Gissell’s death during child birth had been devastating for Kurtz, and after burying his wife and stillborn son, he had considered returning to Europe. However, he had fallen in love with Argentina, and of course he had inherited his wife’s fortune, which meant he could live how he pleased. He could become anyone. He could act again. What harm could it possibly do?
The act he had put on for Elliott, the staff at La Casa Verde, and indeed the people of Belgrano had been one of his greatest performances. How they loved the kind old man from Europe, who spoke ‘Swiss,’ German, French, English and many other languages. How they loved his dapper style of dress, his immaculate manners, and his discerning and educated taste for fine wines. Oh, how they marveled at his generosity, his good deeds, and his mysterious accent. How they marveled at the speeches he had made…what a performance.
He was generous, though, and he had been a great benefactor to the people of Belgrano. Of course he could afford to be kind. He was rich, which allowed him to help others, and he enjoyed the acclaim and the notoriety. Fame and popularity were always something an actor craved, and he was no different. Why not spread joy and wealth rather than be alone and miserable? Helping Cardasso pay for his restaurant had only added more mystery to the ‘Kurtz’ legend, as did his socializing with politicians and high ranking military officers. He didn’t agree with their politics or methods, but it was good to be associated with them. It was all done for his ‘character’s’ development. What he was doing was hurting no one, it gave him pleasure, and this final act, his last joke, was his finest. It was a little prank on this American friend.
From the moment he had first met Elliott, he had decided that he was the type of man who was level-headed and who would laugh when he discovered the truth. A man who, for not one minute, would believe the curious coincidences of Kurtz’s life and its parallel to another life. Eventually, Elliott would realize the ruse, but when he didn’t, it proved to Kurtz one thing; the one thing that mattered more to him above everything else – he could still act. And he was good.
Now though, as he lay in his bed, his cane leaning against the comfortable leather chair in his bedroom, he knew the act was over. His doctor had warned him that his evenings spent eating red meat, and drinking even redder wine, would sooner or later bring on another heart attack. He had been ordered by his physician to remain at home, to take it easy, so there would be no meetings with Elliott at the Casa Verde for a while. Kurtz knew though that he didn’t have long, and when his heart did finally give up on him, which he knew would be before he saw Elliott again, he would add the final seal on the joke he was playing. The coup de grace, and it would be the final act in the play and his trump card would be his ultimate prop.
He had purchased the signed copy of Mein Kampf years before, at an auction in Mendoza before Gissell had died. She had, of course, paid for it and it had not been cheap. He had explained to her that he held no sympathy towards the book or the author, but it was a something he wanted; a memory of his life in Europe, and a reminder of what that man had done his country, to his people. Kurtz was certainly no Nazi. He had been appalled when they had marched into Belgium and dragged his people into a war that they were unprepared and unequipped for. The autographed book would just be a curio, a conversation piece, and those conversations discussing how it ended up at an auction in Southern Argentina would make dinner parties fun and maybe even lead to debate. But, along with many other things in his life, it had been forgotten. Left on a shelf gathering dust, it was the book that had given him the idea to fool someone into thinking he was…. someone the world thought was dead. He had rediscovered it in his vast library in the large home he had purchased once he had grown bored of Mendoza. The fact that Kurtz bore no resemblance to the man didn’t matter; they were roughly the same height. If he had survived the bunker, which Kurtz believed he hadn’t, he would be an old man, and would have had probably had plastic surgery anyway. In any case, it was all just a joke.
Kurtz wasn’t sure if his joke was working, though. Was Elliott remotely intrigued? The book, the book though would convince him. He would write a note, alluding that he had written it. He would have his housekeeper deliver it, should his heart indeed stop beating before he saw Elliott again. If he recuperated, he would deliver it himself. Either way, it would be a great finale.
