Grantville Gazette, Volume 72

by Bjorn Hasseler

  Andy's gaze had assessed all of them while Agricola was speaking: dressed conservatively, not in the latest styles, and not in the finest fabrics, not even Agricola. So, that gave him some idea of who and what he was facing. Not a group that would have the knowledge—or presence—or tools and assets—of the Adel.

  "Please . . ." Andy gestured at the other end of the table. ". . .your places are marked. If you would take your places and allow Christoph to serve you some wine, we will get started."

  Andy took his own seat, and was a bit pleased to see Agricola's forehead was a bit furrowed. If his acting as the genial polite host put the man a bit off-balance, that was all to the good.

  Once the wine had been provided to all in the room, Andy leaned forward and clasped his hands on the table. "Thank you for coming," he began. "We realize it is just as much a hardship for you to disrupt your affairs and travel here as it was for us."

  "Indeed," Agricola interjected. "And where is your client?" He gave a pointed glance at the name cards placed before empty seats.

  "Unavoidably detained for a short time," Andy said smoothly. "Sergeant Murphy will join us soon."

  "He'd better," Herr Becker growled. "On the other hand, if he gulls you, too, at least I'll get a laugh out of seeing you taken down a few pegs."

  Andy just smiled. He knew the strength of his position, and nothing that Becker could say would stir his anger.

  "Since we are waiting on Sergeant Murphy, let us do something that I wish we could have done earlier." He looked over at Liebmann. "Herr Liebmann, here, is not an attorney. He is, in fact, what is called a character sketch artist, and he does work for the Magdeburg Polizei from time to time. I asked him to come with us, because I wanted to see if you could describe Herr Murphy well enough that he could draw a likeness of the man."

  "What?"

  "Whatever for?"

  The exclamations were simultaneous from both Agricola and Becker. Andy lifted a hand in a calming gesture.

  "I have good and valid reasons for doing this. I doubt that it will take long; Herr Liebmann is very good at this. Indulge me if you will, and we will arrive at the truth soon enough."

  "I was afraid this would be a waste of time and money," Becker growled, thumping both fists down on the table, "and it looks like I was right. This is your fault, you incompetent ninny," he snarled at Agricola. "If you'd done your job right, this would already be taken care of and this posturing clown could go yammer in the trees for all I care! Come, Margarethe. We're leaving."

  Becker started to thrust himself to his feet, only to freeze halfway up when Andy spoke.

  "Sit down, Herr Becker." Andy's voice was cold enough to freeze. "If you leave before we've resolved this, I'll have your name and your precious honor reduced to shreds in all the Germanies. You started this, but I will finish it, one way or another. Now—Sit. Down."

  Agricola was white-faced, but said nothing. Schnorr seemed to be pressing himself into the back of his chair, apparently trying to hide. Becker was motionless, but Andy could see the anger coiling behind his eyes. He spoke again, letting his voice become like ice.

  "The primary purpose of a court, Herr Becker, is not to determine who wins a disagreement. It is to determine the truth, and only after that, and in the light of that, determine a verdict or a judgment or an order. As attorneys, Herr Agricola and I share in that responsibility. And we are going to determine the truth today. Sit. Down."

  The last two words were intoned in dark cold tones. Becker's gaze flinched a bit, and he slowly lowered himself into his chair. Andy held his gaze for a moment longer, then looked to Agricola and gave him a short nod. After a moment, Agricola returned it, although he was still rather pale.

  "Herr Liebmann, if you would?"

  Liebmann took a sketch board with attached paper from his bag, along with a handful of pencils, and moved over to sit in the empty chair beside the wide-eyed Frau Margarethe, who was staring at Andy. She jumped a little when Liebmann spoke to her, turning that wide-eyed gaze on him, and the hand that she raised to brush her hair back trembled a bit. Andy’s mouth quirked at that. He often had that effect on people.

  Andy sat back and watched Liebmann work. The man was a master at this, he decided after a while. He engaged Frau Margarethe in conversation, asking her what shape her Herr Murphy's face was, what she was first impressed by when she saw him, what his hairline was like, how bushy were his eyebrows . . .

