Desert Run (29 page)

I looked at the journal pages some more, shifting them from one pile to another. As I was transferring all of Gunter's drawings to the same stack, my attention was caught by one in particular—the clumsy line drawing I'd puzzled over days earlier without success. Deciding to solve this one mystery, at least, I studied it carefully. On the top left of the page were two animals of indeterminate species, possibly a jackrabbit and a frog. Below the frog were two stick figures. To their right was some spindly object which I was almost certain was a tree.

The amateurism of these figures was nothing compared to the big mess in the center of the page, a series of wobbly but concentric circles. A nest of snakes? I started to laugh at such an outrageous guess, then remembered that in breeding season, some snakes do slither into a dark lair together and form a tightly packed lump called a “snake ball.” But if Gunter had drawn such a thing, why hadn't he bothered to give them little dots for eyes like he had for all his other animals? I turned the drawing upside down, then sideways. Deciding the lines probably weren't snakes after all and that I was wasting my time, I went ahead and placed the drawing on top of the others.

By now, I'd been sitting in one position too long, and my canal-bruised muscles were stiff. To get my circulation going, I decided to rearrange my new furniture. I moved the cactus wood sofa to a spot underneath the living room window, but when I sat down on it again, I could no longer see out. Duh. So I shoved the sofa against the opposite wall, where it merely looked stupid. Frustrated, I tried angling it kitty-corner so that it faced the window
and
my television, but that looked even dumber. After an hour of furniture pushing and dragging, I gave up and returned everything to its original position.

All that furniture hauling wasn't exercise enough to relax my muscles, so I went out for a slow, careful run. After logging only five miles, I limped back home and moved the furniture around some more. Is this what owning furniture does to you? Turns you into an idiot?

Disgusted with myself, I took a quick shower, dressed in a less grungy T-shirt and jeans, and drove over to the nearby multiplex to see the latest Clint Eastwood movie. It turned out to be a poor choice, with a body count almost as high as that in the Erik Ernst case.

I should have opted for the Disney.

But on the way home, an idea occurred to me, and I sped up, almost catching the attention of a bored motorcycle cop lurking in the parking lot of the Olive Garden Restaurant. I slowed down, but only until I was out of his sight. Then I put pedal to the metal and raced all the way to my apartment.

Reeking of popcorn and JuJu Beans, I ran up the stairs, unlocked the locks, and rushed to the coffee table, where I'd left Gunter's journals separated into various stacks.

I stared at the top drawing again.

Not snakes.

A topographical map.

Chapter Twenty-Five

On my way to take Captain Kryzinski to Sky Harbor the next morning, I left a note on Jimmy's desk reiterating how important it was that he follow up on Gunter's supposed death in the Canadian car crash. Then, secure in the knowledge that Warren was an early riser, I called him, but when he picked up, he sounded every bit as snappish as yesterday. Our phone connection was foul, too.

“I'm in a hurry here, Lena, so be quick.” Hiss, hiss. Was that his phone, or mine?

“Are you on set?” A hollow background noise that made its way through the hissing didn't sound right for either his motel room or Papago Park.

“No, I'm…Damn! Gotta go.” A click and he was gone.

I stood by my desk staring at the phone, tempted to call him back and give him a piece of my mind. But when I checked my watch, I saw that only by exceeding the speed limit could I drive over to Captain Kryzinski's place, pick him up, and get him to the airport in time for the slow slog through Sky Harbor's long security lines. Pushing Warren's rudeness to the back of my mind, I grabbed the file folder containing the Erik Ernst case notes and ran out the office door, pausing only to lock it behind me.

When I reached Kryzinski's house he was waiting at the curb, wearing a tacky brown suit and an ugly bolo tie. He had a frown on his face and his cell phone was in his hand. “I was about to call a cab.”

“Sorry. I had some last minute business to take care of.”

“At seven on Sunday morning?”

I didn't want to go into it. “You have everything you need?” Only a carry-on bag little larger than a woman's purse sat by his feet. Not much to show for twenty years in Scottsdale.

He picked it up and climbed into the Jeep. “I told you I already shipped everything.”

“Even your clothes? Maybe you'd better go back into the house and…”

“Lena, let's get started or I will call that cab.”

Feeling more miserable than ever, I let the clutch out and aimed the Jeep toward Sky Harbor. The traffic was heavy for a Sunday and Kryzinski back-seat drove all the way, but we arrived at the airport with forty-five minutes to spare. Kryzinski wanted me to let him off at the curb, but I refused and found a spot in the Terminal Four parking garage. Despite his protests, I followed him into the terminal itself.

All the while, his cranky expression became crankier. “This is silly. They won't let you past security. Why don't you go back to the office, since you're so determined to work on Sunday?”

“Humor me.” How could I tell him how much I'd miss him, that when he left he'd be taking with him some of the happiest years of my life, and that I wanted to put off our inevitable parting until the very last moment? So I didn't tell him. But as soon as he reached the first security check-point, I found myself hugging him, pressing my face against his chest.