Kurtz also wondered, as he lay on his bed, if Elliott actually believed that the old folk tales he was reciting were actually created by him. Of course they hadn’t been; they were stories he had heard in Europe from a fellow actor, a German man by the name of Karl. They had appeared together in a play in Amsterdam, and during their acquaintanceship, had spent many hours together. Karl had told him that the stories were well-known in Austria and Southern Germany, and that parents would tell them to their children. There was no author, just stories passed down from parents to children and then onto their children. Kurtz had memorized them. He had found the stories to be quite entertaining, but of course he would never dream of writing them down. No, they would just be part of the act, a way to ensure that even the children of Belgrano adored the mysterious, yet kind old man. He enjoyed telling them and to anyone hearing them for the first time, they were original and they were his.
He had wrapped the book in brown paper, and he had left instructions, should he not recover from his latest illness, for his housekeeper to seek out Elliott and deliver the package to La Casa Verde. He wished he could see Elliott’s face, and Cardasso’s, when they saw the book and read the note. What a prank.
Holsten Kurtz yawned. He had so many memories. Gissell. How he missed her. How he was sure she would be enjoying his acting and his mischievous practical joke. He closed his eyes and suddenly felt a pain in his chest, a tight gripping pain that then traveled down his left arm. Yet another heart attack, just as his physician had predicted, but this one felt stronger than the others and he could feel himself getting weaker. He was dizzy and his breathing began to shorten. His pills were close by and if he stretched he could probably grab them. If he banged his cane on the floor, his housekeeper would come and fetch his doctor. She could reach for the pills and he would be fine. But he did nothing. This was it and he was not afraid. He would be with Gissell again and their unborn child. Before he died, before he exited the great stage that was his life, before his final curtain fell, Holsten Kurtz allowed himself one final smile.
Chapter 34
Hong Kong, Six Days after St. Patrick’s Day
Peter Ferguson stared out of his office window, a cup and saucer in his hand contained his favorite tea. He raised the cup to his lips as he admired the view. Hong Kong was a wonderful place. He loved it here. Being fifty floors up in a tower block and having a corner office meant that he had a magnificent view of the harbor and the city. At night, as it was now, that view was even more impressive. He took another sip of his tea before returning to his desk. He opened his laptop, donned his reading glasses, and began to scroll down a list of files on his desktop. The resulting white glow illuminated his face, with his reading glasses mirroring the reflection of what he saw on his computer screen in the otherwise darkened office.
He rubbed his forehead as he read. He clicked on his mouse pad and opened a sub-file: Elliott Miller. He scrawled through the document, reading intensely, shaking his head at times, and sometimes smiling. Eventually, he leaned back in his chair. He hit the delete button, sending the document into his recycle bin where he again deleted it from the system. He leaned forward and reached for the phone on his desk.
“The Miller file is deleted. It is permanently closed. No action required now, or ever.” He placed the phone back on his desk and opened up another folder on his desktop entitled, ‘Dermot Lynch.’ He did not open this folder, nor did he read any document. He deleted the file, and as before, permanently erased it.
Ferguson leaned back in his chair once more, raised his head, and took a sip of tea. Returning his gaze to his computer, he located another file to erase: Doug Partridge. Once complete, he closed
his laptop and rose from his desk. Carrying the laptop under his arm, he walked back to the window. For a second time that evening, he admired the view before sliding open his office window. The noise of the city below filled the room and he looked down onto the streets below. It was midnight. He lifted the laptop and then deliberately dropped it out of the window, by his own admission a stupid thing to do. Out of character for a member of the Organization, but it was symbolic, for him at least. He was out, and it was his final act as a member of the Organization. He watched as it fell fifty stories to the ground. He listened as it crashed on the concrete below. He then smiled, and closed his window.
On the ground, the laptop lay in a hundred pieces and beyond repair. A street cleaner, alerted by the crash, looked up at the tall office building but saw no one. Shrugging, he walked over to the mangled pieces of metal, plastic, and glass brushing the debris into a pile before collecting it a pan and dumping the contents into his cart. He glanced to his left; usually the city was deserted at this hour but he had been sure he had seen a shadow near the entrance of the building from where the laptop had just fallen. He shrugged again. He must be seeing things, maybe it had been a ghost? As he continued to sweep the streets, he could smell the distinctive odor of cigarette smoke. Odd, he thought, there seemed to a menthol tint to the smoke…….
