Chapter Three

With the top down, Lacey Whitelaw felt the morning-chilled wind tug at her hair like a schoolyard full of invisible seven-year-old boys; behind the wheel of the late model Porsche, her former faculty advisor, current wanderjahr guide and future cautionary tale, drove with a studied concentration intended to leave no doubt that the car was a reflection of personal traits.

“We have ten minutes to get to Eibigen Abby,” as if to provide a visual aid, the road crested and, in the distance, clutching the rolling pastureland like a hornet’s nest of brick and half-digested souls, their destination; “Do not speak unless spoken to and watch me, these people are lethal if they feel threatened,” Elias Thunberg looked at his former grad student with what he thought was endearing affection; Lacey was coming to appreciate that condescension mixed well with lust.

“My former husband, Elias,” Leanne paused to smile into the bone china cup as if approving of the future arrayed at the bottom of the mist-covered amber fluid,  “Is a guy’s guy, to borrow some slang, he’s a multi-doctorate ‘bro”; that my breakfast companion would be as challenging (and demanding) a client as she was a bedmate, was useful in convincing myself to refrain from interrupting her story.

The postmaster stared at the girl trying to complete the overnight delivery shipping label, the ferocity in her eyes was offset by fresh bruises on her upper arms; with eyebrows raised in a mute signal of being a non-combatant, he gently took the pen, Lacey whispered in gratitude, “Dr. Leanne Thunberg… Radcliffe University”; tearing off the Senders Copy, he looked up and said, “Here is your…” the words fell to the floor of the empty lobby.

“We both joined the faculty at the same time, he became department chair before I received tenure; despite his brilliance he fell into the oldest trap in the human experience, yet he is not merely after women, he believes he can find Her, the very first woman; he has disappeared and I need your help to find out what has come of him.”  

Chapter Four

My office was quieter than a foreclosed church, as I sat at my cigarette-and-tear-stained desk, in the middle of a featureless Thursday morning, pretending to work; I suspected I was avoiding something, but my detective skills were insufficient to drag it out into the light.

Hazel, my admin, had the day off, something about a conference with the school principal about her son, Seth’s truant streak, I offered to go with her, for moral support or as an intimidation resource, then remembered he attended Our Lady of Intercession and, instead, offered her the loan of my gun; she smiled and accepted the day-with-pay; I figured I got off cheap.

My email were shouting silently from the inside of my computer screen on one side and Leanne’s case folder on the other, I considered heading down to the Bottom of the Sea Strip Club and Lounge now, rather than wait the two hours until lunchtime; this prompted a replay of a conversation with the owner, Lou Ceasare, “Yeah, I tried once to, you know, add some class to the joint, do a brunch for the weekend crowd, fuckin reglars drank the fuckin Sterno out from under the chafing dishes, had to bend a couple of… things, to get them to stop,” his laughter, guarded by an expression as lethal as the Sterno, allowed me to know what a Great White shark would sound like, laughing.

Dr. Thunberg, of Radcliffe and my close friend, was being a good client, leaving me pretty much alone in the process of locating her missing ex-husband Elias; her weekly Status of Search questionnaire was low-key formal and it wasn’t in a Pass/Fail format.

In a moment of inexcusable over-confidence, I decided to check my email and then get to looking for missing husbands, big mistake; the first email was from Haley and my smile dissolved at the subject line: Notice of Final Decree; my mind rallied with practiced desperation, this was the best thing for both of us because she was a full partner at her law firm and I was busy with my private detection.

Muttering like a thorazine-addled heckler, the voice in my head reminded me that, if only I could remember one thing I missed, when we were married, maybe I wouldn’t have to drive home every night to an empty house that had somehow become too small for the two of us and, yet, now, intolerably large for one.

 

Chapter Five

[Eibigen Abby
Rüdesheim am Rhein, Germany]

“I won’t ask you again, who sent you?”

The dusty-wet smell of ancient stone pushed aside the other sensory cues like a sixth grader with a five-o’clock shadow and a hormone-induced chip on his shoulder; Elias Thunberg tried to gather clues to establish the ‘where’ in what is, arguably, the most fundamental question of Man, ‘Where am I?”