“Please don't go,” I whispered to his bolo tie.

He pushed me away gently and patted my cheek. “Sweetie, it's time for you to start living your life.”

Before I could tell him not to call me Sweetie, he turned and was gone.

I spent the next few minutes in the nearby ladies' room, drying my eyes. You'd think that a childhood spent saying good-by to one foster parent after another would inure me to this sort of thing—and it had, for a while—but therapy had begun to dissolve the scar tissue around my heart. Silently I cursed my short-sighted therapist, who'd grown up in a large, loving Hispanic family. What the hell did she know about serial good-byes?

Face repaired, I emerged from the ladies' room only to suffer another shock. Standing where I'd last seen Kryzinski were Warren and Lindsey, she leaning against him in the same way I'd leaned against my boss. After the security guard handed back her ID, Lindsey turned, threw her arms around Warren's neck, and gave him a long, hard kiss. But unlike Kryzinski did me, Warren didn't push her away.

My mood must have shown on my face because when I arrived back at Desert Investigations to find Jimmy still hard at work, he asked, “What's wrong?”

“Everything's peachy. How about you?”

“The same.” He gave me a smile that held little humor. I noticed that although he'd dressed with more care than the other day, he still looked rough. Especially in his eyes.

“Poor Jimmy. The house-hunting must be doing you in.”

He sighed. “No more hunting. Yesterday we made an offer on the condo.”

It was probably the size of a mouse trap. “Well, that's good, isn't it? You two can finally get settled?” As if he wasn't already settled in his reservation trailer with the prayer lodge in back.

“Sure, after we buy all new furniture. We're supposed to hit the stores again today. Esther's picking me up around noon.”

“Gonna buy some Persian Pink stuff, eh? Wonderful. I'm sure your new condo will look, ah, interesting.” Since I had nothing to say to Esther because of the changes she was putting both me and my partner through, I'd make certain to be somewhere else at noon. Refusing to meet his eyes, I sat down at my desk and started going through the Erik Ernst case files. With increasing puzzlement, I reread my notes on the interviews with everyone involved: Rada Tesema, Tommy Bollinger, Fay Harris, Harry Caulfield, Frank Oberle, and Ian Mantz. Slowly, I began comparing them to the old newspaper articles I'd printed out at the library and the information I'd gleaned from Gunter Hoenig's journals. When I was through, I sat there frowning. Someone was lying.

As I re-examined the Harry Caulfield notes for the umpteenth time, I paid no attention to the hum of the printer until Jimmy called over, “Lena, I have something for you.”

I looked up. “Such as?”

“That note you left me, asking me to come up with more information on that Canadian car crash? The one which supposedly killed Gunter Hoenig?”

“What do you mean,
supposedly
?” But I could guess what he was about to tell me.

He didn't disappoint. “There was no death certificate issued for him, either in Canada or here.”

“But the
Calgary Sun
article said, ‘an elderly couple from Phoenix.'”

“Newspapers say lots of things, then they run the truth on the corrections page next day.” He handed me a printout from the
Calgary Sun
dated September 27, 1999.

“Want to see the next day's article? It identifies the dead couple as Nathan and Emma Lassen. Of Phenix City, Alabama.”

“Thanks, but that's not necessary.” Someone—probably Gunter's son—had inserted the original misleading article into the journals in order to convince me that Gunter Hoenig was dead. To disguise his manipulation of truth, he'd also stuffed in all those loose recipes and drawings.

But had he, in his rush to cover his father's tracks, realized what one of those drawings portrayed?

It didn't matter. Since Ian Mantz had taken so many pains to make me believe that his father was dead, it meant Gunter was still alive. There was also a good chance that Gunter had finally succeeded where he had once failed—at the murder of Erik Ernst. I felt a brief stab of disappointment. I had liked the Gunter I'd met in his journals, the gentle man who loved animals and children. I could allow him his viciousness toward Erik Ernst—a killer himself—but not toward Fay and Harry.

Those deaths were inexcusable.

***

When I next looked at my watch, I discovered it was past ten. On the chance that Ian Mantz and family weren't in church, I gave him a call. His wife told me he was busy and would have to call me back, but I insisted he come to the phone. “Tell him I want to talk to him about the death of an elderly couple named Nathan and Emma Lassen in Didsbury, Alberta.”

“Didsbury? What…?” Her voice rose in alarm.

“Yeah, Didsbury. Tell your husband that he either talks to me or to the INS.” And after that, the Apache Junction Police Department, but I figured raising the spectre of the INS with the Mantz family would be scary enough. For all I knew about immigration law, the entire family was living in the U.S. illegally.

Within seconds, Gunter Hoenig's son came to the phone. To his credit, he didn't bother pretending ignorance. “Okay, so you figured out Dad wasn't killed in Canada. Big fucking deal. What'll it take to make you go away?”

