Birgit, the Kinderm?dchen, appeared from the shadows and swept the girls away with her. Past their bedtime, too much excitement for them, anyway. And then a month later, the Anschluss, the new laws, and Birgit looking at them with contempt. I’m not picking up after your children anymore. You do some work for a change. Addressing even Frau Herschel with the familiar du, and all of them powerless to respond.
The memory is too difficult, but before she can lose herself once more in statistical mechanics, the noise around her suddenly increases; the soldiers are barking like their dogs, compressing her even more tightly against the old woman, who is still crying for Joachim. The train, staining the dawn sky black with its puffs of coal smoke, is entering the station. No whistle, no lights, just the relentless thudding of axles, so that the proper Viennese burghers, sleeping on the other side of the station, are protected from the sight of cattle cars filled with, well, whatever they’re filled with. Not citizens, because citizens wouldn’t be treated like this. And not people, because they’ve been labeled as vermin. But—it’s a conundrum—because if they’re not people, then there’s no need to protect the rest of Vienna from seeing them packed up, shoved, heels nipped by the dogs, the old woman still crying for Joachim.
If I didn’t look after my daughter when she wept, over all the unaccountable things that made K?the weep, why should I look after you? Martina thinks, but she nonetheless puts a gentle hand under the old woman’s elbow and helps lift her into the boxcar.
6
ARITHMETIC PROBLEMS
IT WASN’T QUITE four when I got back to my office. I yearned for a nap, but with only an hour left in the business day, I needed to answer calls and messages from my clients. Before I started, I put Martin Binder’s phone number and e-mail into my database and wrote him a note, explaining who I was and how distressed his grandmother was at his absence.
“If you want to get in touch, I promise that I will keep anything you say completely confidential,” I finished.
I also looked him up in the social media universe. He played some complicated math game in the Facebook world and had made a killer move in early August, right before he disappeared—that was his last update. He had one photo of himself, taken outside a tent in a snowdrift. He was wearing a T-shirt and cutoffs and was grinning at the camera, proud of standing half-dressed in the snow. Unfortunately, he had on sunglasses and a baseball cap, making it hard to see his face. I uploaded it to my own system, but for a good search I’d need a better head shot.
Martin also had a Twitter account, which showed a few tweets from the summer, mostly on music, but he was a uniquely silent member of his generation.
I logged into LifeMonitor, a subscription database that hacks into people’s financial history. Martin had told his grandmother that something didn’t add up. Maybe he’d discovered that his mother was stealing from him. Just in case, I started a search for Martin’s bank account. After that, I turned to my real business.
Among all the client calls and complaints was a message from Doug Kossel, the Palfry County sheriff. I waited until I’d responded to my most urgent client demands before returning his call. Kossel was out in his cruiser, the Palfry dispatcher said, but I could reach him on his cell phone.
“Hey, PI V.I. Wondered if you’d make the time to talk to us downstate hicks. We got an ID on the body you found in the field. Ricky Schlafly. Name mean anything to you? No? He’s a local boy, but he lived in Chicago for about fifteen years.”
“Sorry, Sheriff, I lose track of a few of our locals every now and then.”
“Don’t get sarcastic on me. You’re in law enforcement, even if you’re private. That means you see your share of scumbags, so it’s always possible Schlafly crossed your radar. He left here before he graduated high school, figuring if he wanted big money he should go where people had money. Anyway, it was his mom’s family that owned the house, and when her mother passed two years ago, Ricky came back and took possession. Turned it into the health resort and spa it is today.”
“Was Judy Binder with him when he moved back?” I asked.
“From what people are saying, she showed up about a year ago. At least, that’s when folks in Palfry started noticing a gal around town who sounds like her. She’d be at the local coffee shop, or sometimes panhandling in front of the Buy-Smart out west of town. Even came in for a hairdo when she had extra cash. No one’s seen her since the house got shot up, so she may have landed on her feet somewhere else.”
A year ago, that was a bit after Len Binder had died. Len might have kept slipping his daughter money over Kitty’s objections, or without Kitty knowing. When he was gone, Judy would have been desperate for a place to live.