Abstract Aliases (A Bodies of Art Mystery Book 3)

by Ritter Ames

  “That was Nico, yes,” I said. “Thanks again for your help.”

  “No trouble at all. They said you were leaving Rome for Germany last night.”

  It wasn’t really a question, but I answered, “We’re in Cologne at the moment.”

  “Hawkes is with you?”

  “Yes, do you need to speak to him?” I caught Jack’s eye.

  “No, no. Simply making sure I know where everyone is.”

  “I understand, Superintendent. If we cross borders again I will let you know.”

  “Very good. All I can tell you at the moment. Unless you have something to pass my way?”

  “Sorry, but I’ll let you know if we turn up anything useful,” I said. “Thanks again for letting me know about Nelly. Do you know if she has family coming in to handle funeral arrangements?”

  “Not yet. We’re making inquiries,” he said. “She kept pretty much to herself, and the neighbors didn’t know anything about family to notify. It will be in the papers, and people hopefully will come forward. However, we like to connect with them first whenever possible.”

  The two of us signed off, and I spent a minute filling Jack in on anything he hadn’t overheard. We were standing by a glass cube holding a sculpture resembling brains and intestines. Two crewmembers came by, lifted the top of the cube and withdrew one of the pieces. Everything about the exhibit seemed to be a work in progress.

  We moved out of the gallery room and headed for the more well-known pieces of the collection. In particular, I always enjoy Warhol, and knew there were several of his works on display. Before we reached the escalator, however, Jack turned and strode toward a man in a suit and trench coat. Something about him looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. When he saw Jack coming closer, he turned around and fast-walked his way toward the exit. Jack sped up. The strange man broke into a jog. I crossed Warhol off my mental list for the day and raced after them.

  When I reached the museum entrance, Jack stood there alone. I crossed my arms and frowned as I stared out the glass. We were off to the side to keep from hindering people as they entered the doors. The other man was nowhere to be seen.

  “Guy on a motorcycle picked him up a second ago,” Jack said.

  “Who was he?” I asked.

  “The man from the train who woke me up when he left his seat.”

  “I knew he looked familiar after you left to intercept him, but I couldn’t figure out who or why I recognized him,” I said. Jack had a talent for spotting people who didn’t want to be noticed. I’d even found myself at the receiving end of his superpowers.

  “He added the hat and glasses,” Jack said. “I was relatively certain it was him and positive when he started running away.”

  “Am I to suppose he isn’t the only person following us?”

  “I would say it’s a foregone conclusion.”

  Eighteen

  “I’m thinking I need to call Ralf and cancel the appointment,” I said, pulling my phone from the Fendi. We walked out the huge glass doors. Back on the wide plaza again, I could feel eyes everywhere.

  “Call and warn him we may have a tail, but don’t cancel,” Jack said, taking my free arm by the elbow and steering me toward the train station. “Before we go any farther, we need to see if we have any electronic devices anywhere on our bodies. Besides your lucky charm bracelet, of course.”

  I wiggled my wrist and made the charms jangle, just as my phone call went to Ralf’s voicemail. “He’s not picking up,” I said.

  “Tell him the situation. Ask him to watch for a while before approaching, to see if he spots any shadows on us.”

  The voicemail recording ended, and I began my message. Jack kept talking, “Tell him to drop a message near one of us or send a text if he sees a shadow and thinks we need to reschedule.”

  He stopped talking, and I was able to finish up what I hoped was a coherent message. Except Jack’s comments had me obsessing on the idea of possibly being re-assaulted in the train station bathroom. “I’m not sure a public restroom is the right place—”

  “We’re not using the loo,” he said. “We’re going to do everything out in the open.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “If a bug has been planted on either of us it’s likely in our coats or your purse. I have a handy device in my luggage to do the checking for us.”

  “Sounds much better.”

  “I thought it might.”

  Ten minutes later, we felt confident about staying in our clothes. Nothing gave off a warning squeal.

  “So, James Bond, any ideas?” I asked.

  Jack’s gaze bore into mine, but I knew it was nothing personal. I could see the wheels of his brain turning behind his teal eyes. After a few seconds the personable Hawkes came back and he said, “He could have some type of directional mic. Or another kind of device to allow him to listen to everything we said to each other on the train and afterward from yards away. Between a directional mic and simple visual techniques, it would be enough to stay on our trail.”

  “This is feeling creepy,” I said. “Do you think he had any partners?”

  “If he’s smart and doing his job right, he does.”

  “You make me feel so much better.”

  He laughed. “Let’s go on over to the cathedral. If we can’t get lost in the twenty thousand who visit this cathedral every day, at least we can make finding us less easy.”

  “Okay,” I said, pulling my Fendi more solidly on my shoulder. “Do we need to stick to texting and cut down on the talking?”

  “Something to think about, but first, take off your coat,” he said, bending to dig farther into the bag he’d left half unzipped on the station floor.

  “Why? Your gadget said there was no transmitter.”

  “It did.” He pulled a dark wool jacket from the bag and laid it across the top of the locker door as he removed the bomber jacket he’d been wearing. “While your red coat looks great, it doesn’t blend in well. No matter how large the crowd is.”

