Herta’s nostrils flared with annoyance. “He moved there when Mother died. Bettina and I were beside ourselves! Julius was forty and until Mother’s death, he still lived in his old bedroom. He wanted to stay right where he was, but Bettina and I insisted on selling. Julius didn’t work, he couldn’t even have paid the taxes, let alone upkeep.
“Then Cordell invited Julius to live in the Breen family’s old coach house down in Hyde Park. Bettina and I both told him it was a terrible mistake, but all Julius would say is that Cordell wasn’t charging him any rent to look after the place. Cordell, and Edward before him, treated the coach house like it was a sacred place—because it’s where Edward perfected his first computer. After Edward died, Cordell hung on to the coach house, too! Bettina and I kept telling Julius he’d never get out of his depression if he didn’t find an apartment of his own and learn to work for a living, but you might as well talk to a block of wood.”
Julius stirred again next to her and she absently patted his head again.
“He keeps saying, ‘Root, Sell,’” I said. “Do you know what he’s talking about?”
Herta seemed to regret talking to me so frankly. “Whatever it is, it’s his business, not yours. I’m not calling the nurse to tell her you were impersonating my daughter, but that’s only because you could make some sense out of why Julius was on North Sheridan Road. You’ve still been invasive and even dangerous and I want you to leave.”
I mustered what dignity I could and left.
43
TEDDY BEAR, TEDDY BEAR, TOUCH THE GROUND
IT HAD STARTED to drizzle again while I was with Herta. As I trudged along the dark streets back to the Subaru, a squad car rushed toward me, its lights flashing. I leapt out of the way but my legs still got soaked. The car was tan, not one of the Evanston force’s white-and-purple. Perhaps the hospital’s security service, trying to look important.
When I got to the Subaru, I was wet all the way through. I turned on the heater and got a blast of cold moldy air. Better to shiver.
Lotty had arrived at Max’s almost an hour before I got there. She was curled up in a large armchair in front of Max’s fireplace, looking more like a street urchin than a surgeon with an international reputation. I squatted in front of the fire, warming my hands.
“You’re wet,” Lotty said. “Take off your shoes and socks; Max can find you some slippers.”
My teeth were starting to chatter. Max hurried into a back room and returned with a blanket and a pair of wool socks. Lotty went into the kitchen and brought me back a cup of hot lemon water.
“What happened, Victoria?”
“Julius Dzornen.” I explained how I’d happened to know he was in Lake Forest last night.
“Julius drove up there last night, loaded for bear, but as always happens in a confrontation between him and Cordell Breen, Breen won.”
“That makes it sound as though you think Breen caused Dzornen’s accident,” Max said. “I find that impossible to accept.”
I looked at Max and smiled ruefully. “Nothing would surprise me about any of these people, but Breen is so clever that if he wanted to get rid of Dzornen, he’d use a method that was dead-certain to work, not rely on tampering with Julius’s car, or putting Ambien in his brandy. And as it turns out, Julius did survive. He’s in rotten shape, but he’s alive.”
Max nodded. “When you called, you said you wanted me—us—to look at some documents?”
“Oh.” I’d been so upset by Julius’s accident that I’d forgotten why I’d been on my way to Evanston in the first place. “I went down to Hyde Park this morning to look at Benjamin Dzornen’s papers. I found three letters that may be from Martina Saginor, and one from the address I remember Lotty saying she shared with them. Even if I could make out the script, I can’t understand German.”
I took the folded copies from the folder and handed them to Lotty. She looked at them and looked away, her face contorted in pain.
“Lotty!” I dropped to my knees next to her.
“Victoria! I—that letter—where did it come from!”
She broke off and Max forced her to drink a little wine.
“I’m so sorry,” I said helplessly. “If I’d known they would distress you this much, I would never have brought them to you.”
“It’s not that.” Lotty blinked back tears. “It’s—this—my Opa—”
She swallowed another mouthful of wine. “It’s from my Opa, my grandfather, Felix Herschel. It’s as if the ghosts in my head suddenly came to life.”
She tried reading the letter, but finally handed it to Max, who was standing at her other side. He translated it out loud, stumbling over some words where the photocopy was too faded to read easily.
My dear Professor Dzornen,
I hope you and Frau Dzornen are well. As winter approaches, the damp in Vienna becomes raw and bitter, especially here near the canal. Food is hard to find as well.