A Vision of Murder

  Simone fiddled with the necklace at her neck. “Yes, we knew each other quite well for many years. We used to go together.”

  “Can you tell us a little bit about him?” Dutch asked.

  Simone’s face seemed to soften ever so slightly. “I met Jean-Paul at a local dance in 1969. My parents were French immigrants, you see, and even though my sister and I were born here, our parents insisted that we immerse ourselves in the local French community. The community put on dances several times a year and I’d been attending them since I was in high school. I stopped going after I was married, but started again after my husband was killed in the Korean War.

  “I met Jean-Paul at one of these functions and he was a looker. He was so handsome back then, and full of himself too, let me tell you,” she said with a chuckle. “He thought every girl wanted to be with him because he was rich, and handsome, but I liked him because he was smart.”

  “So you were with him for all those years until he died in 1990?” I asked. Something was tugging at me and I was anxious to follow the lead.

  Simone turned to me with one eyebrow raised, almost in challenge. “Yes, we were together for nearly thirty-one years.”

  “Was he a faithful man?” I asked boldly.

  “As much as he could be,” she answered, her guard going up. “Besides, in the end he always came home to me. It was me he wanted at the end of the day, me who nursed him through his illness until he died in my arms. There was no one else of consequence in all the time we were together,” she sniffed.

  “And, what about Liza?” I asked, digging in.

  A look of surprise flashed across her face, she’d been caught off guard. “I’m sorry, who?”

  “We know Jean-Paul had another girlfriend for a period of time. A young woman who lived with him until she disappeared. You must remember her.”

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Simone said sharply as my lie detector went haywire. “As I said, there was only me. Jean-Paul may have stepped out a few times with the women that were constantly throwing themselves at his feet, but I was his true love. In the end it was me he came crawling back to every time.”

  There was such a tone of bitterness in that last sentence that I almost backed off. But I remembered suddenly the beautiful woman at the bottom of the stairwell, and pushed Simone a little more. “What do you think happened to her, Mrs. Renard?”

  “Happened to whom?”

  “Liza,” I said, irritated that this crotchety old woman was protecting a dead man. “You must know he killed her—after all, I’m sure he told you everything.”

  Simone’s hand flew to her mouth to hide the gasp that nearly escaped her. “I think you should leave now,” she said when she’d recovered herself.

  “You did know, didn’t you?” I said as I scanned her energy.

  “My sister will be up soon, and I cannot have the three of you disturb her,” Simone said, her voice shaking.

  “And you know even more beyond that,” I said, watching and assessing her carefully. “You’re hiding the rest of his secrets, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” Simone snapped. “And I’ve asked you to leave!”

  Dutch and Milo got up together and nudged me to back off and follow them. I was mad for reasons I couldn’t really identify, so as I got up I couldn’t resist saying to her, “We’re going to figure it out, Simone. We are going to find out exactly who she was and why he killed her, and if you had anything to do with it, we’ll make sure you get exactly what you have coming to you.”

  That did it. Simone reacted as if I’d struck her, and she recoiled backward slightly, her hand fluttering to her heart as she said, “I don’t know what happened to her!”

  Dutch and Milo paused on their way out of the living room, giving her their full attention, and I sat back down on the couch.

  “But you know something,” I prodded, waiting her out.

  She looked at me like a scared rabbit, her eyes large and her lips quivering. “You have to understand,” she began, “she was much younger than Jean-Paul, and she was pretty. He was lured by her advances, duped by her schemes. . . .”

  “What schemes?” Dutch said, returning to the couch.

  Simone shook her head back and forth, fighting with herself about whether to talk or stay quiet. While she fought her internal battle she began fiddling with the necklace at her throat again. It was only then that I realized how stunning the diamond necklace was.

  “That was a gift from Jean-Paul, wasn’t it?” I asked, intuitively knowing that it was flashy enough to assuage a guilty conscience.

  Simone’s hand dropped to her waist. “She betrayed him,” she said by way of answer.