There was light, pervasive but anemic, floating rather than filling the space surrounding the metal chair; however, the most primitive lobe of his brain, so old it predated language, shrieked an alarm: the dark above him was solid, as expansive as it might feel, he was certain they were well below the surface of the earth.

Like the picture forming on an ancient black-and-white television, a woman stood facing him, her back to a low stone railing running from one wall to the other, suggesting he was on the platform of a gallery, beyond, (and below), which, the dim light sank into a silent death; leaning towards Elias she whispered, “I’m the only one who thinks you’re worth…taking time on; so let me make this easy with a single question, ‘Are you going to ask about the girl?”

“What girl?”

Behind, (and below), his interrogator, came a sound that was a mix of a sigh and a curse; now standing closely enough to see individual eyelashes, the woman hardened with a reluctant straightening of joints and sinew; Dr. Elias Thunberg knew with mortal certainty his next words would define the remainder of his life.

 

Chapter Six

“Dr. Thunberg, an envelope just arrived,” Kendra’s disembodied voice held a touch of shrillness on the interrogative, but then darkened and sank on the passive verb as it hung in the autumn light, leaching most of the color, and all of the softness, from Leanne Thunberg’s office overlooking the quad at Radcliffe University.

The head of Advanced Anthropology and Cultural Semiotics frowned; her antipathy towards advanced technology metastasized into tension as a subtle clockwork quality braced her shoulders and the natural elasticity of the connective tissue in her neck eroded; her therapist’s voice whispered from a private corner of her mind, “Remember, Annie, you are responsible for how you feel.”

Serenity appeared and moved tentatively, like a first-time traveler separated from the security of the tour group, negotiating elbow-and-glare-studded crowds in a foreign city, upwards towards her eyes, “Well, don’t keep me in suspense, Ken”, as her admin placed a yellow, 8.5 x 11 inch mailing envelope on her desk; at first glance it was no different from the stack already in Leanne’s in-box, on second glance it looked like the survivor of a death match in a post office sorting room; blue and red ink smeared like blood and tears on both sides, everywhere except for the address label, that remained as untouched as a virgin princess officiating at a medieval jousting tournament.

Inside, a single sheet of paper, hotel letterhead written in 12-pt German:

‘Dr. Thunberg,

You don’t know me, but I’m in Germany with your husband, Elias, rather I should say, ‘I was with Elias’ until a day ago when I managed to escape from the Abbey at Eibingen; at least I think I escaped; I have no idea why I’m writing to you, his ex; something tells me its what those people in the Abbey want.

PS Your ex, Elias, might be a famous scholar, but he threw me under whatever they call buses around here, by my standards that makes him kind of a dick, er please send money to my PayPal account as follows.’

Leanne held the sheet of paper up to the light, a sepia X-ray showing faint smears of rusted brown; in a dark, nearly hidden part of her, an atavistic spirit stirred, ancient muscles pulling at her ears, flaring nostrils and dilating the pupils of her eyes; the part of her personality that had her in therapy, for no other reason than to keep her position as department head, etched a smile on her face and she turned to the keyboard, first sending a thousand dollars to the account on the letter and then, an email, ‘Ian, I hear Germany is beautiful this time of year, join me on a field trip? 

Chapter Seven

“Welcome to Air France“, Rene spoke first by half-a-smile and Jean, slightly delayed by a perfect toss of her chestnut hair, threw a wink at us and added her greeting, “Bienvenue chez, Air France“; both stewards finished on ‘France’; I was in awe and tried to remember if the Foreign Legion still existed.

With a timing that would have frightened a less imaginative man, my hair was tousled by a whisper of conditioned air as Leanne and I approached the forward hatch of the Boeing Something-or-Other, the first, and, from what the steward in the Sky Lounge said, only passengers in the La Première section on our midnight flight to Paris.