  He traded me his leather jacket for my long warm coat, and folded the heavy red wool to fit into the locker after he added his bag. “We’ll figure out what to do about all of this once we get more information and can make a better assessment.”

  The bomber jacket was warm and big and smelled like Jack, the earthy and pleasant sandalwood-based scent I hadn’t yet been able to find in any retail cologne. I loved the roomy pockets, and slipped in the travel-sized hairspray I’d used on my bathroom assailant. Much easier to grab it from a pocket than have to pull it from my purse.

  We were about an hour away from the meeting time and heading to the cathedral made sense. As we left the station, Jack pulled me close. “Play along,” he whispered in my ear. “If we need to talk, let’s go the couple route. It will be less conspicuous than the two of us seeming to ignore each other and texting all the time.”

  I could have argued. I saw too many couples doing exactly that every day. My thumbs weren’t crazy about nonstop texting though, so I agreed.

  He kept his arm around me, and his head bent close to mine as we walked slower than we had been doing earlier. I was a little grateful to be back in the cold air.

  “When we meet Ralf, you need to get him to deliver any information he might have from his sources that can expand on the official law enforcement files,” Jack said. “The police might have learned part of what he knows from other criminal informants, but I’ll bet your source knows things no one ever told when they were questioned.”

  “You’re probably right. Do we show him the file attachments?”

  Jack steered us toward a raised planter. We sat along the rim. “Let’s see if we need to,” he said, sitting close and keeping his voice barely audible. “Asking him questions about data we pulled from the files is one thing. Ethical
ly, we’re way beyond shaky if we actually show him the official files.”

  “Especially since we don’t have official authority to have them ourselves.” I almost breathed the words.

  His chuckle was low and rich in my ear.

  “If I miss anything during the meeting, you’ll be close to jump in. Right?”

  “As close as I am now,” he said. “You and Nico may thoroughly trust this guy, but I don’t have the luxury.”

  I was getting uncomfortably comfortable sitting with his arm tight around my shoulders and his breath warm on my neck. It was time to move. “Okay, let’s go and head for the cathedral. Unless you have an idea of anything else we need to talk about or do before—”

  “We could snog here for a while. Get our cover solid for anyone watching us.”

  I seriously wondered if the guy was reading my mind and stopped myself an instant before I bit my lower lip and gave myself away again. I covered with a shaky kind of laugh and patted his thigh. “Down, tiger. I’m sure your queen wouldn’t ask you to do anything above and beyond.”

  “Who said it was my queen’s idea?” His gaze bore into mine.

  Okay, I was officially out of rebuttal words. I covered temporary laryngitis with another laugh and rose from the side of the planter, grabbing Jack’s hand to pull him toward the cathedral. So it wouldn’t appear to him like I was running away.

  But I did want to run away—and I didn’t. When my gaze met his I could tell he knew exactly how off-balance my emotions were at the moment, because he wore the self-satisfied smile that told me he knew everything I didn’t want him to know.

  The realization made me irritated enough for my confidence to return full force. “Quit trying to push my buttons, Hawkes, and come on. We have work to do.”

  “Pushing your buttons was the furthest thing from my mind,” he said, walking beside me.

  I wanted to say “pull the other one,” but he’d laugh and make me angry again, and I didn’t have the energy reserves to spare.

  The Gothic cathedral filled one whole side of the city center. The thing about the Cologne Cathedral is it is huge. I mean, too-big-for-you-to-get-the-whole-thing-in-your-camera-phone-no-matter-how-far-away-you-back-up huge.

  “Amazing they could make the towers so tall,” Jack said. “What are they? Five hundred feet?”

  I delved into my memory of European Cathedrals and Associated Religious Art from coursework my junior year and said, “They used squirrel cages to lift the blocks.” Nothing like an art history professor who loved the great cathedrals to provide every interesting element of their construction. “A worker would walk a wooden wheel, much like a giant hamster wheel, and the movement raised a pallet of those incredibly heavy blocks. Each block weighed about a hundred pounds. One man walking the wheel could raise pallets of material more than six times his weight, and raise the load as high as the ropes extended.”

  Admission was free, and we joined the rest of the pilgrims and tourists heading inside.

  “One big piece of real estate,” Jack murmured, looking around.

  “We’re to wait by St. Christopher.”

  “Naturally. Who better to guide us than the patron saint of pilgrims and travelers?”

  St. Christopher was easy enough to spot. Ralf wasn’t there yet, of course, but we took a minute to check out the space—and escape routes—in case things turned dicey.

  The reconnaissance complete, I said, “Come on. Let’s play pilgrim.”

  I’d been to the cathedral several times before, and knew from the way Jack was more focused on the crowds than the awe-inspiring heights he’d visited in the past as well. In the Middle Ages, Cologne became part of the European pilgrimage route in dramatic fashion. The bones of the Magi had been housed in Milan until the twelfth century. This grand new Gothic cathedral offered enough space for every pilgrim to stop in and pay their respects to the three kings who made their own journey to see the Christ child, so the bones and golden reliquary were given to Cologne. A pilgrimage stop for some, a holy spot for all.

