At first, Dinah didn’t understand what they were looking at. The plastic flattened, and she stopped breathing. Mick put an arm around until her waist. “Come away, Dinah. It’s a body.”
12
In an eerie replay of the previous evening, they flew down the ladder and outside into the gray December morning. Mick held a leather satchel.
“What’s that?” Dinah asked, trying to control her shaking voice. It wasn’t the only part of her that shook.
Before answering, Mick took her trembling hand and led her back inside. “It slid out with him.” Mick looked ill. Naturally. Someone in his family at the least had hidden a corpse and, at worst, had done the unthinkable. “We’ll need to call the coroner. And the police, I suppose.”
Now it was her turn to lead him. Dinah shifted the grip of his hand so she was in control, brought him into the kitchen, and started water heating for cocoa. She called Helen to tell her it might be best if the ladies didn’t come. When asked why, she grabbed the first answer she could come up with. “The air is bad after the fire.” Helen seemed satisfied, told her she and Mick should leave immediately, and promised to call the Listers.
The water was almost heated when Mick’s phone rang. He answered.
The blood drained from his face
Something awful had happened.
“Mick?”
He rose to his feet but gripped the edge of the table. “Grandmother had a stroke—in the pool. They—they aren’t sure she’s going to make it.”
“Oh, no! She seemed fine when she was here!”
“She’s old, Dinah.” He stared at the phone.
“Mick, just go! I’ll stay here and call the coroner.”
“Wait ’til I get back, all right?” The color already was returning to his face. He was a Wagner, after all. “I don’t want you facing them alone.”
After he’d roared away, Dinah prayed for Miriam. She prayed for Mick. She prayed for strength to retreat from the intense emotions roiling inside her. Mick wasn’t a believer—in anything. It had taken her less than twenty-four hours to get attached to him. She could certainly un-attach in as little time.
As she prayed, Dinah wiped dust from the leather satchel. To distract her from her growing anxiety, she opened it. Inside was a passport for Rabbi David Mikkelson and a blue and white splinter of china.
Dinah smelled the tobacco before she registered that someone was in the kitchen with her.
13
“Oh, dear. Did one of the plates chip?” Ralph came around the table, frowning with concern at the shard before her.
“I think it matches the missing piece of Helen’s angel plate.”
“Why would you think that?”
Instead of answering, Dinah asked, “Where is Freyja?”
“Around somewhere. Maybe she’ll come again if you pray.”
Dinah's stomach turned, and her brain sifted all kinds of information, and she suddenly was very, very afraid. Ralph Konig was an expert with electricity. His proud wife said so. Yet he accidentally drilled through wires in the wall? “You can check, if you like.” She handed him the shard, and as he took it, slid the passport under the satchel. Jumping to her feet she smiled brightly at him.
“I need to leave for a bit, but Mick should be back soon.”
He smiled, turning the blue-and-white splinter over and over and over in his hands. “Don’t run. I came to chat with you.”
“How nice. Maybe later!” She bounded toward the back door. Freyja moved to block the way, her teeth bared. A low warning growl came from her throat.
“Sit down, dear.” Ralph held a small pistol in a steady hand.
Her shocked brain identified it. “Mauser HSc.”
“Very good.”
Dinah sat. She could recognize a pistol meant, no doubt, to kill her, and all she wanted was to satisfy her blasted curiosity. Might as well not waste time on polite preambles. “When did you and Helen marry, Rolf?”
“Thank you for that. It’s good to hear my true name on the lips of the young. We married in 1948.”
“You gave her Royal Copenhagen plates for a wedding gift but only through 1942. Why?”
“Why indeed?” He kept smiling.
Behind her, Freyja stopped growling, but Dinah could still sense the dog anticipating her master’s wishes.
“Why do you think?” he asked.
She ignored this. “Were you truly never in the attic here?”
“I truly never was.” The smile didn’t waver. “That is my word as a German.”
Dinah mentally ran through her Brazilian jiu jitsu moves but couldn’t remember one that would dislodge a gun from an attacker’s hand. She could keep him talking until she came up with something and answer her plethora of questions at the same time.
