The Second Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (Dharma Detective: Tenzing Norbu Mystery) (26 page)

“He has his caregiver, Otilia,” I said. “Plus a boutique, live-in doctor.”

“Then he should be fine.”

I couldn’t stop looking at her—the way her blonde hair cupped her face, the depth of blue in her eyes.

“What?” she smiled.

“Nothing. It’s just—don’t you have any flaws?”

For a split second, something darted from behind her eyes, some small fear perhaps. Then it was gone. She smiled across the table at me.

“We’ve all got flaws, Tenzing. Some are just harder to spot than others.” She glanced at the clock. “Sorry, gotta go. FYI, I have a crazy day ahead, between a pathological science seminar and this insane toxicology rotation.”

My intuition tapped me on the shoulder. “You’re doing toxicology?”

“Yeah. Why?”

I handed her the waxy backing. “Would you mind seeing if you can determine what this patch is for?”

“Sure. No problem.” Heather stood up. “So, are we really doing this thing tomorrow?”

“What thing?” As I said it, I remembered. “Ah. The retreat . . . “ I made a small face. Heather smiled.

“I know, right? It seemed like such a good idea a few days ago.” She put on her coat. “Your call. I will if you will.”

I so wanted to back out. I was feeling swamped with unfinished business. But the terrified faces of two teenagers—looking for treats and finding a stressed-out man with a gun—floated before me. I sighed.

“See you there. Nine
A.M.
sharp.”

After Heather left, I jotted down her observations about Julius. Something still didn’t feel right over there, but there were too many variables to lock in on one cause. I’d call him later, in any case, to check in.

My plan was to keep busy enough today to avoid thinking about how “taking things slow” with Heather had become anything but.

I put in a call to Mike.

“Hey,” he said. “I thought you’d dumped me.”

“Sorry. It’s been pretty crazy around here.”

“Me too. I got promoted to the one
A.M.
slot this weekend. That makes your old pal ‘dj mk’ super-cool, in case you’re wondering. So what’s up?”

“Can you come by this morning? I need some virtual-sleuthing. I’ll throw in a Harpo’s thin crust. With meat.”

“On my way,” he said.

I called in an order at Harpo’s Oven for a large pepperoni, sausage, and mushroom, thin crust, plus two Red Bulls. I knew Mike’s dietary habits almost as well as my own.

I washed the breakfast dishes and set them to dry on my slotted wooden rack. Tank and I played five minutes of “chase the beam” with a red laser pointer, and I followed that with 35 minutes of weights and 10 more on the meditation cushion—if I was in for a full day of sitting tomorrow, I figured I could cheat a little today.

After a quick shower, I sat at my computer and organized all the Sadie information for Mike. I was getting much better on the Internet, but this next stage of the chase required the services of a genius-level computer jockey; one who made unerring leaps of logic and didn’t mind engaging in a little unauthorized hacking. Mike was all this and more.

Next, I called Julius. He answered on the first ring.

“Tenzing,” he said. “Just the person I wanted to talk to.” His pronunciation was crisp this morning, his tone rigorous.

“Me, too. How are you doing?” I said.

“Fine, fine. Listen, I’ve been thinking things over, and I’m . . . I . . . well, quite frankly, I’ve decided I no longer need your services.”

I said nothing. My right hand clenched into a fist. I uncurled it.

“Ten? Are you there?”

“Yes. Can you tell me why?”

“Yes. Quite. Well, it’s just . . . “ He started over. “I’ve spent most of my life chasing a ghost, Ten. That’s not how I want to spend what little is left of it.”

Again, I waited.

“Keep the money, of course.” He was breathing a little faster now.

“Julius, you know I can’t do that.”

The next few words were delivered in a rushed whisper. “It has to be this way. Don’t contact me again. I’m sorry. Good bye.”

Tank must have picked up on my distress. He hopped onto my desk, and lay across the keyboard, facing me.

“Hgjjjjjjjjjjjjjjdddddddddkkkkkkkkkk,” he wrote.

“I know. Not good. Not good at all.”

I peeled him off the keyboard and carried him onto the deck to ponder this unexpected news, just as Mike, long legs askew, motored up the driveway on his unique hybrid bike. The eRockit is skinny but streamlined, a little weird, and a lot street smart, exactly like its rider.

Mike pulled off his helmet. Not to be denied, his mop of dark hair immediately sprang to life, a wild crown of curls.

“Hey, boss. Hey, Tankster.”