  When they got to more definite features, Liebmann had the young woman look at all the faces in the room and tell him which one's nose was most like her lover's. He did the same with the cheekbones, and the jawline, swiftly sketching them in lightly and making the lines darker only as she confirmed that they were right, otherwise he'd ask for clarification and redraw them. By now her father was standing behind them and watching over Liebmann's shoulder.

  It was not quite a half an hour later, Andy determined with a surreptitious look at his pocket watch, when Liebmann put the pencils down and held the sketch up before the two Beckers.

  "You have a good eye, Frau Becker, and you describe things well. That's good, or this would have taken a lot longer. Is this the man?"

  She nodded, slowly at first, then faster. "Yes, yes, it is."

  Liebmann looked up at her father. "Herr Becker, you must have seen the man. Is this a good likeness?"

  Becker ran his fingers through his chin whiskers a couple of times. "If I hadn't seen you do it, I would have said this couldn't be done. But aye, I think you've captured the man." He directed a stony gaze at Andy. "Not that I know what this is in aid of."

  As Becker returned to his chair, Liebmann moved back to his own and passed the sketch to Andy, who got his first close look at it. A sense of relief flooded through him when he realized that the man in the picture was not Brendan. This was the one place where all of his plans and the structure of his defense could have come apart. If Frau Becker had somehow described Brendan, then in the pithy up-timer phrase, 'all bets were off.' He'd been sure it wouldn't come to that, but there was still that small chance, and a small knot of tension in his stomach released as that possibility was eliminated.

  "Christoph."

  That was all Andy said, but it was all he needed to say. The younger man was up and out the door, returning almost immediately with Brendan and Catrina behind him. Andy beckoned to them, and they moved along the table to stand behind the chairs their name cards were before. Both the Beckers were wearing bewildered expressions at the appearance of the two strangers, but Agricola seemed to have an expression of dawning realization on his face, and Schnorr was nodding with a rueful grin.

  "Herr Johannes Becker, Frau Margarethe Becker, allow me to introduce to you Sergeant Brendan Murphy, and his wife, Catrina Murphy. Please be seated"

  Both sets of Becker eyes widened as the Murphys sat down. Herr Becker's gaze was that of a pole-axed steer, but Frau Margarethe's hands had flown to her mouth, and her eyes manifested a silent scream. Andy felt a moment of pity for her, and moved on to get the brutal facts stated.

  "I regret to inform you that the man you knew as Brendan Murphy was not, in fact, Sergeant Murphy, but an imposter. You have been duped—gulled, I believe was the word you used earlier, Herr Becker. And he almost certainly wasn't an up-timer. There aren't that many of them, and it's pretty well known where they are."

  "But . . . the dog tag," Agricola said after clearing his throat. "That is definitely an up-time artifact, is it not?"

  "Indeed it is," Andy said. "Sergeant Murphy?"

  "There are two of them, identical," Brendan said, "and they disappeared several months ago. I thought I had lost them, but they were obviously stolen."

  "If this is yours, you can surely explain the cryptic letters and symbols," Agricola said, almost challenging.

  "Murphy, Brendan S. is my name. The S stands for Sean, my middle name.

  "The string of numbers 713-55-469 is my up-time United States of America identification number.

  "A
POS stands for A Positive, my blood type, in case I'm wounded and they need to give me a transfusion." Andy almost grinned as identical expressions of nausea appeared on both women's faces.

  "And the last line states my religion. I'm Catholic."

  Andy looked at Agricola, who quirked his mouth and waved a hand in surrender. Andy looked back over at Frau Margarethe. "Frau Becker?" She looked up with a very drawn expression, pain in her eyes. "I hesitate to ask this, but I must. Did the man you knew as Brendan Murphy have a distinctive physical characteristic or marking?"

  After a moment, she swallowed and nodded. "There were . . .three moles, forming a large triangle, right here." She placed the fingers of her right hand just below her left collarbone. "He joked about God giving him a mark of the Trinity. I told him"—her voice broke—"that he was being sacrilegious. He laughed at me." Tears started flowing, and she buried her face in her hands. Catrina got up and walked around the table to sit and take the sobbing young woman in her arms.

