Where the Bones are Buried

by Jeanne Matthews

  She wanted to pour out her heart to him, tell him to come home and take charge, but pride and punctured expectations stuck in her throat like gravel. All she could say was, “She didn’t do it.”

  “I hope not, for your sake. Go to the American Embassy if you’d feel more comfortable, or there’s a directory of Berlin criminal lawyers in my bottom left desk drawer. Several of them speak English. Better to bring in somebody early, before charges are filed.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Jack got the sleeping bag, K.D. got half the bed, and Dinah got a crick in her back clinging to the outer edge while trying to keep her sprawling, bumptious bedmate from pushing her off onto the floor. When the cuckoo moaned at six, she was already wide-awake, sitting at the kitchen table poring over Thor’s list of English-speaking criminal attorneys and mentally composing a to-do list. She sank her second cup of Einstein and copied down the telephone number of Winheller und Busse, located on a street off the Gendarmenmarkt. She should have realized what her mother’s misstatements would lead to and advised her not to speak to the police until she had obtained counsel.

  The law office wouldn’t open for another two hours, but the first item on her list was to call and make an appointment for the earliest possible time. After that, she would visit her mother in her new room at the Adlon and find out what, if anything, she knew about Stefan Amsel—the senior exec and ersatz Navajo who appeared to have partaken too freely of the schnapps on the night of the murder. If she could wangle a tête-à-tête with him, she could narrow down the timing of the comings and goings at the powwow and compare his version of events to Farber’s. Amsel had appeared blotto, but her new motto in life was to take all appearances with a grain of salt.

  She nibbled a bite of cold pizza and added a trip to the market to her list. What did nine-year-olds eat besides pizza? Milk, eggs, bread, bacon, and cheese seemed sufficient for the first half of the day and she assumed that a few Pfannkuchen, the city’s signature jelly-filled donuts, wouldn’t rot his teeth during the short time he would be in her custody. Should she be reminding him to brush? Floss? Put the toilet seat down? She hoped that K.D. could be bullied or bribed into babysitting. Dinah couldn’t see dragging Jack along on this day’s business.

  Margaret was just across the street in the Wunderbar. If she weren’t contagious, she could take care of Jack for a few hours. Dinah rubbed her sore throat. She couldn’t quiet a twinge of resentment. It was more than the gift of a virus. It was the needling suspicion that Margaret had lied. She was a keen observer and a cynic from way back. Cleon had fooled her, but she’d had the bad luck to love him. Love made people susceptible to believing all sorts of ackamaracka. But Margaret despised Swan. How likely was it that she would have been taken in by her far-fetched scheme? How likely that she would neglect to preview that thumb drive? Dinah scrawled her name at the bottom of her list with a question mark.

  “Is there any muesli?” asked Jack, walking into the kitchen already dressed with his hair neatly combed.

  “There will be.” She added muesli to her list. “Start with a slice of cold pizza. I’ll run out to the store and get us some breakfast.” She grabbed her coat and shoulder bag off the back of the chair. Should she lay out some ground rules? She said, “Don’t buzz anyone in while I’m gone or fall out the window or anything.”

  He took a knife out of the knife box and deftly sliced a wedge of pizza. “Where’s the TV?”

  “In the office. In the cabinet next to your dad’s…next to the clean desk on the right. You’ll have to figure out the remote by yourself. I don’t know the cartoon station.”

  “I don’t watch cartoons. I watch car races. Today is the last day of the Coronado Speed Festival. There’s a nineteen seventy-two Ferrari three-twelve P entered.”

  “Be careful with the knife,” she said, and left him to his own devices.

  A gray drizzle was falling and she pulled the hood of her jacket close around her face. Legally, Berlin’s shops and stores could be open twenty-four hours a day except Sundays. But in this neighborhood, the shops didn’t open until ten. The nearest early-opening food store was the Refugium auf dem Gendarmenmarkt. It was the anti-supermarket experience, a combination restaurant and food boutique. Any other time, it would be a pleasure to shop there. Today, her thoughts revolved around Thor’s deception, the murder of Alwin Pohl, and Swan’s impending arrest.

