The Last Monument

by Michael C. Grumley

  He quickly straightened and doubled-checked Rickards’ address on his phone, sent earlier by the same person to whom he’d just spoken on the phone.

  Starting the car, Fischer thrust the gearshift into reverse and backed up enough to turn out, mashing the gas pedal.

  ***

  He could tell the Porter woman was sharp. It hadn’t taken her long to become wary of Fischer. Perhaps even leery. She’d asked him seemingly innocent questions to test his knowledge of the case.

  But eventually, she told him everything, even if it was under extremely physical duress when he’d finally had her alone.

  Joe Rickards’ residence was fifteen minutes away through afternoon traffic, prompting Fischer to dial the same international phone number back.

  “Still nothing on her phone.”

  Fischer’s eyes flared in frustration as he stared down a line of cars waiting between him and a stoplight. The cross streets were no better. “Where’s her goddamn car?!”

  “Don’t know.”

  He knew that, too.

  “Do you have anything new?!”

  “No.”

  “Then call me when you have her location. Especially if it’s anywhere close to Rickards’ address.”

  31

  “This is insane. You understand that.”

  Angela nodded and watched Rickards drop his duffel bag onto the floor with a loud thud. She remained still in his living room, standing sheepishly with her hands behind her back.

  “I wouldn’t have asked if you weren’t, you know, not working.”

  He turned from the staircase and narrowed his eyes on her. “Don’t start that again.”

  “It wasn’t derogatory. I was just saying.”

  He approached and dropped his hands to his hips. “I agreed to go, but here’s my condition. If we don’t find anything solid, and I mean solid, from your uncle in Alerta, I’m turning around and coming back.”

  “How will we know if something is solid?”

  “Trust me,” he said. “I’ll know.”

  “Do you speak any Spanish?”

  “No.” Rickards suddenly gave her a concerned look. “Do you?”

  “A little. But it should be enough.”

  ‘Fine. I’ll be ready in twenty minutes. Your place next?”

  “I’m already packed.”

  “Already?”

  She shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep. My bags are in my car.”

  Rickards looked curiously at her. “What time did you decide you were going?”

  “About three-thirty.”

  “Did you sleep at all?”

  “Not really.”

  He passed her and walked into his kitchen, which was illuminated by natural light from a small skylight in the middle of the ceiling.

  He opened the refrigerator and looked inside before pausing and turning back to her, now standing in the doorway. “Have you eaten anything?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want anything?”

  Angela glanced at the dark table near the doorway. Small and simple, with four chairs neatly pushed in. The top held not so much as a saltshaker.

  “Do you actually have any food here?”

  “Not a lot.”

  “Then I’m fine.”

  He closed the refrigerator door. “Suit yourself.”

  “We can get something at the airport. My treat.”

  “Yay.”

  This was insane. Utterly insane. He barely knew the woman, he had no personal connection to this case, and he had no clue what he might be walking into. For all he knew, this was all part of an elaborate hoax, made up by some delirious explorer at death’s door from a jungle-born illness.

  It was also a fourteen-hour flight. Fourteen hours. For what? To find out why an old man died in a plane crash?

  Somberly, Rickards studied a shadowed reflection of his face in the polished refrigerator door. She was right, though. He had to give her that. He was curious, at the very least. The investigator in him did want to know what happened. And thanks to her irritatingly astute observation, and as much as Rickards didn’t want to think about it, he literally had nothing else to do at the moment. What else was there to do, sit and wallow?

  He stopped shaking his head and looked at Angela. “This is insane.”

  All she could do was grin and nod. “You might have mentioned that.”

  32

  Fischer stomped on the accelerator again, careening down a narrow street and swerving around a parked car before letting up and rounding the next corner. He was too close to worry about police. Barely three blocks.

  He accelerated faster down a short block before slowing hard again for another turn.

  As recently as fifteen minutes ago, Angela Reed’s cell phone was within one hundred and fifty meters of Joe Rickards’ house. Which meant they were together.

  The last two people to know anything about the letter.

  Fischer punched it again, approaching the final turn, instinctively dodging a car when a driver’s side door opened. He yanked the screaming vehicle back into his lane and braked even harder this time, bringing the small compact car down to a slow twenty miles per hour at the last minute--just before reaching the last corner.

  Once on Rickards’ street, he slowed further and scanned the houses as he passed, counting addresses.

  The numbering indicated he wasn’t more than six or seven houses away, prompting Fischer to look for an open place to park with enough room to allow for a rapid departure.

  Neither Reed nor Rickards should be expecting him. Or anyone, for that matter. The two previous victims had no sense of fear when asked about the letter or its contents. Which meant Reed and Rickards were most likely still in the process of trying to understand exactly what they had.

  Fischer was sure he had reached them in time. He spotted the house, followed by a space large enough for his car farther up the street. Another hundred feet, at most, from Rickards’ driveway.