  Andy looked at Brendan and raised his eyebrows. Brendan didn't say anything, just stood and unbuttoned his shirt until he could open it up enough to show that there was no pattern of moles below his left collarbone. He pulled the shirt closed, buttoned it back up, and sat down.

  There was silence for a long moment, then Andy said quietly, "Discovering the truth is painful sometimes, but it's always better to know the truth, to know the facts of a situation. Frau Becker, I am sorry that you have been lied to, I am sorry that you have been a subject of fraud and deception. But your case is not with my client, the real Brendan Murphy. Your case is with the imposter that claimed to be Brendan Murphy."

  "That's as may be," Herr Becker said in a voice so dull it almost sounded like leaden bells, "but how do we get satisfaction from an unknown man? How do we get justice from a man we can't identify?"

  Andy passed the sketch to Brendan. "Do you know this man? This is who Frau Becker described."

  Brendan's eyes narrowed. "I just might. This looks a lot like a guy we ran through the railroad guard training course sometime back." He fell silent for a moment. "Yeah, and I think he was there about the time I lost the dog tags. Name was . . . Malcolm, I think. Malcolm Kinnard, if I remember correctly. And a Scot, to boot, which might explain why he could impersonate an up-timer so well. A German would have had a problem carrying it off for very long, I think."

  Both Agricola and Herr Becker sat up straight at that, and Schnorr began making notes.

  "Can you tell us where he is?" Becker said in a hard voice. "I'd like to have a conversation with him."

  "I can find out," Brendan said. "I'll send a radiogram back to Magdeburg, after we get done. Should have an answer no later than some time tomorrow afternoon."

  And with that, the meeting seemed to be over. Catrina and Margarethe stood together and came around the table to Brendan, where she offered the dog tag back to him. "I hate to give it up, but it's a lie to me, and it's yours, so you should have it back."

  Brendan took it gently from her and slipped it into a pocket out of sight. The three of them stood talking for a few minutes. Andy waited for Liebmann to free the sketch sheet from the sketch board, then slid it into his document case. "Good job," he told the artist.

  "At least this time, the missing person didn't turn up dead," Liebmann replied. "Kind of a nice feeling, although it still didn't bring any peace to them." He jerked his head at the Beckers.

  Andy shrugged, and moved down the table to face the others.

  "You're a hard man, Attorney Wulff," Herr Becker said. "In keeping with your name, I suppose."

  "You deal with enough hard men," Andy said, "and you become pretty hard yourself. And I have had to deal with men much harder than you, Herr Becker."

  "I can believe it," Becker replied. "You handled me like a schoolboy, and that hasn't happened in many years."

  Andy shrugged one shoulder.

  Agricola reached out a hand, which Andy clasped. "Thank you for the reminder that our first responsibility is to truth. We sometimes forget that."

  "I have to remind myself just as often," Andy said.

  Catrina gave Margarethe one last hug, and Brendan and Catrina headed for the door. Everyone else gathered their things, and moved that direction. Andy waited for Christoph, so they were the last to leave the room. He smiled as he saw Herr Becker drop back beside Liebmann and ask, "Do you do portraits?"

  They all moved back down the hallway, through the main part of the station building, and back out onto the platform. Andy started looking around for transportation so they could head for the rooming house.

  Ahead of them, Margarethe suddenly shrieked, "It's him! It's him!"

  Most of the crowd moved back, and Andy was able to see a young man in a railroad guard uniform frozen with a horrified expression on his face for just a moment before he spun and began running away from Margarethe through the crowd. Then he disappeared from sight. Andy hurried after, followed by Christoph and Liebmann.

  The crowd had started to thicken, and Andy pushed through it to see Malcolm Kinnard lying face-down on the platform with Catrina Murphy sitting on his back and holding his left hand in what looked to be a most uncomfortable position. He started to move, and she twisted his hand a bit, which elicited a yell and he went motionless again.

  Catrina looked up at Brendan with a grin. "Always knew that jujitsu would come in handy someday."

  He smiled back, then reached down with his big hands and grabbed Kinnard by one arm and the back of the neck. "You can let go, now."