  She stopped in the middle of the street and added another note to her list, “White Noise.” That was the club where Geert worked. She would have to ask him if he knew Lena Bischoff. Maybe Lena had other lovers who didn’t fancy the idea of losing her to a jerk like Alwin. And with a temper like hers, she couldn’t be discounted as a suspect.

  The Refugium offered not one, but three brands of muesli. She chose the one that listed the most vitamins. She bought milk, peanut butter, jelly, bread, and cheese. As she plied her cart through the aisles of the Refugium, she was startled when a man with wooden eyeglasses stepped in front of her.

  “Frau Pelerin. We meet again.”

  It took her a second to place him. “Herr Eichen. Hello.”

  He wore a natty tweed jacket and a fleecy scarf twined around his neck. He lowered his glasses on his nose and fixed her with blue, analytical eyes, as if she were the offshoot of a phylum he couldn’t categorize. “I’ve been thinking about you since that terrible night. I trust you found your mother and she is all right?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “By getting lost, at least she didn’t have to endure the horror you did.”

  “Right.” She smiled weakly and reached a box of crackers off the shelf.

  He said, “You seem pressed.”

  “I have a lot of fires to put out.”

  “I won’t keep you, but if you and your mother would do me the honor of having dinner with me this evening, I would be very pleased. I live quite nearby. I don’t have time to prepare a gourmet dinner for you today, but we could have cocktails at my house and go to a restaurant afterward.”

  The invitation seemed like pure serendipity, a prime suspect volunteering to be interviewed. Sort of. “That’s kind of you. I don’t think my mother will be able to get away, but I’m free.”

  “Then you must come.” He whipped a card out of his wallet. “This is my address. I shall expect you at seven.” He put the card in her hand, smiled, and pushed his cart off in the direction of the cheese counter.

  She put the card in her pocket and finished her shopping. This day was turning into a marathon.

  The TV was blaring when she got back to the apartment. Engines thundered and tires screeched. She walked through to the kitchen where K.D. was scrambling eggs. She wore the peach silk negligee Thor had given Dinah for her birthday.

  Dinah felt a stab of anger at K.D., at Thor, at herself. Had those sporadic undercover missions Thor enjoyed so much predisposed him to stealth and secrecy? And why would a man with a dependent child risk his life playing spy games if he didn’t have to? She had a host of such questions to puzzle over, but they would have to wait until her mother crisis was resolved. Maybe someday she’d write a book. How Keeping Mom From Going Down For Murder Makes Breaking Up A Breeze. She relegated Thor Ramberg to the back of her mind and began putting the groceries away.

  “I need you to watch Jack for me today, K.D.”

  “As long as you’re home early. I have a date tonight.”

  “What kind of a date?”

  “Geert’s taking me to his club.”

  Dinah didn’t distrust Geert exactly. He was less standoffish than the Germans she’d met on the Humboldt faculty, always willing to lend a helping hand or rip out someone’s eyes if asked. And he was a whiz with anything mechanical. Even so, she didn’t see him as a suitable playmate for K.D. “Hanging out in a nightclub with a thirty-year-old man in a strange city isn’t a good idea. Anyway, I need you to stay with Jack tonight, too. It�
��s important.”

  K.D. took a truculent tone. “For your information, the age of consent in Germany is fourteen so long as the older person doesn’t take advantage of the younger person.”

  Dinah was stunned, not as much by German mores as by the idea that K.D. saw Geert as a possible sexual partner. “Has he come on to you?”

  “A little.”

  There was a good chance she was just being provocative, and Dinah had already given her the contraceptive lecture. But if she was serious, arguing would only egg her on. “Geert doesn’t go to the club until eleven or twelve, so it won’t inconvenience you to stick around until then. I should be home by the time you leave.”

  “Shizz, Dinah. What could happen if he was left by himself for a few hours?”

  “I don’t want to find out,” she said, and went to call Jack in for his muesli.

