That morning of the visit, I woke up early to review every book or newspaper clipping I had that mentioned the rockets.
A driver picked us up and we headed out of town, for the mountains, my favorite place. The hills were lush and green from the rains. A troupe of children with rucksacks hiked along the road, heading for a trail. The clouds hung white and heavy in a clear blue sky. I watched it all pass by me like a movie, a movie of the Germany I loved, my Germany.
Then I saw it: Kohnstein in the distance, a green lion slumbering, its head between its paws. It struck me as an odd image, since the lion didn’t seem to be guarding this secret weapon it was hiding. It was sleeping on the job.
We neared the entrance, and the driver pulled us up to the arched entry, hidden in the hillside. Hermann gathered his satchel and waited for me to get out.
As we entered the arch, I smelled an unpleasant odor. Oil and rust and the smell of something like feces and dead rodents. But I was transfixed by the place as it opened itself up to me. Immense caverns, rock ceilings high above me, sides lined with iron racks. Rocket barrels lay on the racks, and a huge crane towered above us. My heart pounded. This was where it all happened. Where the V2 rockets were assembled.
Hermann was excited to show me the place. Today Herr Von Braun was here, and I was to meet him. The man looked like a god from Norse mythology: handsome, with gold hair and a strong jaw. The perfect Aryan. He was the designer of the rocket. He shook my hand and listened patiently as I excitedly explained what I knew of the V2. He nodded and told me I had a very good understanding of the rocket and that he was quite impressed. I fired off my questions and he took time to consider and answer each one. With my meeting with the architect of the German rocket program, this was officially the best day of my life.
In retrospect, this would be the worst day of my life.
Not long after that, I would fall far. And I would never be the same.
34
After the memorial service, Ruiz convinced Reyna she didn’t need to cook; they’d order pizza tonight.
Reyna had saved coupons for the local pizza chain. While she reminded him that pizza was a bad nutritional choice, she was happy for a night off. Jacky whooped and ran through the house so much at the idea of this special treat, Ruiz finally sat down and played Minecraft with him on the computer, just to shut him up.
While Jacky continued playing on the computer, Ruiz pulled out his phone and decided to text someone he’d met on a case last year, a history teacher at a private school in the Monte Verde hills. Peregrine Nikolakis wasn’t the easiest person to get along with, but as a self-identified history nerd, she might be able to help him. He needed background about Karl Schuler’s time in Germany.
Up for some quick research on WWII? I need help on a case.
He heard his phone buzz an hour later.
Does it involve Nazis? Always up for that. CALL ME.
After giving Perry the details about Karl and Hermann Schuler, Ruiz called in the pizza order.
After dinner, the three of them watched Toy Story together. Ruiz had been thinking about the Schuler family since the service and had been longing for some family time.
The three of them huddled on the sofa with a quilt. Jacky recited dialog along with the movie, one he’d watched maybe fifty times since he was a toddler. He and Reyna remembered crazy things Jacky had done when he was young. The boy at first denied having done any of these things, then laughed and acted proud he’d done them.
After Reyna and Jacky went to bed, Ruiz sat down on the couch with a beer, feeling peaceful and grounded after family time.
Around 10 p.m., he got a text from Perry, who apparently didn’t have anything better to do on a Friday night.
I struck the mother lode. I’ll send something later tonight.
35
This late in the day, Flores had no problem finding a parking spot on the street near San Jose State.
As he turned onto Ninth Street, he spotted Mulvaney’s apartment complex and headed for it.
A young woman in a long, colorful dress and a head covering opened the door. She had round brown eyes and her skin was brown, rich and smooth. Wafting out of the door was the same marijuana smell he’d experienced on his last visit.
“Shayante Miland? I was hoping you’d be here. Officer Flores from the San Jose Police Department.” He flashed his badge.
She smiled politely. “Randall is working at the thrift store this evening. He’ll be back after 8.”
