by A W Hartoin
Tiny’s ambulance turned the corner and drove slowly up the long driveway. The doctors said he was ready to go to rehab, but I wasn’t so sure. I would’ve preferred a couple more days, but the insurance insisted.
“Oh, no,” said Grandad.
“What?”
“There’s Chuck.”
I slumped. Three hours. That’s all Mom got.
The ambulance rolled to a very careful stop and the EMTs got out and opened the back. Fats jumped out. She was so nervous about the move that she was sweating and wringing her hands as the EMTs slowly eased Tiny out at a snail’s pace.
“How was the drive?” I asked.
“Every bump hurt him,” she said with tears in her eyes. “He shouldn’t have been moved.”
I patted her beefy shoulder. “Once he’s in, it’ll be fine. Aaron’s in the kitchen, making his favorite shrimp and grits. And his mom filled his room with quilts and family pictures. Where’s Aunt Willasteen?”
“On her way with Aunt Miriam.”
“Together? I’m not sure they’ll both survive.”
The EMTs rolled Tiny up to me and I took his hand. “They’re all ready for you.”
Tiny’s normally rosy brown skin was a disturbing ashy grey. “Okay,” he whispered. “Take away their canes.”
I looked at Fats. “I thought you took the canes.”
“They bought new ones in the gift shop.”
“For crying out loud.” I kissed Tiny’s forehead. “We’ll take care of it.”
They rolled him slowly into the building with Fats in pursuit.
“Maybe you can get Tommy on it,” said Grandad. “Give him something to do. Getting those canes off Willasteen and Miriam will take some effort.”
Maybe. The canes were a real problem. Both aunts liked to whack people and each other. They almost got barred from the hospital twice. Only The Girls’ intervention saved them, but they had to lose the canes. The old ladies considered that more of a suggestion than a hard and fast rule.
“Aunt Miriam’s your sister. Can’t you talk to her?” I asked.
“I’d rather cane her.”
“Go for it. Nothing else works.”
Dad trotted around the building in a panic with Chuck reluctantly trailing him.
“I’m back,” announced Dad. “How is she? Why are you out here? Is she alone? She can’t be alone.”
I swallowed a groan. “Mom can be alone.” I gave Chuck the stink eye. “Why are you back so early?”
“Early?” asked Dad. “It’s been three hours. My God! You left her alone. I shouldn’t have trusted you.” Dad dashed inside, barely hesitating to get around Tiny’s gurney.
Chuck flushed with guilt. “I tried. I really did. I think he might be crazy. Do they have a pill for that?”
“Depends on the crazy. I think we’ll start with therapy,” I said.
“I suggested that. He said he couldn’t be away from Carolina.”
“She’s going to hurt him,” said Grandad.
“I’m really sorry,” said Chuck, giving me a wonderfully warm hug. “Want to go shopping?”
Dear lord, no.
“I think I have to go do something,” I said. “I have no idea what.”
Chuck held up his phone. “Actually, you have to go to The Girls. They called. When are you going to get a new phone?”
“When I stop being freaked out about the whole listening device thing.”
“So…never.” Grandad gave me a pat and went inside to try and calm down his son.
“Not never,” I said. “Just not now. It was unsettling.”
“Anyway, I have some time. I’ll take you over,” he said smoothly and I knew what that meant. Shopping.
He’s a good guy. He really is.
I threw my arms around his neck—it was quite a jump—and kissed him. “Okay, but The Girls first.”
“First before what?” Chuck asked with a hint of his old self.
“Whatever,” I replied with a grin.
We never got to the whatever because we went to the Bled Mansion. Chuck parked in the alley by the garage, where a shirtless Rocco had all the bays open while he polished the Maybach to a shine heretofore never achieved.
“Hey there,” he said, picking an invisible speck of dust off the swoop of chrome on the driver’s side. “This is the best job I’ve ever had. You think I can keep it? The Girls said Tiny wouldn’t have stayed forever anyway.”