I fly infrequently enough to enjoy the sneakers-and-torn-blue-jeans excitement of the everyday-exotic, the slant and barely perceivable rebound walking along the jetway, I remembered to look back towards the terminal for the Stanley Kubrick-2001 vibe; Leanne was a step ahead and I watched in wonder as she triggered a physical response in the waiting stewards: straightening of posture by a barely-noticeable degree while, in compensation for Leanne’s five-two, a ‘chest out and a hint of a bow’; she commanded attention with nothing more than a smile at Jean and an arched eyebrow for Rene.

I was almost carried away by air of sophisticated travel to the Continent, when I remembered the previous day, “Hey, Devereaux, I hear your girlfriend, that Harvard dean chick, was taking you with her on vacation,” Lou Ceasare’s voice, a growl coated with laughter, had the same effect on the daytime regulars at the Bottom of the Sea Strip Club and Lounge as a police siren in a room full of German Shepherd puppies, only with more howling.

Settling in my seat, our steward, Jean, explained how it could be converted into a full-sized bed, I would have enjoyed the finishing school-lascivious glint in her eye, except she was looking at my companion for 2.5 seconds longer than me, I tilted my head against Leanne’s and said, loudly enough to get a laugh from Rene, at the front of the cabin, “Please commend your loyal retainers for their tolerance of my presence.”

Leanne, using two fingers on my forearm and a natural sex appeal that would’ve had a cloistered monk ask for the legal definition of celibacy said, “Followers I can get any time, co-equals are far more difficult, “Vive la resistánce“.

Chapter Eight

The power of the engines suffused the cabin, a sub-vocal tone both powerful and beyond reach, an endless mantra, reminding us, hurtling through the sky, 565 mph at 35,000 feet that we all exist in a temporary magic spell.

Pulling myself from the insides of my head, I glanced to my left where Leanne was pretending to read her Kindle; like a mute ventriloquist, I aimed my eyes at her face while staring at her body, now hidden beneath the boutique cashmere throw blanket, ‘gild the lily’ came to mind, causing a whispered smile to start shouting.

“What!?” two-thirds of a chuckle kept her dark-comet eyebrows from linking up, ready for a fight; sensing my retreat, Leanne did something most of my gender is incapable of perceiving, resulting in an avalanche of dark, sleep-confused hair to partially cover her eyes and, for the millionth time since puberty, I marveled at the eternal teeter-totter playing field that was the preferred venue in the battle of the sexes.

Fluttering the length of her blanket with the cruel finesse of the experienced matador, she continued, “I know about your half-degrees from Harvard, your time on a commercial fishing boat, but the detective thing, what psycho-social trauma convinces a man, intent on living the Chandler/Spillane/Bogart mythos of the tough-as-nails detective to name his agency, ‘Desiderata Investigations and Conflict Resolution Services, LLC?”

I decided to answer her question honestly, “My greatest regret is not getting beat up as a kid in grammar school;” seeing her eyes focus on something I feared might constitute a secret passage into my head, I quickly added, “Given that our European field trip, in a small but very real extent, involves mainstream religious dogma, I’ll contribute a personal belief, ‘The fruit Adam and Eve ate of wasn’t the knowledge of good and evil, it was acquiescence of fear as integral to human existence.”

Leanne Thunberg, tenured professor at Radcliffe college, extensively-published academic and one of a handful of people with the key to my heart, stared at me, eyes flaring as curiosity and caution fought for control; I had a moment of ambivalent uncertainty, like seeing a combination of Jane Goodall and Lara Croft walk into a safari camp, the jungle behind her full of predators waiting for a sign.

Chapter Nine

“Yes, that’s Elias… my former….Doctor Thunberg.”

Competing with the cold hiss of the fluorescent lights, the detachment in Leanne’s voice brought to mind dialogue balloons that float above the characters in a comic book; authenticity was not in question, her emotional investment in speaking for the man, now a thing, a body, laying on a stainless steel tray was.

I stepped behind my client and friend, my right arm and chest exactly two inches from her left arm and back; I maintained a distance close enough to prevent any chance unsteadiness from cascading into vulnerability, while, in counterpoint to the flickering illumination, sadness and anger waxed and waned in a silent duet.