“Actually, I wanted to ask you a few questions. May I come in?”
She looked him over then nodded. “Have a seat, please. Can I get you water? A glass of lemonade?” She had the manners of someone who hadn’t grown up in California. Somewhere in the south, maybe. Lemonade was an interesting offer in the relative cold of January. It reminded him of sun and summer and sounded damn good right now.
“I’d love some lemonade, thank you.” He took the seat he’d had on his first visit. As Shayante worked in the kitchen, he looked around the room. There was a program from Karl Schuler’s memorial service on the coffee table. Flores had seen Mulvaney but didn’t remember seeing Shayante there.
She returned with a tray holding his drink, which she set on the coffee table, and took a seat on the sofa.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions about New Year’s and the whereabouts of Randall, Ms. Miland.”
“This is because of his granddad’s death?” She sighed. “Sure, go ahead.”
“I’m trying to find out when Randall left the party at Fortuna Gallery after midnight. Do you remember when he left?”
“I don’t.”
He must have looked startled. She explained.
“We came together to help Jen do setup, but I left around 1 a.m. with a friend. Randall got home a little past 2.”
Flores made a note on his tablet. “What kind of car does Randall drive?”
“An old white Cadillac. Used to be his grandad’s.”
Could it be that Randall Mulvaney rode along with someone else or borrowed the SUV that night?
He decided to change tactics. Shayante was much easier to talk to than Randall. He wanted to keep her as a source for information.
“I saw some of your work at the gallery today. Those long fabric and bead pieces. I love the color combinations you use.”
Shayante softened, her eyes bright. “Thank you. Those are a couple of my favorites. I did them for my MFA project last year.” She stretched her legs out under the coffee table. She seemed to check him out then took a long drink of lemonade.
“Are you by any chance gay? I get a lot of love from the gay community on my work.”
Flores found himself turning red. He laughed. “I’m straight. My mother does sculpture in her spare time. I appreciate good art.”
“Ms. Miland. I’d appreciate it if you let me know if you see or hear anything that might be helpful in the case.”
“Does this mean Randall is a suspect?” She frowned at him. “I can’t see him doing something like this.”
“Randall spent a lot of time with his grandfather. We’re pursuing all leads.”
“Yeah, I get it. Randall can be difficult. He’s like a dog I had growing up in Alabama. A poodle and chihuahua mix. He barked at everything. Even things nobody else could hear. We called him Lil Freak. He was annoying as hell.” She smiled and looked down. Flores wondered where this was going. “But one night somebody tried to jimmy open our kitchen window. Guess who woke everybody up?”
Flores liked Shayante. He found his thoughts slowing their pace, a relief from the espresso jitters he’d had when he came in.
“You share this apartment with Randall?” Flores wondered if she’d be helpful in pinning down Mulvaney’s whereabouts, but he was also curious about their relationship status.
She nodded, looking almost shy. “We met at the gallery. He was very persistent. I finally gave in and we went out. Things moved fast after that.”
Flores s
hould know by now that you can’t predict what people will see in each other.
As he finished off his lemonade and prepared to leave, he saw Reyna Ruiz in his mind, as she stood next to Ruiz and gave him that long, slow look.
36
Traffic was still light when Ruiz made his way down Highway 880 to downtown.
The just-risen sun burned cold and silvery through the morning haze. It made the rigid, rectangular blocks of San Jose’s skyline look glowing and magical—better, he thought, than they usually looked.
He was hoping for fancy hotel coffee, maybe a sweet pastry and some insight from Christoph Schuler into his father and his family.
He found parking at a meter, which, thankfully, took credit cards. Whenever Jacky rode with him in the truck, his spare change disappeared. Ruiz breathed in the cold morning air and headed around the corner and up the steps of the Fairmont.
