Shark and Octopus Read online

  “See this link between the man in white and Future-Ride?” With his pen Griffin retraced the line linking the boxes on the left and right sides of the page. “We know he called Future-Ride at least once, from Arazzo Castle. Did he call only that one time? One hundred times? We can’t tell. On that phone he made only that one call to Future-Ride. That’s all we can be certain of.

  “But that’s not the link we’re interested in today. Here is the line we are focusing on today.”

  Griffin darkened the line connecting Future-Ride and Hans Baeder.

  “We don’t know which of our two ladies made those 19 calls from Manhattan to Hans Baeder, but there is undeniably a connection here. What is that connection? Any thoughts?”

  Griffin sipped his cappuccino as he waited.

  “Money?” suggested Bobby. The word came out unevenly. Mornings were not Bobby’s best time. He gulped his black coffee.

  “I don’t think so,” Griffin answered quickly. “Kit and I saw Hans Baeder’s house. A duplex, ragged around the edges. In a neighborhood that was working middle class in its best days. Which were long ago. The real estate agent told us there was no money in the estate, only the house. For Hans Baeder, at least, those calls can’t be about money.”

  “Something illegal?” Kit offered. He wore black slacks and a dark purple shirt open at the collar, a la CJ, the rental agent. Griffin had to admit it looked good on Kit. “Money laundering, drugs, whatever? Didn’t you say the calls were made after seven at night, nobody else around to overhear? And from an alcove phone, where no one else could listen in?”

  Through a long sip Griffin weighed Kit’s points.

  “Possibly,” he said at last. “But it’s hard to see a former German violinist who’s working as a carpenter laundering money. Drugs? You were there, Kit. Did that weary, old house on Gist Avenue strike you as the palace of a drug kingpin?”

  “Sex,” proposed Saif. He was so embarrassed by the word he looked away from everyone, as if suddenly enthralled by the grill of the SUV parked in front of them.

  “Hans is –- was – 30 years older than Alexandria Webb and 50 years older than De-BOR-ah Miller. A vastly older man with a bad back pursued by a high powered Manhattan investment executive? Besides, the rental agent, CJ, said Hans had a lady squeeze of his own. No, we can safely delete sex here.”

  “So? Griffin?” Annie tapped the lid of her cup of green tea. She was wearing tomato red capri slacks that had never quite fit; Griffin thought she looked fabulous in them. “What do you think is the connection between Hans and Future-Ride is?”

  “Annie, I have absolutely no idea. And that’s what we need to find out.”

  “Here are our assignments for today,” Griffin said.

  *

  He turned first to Bobby. “I’m giving you a long shot, Bobby.

  “Call the Spanish embassy in Washington. Tell them you want to track down somebody who saved your life. Tell them you were at the Baltimore Museum of Art fundraiser and a man pulled you out of the path of a truck. The truck would have killed you otherwise. Gush as much as you can manage. You want to thank this unknown hero, but you never got his name. All you know is he’s tall, 6’5”¸ limps, has a Spanish accent, dresses in white. Was anyone matching that description in Baltimore on the date of the fundraiser?”

  “That is a long shot.”

  “Good actors transcend bad scripts.”

  “Who said that?”

  “I just did. Saif?”

  *

  Griffin looked at Saif, surprised again to see how young he seemed for someone about to be awarded his doctorate. In fact, Griffin knew that Saif would have had his doctorate four years earlier, except he had stayed home to help his father recover from a heart attack.

  “Yes, boss?”

  “Go online, if you would. Can you read German?”

  “Nein.”

  “But there must be translation software. Use that if need be. Check out Hans Baeder’s role in the war. The Germans, Nazis in particular, were legendary for their precise record keeping. Then again, this was decades before computerization and the war may have destroyed the records. Still, find out whatever you can about what young Hans did in the war.”

  “What unit did Hans serve in?”

