“I’m sorry you had to hear that,” he said, tightening his grip and continuing to stare into her eyes.
“No, it’s fine. Whatever you want to tell me. Whenever you want to tell me. It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.”
She was telling the truth. He forced himself to keep his face from reflecting his relief. He had not debased himself in her eyes.
“Thank you,” he said, and dropped her hands.
“You’re welcome,” she responded as she continued to button his shirt.
Ten minutes later they were in Cindy’s car heading to work. He stared out the window, lost in thought. She seemed content to be silent as well. Finally they pulled up outside her church.
He slowly got out of the car and she did the same.
“Thanks for the ride,” he said. It sounded so lame, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to walk in with you?” she asked.
“No, I don’t need to give Marie more reason to fuss. I’m hoping I can even avoid her finding out I got shot last night,” Jeremiah said.
“Is that why you’re not wearing the sling?” she asked.
“You’ve got it. A little physical pain is far easier to deal with than one of her tirades. Especially today.”
Cindy shook her head, but didn’t say anything.
“Thank you, again.”
“I’m next door if you need anything,” she said.
“I’ll do my best to leave you in peace today. Besides, I’m going to be so preoccupied with synagogue business that I seriously doubt anything else will be coming up to distract me,” he said.
At least, he certainly hoped so. He couldn’t help but remember the touch of her fingers on his chest as she’d buttoned his shirt. He didn’t want to think about it. That led to thinking about how he almost kissed her before. And that was something he was most certainly not thinking of. At least, not until he and G-d could have a good long discussion about this past year and the next one.
He smiled, glad that she couldn’t read his thoughts. She’d probably be horrified if she could.
He watched as she walked onto the church campus. Then he turned and headed to the synagogue.
His office was the last place Jeremiah wanted to be, but he needed to go in. It was only a few hours until the start of Rosh Hashanah and he had too much to do to waste time. When he walked in the door Marie looked like she was preparing to give him the lecture of his life. Something in his expression must have given her pause, though, since she held her tongue. It was an act of mercy that he appreciated, especially since he was in no mood to try and curb his response.
He grimaced in greeting, walked over to his office, unlocked it and stepped inside closing the door behind him. His eyes fell on the package that had come several days ago that he had completely forgotten about until that moment.
A terrible suspicion flooded him as he stared at the brown wrapped package.
“It couldn’t be,” he whispered.
He sat down on the couch and pulled the package close. It did feel like some sort of painting. He balanced it with his left hand, biting his lip against the fire that burned through his arm at the movement and tore off the paper with his right.
He saw the back of the painting first, already prepped and ready for mounting. There was a string of letters and numbers on the back written in black ink and below it another set of numbers written in blue ink. He spun it around slowly and as he saw what it was his heart stuttered.
“You have got to be kidding me!”
12
Mark was sitting at his desk wondering how he was even managing to be conscious given how little sleep he’d gotten. He picked up his cup of coffee and took a swig.
“Mark!”
He jerked and splashed coffee all over his jacket. He winced and grabbed a couple of sticky notes and tried to sop some of it up as he looked up to see who had called him.
Liam was weaving his way toward him waving the camera in his hand. He had a huge grin on his face and, worse, he looked fully rested. Mark couldn’t help but hate him at that moment.
Liam set the camera down on the desk. “I finished up last night.”
“That must have taken forever,” Mark muttered as he stood up and swiped some tissues off a neighboring desk. He blotted his jacket some more and then gave up and took it off. He hung it on the back of his chair with a sigh. He’d just gotten that one back from the cleaners, too.
“It wasn’t too bad as long as I didn’t have to be on the ladder,” Liam said.
“Good. I’ll make sure it gets to the rabbi today.”
“Don’t forget that Rosh Hashanah starts at sundown tonight. Once that happens you won’t get anything out of him for at least a couple of days. Maybe longer.”
“Thanks for the warning, reminder, whatever it was,” Mark said, as he rubbed his eyes.
“What’s on your docket for today?” Liam asked eagerly.
“Mostly today is going to be sitting on top of lab guys trying to get test results, answers, something I can actually work with. Fingerprints, DNA, someone to tell me whether or not that piece of the Amber Room we found in the house is authentic or just some kook’s idea of a joke. You?”
Liam’s face fell slightly. “Patrol.”
“Sorry, I forgot for a second,” Mark said.
That seemed to cheer Liam back up.
Once he’d gone Mark stared at the piece of paper in front of him, trying to decide what to tackle first. It was going to be a boring day, but that was good. He’d had about as much excitement as he could handle.
Jeremiah yanked his cell phone out of his pocket and called Mark.
“What is it?” the detective asked without preamble. He sounded half asleep and none too thrilled to be disturbed.
“I’ve got something at my office you’re going to want to see,” Jeremiah said and then hung up. Next he dialed Cindy.
“How are you feeling?” she asked, sounding mildly alarmed. “Is everything okay?”
