The Heir Hunter (13 page)

Alex was looking at the photographs. Nick placed the phone down and clenched his fist.

“There’s a flight to Frankfurt, Germany, out of JFK tomorrow. From Frankfurt I’ll catch another flight to Salzburg. I’m all set.”

“I’m going too, right?”

“What do you mean? I need you here, Alex. If Claudia
gives me names of relatives, I’ll be passing on the information to you. You may be making the approach.”

She put her hands to her hips. “You’re doing all the good stuff and I’m stuck here being your little errand girl.”

“Alex, are you listening to me? I said you may be approaching the heirs. What more do you want? Don’t give me a bad time here.”

She slowly turned back to the photos. “Where did you find these pictures?”

“Under the floorboards in his bedroom.”

“What? Under the floorboards?”

“Believe it or not. There was this . . . compartment hidden under his bedroom floor. Found it by luck. I’m telling you, this old guy was a lot craftier than we’ve been giving him credit for.” He took several of the pictures and glanced them over. “These photos are strange.”

“They look like surveillance photos,” said Alex.

Nick studied them and saw that that was exactly what they looked like. They were high-quality color snapshots of half a dozen men in suits. They were congregating by two large cars and talking in small groups. The setting was parklike, with trees and shrubbery in the background.

“Some of these people look familiar,” commented Alex.

“Not to me they don’t,” replied Nick. “Which ones are you looking at?”

Alex pointed at one of the faces. It was a youthful, skinny face, serious eyes behind black-rimmed glasses. He seemed to be glaring directly into the lens.

“Doesn’t he look familiar? Kind of?”

Nick stared hard but didn’t recognize him. He put the pictures down on the table and shrugged.

“Nobody I’ve ever seen.”

Alex’s eyes suddenly widened. “Oh my God, Nick-look at this one.”

She gave him another picture. It was the same group of
people, but this time a withered old man stood in the middle of them. He was stooped and the only man not wearing a suit.

“Where’s our file photo?” asked Nick quickly.

Alex handed it to him. Nick compared the coroner’s photo with the new photos. There was no doubt in his mind.

“It’s Jacobs, all right. He must have hired someone to snap these photos. Why, though? These men don’t seem to be doing much.”

“It’s not
what
they’re doing that’s important,” said Alex. “It’s who they are. These people are obviously important to Jacobs in some way. Hmm . . .” She studied the back of one of the pictures and offered it to him. “This is sweet. Look.”

The photo was an enlarged face shot of the skinny man Alex had just pointed out. Jacobs was standing next to him. On the back, in smeared black ink, someone had printed
Cut Taylor’s throat!

“Lovely sentiments,” commented Nick.

“What’s that all about?” Alex asked, looking a bit chilled.

Nick shook his head helplessly and then began sliding the photos back into the envelope.

“Let’s not waste time on these right now. We know Jacobs was nuts, probably paranoid as hell. Let’s just concentrate on this lady in Germany. I think she’s our family link.”

Alex was looking over the greeting card from Geneva.

“This Otto character is a friend of Jacobs.”

“We’ll be checking him out too.”

“I can’t believe you found all this.”

“That ain’t all either.” He handed Alex the three small passport photos. “Something else I came across . . .”

“Monica 1935,”
she read. “Sister maybe?”

“I’m optimistic.”

“Anything else?”

He shook his head, then stiffened. “Damn! I just remembered.” He reached for the tiny tape in his pocket.

“Is that—”

“Yes, it is. Where’s your little tape player?”

Nick followed her upstairs into the office. She found the recorder and inserted the tape. Nick took a seat as she pressed play.

Beep. . . click . . . bzzzzzz . . . beep . . . click . . . bzzzzzz . . . beep . . . click . . . bzzzzzz . . .

A dozen times, the pattern.

“Somebody didn’t want his voice taped,” commented Alex.

“Makes you wonder if—”

The sound of a voice silenced Nick. It was a male voice, a bland monotone.

“Mr. Jacobs, we have a message from Taylor . . . we’re coming to see you. . ..” Click . . . bzzzzzz . . .

Nick was about to comment when another male voice came through.