“The truth.”

I could almost hear him shrug. “Which truth are you interested in? That Dad lived in the U.S. illegally since 1944? Or that he was afraid old Das Kapitan would frame him for the Bollinger murders?”

Either. Both. “Where is he?”

A pause. “At Stately Pines Cemetery. He died last summer.”

“And your mother?”

“She's dead, too. Died of a broken heart right after Dad.”

Before he could lie to me again, I said, “Then your father's death certificate will be on file with the state under his assumed name of Gerhardt Mantz. But why don't you spare me the trip downtown?” Actually, I wouldn't have to make the trip. If Gunter Hoenig had been issued a death certificate anywhere in Arizona, either under his real name or his alias of Gerhardt Mantz, Jimmy would download a copy for me before the day was out.

“I'm not about to ‘spare' you anything, Miss Jones.”

I decided to try one more question on him. “Did your father ever talk about some sort of secret, a secret that was ‘like gold'?”

“Gold? I don't know what the hell you're talking about.”

“If you would just try…”

He cut me off. In a voice dripping venom, he said, “Try, my ass. You know what you can do with yourself?”

“I doubt that you'll give me any suggestions I haven't heard before. Why don't you just tell me the truth for a change?”

“You wish.” After barking some obscenities divided equally between German and English, he slammed down the phone.

I had hit a dead end as far as Gunter's son was concerned, but if Gunter himself was still alive and living under yet another false identity, Jimmy would find him. But what of the other German POW, Gunter's friend Josef Braun? Had he, like Gunter, blended into the American scene? And if so, who had helped him? Then I remembered the numerous Japanese soldiers found hiding out in Philippine caves decades after the end of World War II. They had been astounded when told that the war was over and they could go home.

Could I have been too hasty in fingering Gunter as Erik Ernst's killer?

***

An hour later I was walking through the musty corridors of Shady Rest Care Home, on my way to see Chess Bollinger. One more scenario for the Bollinger/Ernst murders had occurred to me and if anyone had the answer, it would be Chess. I just hoped I could get some sense out of him for a change. My hopes were high, because Alzheimer's patients were usually at their best early in the day, before the “sundowning” effect kicked in.

To my disappointment, both Chess' wife and daughter were in his room. Judith Bollinger, still wearing her unsettling smile, sat in a corner chair, knitting something ugly. MaryEllen sat on the edge of her father's bed, holding his hand and weeping. Her black eye had almost faded away, but I wondered how long it would be before her boyfriend freshened it up with another one.

Chess' eyes were closed. He could have either been sleeping or dead. “How is he?” I asked MaryEllen.

She smiled. “Better.”

A small laugh from the corner. “You call taking a dump in your pants
better?
”

Hitting Judith would have landed me back in anger management therapy, so I forced myself to remain calm. “Mrs. Bollinger, I'd like to talk to him again if I may.”

Judith had no objections, not that I expected any. She probably wouldn't mind if I attached electrodes to her husband's testicles.

MaryEllen was another matter. “I don't want him bothered. He's been so peaceful this morning.” She lifted his hand to her lips, kissed it, and watched with delight as his eyelids fluttered open.

“Baby.” Chess' voice was whispery but clear.

“Oh, Daddy!” She leaned over him and gave him a kiss on his forehead. “You recognize me!”

Chess frowned. “Why wouldn't I?”

Before MaryEllen could answer, Judith piped up, “Because you have Alzheimer's. Can't recognize nobody half the time.”

When he flicked his eyes toward her, I saw anger. Then he looked at his daughter again and his expression softened. “Your eye. Did I…?”

MaryEllen shook her head. “No, Daddy. I, um, I ran into a door.”

Judith laughed again. “A door named Clay. You'd like him, Chess. He's cut from the same cloth as you.”

MaryEllen stood up, and for a moment, I believed she'd do what I wanted to do. Instead, she burst into tears and ran from the room.

Judith sniffed. “Girls these days.”

I ignored her and stepped closer to the bed. “Mr. Bollinger, my name's Lena Jones and I'm a private investigator. I'd like to ask you a few questions.” From the hallway, I could hear MaryEllen's sobs.

Chess' eyes clouded. “Private invest…? What'd I do now?”

Plenty, I wanted to tell him. Take a look at your life's legacies. One takes glee in your suffering, while the other cries in the hall. Out of a pity he didn't deserve, I didn't say it. “Mr. Bollinger, I want to prove that you didn't kill your family.”

“Not me! Not meeeee!” His voice began to rise, then stopped in mid-howl as he closed his eyes and began to drift off. I was losing him.

Maybe I could bring him back. From what little I knew about Alzheimer's, most patients could remember what happened a half-century ago better than they could remember what they had for breakfast, so I gave his shoulder a shake. “Chess, wake up! I want to talk about your father's car! Did you ever go joyriding in it?”