His family’s small brewery was taken over by the government, but even though it was the work of Nazis because of the constant programming and propaganda, he blamed the Jews.
At one point he described beating a Jewish man nearly to death before soldiers took him away to one of the concentration camps. Jeremiah came to a stop and turned off the recorder. She looked at him closely. His face was white and she couldn’t tell what he was feeling, she just knew it was terrible.
She stood up and crossed over to him and hesitantly put a hand on his shoulder. He jerked and then looked at her, face strained, eyes wide.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can see how painful this is. I know what they did to your people.”
He looked at her like she was insane and there was such a mixture of fury and bewilderment in his eyes that she actually felt afraid. She took a step backward, dropping her hand.
“You’re from Israel. You were born and raised there,” she said.
He nodded.
“But yet, the way you’ve been pronouncing all those German names you sound like a native German speaker. And you said he spoke German to you when he was agitated. You understood him, didn’t you?”
Again he nodded.
“Your family, before Israel was created at the end of the war, where were they living?”
“Germany,” he whispered.
Tears began to pour down her face. “I am so sorry.”
“My mother was born in one of those camps. Both my grandparents died there, but she and her older brother survived.”
“I had no idea.”
“How could you?” he asked, eyes burning. “I never told you.”
Cindy didn’t know what to say. Worse, she didn’t know what to do. She wanted to hold him, comfort him, but he had looked so fierce when she merely touched him that she was afraid that would be the wrong thing.
He passed a hand over his eyes.
“I need to get some air,” he muttered.
“We could go for a walk,” she suggested.
He shook his head. “You stay, I’ll just be a minute.”
As soon as he had left Cindy began to walk through the rest of the downstairs, her agitation making it impossible to sit still.
The emptiness of the place was unnerving, especially when contrasted with all the chaos in her own head. She’d never realized that there was such tragedy in Jeremiah’s family, although she should have. It explained a lot.
I’m not the only one whose lost a family member in a horrible way, she realized.
She kept pacing for a few minutes and then she finally went upstairs, driven by curiosity and the need to look at something different than bare walls and floors. Only upstairs it was more of the same. She paced through each room, eyes searching for something the police might have missed, even though she knew it was arrogance on her part to think she’d be the one to find the overlooked clue.
You’re getting full of yourself, she chastised.
She went back downstairs finally after exhausting every nook and cranny upstairs.
The only place she hadn’t checked out downstairs was the small cubby hole storage area under the stairs. She opened it and walked in. The room sloped down quickly but was bigger than most spaces of its kind.
A memory tugged at her heart. The house they had lived in when she was little had a room like this. Her older sister had commandeered it as her playroom and held fantastic tea parties with her stuffed animals in it.
That was before she died, back when the world was still a safe, wonderful place.
Cindy could feel the tears threatening to come and she pushed them back. Her sister had been gone for so long and yet still she was occasionally ambushed like this by memories.
She was about to leave the space when she decided to go all the way into the corners where the light wasn’t falling, just in case there was anything there. Of course, that was incredibly unlikely. Everything else in the place was stripped bare. The old man had probably never even put anything in here.
Still she got down on her hands and knees and crawled in until she could reach her hands into the corners. There was nothing. She shifted her weight slightly and the floor squeaked beneath her. She began to back up and her hand fell on a place on the carpet that seemed off somehow.
She paused and ran her hands over the carpet. There was a section that seemed to be the tiniest bit lower than the rest. That made no sense.
She continued to feel around and she discovered that the section seemed to be nearly the width of the closet but was only about two feet deep, forming a weird rectangle shape.
She felt along the ridge. It was like a seem. She felt a surge of excitement. Could it actually be a trap door of some kind leading to under the house? Was there a basement down there?
Some houses had trap doors into the crawl space beneath a house just like they had doors in the ceiling to enable you to reach into the attic area.
She heard the front door open and close and she scooted out of the closet. Jeremiah came down the hall and stopped. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“I think I found a trap door in here,” she said, unable to contain her excitement. “I think it’s worth a look.”
She showed him where and after running his hands over the area he sat back. “I think you’re right,” he said.
“Should we call Mark?”
He shook his head. “Odds are there’s nothing down there but spiders and dirt. No harm in checking, though.”
“I don’t feel any kind of ring or anything to lift it with.”
“I’ve got a crowbar in my trunk, let’s see if we can find a place to fit it and get this thing open.”
Cindy waited impatiently as Jeremiah went to retrieve the tool. When he came back she gave him space to be able to work. After a minute he said, “I think I found a crack. Hold on.”
Moments later he was lifting a trapdoor. She had been right.
“We need a flashlight,” he said. “I don’t have one of those in my car.”
“Here, I’ve got an app on my phone,” she said, quickly turning it on.
She moved forward and shone the light from her phone down into the hole. The first thing she saw was a spider web and she almost laughed. Jeremiah had been right about the spiders.
“There’s something in here,” he said.