“If you were never in the attic, why were you so afraid that Miriam was getting senile? That she might bring up some buried memory?”
“Clever girl. Yes, as she lived more in the past, she might remember. The relative from Denmark—the Jew—told me he wrote a letter telling Mathilde and her family he would be arriving. I never did find the letter he said he wrote.” The man shook his head. “Only the trunk of plates he so carefully trundled behind him.”
Dinah wanted to avoid a question for which she thought she’d guessed the answer, so she seized on an oddity. “He brought the plates? Why would a Jewish rabbi own Christmas plates?”
“So, you learned he was a rabbi? Such a smart girl.Maybe he stole the plates. He told me he was delivering them as a gift.”
Comprehension worked its way into Dinah’s fear and revulsion. “You stole the plates, didn’t you? Was that after you killed him?”
Anger heated the frozen blue eyes for a moment. “He had no right to them.” Then he looked in puzzlement at the chip still in his hand. “Do you think he carried this chip in hopes he could repair the cracked plate? I didn’t even know he had it.”
“Mr. Konig. Rolf.” She would never think of him as Ralph again. “You were only, what, thirteen at the time? A child. What could incite a child to kill someone?”
Rolf jerked the gun and for a second Dinah thought he would shoot. “Weren’t you listening? He was a Jew!”
Freyja moved restlessly at his agitation.
“The man came to the door while my friends the Wagners were gone and I worked in their yard. I watched him approach and spoke with him. Herr Wagner was more like a father than my own. And this—this Jew man walked to the front door. He invited himself in and told me he was to visit family—his niece Mathilde.
“He told me, boldly to my face, that the wife of my friend and mentor—the man I idolized—was a Jewess! I became enraged. It must be a lie, I said, but he insisted he told the truth. He insisted with every blow I struck until his last breath. He used that to call with his foul tongue to his useless God.”
Dinah wanted to scream at him to shut up. She slid the passport out and opened it. A kind face looked back at her. In spite of the expressionless passport photo, Dinah could easily distinguish laugh lines around the eyes.
“I hid the body in the basement and told Herr Wagner what I’d done.” Rolf wouldn’t shut up. “I was proud, but he was horrified. After that day, he couldn’t lay eyes on me without becoming ill. He pretended it wasn’t so, but I saw the revulsion. Yet he never gave me up to the authorities.” Rolf’s voice choked. “When I was small, he gave me a box of ornaments with our proud party symbol. When he still loved Germany and what it stood for. I could never again hold those Juleschmuck and not break into sobs.”
The tragedy sickened her, and Dinah shut the passport on the kind face and put it in her pocket. She tried to keep her voice steady. “But Miriam? I don’t understand how she could hurt you. She wasn’t home the day you—” Dinah gagged on the words and couldn’t continue. She didn’t have to. Rolf understood.
“No, I told you the Wagners were gone. But several months after the visit from the Jewman—”
“Don’t call hi
m that!” Dinah didn’t care if he put a bullet in her head. “His name was Rabbi David Mikkelson.”
“So the little rabbit has teeth? Listen. I’ll explain, because you are a German and need to understand. Little Miriam was home alone one afternoon. I found her putting the Christmas baubles from the glass bowl into their boxes. Through her tears she told me her father commanded her to dispose of the ornaments. He’d come to despise them as much as she did me. She threw them away, along with the colored candles. I ran home, placed my own beloved Juleschmuck into a larger box, then retrieved the other baubles and candles from the dust bin to cover them.”
“Why?”
“Because Herr Wagner loved them,” he insisted.
Dinah guessed Ralph had been ignorant of what the candles represented.
“I hoped that one day he would again love me like a son, Miriam would retrieve the box, and he would be filled with delight.”
“I still don’t understand Miriam’s role.”
“You aren’t as intelligent as I thought,” he answered coldly. “I gave her the box. She didn’t know what was inside but agreed to hide it for me. Little Miriam and I never spoke of it again, and I believed she forgot. But I searched the house after she started more and more to recall old times. You understand, my son is running for the State Supreme Court, and no one must link those ornaments or that body with me.” The bright blue of Rolf’s eyes turned glassy with his tears.