  While her accidental new family ate breakfast, she called and scheduled a meeting between Swan and Herr Winheller at five o’clock. She then phoned Swan and arranged to meet her in the Lobby Lounge at the Adlon at eleven to catch her up on Lohendorf’s discovery and the need for an attorney. In spite of the fact that Cleon had been an attorney, Dinah didn’t think Swan had much understanding of the attorney-client privilege. Dinah wanted to remind her to tell him the truth.

  She changed into an oversized maroon sweater, black wool slacks, and her Italian ankle boots, only slightly water-stained from their last outing in the rain. The ensemble should take her from the lobby of the Adlon to the offices of Winheller und Busse to an expensive restaurant in the Gendarmenmarkt without embarrassment. Berlin chic was luxe, but casual.

  Reasonably confident of K.D.’s cooperation, she programmed Jack’s cell number into her phone, made sure that he had hers, and hurried out the door at nine-thirty, half a Pfannkuchen clamped between her teeth. The rain had stopped, but a dense ground fog spread over the street like a flannel blanket. She stared through the fog at the curtained second-story window of Margaret’s room at the Gasthaus Wunderbar across the street and debated with herself. On the one hand, she liked Margaret, commiserated for all the pain and hardships she’d lived through. On the other hand, there was something not quite kosher about her story. She finished her Pfannkuchen, licked her fingers, and hoped she’d find Margaret sober and in a conciliatory mood.

  The receptionist at the front desk hailed her with a sunny, “Guten Morgen, Frau.”

  “Good morning. I’m here to see Frau Dobbs.”

  “Ja, I will announce you. Your name please?”

  “Just say Dinah.”

  She rang the room and Margaret was apparently awake and well enough to receive visitors. Dinah took the stairs—Margaret’s line about how many lies are too goddamn many, reverberating in her head.

  At the first knock, she opened up and motioned Dinah inside. One corner of her mouth quirked up in what Dinah construed as a smile. “The cold has broken. I guess I’ll live.”

  Dinah sat down on what had been her mother’s bed and regarded the suitcase lying open on Margaret’s. “Did the Inspector return your passport?”

  “I talked with him this morning. He promised he’d return it this afternoon. Or rather, that bossy sergeant of his will drop it off at the front desk.” A rumbling cough ratcheted into a harsh laugh. “I won’t be continuing my European Grand Tour. I’m flying home tomorrow.”

  “Had you planned a grand tour?”

  “Maybe. If your mother’s flimflam hadn’t backfired.” She folded a cotton gown and laid it on top of a layer of tightly rolled garments.

  “I’ve been thinking about that, Margaret. How could someone as savvy as you, detesting Swan the way you do, let her flimflam you?”

  “Dazzled by visions of gold, I guess. And the prospect of getting some of my own back on Reiner Hess.”

  Dinah loosened her scarf and caressed her sore throat. “Hess seems to hover over our heads like a poltergeist, doesn’t he?”

  “Not over my head. I’m done and out of here.”

  “Don’t you want to stay and find out who killed Alwin Pohl?”

  “I don’t care who killed him as long as I’m not the one who gets railroaded.” She turned her back to Dinah and needlessly neatened the clothes in the suitcase.

  Dinah said, “Swan seems to be the number one suspect.”

  “I’m sorry if that causes you pain.”

  “But you’re not sorry about Swan’s pain?”

  “If you must know, I’m rather enjoying her predicament.”

  “Did you tell Lohendorf that you knew Pohl, and that she knew him?”

  “Yes, I told him the truth. It’s been in scarce supply of late.”

  Dinah stared at Margaret’s back and doubt gave way to conviction. “You didn’t tell me the truth, Margaret.”

  She rolled her shoulders, but didn’t turn around. “I told you who Pohl was as soon as we got back from the morgue yesterday.”

  Dinah stood up and physically turned her around, gripping her arms. “You knew Pohl, but you also knew Hess. Make that present tense. You know Hess.”

  “Know him and hate him.”

  “Methinks you protest too much, Margaret. All that huffing about being deceived has all been an act. Mom didn’t deceive you. It was the other way round.”

  “That’s bull.”

