Winter Passing (22 page)

Peter, have you heard from her?” Brant asked, pacing the room with telephone in hand.

“No, she was supposed to call. We have not heard a word.”

“It’s been all day. I really think we should try to find her.” Brant had heard the worry in Peter’s voice too. “She could be anywhere, but why don’t we start calling hotels?”

“I think you are right. We need to find her. She does not have a car so would probably stay near the Ring.”

“Okay, hotels along the Ring. You take three stars, I’ll go four. We’ll just move up till we find her. I know she was looking for authentic Austrian places, so no more Cozy Hotels.”

Professor Voss chuckled, then sounded serious. “She is quite a lady, Brant.”

“I know. I’ll call you in an hour.”

Brant hung up the phone and searched for his Vienna hotel guide, hoping he wouldn’t have to run to the information office before starting to call. But he found the brochure soon enough and started circling hotels. He’d been ready to fly to Vienna last night to find her. Even with the facts firmly in his mind, Brant could hardly believe the truth. If he’d seen Gunther’s ring earlier, he’d have known.

Brant picked up the phone. He must find her. But he also dreaded it. What would she think when she discovered her grandparents could have finally found each other, if only for a little while, if only Brant hadn’t stood in the way? Would she ever forgive him? Could he ever forgive himself?

No one spoke as they moved from the city. Mile after mile, Darby’s panic grew. They drove south, passing signs for Graz and Klagenfurt. She knew in hours they could be in Slovenia, Italy, or Switzerland. These people could do anything to her, and she’d disappear without a trace. No amount of information was worth this. What had she been thinking? Darby decided that if they slowed, she’d try to get out. The doors were unlocked, the door handle beside her. Hours seemed to pass, though the road signs said far less.

“Where are we going?” Darby’s voice sounded loud in her ears as it broke the quiet.

“Where we need to go,” the woman responded without a backward glance.

“I want to go back. I don’t want to know anything, I only want to go back.”

The man and woman glanced at each other, but neither spoke. Darby didn’t know what to do. The sun dropped low behind them as the man flipped the headlights on. Darby knew the shadows would soon consume the day.

After another half hour, the woman turned in her seat. “Time to lie down.”

“You want me to lie down?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Why?”

“You ask so many questions. Get down.” Her voice was stern. Darby did as she was told with her head toward the door and hand on the handle. The car slowed down an off-ramp, but not enough. They continued for more miles, more hours, it seemed.

The engine wound down. This could be her chance. But where was she? From her view, she hadn’t seen buildings, only dense trees for a while. If she jumped now . . .

Darby paused too long. The car moved without completely stopping and steadied faster again. Dusk turned to darkness. The car turned in switchbacks, ascending higher and deeper into the woods. She was a fool. She knew her curiosity may cost her life.

“You can sit up.” Finally the car ground to a halt. The headlights illuminated a tall, iron gate connecting solid block walls. The gate opened, allowing the car through. Not only did Darby not know her whereabouts, now iron gates locked her within massive walls. Gravel crunched beneath the tires as they curved through the woods. The dense trees would provide many hiding places, but the snow on the ground wasn’t inviting. Around a bend, the trees opened, and a large, lit house stood in a clearing.

She could still run. But would she survive the night in this cold? Darby had no idea what direction she’d go. What if she got lost in the Alps? Or perhaps they weren’t even in Austria. Darby knew she’d have to take her chances with whatever she was about to face.

The man drove the car around a circular driveway with a small fountain in the center. A walkway led to imposing double doors at the entrance to the house. The flat-fronted, two-story house was not typical Austrian with flowered windowsills. It stood straight and tall, probably intended for elegance. But against the night sky, the windows were the eyes of a creature staring at her, the doors a giant mouth ready to consume her. Darby didn’t get out of the car until the driver opened her door. He propped himself against the car and lit a cigarette. Darby followed the woman toward the house.

No one greeted their arrival. The woman closed the heavy door and made her way across the hardwood-floored entry. Down the hall, their footsteps echoed through the house and up a wide, curving stairway. At a doorway, the woman motioned Darby inside, then turned and left without a word. Footsteps on hardwood floors echoed away.