Chapter 35
Two Years Later
Betty Jenkins hadn’t known it be this cold in Savannah for years. Everyone knew that Februarys could sometimes be brutal, a stark contrast to the hot and humid summers. However, this year had been one of the bitterest winters on record. She wrapped a scarf around her neck, placed her warm winter coat over her shoulders, and called the dogs to heel. It was going to be a cold weekend.
Fuchsl, Paddy, and Walter all jumped to their paws at the sound of their mistress’s voice and the noise of clanking leashes. It was walk time, and the cold air didn’t bother them one bit. Betty smiled as the dogs made their way towards her. They were not as sprightly as they had once been. In fact, Betty wasn’t sure how old they actually were, but she guessed that her adopted pets probably didn’t have too many walks left in them. Betty opened the door to the house she had once cleaned, the door to the house she now owned as it was bequeathed to her by her former employer Heidi Launer, much to the disdain and protestations of Steven, and shivered. Despite her coat and scarf, Betty still felt the cold, and her breath created a fog in front of her face as she exhaled into the night.
“Come on boys, let’s head to the park. Keep close,” said Betty as she led the three dogs to the park for their nightly routine of a frolic as well as a last chance to toilet before Betty locked the doors, turned off the lights, and spent an hour reading a good book before falling asleep. Gordonston, as it usually was, was quiet, still, and peaceful. The routine walk to the park would take less than a minute, and in that time, Betty hardly ever saw another soul. Sometimes though, she would see the ex-police chief, Sam Taylor, and his wife, drive by in their RV, usually returning from another vacation. He would always wave and smile. Oftentimes, she would spot Kelly and Elliot Miller on their porch, laughing and joking, but of course that was only on weekends and public holidays. Once or twice, she had seen Robert and Jeff Morgan holding hands as they walked their dogs, a Bassett hound named Frank and their two Chihuahuas, Elton and John, around the outside of the park railings, but never in it.
It had been over a year since Jeff Morgan had resigned from the Savannah Police Department and announced that he was gay, as well as that he had been in a relationship with Robert Thompson for six months. Robert, who had overcome the tragedy of having his previous partner die in his arms, owned several bars and nightclubs in the town. After Morgan’s shocking resignation and then their marriage, the couple had become local celebrities. They opened businesses together, including a moped rental shop and a liquor store on River Street, adding to their growing portfolio of local companies.
During the day, though, the park had become a bustling and active place. Meredith Keyes and her friends had expanded their unofficial and unrestrictive dog-walking club. Many from outside Gordonston would show up, and for thirty minutes or so, they would exercise their dogs in the park along with Gordonston residents, who were more than happy to share the park. It was nice, thought Betty, that everyone and not just the residents of Gordonston were using the park. Though the signs still warned that it was private property and that the park was for residents only, nobody cared. Nobody policed the park, and nobody was excluded. It was, thought Betty, how it should be. There had been enough exclusion, enough segregation in this world. To argue and fight over the exercise of dogs was pointless and futile, like all things that aimed to separate and divide human beings.
Tonight though, the streets were empty. All was still and not even a car passed as Betty crossed Edgewater Road and entered the park, bending down to unleash her charges to let them run freely, cock their legs against trees, and to enjoy their exercise.
Betty took a seat on the park bench, the park bench adorned with the plaque that read, ‘In Memory Of The Gordonston Ladies Dog Walking Club. Thelma, Heidi, Cindy and Carla. Protectors of the park and lovers of dogs.’ As she did every night, Betty could not help but let a wry smile creep onto her face before she relaxed. Each night, she watched as the dogs played in the wooded area, chasing each other along the wood-chipped path or sniffing the earth as all dogs did, before they became distracted by something far more interesting.
