Daddy's Gone a Hunting (40 page)

H
annah did not know why she was feeling so uneasy. Justin phoned her at noon on Friday. “How are your father and sister?”

“I saw Kate this morning. She was restless, but they’re moving her to a private room today, so obviously she’s getting better, which is wonderful.”

“Hannah, you still sound worried. How is your father?”

“He called me about an hour ago. I hate to say it, but I think he’s more worried that Kate is going to admit that she and Gus together set the explosion than he is relieved that his daughter, my sister, is going to be all right. With him, it seems it’s always been about the money, and it always will be.”

“When are you going to see Kate again?”

“I always stop by when I’m leaving work.”

After Justin reluctantly said good-bye to her, he debated about sending flowers to Kate, since she would now be in a private room. Then he thought, No, I have a better idea. When she has recovered a little more, I will bring the bromeliad plant to her room. Satisfied, he turned back to the folder on his desk.

It contained documents he had prepared regarding investment strategy for a widow who did not have the faintest idea of how to manage her considerable estate. “I just charged whatever I wanted
on my AmEx,” she had told Justin, “and my husband, Bob, paid all the bills.”

Bob made big money, Justin thought, and he spent a lot of money, too, but it was certainly his to spend.

His thoughts turned back to Hannah. From what she tells me, her father has been living beyond his income for a long time. No wonder he’s worried that the insurance claim will be denied. From what she said, the antique furniture in that museum was insured for nearly $20 million. That’s an awful lot of money to let slip through your fingers.

90

F
rank Ramsey awakened on Friday morning at six o’clock, as usual. He had slept well, despite the unsettling phone call from Peggy Hotchkiss, because he had been weary. But as soon as he woke up, a heavy sense of having let her down came over him. He showered, dressed, and went downstairs. The coffee was on a timer and he poured a cup and began to sip as, with the other hand, he opened the refrigerator and took out a container of orange juice and then a package of blueberries. From there he went to the pantry, viewed his choice of breakfast cereals, and selected one.

“Sit down,” Celia told him. “I’ll put breakfast out.”

He had not heard her come down the stairs, but as always, he was glad she was there. She was wearing satin pajamas with a matching robe that came down to her knees. It was one of his gifts to her on her last birthday. The saleswoman had assured him that his wife would love this set and fortunately she had been right. Ceil did love it. And he loved her in it.

“I’m sorry about that call last night,” she said matter-of-factly as she poured orange juice into a glass. “But from what you told me, I can understand why Mrs. Hotchkiss was so upset.”

“So can I,” Frank agreed. “Ceil, there’s no question that her husband admitted punching Jamie. Drunk or not, that was a nasty thing
to do, and it certainly proves that he had a hair-trigger temper and was capable of violence.”

He gave her a grateful glance as she refilled his coffee cup. “And Ceil, it’s entirely possible that Hotchkiss was in the area twenty-eight years ago and somehow crossed paths with Tracey Sloane. Just about every man who was ever on the list as possibly being connected to Tracey was checked and rechecked and it’s always come to a dead end. Maybe Clyde is the one who killed her.” He paused. “Obviously the fire department is not involved in that investigation,” he said.

“It sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself that Hotchkiss killed one or both of those girls, but you’re just not there,” Celia commented.

Frank shrugged. “I think you know me too well. I am trying to convince myself. But I think we’re all missing something.”

Celia poured herself a cup of coffee and sat across from him. She knew that her husband used her as a sounding board when he was thinking aloud. “So what do you think you’re missing?” she asked.

“Well, for example, Lottie Schmidt.”

“That poor woman! Come on, Frank.”

“That poor woman is a consummate liar and a consummate phony. The fact is that Lottie Schmidt has come up with the most fantastic yarn to explain how Gus was able to buy that house in Minnesota for their daughter. According to her, Gus came from an aristocratic family in Germany and when the Nazis took over, they confiscated all of his family’s property. She claims that he got a big reparation payment five years ago. We’re having one of our computer experts research her story. He promised a report by noon at the latest.”

“My guess is that Gus came by that money honestly, one way or the other, and Lottie is worried she’ll be in trouble with the IRS because he didn’t pay taxes on whatever money he received.”

“There’s more to it than that,” Frank said firmly. “And somehow I think it has to do with the whole mess surrounding the Connelly fire and the fact that there’s no question that it was deliberately set.”

Three hours later, the computer expert who had been tracking Lottie’s story about Gus’s background called Frank as he and Nathan were catching up on their emails in their Fort Totten office. “Frank, I’ve got the whole Schmidt background for you. I just emailed it. You’re going to love it. It’s pretty much what you told me you suspected. But she didn’t just make the whole thing up. She actually came pretty close to the truth. Close but no cigar.”

“I can’t wait,” Frank Ramsey told him. “Lottie Schmidt put on such a good act of being an aristocratic wife that Nathan and I almost kissed her hand. As she was throwing us out of her house,” he added.