“What?”
He propped the trap door open and reached in. He pulled out a long, flat package wrapped in brown paper. He put it down on the ground when he had freed it from its space. One corner of the package had been torn open and there were dark stains covering much of it.
“It looks like a painting of some kind,” Jeremiah said.
“Do you think it’s valuable?” she breathed, excitement rippling through her.
“I don’t know, but we need to call Mark, right now,” he said, his voice urgent.
“Why?”
“It’s covered in dried blood.”
4
Jeremiah called Mark and the detective was there within fifteen minutes.
“I have to say I knew it would speed things up if I sent her here,” Mark said, eyeing Cindy. “I just didn’t expect you to find something hidden in the house.”
“Is that why you called me?” Cindy asked.
Mark shrugged. “Why fight it, you two are impressive together.” He gave Jeremiah a sly smile and it took all of Jeremiah’s willpower not to snap his neck.
“I guess we do make a pretty good team,” Cindy said.
Mark looked like he was about to make some further comment and Jeremiah glared at him, letting just enough menace show through that the detective actually looked startled. He blinked at Jeremiah for a moment and then turned to Cindy. He pulled a pair of gloves out of his pocket and put them on.
“Show me what you found.”
Cindy led the way to the storage closet and Mark crouched as he went inside. Jeremiah could see the detective shining a flashlight around. After a couple of minutes he r
eemerged carrying the painting. “There doesn’t seem to be anything else in there,” he said.
He hauled the painting into the room with the lettering because it had the most light and set it on the ground.
“The paper has already been loosened,” Jeremiah noted.
Mark nodded and gently peeled back the brown covering.
Both Jeremiah and Cindy leaned forward to get a better look and Jeremiah noted that Cindy was holding her breath. He felt a certain sense of excitement himself, wondering what was worth the trouble of hiding like that.
Finally the detective had the paper pulled back far enough that they could get a decent look at the painting beneath.
They all stared in stunned silence for a moment which Cindy finally broke. “I don’t believe it,” she said, disappointment heavy in her voice. “It’s just that dogs playing poker print that you see everywhere.”
“Something seems really off about this,” Mark muttered, eyes roving over the painting.
“Why would he go to all the trouble to hide this?” Cindy asked.
“Maybe because of the blood on the wrapping?” Jeremiah suggested.
“Yeah, but why not just dispose of that?” Mark asked. “I swear, this case just keeps getting weirder and weirder.” Mark pulled the painting free and flipped it over. The back was smooth with no mounting brackets of any kind.
“This can’t be the picture that was hanging in the dining room,” Jeremiah said.
“What? What do you mean?” Mark asked with a frown.
“There’s a nail hole in the dining room as though a picture or something was hanging in there at one time. There’s no hardware on this, so this can’t be it.”
“Show me,” Mark said.
He and Cindy followed Jeremiah into the dining room where he pointed out the nail hole. The detective studied it for a moment and then sighed.
“Just once I’d like a nice straight-forward homicide. Find the killer standing over the body with the smoking gun saying ‘yep, I did it’. Is that too much to ask?”
Jeremiah knew it was a rhetorical question, but he still had to bite his tongue to keep from giving a sarcastic reply.
The detective turned with a sigh. “What else have you come up with?”
Jeremiah gave him the condensed version of what he’d been able to translate so far and Mark jotted a few notes down in his notebook.
When he was finished Cindy jumped in. “What have you been able to find out?”
Mark looked at her in surprise. “Oh no, we’re not doing that again. I’m the detective, remember?”
“You invited both of us here, so I think we’re involved, and this time the only one you can blame is yourself,” Cindy said tartly.
Jeremiah noticed that despite her tough words she looked a little flustered and he hid a smile. She had come such a long way from the woman he had first met who was screaming over a dead body in her church sanctuary. She was still uncomfortable, though, with being aggressive. It was actually very endearing.
Mark glared but then gave in a moment later. “You’re right, it’s my fault. Okay, all I know so far is that the guy appears to have been in this country for decades, but he’s never held any kind of job that I can find a record of. He has a checking account with decent money in it, he makes regular deposits in cash, and spends very little. He owns this house outright and has for the past ten years.”
“Ten years?” Cindy asked. “He’s had this place for ten years? Surely he couldn’t have been living in it all this time.”
“I can’t find a record of him living anywhere else for the past ten years, so I guess so.”
“It’s like he only ever really used the bedroom and the writing room,” Jeremiah said.
“Writing room, funny,” Mark said. “I’m sure he used the reading room, too.”
Jeremiah looked at him, not understanding what he meant.
“You know, the bath-oh, never mind.”
Cindy struggled and failed to hide a grin.
“Okay, I’m going to have the forensic guys check this painting out and the blood on the wrapping,” Mark said. “Are you two getting ready to call it a night?”
Jeremiah shook his head. “I’d like to, but like I said, I only have so much time I can devote to this before Rosh Hashanah. I need to keep going if I’m going to have a chance at getting done on time.”