Normally, I would’ve said no way in hell, but Rocco Licata was in. For some reason, The Girls loved him despite his dubious connections to the Fibonacci family.
“I guess,” I said. “You don’t mind the food?”
He threw back his head and gave out a hearty laugh, making his six-pack pop out hard. “Not a chance. The ladies can throw it down. We’re making my grandpa’s Sicilian gravy tonight. They don’t do the Italian so much.”
“You’re cooking with them?”
“Hell ya. We made puff pastry this morning. Morty’s girlfriend, the Greek, she’s coming over and we’re making something. I don’t know what, but it will be amazing.”
“You like laminating dough?” I asked.
“What’s not to like? Good for the biceps. Good for the belly.”
Hallelujah.
Chuck grinned. “Works for me.”
“Puhlease,” I said. “The last fat I’ve seen you eat was a tiny bit of butter on that corn-on-the-cob Aaron made and that was a week ago.”
“But it was real butter.”
“Impressive.” I rolled my eyes and Rocco looked straight-up confused. He was a huge eater and liked fish, so Aaron was trying out new crab recipes on him before he tried to sneak them onto my plate. I might’ve been stressed and sleepless, but I could still spot crab at ten paces, not that that was any kind of deterrent to Aaron.
We left Rocco and went through the garage and I keyed in my code to the backyard. Chuck opened the door and Rocco called out to us, “Hey, Mercy. I almost forgot. Calpurnia wanted me to tell you she put the word out.”
Chuck looked at me, his expression suddenly all tense and flinty.
Please don’t say I worked for her. Please don’t say I worked for her.
“Er…what kind of word?”
“You know, the word,” said Rocco.
I looked up at Chuck and he just glared.
“You have to help me here,” I said. “What’s the word?”
“You know, that The Girls aren’t to be touched and if anybody comes sniffing around again, you’ll know about it. Tiny and my sister got a good thing going. You’re gonna be family before we know it.” Rocco went back to the Maybach, whistling what sounded like an aria.
“Thanks,” I said and Chuck pushed me through the door, closing it firmly behind us. “I am so screwed.”
“Well…maybe she’s just being nice,” I said before breathing deep the heavenly scent of fresh-cut grass.
“I’m a cop and I’m connected to a mob family.”
I walked toward the house, feeling surprisingly good. Rocco hadn’t said anything about me and Calpurnia. He’d probably been ordered not to. It was all good. “You’re not connected. He doesn’t work for you.”
“He works for my girlfriend’s godmothers. It’s like six degrees of Kevin Bacon, except it’s Calpurnia and I’ve got one degree. I’m so screwed.”
I grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the back door of the mansion. “It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”
“You’re only saying that because Tommy’s too freaked to pay attention. Eventually, he’s going to look up and see the Licatas have moved in.”
“Grandad’s taking the bullet on that one,” I said. “It’s a beautiful day. My mother’s in the one percent of stroke recovery patients. You’re going to get the bad guys.” I opened the back door and he grumbled, “Because my girlfriend got me evidence from a psycho.”
“Let’s not start that again. I feel good. I want to keep feeling good.” I turned to walk into the house.
Myrtle stepped into the hall with a blonde woman at her side. “Mercy, we’ve been waiting for you. This is Dr. Karina Bock, as I’m sure you know.”
Good feeling gone.
We sat in the breakfast room and I tried not to panic. I vaguely remembered Fats saying something about Dr. Bock on the day Scott Frame got killed, but it was kind of a blur. There was insurance to deal with, my dad, getting blood out of the carpet, and worst of all, bringing the Siamese home. They bit me. A lot. I didn’t have a phone and Dr. Bloom’s information fell by the wayside. How I wished it had stayed there.
“This painting is extraordinary,” said Dr. Bock.
She’d taken Stella’s portrait from the wall and was examining it with a magnifying glass, Sherlock Holmes-style.
The Girls were perfectly pleasant. They’d never been mad at me in my entire life, not even when I nearly burnt down the garage when I was seven. So I didn’t really know what their mad looked like. So far, it included coffee and donuts, but that didn’t seem like the end of it.
