by Karen Harper
“So he’d worked closely with Hitler?” Nick asked. He cleared his throat. He looked and sounded stunned.
“Yes, but there’s more,” Dale admitted. “My last name—his last name, Braun. Uncle Will was related to Hitler through marriage.”
Claire’s mind raced again. “But isn’t it true Hitler only married right before he and his bride killed themselves so the Allied forces wouldn’t take them alive?”
Dale nodded, kept nodding. “See, I shouldn’t have shared all that with Cyndi. You no doubt see it for what it was—something to be hidden. To her it meant fame—she thought I should write a book, make a big deal of it to get publicity, TV interviews, a movie contract, and she’d be right there with me in the limelight.”
Nick just kept nodding, so Claire said, “Tell us how he was related to Hitler’s wife.”
“So here’s the deal,” Dale said, sitting up straight at last. “My great-uncle was the brother of the father of Hitler’s longtime mistress Eva Braun whom Der Führer married just three days before their deaths. Cyndi wanted to use that connection to make hay, as she put it, wanted me to rebuild and open up the Braun mansion to the public, give it back its German name. Frankly, I was appalled, saw her for what she was. I told her not to go out there to see the place but then caught her there. But damn it, I didn’t kill her, though I guess this would give Detective Jensen and his cohorts a lot more ammo. I’m not an idiot. I realize my wanting to stop her stupid ideas is another motive for murder.”
He put his forehead in his hands, staring down at his empty plate. “I’m just telling you two this now—that seeing that side of her hurt and infuriated me, and I threatened her not to exploit my family’s legacy. I told her it was over, but—I repeat,” he said, looking up at Nick and then Claire, “I did—not—kill—her!”
“But maybe she told someone else about your family,” Claire whispered. “Which, I suppose might mean someone could try to blackmail you. Have you ever felt or noticed you were being followed?”
He shook his head. “I just want to be proud of my name—make my name my own,” Dale said with a sniff as Nick reached across the corner of the table to put a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t want it dragged through the mud, fame as she put it, a curse as I thought of it. I am not my great-uncle even if I’m stuck with the remnants of his haunted mansion—well, not haunted, except all this haunts me.”
“I can see why,” Claire said. “You’re like an innocent bystander in someone else’s wreck. So Cyndi went out to see the remnants of the mansion without your permission or knowledge at some point, then maybe even again later, maybe the day she was killed. Have there ever been vagrants or just nosy people there? You said it’s not well known but...”
“A lot of area people used to know about the place, but—I think—not its sordid past. I suppose it was once a real attraction on Halloween. The place has been vandalized more than once. I hate it myself—can’t bear to go there. But if you want to see it, I’ll take you. In broad daylight.”
“Why didn’t you just have the rest of it torn down?” Nick asked.
“Did you ever check out the price of having anything razed and hauled away? Besides, I have to admit, as much as the place feels like the corpse of a family curse sometimes, there’s just something about it that whispers ‘hands off!’”
Nick said, “How about tomorrow morning? We need to get a take on this, then consider telling Jensen about it before he learns some other way. Sorry, but he should even know about the Hitler and Eva Braun connections, because it may all come out anyway. Was there any way Cyndi could have known you were well-to-do and come on to you for your money at first?”
“I don’t think she knew, not at first,” he said, looking and sounding hurt. “The houses Mother and I lived in are middle-class at best, though I took Cyndi out to good restaurants, took her on a one-week cruise.”
Rising, Nick said, “I think this is important. Claire. You aren’t working Saturday morning, are you?”
“Not scheduled, but—you know—on call if something else turns up. But this is important too, and I want to go with you.”
“Right. Dale, we’ll meet at your house and go together to take a look at the ruins of the place. What did you say its original name was?”
“In German, Verdrehte Baume. It means Twisted Trees.”
Claire pictured the ancient trees surrounding Black Bog. Twisted trunks like the twisted lives of the living and the dead.
