Voices of the Dead

by Peter Leonard

  When the police left Harry paged through a stack of transaction reports and shippers Jerry had put on his desk the day before. Without Jerry he’d have to put Phyllis in charge for a few days. She could handle it. He gave her a couple blank checks and told her to get more money when she needed it.

  “Harry.” Phyllis on the intercom. “Someone named Joyce is on the phone for you.”

  “Put her through.” He picked up the receiver. “How you doing?”

  “Going out of my mind.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m staying at a friend’s house on the island. Let me give you the address and phone number.”

  Harry wrote it down.

  “Have you seen Hess? Is he there?”

  “No.” He didn’t want to worry her.

  “When are you coming down?”

  “Tomorrow. Hang in there.”

  It was 10:37 a.m. when he got home. Galina’s car was gone. Harry was now convinced that she’d had one too many and walked home. Cordell was on the couch in the den, watching TV, eating a bowl of cereal.

  “You’re looking good.”

  “Feelin’ better, thanks to your niece. She’s something, Harry.”

  “You see a woman come by and get her car that was parked in the driveway?”

  “No, but I’ve been noddin’ off.”

  “I don’t want to ruin your day but the police are looking for you. And unless I’m wrong they’re going to be coming here with a warrant.”

  “What do got in mind?” Cordell said.

  “You up to traveling?”

  “Depends on where you talkin’.”

  “Palm Beach.”

  “I can get next to that.” Cordell said. “Already packed. One question. How we getting there?”

  Harry checked his messages, one from Colette.

  “I’m still in Bergheim. My mother is in the hospital. Call me when you can. I’ll explain everything.”

  He tried her again. No answer.

  Hess could feel the hot humid air as he stepped out of the aircraft into the jet way at 3:30 p.m. He had had a window seat, and enjoyed seeing the blue ocean, the green palm trees, and the orange tile roofs of Palm Beach as the plane came in for a landing. He had checked out of the Statler Hotel in Detroit, driven to the airport, returned the Chevrolet Malibu to Avis. Three hours later he was in Florida. No customs agents asking questions this time.

  He walked through the terminal to baggage claim and waited for his suitcase. He had disassembled the Walther and wrapped each piece in an article of clothing. He waited outside for a bus to take him to the Hertz lot, surprised how warm and bright it was after being in Detroit.

  He rented a Lincoln Town Car that drove like a bus, cruising with the windows down to Palm Beach, checking in at the Breakers, a lavish architectural gem on the Atlantic Ocean. He insisted on a room with an ocean view and stood staring out the window, watching waves roll onto the shore.

  Hess unpacked his suitcase and assembled the Walther, locking the weapon in a safe in the closet. His clothes were inappropriate, too heavy for the warm climate. He had seen a men’s shop downstairs off the lobby, and went there, purchasing golf shirts, one red, the other yellow, a pair of aviator sunglasses, khaki trousers, sandals and a black golf cap with the Breakers logotype on the front. He returned to the room, changing into the red golf shirt, the khaki trousers, the cap and sunglasses, studying himself in the mirror, amazed at the transformation, seeing a pale fifty-year-old American tourist.

  Worth Avenue was one-way. He parked on the north side twenty meters from Cocoanut Row. It was 5:15. Sunset Realty was on the corner next to an Italian restaurant. He studied color photographs of homes for sale in the windows of the real-estate office. He could see a dozen desks through the glass but only three were occupied—all by women on the phone. He opened the door and went inside, saw a stack of elegant brochures in a metal display rack. Take one, it said. He did, and walked out.

  Hess sat in the Town Car, studying a map of Palm Beach. He turned right on Cocoanut Row and right on Peruvian Avenue, and drove all the way to South Ocean Boulevard, gazing out at the ocean, feeling an easterly breeze, whitecaps breaking out to sea. He turned right again, passed the Winthrop House, Frau Cantor’s residence, driving along the water, glancing at the oceanfront estates, trying not to drive off the road.

