It flitted through my mind that Rhea could test her own theories by getting herself hypnotized, to see what she could recall of her assailant, but the episode had been too traumatic for me to make sport of her. “So she said, Don’t shoot me, Dr. Herschel took the books?”
“The assailant was tossing her china on the floor. She watched him smash a teapot that her grandmother’s great-grandmother brought from England in 1809.” Don’s voice took on a sharp edge. “He said he—she—whoever—knew Rhea was the person closest to Paul Hoffman—he knew his name and everything—and she was the only person Hoffman would have given the books to. So Rhea said someone else had taken the books from the hospital last night. When the bastard threatened her, she gave them Dr. Herschel’s name. Not everyone has your physical stamina, Vic,” he added when I didn’t say anything.
“It may be okay,” I said slowly. “Lotty’s disappeared and taken the books with her. If they’re still looking for Ulrich’s journals, it confirms that Lotty disappeared on her own, that she wasn’t coerced. The police have been around, I presume? Did she tell them about the connection to Paul Hoffman?”
“Oh, yeah.” I could hear him sucking in a mouthful of smoke, then Rhea, plaintive in the background, reminding him that she hated cigarette smoke, and his “Sorry, sweet,” into the mouthpiece, although not addressed to me.
Was that where Fillida Rossy had been going so fast with her gym bag yesterday afternoon? Down to Water Tower Place to search Rhea Wiell’s office? No Ulrich journals in the office, so the Rossys waited until the middle of the night, after the end of their dinner party. Rossy returned from murdering Connie, the two of them entertained, Bertrand sparkling with wit, and then went off to terrorize Rhea Wiell in her home.
“What did Rhea say to the cops?” I asked.
“She told them you’d been in Paul’s house Thursday, so you may get a visit from the investigating team.”
“She’s a never-ending ray of sunshine.” Then I remembered my carefully worded message to Ralph yesterday afternoon—that I didn’t have Ulrich’s books, that someone else had taken them away. I’d been trying to protect Lotty, but all I’d done was expose Rhea Wiell. Naturally the Rossys—or whoever was after the books—had looked first for the person Hoffman was closest to. I could hardly complain if she’d sicced them onto me in turn.
“Hell, Don, I’m sorry.” I cut short his expostulation. “Look, whoever is after these books is lethal. I’m totally, utterly thankful that they didn’t shoot Rhea. But—if they go to Lotty’s and don’t find the notebooks there, they may think Rhea was lying. They may come after her again and be more ferocious this time. Or they may think she gave them to you. Can you go away for the weekend? Go to New York, go to London, go somewhere where you can feel reasonably safe?”
He was shaken. We talked about the possibilities for several minutes, but before he hung up I said, “Look, Don. I’ve got more bad news for you on your recovered memory project. I know seeing those books of Ulrich’s already raised some doubts in your mind, but this story of Paul’s, that he was a kid in Terezin who was taken to England, where Hoffman scooped him up, I’m afraid he may have adapted that from someone else’s history.”
I told him about Anna Freud’s article. “If you can find out what happened to the real ‘Paul’ and ‘Miriam’ in that article—well, I’d hate for you to take your Paul’s history public. A lot of readers would recognize Freud’s article and know he had appropriated the story of those kids.”
“Maybe the evidence will prove he’s right.” Don spoke without much conviction. “The children couldn’t have stayed with Anna Freud’s staff forever; they have to have grown up somewhere. One of them could well have come to America with Ulrich, who might have called him Paul, thinking that was his real name.” He was trying hard to hang on to the shreds of his belief in his book—and in Rhea.
“Maybe,” I said doubtfully. “I’ll send you a copy of the article. The children were placed in adoptive homes through a foster parents’ organization under Freud’s supervision. I have a feeling they would have made sure Paul went to a stable two-parent home, not into the custody of a widowed immigrant, even if he wasn’t an Einsatzgruppenführer.”
“You’re trying to ruin my book just because you don’t like Rhea,” he grumbled.
I kept my temper with an effort. “You’re a well-respected writer. I’m trying to keep you from making a fool out of yourself with a book that would be poked full of holes the minute it hit the street.”
“It seems to me that’s my lookout, mine and Rhea’s.”