  He slowed further and casually glanced at the front of the house as he passed, noting the location of the front walkway and door. In plain view and unprotected. Which also meant visible to everyone else. He was going to have to make this—

  Fischer nearly jumped when he suddenly spotted something close to him, almost stomping on the brakes out of instinct.

  Instead, he continued, and through his side mirror could make out two figures in a car he had just passed. Both occupied the front seats of the vehicle, which was parked directly in front of Rickards’ house.

  Fischer continued rolling forward until reaching the open spot. He casually eased in, leaving the engine running while he shifted into park. How could he have missed the woman’s car?

  “Ready?”

  Joe Rickards blinked at the open dashboard in front of him, trying to think of an excuse not to go. Finding none, he reluctantly nodded his head.

  Angela reached for the gear shift and paused with her hand on top of the round knob. “I really appreciate you doing this,” she said. “I mean it. I honestly couldn’t think of anyone else to ask.”

  “Lucky me.”

  She glanced at him and smiled at his joke. “At least it’s a distraction from, you know.”

  He glared in response.

  “Hey, there’s no shame in getting fired. It happens to everyone sooner or later.”

  “I didn’t get fired.”

  Angela turned back to face forward. “Of course you didn’t.”

  She waited for a car to pass on her left and pulled the gearshift back one notch into reverse, slowly inching backward before switching into drive and turning her front wheels outward. With a final look in her mirror, she pulled out into the street and accelerated.

  Rickards took a deep breath and glanced outside as the car sped up, briefly noting a car that stopped in front of them with its brake lights still on.

  This was a bad idea. He could feel it.

  33

  He missed them by seconds.

  A
glowering Fischer watched the red Subaru continue ahead, partly obscured by the large truck in front of him. Just in time, he noted which direction it turned.

  He pulled out again and glanced at his watch. Almost 3:30 p.m.

  Next to him, his phone vibrated, having already been silenced, prompting him to reach over and accept the call.

  “What.”

  It was the same voice. “Rickards is now on the plane. Same flight as Angela Reed.”

  Fischer accelerated, careful not to lose them, but also not to get too close. Any decent federal agent would notice a tail if he was looking for one. Fischer needed some cover.

  “They’re both on their way to Los Angeles,” the voice said. “Then to Mexico City and on to Lima.”

  Fischer nodded, spotting Angela Reed’s car making a left-hand turn. He conveniently slid in behind another vehicle. “They’re heading east.”

  “Toward the airport,” confirmed the voice.

  Fischer slowed to allow a third car between them. Unless they stopped, he would have little opportunity before reaching the airport with a thousand bystanders.

  “Traffic?”

  “Heavy. Rush hour. I70, the main route to the airport, is heavily congested. Under construction.”

  “Other routes?”

  “Nothing helpful,” the voice said after pausing. “Even in this traffic, I70 still provides the shortest travel time.”

  A car merged out of Fischer’s lane, forcing him to ease back farther while both lanes of traffic promptly slowed to a crawl. Less than a tenth of a mile away, he could see the car.

  There was no way. No appreciable scenario that would allow Fischer to get to them without dozens of witnesses. And yet how ironic his situation was. The German’s lip curled. The airport was the same place he had returned to rent his car.

  “Is it a full flight?”

  The voice on the phone paused.

  Perfect.

  “Reserve me a seat,” Fischer said. “My visit here is over.”

  34

  It took Angela barely ten minutes to fall asleep after takeoff, long before the Airbus A320 finally reached its cruising altitude and leveled off. Across the aisle and back two rows, Rickards noticed the top of her blonde head fall limply to one side.

  He was still telling himself it was nuts, but Rickards knew deep down there was something else. Another silent thought that had gotten him on that plane. Something he hadn’t told Angela. He didn’t have to. It wouldn’t have made a difference, at least not to her.

  The simple truth was that Rickards didn’t believe in coincidences.

  Very few good investigators did. Because in the end, there was always a reason for everything. Every action, every connection, every relationship—all could be traced back to cause and effect, if the layers of circumstance were peeled back far enough.

  Especially when it came to people. Human beings never made decisions inside a vacuum. There was always a reason, no matter how complicated. No matter how convoluted.

  All human behavior happened for a reason, regardless of whether the person or persons were aware of it.

  To Rickards, this was no longer just about his curiosity. Yes, as with all humans, he wanted to know what had happened. He wanted to know the truth. The explanation.

  Whether it was inquisitiveness or something more academic, like a child wanting to know how the magic trick was done, he didn’t know. All he knew was what he had learned from over twenty years on the job. Nothing was random.

  He didn’t know what it was, what specific detail he had learned about the mysterious letter sent decades before. But something was not right. Something was off. Like a small door, plain and nondescript. Overlooked, while hiding something truly surprising behind it. There was something here that Joe Rickards couldn’t put his finger on. But knowing what he did about people, he was gradually becoming more convinced that the note was somehow just the tip of the iceberg.