  “Couldn’t say.” Griffin handed Saif the two pages of biographical information he’d gotten from Grace. There was a soft rumble of distant thunder. “That’s the sum of what we know about Hans Baeder during the war. He was a musician and after the war he worked as a carpenter. Those are starting points. Learn what you can. Around teaching classes and preparing for your doctoral defense coming up.”

  “Annie and Kit?”

  *

  Griffin handed Kit and Annie the materials he’d been given in the Future-Ride conference room.

  “Go through this. Try to find a link between Future-Ride and Hans Baeder. Or between Hans and Alexandra Webb or De-BOR-ah Miller. Anything in the annual report imply a connection? I scanned the report and saw some German companies. Look into them. Any musical connections? Or – I can’t imagine how – any Nazi connection? There’s a company brochure with brief bios of Alexandra and De-BOR-ah. Could they have a personal connection to Hans? Try to find the link.”

  Annie and Kit agreed they’d do that.

  “I’ll visit Bow Saw Construction Company in Catonsville, where Grace learned that Hans worked all those years. What can they tell me about him? I’ll pose as a representative of the estate, wrapping up a few details. I printed up some cards yesterday. That’ll give me the excuse to ask questions. My hope is to learn whatever I can about that wall of music on Hans’ bedroom. And why in the world was Hans Baeder a Nazi?

  “Meet back at the house at six. We’ve done pizza and Chinese. Everybody up for Caribbean tonight?”

  Bobby answered, “Sure, mon.”

  Five minutes later Annie, Kit, Saif and Bobby had gone. Griffin stayed on the patio, as the breeze picked up, the sky grew grayer and the thunder pounded more loudly.

  He watched a red haired man smiling as he walked to his car with his two daughters and their beagle. For a moment Griffin envied the man his obvious, ordinary happiness. He knew he wouldn’t smile like that again until this was over.

  He stared at the boxes and lines he’d drawn on the page. For a while he looked at the line between the man in white and Future-Ride. For a full minute he studied the line between Hans Baeder and Future-Ride. Then he drew a dotted line between the boxes for the man in white and Hans Baeder, making a triangle. Inside the triangle he put an enormous question mark.

  FIFTEEN

  June 15

  10:48 am

  By the time Griffin reached Bow Saw Construction Company off Rolling Road in Catonsville, the rain had started. The dash from his Malibu to the construction company offices left his thin cotton shirt soaked through. Griffin was directed to the office of Tom Morton, company president. The air conditioning in Mr. Morton’s office was fired up so high Griffin felt his shoulders twitch in a kind of shiver.

  Tom Morton was sitting at his desk, staring in the general direction of nothing in particular. He had a wide, fleshy, indulged face, mid-forties. For the head of a construction company, Tom Morton spent little time in the sun. His skin was pasty white. The man’s cologne was almost overpowering. Griffin had no eye for toupees, but wondered if he was seeing one now. The hair seemed inhumanly black.

  Griffin approached, business card at the ready. He placed the card on the desk. He got out, “I’m with Estate Eval-”

  The man held up an annoyed hand, in a don’t bother me yet gesture. The hand, Griffin noted, was perfectly manicured, shining like a new car’s bumper. There were none of the cuts or calluses of a man who worked with his hands.

  “I’m expecting a call,” Griffin was told. Tom Morton continued to stare at nothing. “You’ll have to wait.”

  Griffin waited a minute or so before approaching again. Another business card went on the desk. The annoyed hand shot up
once more. Griffin was gaining a far deeper appreciation of the term “self-centered” than he’d ever wanted. He waited some more. The phone rang. Tom Morton listened no more than a few seconds.

  “I knew you’d screw this up,” he yelled into the phone. If Tom Morton ever had any self-restraint, he’d outsourced it long ago. “I want two pair of the suede boots and three pair of the calf high. No, I don’t need any work boots. Think you can manage to keep all that straight?”

  He absolutely radiated anger. It came off him the way heat rises from just-poured asphalt. All for someone mixing up an order for boots. He put down the phone with a flourish of disgust.

  During this rant Griffin was looking at a silver framed diploma on the wall. Did they offer a course in condescension at Hampden-Sydney College? If so, Tom Morton had aced the class.