The former housekeeper clapped her hands together to create some heat, the noise of her hands coming together and echoing in the emptiness that was the park. Not many people ventured there at night; stories of ghosts haunting the park, exaggerated by kids, passed down from sibling to sibling and friend to friend, seemed to have deterred kids from using the park when it was dark. The most popular story was that the ghost of Tom Hudd would rise up and wander the park looking for his dog, only to stop at the main gate and stare at the Miller house before vanishing into thin air. Other stories designed to scare the neighborhood kids included tales of old women, walking their dogs, one with her head hideously mutilated by a bullet wound, her features distorted, and her companion foaming at the mouth. All just make believe.
Betty smiled to herself. The thought of ghosts didn’t scare her. Nothing really scared Betty. As she continued to sit at the park bench, she planned her next trip to Arlington, where she would place fresh flowers on Andy’s grave and maybe treat herself to a stay at a fine hotel before driving back to Savannah in her brand new car. Not only had Heidi left Betty her home, but she had also left her loyal housekeeper a considerable part of her financial estate, which had made Betty Jenkins a very wealthy woman. Of course, as was expected, Steven Launer had not been pleased. He had contested not only the bequeathing of the house, but the money too. Luckily for Betty, and Steven, the Launer family came into even greater wealth, an inheritance from Austria. It was something to do with a jeweler. It had been millions, and quite rightly, Steven had dropped his claims against Betty and settled for being a multi-millionaire rather than just a millionaire. Their relationship, though at first strained, had become pleasant, with Steven often coming by whenever he visited Savannah. No, everything had worked out just fine.
Lost in her thoughts Betty didn’t notice the car pull up to south side of the park by the gate that led onto Gordonston Road, nor did she he notice the occupants exit the car. She probably wouldn’t have noticed them entering the park if it hadn’t been for the sound of the old Iron Gate creaking open. It really did need oiling, she thought, as she glanced over toward the gate. Raising her head, Betty watched as the two figures entered the park. Odd, thought Betty, no one ever came to the park at night and especially on a night like this. Walter, Paddy, and Fucshl were also alerted by the new arrivals and bounded over towards them – excited by something, something Betty hadn’t seen yet. Betty strained to see better, but still couldn’t make out much, just a taller figure next to a figure that was shorter, maybe a ch
ild or possibly even a teenager.
“Hello, hello you guys, you want to play? Be careful he is only small.”
The voice of a girl, a girl who was stroking and making a fuss over all the dogs as the taller figure looked on. She was holding something in her arms and Betty could see that it looked like a puppy. The pair, the child and the taller person, who Betty could now make out was a man, headed eastwards along the wood-chipped path. The girl was now leading the puppy by a leash as Walter, Fucshl, and Paddy followed, curiously sniffing the smaller dog and probably wondering if he wanted to play.
Betty stared as the procession of humans and dogs disappeared behind a clump of trees at the furthest end of the park. Betty strained to see them, but it was dark, and she hadn’t brought her glasses However, he could see now that it was a man and a young girl.
“I hope they aren’t bothering you--my dogs,” said Betty politely as the pair and the quartet of dogs reached the west gate where she had entered the park. The man and girl turned to face Betty and walked towards her, as Walter, Fuchsl, and Paddy bounded towards their mistress and the puppy followed behind.
“No, they are wonderful,” said the girl, now coming closer into the view. The man, however, remained at a distance underneath the shadow of a tree. All Betty could make out was that he wore a baseball cap and sported a beard that covered most of his face. Betty returned her gaze to the girl who was now stood directly in front of her.
“You have beautiful dogs. They are very playful, and they aren’t bothering us at all, are they Daddy?” The girl turned to face her father, who didn’t speak, but just nodded his head in agreement. “See?”
Betty nodded and smiled at the young lady, whom Betty guessed was probably about twelve or thirteen.
“Well, we have to go. Thank you ever so much for letting my puppy play with your dogs.”
Saint Patrick's Day - The Gordonston Ladies Dog Walking Club Part III: A Dark Comedy Cozy Mystery With A Twist Page 17