  “How so?” Milo asked as he hovered in the doorway of the living room.

  Simone sighed, and her shoulders slumped, and she started from the beginning. “Liza came here in the early seventies. She showed up one night at the dance hall at the Community House on Main Street. I remember the night she made her first appearance. She was younger than most of the rest of us, and she was very petite and pretty. She spotted Jean-Paul right away, and before I knew it the two were off by the punch bowl, or dancing right in front of me. It was a slap in the face, and I demanded that Jean-Paul stop flirting with her.

  “He waved me away and told me to go home, he’d be along later. But he never came over. After that night he also stopped calling and before I knew it the two of them were quite the item. It was outrageous!” Simone said, bitterness heavy in her tone. “She was less than half his age, and we all knew she was up to no good, but Jean-Paul was blind to her treachery. Then, one day, Liza disappeared, and Jean-Paul came crawling back to me, begging me to take him back. He said that Liza had stolen his most precious gems and fled the country, and he never spoke of her again.”

  “But you knew differently,” I said, noting the shift in her energy. She was still hiding something.

  Simone gave me a cold, hard look. “He used to talk in his sleep,” she said.

  “What did he say?” Dutch asked.

  “It wasn’t anything specific,” Simone insisted. “Just that there were times when he would ramble, and he would say things like, ‘Give them back or I’ll kill you!’ ”

  “Give what back?” Dutch again.

  “I don’t know,” Simone said, shaking her head back and forth. “But there was one night where he had a particularly vivid dream, and he almost killed me.”

  We all kept silent and waited for her to continue. After a moment she said, “He was calling her name, like he was trying to find her, and then he just grabbed me by the neck and started to choke me. He kept calling me Liza, and screamed that I had betrayed him. Luckily, I managed to wake him up before he strangled me, and I never slept in the same room with him again.”

  “What else can you tell us about her?” Dutch said.

  Simone looked thoughtful for a moment, then offered, “I knew she wasn’t French, even though she claimed to come from the same region as Jean-Paul.”

  “How did you know?”

  “It was her accent,” she said. “She spoke perfect French, but it was almost too perfect. And there were times when she would slip, and there was a hint of something . . . maybe a German influence that we noticed. But Jean-Paul refused to acknowledge it. He was blinded by her beauty and interest in him.”

  “Do you know her last name?” I asked.

  “Proditio,” Simone answered.

  “That doesn’t sound French,” Milo said.

  “It’s Latin,” Dutch said. “It means betrayed.”

  As I cocked an impressed eyebrow at my boyfriend, Simone swallowed nervously, perhaps feeling like she’d revealed too much. “If there are no more questions, I would like it if you would leave now.”

  Her request was more demand, and I nodded as we all stood up to leave. Partway to the door, however, Dutch turned back to her as something occurred to him and he asked, “How did you get along
with Jean-Paul’s grandsons, James and Jean-Luke?”

  Simone scowled. “Those two,” she said with a wave of her hand, “horrible boys.”

  “Really?” he prodded.

  “At least Jean-Luke was. Always up to something. After his grandfather died he insisted I move out of the house. I’d been living with Jean-Paul and taking care of him throughout his illness, not that either of them ever lifted a finger. They forced me to move in with my sister without even so much as a thank you. Ungrateful scamps.”

  “Thanks again for the information,” Dutch said, and took out one of his business cards, which he set on an end table near the doorway. “If you think of anything else, please call us.”

  Simone gave him a cold stare. She’d call just as soon as the forecast in hell projected a winter storm warning.

  We left Simone’s house and I involuntarily shivered. “You cold?” Dutch asked me, taking note.

  “Naw,” I answered with a smile. “Just that the energy in that house is pretty awful. By the way,” I said as we headed toward the car, “you have a message on your voice mail that you need to pick up.”

  Dutch grinned as we all got in the car, and as Milo started the engine he reached for his cell phone and checked all his mailboxes. Sure enough there was a message on his office phone from T.J. “He’s got something on that crest I sent him,” Dutch explained while he listened. “Let’s grab dinner first, then head back and call him.”