Leanne’s ex was discovered on the granite steps of the Museum Wiesbaden, the wreckage of a Porsche 930 an impromptu sculpture along the street, crumpled metal and glass throwing moon-glittered patterns on the dark asphalt.

The sports car was empty of living passengers; Elias would have died instantly from attempting to decelerate from 100 mph to 0, in an infinitely short time; the coroner’s report cited speed and alcohol as probable factors.

After we’d returned to our hotel and Leanne retreated to the neutrality of sleep, I called the number on the hotel registration card among Elias’s effects; after the desk clerk offered shock, condolences and sympathy, she asked, “And his young lady companion, she is also dead?”

Chapter Ten

We walked along streets that were old before there were calendars and pretended we were strangers; Leanne took in Wiesbaden’s subtly Russian architecture without comment, her face shimmering with an abstract intensity.

“What’s wrong?”

“Feeling mortal.”

“Damn… next to being in love, is there any state of mind that offers more promise or greater cost?”

Looking up at me with a sidelong glance, Leanne pulled my arm under her own and laughed, a silent invitation that made me feel closer than any of our nights of physical intimacy.

Standing on thousand-year-old cobblestones, we waited for the solid-state, web-connected traffic light to change; neither one of us in a hurry.

Chapter Eleven

Like a champion cliff diver being heckled by a suicide response team, Leanne swung her gaze from the dark roast blend in the bone china mug and looked up at me, “I need to know what happened to Elias.”

Beyond the patio of the cafe, in contrast to most travel brochures, the hills in the distance were huddled, as if protecting a secret; I looked at her, “As your private investigator, I’ll stop looking when you say, ‘Stop looking.'”

“Yet you’re here as my friend as well.”

“The same standards apply;” as she replied, I was appreciating why this part of Europe is the preferred setting for tales of dark magic and deals with the Devil, and so, was spared the full power of her smile; to say Leanne could convey a message with nothing more than an eyebrow or a tilt of a shoulder pulling at the corner of her lips was like saying the United Nations General Assembly was culturally diverse; I continued, “I’ve been known to engage resources that are less, how to say, traditional…”

“You got a guy?”

“Oh, far more than that, ‘I got a woman…’ in Chicago; lets just say, if the Delphi oracle were a real thing, smokin hot and insanely dangerous, she might qualify to work for the woman who runs the Omni Corporation; trust me when I say, just telling you her name is Anya Claireaux puts both our lives at risk.”

Chapter Twelve

“Die Weiße Zone dient nur zum sofortigen Be- und Entladen von Passagieren,” I’ve always been a fan of airports, at least the large, international travel variety; if the gods and humans agreed to design and build a factory that would produce a product useful them both, it would come out looking like an airport.

I’d thought, as we drove up from the hotel in Wiesbaden, that the process of parting would be, well, slow and slightly sentimental; clearly I’d underestimated both German efficiency and my client’s focus on whatever she deemed worthwhile, which currently, was getting back to her home grounds in Cambridge and leaving the investigation into the death of her ex-husband, Elias Thunberg, in my hands.

The decision was made fairly quickly, two nights prior, when I suggested, “You know, I’m capable of continuing the investigation without you at my side,” seeing her smile, I added, for reasons lost in the candlelight that flickered in from the living room of our hotel suite, “I can probably wrap this up quicker, you know, working alone.”

“Ah,” My detective skills failed me at that precise moment as Leanne established a throwing-grip on her pillow, replied, “Clearly I’ve made a wise choice of Insulting Detectives.”

“Herr Devereaux, I am Detective Captain Anton Rilke,” approaching me from the concourse opposite where Leanne had merged into a crowd of passengers, was a man who brought to mind ‘Sergeant Schultz’, a character in a TV series my parents used to enjoy; “Doctor Thunberg spoke to my superiors and asked if they wouldn’t mind making the full resources of the department available to your investigation; it would seem I am that full resource,” his laugh made the approaching night a little brighter.