  He turned around and went back to Worth Avenue, parked next to the seawall, smelled the salty breeze. The Winthrop House was across the street. The apartments had balconies. Hess wondered if he would see her, wondered would he recognize her if he did. He had seen her the one time on Leopoldstrasse in Munich. At first he thought she was drunk, coming at him the way she did. People on the street had stopped and taken notice. How could they not? A crazy woman was raising her voice, accusing him of being a Nazi murderer. Instead of confronting her he had walked away, hailed a taxi.

  Rausch had followed her and found out her name and where she lived. Hess was certain he had killed her that night in Washington DC, and was surprised weeks later when he discovered she was still alive.

  Hess went back to the Breakers, sat in the bar sipping a Martini, cold gin and vermouth, two olives. He was paging through the real-estate brochure, glancing at photographs of premium properties.

  Mediterranean-style waterfront compound, stunning white stucco with red tile roof, 387 feet of ocean frontage, 10,287 square feet, 8 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, pool, tennis court. Listing #1137.

  The next one:

  Oceanfront Estate, 288 feet of frontage, 8,940 square feet, 2-bedroom pool house, 60-foot Italian marble pool, 7 bedrooms, 11 bathrooms. Listing #1089. Listing Agent: Joyce Cantor

  A color photograph of her, head and shoulders, pretty face and radiant smile, late forties. No sign of the ranting lunatic accusing him on Leopoldstrasse.

  After the listings was a profile of Frau Cantor under the heading: Integrity, Experience, Professionalism.

  The text read:

  Whether Joyce is representing an oceanfront buyer or listing a 2-bedroom condo she treats her clients with equal commitment.

  Nobody maintains a higher level of ethics and professionalism.

  Hess grinned, amused by the lie, feeling the warmth of the gin settling over him. He dipped his thumb and index finger into the liquid, pinched an olive and popped it in his mouth. Hess finished his martini, paid the check and took the elevator to his room.

  Harry pulled into a motor court outside Valdosta, Georgia just before midnight, eleven and a half hours straight, stopping for the first time in Knoxville when Cordell said he couldn’t hold it any longer, was going to go on the floor of the car if Harry didn’t find a rest stop. Now he was stretched across the backseat asleep. The only interesting part of the trip was driving through the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee.

  The room had twin beds and smelled of disinfectant. Harry carried the bags in, helped Cordell and fell asleep with his clothes on as soon as his head hit the pillow. It was still dark when he opened his eyes at 5:20 a.m. He took a shower, woke Cordell and got back in the car.

  “Sure you never been in the military?” Cordell said to Harry. “What the hell kind of schedule you on?”

  “I’m doing all the heavy lifting,” Harry said. “All you have to do is get in back and sleep.”

  “Sir, yes sir,” Cordell said, saluting.

  “I’m trying to get to this survivor before Hess does.”

  “How you know he’s going after her?”

  “I don’t. But Hess thinks he got me and she’s the only one left. Am I getting through to you?”

  “Harry, lose your sense of humor somewhere back in Tennessee?”

  “Ohio,” Harry said. “Most boring state I’ve ever driven through.”

  “You think so, huh? Try Nebraska sometime, you go out of your mind.”

  “What were you doing in Nebraska?”

  “Taking a load to LA for Chilly.”

  Cordell was in back, snoring when they crossed the Flori
da state line.

  Hess phoned Sunrise Realty at 10:00 a.m., asking for Joyce Cantor.

  “I am sorry, sir, Ms. Cantor has taken a temporary leave of absence to address some family issues.”

  Hess grinned at the woman’s choice of words, but decided that getting shot could be considered a family issue.

  “May I ask who’s calling?”

  “Mr. Emile Landau,” Hess said, using his Southern accent. “Joyce has come highly recommended by a mutual friend. I am from Atlanta, here for a few days. I was planning to look at oceanfront estates today.” He sipped his coffee waiting for a response.

  “Lenore Deutsch, our top-selling agent, is handling Joyce’s listings in the interim. No one knows more about Palm Beach real estate than Lenore.”

  “Is she ethical and professional?” Hess said, thinking of Joyce Cantor’s real-estate profile.

  “Extremely, sir. Lenore always has her clients’ best interests in mind.”