With The Girls’ permission, Dr. Bock took pictures of the portrait, front and back, and then put it gingerly back on the wall. Myrtle offered her a latte, which she accepted but barely touched. “Thank you so very much for allowing me to see the portrait.” Her Austrian accent was softer than German and musical. She tucked her bobbed blond hair behind her ears and said, “When Dr. Bloom said that he knew a member of the Bled family, it was like a miracle to me.”
I glanced at Millicent and Myrtle when she said ‘member of the Bled family’, but they had no reaction.
“Why would it be a miracle?” I asked. “I thought you specialize in interrogations and political prisoners. You didn’t know that Stella was in prison until Dr. Bloom told you about the portrait, right?”
Dr. Bock’s dark blue eyes glowed with excitement. “Ah, but I did. Stella Bled Lawrence is of intense interest for many historians like myself. I have eyewitness accounts of a young woman matching Stella’s general description being arrested, but I couldn’t prove it was her. Stella’s covers were very well done indeed.” She turned to The Girls. “The recent accusations against her are a travesty. She was nothing of what they said.”
Millicent and Myrtle nodded, their eyes growing moist, but they said nothing, taking sips of coffee instead.
“How many witnesses do you have?” asked Chuck.
“Several eyewitnesses and many second-hand accounts. Stella was very active during the war and memorable when she chose to be. Usually, the witness didn’t know their contact’s true identity. Stella spoke many languages and changed her appearance, but some things remain the same.”
Chuck looked up at the portrait and I could see the detective in him. “Her eyes. Height.”
“Yes,” said Dr. Bock. “Stella had lovely blue eyes and that cupid bow mouth. They were all used in the Nazi wanted posters. I can get you a copy of one. There are four in existence.”
“Did you know that?” I asked The Girls.
“No, I never imagined she had wanted posters,” said Millicent.
“They did little good,” said Dr. Bock. “Stella was an adept spy, but one thing I would like to ask you is why?”
The Girls went blank.
“Why what?” asked Myrtle, pouring me more coffee.
“Why did she do it?” asked Dr. Bock. “She was a young woman. My first evidence of her involvement was at nineteen. Your country wasn’t in the war yet. She didn’t need to be involved and I can’t overstate how dangerous her activities were. Women were burned alive for doing less. She must have known that.”
“Burned alive?” asked Chuck with a shudder.
“There were several instances of such barbaric behavior.” Dr. Bock held her delicate cup so tightly I thought it might shatter. “It has long been thought that you two, her closest family, must know why.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but her precise reason remains a mystery,” said Myrtle.
Precise.
Words meant a lot to my godmothers and I knew what that one meant. They knew something, probably quite a lot, but short of Stella telling them point-blank, they would never speculate.
Dr. Bock slumped with disappointment. “I suppose it was too much to hope for. Stella was quite secretive, as I’m sure you know.”
A kind of sadness flickered over my godmothers’ faces and then they looked at me. “Perhaps Mercy can tell you more.”
“Me?” I gasped.
They tilted their chins down and identical smiles formed on their lipsticked lips. “Come now, dear. It’s alright to say.”
This feels like a trap.
“I don’t know anything, really.” There wasn’t any reason to hide. My godmothers knew I’d been snooping already. “I did talk to Marie in Paris.”
Dr. Bock unslumped instantly. “The Marie?”
“I don’t know. There’s probably a lot of Maries,” I said and The Girls laughed. “There’s only one Marie. The Marie.”
“Marie Galloway Laurence Morris Huntley Huntley Smith?” Dr. Bock asked.
“The very same.”
“What did she tell you?”
I told her about the Jewish tour guide, Abel, that Stella was trying to find. Marie thought he’d been arrested, but she didn’t know any specifics.
“A Jewish tour guide,” said Dr. Bock. “When was this?”
“November 1938.”
She looked up from the notepad she’d gotten out. “That’s rather specific.”
“I know Stella and her husband were there on their honeymoon. I’m guessing he was their guide.”
