“You got it in one,” Phil says to me, “when you told Harmony you knew it was stolen from Blomberg’s family. You and I just didn’t have enough knowledge earlier to put all of the pieces together.
“Robert Calvert did get his medal for wiping out the German sniper nest in Henry Blomberg’s family’s home in Heidelberg. What we didn’t know was that there was a roomful of stolen goods upstairs that the Germans were frantically trying to pack up and get out of there. Robert must have come across the stuff there and picked up a very old drawing. We’ll never know why he did what he did, but he stole the drawing then ran out of the room, right into a medal and history.”
“What he didn’t know, what no one knew, was that there was another person, another thief, in that room. Ben Nevell snuck in earlier and picked up several pieces of diamond jewelry, pieces that we now know belonged to Henry’s mother. He saw Robert take the drawing.
“That one little, thoughtless act, opened Robert up to a lifetime of blackmail. Nevell had the jewelry broken up and sold the diamonds to get his start in the art business. He moved to San Francisco so that he could be close to Robert and his family. Robert didn’t have any money, but as he gained political stature, he did have contacts, and a lot of contacts with a lot of money. Nevell used Robert for the contacts he needed to make a success of his galleries and, as a sideline, to sell stolen art works to collectors who weren’t too fussy about provenance and didn’t care if they couldn’t always publicly display what they’d acquired.”
“So Robert had that drawing? Why didn’t he get rid of it? Give it back to....” I say.
“Give it back to whom?” Phil asks. “He didn’t know about Blomberg, and didn’t know whose house he’d been in. And he couldn’t just turn it over to the authorities, they’d know that he’d stolen it and his political career, built on the fact that he was a war hero, would go in the toilet. So he just kept it, always afraid that someone would find it and learn the story. After Nevell showed up, Robert was stuck, so he just paid and paid, not in money but in influence.”
Clarice has been unusually quiet, but now she says, “”What’s so odd about this is the fact that the drawing was right here, right under everyone’s nose for more than half a century. I bet that’s why Baldwin and Boxer, were murdered. Baldwin, the old bum, must have stumbled across Harmony doing some demolition work in the bar. There was a light on and Baldwin headed in for drinks. He surprised Harmony. Even though Baldwin was the town drunk, somebody might listen to his story of Harmony being in the bar in the middle of the night.
“The real estate agent, Janice Boxer, ran across an old set of blueprints in the county planning office. She knew how to read them and found there was a space, a small room, behind the back wall of the bar. It may have been built during Prohibition for storing liquor. When she asked Harmony about the false wall, she was eliminated. I wonder if either one of them had any idea what was behind the wall.”
“I think you’re right, Clarice,” Dodson says, giving her as assessing glance.
“I didn’t have all the answers,” I say. “I did see the duffle bag, though, so it must have freaked Harmony. I wonder why he just hit me; I would have thought he’d wanted me dead.”
Dodson says, “You can thank Henry Blomberg for that. If he hadn’t shown up, Harmony probably would have thrown you in the back of his pickup and conveniently dropped you down an abandoned mine shaft. You would have never been found.”
“How did you know I was in danger?”
“Your young man,” Blomberg says and he nods to Phil who has the good manners to redden. “We had had a nice long talk this afternoon as we were driving. He told me that you’d found the Calvert diaries and some of the World War II links. I knew that there was dangerous information there.”
“How does Nevell fit in? I don’t think he’s been up here in years and I can’t see him being physical.”
“He hired Harmony,” Phil says. “It was a simple business arrangement. After Robert died and Royce bought back the hotel, Nevell got in touch with Harmony to bid on the renovation job and promised him a million if he found the drawing. Harmony was waiting until the end of the job to actually pull the duffle bag and its contents out and deliver it to Nevell because he was planning to split, leave California and head for Mexico. He knew that Nevell, even though he’s pretty old now, was dangerous and Harmony wanted to disappear before Nevell figured out a way to get his million back.”
“What’s next”” I ask.
Dodson says, “We have enough to hold Harmony for Stewart’s murder and certainly, with Harmony being anxious to share the burden, to charge Nevell as well. In fact, Nevell is in custody in San Francisco right now, on a whole slew of charges including murder for hire, blackmail, possessing and selling stolen property. There may be more by now.” He smiles.
