The Amber Room (3 page)

“Draw an order, Mr. Cutler,” the judge said.

Paul quickly left the hearing room and marched down the corridors of the Fulton County probate division. It was three floors down from the mélange of Superior Court and a world apart. No sensational murders, high-profile litigation, or contested divorces. Wills, trusts, and guardianships formed the extent of its limited jurisdiction—mundane, boring, with evidence usually amounting to diluted memories and tales of alliances both real and imagined. A recent state statute Paul helped draft allowed jury trials in certain instances, and occasionally a litigant would demand one. But, by and large, business was tended to by a stable of elder judges, themselves once advocates who roamed the same halls in search of letters testamentary.

Ever since the University of Georgia sent him out into the world with a juris doctorate, probate work had been Paul’s specialty. He’d not gone right to law school from college, summarily rejected by the twenty-two schools he’d applied to. His father was devastated. For three years he labored at the Georgia Citizens Bank in the probate and trust department as a glorified clerk, the experience enough motivation for him to retake the law school admission exam and reapply. Three schools ultimately accepted him, and a third-year clerkship resulted in a job at Pridgen & Woodworth after graduation. Now, thirteen years later, he was a sharing-partner in the firm, senior enough in the probate and trust department to be next in line for full partnership and the department’s managerial reins.

He turned a corner and zeroed in on double doors at the far end.

Today had been hectic. The painter’s motion had been scheduled for over a week, but right after lunch his office received a call from another creditor’s lawyer to hear a hastily arranged motion. Originally it was set for 4:30, but the lawyer on the other side failed to show. So he’d shot over to an adjacent hearing room and taken care of the house painter’s attempted thievery. He yanked open the wooden doors and stalked down the center aisle of the deserted courtroom. “Heard from Marcus Nettles yet?” he asked the clerk at the far end.

A smile creased the woman’s face. “Sure did.”

“It’s nearly five. Where is he?”

“He’s a guest of the sheriff’s department. Last I heard, they’ve got him in a holding cell.”

He dropped his briefcase on the oak table. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. Your ex put him in this morning.”

“Rachel?”

The clerk nodded. “Word is he got smart with her in chambers. Paid her three hundred dollars then told her to F off three times.”

The courtroom doors swung open and T. Marcus Nettles waddled in. His beige Neiman Marcus suit was wrinkled, Gucci tie out of place, the Italian loafers scuffed and dirty.

“About time, Marcus. What happened?”

“That bitch you once called your wife threw me in jail and left me there since this mornin’.” The baritone voice carried a strain. “Tell me, Paul. Is she really a woman or some hybrid with nuts between those long legs?”

He started to say something, then decided to let it go.

“She climbs my ass in front of a jury because I called hersir —”

“Four times, I heard,” the clerk said.

“Yeah. Probably was. After I move for a mistrial, which she should have granted, she gives my guy twenty years without a presentence hearin’. Then she wants to give me an ethics lesson. I don’t need that shit. Particularly from some smart-ass bitch. I can tell you now, I’ll be pumpin’ money to both her opponents. Lots of money. I’m going to rid myself of that problem the second Tuesday in July.”

He’d heard enough. “You ready to argue this motion?”

Nettles laid his briefcase on the table. “Why not? I figured I’d be in that cell all night. Guess the whore has a heart, after all.”

“That’s enough, Marcus,” he said, his voice a bit firmer than he intended.

Nettles’s eyes tightened, a penetrating feral stare that seemed to read his thoughts. “The shit you care? You’ve been divorced—what?—three years? She must gouge a chunk out of your paycheck every month in child support.”

He said nothing.

“I’ll be fuckin’ damned,” Nettles said. “You still got a thing for her, don’t you?”

“Can we get on with it?”

“Son of a bitch, you do.” Nettles shook his bulbous head.

He headed for the other table to get ready for the hearing. The clerk popped from her chair and walked back to fetch the judge. He was glad she’d left. Courthouse gossip blew from ear to ear like a wildfire.

Nettles settled his portly frame into the armchair. “Paul, my boy, take it from a five-time loser. Once you get rid of ’em, be rid of ’em.”