“My Helen—my Helga—is innocent in all this. Not until she told me that you’d searched the attic for ornaments did I confess all.” His eyes continued to glitter, and Freya moaned deep in her throat. “I was Miriam’s ghost. Searching her house when she was out, or asleep, before she could recall the crate I asked her to hide. Helga didn’t know that either. My wife is guilty only of loving me.” He shifted the gun and moved his shoulder as if in discomfort.
“It isn’t bursitis, is it?” Dinah asked. “You hurt yourself moving the ladder when you tried to get in the attic.”
“Old age. It’s an ugly thing. Yes. When I learned you mentioned nothing about my ornaments, I hoped against hope they were still tucked away. But you’re wrong. I hurt my shoulder when I cracked the plywood window. My clumsy attempt to make it appear there had been a burglary. What is called an exercise in futility. I couldn’t lift the panel to get into the attic, so I tried to burn the house in what would be a tragic accident.” His mouth quirked in bitterness. “Another futile attempt.”
If Dinah hoped the sore shoulder would make his hand waver, she was wrong. The barrel pointing at her remained steady.
“I’m sorry you must die. There will be another fire. Maybe the firemen missed a frayed wire. Yes, that’s it. Your body will be found, and they will assume you fell and hit your head in your haste to escape. I hope you don’t waken before the smoke kills you. I don’t want you to suffer.” The voice hardened again. “Freyja will ensure you don’t wake in time to escape.”
“You’d let Freyja die, too?”
Tears glinted again. “She is a good, brave dog. A noble friend. She would agree my son can’t suffer for my wrongs. Sadly, I won’t be around to prevent the tragedy. I will be in my doctor’s office.”
The gun raised, came down, and Dinah knew nothing more.
14
Dinah’s face was wet. She didn’t want to open her eyes, but the wetness was being applied at regular intervals with a smooth chamois. She opened her eyes and knew she’d gone blind.
The chamois lifted and two intensely blue canine eyes stared at her. Memory returned in a torrent. Rolf had planned to kill her. Dinah finally came fully awake. Rolf was gone, and Freyja stood over her, chamois-soft tongue hanging out. “Freyja sweetheart! Poor baby! You don’t know how to be fierce when your master isn’t directing, do you?” An acrid smell was back, stronger than before. Dinah scrabbled in her purse for her phone. Rolf must have taken it. She raced to the living room, Freyja at her side, and grabbed the telephone receiver. There was no dial tone. Of course, Rolf lived most of his life in the era before cell phones. He would think to disconnect it.
She’d have to go to a neighbor or flag down a car. Dinah flung open the door and almost ran into Helen.
The smile froze on the gentle face. “Dinah, dear! You’re covered in blood!”
Even the horror of the previous hour couldn’t squelch Dinah’s pity. Helen’s friend Miriam was dying, and her husband was a murderer.
“Could you call the fire department please? Quickly?”
Quick intelligence flared in Helen’s eyes. “Come to my house. Hurry.” She glanced curiously at Freyja but didn’t waste time asking questions.
At Helen’s home she led Dinah into a foyer twice as large as the one in the Wagner House. She stopped abruptly and stood motionless.
“The phone?” Dinah urged.
“Phone? Oh, it’s back in the kitchen. Has been since it was installed.” Helen’s moment of inactivity was past. Freyja crowded at Dinah’s heels as they scuttled past large rooms and into a bright kitchen.
“Thank you, Helen.”
The woman stared at her.
“I’ll call and then go wait for the fire department.” Dinah grew increasingly uncomfortable. She didn’t see any phone and couldn’t convince Helen of the urgent situation. “Please, where is the phone?”
When she spoke, Dinah immediately wished she hadn’t. “My Rolf. A brave man but such a soft heart. Why didn’t he kill you immediately?”