Mike grabbed his bulging commuter backpack of equipment and followed me inside. He started setting up his gear on the kitchen table.

“So, there’s been a slight change of plans,” I said. “Maybe.”

Mike looked up.

“Julius Rosen just called me off the hunt. He told me to stop looking for Sadie.”

“For real?”

I considered the question. For not-real was more accurate. Simply put, I knew Julius was lying to me about something. But I didn’t know what, and I didn’t know why.

“Technically, officially, I’m no longer hired to do this job. Are you okay with that?”

Mike’s eyes glinted. “Off the proverbial grid. Now we’re talking.”

Mike hates when I hover, so I paid a visit to my carport. The heap of heavy garbage bags beckoned from the corner, and my Shelby sat waiting for a long overdue tune-up. Let’s see: sift through overripe garbage or get my hands dirty cleaning an engine?

I glanced at my watch. I only had enough time for the latter. Oh, well.

I opened the hood of the Shelby and got to work. First, I wrapped the connectors and distributor in foil. Pulling on a pair of rubberized work-gloves, I doused a wet sponge with Simple Green and worked my way in, around, over and under all the tiny crevices, widgets, hoses, and pipes that made my Mustang run. Soon, the sponge was filthy. I ran it under the outdoor faucet and did a second round of scrubbing. After one more rotation, I was satisfied, and I hosed out the soapy insides until the water ran clear. I started the engine, and let it idle for about ten minutes, until most of the moisture had evaporated. Using a torn T-shirt, I wiped away every remaining droplet. I peeled off the foil, closed the hood, and gave the shiny yellow finish a pat. Next week, I’d change the oil.

“Thirty more seconds,” Mike called to me, as I crossed the deck. “I’m about to snag something I’ve been chasing for an hour.”

I stayed where I was, counting five slow, easy breaths while I waited.

“Oh, snap!” He pulled away from the computer and grinned at me. “Come and get it.”

I sat beside him and studied the screen, which was now a map of Europe.

Mike had marked three places with red pushpin icons. He clicked on the first. Up came an image of what looked like a small European city, complete with cobblestones and a Gothic cathedral.

“Cobblestones. Nice touch, Watson.” I said.

“Schwerin, Germany. This is how it looked at the end of World War Two.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Me, neither,” he said, “but Sadie Rosen was sent to Schwerin, after the orphanage.”

“So the Reinhold Milz family lived there?”

“Yes. Turns out they were quite prominent. Mostly in the cheese business.”

“Do you have actual, reliable evidence Sadie was there?”

Another click, and another page—a computer scan of an ancient town hall record. On one of the lines, written in careful script, was the name Sadie Rose Milz, followed by: “adopted daughter of Reinhold Milz. Date of birth unknown.”

She had found a family of sorts. I was glad. “Anything else?”

“Boss. Please.” Mike’s hands flew over the keyboard. My printer whirred on my desk. I crossed the living room, and grabbed a printout of the name and phone number of Ulrika Milz in Schwerin, Germany. I looked over at Mike.

“Ulrika?”

“Great-niece. Working number. Hey, it’s the best I could do on an empty stomach. Hint hint.”

“Right, I’ll check on the pizza. And Mike, I mean it. You put Dr. Watson to shame.” He had already moved on to the next challenge, but I could tell he was pleased.

The pizza was “On its-a way! Five-a minutes! Five-a minutes!” Let’s-a hope.

I checked local time in Germany. It was 7
P.M
. over there.

“Hey, Mike? Do I have conference calling?”

“Does a wooden horse have a hickory dick?”

I sighed. “Mike, a simple yes or . . . “

“Yes, Ten. You do. Just push the button on your phone—the one that says ‘conference.’”

Call one: Martha Bohannon. Martha was home, and happy to translate. “Don’t go away,” I told her.

Call two: Ulrika Milz. Here goes nothing. I hit the conference button and initiated a second call, this one to Germany. A few moments later a female voice said, “Hallo?”

“Martha?” Martha trotted out some German. I heard “Ulrika Milz?”

“Ja,”
the voice said.
“Ich bin Ulrika.”

“Sprechen sie Englisch?”
said Martha.

Now I knew two German phrases.

“Yah,” Ulrika answered slowly, a thick accent coating her pronunciation, “but not so well. What this is about?”

I jumped in and introduced Martha and myself. “I would like to ask you some questions about Sadie, a little girl from long ago,” I said.