  “How can I disagree with that? Tell Lenore I will meet her at 1160 South Ocean Boulevard, one this afternoon—and I will have my checkbook with me.” A nice touch, Hess thought. How could she resist such an invitation?

  The estate was the ultimate in luxury. In fact, the listing in the brochure had used those very words. Ten bedrooms, Italian marble pool, gourmet kitchen and private spa, views of the ocean and intercoastal, private beach and boat dock, every amenity imaginable.

  People would have given their first-born to stay there, and would never want to leave, but Joyce felt like a prisoner. The situation was pure madness. A lunatic Nazi was coming to kill her and there was nothing she could do about it, no way to stop him. She had gone to the Palm Beach police station yesterday after talking to Harry. Met with a detective, man about her age named George Morris, dark hair, short-sleeve white shirt, coffee stain on the pocket, dark eyes, flat Midwest accent. She told him she was a survivor, told him about seeing Hess, the Nazi, in Munich six weeks before. She saw a grin form on his thin lips. He looked at her like she was a college kid on spring break who’d had too many shots of tequila.

  “I’m sorry,” Detective Morris said, “the police can’t do anything unless there’s a threat. By that I mean, you see this Nazi in Palm Beach, he starts harassing you—” Morris started to grin and covered his mouth with his hand. “I want you to call me.”

  Joyce would’ve loved to hear what he said about her when she left. He obviously thought she had a screw loose.

  The estate was owned by the Frankels, Abe and Millie. Joyce had sold them the property a month earlier, her first big sale at Sunset Realty, and they had become good friends. The Frankels were going to be in New York at their Fifth Avenue apartment until early January. Joyce said she was having her condo painted. Millie said the estate was hers for as long as she needed it. That solved one problem. Harry was on his way, and that made her feel better, but what could Harry do if Hess showed up?

  Joyce tried to keep busy, checked her messages, watched TV, exercised, sat by the pool, but nothing took her mind off Hess. The estate had an alarm system, and Josefina, the Costa Rican caretaker, lived there part-time. Security guards checked the house and grounds at night, and she locked the door to her suite on the second floor, but none of it relieved her anxiety, this feeling of foreboding.

  She was thinking back on her life: escaping from the mass grave in the woods outside Dachau, taken in by the Muellers, the farm couple who had risked their lives for a Jewish girl, fed and protected her until the end of the war. Joyce’s aunt Sima and uncle Stanley had sent her a visa and money for passage to New York and invited her to live with them in Baltimore. Joyce didn’t have anyone else. She was twenty-one. Stan owned a real-estate company and offered her a job.

  Four years later she met Mitch. Life couldn’t have been much better. He was smart and good-looking, had just graduated dental school. He was, as Joyce’s aunt had said, a catch. They got married. Mitch bought into a practice with five other dentists, specializing in root canals. That’s all they did. He talked about swollen gums and abscessed teeth and dead roots at the dinner table, eyes lit up with excitement.

  He made a good living and Joyce didn’t do badly herself. With two incomes they were able to afford the house in Georgetown. They were married eighteen years when Mitch started fooling around. It was obvious something was going on. He started exercising for the first time in his life, lost weight, bought new clothes, and spent more time grooming and more time away from home.

  Joyce thought it was a phase, a midlife crisis, something he would get out of his system. But there were others. How many she didn’t know. The final straw was when she found out Mitch was paying for an apartment for Sherri, a girl in his office. That was it, she moved out, filed for divorce, walked with half their assets, $350,000, her freedom, and, maybe best of all, she didn’t have to hear about dental procedures any more.

  Joyce moved to Palm Beach and bought a fifth-floor, two-bedroom condo at the Winthrop House, with views of the ocean and the orange tile rooftops of the trendy shopping district. She applied for a job at Sunset Realty, and got it, but put off her start date for a week so she could take her niece, Jenni, to Munich. Joyce hadn’t been back since the war.

  They were having a wonderful girls’ day, shopping all morning, walking along Leopoldstrasse when she saw him coming out of a restaurant. Recognized him, mind racing, trying to remember when, and pictured him wearing a gray SS uniform, holding a riding crop in gloved hands. Joyce approached him and said, “I know you.”

