Lineage Most Lethal (Ancestry Detective)

by S. C. Perkins

  “Frank, good morning. How’s my car?”

  Frank’s thick drawl came through my phone. “Lucy, I found somethin’ that’s right suspicious.”

  “How so?” I asked. My other hand clenched around my coffee mug.

  “Well, it looks like there’s a hole in yer brake line. Not a big ’un, mind you. It’s barely noticeable. Heck, I darn near missed it. It also looks like there mighta been tape of some sort over it, too.”

  “Tape?” I repeated, watching Mrs. P. measure out a length of silvery, twisted satin cording I recognized as being the same type she’d asked Pippa to buy for putting together the gala favors. She then used it to tie a bow onto a sachet containing three wildflower seed bombs.

  “Yep, tape. It’s to keep the brake fluid from leakin’ too fast. As you drive, all an’ sundry heats up under your car, which would eventually make the tape come off and the fluid start to leak. It’d be so yer brakes stopped working somewhere far away from where the brake line was tampered with.”

  “Oh?” I said, my voice faint. I saw Mrs. P. glance at me, then measure out another length of cord.

  “Someone knew what they were doin’, all right,” Frank continued. “Lucy, I’m gonna send you a video of what I found. You should send it to yer insurance guy, and go to the police.” He pronounced it in two distinct syllables, po-leese.

  “Will do, Frank. Thank you so much.”

  “You be right careful, Lucy,” he said. “I don’t want nothin’ happenin’ to you.”

  “I will, I promise,” I said, and hung up, feeling a cold all over that had nothing to do with the weather.

  So, it was true. Someone had tried to kill me.

  “Was that your car man, Lucy, dear? Was it your brake line, like you thought?”

  My phone pinged. Frank had sent the video. I looked up from my daze. “I’m sorry, Mrs. P. What did you say?”

  A slightly guilty flush came over her cheeks. “Miss Pippa told me this morning,” she said, loosely rolling up the satin cording. “I never believed that story about a squirrel. Och, you poor girls. That must have been scary.”

  “It wasn’t fun, I’ll tell you that,” I said, but to myself I was thinking “scary” was the right word. I was feeling downright scared and unsafe. My phone pinged again; my ride was near. I stood up on autopilot and put on my down vest and a scarf, adding, “But we’re both all right, and that’s what matters. I’m picking up a rental after visiting my grandfather.”

  “Oh, you’re seeing Mr. Lancaster? Wait here, then,” Mrs. P. said. She bustled off and was back in a few seconds holding a small white box sealed with a sticker featuring a drawing of the Hotel Sutton. From her desk, she pulled a roll of wide, stiff ribbon. Cutting a length, she tied it around the box, fashioning it into one of those gorgeous, perfect bows I could never seem to make.

  “Here,” she said, crossing to me. “These are the homemade caramels for all the guests at the gala. A little shop not far from here makes them for us. Take them to your grandfather with my compliments.”

  “Ooh, Grandpa and I both love caramels. I might have to sneak one and just tell him there was always one missing.”

  Mrs. P. winked at me. “I think you should do that, Lucy, dear. You deserve one, for sure.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. P.” My phone signaled that my ride was in the parking lot, and I dashed out, ready to see my grandfather and feel safe again.

  * * *

  But my late start to the morning ruined my chances of catching Grandpa awake. He was sleeping peacefully again when I got to his room, but I nevertheless stayed with him for a while in case he woke up. I wanted to talk to him, to have him tell me what to do, to reassure me that everything would be okay. However, Nurse Angelique said he’d been given some pain meds and would probably sleep for hours. “He’s improving markedly, though.” She smiled. “And his lips are still zipped.”

  I thanked her for all she’d been doing and asked if I could leave the caramels for Grandpa. “I know he’ll share with you,” I said. “So feel free if you’d like one.”

  When I left Grandpa’s room, his tall, bald, silent guard stood up again. “All quiet?” I asked.

  “All quiet,” he replied. “You?”

  “All good,” I said, then stopped myself. “Actually, no. Someone tampered with my brake line last night. I got lucky, but keep an extra-special eye on Grandpa, would you?”