“Okay, but I have something at my office you’re going to have to see to believe,” he said.
She paused. “The last time you said something like that you’d torn up the floor and found, you know, what you found,” she said, lowering her voice.
He took it that there was someone nearby that she didn’t want overhearing.
“Well I have something else pretty amazing,” he said.
“Is it, you know, another piece of the same thing?” she asked, sounding perplexed.
“No, it’s not another piece of the Amber Room, but you’re on the right track. Just, come and take a look.”
“Hold on a sec.”
She put the phone down and he could hear her moving around then silence. About a minute later she picked the phone back up. “I need ten minutes and then I’ll be right over,” she said.
She hung up and Jeremiah stood and began pacing the room. He stopped and checked the back of the painting again, paying particular attention to the letters and numbers in black ink. KF114. He got his phone back out and took a couple of pictures of the back then took a couple of pictures of the painting itself.
Next he went over to his computer and did a quick search, just to make sure he was right about what it was he was staring at. In thirty seconds he knew that he was.
His arm was beginning to really throb so he took some Tylenol. He wasn’t about to risk another round with whatever the doctor had prescribed that had knocked him out so hard the night before.
This would explain everything that had been going on, or rather, a good deal of it. He could barely contain himself anymore and he yanked open his office door, startling Marie who looked up at him like he had gone mad.
“Something wrong?” she asked.
“No, I just think I figured something out about the case I’m helping the detective with,” Jeremiah said. There was no need to put her in danger by bringing her into the loop. The less she knew at this point,
the safer she was.
“Are you sure you’re okay? You’re white as a sheet,” she clucked.
“I’m just tired,” he said.
“You better get some sleep before you have to do any of the liturgy,” she said.
“Yes, that would be a brilliant idea,” he said.
“Now I know there’s something wrong,” he heard Marie mutter.
Sylvia graciously allowed Cindy to lock up the office and put a “back in fifteen minutes” sign on the front door. With Geanie gone, it was harder to do anything because it was just her working in the main office and she couldn’t leave it unlocked. It was hard just to grab a soda when she wanted one.
She was going to have to find a way to get Geanie to agree to come back to work. She’d only been gone a couple of days and already some of the other staff and ministry leaders were freaking out. And she was going to personally freak out if they expected her to take over Geanie’s responsibilities while they found a replacement.
She was feeling worse every minute she was there. She wasn’t sure if it was just anxiety or if everything was catching up to her. Geanie was right, she should have called in sick.
As she headed over to the synagogue she couldn’t help but wonder what it was that Jeremiah had found. If it wasn’t another piece of the Amber Room, maybe it was another painting. But that didn’t make any sense either. What would something like that be doing in his office?
He must have looked something up online and found new information. That made a lot more sense. She had just made it to the synagogue parking lot when a familiar car pulled up.
“Hey, Mark,” she called as he got out of the car.
“He called you, too?”
“Yeah. Must be important if he’s hauling us both over here. I just can’t figure out what it could be. I dropped him off at work like twenty minutes ago.”
“I don’t know, but it better be good. I feel like the walking dead.”
“You look somewhat like a zombie,” she said.
“Nice. Thanks for the affirmation.”
They walked into the office and Marie looked up from her desk. Cindy felt like the woman was glaring daggers at her. She forced herself to smile in return.
“He’s been expecting you,” Marie said to Mark.
The detective nodded and together they entered Jeremiah’s office. Mark closed the door behind them.
“You made it,” Jeremiah said, looking more excited than Cindy had ever seen him.
“Yup, and I brought a little present for you,” Mark said, putting a video camera he’d been holding down on Jeremiah’s desk. “I had Liam videotape the rest of the writing on those walls so that when you have a few moments you can continue with the translation work. Hopefully it will be easier on everyone this way.”
Jeremiah barely even glanced at the video camera before scooping it up and putting it next to his computer monitor. He turned back to them.
“Okay, so we’re both here, what is it?” Mark asked.
Cindy noticed that there was a painting leaning against the couch. She could only see the back of it where some letters and numbers had been written in ink.
Jeremiah turned it around and she stared at it.
It looked like a classical piece, like some she had seen in a museum somewhere. In the center of the piece was a naked woman standing next to a seated man with a long beard who was looking at her. Beneath the woman’s feet it looked like two human figures were being swallowed by the ground or the water, she struggled to make it all out. To the left of the man a lion and a tiger were snapping at each other. Behind them was what looked like a man carrying something and to the far edge a rhinoceros. To the right of the woman was something that she at first took to be a gorilla but on closer inspection seemed to resemble a hippopotamus more.
“Okay, not something I’d necessarily care to see hanging in a rabbi’s office, or in any church office for that matter,” Mark said.
“Half the churches in Italy seem to be covered with nude paintings. It was the style,” Cindy said. “Not that I see it being hung in a church here, either.”
Jeremiah looked both excited and impatient at the same time.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked.