Christoph Schuler was waiting for him at a table in the restaurant, wearing khaki pants and a pink button-down shirt. Christoph waved him over and Ruiz joined him. The smells of sausage, bacon, pastry and coffee woke up Ruiz’s stomach. When the waiter came by, Ruiz asked for coffee and a cream cheese danish.
“Thanks for joining me, Detective Ruiz.” Christoph took a drink of his newly refilled coffee and gave him the same measured smile he’d had at yesterday’s service. Under the dimmed lights of the hotel restaurant, Christoph Schuler looked younger. His graying hair looked like it had the benefit of an expensive haircut. He looked like a man who’d spent a good portion of his life in the sun, his skin bronzed. Not the kind of tan Ruiz had gotten from his years in landscaping work as a teen. The even, carefully maintained bronze for those who could afford swimming pools and beachfront property.
“Even after the service yesterday, none of this is real to me.” Christoph sat back in his seat and gave him a rueful smile. “I keep expecting we’ll be having our weekly phone call this weekend. 11 a.m. on Saturday. My dad never missed it.”
The type of relationship Christoph had with his father seemed perfect and scripted, something you’d see on TV. Ruiz was skeptical of it. It was something he had no frame of reference for. Still, he wondered: If Karl Schuler had been such a good father, why had his son moved to the opposite side of the country?
“What was he like when you were growing up, Christoph?” Ruiz took a sip of his coffee, which was strong and full bodied, much better than he would have gotten at work this morning.
Christoph set his fork down and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “He was—present. I guess that is what you would call it nowadays. He worked long hours, but when he was with us, he was 100 percent with us. Whether that was him listening to us when we talked about what we were learning in school— or him loading us up in the car to take a trip down to Santa Cruz and going out to the tide pools to look at sea life with us. I can’t speak for Rose, but that’s what I felt. He wanted to be with us.”
“Christoph, you run your own company?”
“I started my own plane maintenance company. I’m in the process of turning it over to my CEO in order to run for the senate.” He looked down at his phone. “I’ve got a phone call with the governor in a few minutes.”
“So you followed in your father’s footsteps.” Ruiz nodded. “And your uncle’s, too. I’ve been reading about Hermann.”
Christoph frowned as he sliced into a sausage link. “Uncle Hermann. I suppose, in some way.”
“Did you know him well?”
“Of course. I went out to Florida to go to college, and he took me under his wing. At that point, he was a respected scientist in the aerospace community. He passed a lot of opportunities my way.”
“He was killed in a plane crash, I read.”
“He and a friend took a plane out one day. Flew down to the Keys. There was an engine failure.”
“Your father must have been devastated.”
Christoph Schuler laid down his fork. “My father didn’t get along with Hermann.”
Despite the happy photos he saw on social media whenever he logged in, Ruiz knew every family had something. Some families guarded their dysfunctions, took out the dirty things and looked at them with obsessive pride as if they were revered family treasures. He wondered if the Schulers were that way.
Christoph took a sip of his coffee and set the cup down neatly on the saucer.
“Officer Ruiz, there’s something I wanted to ask you. I’ve read the news accounts. But you were there that night.” He laid his napkin next to his plate. “I want to know. Tell me how it happened.”
Ruiz told him the story, which he’d had plenty of practice telling over the past few days. Christoph asked him about the SUV, and if he’d seen the shooter or driver. He could understand Christoph wanting to know the details. He told the man about his father’s last word. He’d told Rose Mulvaney. It was right to tell Christoph, too.
After listening quietly, Christoph shook his head and smiled weakly. “I can’t imagine what that means, Officer. But thank you for telling me.”
“Now I’d like to ask you something.” Ruiz leaned forward, putting an elbow on the table. “Can you think of anyone in the family who might have had a grudge against your father?”
Christoph frowned. When the waiter came by to refill his coffee, Christoph lifted his arm off the table, and Ruiz saw the glint of gold cufflinks on his sleeve. “How could there be? No.”
“What about Randall Mulvaney, Rose’s son? Your nephew.”