“Yeah, Jacobs—it’s Demello . . . I need you to gimme a call today . . . it’s important . . . call me . . .” Click . . . bzzzzzz . . .

“What do you think?” asked Nick.

“I think they’re up to no good,” replied Alex. “The way they talk. Short, unrevealing sentences. They’re being careful what they say because they know they’re being taped.”

“I think so too. It’s—”

Another message interrupted him. This time the voice was quick and agitated. A rough tone—a voice from the streets.

“Yeah, Jacobs—it’s Demello . . . pick up the phone . . . don’t play around, old man . . . call me back or I’ll be at your goddamn doorstep. . ..”Click.

“Same guy,” said Nick. “And he’s pissed this time.”

The tape ran out after half a dozen more hang-ups and clicked itself off.

“Two dozen hang-ups, three messages,” said Alex thoughtfully. “Jacobs had some people upset with him. That Demello guy especially.”

“And once again we have Taylor. Jacobs took pictures of him for some reason, and now we have him calling the old man.”

“These messages are scary,” Alex said. “I wonder about this bathtub accident, Nick.”

Nick slowly nodded. He rubbed his chin and thought for a few seconds. “Let’s say that Taylor or Demello bumped off Jacobs. Would they be dumb enough to leave their names on his home answering machine?”

“Demello doesn’t sound like an Ivy Leaguer to me.”

“True, but Taylor’s caller sounds smarter to me, kind of refined. I wonder if . . .” He bit a fingernail for a moment, then waved his hand in the air. “This is all very interesting, but all I’m concerned with right now is Claudia.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s late. I’ve got a long flight ahead of me. I need to close my eyes for a little while before morning.”

“It
is
morning.”

Nick took the tape player and headed for his room. His eyes stung, and his ankle ached from hopping the fences. He reached the bed and spread out on his back. Alex appeared in the doorway.

“I really need some sleep, Alex.”

“We didn’t talk about these yet.”

She was waving the bank documents he had found in the garage. His head fell back to the pillow.

“I pulled those from his garage. I think they’re bank statements.”

“They’re more than that,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “You know what these are? Authorization letters. Swiss bank accounts, Nick. Ownership certificates.”
She looked at him quickly. “Jacobs might have another twenty-two million over in Switzerland.”

“And it doesn’t mean a damn thing unless we find heirs.”

Alex was paging through them rapidly. “Every one of these has the name
Ludwig Holtzmann
on them. Maybe Jacobs is Ludwig Holtzmann.”

Nick sat up. He took a small stack from her and scanned through it. “There’s a bunch of other names listed too, though.”

Alex kept turning pages. “But
Holtzmann
is the only name I see on all of them. Jacobs has to be Holtzmann, Nick.”

Nick lay back down on the bed. “Could be, but we’ll need more than that to go on. There must be hundreds of Holtzmanns in the database. No—we need to check this woman out in Germany. That’s the next step.”

He draped a rolled-up T-shirt over his eyes. Alex crossed her arms on her chest.

“You’re crazy if you think you’ll actually be able to sleep.”

“Not with you blabbing in my ear.”

“When are you going to call Doug?”

“In the morning. Now beat it.”

“Nighty-night, grouchy.”

She closed the door behind her. Nick opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. In his mind he could hear the voices from the tape

“Call me back or I’ll be at your goddamn doorstep. . ..”

He thought of the drowning accident in the tub. Was it just an innocent slip of the foot? With the events of that morning, he greatly doubted that now.

He raised the recorder in his hand and pressed Rewind. He listened to the gadget’s whirling and again thought of the gunman in Jacobs’s home. Adding him to Taylor and Jacobs meant he had
three
mystery men to
ponder now, and he didn’t have the foggiest idea who any of them might be.

He pressed Play. The battery was weakening, the voice draining away like a dying man.

“Mr. Jacobs, we have a message from Taylor . . . we’re coming to see you. . ..”

O
N THE CORNER
of Pine and Broadway in Albany, the man named Kragen held a cup of coffee and watched the early morning pedestrians go about their business. He was operating on maybe four hours’ sleep, and they had been a lousy four hours. He was in a nasty mood over the events of that morning.