  Regardless of whether anything they’d already learned was accurate. Or even true.

  Every person and every person’s actions were part of a larger, more complex puzzle spanning thousands of people over thousands of years. Human lives, whose decisions and actions were interwoven into one giant, unimaginably complicated web of events and human interactions. And then there were secrets, some of which were important and some not. But everyone played a role.

  To Rickards, the hints already uncovered were undoubtedly connected, slowly arranging themselves into something he was sure would eventually fit together, even if most of the other pieces were lost forever. The question for Rickards was whether enough still existed to present a picture, or an answer, of what really happened. Or was it too late?

  Joe Rickards closed his eyes and tried to relax enough to sleep. There were no coincidences. Of that he was sure. Which was ironically the very same reason he would never be able to get past what had happened to him.

  As he gradually drifted off, the last thing he would have expected was that one of the puzzle pieces was sitting just twelve rows behind him.

  Staring quietly at the back of his head.

  35

  Mauthausen, Austria

  February 9th, 1945

  The sounds in the distance were growing nearer, day after day--a frightening reminder of what many considered inevitable. Explosion after explosion, tainting the air with an ominous feeling of advancing obliteration as Nazi strongholds continued to fail across the pockmarked face of northern Germany. It was an inevitability that would one day soon deliver either death or salvation.

  A feeling in the air, mixed with the strong scent of explosives.

  They were losing—a concept almost unimaginable only eighteen months earlier. But now, the German forces were slowing. Struggling. Trying to fight multiple fronts at once, where many units, disorganized and underequipped, were being eviscerated one by one. Despite what their Führer chose to believe.

  But many Germans refused to believe as well—that defeat may be inevitable. They fought now with even more ferocity and conviction, utterly persuaded that even surrounded they had the upper hand.

  Erhard Ottman was one of them.

  Dressed in a worn, dusty uniform now hidden beneath a heavy black coat, Ottman intently marched beneath the brick entrance of the Mauthausen-Gusen internment camp, passing by several Nazi guards, all running in the opposite direction. Ottman momentarily turned to watch them, only to have his tired gaze drawn up and out at the distant smoldering horizon. Dark streams of smoke mixed unevenly amongst the gray clouds of an otherwise beautiful North European winter.

  There’s still time.

  Ottman whipped back around and continued forward, boot heels pounding noisily over hand-laden bricks. His hat was firmly tilted over a hastily washed forehead with black double lightning bolts emblazoned on one shoulder of the coat. A leather satchel tucked tightly under his left arm.

  Ottman’s face remained resolute, without the slightest reaction from the stench permeating the entire base. Instead, he marched diligently forward, heading directly for the SS administration barracks.

  The front room was empty and smelled no better than outside. Intermittent shouting seemed to come from all directions, but not quite close enough to be intelligible.

  It didn’t matter. He could have guessed what they were saying.

  Ottman slammed the wooden door behind him, prompting an immediate sound of scrambling boots and a young guard to appear. His hat was missing, and he was dressed in a shabbily worn uniform. Barely seventeen from the looks of him.

  The teenager immediately saluted.

  Ottman rolled his eyes and scanned the rest of the room.

  “Where’s Krüger?” he asked in German.

  The boy stammered something unintelligible.

  “Krüger!” he barked.

  “I-I don’t know.”

  “Then find out!”

  It was happening everywhere. Communication was already beginning to break down, driven by rumors that
the war was slowing and a mounting fear of what would happen to them. Especially at a place like Mauthausen, where tens of thousands had been cleansed.

  Ottman watched as the young soldier disappeared out the back before he stepped around the large counter and ambled past two rows of empty metal desks, each strewn with stacks of papers and folders.

  Near the back of the room, filing cabinets lined the entire wall, some with several drawers dangling open.

  Empty.

  Ottman turned and peered outside through the glass window in the middle of the rear door and saw several guards rushing to and fro. Further in the distance, he could see a few others pushing wheelbarrows.

  Rushing to the ovens. Ovens no longer being used to burn bodies, but evidence.

  Several minutes later, a visibly irritated officer, older but still younger than Ottman himself, followed the teenager back into the office.

  “Yes, yes,” he shouted. “What is it?”

  “You’re Krüger?”

  The officer nodded, unconsciously running a hand over his thin black hair to straighten it. “Yes. What do you wan—” He stopped in mid-sentence upon seeing the pin on Ottman’s lapel, made of bright, shimmering gold. But not a pin displaying rank. Instead, it was a large letter “A,” causing the younger officer to audibly inhale.

  “Forgive me, Herr Hauptscharführer. I was…I was just tending to… Things are hectic.” He cleared his throat. “My sincerest apologies.”

  “Quiet,” Ottman said, ignoring his sputtering. “And listen carefully. You are to find your best forger and bring them to me. Now.”

  Krüger blinked. “Forger?”

  “The best you have. Quickly!”

  “T-they are on the truck. I’ve been instructed to take them to Redl-Zipf.”