  The crowds hadn’t diminished with time either.

  “At least the masses give us the ability to hide in the mix,” I said.

  “And allow our followers to do the same.” The look he gave me was grim.

  We paid our respects to the altarpiece by fifteenth-century international Gothic painter, Stefan Lochner, a giant in Europe’s northern art renaissance movement. At the Milan Madonna, we stayed and pretended to talk, pointing up at the highlights of the masterpiece while we actually watched to see who in the crowd left before us—and who stayed as long as we did.

  As we passed by the candles, I lit one in hopes of gaining a blessing on this mission. I’m not overly devout, but in this case I felt we needed every advantage. I moved away and Jack stepped forward and lit one as well.

  “You want to head down to the vaults?” Jack whispered in my ear. “To see the evidence of how rich and powerful the city’s archbishops were.”

  “Think I’ll pass,” I replied. “I prefer my pilgrim experiences not to be in subterranean locales where I only know one exit.”

  “I concur.”

  I looked at my watch and saw it was time to meander back to the rendezvous point. As we backtracked, my brain roamed over the big picture around us, keying in on the way this cathedral was designed in the shape of a cross, like a legion of others across medieval Europe. Divine dimensions, mimicking John the Baptist’s words in Revelation about measuring God’s heavenly city.

  St. Christopher was right where we’d left him. After joining the procession around him and spending a quarter hour oohing and ahhing with the other tourists checking out the statue, Jack sent me a message. Let’s go by the wall. Compare notes by text. I waited a beat before walking casually toward an empty spot at the outer wall. He followed. There were already a number of teens and twenty-somethings doing the same thing, and we fit right into the décor.

  I take it you haven’t seen Ralf, Jack texted.

  No, but I’ve noticed a repeat guest to our party, I answered.

  The man who looks like a farmer or the brunette trying to look like a schoolgirl?

  I wanted to laugh, but responded, The school girl. She’s my age if she’s a day.

  Don’t be catty. She’s younger than Cassie, but definitely past 6th form.

  That’s high school in America, right?

  Close enough.

  I raised my gaze a moment, as if resting my eyes from the screen or thinking. No one jumped out fitting the nickname. I typed, What does the farmer look like?

  Fifties, half grey hair, half brown, rough skin on his hands and face, sturdy canvas duffle coat in blue with a bleach stain on the back of the arm. Probably doesn’t realize about the stain, but made him easy to spot. A second later, Jack sent, Hate to ask the obvious, but you haven’t missed a text?

  No, checked before we started this. Held the phone while touristing so I could feel it vibrating. Nothing.

  He added, There’s a kid. About 12. Went around the corner when we came over here. Looked away whenever our eyes met the last 10 mins or so.

  Watching?

  Yeah, but may be looking for marks.

  Pickpocket?

  That’s my thought, Jack said.

  I had nothing more to add, and he stared off in the distance like he was out of texting material as well. A look at the clock said we were nearly thirty minutes over the meeting time. I typed, Let’s wander like we’re taking a last look at the stained glass. It will get us logically around the church and give Ralf a chance to see us if he’s late for some reason.

  Jack read his screen, nodded, and added, Besides lighting a candle, hope we don’t have to send up a prayer to St. Jude too. He shot me a grave look and pocketed his phone.

  I started to t
ell him not to start thinking lost causes, until I remembered Roberto and realized to what purpose Jack likely lit his candle. I pushed a worry about Ralf to the back of my mind and told it to stay put. Caught myself chewing my lower lip as we walked away.

  Even with my short heels, my legs were starting to ache from standing and walking on hard surfaces all morning. This wasn’t a time for whining, however. As we neared the “schoolgirl” I said brightly, “This place was definitely designed to make us feel small, and show us our place in the whole scheme of life. Come on, darling, we’ll let it swallow us up for a while and tour the stained glass. The walls almost glow.”

  My darling’s face showed he was struggling not to laugh. He held out his arm, and I slipped a hand into the crook of his elbow.

  An amazing fact about Gothic cathedrals was the many purposes of the windows. From a structural standpoint they actually provided a means of light and doubled as engineering tools. But the stained glass served another purpose. The colored glass above us reflected the passing of the centuries, and the compositions depicted the biblical stories people could “read” in the glass in an age when most were illiterate. In difficult times, the cathedral bathed churchgoers in light, and the towering beauty allowed them to vicariously experience heaven on earth. Heavenly art.

  The range of artists contributing to the work included Gerhard Richter’s modern play of colors. Almost an abstract in sunlight. The artistry bathed the church with jewel-toned divine light. I whispered, “Enough stained glass to cover two football fields.”

  “Your football fields or mine?” Jack asked.

  “Ours probably. I first heard the comparison at Cornell.”

  Jack stood behind me. Then crashed into me. I was knocked down for the second time in as many days.

  “Scusi, scusi.”

  The words of Italian were what caught my attention.

  “It was the kid,” Jack said, searching his pockets to see what was missing. “His accent was fake.”