Darby entered the room expecting someone or something. Only a fire crackled with long burnt logs and new wood piled crisscross above. The study had one dim lamp in the corner, and one wall was lined with books. Light danced on the volumes, a reflection from the rock fireplace on the opposite side of the room. Darby wondered where she should stand, or if she should sit in the chair in the corner or the one behind the large, wood desk. The fire beckoned, and she realized how cold she felt, from inside out.

Soon footsteps returned. Darby waited, her back to the fire, near an iron poker. A young woman who looked a lot like the woman from the car entered with a silver tray—her sister perhaps? The girl glanced at Darby curiously and set a tray with teapot, two cups and saucers, and dainty pastries onto the desk.

“Why am I here?” Darby asked the girl.

The dark-haired, dark-eyed girl only smiled at Darby, then hurried out. Her footsteps drifted away.

Darby peered suspiciously at the tray of food and drink.
If they’re going to hurt me, I guess they want me comfortable first.

A painting on the wall caught her eye. She recognized it from a book of Impressionist paintings at home. She moved closer and knew it was an original Edgar Degas painting. Whose home had she been delivered to?

Heavy footsteps would be her answer. She moved to her position by the fire, near the only weapon she could find.

He filled the doorway—large in height and weight with a presence that matched his size. Surely at least in his seventies, an old man in theory; still Darby knew instant fear. She had never seen him in her life, but she knew him to be a man of power. And her life rested in his hands.

“I knew you would come.” He headed toward the tray. “Miss Darby Evans, in her persistence, could not resist.” He poured two cups of tea without looking at her. “Despite the danger, you would get into a car with strangers, with no one knowing where you are or where you are going. Tonight you could disappear, and no one would ever find you. Not your mother in California. Not Brant Collins in Salzburg. Have some tea.”

Shocked by the man’s knowledge, Darby sputtered, “What do you want from me?”

“I have few wants from you. It is
you
who sought me.” He turned toward her. “First tell me, who am I?”

The light from the fire lit his features: black eyes, thick face and lips. Darby knew. “You are Bruno Weiler.”

“At one time, yes, that was my name. Good. Perhaps you should have been a detective instead of a photographer.” He moved behind the desk with his cup and sat in the wide leather chair.

“How do you know so much about me?” Darby asked, not moving from her position by the fire. She glanced at the door and knew she could be out of the room before he could move from behind the desk. But what then? Who waited down the hall or outside? What would she do, and where would she go?

“I make it my business to know people who are putting my previous name on the Internet and making contact with my aunt. It can be dangerous to resurrect names that were supposed to have disappeared.” He leaned forward with his elbows on the desk and motioned her to sit. “After all your seeking, tell me. Who killed the woman you seek?”

Darby slowly seated herself in a chair, feeling the eyes of this man who had once been a Nazi camp guard, who had gone to prison for his crimes. She tried to stay calm and figure out what to do next. She stared into cold eyes and cleared her throat. “Who killed Tatianna?”

“Yes. This is what I want from you. I want you to tell me who killed Tatianna Hoffman.”

“I don’t . . . the Nazis.”

“The Nazis? Your skills are not as sharp as I expected.”

“The Nazis at Mauthausen.” Darby hoped that was the right answer.

“But who killed her? Tell me. Who killed Tatianna Hoffman? Who killed her at Mauthausen Concentration Camp? Who lifted the gun? Who watched her look upward, already gone, before a trigger was pulled? Who pulled the trigger? Who killed Tatianna Hoffman while Celia Müller escaped to America?”

Bruno Weiler stared hard into her eyes. Darby’s mouth went dry; her hands shook. Tears built on the edges of her eyes. “You did,” she whispered.

“Yes, I did.”

Bruno focused on the fire as a log bent and dropped into the flaming coals. “Yes, I killed Tatianna Hoffman. And you have entered the home of her killer.”

Brant dialed Darby’s hotel and asked for her room for the third time. Again, no one answered. It had taken forty-five minutes of calling to find out she was staying at the Hotel Sacher. But she wasn’t in her room. He imagined her splurging on the luxurious room, shopping in the city, walking around all alone, searching for an old Nazi. She had traveled the world, but somehow Brant could hardly handle the thought of her alone in Vienna. He wanted to be there with her.