  He glanced at her and smiled, thinking she was an old friend.

  “You’re the Nazi from Dachau, the murderer.”

  He frowned now, moving away from her, signaled a taxi. She dropped her shopping bags and went after him. “Stop him, he’s a murderer.” People on the sidewalk were looking at her like she was crazy, keeping their distance.

  Jenni picked up the bags and followed her, surprised, embarrassed, Joyce could tell, by her outburst.

  “Aunt Joyce, what’s going on?” Jenni looking at her like she’d flipped.

  “It’s the Nazi murderer from Dachau.”

  “That was thirty years ago,” Jenni said. “How can you be sure?”

  Jenni called her friend Adele‚ who worked at the Anti-Defamation League in New York, explained what had happened. Adele suggested they contact the ZOB in Munich. Joyce called and talked to a woman named Lisa Martz, and arranged to stop by their office the next morning, to look through archival photographs of Dachau Nazis.

  Joyce was calmer, more relaxed after that. She and Jenni went back to their hotel, napped and went out to dinner. When they returned to the room there was a swastika painted on the wall, their clothes were all over the floor. Joyce freaked. She wasn’t going to go through that again, called the airline and they flew out that night.

  Three weeks later Mitch, her ex, and Sherri, his fiancée, were murdered. A Washington DC detective named Taggart had flown down to question her. He was a nice-looking dark-haired guy, although she couldn’t say much for his taste in clothes. He wore a green dress shirt and a brown plaid sport coat.

  “Nice view,” he said, looking out the window at the ocean, Virginia twang in his voice.

  “That’s why I bought it.”

  “What’s a place like this run, you don’t mind my asking?”

  She told him and he whistled hearing the amount.

  “You want to sit down, Detective?” She was in one of the blue Baker Regency chairs. He crossed the living room and sat on the couch.

  “Get back to DC very often?”

  “I flew up for the funeral.” She had paid her respects to Pitsy and Jarvis, Mitch’s parents, and joined them for shiva.

  “How about before that?” Taggart said.

  “The day I moved.”

  “How’d you feel when you found out your husband was having an affair?”

  “Which time?”

  “How many were there?”

  “I don’t know for sure. Thre
e or four, at least.”

  “How do you know?”

  Joyce said, “You married, Detective?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Ever have an affair?”

  “We’re not talking about me,” Taggart said, getting defensive.

  “When a guy has an affair things about him change. I knew what Mitch was doing.”

  “Did you know Ms. Shore?”

  “She worked in Mitch’s office,” Joyce said. “I saw her occasionally. We weren’t friends if that’s what you mean.”

  “How’d you find out about it?”

  “He rented her an apartment. The bill came to the house. Dumb, huh?”

  “Were you angry?”

  “No, I was relieved. I’d had enough. I said, you want her go right ahead. I’m leaving. You know when your marriage isn’t working, don’t you?”

  “Do you own a gun?”

  “I don’t believe in guns.”

  “Did you kill your husband?”

  She looked him in the eye and said, “No.”

  “You know who did?”

  Joyce shook her head.

  She escorted him to the door, sure he was going to ask another question like Columbo always did, Peter Falk looking scruffy and disheveled. But Taggart wasn’t Columbo. He walked out. She closed the door and stood on the balcony, watched him come out of the building and get in a car and drive north on South Ocean Boulevard.

  Hess was wearing the new yellow golf shirt, khakis, sunglasses and the Breakers cap. He had parked on the side of the road and stood at the gate, studying the house and grounds of the estate. According to the description in the brochure it was Mission-style, 12,150 square feet, eight bedrooms, movie theater, bowling alley, private beach and beach house across South Ocean Boulevard, circular drive made out of stone to match the color of the tile roof.

  A white Cadillac approached, the gate opened. The driver waved. The Cadillac drove in, parking on the circular drive. Hess pulled in behind her.

  She stepped out and came toward him, a blonde Jew, fifties, Dachau thin, heavy make-up, an excessive amount of jewelry.