  We called in a carryout to Prontos! Deli and Milo double-parked while I dashed in to pick it up. We were home a few minutes later, and Milo distributed the food, while I grabbed the beer and Dutch called T.J. “He’s not answering,” Dutch said as he tried another number.

  “What time did he leave the message?” I asked, wondering by how long we’d missed him.

  “About two minutes before you told me to pick up the voice mail,” Dutch said with a grin as he listened to T.J.’s recorded voice through the phone line. Dutch left messages on all T.J.’s lines and we dug into our dinners.

  While we ate we talked about all of the pieces we’d discovered and the possible ways they interconnected, but there were still some pieces missing, and I kept reiterating that I felt the box and the notebook were the keys. If we could only unravel why they were so important to Jean-Luke, and what their connection was to Liza, maybe we could uncover the truth behind her murder, and Jean-Luke’s obsession.

  As I was cleaning up from dinner the phone rang. Dutch answered it, and I heard snatches of the short conversation, “Uh-huh. Yep. Sounds great. See you then.” And he hung up.

  I came into the living room as he set the phone down and he explained. “That was T.J. He didn’t want to discuss it on the phone, and he’s asked us to take another road trip to Ann Arbor tomorrow.”

  “I’m in,” I said.

  “I’m not,” Milo said, disappointment on his face. “I’ve got a meeting downtown with the mayor and the city council for most of the day.”

  “Hmmm, aren’t you the up-and-comer?” I teased Milo.

  “It’s not like that,” he said, waving me off.

  I honed in on him for a moment, noticing something new in his energy. “Yes it is. Why didn’t you tell us you were interested in a political career?”

  Dutch looked sharply at Milo, surprise on his features, as Milo scowled at me. “Does anything get past you?” he asked.

  “Not much,” I said with a grin. “You should go for it, by the way. You’d make a great addition to the council. That’s what you’re thinking of running for, right?”

  Milo rolled his eyes at me and sighed. “Damn it, Abby. A man needs to keep certain things to himself, you know.”

  “You’re going to win . . .” I teased.

  This news brightened Milo’s mood considerably, “Really? ’Cuz there’s only one slot open in the next election, and even now there are a lot of interested candidates.”

  “I’m not saying you won’t have some competition. But if you play your cards right and campaign hard, you’ll win the election all right.”

  Milo grinned, even while Dutch looked at him skeptically. “Politics?” he asked his friend.

  “What?” Milo said. “I’m supposed to stay a detective my whole life?”

  Dutch shrugged his shoulders and said, “Okay, okay . . . whatever you want, buddy.”

  At that moment Milo’s cell phone chirped, and he looked at the readout with a frown. “Uh-oh.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Noelle,” he said, indicating his wife. “She’s probably wondering where I am, and I promised to be home in time for dinner.”

  I smiled wryly and said, “Hope you left room, ’cuz something tells me she’s not going to like the fact that you already ate.”

  “Good point,” Milo said and flipped open the phone. “Hey, honey. I was just about to call you . . .” Liar, liar . . . pants on fire . . .

  After Milo left to eat his second dinner for the evening, Dutch and I sat on the couch near enough to be companionable, but not close enough to touch. Finally he looked at me and asked, “You still mad at me?”

  “A little. You still mad at me?”

  “A little,” he said with a grin, then swept his arm around my waist and pulled me close. “I don’t like fighting with you,” he said when he’d settled me in the crook of his arm.

  “Then don’t.”

  “Sometimes, it’s so hard to resist . . .”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “I have some work to do. Is it okay if I wake you when I come to bed?”

  “Yeah,” I said, getting up to head upstairs. “Just don’t make it too late, okay Cowboy?”

  Dutch stood up as well. “You got it, pardner.” And he bent low to kiss me and give a little taste of my wake-up call for later.