Both Cindy and Mark shook their heads.
“Well, I can tell it’s a painting, but beyond that...okay, I’ll bite. What is it?” Mark asked.
Jeremiah took a deep breath. “It’s a Rubens. Neptune and Amphitrite.”
Cindy blinked. She didn’t know a lot about art, but even she’d heard the name Rubens before.
“He was one of the masters,” Jeremiah continued.
Mark and Cindy stared at each other and then back at the painting.
“Is it real or a reproduction?” Cindy asked at last.
“Until a couple of days ago I would have said it absolutely had to be a reproduction.”
She ogled the painting. That was certainly a bigger find than her dogs playing poker.
“Why is that? What makes you think it was real when before you wouldn’t have?” Mark asked.
“Because this painting was supposedly destroyed, along with over 400 others, in Friedrichshain Flakturm in Berlin in 1945.”
Mark whistled.
“What is a Flakturm?” Cindy asked, after a moment.
“They were anti-aircraft gun towers that also served as bomb shelters,” Mark offered.
Jeremiah glanced at Mark in surprise.
Mark shrugged. “My grandfather fought in WWII, came home and became an architect. He was like a walking encyclopedia about German architecture. Some of it stuck. The more important question here is how did you come by it.”
“That’s the thing,” Jeremiah said. “It was here the morning that you called me over to see the writing on the walls. I had just gotten in and Marie told me someone had left a package that she’d found when she got to work. You called, I put it in my office, and I forgot completely about it until I got in today.
“I saw it and I immediately thought of the painting Cindy found. I also thought about Heinrich wanting to talk to me three months ago and never following up. When I opened it and realized what I was looking at I called both of you.”
Cindy bent down to take a closer look. She reached out hesitantly and touched the frame. If it was real, it was the closest she would come to actually being able to touch a famous piece of art in her lifetime.
“But how do you know this isn’t a copy of some sort?” Cindy asked.
“Someone was bound to want to recreate it if they could,” Mark said.
“You can find pictures of it online that were taken before it was destroyed so that copies could be distributed in books and for students to study. I’m sure there’s more than one reproduction out there,” Jeremiah said. “We’re going to need an expert to authenticate it, but I found something that convinces me, at least.”
“What’s that?” Mark asked.
Jeremiah flipped the painting around. He pointed to the first written line which was in black ink. “You see this top line of writing here on the back, KF114?”
“Yes,” Mark said.
“Does it mean something?” Cindy asked.
“When the Nazis stole artwork from Jewish families, they’d catalogue it in this way. First a letter that stood for the first letter in the family’s last name, then a number indicating which piece this was in the collection. This piece was part of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin. It was moved to the Flakturm where it was hoped it would be kept safe. However, the Flakturm suffered two successive fires and the pieces housed inside were believed to be destroyed. Whoever moved this from the Flakturm where it was being housed followed the Nazi naming system. The KF stands for Kaiser Friedrich and this is the 114th piece taken.”
Cindy blinked. “If this one is marked 114, does that mean that at least 113 other pieces were also taken from the Flakturm before it was burned? Maybe even more?”
Jeremiah nodded. “That would be my guess.�
�
“If that’s true, and Heinrich left this for you hours before he died, then this guy could have known where a fortune was hidden. 114 paintings or more. What are we talking, millions of dollars?” Mark asked.
“Hundreds of millions of dollars,” Jeremiah said. “There was more than one Rubens in that group and if they’re among the ones that were saved...” he didn’t bother completing the thought. “And it’s more than just money at this point, it’s restoring masterpieces thought lost. I’d almost say that at this point they’re priceless.”
“Who do they belong to?” Mark asked.
“That’s a good question,” Jeremiah said. “I believe the collection, or at least part of it, was legitimately owned by the museum. They probably belong to Germany.”
“But I’m sure there’s a whole lot of people who would like to contest that,” Mark said, looking more and more flustered.
Jeremiah shrugged.
Cindy’s mind boggled at the number. She took a step back from the painting, not wanting to be the one to mar it if it was authentic.
Jeremiah’s adrenalin was starting to wear off a little and the pain in his arm wasn’t receding as fast as he’d like it to. He was gratified at both Mark and Cindy’s reactions. Of course, that didn’t detract from the fact that they had a big problem on their hands now when it came to figuring out what to do with this thing. There were a dozen different ways they could go, plays that could be made. Part of the problem was they didn’t yet know who all the actors involved in this drama were, not by a long shot.
It complicated things. His eyes strayed to Cindy and he watched her as she stared at the painting, clearly overwhelmed by everything. Complicated was the last thing he needed right now in his life.
It was certainly the last thing that she needed in hers.
More things were beginning to trouble him about this case and he didn’t have the time to properly think about them. It did seem odd that Heinrich would have left this on his doorstep mere hours before he was killed. Why?
Restoreth My Soul (Psalm 23 Mysteries) Page 13