He let it ring over ten times, then slammed the phone down. Where could she be?

Brant dialed the number again.

“Yes, you have a guest there, Darby Evans. Will you leave another message for her? It’s urgent that I talk to her as soon as she returns. No matter what time it is.”

Bruno’s jaw clenched as he looked at Darby. His dark eyes beneath hooded lids told her nothing. “Now that you know, we will talk.”

Her hands clung tightly to the edge of the desk as she kept her eyes on the living link she’d sought so long. Bruno Weiler was the last person to see Tatianna alive. He was also Tatianna’s killer. How should she feel or think as she sat in the chair facing him? She needed to stop shaking and figure out something to do or say.

“You have questions for me. I see them in your eyes. Let me speak first. I will tell you what no one else knows. Not my children, not my ex-wives, not my colleagues. The few who ever knew are now gone.”

Darby shuddered. “I don’t need to know.”

“But you do. You have most likely spent your whole life wondering, probably running from those questions. But somewhere inside you wanted to know. Didn’t you?”

“Perhaps. But more than answers, I desire to leave this house tonight.”

Bruno folded his hands and rested his chin on them. He stared at her for a long time. “I already have enough blood on my hands.”

Did that mean he wouldn’t hurt her, she wondered? Maybe she didn’t want to know this man’s secrets. He could easily change his mind or order someone else to keep her from revealing them. “Why will you tell me what no else knows? When you can’t tell your own family? I’m a stranger.”

He raised up heavily and walked to a glass cube on the bookshelf. He picked it up and set it on the desk next to Darby. Inside she could see a gold medal. “I received this for valor and courage. Yet I am a coward. I fear what my children will think of me. I fear their rejection.”

“Then why me?”

“I have become an old man. Something about age brings the past forward. I am haunted now more than ever. I see everything with more memory than during the events. I find myself knowing more than I knew then. And you are the one living link to my past. You are the only one I can tell.”

Bruno walked to the entrance of the room and closed the heavy door. It shut with a final click. He returned to his chair and again faced Darby. She felt glued to the seat, hypnotized by the truth she was about to hear.

“Few people know me as Bruno Weiler. My mother kept her name after the war, but she died many years ago. My aunt is the only contact to me. You called her home. She is ill and aged, but she knows if someone seeks information about Bruno Weiler, trouble usually lurks close behind. You left your name and hotel, but we already had been tracking you. You almost discovered that the first day you arrived in Salzburg.”

“The man in my room?”

Bruno nodded.

“Why have you been tracking me? I’m only trying to prove who my grandmother really was.”

“Are you? There is also the matter of your family inheritance.”

“Yes, but that is not my main concern. Of course, I’d like to find out what happened to them, but lost riches are not my main goal.”

“Many others would have it another way. I’ve known about you since you were a child. No one knows that I kept track of your grandmother over the many years, and your mother. Once, while on business in San Francisco, I drove by your home in Sebastopol. You and your sister had a tent in the front yard with dolls on a blanket. That was many years ago.”

“Why? Why would you do that?”

“I wanted to see what happened with the gift of Tatianna’s sacrifice.”

“Then Tatianna did take my grandmother’s place. I had no proof.”

“Oh yes, Tatianna died as Celia Müller. She gave her life for your grandmother’s and your mother’s and yours. I knew this the day I saw Tatianna die.”

The questions on her lips could be dangerous to ask. Darby looked at the man for the cruelty of a murderer, but instead saw weariness, and perhaps, vulnerability.

“Before you ask more,” Bruno said, sensing her struggle, “I will tell you. I will tell you everything, if you are ready to hear.”

She rested her hands on the table. “I’m ready.”

Bruno leaned back in his chair and began his story.

“I knew your grandmother from the time we were children in Hallstatt. Her family was not rich, but well known in our village, especially with the legend of the brooch and coins. Your great-grandfather was the archaeologist who had family ties to Emperor Franz Joseph. My family was poor, my father an embarrassment to me. Today, we call it a dysfunctional family and alcohol abuse. Then, it was simply my life.