The Heritage Paper

Chapter 46



Veronica read the signs.

Jamie bouncing off the walls. Maggie whining.

She knew exactly what this meant—it was nine o’clock and they hadn’t eaten since lunch, which according to Veronica’s watch, was three lifetimes ago. They needed to eat or this was going to get ugly.

Zach remained behind the wheel, and had his own parental radar working. Without prodding, he suggested they grab a bite at “the best restaurant in New York.”

Veronica was surprised when he drove off the island of Manhattan. She was expecting a swanky uptown eatery Zach might have frequented when he worked for Newsbreaker. Twenty minutes later they arrived at the Palisades Mall in West Nyack, and Zach announced they were going to the Rainforest Café. This was a big hit with Maggie and Jamie, whose surliness instantly turned to glee. It was their favorite.

Zach explained that he often took TJ here, and Maggie once mentioned her fondness for the themed restaurant on one of her visits. Veronica was impressed.

They moved past all the typical mall stores until they arrived at the restaurant, where they were greeted by trumpeting elephants, squawking birds, and erupting volcanoes. They were seated beside a robotic, chest-pounding gorilla that Jamie thought resembled Eddie. They ordered a “Paradise Pizza” for everyone to split, but Maggie had to be different and got an order of “rasta pasta.”

Shouting over the simulated thunder, Maggie and Jamie asked if they could check out the large marine aquarium built into the back wall. But before Veronica was able to instruct them that they wouldn’t be allowed out of her sight until they turned fifty, they were already halfway to the fish tank.

She began to order them back to the table, but Zach encouraged her to let them go.

Veronica gave in. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t keep one eye on them at all times. They did look like they were having fun, though.

Zach sipped on his fruity drink, and intently viewed the landscape.

“What is it?” Veronica asked.

“Nothing Nazi related. I just see all these young families and couples, and it makes me think how simple things were back then.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I went on my first date last night since Carsten died, and it was one big awkward mess.”

“Wow—congratulations.” He caught himself. “On the date part, not the mess.”

“Thanks, but I didn’t get promoted to department manger, I just took in a film festival with a guy I met in one of my classes at Pace. I went back to school to get my masters.”

Zach tried to hide his reaction, but he wasn’t a very good actor, so she answered the question he wanted to ask, “He’s twenty-three.”

He smiled. “You gotta be young to keep up with you. I don’t think I’ve had a day this crazy since, well … I don’t think I’ve ever had a day like this.”

“Just a typical day in the life of a single mom,” she said, returning the smile. She appreciated his demeanor. Eddie would have made a clawing motion, including sound effects, and called her a cougar.

“So how did you meet Carsten?”

“College—NYU. He was a business major from an upscale Nazi family,” she made a bad attempt at humor—she could-a sworn she used to be somewhat witty. “We dated all four years and we were married soon after. Then Maggie came along and I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since.”

“Kids change everything,” he said with the look of experience. “Sounds like he’ll be a tough guy to replace.”

“You don’t replace the past—you just look to the future. And hope one day you don’t learn that the past is plotting to kidnap your children and take over the world.”

He laughed. “Having met your mother and Maggie, I think it’s safe to say you’re the funny one in the family.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment … I think. How about you and your wife?”

“I’m originally from Michigan, but my first job out of college was with the Arizona Republic newspaper. I couldn’t get access to the Detroit Lions games in Phoenix, so I would go to a local sports bar to watch them. Sara was a waitress there. Long story short, we fell in love, got married, had TJ. We moved to New York when I got the job with Newsbreaker. You can read the rest in the police reports.”

Veronica was half listening—maybe less than half. An older man had moved behind Maggie and Jamie and for a brief second she thought it was Youkelstein.

It wasn’t.

Zach read her mind. “I know you think that Ben is involved in this somehow, and that he might have something to do with your husband’s death. But I don’t think so.”

“According to Sterling, he knew about the letters, and he was in Poughkeepsie the day he died. What else could that mean?”

“I admit that it’s suspicious behavior, but Sterling is the one with the motive, and I think he wants us to believe otherwise. He has all his life’s work and fortune invested in this election. And don’t forget, he also knew that Carsten had those letters. And he was the one who met with Ellen a couple weeks ago, so he likely knew what was going to go down at Maggie’s presentation.”

Veronica again looked at her children, who appeared mesmerized by the fish. She figured Jamie was plotting ways to poison them, while Maggie was complaining about some oil company that was threatening that specific species of fish into possible extinction.

“They’re not in danger,” Zach said, eying the children.

“How can you be serious?”

“I believe Ellen is telling the truth that there was a group called the Apostles, but I think it was just a last ditch effort to save the collective asses of the Nazi leadership that died out years ago. I don’t believe the part about reclaiming power.”

“But you have to admit that it’s interesting timing with an election coming up. If you’re planning on taking over the world, snagging the job of President of the United States seems like a good stepping-stone.”

“That’s an interesting angle, the same one your daughter has, but Kingston and Baer aren’t exactly Hitler’s kinda guys. Hitler was an expansionist, to say the least, and Baer is by any definition an isolationist. And Kingston is willing to go to war to protect a Jewish state … need I say more?”

Veronica took another glance at Maggie and something clicked. Maggie was a passionate environmentalist long before she knew what the word meant. Veronica remembered one time in the third grade when she came home crying because a classmate called her a tree-hugger. Veronica told her that trees and hugging were two of the best things on the planet, so it couldn’t be a bad name. And since those were the days when she let Veronica hug her, they pretended to be trees and hugged. Veronica realized this wasn’t about political ideology—this was about trees. And that’s why she knew danger was lurking in those trees.

“To fulfill my science requirement at NYU I took a botany class.”

“And this has something to do with what’s going on?” Zach asked, looking confused.

“We studied trees. And it’s related because this thing is all about family trees.”

She pulled a pen from her purse and began scribbling Ellen’s genealogy on a cocktail napkin. Ellen had children with two different men—Harold Peterson and Heinrich Müller—creating two lineages. She had two children that they knew of—Chosen Josef and Harry Jr. From the letters, they’d learned that she had at least three biological grandchildren—Carsten came from the Peterson lineage, while Josef, of the Müller branch, had a child named Flavia with his mistress, along with another child with his wife, whose identity they’d yet to learn.

Veronica began crossing off names of those who were deceased. Sure, some of the deaths were natural, especially those of advanced age, but many were suspicious. Harry Jr. and Greta were murdered. Flavia’s mother died suspiciously. So did Carsten and Ellen.

It was like when those gypsy moths eat away at a tree until it’s completely dead, and in this case it was a family tree they were destroying. And while Veronica only got a ‘C’ in that botany class, she did learn enough to know Maggie and Jamie were in danger.