The Fairfax Incident

by Terrence McCauley

  But once she’d gotten wind that I had a steady job making more than I had on the force, she suddenly wanted to reconcile. Once a working girl, always a working girl.

  I sent money for our daughters directly to the girls’ school. The nuns made sure the girls had more than they needed. Giving it to Theresa would’ve been like throwing it in the toilet. She’d buy herself furs and handbags while the kids ate cheese sandwiches on stale white bread for dinner.

  “Not now, Theresa. Is your old man home?”

  “My father is not an old man,” Theresa said. “He’s just been named captain of the Poughkeepsie Police Department and—”

  I didn’t care about his career. All that mattered was that he had guns in the house and knew how to use them. “Is. He. Home?”

  “Unlike you, he’s working. He’s—”

  I punched the wall next to the phone. “Goddamn it, Theresa! For once in your life shut up and listen to me. I need you to lock all the doors and windows and turn off every light in the house. Get the girls into one room and barricade yourselves in there with one of Al’s guns. You remember how to handle a pistol?”

  “Of course, but—”

  “I want you to get one and shoot anyone who tries to come in the house who’s not him, including anyone wearing a badge. Understand?”

  “Charlie?” Her voice got small, like it used to get when she decided she didn’t understand something. “What’s going on?”

  “Everything will be fine if you do what I say. I’ll call your father and he’ll explain everything when he gets home. Just keep the girls safe.”

  I hung up the phone before she could argue. Theresa had worked the streets long enough to know how to handle herself. If Tessmer sent people to the house, they’d get more than they bargained for.

  I dug into my pocket for more loose change, when I saw Mr. Van Dorn heading my way. “What happened?”

  “They threatened my family.”

  “Alex?”

  “No. The bastard with her. Tessmer.”

  Mr. Van Dorn looked at the phone. “Have you reached them? Are they safe?”

  “Yes, but I was going to call her father to make sure he gets home as quickly as possible. Tessmer knows where they live, sir. He mentioned Poughkeepsie.”

  Mr. Van Dorn picked up the phone and had the operator connect him with a Washington number on a reverse charge.

  I didn’t know what he was doing, and I didn’t really care. I just had to get Al back home so he could protect my kids. “Sir, I need to…”

  Mr. Van Dorn held up one finger to silence me as his call obviously went through. He didn’t bother introducing himself to whoever answered the phone. “Contact the New York State Police and have them send a couple of cars to the following address.” He gave them Theresa’s address.

  I’d never given him Theresa’s address. “Someone may be watching the house and should be apprehended if they are. The house belongs to one Detective Alfred Proscia of the Poughkeepsie Police Department. Have someone from the state police contact his supervisor and send him home immediately. His family needs him.”

  Mr. Van Dorn hung up the phone. “Come with me, Charlie. We have much to do.”

  I hurried after him. “Who were you talking to, sir? And I don’t remember telling you anything about where my family lives.”

  “There’s a great deal we’ve kept from each other, Charlie. But that all ends tonight. The time for secrets is over.”

  I followed Mr. Van Dorn downstairs to the main lobby and out through the revolving doors, on to Lexington Avenue where he had a car waiting.

  As soon I hit the street, I spotted a maroon Cadillac Fleetwood limousine parked three behind Mr. Van Dorn’s car. A familiar face was behind the wheel. A blond, square-jawed man who had about as much business being at the Stuyvesant Society Gala as I did. Maybe he was there for the same reasons.

  Detective Steve Hauser.

  In that single moment, a lot of the things I’d been hearing for the past day or so began to come together. And I didn’t like the picture they were making.

  Mr. Van Dorn called after me as I walked toward Hauser’s car. “Charlie, where are you going? We don’t have time to waste.”

  I squatted at the open passenger window and spoke to Hauser. “Funny, the things you see crawl out of the sewer at night.”

  Hauser refused to look at me. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your goddamned mouth shut and get going.”

  But despite Mr. Van Dorn’s beckoning, I wasn’t in a hurry. I wasn’t just teasing Hauser, either. I was working. “Good thing for me I’ve never been that smart. Say, what’s a bum like you driving a fancy car like this? It sure as hell isn’t Carmichael’s ride. He ditched his Caddy when he found reform. Who are you wheeling for, Steve?”

  Hauser punched the wheel. “Goddamn it, Charlie. I told you to get out of here. Now.”

  That’s when I smelled it. A gentle scent that came from the back seat of the limousine. It wasn’t fumes from the Caddy’s tailpipe or the stale cigarettes on Hauser’s breath.

  It was the scent of lilacs.

  The lead investigator in the Fairfax and Blythe deaths, not to mention Chief Carmichael’s Black Hand, was driving Countess Alexandra von Holstein and her friends.

  My knees damned near buckled. Sometimes I really hated being right.

  “You’re in way over your head, Steve.”

  “And you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” Hauser nodded toward Mr. Van Dorn, who was standing by his car looking puzzled. “Run along, now. It’s not polite to keep your boss waiting. Your real boss.”

  I pulled myself up before I fell over, and walked back to Mr. Van Dorn’s car. He climbed into the backseat after I did and told the driver to take us somewhere. My mind was racing too fast for me to hear where.