  “Is it? I think you colluded with Hess and with Pohl from the get-go. Cleon wouldn’t have told either one of them where he hid his money. You told them about the bank account in Panama and put them up to blackmailing Swan. You wanted revenge against her, not Hess. Am I getting warm?”

  “Let go of me, Dinah, or I’ll cough in your face.”

  Dinah let go with a little shove of disgust.

  “She lied, I lied. It doesn’t make us even, but it makes me feel better.” Margaret pulled a tissue out of a box on the dresser behind her, blew her nose, and moved across to a chair next to the window. She sat down heavily and hiked her feet onto the footstool. “Have you ever been curious about your man’s other women?”

  Dinah flashed to Jennifer, she of the long blond hair, the good figure, and the permanent role of mother to Thor’s son. “A little.”

  “Well, I’ve been curious about Swan from the day Cleon left me to move in with her. Oh, she was pretty. But what kept him mesmerized? As many times as she and I were thrown together at Cleon’s mandatory gatherings of the clan, we never had a substantive conversation. Not even after she left Cleon and married your father. You’d think we would have had a field day dishing about the husband we’d shared and still held on to in a way. After I killed him, I wrote her a letter and tried to explain. She never wrote back or called. And then out of the blue, she calls me up with a proposition to travel to Berlin and blackmail Reiner Hess. I thought she’d gone barking mad.”

  “But you strung her along.”

  “Hell, yes, I strung her along. I was fascinated. She said she knew how much I hated Reiner and wouldn’t I like to recoup the money he’d cheated me out of. I don’t know why she thinks I hate Reiner. As a matter of fact, I used to go out with him from time to time when he lived in the States. After Cleon shafted me, he was balm to my bruised ego.”

  “You didn’t disabuse her of the idea that you hated him.”

  “I reinforced it. Laid it on thick about how much I loathed the bastard just to hear more details of the scam. She said she had proof that Reiner had killed a couple of feds and he would pay dearly for it.”

  “You didn’t believe her?”

  “Reiner was a lawyer. If he was guilty of anything, it was moving Cleon’s drug money into legitimate businesses, which doesn’t seem half bad to me.”

  “Did you get in touch with your old flame to let him know what Swan had in store for him?”

  “What makes you think I’d know how to find him?”

  “Don’t be coy, Margaret
. Did you call him?”

  “All right, Dinah. Yes, I called him. He was still at home in Berlin. It was before the German revenuers came down on him like vultures. We had a friendly chat. He said he’d received a letter from Swan asking for money, but he wasn’t in a position to help her. I told him that she and I would be in town in late September, and that she claimed to have evidence of two murders he’d committed.”

  “What did he say to that?”

  “He thought she was bonkers, but said he’d keep an eye on her. I didn’t blow the gaff about your Panama account and I sure as hell didn’t suggest that we put the screws to Swan. I didn’t know she was being blackmailed until you told me. For what?”

  “For half a mil,” said Dinah, deliberately misunderstanding. “Did Hess tell you that he and his old chum Pohl were back working together?”

  “He didn’t say anything about Pohl. I doubt they’ve ever been chums. Reiner’s nearly thirty years older and has a lot better manners.”

  Dinah remembered her comment about the subways being confusing and a fresh cloud of suspicion rolled in. “How did you get to Müggelsee, Margaret? Did you take the train? You’d have had to make several transfers. Or did Reiner act as chauffeur? Did he go with you to keep an eye on Swan?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “I think he did,” said Dinah. “I think he went into the woods and killed Pohl and you’re shielding him, shifting the blame onto Swan.”

  Margaret swung her feet off the stool, leaned forward across her knees, and aimed her widow’s peak at Dinah. “Reiner had no reason to kill the man, but if he did kill him, even if I knew that he did, I couldn’t rat him out. After what I’ve been through, trust me, I wouldn’t wish a charge of murder on my worst enemy.” She hefted herself out of the chair and crossed the room to stand face-to-face with Dinah. “I owe you my freedom and I wouldn’t collude, as you put it, to frame your mother for murder. I’ll admit to you that Reiner was with me that night. But if you tell the police, I’ll deny it.”