“No last name?”
“Sorry, no. I really don’t know anything about Stella’s spying except that Marie thought she had an enemy in the SS, Helmut Peiper.”
Dr. Bock scowled. “Ah, yes, Peiper. Dr. Bloom mentioned him.”
“You know of this man?” asked Millicent, her interest growing.
“Yes, I do. He is what you Americans might call an odd duck. SS that worked for Göring.”
I took a big gulp of coffee and asked, “Did he do interrogations?”
“Not as a rule, but he did a few that came to my attention,” she said, reaching down into her briefcase. “I have an interview taken by my father in 1962. Is the name Augustus Gröber familiar to you?
The Girls sat up straight. “Oh, yes. Of course.”
“Who is he?” asked Chuck.
Dr. Bock placed her information on the table. “A Catholic priest arrested for being a suspected spy for the Allies in Freiburg.”
“Was he?”
She smiled. “No. He was something much better and he was in number eight Prinz-Albrecht-Straße in 1940. Peiper interrogated him.”
“1940, not ’43?” I asked.
“No. I believe the date on the back of the portrait refers to something else. Stella was in number eight in 1940. It is possible she was there more than once, but I am certain about 1940.
Dr. Bock’s father, also a noted historian, interviewed Father Gröber when he was declared Righteous Among the Nations by Israel for his work smuggling Jewish children out of Germany and Austria during the war. The Nazi suspected him of spying and only his fervent pro-Nazi sermons saved him from being sent to a concentration camp. While he was in the prison, he recalled a young English woman in an adjoining cell. She had beautiful blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair. Her name was Charlotte Sedgwick and she claimed to be a nanny for an aristocratic French family of Barbier. She was also arrested for spying in Paris. They spoke several times during the four days that their stays overlapped. Father Gröber liked the young woman. He said she seemed frightened and confused about why she was there. She believed that the Barbier family would secure her release and then she would go home to London. The good father believed she was British, but there was something in her eyes, a sharpness, a raw intelligence that made him doubt that she was a nanny. That and she casually asked questions about him and Freiburg. They were subtle, but she got tidbits out of him with
ease. Father Gröber came to believe that she was exactly who the Nazis thought she was and he was saddened to think that she would soon go to her death. She had been brutally interrogated. He had heard her screaming and he was certain she would confess. But that didn’t happen. The Barbier family somehow secured her release. When the guards came to get Stella, she took the father’s hand and said, “I wish you luck and Godspeed in your endeavors. I do love children.”
Father Gröber was shocked to hear that and believed Charlotte Sedgwick knew what his true activities were. He might’ve forgotten her eyes and words if it weren’t for what happened next. The father was told he was being released three days later. Instead, he was interrogated about Charlotte Sedgwick, what she said and her accent. The man doing the interrogation was someone new, Helmut Peiper, and he was furious that Charlotte had been released. He and a young man, only in his teens, beat the Father into unconsciousness. He was released a week later, blind in one eye and barely able to walk out on his own. Father Gröber never gave Peiper anything on Charlotte, not that he had anything other than suspicions. Suspicions that he felt were confirmed by Peiper’s desperation to find out about Charlotte.
Dr. Bock pushed the transcript of her father’s interview over to me. It was originally in German, but it’d been translated into English. She’d highlighted the Father’s description of Charlotte that sounded a whole lot like Stella. “I believe that Stella was Charlotte. No trace of her was ever found. She simply walked out of prison and disappeared. The Barbier family did exist and exists to this day. They never had an English nanny or anyone working for them named Charlotte Sedgwick.”
Chuck leaned over and picked up the photo Dr. Bock had of an elderly Father Gröber with an eyepatch over his right eye and a proud smile. He died only six months after the interview. The senior Bock was lucky to get it.
“Who was the young man with Peiper?” asked Chuck.
“The Father thought the two men resembled each other. They may have been related. The only name he heard was Peiper. Before you ask, Peiper had no children that we know of and he was an only child himself.”
I scanned the page. “How old was this kid?”