  “Yeah?” he said to Griffin.

  A third business card joined the others.

  “I’m with Estate Evaluators,” Griffin said, speedily. “Here to ask some questions.”

  “About?”

  “About Hans Baeder.”

  “Hans Baeder?” He could have said “Daffy Duck?” for the tone he took. He asked Griffin, “What do you want to know about that old guy?”

  “When did Mr. Baeder start working for your company?”

  “So long ago I wasn’t alive. My Dad hired him.”

  “What kind of work did he do for your company? Mr. Baeder?”

  “Carpenter,” Tom Morton replied, with a hint of impatience.

  “What kind of carpentry did he do?”

  “The everyday kind of carpentry. Those guys are a dime a dozen.”

  “Was Mr. Baeder married?”

  “I couldn’t possibly remember,” Tom Morton said, his impatience with Griffin’s Q and A more than hinted at now. He did not glance at his Rolex, but his hurry-this-along tone was the equivalent.

  “Could I look through Mr. Baeder’s personnel file?”

  “Long since tossed in the trash.”

  Tom Morton’s secretary entered the office. Her perfume joined his cologne and the combination left Griffin close to gagging. She placed a hand on his left shoulder as she said, “You’ve got lunch with the bankers in half an hour, Mr. Morton.”

  “And how could Hans Baeder possibly compete with your bankers,” Griffin muttered.

  She glared at Griffin, frowning. Her frown moved from Griffin to the door then back to Griffin, an unsubtle hint. He noticed her hand slide inside the presidential shirt as she spoke. He guessed the woman had not been hired for her typing speed.

  “I’m cutting this short,” Tom Morton announced, dismissing Griffin with the jab of a stubby finger. If finger points could kill, Griffin would have been dead by disembowelment.

  Griffin was back at the front door of the company offices, preparing himself to sprint to his car through the rain, when someone called to him from down the hall.

  “I couldn’t help but overhear,” someone said. “You want to know about Hans Baeder?”

  SIXTEEN

  June 15

  11:12 am

  Whoever had called Griffin was in no hurry to be found.

  The first room down the hall Griffin looked into was filled with boxes of copier paper and office supplies. The room next to that contained rolled up blueprints, most piled on the floor. Awaiting him in the third room was an elderly gentleman, a good bit north of 80, Griffin figured.

  “You wanted to know about Hans Baeder,” the man stated.

  Griffin acknowledged he did. There was no place in the small room – it wasn’t really an office – for him to sit.

  “Would you like to hear about the day I met Hans Baeder?”

  Yes, please.

  The man was completely bald. His skin had a parchmentish tinge to it. Griffin had never seen anyone who seemed so ancient. Still, he carried himself with a certain dignified bearing, a man proud of what he accomplished in a lifetime of hard work.

  “This was 1955, when I met Hans. And no, I’m not going to think about how long ago that was. Do the math yourself.

  “We had a customer, home owner on Ken Oak Road, I still remember that. He was a very persistent fellow.” Griffin gave the man a go ahead nod. “One day the owner called me to complain. That morning the bottom step on his porch stairs snapped when he went for his Baltimore News-Post. Had it been the top step he said he might of blown out his knee, which was prob’ly right.

  “‘Your guys didn’t get it right the first time. Send somebody out here. Fix it,’ the fellow tells me.

  “So I send out a crew of two guys. Two hours later, phone rings again.

  “’Your crew showed up, all right,’ says the fellow, this home owner. ’But your guys must of had a liquid lunch. They smelt of malt liquor. They slap a step down, hammer in a couple nails, and call it a day. They don’t even bother hauling away the rotted-out step. Plus which, they left a hammer. You gotta get out here yourself. Fix it,’ he tells me again.

  “So out I go, try to take care of this myself. You know, Mr.-”

  “Gilmore. Griffin Gilmore.” Too late, Griffin realized he’d given his real name. He just wasn’t as good at role playing as Bobby. If this man asked for a business card, Griffin had no idea how he’d explain away the name on the card, Jay Gatz.

