“Some treasured memory,” I said, mentally flogging myself, wondering why I hadn’t remembered it until this minute.
My mother would’ve told me the truth wasn’t meant to be revealed until this moment, but that dubious bit of wisdom didn’t assuage my remorse.
I shook it off. My feelings didn’t matter. The fact was, I’d just found what I’d been searching for since Abraham was killed.
Chapter 18
I ran my fingers over the aged, deckled paper. There, wedged between pages 212 and 213, next to the fuzzy photograph of the devil’s paintbrush, were several pieces of notepaper, thinned and yellowed with age.
My hand shook as I pulled the pages out and unfolded them. It was a three-page letter, written in German.
The date written on the first page was 8 September 1941. The ink was faded but the handwriting looked feminine to me. I checked the last page and saw that the letter was signed “Gretchen.”
This had to be what Abraham meant by GW1941. But who was Gretchen?
Perhaps after reading the letter, I would know. Beyond excited, I found my bag, pulled out the English-German dictionary I’d bought to help translate Faust and settled down at the worktable to decipher the correspondence.
The letter was addressed to “Sigrid” and at one point in the text, Gretchen referred to her as “liebe schwester” or “dear sister.”
Forty minutes later, I closed the dictionary and pushed away from the table. My excitement had turned to distress. I powered up my laptop and spent a few minutes online, Googling additional information. Then I walked around the room, lost in thought. After a few minutes, my stunned silence grew to vocal anger and I pounded the worktable a few times.
“Gretchen, you stupid coward.”
Saying the name aloud gave me a jolt. In Goethe’s Faust, Gretchen was the virtuous young woman destroyed by Faust, but her real name was Marguerite. As I’d just learned, “Gretchen” was a common German diminutive for Marguerite. A nickname.
Heinrich Winslow’s wife’s name was Marguerite. Also affectionately known as Gretchen. But unlike her fictional namesake, Heinrich Winslow’s wife was all too real and completely responsible for so much destruction.
And no wonder someone was willing to kill to keep these papers hidden.
My translation abilities weren’t perfect, but they were close enough. I hadn’t mistaken the words or the sentiment.
It definitely explained why Abraham had been killed. Not that the explanation was fair or acceptable, but it certainly clarified things.
Such as, who the killer had to be.
I’d always considered myself a good judge of human character, but obviously my judgment was flawed. I’d actually spent time with and liked the killer. I rubbed my arms against the chills that skittered across my skin. Maybe I needed my head examined. Or maybe I needed my Vata-Dosha tweaked. Maybe when this whole nasty episode was concluded, I would take my mom up on the chakra cleansing day at the Ayurveda spa. I might spring for the deluxe mani-pedi while I was at it.
I shoved the personal grooming issues out of my head. I needed to call Inspector Lee. But first, I wanted the person who’d destroyed the life of my friend and mentor to suffer, just for a little while.
I owed that much to Abraham.
I searched my bag for the right business card, then stared at the name of Abraham’s killer for several long moments. Could I do this? Could I call this person, this killer, and actually sound calm and assured as I made my accusations?
I needed a minute.
I was scared, really scared. I wasn’t sure I could do it. I looked at my worktable. Pieces of Faust were scattered about, waiting for me to put them back together. Maybe if I worked for a while, buried myself in the book, I could trick myself into casually picking up the phone and making the call.
For courage, I opened a small bag of candy corn, then blocked out everything but the Faust restoration. The individual repaired pages were dry, so I pressed the text block together and stitched the signatures back together. I applied a coat of PVA glue to consolidate the text block. While that dried, I affixed the cleaned and polished black leather cover to the new boards.
This was what I’d needed. Busywork. Doing what I did best. Here, I knew exactly what to do. No questions, no mysteries.
When the glue was not quite dry, I used a hammer to pound the sewn ends and thus create a rounded edge to the spine of the text block. I put the block back into the press and added another thin layer of glue to hold the newly rounded shape. Then I added decorative black and gold silk endbands at the head and foot of the spine.
The glue would have to dry, which meant I could take a break. I glanced at the clock, then stared at the phone. It was now or never.