91

A
ttempting to exude an air of confidence, Jack Worth strode into the same room in the Manhattan DA’s office on Friday morning where he had been questioned the day before. He had received the call to come back in from Detective Stevens less than an hour before. He took a seat at the table opposite Stevens, cheerfully noting to him that their meetings were getting to be a routine. Then Jack added emphatically that he had absolutely nothing to hide.

The questioning began. And it was the same as yesterday. Why didn’t he call 911 when he looked down into the sinkhole and saw the medallion that he had tried to give to Tracey Sloane?

“I told you yesterday and I’ll tell you again now and I’ll tell you tomorrow, if we’re still here, that I panicked. Sure, I should have called nine-one-one. It was the right thing to do. But your guys put me through a meat grinder twenty-eight years ago. Obviously, I should have known there was no way I could avoid going through it again. So here we are.”

For two hours Matt Stevens repeated much of the same questioning, then played his trump card. “Jack, we know what happened to Tracey that night,” he said. “We have found a reliable eyewitness who saw her get into a vehicle willingly.”

Stevens and the other detectives watched closely to see the reaction of the man who they believed had picked up Tracey that night.
But Worth seemed unruffled. “So why didn’t your so-called reliable eyewitness come forward when she disappeared?” he asked. Now there was a sneer in his expression. “I guess you thought you’d bowl me over with that crazy story.”

“She got into a midsize furniture van. It was black with gold lettering on the side that said
FINE ANTIQUE REPRODUCTIONS
,” Matt Stevens snapped, his voice rising.

“I don’t believe you!” Jack Worth shouted. “You’re making this up. Look, I told you I’d take a lie detector test. I want it done now. And then I’m going home and you can try out that fairy tale on the next poor slob you pull off the streets.”

It was on the tip of Jack’s tongue to tell these cops that he wanted to talk to a lawyer, but then his instinct told him it would make him look guilty and stopped him. I’ll pass that lie detector test and prove to them once and for all that I don’t know what the hell happened to Tracey Sloane, he decided. And I don’t care if I ever find out. What a bunch of garbage! How stupid do they think I am?

92

A
t one o’clock Friday afternoon, Frank Ramsey and Nathan Klein were at the doorstep of Lottie Schmidt’s home. They had not warned her that they were coming because they did not want to put her on guard. Neither did they want to find her sitting with a lawyer when they arrived.

When she opened the door, Lottie’s face froze into angry disapproval, but beyond that Frank noticed the look of fear that crept into her eyes. “Come in,” she said, her voice sounding dull and weary. She held up her hand to show that she was holding a cell phone. “I’m on the phone with my daughter. I’ll tell her that I’ll call her back.”

She led them back to the dining room, where the photo albums and pictures she had shown them on Wednesday were still on the table. Without being invited, the marshals sat down in the same seats where they had previously been.

Lottie did not try to continue the conversation with her daughter in privacy. She spoke into the cell phone. “Gretchen, those fire marshals you met at the wake are here to talk to me again. I’ll call you back later.”

“Put on the speaker and I’ll talk to them! I’ll tell them what I
think of them for harassing you!” Ramsey and Klein could both hear Gretchen angrily shouting as Lottie broke the connection and turned off her phone. She sat down opposite them and folded her hands on the table. ‘Well, what now?” she asked.

“Mrs. Schmidt, in this day and age, I’m afraid that almost any story can be quickly checked,” Frank Ramsey said in a conversational tone. He paused. “Including yours. The facts are that your husband did grow up on the von Mueller estate. But he was not a member of the family, nor was he an heir to any fortune. His father was a gardener there, as were his grandfather and great-grandfather. Augustus von Mueller was indeed an aristocrat, but he was an only child and he had five children, all of them girls.”

Frank opened the photo album and pointed to one of the pictures that Lottie had already shown to them. “It is indeed your husband in this picture with the von Mueller girls. As a child he played with them. Any facial resemblance is purely coincidental because all of the children were blue-eyed blondes. And it’s a real stretch to try to point out a family resemblance between your husband and Field Marshal Augustus von Mueller.”

Ramsey paused, then continued: “The entire von Mueller family was arrested and did indeed disappear after Hitler came to power. The castle and the property were confiscated by the Nazis. The servants who took care of the grounds were allowed to leave. Your husband’s father died of a heart attack around that time. Your husband was raised by his own mother, not by some kindly nurse who adopted him. Whatever valuables were recovered after the war were claimed by a distant cousin of the von Muellers and were eventually turned over to him.”

Lottie Schmidt’s expression did not change as she listened.

“Mrs. Schmidt, if your husband had good taste and autocratic manners, it was because as a child he observed them, not because
they were in his blood,” Klein said. “Don’t you think it’s time to tell us where Gus got the money to buy that house for Gretchen?”