  “What the hell was that all about, Charlie?”

  It was the first time I had ever heard him swear, even when his children were in danger. But if there was time to trot out a curse, this was it.

  “This whole mess just got a whole lot worse, sir.”

  Chapter 16

  I should have been surprised to find Father Mullins waiting for us when we got back to my place, but I wasn’t. I had smelled his pipe on the street long before I put the key in the door. Besides, that night was turning out to be a night for surprises.

  The aging Jesuit looked up at us from behind my desk through a cloud of thin smoke. “Hope you’ll forgive the familiarity of letting myself in, Charles, but I’m afraid we’re well beyond the point of conventional politeness.”

  I’d already had enough surprises and scares for one day to last me a lifetime. This was just one more to add to the list. “When did the Vatican start teaching lock picking?”

  “No need, Charles. I’ve had a key for some time. We have used this apartment as a base of operations for years now.”

  Mr. Van Dorn had just taken a seat on the couch. “Sit down, Charlie. I promise that everything will be much clearer.” He gestured to the empty chair beside the fireplace. “Please.”

  I shifted the chair so I could see both men in my peripheral vision at the same time. After all the things I’d learned that night, I didn’t know who to trust anymore, except for the .38 under my left arm.

  Mr. Van Dorn began. “I’m afraid I haven’t been entirely honest with you, Charlie, but I promise it’s been for a good reason.”

  “I sure as hell hope so, sir, because my head feels like it’s about to explode.”

  Mr. Van Dorn said, “Before you joined the Marines, you were on the police force at the outset of the Great War. You remember the problems we had with German spies committing acts of sabotage here in the city and elsewhere?”

  I’d been a rookie back then, but I’d worked crowd control on some of the bigger crime scen
es. German sympathizers had blown up a few buildings, sabotaged shipments to England before America formally got into the war. One of them had even tried to blow up the head of J.P. Morgan one summer. “I didn’t work the cases, but I remember reading about them.”

  “Well, I lived through them,” Mr. Van Dorn said. “The bastards managed to smuggle explosives into the cargo holds of several of my ships carrying goods for the war effort. They managed to sink several of my family’s ships, and I was determined to find out who was behind it. Not only were they sinking my family’s vessels, but they were damaging invaluable goods and munitions the Allies needed for the war. Eventually, I found one of their unexploded devices hidden within the hold of some sugar we were shipping to Europe; a discovery that helped us track down the spy ring behind it.”

  I was beginning to get annoyed. “Congratulations, sir, but I don’t understand what something that happened almost twenty years ago has to do with me now.”

  Father Mullins cleared his throat. “Because the same people who tried to sabotage this country before are trying to do so again. Only this time, they’re trying to do it through far more insidious means.”

  More pieces began to come together in my head. I asked Mr. Van Dorn, “Is this why you spend so much time in Washington?”

  “Part of the reason,” he allowed. “I’ve been affiliated with the federal government since the Great War, in an effort to prevent our enemies from inflicting harm on the homeland. After the war, the German threat was replaced by Communists and other radicals set on spreading their revolution throughout Western democracies. You already know Franklin Roosevelt and I are close. When he became president, he asked me to conduct my activities in a more informal, unofficial manner so as not to tip off any subversive foreign agents who might have a presence within our own government.”

  “You mean Germany?” I asked. The Treaty of Versailles had ended the war on the condition that the German people pay for the losses the rest of Europe had suffered. The country didn’t make a buck without the British or the French getting a piece. “From what I’ve read, they can hardly feed themselves since Versailles, much less wage war on anyone.”

  “For now,” Father Mullins said, “but one should never underestimate the Hun. He is crafty and unrelenting. You saw him at his deadliest in France. You know how cunning he can be. The Great War may have ended for us, but for the German people it is a continuing affront to their honor that requires reckoning. Harry and I, and a few others, have been monitoring the situation more closely since Hitler’s rise to power.”

  Mr. Van Dorn added, “In addition to monitoring the Communist threat, I’ve also been part of an effort that tracks German citizens who have emigrated to this country after the armistice was signed. We have watched where they’ve settled and with whom they’ve associated since coming to America.”

  Another piece clicked into place. “That means you must’ve known about Fairfax and Countess Alexandra. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t know for certain,” Mr. Van Dorn said. “I had heard rumors. I suspected. And yes, I knew who she was, but I didn’t have proof of the extent of their relationship until you opened that safe. I can’t stress enough the importance of the information you gave us that night. It’s why they sent those men to stop you.”

  Father Mullins added, “You uncovered the entire breadth and depth of their relationship. You confirmed Dr. Blythe’s suspicions that Alexandra had virtual control over Walter. Now that you have had the pleasure of meeting her, you can see how captivating she can be. Once she converted him into believing in the mystical power of the runes in the notebook you showed me, she was able to convince him to finance several organizations essential to her cause.”

  I got to my desk and opened the top drawer. I pulled out the list Mary Pat had given me. “These organizations?”

  Father Mullins read the list aloud. “The Teutonia Association, Friends of New Germany, Der Stahlem, Gauleitung-USA.” He looked at Mr. Van Dorn, then me. “These are some of the groups in Fairfax’s ledger, but you had them before you found it. Where did you get this list?”