When the limousine eased to the curb in front of him, he ditched the coffee and climbed inside. His contact this time was a familiar face, a pale, skinny man who liked expensive ties and white dress shirts. Something about this tidy little man rubbed Kragen the wrong way. He disliked even sitting next to him, but there were few people whose company he enjoyed.

“What the hell happened, Kragen?”

“Take a deep breath, chief. I get nervous when people raise their voices at me.”

The limo moved into traffic again as they both glared at each other. The smaller man blinked nervously, then lowered his voice.

“Tell me what your people saw.”

“They were watching the house,” Kragen explained. “Just like you wanted. About one-fifteen, this guy walks up out of nowhere and goes up to the place. He disappears up the steps and then they hear this noise. Like a crash.”

“A crash? What do you mean?”

“Just what I said—a crash. You know, like someone kicking a door in or something.”

“Somebody broke in?”

“That’s right.”

“So what did they do?”

“They were set to go in after him, but a minute later a cop shows up.”

“Oh Christ,” said the man, sitting back and rubbing his forehead. “Then what?”

“The cop walks up to the front door, and then they hear the shot. Took a few seconds to figure out what happened. Turns out this burglar had a gun. Apparently he was waiting for the cop inside. Second the cop reached the front door, he went down.”

The man rolled his eyes in dismay and looked straight ahead. The car moved by Kiernan Plaza, drawing a honk and a shouted curse. The driver, blocked from sight by a darkened divider, didn’t respond.

“Are you sure about this? How do you know the cop was the one who got shot?”

“They said they drove by and saw him lying there in the front doorway.”

“Dead?”

“Couldn’t tell you.”

“Did they see the prowler take off?”

Kragen shook his head. “Must have run out the back. He never came out the front.”

“Why didn’t they chase him?” demanded the man. “He shoots a cop and they let him just walk away?”

“My boys weren’t there to play hero, chief. Besides, it’s not like they had a lot of time to think things over. Five minutes after the cop went down, there were squad cars everywhere.”

The stranger looked distressed by what he was hearing.

“No one told us this was going to happen,” said Kragen, angry but restrained. “Your friend at the park yesterday morning said there wasn’t going to be any trouble.
My men didn’t expect anything but a little surveillance. What’s the deal here?”

No response came.

The car was heading south on North Pearl now. Kragen was tired of sitting next to the little man. His head hurt from lack of sleep. Money or not, this guy was hard to take.

“What time did the break-in occur?” asked the man suddenly.

“Must have been about one-fifteen.”

“And the cops showed up right after this burglar broke in?”

“Couldn’t have been more than five minutes.”

“So he couldn’t have been inside any more than five minutes—is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

The man nodded. He reached forward and rapped on the divider with his pen. The limo eased to a stop at the curb. Kragen could tell his host was upset. He could see little balls of froth at the corners of his mouth.

“You’ve been paid for your time. We may need you again at very short notice. Can your people be ready quickly?”

“Quick as the money’s out.”

“It will be. Wait for my call.”

Kragen stepped to the curb and wondered if he would ever hear from him again. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to.

Moving day was going smoothly. Two large men in white jumpsuits maneuvered a sofa carefully through the doorway of 198 Michael. A half dozen federal agents were pitching in as well, entering and exiting the home like pillaging rodents, their arms full of whatever they could scoop up. They were opting for the smaller or lighter furnishings—the towels, the clothing, the chairs, the kitchen
appliances. The refrigerator, dressers, and other heavy furniture were being left for the professionals. Every one of them was wondering how the movers would get the piano through the doorway.

Deputy Director Arminger stood on the sidewalk, his arms folded on his chest. Despite the absurdity of the assignment, he was actually enjoying his role of moving supervisor. He was breathing fresh air, and that by itself was a pleasant change. He was convinced that the Bureau office in Manhattan with its endlessly recycled ventilation had almost certainly planted the seed of some terrible cancer in his lungs. He was resigned to an early end, and he fully accepted that. He inhaled the crisp Saturday morning air and watched his men working. He could only hope the annoying presence at his side would eventually give up and go away.