Later, they both walked Dale out to his car in the driveway. Nick was grateful that they had managed to settle him down over dessert. Dale had even asked to speak with Bronco and Nita. He’d thanked Nita for the excellent meal and tried to reassure them that their house and neighborhood would survive the scandal. He even offered them some money to help furnish the house, but Nick could tell that Bronco, and especially Nita, were reluctant to accept—or to even move in there. But just wait, Nick thought, until they tried to resell a place where a woman’s body had been stashed, though the cops and forensic techs had found no evidence she’d been strangled there too.
“Oh, the full moon’s out,” Claire said. “The clear sky gives me hope the rain will stay away for a while. And look at the reflection of it on your car.”
But it wasn’t that. The silvery dust on the dark trunk, top, hood and front windshield glittered coldly.
“Dew?” Nick asked, as if to himself. “I smell ashes. Maybe someone had a barbeque or backyard fire, and it blew over here...”
Dale pulled out his car keys and with the other hand took a long swipe of the stuff on the top of his car’s hood. “It is ashes,” he said, smelling, then trying to look at his hand in the semidarkness. “Heavy here, but not on the driveway or grass.”
Nick heard Claire gasp. It hit him then too, even as Dale seemed to realize what this might be. The poor guy sank to his knees in the grass and put his head in his hands. Bronco, who must have been watching from the house, ran out. “Boss, what’s that stuff? It smells ashy.”
Nick ordered, “Everyone, back into the house. Now! Dale, don’t wipe that off your hand until we get a sample. Bronco, turn on the porch light and keep an eye out the window. Everybody, move!”
Bronco helped Dale to his feet. Claire seized Nick’s hand as they ran inside. Nick told her, “Got to call Detective Jensen. This may be a trick or some kind of threat. Maybe Cyndi’s brother couldn’t find Dale, but could find us—and then found Dale. Maybe a very bitter brother didn’t scatter his dead sister’s ashes in the Gulf of Mexico after all.”
12
Claire perched on her vanity stool in the steamed-up bathroom as Nick took a shower that night. Although he hadn’t let on until Dale left, he was steamed up in another way, and Claire was trying to calm him down. So unlike him, he’d been on a tirade and hadn’t quit. His voice echoed from behind the frosted-glass shower door. It was nearly midnight. She’d taken her narcolepsy meds but felt dead on her feet. Jensen and his forensic evidence team had finally left with most of the ashes, which a rising breeze had not pulled away. At least it hadn’t rained.
“Nick,” she tried another tactic, “at least the police now have another suspect besides Dale. If those ashes could be Cyndi’s, that leads to Tanner. If he does something that crazy, he might have lost his temper at his sister for something else. Maybe he didn’t just recently arrive from Georgia.”
“Yeah, but put her in a freezer in a house he knew nothing about? I’ll bet Tanner has an alibi that he was in good old Zebulon when Cyndi was killed—even though they can’t quite pinpoint when she died. But there is her wronged, one-time Georgia fiancé who could be looked at too. Jensen said those could well have been human ashes, not my specialty,” Nick went on as his voice echoed above the pounding of the water.
“Then as for Dale,” he added, “the man’s a bright lawyer, for heaven’s sake, and he let his hots for an icy blonde—no pun i
ntended—do his thinking for him? I’ll bet the moment she opened her mouth, he should have moved on, but she was probably only too glad to open her legs for him too. I swear Dale could have hired someone to dump those ashes when none of us were looking out front, so the assumption would be it was good-old-boy Tanner or an accomplice. Actually, I hope Tanner has an alibi that leaks like a sieve—if the cops can find him. For all we know, he’s bound for Georgia again.”
“Nick, this isn’t like you. Calm down. If the ashes are human—are Cyndi’s, if they can even tell—they will focus on Tanner or, like you said, maybe her dumped fiancé back in Georgia. Still, I think your loyalty to a junior partner can only go so far if you really think he’s guilty of murder.”