  “A friend of mine did some research on Walter for me. She said he was in the society pages at events for those groups. It didn’t make sense to me then, but after Dr. Blythe told me about the countess, it made a bit more sense. After hearing what you two just told me, it makes complete sense.”

  Mr. Van Dorn rose and took the list from the Jesuit. He looked uneasy as he read them. “These organizations are run by dedicated German loyalists, but their membership is comprised of amateurs. Most of their members are good people who actually believe they are simple German-American civic groups. I believe the people who followed you and made attempts on your life were amateurs thinking they were serving a greater good.”

  Mr. Van Dorn placed the list on the desk. “Had I known they were capable of such violence, I would have warned you from the outset. I hope you believe that.”

  After all Mr. Van Dorn had done for me, I had to believe him. But I still wasn’t happy about it. “You could’ve told me all of this before the gala tonight.”

  “You met Countess Alexandra this evening,” Father Mullins said. “You felt the flutter in your stomach when you saw her, the quickening of your pulse. The magnetism of the woman’s very being?” The Jesuit smiled. “Don’t look so surprised, Charles. I may be an old priest, but I’m still a man.”

  Mr. Van Dorn said, “Thanks to what you retrieved from Fairfax’s safe, we have been able to find out a great deal about her. Alexandra von Holstein is not really a countess at all, but one of the few women to have studied at the University of Vienna. Psychiatry. She has spent her life learning all aspects of the mind and human consciousness, the very things that make us who and what we are.”

  “Psychiatry?” I asked. “Dr. Otto said he was a psychiatrist. I even made a crack about it.”

  “He is,” Father Mullins said. “We believe the two of them were working together in the seduction of Walter Fairfax to gain access to his fortune. It was quite a clever operation.”

  “Had you known who she was and about her abilities,” Mr. Van Dorn added, “you may have tipped your hand immediately and she never would’ve spoken to you. As it stands now you tipped your hand anyway, but at least now you know what we’re up against.”

  I walked away from the desk and ran my hands over my head. I felt like I kept having one wall of information after another dropped right in front of me. I craned my neck until the bones popped. It helped relieve some of the pressure.

  It also helped me make sense of the entire mess. “So, Alex, Otto, and Tessmer are working for Hitler.”

  “Or for people working with him,” Mr. Van Dorn said. “Tessmer’s background has been tougher for us to uncover, but we believe he may be the organizer of these various groups Fairfax has helped finance. Based on everything Hitler has said publicly, we believe he’s looking to re-arm Germany and strike back at the Allies for the indignity his country suffered at Versailles.”

  I didn’t know much about politics, but I knew something about war. “The French and the British will never let that happen.”

  “Don’t be so sure, Charles,” Father Mullins warned. “It’s been almost twenty years since the war. An entire generation was too young to remember it. Time heals all wounds, save for vengeance. Some people believe we were too harsh with Germany and that the time has come to let them get back on their feet. They have forgotten the true nature of the enemy we faced then has only worsened with time.”

  I dropped my head into my hands and tried to rub some circulation into my skull, hoping it might help me understand all of this better. “If you think the three of them are spies, why not arrest them?”

  “We’ve done that in the past,” Mr. Van Dorn said. “We got the people we were after, but it forced their network to go further underground. I’m not just interested in Alexandra
and Otto and Tessmer. I’m interested in the people they’re giving orders to. I’ve had people from the Bureau of Investigation in Washington and various other police forces around the country following these people. We haven’t had any success in finding out where they go or who they support.” He pointed at my desk. “But once you opened that safe, now we know plenty.”

  I was less confused and more interested. “Like what?”

  Father Mullins held up the ledger. “Like where Alexandra had Fairfax send his money and how much.” He held up the leases. “And what she had Walter purchase for her and where. Real estate throughout New Jersey and Long Island, many of which were donated to some of the organizations on your list.”

  Now we were talking about something I understood. “The lease for the apartment he bought for Alexandra is in there, isn’t it? Because if we have the address, I can—”

  “We checked it yesterday,” Mr. Van Dorn said. “She moved out the day Walter died. I’ve already had our associates check the place and they came up empty. It took a little prodding on our part, but the doorman finally admitted that Fairfax was in the apartment with Alexandra that morning. A moving truck was already parked out front when he left. The same truck that moved some of her things out as soon as Fairfax was gone.”

  I was enough of a detective to know that wasn’t a good sign. “Sounds like she knew she’d have to get the hell out of there fast.”

  Father Mullins agreed. “The question is, how could she have known Walter was going to go into the office and kill himself that morning?”

  The answer came to me pretty quickly. “The phone call. Someone called him at his office. A Miss Schmidt, according to what Miss Swenson told me, but she had a German accent. One she’d never heard before, and was surprised Mr. Fairfax took.”

  “Perhaps Schmidt was Alexandra’s code name for an emergency,” Mr. Van Dorn said.

  “An emergency that would’ve caused him to kill himself afterwards?” Another piece clicked. “An emergency that made him call his doctor right afterward.”