Painted Ladies

26

I sat at my desk with a cup of coffee and a lined yellow pad. I was making a list of what I knew and questions I had about the death of Ashton Prince. I always liked making lists. It gave me the illusion of control.

There was certainly some kind of connection among Prince and Missy Minor and, presumably, Winifred Minor. And obviously one between Prince and the museum. There was almost certainly a connection between Prince and the robbers that I didn’t see. There was no reason for them to show up for the ransom exchange already prepared to kill him, unless there was more going on than was so far evident. And somewhere along the way, as I wandered through the case, I had done something to make them want to kill me.

We had a few leads: the two shooters now in the forensics lab, and the speculative relationship between Missy Minor and Ashton Prince. I wrote those down. I needed to learn more about Prince and the Minor women. I wrote that down. Digging into Prince would mean talking again with his wife. My heart sank. But I wrote it down. Detective work is not always pretty.

My office door opened. I put my hand on the .357 Mag I kept in my open top right-hand drawer.

Martin Quirk came in.

“Don’t shoot,” he said. “I’m an officer of the law.”

“Okay,” I said, and took my hand off the gun.

Quirk tossed a manila envelope on my desk, poured himself a cup of coffee from the coffeemaker on top of my file cabinet, and took it to one of my client chairs, where he sat down and took a sip.

“Whaddya doing?” he said.

“Making a list,” I said.

“Things to do with the Prince killing?”

“Yep.”

“Makes you feel like you know what to do,” Quirk said. “Don’t it.”

“It’s a very orderly list,” I said.

“Got any information in the list?” Quirk said.

“No,” I said.

“But it makes you feel like you’re making progress,” Quirk said.

“Exactly.”

“Copy of the forensics on the two guys you iced,” he said. “Take a look, tell me what you think.”

I opened the envelope and browsed the report. Much of it I didn’t understand.

“You understand all this stuff?” I said.

“Some of it,” Quirk said.

I read on. Quirk rose and got more coffee. When I finished reading, I put the report back in the envelope and got up and poured myself some coffee and sat back down and put my feet on the desk.

“No ID,” I said.

“Neither one,” Quirk said.

“One guy was wearing shoes made in Holland,” I said.

“That are not exported,” Quirk said.

“So maybe he’s Dutch.”

“Maybe,” Quirk said.

“Both of them are circumcised,” I said.

“So maybe they’re Jewish,” Quirk said.

“Lotta goyim are circumcised,” I said.

“Hell,” Quirk said. “I’m circumcised.”

“I’m not sure I wanted to know that,” I said.

“Irish Catholic mother,” Quirk said. “I think she was hoping they’d take the whole thing.”

I grinned.

“And both these guys got a number tattooed on their forearm.”

“Death camp tattoo,” Quirk said. “From Auschwitz. Only camp that did it.”

“But it’s the same number,” I said. “On both of them.”

“I know.”

“And,” I said, “neither one of these guys was anywhere near old enough to have been in Auschwitz.”

“Both appear to be in their thirties.”

“So they were born, like, thirty-five years after the Holocaust,” I said.

“Correct,” Quirk said.

“Maybe it’s a prison tattoo,” I said.

“A letter and five numbers?” Quirk said. “And it wasn’t crude. It was professionally done.”

“Maybe it’s not a prison tattoo,” I said.

“It’s not,” Quirk said.

We were quiet.

“How ’bout an homage,” I said.

“You mean like in memory of somebody who actually was in Auschwitz?” Quirk said.

“Yeah.”

“Possible,” Quirk said.

“If it is, there may be an actual name attached to that number,” I said.

“The death camps were liberated more than sixty-four years ago,” Quirk said.

“Nazis woulda kept good records,” I said.

“You think the efficient cocksuckers kept a record of the numbers and the names?” Quirk said. “And saved them?”

“You know what they were like,” I said.

Quirk nodded.

“Okay,” Quirk said. “They kept records.”

“Yes,” I said.

“So where do we find them?”

“I don’t know,” I said.