Ulrika fired off an excited stream of German. I heard “Sadie” several times.

Martha translated. “She says certainly she remembers little Sadie. She says, ‘Who could forget the way she looked at you with those clear, gray eyes?’”

Martha asked another question in German. The response was long and involved. Toward the end, Ulrika’s voice sank, as if weighted by sadness.

“Oh,” Martha said. “Okay. Shorthand? Sadie was with Ulrika’s great-aunt for almost a year, until something
schrecklich,
umm, terrible happened.”

“Schrecklich! Ja. Schrecklich,”
Ulrika echoed, and rattled off another few sentences. I heard Martha’s sharp intake of breath, and feared the worst.

“Mr. and Mrs. Milz were killed in a bad car accident,” Martha said. “Sadie was with them.”

“And Sadie?”

“Sadie survived.”

That poor child. She’d endured more hardship and loss by the time she was six than most of us faced in a lifetime.

“Who took care of Sadie after that?” I asked.

Martha translated the question. Ulrika spoke quietly for nearly a minute.

Martha said, “Here’s the gist. None of the other family members could take Sadie. According to Ulrika, different groups were combing Europe looking for survivors, especially children. She says a small group from one organization came to talk to Sadie. They concluded she was a Jewish refugee and took her away with them. Ulrika says nobody in the family ever heard from her again.”

We digested this information in a silence, broken only by Ulrika’s halting English: “I am hoping you . . .
finding?”

“Find,” Martha said.

“Yah. I am hoping you finding her.”

We said our goodbyes and hung up. I called Martha right back. “Thank you. You have no idea how helpful this is.”

“You have no idea what a treat this is,” she replied. “To be useful, I mean, outside of changing diapers and reading
The Cat in the Hat
for the seventy-five thousandth time.”

“Hugs to the hooligans.”

I returned to Mike and stood there until he registered my presence and surfaced from his computer trance. I’m always afraid if I interrupt too abruptly he’ll get the mental bends.

“Breaking news,” I said. “I need Jewish charitable organizations with the mission of reclaiming Jewish children during or right after the war, in this case, from Northern Germany. According to Ulrika, Sadie got picked up by one of them.”

He nodded, his fingers already airborne. Then Mike began to mutter. When Mike mutters, it’s a very hopeful thing. I felt a little thrill in my belly as I sat beside him.

Like a concert pianist, he lifted his fingers from the keyboard with a flourish. He pointed to the screen. “Looks like there are quite a few. Any way to narrow it down?”

“Let me check.”

I called Martha.

“I’m talking to you more than my husband,” she said.

“This is a quick one. Did Ulrika say anything specific about the group that picked up Sadie?”

“Not really. Wait a minute, she did use the word
fremd
.”

“What’s that mean? Friendly?”

“No. Foreign. As in not German. She didn’t seem to like them very much.”

“Okay, thanks, that helps.”

“You’re welcome. Ten?” Martha’s voice took on a tone I knew well, the not-to-be-denied tone. “Bill and I just had an interesting little chat on the phone. Are you planning on telling me about your new friend any time soon?”

“My new . . . ?”

“Don’t be coy, it’s not becoming. Heather. The good doctor Heather.” I couldn’t even blame Bill. Martha was a bloodhound when it came to sniffing out potential girlfriends, and Bill was a lousy liar.

“Oh. Heather. Well. Nothing much to tell, really.”

Martha snorted. “You guys are all the same. You have no idea how much ‘nothing much’ actually means.”

Ooph. I hung up fast. Mike’s look was pointed. I purposely misunderstood.

“You should concentrate on any non-German Jewish organizations that paid visits to northern Germany, specifically Schwerin, in 1946,” I said, as the crunch of tires announced a timely delivery. The boxy little Harpo’s Oven Cube rolled to a stop. Soon Mike was loaded up with pizza, Red Bull, and a new data trail to track.

My phone buzzed. Bill.

“Hey, traitor,” I said. “Remind me never to give you any state secrets.”

“You know Martha. There isn’t a double-agent out there she couldn’t crack.”

We laughed.

“Want to join me for lunch? I’m thinking Mexican, specifically, La Cantinela, on First Street in Boyle Heights. The boys say we might find some interesting customers there. Can you get there in an hour?”

“What’s the plan?” I asked.

“Fuck if I know.”

“Oh, goodie,” I said. “My favorite kind.” I left Mike hunched over his screen, Tank watching him from the windowsill.