  The man never asked for a card. Instead he leaned across a rickety desk to shake hands. His hand was calloused and his handshake, despite his age, was very strong.

  “I’m Mel Morton.”

  “And Tom Morton is-”

  “My son. He runs the shop now. I started Bow Saw Construction the month I returned from the war. Where was I?”

  “The day you met Hans Baeder.”

  “You got t’understand one thing, Griffin. The week before I met Hans, I’d been on a site and a half-built partition fell on me. Missed a couple days work, and for a while walked around with my back bent, ‘cause I couldn’t straighten it.

  “There I am. Bent halfway down, staring at the mess with the steps these two clowns have left me, and wishing I could send them packing. But where do I find anyone to take their place? Where was I?”

  “The day you met Hans Baeder.”

  “So there I’m standing, back bent like I’m giving a permanent bow. Got no idea how I can fix this. And the home owner is giving me an earful. Can’t say’s I blame him. Their work really wasn’t good enough.

  “That’s when this man I later learn is Hans Baeder walks up. He’s carrying his carpenter’s tools. He’s coming back from a job interview on a site someplace. Didn’t get hired. Hans doesn’t say, but I’ve always figured it was because of his German accent. Afterward he tells me he’s walking home from the bus stop. Hans never did get his driver’s license. Used to come in here every day by bus, carrying his tools. Where was I?”

  “You just met Hans Baeder.”

  “So’s this man I do not know picks up the hammer those bozos left on site. He coulda used his own hammer, but he was making a point. Even I’m smart enough to figure out what he was telling me. He can do their job.

  “With a single, soft stroke he hits the underside of the step they just put down. The step goes flying up, that’s how poorly it’d been installed. He does the same to the other four steps. One hammer swing placed exactly right. Never says a word. He hands me each of the old steps and I can see the termite damage. My guys were supposed to fix that, and they hadn’t. It was just a question of time before they rotted out too. This guy, who still hasn’t said anything, just saved me a boatload of problems. Maybe spared me a lawsuit too.

  “’I fix,’ he says. He obviously had an accent, which I knew was German.

  “He goes to my truck. Brings back a piece of lumber. He struggles a bit, he’s so frail. Still, he gets the lumber to the steps. Measures. Measures again. That’s when I started paying real close attention, since every good carpenter measures twice and cuts once. Which is just what he does. Only needs to cut each board the one time. Does this for all five steps. Never
says another word. I hire him on the spot. Told those two other guys I’d mail them their last check.

  “That’s the day I met Hans.”

  *

  For a moment Griffin listened to the rain rushing through the downspout by the window. The rain gave off a busy, headlong noise which Griffin, who never cared for sitting still, enjoyed. He began with an easy question, before working toward why Hans was a Nazi.

  “Mr. Morton, did Hans ever marry?’”

  “No.”

  “Long time girlfriend?”

  “Yes. Gal named Miriam.”

  “You know her last name?”

  Mr. Morton narrowed his eyes in concentration. The man’s struggle to recall was painful to watch. Griffin flashed what he hoped was an encouraging smile. After a full minute, Mel Morton said, “No. Sorry. I almost had her name there. Hans mentioned her a few times, but he kept his private life pretty much private.”

  “Mr. Morton? Hans was a musician? Played the violin?”

  “He did.”

  “You ever hear him play?”

  “He couldn’t play. Not anymore. Hans was wounded in the war.”

  “Did he have a favorite composer, Mr. Morton?” Griffin asked, working his way toward asking about the wall of musical notes in Hans’ bedroom.

  “Couldn’t say one way or the other. I never heard him mention anyone.”

  “Mr. Morton, did you ever go to Hans’ house?”

  “To it, sure. I dropped Hans off many an afternoon.”

  “You ever go inside?”

  “Come to think of it, I never did. I knew I’d be intruding. He kept to himself.”

  Regretfully, Griffin concluded he was not going to learn anything about Hans’ wall of music from Mel Morton.

  “Mr. Morton-”