5:45 p.m.

Karol Borya cruised into his driveway and parked the Oldsmobile. At eighty-one, he was happy to still be driving. His eyesight was amazingly good, and his coordination, though slow, seemed adequate enough for the state to renew his license. He didn’t drive much, or far. To the grocery store, occasionally to the mall, and over to Rachel’s house at least twice a week. Today he’d ventured only four miles to the MARTA station, where he’d caught a train downtown to the courthouse for the name-change hearing.

He’d lived in northeast Fulton County nearly forty years, long before the explosion of Atlanta northward. The once forested hills of red clay, whose runoff had tracked into the nearby Chattahoochee River, were now covered in commercial development, high-end residential subdivisions, apartments, and roads. Millions lived and worked around him, Atlanta along the way having acquired the designations ofmetropolitan and “Olympic host.”

He ambled out to the street and checked the curbside mailbox. The evening was unusually warm for May, good for his arthritic joints, which seemed to sense the approach of fall and downright hated winter. He walked back toward the house and noticed that the wooden eaves needed painting.

He sold his original acreage twenty-four years ago, garnering enough to pay cash for a new house. The subdivision then was one of the newer developments, the street now evolved into a pleasant nook under a canopy of quarter-century timber. His cherished wife, Maya, died two years after the house was completed. Cancer claimed her fast. Too fast. He hardly had time to say good-bye. Rachel was fourteen and brave, he was fifty-seven and scared to death. The prospect of growing old alone had frightened him. But Rachel had always stayed nearby. He was lucky to have such a good daughter. His only child.

He trudged into the house, and was there only a few minutes when the back door burst open and his two grandchildren rushed into the kitchen. They never knocked and he never locked the door. Brent was seven, Marla six. Both hugged him. Rachel followed them inside.

“Grandpa, Grandpa, where’s Lucy?” Marla asked.

“Asleep in the den. Where else?” The stray had wandered into the backyard four years ago and never left.

The children bolted to the front of the house.

Rachel yanked open the refrigerator and found a pitcher of tea. “You got a little emotional in court.”

“I know I say too much. But I thought of papa. I wish you knew him. He work the fields every day. A Tsarist. Loyal to end. Hated Communists.” He paused. “I was thinking, I have no photo of him.”

“But you have his name again.”

“And for that I thank you, my darling. Did you learn where was Paul?”

“My clerk checked. He was tied up in probate court and couldn’t make it.”

“How is he doing?”

She sipped her tea. “Okay, I guess.”

He studied his daughter. She was so much like her mother. Pearl white skin, frilly auburn hair, perceptive brown eyes that cast the prepossessing look of a woman in charge. And smart. Maybe too smart for her own good.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“I get by. I always do.”

“You sure, daughter?” He’d noticed changes lately. Some drifting, a bit more distance and fragility. A hesitancy toward life that he found disturbing.

“Don’t worry about me, Daddy. I’ll be fine.”

“Still no suitors?” He knew of no men in the three years since the divorce.

“Like I have time. All I do is work and tend those two in there. Not to mention you.”

He had to say it. “I worry about you.”

“No need.”

But she looked away while answering. Perhaps she wasn’t quite so certain of herself. “Not good to be old alone.”

She seemed to get the message. “You’re not.”

“I’m not speaking of me, and you know it.”

She moved to the sink and rinsed her glass. He decided not to press and reached over and flicked on the counter television. The station was still set to CNN Headline News from the morning. He turned down the volume and felt he had to say, “Divorce is wrong.”

She cut him one of her looks. “You going to start with the lecture?”

“Swallow that pride. You should try again.”

“Paul doesn’t want to.”

His gaze held hers. “You both too proud. Think of my grandchildren.”

“I did when I divorced. All we did was fight. You know that.”

He shook his head. “Stubborn, like your mother.” Or was she like him? Hard to tell.

Rachel dried her hands with the dish towel. “Paul will be by about seven to get the kids. He’ll bring them home.”

“Where you going?”

“Fund-raiser for the campaign. Going to be a tough summer, and I’m not looking forward to it.”