  His jaw tightened. Then he ripped off an edge of the paper from his clipboard logging Grandpa’s visitors and wrote a number on it, along with a name.

  “Please only use this in an emergency, but use it if you need to.”

  I looked at the name, then smiled. “Thank you, Tom.”

  He nodded, and I left the hospital, catching a call from a yawning Pippa as I slid into the back seat of another ride-share.

  “Man, I was worn out from yesterday,” she said with a groan. “I just woke up about a half hour ago, if you can believe it, but I’m ready to help you with whatever you need.”

  “Oh, thanks,” I said. “I’m being driven to the rental car place. I should be back in about an hour.”

  “Sounds good,” she said with another yawn. “Oh, and I remembered something strange,” she added. “Meaning, something that happened recently that was strange.” She amended this by saying, “Well, it could be nothing, of course. Or simple coincidence.”

  “Even so, spill the tea,” I said, a tad impatiently.

  Pippa chuckled. “Okay, so a couple of weeks ago, I’d been out running errands and picked up some take-out from my favorite Chinese place. I brought it back to the hotel and ate half of it, but Mom had disappeared again and I had to show a potential client around last minute. Anyway, the rest of my food got cold—it was crispy shrimp and vegetables, so, you know, it’s fried in that puffy tempura batter that’s so good when it’s just made and hot but disgusting when it’s cold.”

  “And impossible to reheat well,” I said.

  “Exactly,” Pippa said. “So when I was done with the tour, Mrs. P. brought me my leftovers, telling me I hadn’t eaten enough and I should finish my lunch. I knew it wouldn’t taste good, so I went to throw it away, and that’s when one of the gardeners asked me to look at something in the knot garden. When he saw me about to trash my leftovers, he asked if he could take them to his chickens.”

  “Chickens eat Chinese food?” I said.

  “Yeah, apparently they’re carnivores and will eat almost everything except for a few things that are toxic to them, like uncooked beans and avocado,” Pippa said. “Anyway, the next day the gardener came up to me and asked if I’d gotten sick from my food. When I said no, he said that two of his chickens had died within minutes of eating my leftovers. He took the scraps out before the rest of them could get to it, but still. Until today, I’ve been thinking there was simply something toxic to the chickens in the recipe. Now, though…”

  “It definitely qualifies as a little strange,” I finished. “Especially because the chickens died within minutes of eating the leftovers.” Something was definitely not right. “Does Mrs. P. do that a lot?” I asked, grasping at the nearest straw.

  “Make me eat?” Pippa said with a laugh. “Yeah, all the time. She could put a worried grandmother to shame.”

  I remembered her bringing me a cup of hot, sweet tea after Hugo had died. Yeah, Mrs. P. was definitely the mothering type.

  “Did anyone else know you were ordering from that restaurant?” I asked.

  “No, but I did eat it in the kitchen. I often do.”

  The kitchen. “Was Lacey Costin there that day?” I asked.

  “Wait, are you thinking she tried to poison me?” Pippa asked. Then, before I could answer, I heard a distant knock and Boomer barking in response.

  “It’s Mrs. P.,” Pippa said, “bringing me the invoices for the gala. Look, I’ll check and see if Lacey was scheduled to work that day. If she was, I’ll check the security tapes.”

  “That’s a good plan. As soon as I’m b
ack, I’ll bring my stuff over. I shouldn’t be long.”

  I was worried about Pippa nevertheless, and it made me antsy to get back to the hotel. As predicted, the temperature outside was dropping fast. Once in my rental car, I turned on the heat and drove off the lot.

  I heard my phone ring from inside my tote bag as I navigated onto I-35. What if it’s the hospital calling about Grandpa? I thought worriedly, wishing I’d connected my phone to the car’s Bluetooth. Austin traffic was notoriously bad, and today it was crazier than ever, so I kept both hands on the wheel, glad my exit wasn’t too far off. Once on Cesar Chavez, I grabbed my phone at the first stoplight.

  It wasn’t the hospital, though. It was Sean Nelson.

  Excitement buzzing inside me, I played the message from my phone’s speaker as the light turned green.

