Double Black Diamond (Mercy Watts Mysteries) (44 page)

“Sorry, it’s been busy,” I said.

“So I see. They can’t take you anywhere.”
 

“I guess not. What did you find out?” I asked, my stomach shrinking to the size of a marble.
 

“I traced the Bled plane. You were right. It landed at Orly and remained there for six days,” said Spidermonkey.
 

“Then what?”
 

“It flew to Salzburg, Austria, and remained there until it flew home to St. Louis eight days later.”

“That’s it?” I asked, somehow disappointed and relieved at the same time.
 

Spidermonkey chuckled. “There was quite a bit of effort that went into the gathering of that information as my bill reflects. Have you checked your email? I sent it.”
 

“Not yet. So that’s all you found? What were they doing?” I asked.
 

“I have no idea what they were doing. There were no traceable financial transactions whatsoever in either Paris or Salzburg. They were using cash,” he said.
 

“Why do I have a feeling that that isn’t the end of the story?”

“Because it isn’t. Two days after arriving in Salzburg a credit card belonging to a Bled Brewery employee’s wife was used to take out cash. A Mrs. Bernard Furlong.”
 

“I take it Mrs. Furlong wasn’t in Austria at the time.”
 

“No. Her husband was dying of pancreatic cancer at the time. He died a month after your father returned. His funeral was paid for in cash as were his children’s education and their mortgage went away.”
 

“Have you talked to the wife?”
 

“I don’t interview. That’s up to you,” said Spidermonkey.

I ran my finger along the edge of my cup. “They must’ve run out of money. Where was the card used?”
 

“The train station.”
 

That got my interest. “Can you find out what trains were leaving the station after the transaction?”
 

“Already done. Three trains in the hour after. Vienna, Hallstatt, and Fusch.
 

“Hallstatt?”

“You recognize it?” he asked.
 

“Sounds familiar,” I said.
 

“You’ve traveled extensively in Europe.”
 

I played with the yogurt in the bowl, swirling it with a spoon. “Yes, but Myrtle and Millicent like to visit towns with significant sights, museums, religious relics. What does Hallstatt have?”

“Nothing. It’s a picture-postcard little vacation spot, but there’s no reason for world travelers to go there.”
 

Did we go there? Why would we go there?

“Do you want me to dig into it?” asked Spidermonkey.
 

“Yes. Go ahead,” I said.
 

“Maybe you should look at my bill before you say that?”

“A lot?”
 

“This research was more than a full-time job and you know my hourly rate. There is the matter of the Klinefeld Group.”
 

“Who?” I asked.
 

“You wanted me to look into who was behind the art museum trying to get control of the Bled Collection. It’s the Klinefeld Group, a non-for-profit. They’re big in public television and very well-funded. If they decide to get serious you’ll have a fight on your hands.”
 

“What do they have other than thinking that my parents have pieces from the collection, which they don’t?” I didn’t mention my cameos. I wasn’t sure what to make of them. They were gifts. Were The Girls not allowed to make gifts of their own property?
 

“The question of undue influence may be a problem, but that’s not how they’ll get in the door. The Klinefeld Group thinks the Bleds are hiding stolen art in their collection. That’s what they’re going to use to get control. Have you got any idea what they’re talking about?” he asked.

 
I stabbed the yogurt and it spurted out on the tray. “I’ll get back to you.”
 

“On what? The stolen art or the research into your dad’s movements in Europe?”
 

“All of it.”
 

We hung up and I checked my email. Spidermonkey wasn’t kidding. His bill would take all my savings and then some. I glanced at my suitcase that someone had brought up and placed next to the full-length mirror. The DBD contract was in there and I would sign it. Mom wouldn’t be happy, but the terms were generous and I needed the money if I was going to continue the investigation with Spidermonkey.
 

I slid out of bed and reached down to put on the comfy slippers that Millicent had left next to the bed. As I leaned over I put my hand on the side rail of the bed under the silky comforter. The instant I touched the wood I remembered. Hallstatt. That’s where I’d heard that name or more accurately where I’d seen it. I got down on the floor and scooted under the bed. I squinted in the cozy darkness and held up my phone. The blue screen lit up a rectangular piece of paper pasted to the side rail. A familiar piece of paper with copies pasted on the headboard, footboard, and the other rail. I’d discovered the label when I was ten and hosting a sleepover with my ten best friends. We were playing hide-and-seek. The Bled mansion was the best place in the world to play hide-and-seek. Plenty of hidey-holes and secret passages, but on that night I decided to hide where I thought no one would look. Under my bed in my own room. It was so obvious I thought no one would look there and no one did. I had plenty of time to lie on the thick Turkish carpet and ponder the springs above my head. Eventually I got to looking around and that’s when I saw the label.
 

1939

Hallstatt, Austria

Felix Wahle b.1892

Klara Milche Wahle b. 1896

Otto b. 1917

Judith b. 1919

Friederike b. 1921- d. 1927
 

Karl b. 1925

Hans b. 1928

All the labels were written in the same firm hand, very clear and sure of itself. I had read the words over and over again. My bedroom suite belonged to someone else. People I’d never heard of. It was a strange idea for a ten-year-old to absorb, but I didn’t forget that family or their names and a week later I was back with my godmothers for a lesson in making meringue. I hated meringue, but that didn’t deter Myrtle and Millicent. Meringue was part of my baking education and must be done well to consider oneself accomplished. The fact that I had no desire to be an accomplished baker, also didn’t bother them. Between adding the cream of tartar and whipping the egg whites I asked The Girls about the label. They acted like they didn’t know what I was going on about and directed me back to the mixer.
 