“Sorry, I know you must be even more exhausted than I am,” Mark said in a rare show of compassion.
“It’s alright. It needs to get done,” Jeremiah said.
“I’ll stay for a while longer and see if I can find any other hiding spots,” Cindy said.
“I’d tell you not to bother, but with your luck, there’s probably a dozen more dogs playing poker paintings hidden around here and you’re the only one who could find them,” Mark said.
“I’m guessing that’s a compliment?” Cindy said.
“Yeah, I guess it is,” Mark said, sounding tired. “Well, kids, call me if you find anything else.”
He gathered up the painting and its packaging and left.
As soon as the door had closed behind him Jeremiah turned to Cindy. “You don’t have to stay, you know.”
“It’s okay, I want to,” she said with a smile. “I know you’re busy, but I missed spending time with you at lunch today. And who knows, maybe there are more hiding places around here. Besides, as soon as I go home Geanie’s just going to rope me into helping her make more decisions about the wedding.”
“You don’t enjoy that?”
Cindy shrugged. “It can be fun sometimes, but also overwhelming and exhausting. I guess if I’m completely honest, too, I have to admit that I’m a tad bit jealous that she’s so happy and in love. I mean, I’m really excited and pleased for her and Joseph, it’s just I guess...” she trailed off.
“I guess that could be hard,” Jeremiah said, feeling a bit unsettled.
“So, bottom line, I’m happy to be here with you hunting for clues. I think I’ll head back upstairs and work my way down.”
“Okay,” Jeremiah said. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“Of course,” she said brightly. She rested her hand on his arm for just a moment and then she moved past him heading for the stairs at the front of the house. He turned and watched her go and found himself wishing inexplicably that she wasn’t leaving, even if it was just to go upstairs.
He shook himself and returned to the wall he was translating. He felt his chest tighten slightly. He didn’t like the section he’d just read and he was concerned about what was probably coming next. Still, there was no one else who could do it and it had to be done. He found his spot, turned on his recorder and picked up translating where he’d left off.
“Hurting the man made me to feel powerful and lessened my impotence for everything else with my family and our property. I thought this a sign and that if I hurt one man and felt this then if I hurt more it would take all the pain.”
Jeremiah paused, squeezing his eyes shut. Yes, the narrative was going exactly as he had feared it was going to go. A young, angry, disempowered boy in Hitler’s Germany. There was only one logical way this was going to end.
Heinrich went on to detail every act of cruelty he had perpetrated with excruciating detail. Jeremiah finally had to pause to gather himself and to do some serious thinking. Mark would be listening to this recording, his retelling of these atrocities. He had to decide exactly what emotions he should be correctly displaying and make sure that his voice reflected those.
While he was thinking about it he heard Cindy walking down the stairs. A moment later she came into the room he was in and he welcomed the reprieve.
“Find anything?” he asked.
“No,” she said, clearly disappointed.
“Well, maybe something more will turn up down here.”
“I found the door that leads to the attic crawlspace in the ceiling of one of the closets, but I have no way to get up there,” she said, eyeing his la
dder.
“Tell you what, when I’m finished here for the night, I’ll take the ladder upstairs and check it out. Deal?”
“Deal,” she said, looking happier.
“So, how was your day before all this?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes. “My mom called this morning to share more of my brother’s exploits.”
“What’s Kyle up to this time?”
“He just signed a contract for some new television series. More daredevil globe-trotting stuff I’m sure.”
“One of these days I’m going to have to meet him,” Jeremiah said.
“It’s amazing how different the two of us are,” she said.
That might have once been true, but it was changing. She just didn’t realize it. He thought about pointing out how much more daring she’d become, but decided against it.
“Your mom say anything else?”
“No, just about Kyle, as usual. You know, she never even asks about the murders we solve or how things are going with you or Geanie or anything.”
“I’m sorry,” Jeremiah said, knowing that Cindy wished for more validation from her parents.
“What about your mom?” she asked suddenly.
“What about her?”
“What does she have to say about our adventures?” she asked.
Jeremiah forced a smile. “She thinks they are unbelievable and that you are either the luckiest or the unluckiest woman in America. She can’t make up her mind.”
Cindy laughed. “Some days neither can I.”
It was a lie, but he couldn’t tell her the truth, it would raise too many questions he wasn’t willing to answer. He had never told his mother about her because he didn’t talk to his mother, couldn’t, not ever, nor any of the rest of the family. Cindy lived in a world, though, where such a thing would be unthinkable. She would ask questions that he never wanted her to ask and then...
He didn’t want to think about what would happen then. So he just kept smiling at her, pretending that everything was normal, that he was normal. Which was in its own way ludicrous given that they were standing in a dead man’s house searching for hidden art and translating his ramblings about torturing Jews during World War II.
Restoreth My Soul (Psalm 23 Mysteries) Page 4