He focused on the television and saw mountain ranges, steep inclines, and rocky crags. The sight was instantly familiar. A caption at the bottom left readSTOD ,GERMANY . He turned up the volume.

“—millionaire contractor Wayland McKoy thinks this area in central Germany may still harbor Nazi treasure. His expedition begins next week into the Harz Mountains of what was once East Germany. These sites have only recently become accessible, thanks to the fall of Communism and the reunification of East and West Germany.” The image switched to a tight view of caves in forested inclines. “It’s believed that in the final days of World War Two, Nazi loot was hastily stashed inside hundreds of tunnels crisscrossing these ancient mountains. Some were also used as ammunition dumps, which complicates the search, making the venture even more hazardous. In fact, more than two dozen people have lost their lives in this area since World War Two, trying to locate treasure.”

Rachel came close and kissed him on the cheek. “I have to go.”

He turned from the television. “Paul be here at seven?”

She nodded and headed for the door.

He immediately returned his attention to the television.

Borya waited until the next half hour, hoping headline news would contain some story repeats. And he was lucky. The same report on Wayland McKoy’s search of the Harz Mountains for Nazi treasure appeared at the end of the six-thirty segment.

He was still thinking about the information, twenty minutes later, when Paul arrived. By then he was in the den, a German road map unfolded on the coffee table. He’d bought it at the mall a few years back, replacing the datedNational Geographic one he’d used for decades.

“Where are the children?” Paul asked.

“Watering my garden.”

“You sure that’s safe for your garden?”

He smiled. “It’s been dry. They can’t hurt.”

Paul plopped into an armchair, his tie loosened and collar unbuttoned. “That daughter of yours tell you she put a lawyer in jail this morning?”

He didn’t look up from the map. “He deserve it?”

“Probably. But she’s running for reelection, and he’s not one to mess with. That fiery temper is going to get her in trouble one day.”

He looked at his former son-in-law. “Just like my Maya. Run off half-crazy in a moment.”

“And she won’t listen to a thing anybody says.”

“Got from her mother, too.”

Paul smiled. “I bet.” He gestured to the map. “What are you doing?”

“Checking something. Saw on CNN. Fellow claims art is still in Harz Mountains.”

“There was a story inUSA Today on that this morning. Caught my eye. Some guy named McKoy from North Carolina. You’d think people would give up on the Nazi legacy thing. Fifty years is a long time for some three-hundred-year-old canvas to languish in a damp mine. It would be a miracle if it wasn’t a mass of mold.”

He creased his forehead. “The good stuff already found or lost forever.”

“I guess you should know all about that.”

He nodded. “A little experience there, yes.” He tried to conceal his current interest, though his insides were churning. “Could you buy me copy of thatUSA newspaper?”

“Don’t have to. Mine’s in the car. I’ll go get it.”

Paul left through the front door just as the back door opened and the two children trotted into the den.

“Your papa’s here,” he said to Marla.

Paul returned, handed him the paper, then said to the children, “Did you drown the tomatoes?”

The little girl giggled. “No, Daddy.” She tugged at Paul’s arm. “Come see Granddaddy’s vegetables.”

Paul looked at him and smiled. “I’ll be right back. That article is on page four or five, I think.”

He waited until they left through the kitchen before finding the story and reading every word.

GERMAN TREASURES AWAIT?

By Fran Downing, Staff Writer

Fifty-two years have passed since Nazi convoys rolled through the Harz Mountains into tunnels dug specifically to secret away art and other Reich valuables. Originally, the caverns were used as weapons manufacturing sites and munitions depots. But in the final days of World War II, they became perfect repositories for pillaged loot and national treasures.

Two years ago, Wayland McKoy led an expedition into the Heimkehl Caverns near Uftrugen, Germany, in search of two railroad cars buried under tons of gypsum. McKoy found the cars, along with several old master paintings, toward which the French and Dutch governments paid a handsome finder’s fee.

This time McKoy, a North Carolina contractor, real estate developer and amateur treasure hunter, is hoping for bigger loot. He’s been a part of four past expeditions and is hoping his latest, which starts next week, will be his most successful.