  Catrina released her hold and stood up. Brendan seemed to levitate Kinnard, he was raised so quickly and was held with his toes barely touching the platform. "Malcolm Kinnard, just like I thought. I don't like you, Kinnard," he said. "And boy, are you in a heap of trouble." A couple of railroad guards pushed through the crowd. "Guys, take him to the holding room, and keep him there until Herr Agricola here can contact the local law enforcement and figure out what to do with him. I doubt he's going to be a guard much longer. And he'd better be there when we come for him, or you won't be guards much longer, and you'll be in as much trouble as he is. Clear?"

  One on each side of Kinnard, they nodded firmly. "Yes, Sergeant Murphy," one of them said. They led Kinnard away. The Beckers and their attorneys followed close behind.

  "Well," Andy said, "well done, both of you, both now and earlier."

  "I wanted to be angry," Catrina said, "but when I saw that poor girl's face when she learned the truth, I couldn't be."

  "Never be sorry for your gift of compassion," Andy said. "And yes, I said that. In the long run, compassion will heal a lot more lives than justice will." He paused for a moment. "Just don't tell anyone I said that."

  They all shared a laugh, then Brendan snapped his fingers like a pistol-shot. "I've got to go talk to Kinnard. I want my other dog tag back!"

  Andy smiled at his client's receding back.

  ****

  Night, May, 1636

  A Road near Vesserhausen

  She woke up. This was not strange, because Greta slept a lot when she was not dancing. She was in her wooden den, and it was moving. This was also not strange—when her den was moving, it meant she could rest, and would not have to dance for a while. But she could not smell Him, and that was strange. She could not smell Him anywhere, only the faint traces left behind. He was always with her when they were moving, making man-noises at her through the bars when she stirred. Greta was unhappy, and she sniffed deeply at the air. There were men around her den, but she did not know any of their smells. That was not always strange, men would come and look at her in the den when she was not dancing, but He would always be there, too, and there would be other men around whose smells she recognized.

  These men were strangers. They smelled of blood and dogs and death. Greta did not mind dogs. Sometimes, He would have her stand very still, and dogs would jump up to stand on her back. The men watching would make lots of noise, and she would get a fish to eat. The horses pu
lling her den did not smell like the horses she knew, either. Where was He? Shuffling onto all fours, she grunted her distress at the nearest strange man as he stumbled along over the dark ground without a light. Men knew that when she was upset, they could find Him and he would calm her down. But this man jumped instead, making man-noises and waving a long stick at her. He did not go away to find Him, and when she huffed at him again, louder, he put his stick through the bars and poked her in the side of the neck. That was something man cubs would try to do sometimes, before He made loud noises at them and scared them away. But He was not here, this was not a cub, and Greta was afraid.

  She backed away to the opposite wall of her den, colliding with the bars on that side and causing the den to rock on its wheels. The horses stopped when their burden shifted, and other men started making noises. She smelled burning, and hot lights appeared in the hands of other men, coming closer to her den. Another man with a long stick poked her, from the other side, and made angry noises. She retreated from him, but the first man still had his stick. Now Greta was getting angry. He was nowhere to be smelled or seen, while these strange men poked at her with sticks. Rushing again to the other side of her den, but now she pushed at it with her shoulder, growling and snapping at the man with the stick on that side. He made scared noises and fell backwards, but this time the den shifted too far with Greta's weight.

  Something snapped, broke, and her whole den fell onto its side while horses and men screamed. She fell heavily on her side, and the roof of the den cracked. A hard push, and she was outside her broken den through the hole, in a field of grass in the dark while men made noises and ran in all directions—some at her and some away. The ones who ran away from her marked territory on the ground, which Greta did not understand. She did not understand what was happening. She just wanted Him, and to stop being poked with sticks, and to go back to sleep, and maybe to have a fish. Thunders cracked around her, and she heard stinging bugs. Men were all around her, with their sticks and hot lights, but suddenly Greta spotted a gap in the circle of men, an empty dark spot into the fields, and she charged for safety. A stinging bug bit her ear, and she ran faster, away from the angry men who smelled of dogs. She would find Him, and he would make her safe again. He had to.