  The next morning I woke up to an empty bed. I sat up and looked around the bedroom, remembering that Dutch was supposed to sweep me off my feet and carry me to some blissful place that I had yet to visit. “Jerk,” I said into the empty room.

  I threw off the covers, grabbed my robe and headed downstairs, following the sound of sawing logs into Dutch’s study. He was sitting reclined in his office chair with his mouth open and a terrific sound filling the room. I rolled my eyes and headed into the kitchen where I put on the coffee and began to scramble Eggy’s breakfast.

  After I’d fed Eggy and Virgil, I padded back into the study with a steaming cup of black coffee and wafted it under Dutch’s nose. He snarfed and grunted a few times, then woke with a start. “Wha . . . ?” he asked, coming around and rubbing his bloodshot eyes.

  “Hey there, Romeo,” I sang with a smile.

  “What time is it?” he mumbled, taking the coffee and giving me a wink.

  “Seven thirty.”

  “Oh, shit!” he said looking at me guiltily. “Why didn’t you come down and get me?”

  “Like you, I was sleeping,” I deadpanned.

  “Sorry, sweethot. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

  I nodded with a smirk. “I’m counting on it.”

  “We’re supposed to meet T.J. at nine thirty before his first class. Why don’t you head up and get ready first.”

  “Will I be showering alone?” I asked playfully.

  “Uh . . .” Dutch hemmed. “The thing is I still have a little work to do. But I . . .”

  “Promise to make it up to me later, yeah, yeah,” I said with a flip of my hand as I walked away.

  “I will, you know!”

  “Promises, promises,” I called back from the hallway.

  Two hours later we were in T.J.’s office sitting in his plush leather chairs while he finished up the phone call he’d been on when he waved us in from the hallway. “Sorry about that,” he said as he replaced the receiver.

  “No problem,” Dutch said with a smile. “We’re just really glad you could help us out on this, T.J.”

  I wasn’t sure what Dutch had said to T.J. in the days following our last visit about T
.J.’s obvious affection for him, but the two seemed to have come to an understanding and had gotten past any uncomfortable feelings toward one another. And I had to admit, the fact that Dutch was a pretty open-minded guy made me feel that much more affection for him. “So whata’ya got for us?”

  T.J. clapped his hands together excitedly as he said, “I haven’t had a chance to analyze the notebook any further, but I have come across something quite interesting about that crest you e-mailed me.”

  Dutch nodded and leaned forward with interest. “I’m all ears.”

  “The crest is from a noble family with a long history out of Vienna, Austria.”

  Dutch’s mouth opened and he turned to me. “Julie Andrews . . .” he said.

  “The hills are alive.” I winked back.

  “I’m not following,” T.J. said, looking back and forth at us.

  “Not important, you were saying?” I said to him.

  T.J. shrugged and continued. “Anyway, the crest is of the von Halpstadt family, a prominent and extremely wealthy clan with ties to Austrian nobility way back when.”

  “Way back when as in no longer?” Dutch asked.

  “That’s the interesting part that I’m just getting to,” T.J. explained. “You see, the family had a bit of good fortune in the sixteenth century when raiding Turks invaded Austria and gained significant ground until they reached the von Halpstadt stronghold. Under the guidance of Helmut IV, the Turks were soundly defeated and sent packing. As a reward for defending the territory against the invading marauders, the Austrian adjunct to Pope Gregory XIII awarded Helmut significant landholdings and other various treasures.”

  “So, what happened to the family?” I asked, with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Intuitively, I knew this was Liza’s heritage we were discussing.

  T.J. sighed and said, “Sadly, like so many other noble families of the time and in the area, they appear to have fallen victim to the perils of the Third Reich.

  “You see, even after Austrian nobility went the way of more modern forms of government, the von Halpstadts appear to have remained quite powerful. The last prominent male heir I can trace was Helmut IX, who was the only son of Pieter VII. He came into prominence just after World War I and appears to have been rather outspoken—speaking out against Austrian unification with Germany in the years leading up to 1940.