“I only know him by reputation. Other family members told me he’s rude—even that he’s threatened them. I’ve had very little contact with him.”
“Can you think of anyone who might have contacted your father, maybe regarding something from his past?”
Christoph’s eyes widened. He sat for a moment, then shook his head. “Not that I can think of. But then, my father lived a very long life.”
Ruiz was rationing his cherry danish, taking one bite at a time. Not his usual approach, but this was a cherry danish beyond any cherry danish he’d ever had. But he had to push it aside for what he was going to say.
“Did you know that your Uncle Hermann was listed as a member of the Nazi Party?”
Christoph shifted in his seat. The measured smile on his lips disappeared.
“My father was not a Nazi.” Christoph nearly spat out the words.
“I didn’t say he was.” Ruiz was fascinated by what was going on with Christoph, whose face had slowly turned red. The way it was contorting reminded him of the Nazi whose face melted in the Raiders of the Lost Ark movie.
Christoph let out a harsh laugh. “Hermann was a scientist. I can’t picture him lifting his head from his research for five minutes in order to have a political discussion. If he was, it was in name only. Maybe he had to sign up in order to continue with his job.”
Ruiz knew otherwise, thanks to Perry Nikolakis. The smiling, professor-like man on Rose’s photo wall was a loyal member of the Nazi Party. But it wasn’t his job to persuade Christoph Schuler of that today.
“Do you know about Operation Paperclip, Christoph?”
“I’ve heard of it.” Christoph eyed him suspiciously then glanced down at his phone.
“In the early 2000s, the U.S. government declassified information from CIA files for a program called Operation Paperclip. After World War II, CIA recruited Nazi scientists and brought them over to the U.S. to work. And scrubbed their records of any involvement in the Nazi Party. Many of them committed war crimes. Experiments on concentration camp prisoners. Working prisoners from labor camps to death in rocket factories. These scientists came over to the U.S. and suddenly—they weren’t Nazis anymore.”
As he spoke, Ruiz saw fear in Christoph’s eyes. “Christoph, your uncle Hermann Schuler and his family, including your father, came over to the United States under the Operation Paperclip program.”
Christoph Schuler glared at him, brows lowered.
He raised a finger at Ruiz. “Even if this were true, it has nothi
ng to do with my father’s death. Instead of digging up rumors, you should be going after the gang members who shot my father.”
His expensive suit and haircut said it. His casual references to the governor said it. Christoph Schuler was used to commanding power. Maybe that’s why he was going into politics.
He looked across the table at Ruiz. His lowered voice had the threatening edge of a rusty knife.
“What you’re saying is slander. I’d be very careful if I were you, Officer Ruiz.”
Christoph Schuler stood up and put on his trench coat. Then he grabbed his carry on and headed out to the parking valet. Karl Schuler had seemed like a good man. His son was an arrogant ass.
Ruiz picked at the remains of his pastry and wondered what father and son possibly had to talk about in their weekly conversations.
37
Ruiz poked his head over the cubicle wall at Steph Grasso, who was looking up something on her phone. It looked like she was scrolling through a list of movie times.
“Date night?” Ruiz smirked over the wall at his fellow officer, who hurriedly shut off the phone and swiveled her chair toward Ruiz. He wasn’t sure if she had somebody in her life. He wasn’t sure if that somebody would be male or female. He was still getting to know Grasso.
“My nephew. I’m taking him out for the night to give my sister a break.” Grasso looked at him sheepishly. “He wants to see the new Marvel movie. Not that I have a problem with that. I just can’t find a showing that isn’t sold out.”
“Want to walk up to Garcia’s?”
“Of course, I do.” Grasso grabbed her jacket and they headed out the back exit.
Clouds hung heavy over the valley today, a buildup to the atmospheric river event that was supposed to happen in the next couple of days. Ruiz felt the dampness creeping down his neck, up his pants legs.
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