Henry Blomberg picks up my hand and says, “You’ve helped immensely. If it weren’t for you, and for your reporter—Clarice?—they may have gotten away with murder. Literally. You kept asking questions and trying to tie the murders together and you did the background research and knew the hotel was a common link. Once the hotel is linked, the Calvert family is involved and the story knits together.
“When Robert stole my family’s drawing, he must have been shocked at his action. He met his brother in Munich, after the liberation of Dachau, and confessed to William what he’d done. William told him to give it back immediately and that he, William, didn’t want to hear about it again.
“After they came home, it looks like the brothers went separate ways. William apparently never asked, and Robert never told, but the theft was a chasm that they never bridged. Before William died, he told his son, Stewart, that there was a family secret that would ruin everyone if it were to get out. That started Stewart on his quest. He didn’t want to ruin the family, but he thought if he could discover the secret it would be a hold over Royce.”
“Where do you come in? And why do you know so much?” I ask.
“As I told you, I made it my career, tracking down families and objects lost or stolen during the Nazi era. Partly because I’m Jewish, but primarily because I held out hope for decades that I might find some of my family or our treasures. I’d almost given up when I ran across the fact that Robert Calvert and Ben Nevell were both in my family’s house on the same day in February 1945. Robert because of his actions and his medal, Nevell just because his unit was there. As Robert climbed the political ladder, I saw that Nevell seemed to be always in the shadows.
“I didn’t know enough until right before Robert died, and I watched to see if anything surfaced in his estate. Nothing did, but when Royce bought the hotel, I made up my mind to move. I’ve been meeting with, and leaning on, Royce and Stewart to find and turn over my family’s property. I really didn’t want to darken their family’s reputation and assured them I would keep it as quiet as possible. When those first two people, Baldwin and Boxer, died, Royce and I agreed that there were others involved and it was beginning to be a dangerous game so we’d keep an eye on Harmony and watch out for Stewart.
“As you found out last night, we weren’t keeping a close enough eye on Harmony. And I can’t tell you how sorry I am that you were injured. I thought it might make up for some pain if I showed you what was lost.”
He turns around, picks up a carefully bound portfolio case, pulls on a pair of white cotton gloves and takes out a small piece of browning paper with fading ink.
I gasp. “Oh my Lord, is that ...”
“It’s a Leonardo da Vinci drawing,” Henry says with quiet awe. “It used to hang in an upstairs hallway outside of my bedroom. I always loved it because the horse is so round. My family owned it for more than 300 years. Do you know that Queen Elizabeth II has a collection of da Vinci drawings like this?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The heat is old. It’s sat around in the valley for weeks and now feels baked and tired as though it’s spent too long on the barbeque grill and dried into a husk of summer.
There’s no air moving when I take Mac on our morning walk. I know that in a few weeks I’ll have to leave the house at dawn if I want to continue my exercise routine, but I’ll have to do it. Mac never seems to care if he gets walks day or night, the smells are still the same and he’s with me.
After the walk, coffee, morning papers and shower, I paw through the closet looking for a last summer wear and settle on a cotton skirt, sleeveless silk shirt, linen over-shirt and flat slides. It’s going to be too hot to spend time on my hair, it will just sag, so I brush it back and snap in a big barrette just high enough to be off my neck.
I stick my sunglasses on my head, say goodbye to Mac and head off, going over the stories I’d assigned yesterday and running through who’s working on what today.
Coming into the newsroom, the low hum of chat, the ringing phones and keyboard clacks tells me that all is going well. I open up the daily budget, check on stories and assignments, run through photo assignments and call the ad department to get an estimate on the news hole.
No wrinkles I can see, but Clarice isn’t in yet.
I’m scrolling through the wires as Clarice comes in after lunch. She drops her purse, keys and phone on her desk and appears in my doorway in time to hear me say, “Holy moley!”
“What? What?” Her adrenaline is revving up.
“Listen to this: ‘A da Vinci drawing, reportedly stolen by the Nazis during World War II, recently surfaced. Its original owner, who did not wish to be identified, said he was ‘thrilled that the drawing had been located. It deserves to be seen by the public to remind them of the horrors that war could bring and the hope that came with peace.’
The owner has donated it to the Uffizi in Florence.”
I look up at Clarice and we’re both grinning. “Well, well.”
Edited for Death Page 20