  “Lucy, it’s Sean. Look, I’ll be out of pocket almost all afternoon, but I wanted to let you know right away that your theory was right. The names on your list are indeed the descendants of the Operation Greenfinch spies.”

  I gasped so loud, I almost didn’t catch what he said next.

  “And my source tells me there’s at least two other people who have searched for information about this mission, though I don’t have their names yet.”

  Hugo Markman was likely one of them, I thought. The other person had to be the killer.

  Sean continued. “As for the agents’ names, I’ve only got their first initial and surname, along with their code name. I can explain everything further later, but here’s the gist: Operation Greenfinch happened because a female American OSS agent, codename Judith, discovered an SOE operative was acting as a double agent. Judith’s real name was H. Davis.”

  Hitting the brakes, I took a fast turn onto a side street, causing honking behind me even as Sean’s message continued to play.

  “So, this double agent was a former German aristocrat who’d lost his lands and title. He’d then married an Englishwoman and had been living in England for more than ten years. Unhappily so, it appears. His is the only full name I have. The double agent’s code name was Anthony, but his real name was—” Then Sean, who’d studied German, pronounced a name that sounded something like “von Pole-mah-ha,” adding that the man’s first name was Reinhard.

  As if he realized I wouldn’t see the name correctly in my mind, he spelled it, letting me know the “o” had an umlaut. The double agent’s name was Reinhard von Pöllmacher.

  I pulled alongside the curb and put the car in park.

  Sean was saying, “Now, I don’t know the full details, you understand, but it appears this double agent named von Pöllmacher was giving the Germans information about plans for D-Day in return for regaining his stature, lands, and bank accounts in the fatherland. OSS Agent Davis helped set up a mission to reveal von Pöllmacher’s deception, and that mission was Operation Greenfinch. It involved four OSS agents, Ms. Davis included, and four SOE agents.”

  I was holding my phone nearer to me, feeling like the information wasn’t coming fast enough, and also like I was desperate for Sean to speak every word slowly so I wouldn’t miss a syllable.

  He said, “Apparently von Pöllmacher was really good at seeming loyal to Britain, the SOE, and the Allies, as well as hiding his association with the Nazis. The mission to force his hand was fairly elaborate, with microdots, misinformation, and Montblancs, just like you mentioned in your first voicemail to me. Lucy, it sounds like stopping this guy was instrumental to the Allies succeeding on D-Day and, eventually, winning the war.”

  “Holy wow,” I breathed. “And Grandpa was part of it.” Goose bumps were popping up all over my arms at the thought.

  “The point is, the eight agents were successful in catching von Pöllmacher at his own game. He was killed before the D-Day plans could be ruined. However, of the eight agents involved, three were killed. Two of them—R. Cogswell, an American, and A. Newell, a Brit, codenames Ted and Jarvis, respectively—were exposed by von Pöllmacher and killed by the Nazis.”

  Naomi Van Dorn’s grandfather and Alastair Newell’s father, I thought.

  Sean added, “A third, whose name was E. Weissman, was an American, but there’s some confusion as to whether he was working for the SOE or OSS. Regardless, he was killed by von Pöllmacher himself when von Pöllmacher began to suspect him. His code name was Rupert.”

  I wondered if E. Weissman was Hugo’s grandfather. Then I gasped again. That’s what Grandpa had meant by Rupert’s life-ending bravery ensuring the mission’s success. Holy wow indeed.

  If the spy codenamed Rupert was indeed Hugo’s grandfather, then Hugo was on his own list. Did he know it? I had to believe he did.

  Sean’s voice was as excited as my thoughts. “Okay, my friend,” I heard him say, “I hope you have a pen ready and I hope you’re sitting down, because here are the names of the other operatives, plus their code names. However, Ms. Davis and Mr. Weissman don’t match up with any of the names you sent me, which tells me they’re the ancestors of one of the three names you haven’t yet decoded.” Sean cleared his throat. “There’s also a third name that doesn’t match up with any of the names that are already decoded. Lucy, that name is G. Lancaster.”

  I’d hastily pulled out a copy of Hugo’s list. When I heard him say Grandpa’s name, I paused Sean’s message. I needed a moment to breathe.