After the hated meringue was atop a chocolate pie and in the oven for browning, I made my escape. I’d had an idea. If there were labels on my bed, why not the rest of the furniture? I soon discovered all the furniture in my room had the very same label, including the floor-length mirror that I was so fond of posing in front of. And that wasn’t all, like every other room in the Bled mansion my room was filled with art, photographs, woodcuttings, and paintings. Each piece in my room had the same label. Then I branched out, snooping through the house and quickly discovering other labels in other rooms, but not on any furniture, only art. All the Bled pieces had labels, when and from whom it was purchased. Provenance was important Myrtle had once explained to me. But some labels, like the ones in my room, were different. There were no prices, only people, birth dates, and cities in Europe. To be fair, in comparison there weren’t very many of those special labels. The vast majority of pieces had the simple purchase label with a dollar amount. Sometimes there was an auction house name as well or the name of a previous owner, certainly no birth dates.
 

There was something vaguely frightening about those names and dates. I knew with my child’s mind that something terrible must’ve happened or those pieces wouldn’t be there. I kept my findings to myself, afraid to ask questions that were sure to have unpleasant answers. But things came out, the way secrets tend to do. All I had to do was pay attention, something I was very good at. Four years later, two pieces disappeared from the wall in the breakfast room and I took note. After some prodding Millicent explained that the paintings’ owner had come for them. She didn’t want to say more and it clearly upset her, but I was fourteen and brash to say the least. I kept at her until she broke down and told me after swearing me to secrecy. I swore and I’ve never told anyone what she said, not even my parents, although I suspect they already knew.
 

The pieces with the special labels were sent to the US by The Girls’ cousin, Stella Bled Lawrence, during WWII for safekeeping. They were labeled by The Girls’ mother, who was a great friend of Stella’s despite being older. Florence Bled cataloged everything that was smuggled out of Europe and kept a scrapbook of Stella’s exploits during the war. Millicent took me to the bank and opened a safe-deposit box. Inside was a large, square book with the word, Tarragon, embossed in the leather cover. Millicent said she wanted me to know where the book was in case I ever needed the knowledge it contained. I was allowed to open the book and leaf through its aged pages. It was the scrapbook Florence had made and it contained, in chronological order starting in 1938, every letter, telegraph, picture Florence had gathered. Some of the correspondence was in other languages. Stella spoke seven languages, but I could tell they were written by different people. Millicent said that Stella was a pack rat and had sent everything home that she managed to collect. Some of the entries were by people who knew Stella and after the war had written accounts of what they’d done and seen especially for Florence, so there would be a history that no government would be in control of.
 

I was to tell no one about that book. Both Stella and her husband’s activities during the war were still classified and had yet to be released by the government. I asked why the people on the labels hadn’t come for their things. Millicent had gotten all quiet and said that they would if they could. Then she said in a whisper, “There’s always hope. It’s not the end.” And the conversation was over and I was never allowed to bring it up again.
 

When I was older and studied WWII, I came to understand that the people on the labels had disappeared into the vortex that was the Holocaust and I came to think of those paintings, statues, and even my furniture as tombstones, the only ones those people would ever have. Those pieces were what the Klinefeld Group was after.
 

“They’re not stolen,” I said.
 

Wallace began running around on top of the bed.
 

Bark.
 

“I’m not talking to you,” I said.
 

“Are you talking to me?” said Chuck.
 

I groaned as he walked up to the bed and squatted and looked underneath at me.
 

“I was hoping to find you in bed, not under it. What are you doing?” he asked.
 

“Nothing,” I said, rolling out, but staying seated on the floor. Chuck sat next to me, leaning back against the bed. For once, he stayed quiet.
 

“Have you ever heard of the Klinefeld Group?” I asked.
 

“They’re a big donator for the Policeman’s Widows and Orphans fund. Why?”
 

I stayed quiet, but my mind was swirling. Dad and Josiah Bled went to Hallstatt. The Wahle family was from there. Could it possibly be a coincidence? And the Klinefeld Group. Did they know about my furniture, about the Wahle family, or the other families? How much did they know? What happened to Josiah Bled? What did my dad do to earn our house?
 

“Mercy?” asked Chuck.
 

“They’re trying to get the collection,” I blurted out.
 

He put his elbows on his knees and stared at the wall, just under a pretty painting of the Austrian Alps by a painter I couldn’t remember.
 

“You don’t seem surprised,” I said.
 

“Your dad told me about them. He said they’ve been behind the art museum trying to get the collection for years.”
 

“Is that all he told you?”

“No.”

“Well?”
 

“Why were you under your bed?” Chuck asked, still not looking at me, which was weird. He liked to look at me.
 

“Why do you think?”
 

“You were looking at the label,” he said.
 

I sucked in a breath. “You know about that?”
 

“I figured it out. Remember a few years ago when The Girls decided to rearrange the Receiving Room?”
 

“Sure,” I said.
 

“There were labels on all the pieces, but three were different. They had family names and birth dates.”
 

“And?”
 

“And I’m a detective. I detected something weird. Who labels art with children’s birth dates? I asked your dad and eventually The Girls told me.”

“What exactly did they say?” I was still wary of being caught out.
 

“That Stella Bled Lawrence had smuggled people’s belongings out of Nazi-occupied territory during the war. When did you find out?”
 

It kind of irritated me that Chuck knew. I don’t know why, except that I was tired of him being so in the family. He was always there. I never had one up on him.
 

“I was ten.” At least I had that on him.
 

He nodded. “I don’t think you have to worry about the Klinefeld Group. They’ve been sniffing around for thirty years with nothing to show for it.”
 

“I think they just picked up a scent,” I said.
 

“What do you mean? This isn’t the Barnes Collection,” he said.
 

“No. It’s a collection with art that wasn’t legally purchased. Pieces that belong to Holocaust victims.”