“Damn, but I’ve gotten guilty people off before. Early ignorance. Overly stupid ambition. Everyone deserves a defense and from time to time I’ve been too good at that. But I’m not going to court for Dale if he killed that girl and stuck her in his mother’s freezer, then got someone to dump ashes on his car to implicate her redneck brother. Dale could be thinking there’s no way people would believe he’s that dumb, whereas Tanner is. Reverse psychology, right, Mrs. Markwood?”
“You’re tired. You’re going in circles. You need a good night’s sleep. And so do I.”
“I can just see myself or one of the partners in court arguing this case we’d like to keep low-key because it involves the reputation of the firm. Oh no, Your Honor, we are not just defending Dale Braun because he’s tied to Markwood, Benton and Chase. Yes, as well as possibly losing his temper at the victim, or being afraid she’d embarrass him and ruin his career path, yes, he could also have been afraid she was going to blow the Braun family secret wide open. Oh, is that another member of the international press coming in with their cameras to cover this trial because of the Nazi connection, Your Honor? Yes, that’s right, the defendant’s property was inherited from and belonged to a high-ranking Nazi who was even related to the defendant through marriage and to Hitler’s wife—and furthermore, Your Honor—”
“Nick, stop it! It will work out. If you become certain he’s guilty, there surely are alternatives to defending him, to putting the firm on the line.”
The shower stopped. His shadow moved behind the frosted glass. The door slid open. His hand reached out for his towel. That reminded her—who else, she thought, was Reaching Woman trying to touch or beg from on her other side in that grave? Claire had left a message on Kris’s phone that she could not come out to the bog Saturday morning but would stop by that afternoon unless it was raining, so answers must surely be coming.
“Sorry to carry on like that,” Nick said as he stepped out with the towel wrapped around his waist. “This whole thing is really getting to me. I’m afraid I can’t see the forest for the twisted trees. And I see I’ve created our very own sauna.” He wiped a circle on the foggy mirror so he could see his face in it. He frowned at himself, then ran a comb through his hair. “Thanks for listening and bringing me back down to earth, sweetheart. It could be worse—we’ve been through worse. What is it you wanted to tell me when I went off like that? With Dale, the ashes, then Jensen, today’s been a mess.”
“I just wanted to tell you that the second bog body I’ve seen disinterred is a young female whom Andrea has named Reaching Woman. Talk about needing a murder trial—she was stabbed in the chest.”
He stopped combing his wet hair and turned to her, eyes wide. “And the first body had its heart hacked out. More tragic proof that murder is as old as mankind.”
“Murder or an execution. I’ve got to examine everything in that bog grave for answers. And, I imagine, if these two somehow-related people were executed—I surmise for a common crime—they did not have a brave attorney to stand up for them. What you do is important, Nick.”
She almost told him about their strange stalker—but that could just be coincidence and he already had enough to keep him awake tonight when he—she too—desperately needed sleep. If she or Kris spotted that man or woman again, she’d tell him. Maybe she and Kris could split up in a safe place and see if the person stuck with one or the other of them.
Nick threw his comb down, came over and pulled her to her feet. He hugged her hard to him. “It’s just—I know I said we’ve been through worse—but I’m scared, Claire. Dale is scared too—I get that—but this whole thing just doesn’t feel right. I think this mess is going to get worse, so after we check out the ‘Twisted Tree’ Nazi ruins, that’s it for your being involved with this case unless it’s totally online research, and Heck can cover that.”
“You said he’s really busy right now, with his new sideline—facial recognition technology, of all things.” She realized again that she and Kris could use some of that—but their stalker seemed almost faceless and sexless.
Nick went on, “You just stay with ancient crimes, and I’ll try to handle this one, and with a lot more self-control than I showed just now. It’s a blessing I have you to listen, to care. Don’t know what I’d do without you.”
