about this Milo?”

  “I’ve never met him. But I got the feeling that first night, Juergen was so upset, looking for Gisele. I sort of thought she and he intended to spend the night together. Later on, I found out about Milo and heard she and he had a fight in the meadow near the bunker that afternoon.”

  “Do you think Juergen is gay?”

  Marco’s question startled me. “I’ve never thought about it. I don’t think so.”

  “It might explain why he’s never married.”

  “Oh come on, Marco. Lots of people don’t get married for lots of reasons.”

  We had circled the main part of LaMotte and come back around to the intersection of the main street and the one leading to the tunnel. I said, “Do you want to come up to the house?”

  “Not yet. There will be enough going on when you walk in. They do not know you are out of jail. It would not be a good time for me to meet your ex-husband.” He kissed me on the cheek. “Tell Patrick I’m here and I’d like to talk to him. He can come to my hotel.”