  I was filled with pride, fear, wonderment, and about ten other emotions all mixed together at hearing Grandpa’s name. And yet it was still surprising to me that he hadn’t been targeted ages ago. He should have been the very first target. So why had it taken so long for the killer to set his sights on my grandfather?

  I still didn’t have the answer to that, so I hit play on Sean’s message again, and heard his voice go serious.

  “Lucy, if the ‘G. Lancaster’ is your grandfather, then that means you’re in danger. Please, please be careful, my friend. Text me to let me know you got this and you’re safe. And keep the texts coming until all this is figured out, okay? You sent me the number of that Detective Dupart in Austin. Just know I won’t hesitate to call him if I don’t hear from you on the regular.”

  I smiled, thinking what a good friend Sean was, then started scribbling names, matching the spies and their code names with their descendants on Hugo’s list, as Sean named them:

  Descendant

  Spy + Nationality

  Code Name

  Alastair Newell

  A. Newell, British

  Jarvis

  Fiona Kenland

  L. Pulleyn, British

  Nigel

  Penelope Ohlinger

  F. Whitcross, British

  Charles

  Naomi Van Dorn

  R. Cogswell, American

  Stanley

  Rocco Zeppetelli

  A. Zeppetelli, American

  Louis

  UNKNOWN (Hugo?)

  E. Weissman, American

  Rupert

  UNKNOWN

  H. Davis, American

  Judith

  UNKNOWN (Me?)

  G. Lancaster, American

  Robert

  At the bottom, I added in an extra line for the double agent and his unknown descendant:

  ???        R. von Pöllmacher—DOUBLE AGENT   Anthony

  “By the way,” Sean said just before he hung up, “a greenfinch is a bird often found on the French coast at Normandy. Its French name is verdier. My contact found a written notation that read, ‘V for Verdier, V for Victory!’ I thought that was a neat side note.”

  I recalled Grandpa saying the Morse code “V” on the pen’s cap had meant more than just “victory,” and now I knew it meant verdier, the French word for “greenfinch.” A neat side note, indeed.

  Smiling, I sent Sean a text that started with “HOLY WOW!” and continued on with my profuse thanks and assurances that I would check in regularly. Then I put my rental car back in gear and drove back to the Hotel Sutton, anxiousness beginning to jump in my stomach.
I needed to decode those last names and get this information to Detective Dupart. Even though Sean hadn’t said there was a “J. Sutton” on the list, meaning Pippa’s name wouldn’t be one of the last three names, there was still something odd going on. I felt the urge more than ever to make sure she was all right.

  FORTY

  Mrs. P. was on the front porch of the hotel, looking to be in a slightly heated discussion with one of the groundskeeping staff about when to put down a fresh layer of crushed granite before the party.

  “I’d like it done now, before the light rain that’s expected,” she was saying, her mouth turned down in a scowl. “That will help it to settle better for all the ladies who will be walking in heels.”

  The groundskeeper replied that, should the rains become rougher, it would wash away the new layer and they’d just have to do it again.

  Mrs. P. went to respond, then stopped when she saw me trotting up the steps. “Lucy, you’re back already. How was your grandfather?”

  “Sleeping, but good,” I replied. “I’m sure he’ll enjoy the caramels as soon as he wakes up, though.”

  “Oh, I do hope so,” she said. “You look to be in a hurry, dear. Is everything all right?”

  “Huh?” I said, already distracted. I was wanting to grab my copies of The Thirty-Nine Steps and get to Pippa’s cottage. It was way past time I got those last three names decoded. Pulling open the front door, I said, “Oh, everything’s fine. Pippa’s going to help me with a little project, and I just want to get to her cottage before the rains start.”

  “Is there something I can help you with?” she asked.

  “Thanks a bunch, Mrs. P., but I’m good.” I flashed her what I hoped was an unconcerned grin and went inside. As the front door closed slowly, I heard the groundskeeper say, “Maybe we should ask Mrs. Sutton or Miss Pippa about the crushed granite,” only to have Mrs. P. snap, “Mrs. Sutton is running errands and Miss Pippa is busy. Now do as I’ve asked so we can have this place at one hundred percent by the time the rains start.”