* * *
“So what were you doing up so early?” Nick asked Claire with a yawn as he backed them out of their garage the next morning. They were heading for the neighborhood where Dale lived, where Nita and Bronco had bought their house—and where they were going to see the ruins of the Twisted Trees mansion.
“Doing internet research,” she told him. She waved again to Nita and Lexi at the front door, feeling a bit sad. After all, she should be the one standing there on a Saturday morning with her children, not Nita. Maybe she was trying to do too much, getting too involved with outside challenges.
“You mean Googling more about bog people?” he asked.
“Actually, at first I was reading some about former Senator Bradley Vance. He and Andrea have an art and antiques store downtown on 5th Avenue and one on upscale Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale, you know. But I spent most of my time reading about Nazis living in the US.”
“Whoa! That can’t be common. I mean most of them would be really old or dead by now.”
“You’re right, most are probably dead, like Dale’s great-uncle. But I learned there could be hundreds alive still. The Simon Wiesenthal Center hunts them down. They recently found one living undercover for years in Minnesota. Anyway, research has found that people without a conscience have less stress and may live longer than we would expect.”
“It’s going to be bad enough that Dale’s great-uncle is dead, let alone if he was still living. Damn, I wish this case would just go away so I could go back to defending people I believe are innocent and you could—”
“Right. So I could go back to dealing with ancient executed people, not recently frozen ones.”
* * *
“Look, there’s Dale pacing in his driveway,” Nick said and they pulled up by the curb when they arrived. “At least his stress proves he has a conscience, right?”
When he rolled the window down, Dale asked, “How about I just get in your car? We’ll drive a little ways back in and walk the rest of the way.”
“Sure,” Nick said and hit the door locks open so Dale could climb in the back. “Good to see that there’s no one hanging around Bronco’s place, waiting for them to show up to question or bother.”
“Not now. Betty Richards, down the street—she knows everyone else’s business—told me that several people have been by just to gawk and take pictures, look in the windows, stuff like that.”
“Oh no,” Claire said. “We’ve all been trying to assure Nita that wouldn’t happen anymore. Mrs. Richards is the one who ID’d Cyndi to the police, so I hope Nita doesn’t phone her to see how things are going.”
Beyond the intersecting streets of the housing development, screened by those invasive melaleuca trees and several ficus like the ones surrounding the bog, Dale directed them to an overgrown lane that bent back out of sight. Nick felt closed in already. He could just imagine the trees ar
ound the bog Claire had described, but he thrust that thought away.
“Let’s leave the car here and just walk,” Dale said. “It’s rained, and we don’t want to get bogged down.”
At the word bogged, Nick caught Claire’s narrow gaze. Sometimes he could almost read her mind, but not now. Was she thinking there might be a body bog back here? Probably not. That this Nazi connection could screw things up for Dale?
He took her arm as they followed Dale back through the twisted trees for which the mansion had no doubt been named.
* * *
His eyes still heavy with sleep, Jace rolled over in bed at his apartment and reached out for Brit. And got nothing but pillow and twisted sheets.
He propped himself up on one elbow. The bathroom door was open but the light wasn’t on and he heard no sounds of movement anywhere. But hadn’t some sound awakened him? Oh, he did hear banging around in the kitchen. And smelled something great—or was that a burning odor?
He got up, wearing only his shorts, and tiptoed toward the kitchen. Yes, some serious banging of pots and pans—and crying?
“Brit, honey?” he said as he peeked into his apartment’s small galley kitchen. “What in the...” was all he got out before he took in the sight of scrambled eggs—or maybe an omelet—all over the tile floor.
“Trying not to get burned, I spilled it and got so mad that I threw it,” she choked out and burst into tears. “I was—was trying to make you breakfast in bed. And, it slipped. I’d just like to scream, to break things. I want things to go so well, and I just keep losing it when they don’t. You’ve got cold feet, don’t you—about the wedding?” she demanded with the empty skillet still in her hand. “I can tell you’re upset, and I am too!” she insisted, her voice rising as she choked out sobs again.