It must be the head wound making Dinah imagine Helen’s beautifully modulated voice spew words from a nightmare. “A son of the Fatherland, but sentimental. He could never hurt Miriam because she is the daughter of his idol. Can I tell you a secret? I don’t care about the Reich. Only for my son. He won’t pay for the sins of his father.”
Dinah didn’t waste time reasoning. She jumped for the back door, but a pistol shot stopped her in her tracks and made Freyja howl. Dinah knew she must be concussed because she wanted to sink to the floor and laugh.
“I could kill you here if I must,” Helen said, as though considering options. “And make it appear an accident by an old woman. I’ve always been a clear thinker. My Rolf told me yesterday, about the ornaments and the body. Maybe something could connect us to all of them. But I didn’t panic. Nor will I now when I drive the car off a dead end into Lake Michigan. A great tragedy. I had a bad spell and the sweet Braun girl was with me when we both drowned. My son may even get the sympathy vote.”
She backed up toward the steps to the basement. “Hurry, dear, before anyone realizes there’s a fire in the Wagner House.” She groped behind her. Dinah could see a rack of keys on the basement wall. Helen laughed. It was merry and warm, and Dinah hoped for a moment everything had been a joke. “You can never find your keys when you need them.” She giggled.
The gun still trained on Dinah, Helen half turned and grabbed the keys. She must have hit the panic button because the car alarm screamed. Freyja could take it no more. With a howl she leapt, and her front paws hit the older woman on the shoulders. Helen fell backwards down the steps. Not once did she cry out. The only sound was a sickening thud of bone on concrete.
15
Miriam, emerging from the locker room in fine fettle, had been astounded to learn her grandson was at Our Best Years ready to bid her a final farewell. In hindsight, they assumed Helen placed the call to get Mick out of the house but would never know. Helen was dead and so was Ralph. He’d died of a heart attack in his doctor’s waiting room.
A funeral was held for Rabbi David Mikkelson. Over a hundred mourners attended, including most of Mathilde Wagner’s descendants. They never did learn the history of the plates. The Konigs’ son didn’t want them, so for now they would remain at the Wagner House. The only Wagner not horrified that a body had been hidden in the attic for over seventy years was Miriam.
“So like my father. Whenever a hard choice had to be made, he would choose the wrong one. He was all heart and no head, but I believe he made the rabb
i’s final resting place in our home to protect Rolf. And as a penance to this kind David Mikkelson for the evil done to him.”
She took the death of her friend Helen with an equally philosophic perspective. “Helen could be a dear but never really loved anyone but her son and her husband.”
The reception and open houses were cancelled, the food from the caterers sent to Our Best Years’ staff Christmas party. A week before Christmas, the Wagners invited the remaining members of the historical society and the Brauns to the Wagner House for a tree decorating party. They strung popcorn and cranberries and drank weak hot chocolate and ate scores of Christmas cookies decorated by Dinah and her mother.
Someone played carols softly, a fire danced in the hearth, and Miriam lit the candles on the menorah. First, she’d sung a quiet song whose words were indistinguishable but whose tune would stay with Dinah forever.
“My mother sang that to me when she tucked me in. Next year, I will honor Chanukah the proper way. This year, I honor my mother.”
Everything was magical, and all Dinah wanted to do was cry.
Mick cleared his throat and everyone stopped talking. “I’ve recently learned many things. I learned something about my heritage. I learned that light overcomes darkness and evil doesn’t win. That there is a God who hears and answers prayers. How do I know? I prayed for the first time in my life as I raced to my grandmother, terrified I would be too late to say good-bye. I prayed a second time when Faye Lister called to say she worried Dinah might be in trouble.”
The sisters buzzed, and Dinah thought one of them articulated, “It was Kaye.”
The Listers were heroes. They’d misunderstood Helen’s phone call instructing them to take the day off, and arrived at the Wagner House only to see Dinah and Helen hustle toward the Konig home. They followed, although not quite at a hustle, and arrived in time to hear what might be a gunshot and a car alarm. When their timid knocking got no response from Helen, they’d called Mick, who found Freya wailing over a still-woozy Dinah.
Christmas Passed Page 8
