The Memorist

Chapter 87

Thursday, May 1^st-6:15 p.m.

“His name is Sebastian Otto,” Meer said, getting the words out of her mouth as fast as she could as if that would take away her nausea. “He locked us in and left. Left with the gas turned on, and I know where he is…where he’s going. To see his son at the Steinhof hospital. Nicolas Otto. Sebastian thinks he can help his son…that’s why he killed my father…” She wanted to cry, could feel the tears just behind the words but she needed to tell them what they needed to know so they could find Sebastian. To arrest him. For doing this.

While Inspector Schmit called in the information, Inspector Krantz helped Meer into the patrol car, explaining he needed to take her to the police station for her statement and then apologizing for the intrusion.

“No. I want to go to the hospital. To stay with my father.”

“All right, we can find a room at the hospital and talk there,” Krantz said as he started the car.

Schmit hung up and turned to Meer. “We have men on the way to Steinhof.”

“Do we have a description of Herr Otto?” Krantz asked his partner as he drove off.

From the back seat she could see Schmit’s neck turn slightly red. “Would you mind, Miss Logan?” he asked.

She described Sebastian and as soon as she was done tried to picture her father’s face. Not the way he looked on the gurney as the medics pulled the blanket over him-gray and inert-but any other time-a day in New York when they were having lunch and he was telling her about finding one of his Torahs. But his face eluded her.

Swallowing her emotions, she looked out the window at the passersby on the street. The rain had stopped but the sidewalks were still wet and most people were carrying dripping umbrellas. Three jean-clad teenagers all wearing earbuds were talking to each other on a corner. An elderly woman holding a light blue shopping bag with gold letters on it walked beside a mother pushing a baby carriage that had a red balloon attached to its handlebar. The traffic was heavy and the police car traveled slowly, so slowly they were going at the same speed as the balloon. For two more blocks, Meer watched the red dot instead of the ambulance, and then the traffic eased and they sped off. Twisting around, she kept her eyes on the balloon as it got smaller and smaller until it was completely invisible. When she could no longer make it out at all, a new wave of sadness crashed over her. Putting her fist up to her mouth, she forced the sob back.

Krantz must have noticed her sudden movement in the rearview mirror because he said: “We are almost there. Is there anyone you need us to contact?”

“Malachai Samuels.”

“Is he back in the States?”

“No. Here. At my hotel.”

He made a note. “Anyone else?”

There must be but she couldn’t think of who. Couldn’t think at all. She kept seeing her father lying, unmoving, with the medics surrounding him.

The car veered to the right into the emergency entrance of the hospital where five ambulances were parked. Meer didn’t know which one carried her father’s bo-She couldn’t even think the whole word. Jumping out of the car, looking at the five identical vans, she panicked.

Sensing her confusion, Krantz came around to her side. “Your father is already inside,” he said, offering his arm but she shook her head and preceded him toward the double glass doors.

The antiseptic smell hit her as soon as she entered the lobby. Now that she was inside, she didn’t know where to go and looked around, lost.

“We’ve secured a room where we can talk. Please come this way,” Krantz said, after he gave her a few moments alone with her father’s body.

In the middle of a round table was a bouquet of drooping daisies in a glass vase and half a dozen pieces of a child’s puzzle. Inspector Fiske, the officer she’d met almost a week ago after the robbery and Ruth’s murder, was waiting, writing in a notebook when she walked in. His sad, basset-hound eyes looked up at her sympathetically. “I know this is a very hard time for you,” he offered.

She nodded. Spoke quickly. It was too soon to hear condolences. “Am I under suspicion?”

“No.”

Krantz and Schmit were standing behind her, not sitting down at the table. “Then why are they standing by the door? Making sure I don’t run away?”

“I’m not worried about you running away. They’re there to protect you.”

“Isn’t it a little late for that?”

Krantz tried to hide his reaction by writing something in his notebook, but Meer had noticed how he’d recoiled.

“But we were following you,” he said.

She was startled. “Why?”

“We caught the report about what happened in Baden to you and Sebastian Otto and put a detail on you, which you managed to slip right after you left Malachai Samuels-and his police detail-in the park and jumped on a tram.”

Meer could feel Sebastian’s fingers gripping her arm and pulling her onto the moving vehicle. At the time she’d believed him when he’d said he was trying to evade whoever had attacked them in the woods, whoever wanted to use her to find the flute. She’d believed him when he’d lost Malachai in Rathaus Park by accident. But now she knew better. By grabbing her like that he’d managed to separate her from Malachai and the police following them. Was that the point when Sebastian had gone from helping her to trying to do whatever he had to do to get what he wanted? Or was it, as he’d told her in the vault, when she refused to play the song for him early this morning?

Schmit’s phone rang and he answered it. Meanwhile Krantz asked Meer another few questions about the timeline of what had happened in the vault under the Memorist Society but she stopped halfway through her answer when she heard Schmit say Sebastian’s name on the phone.

“What is it?” she asked Krantz.

“I don’t know what-” He’d just started to speak when Schmit snapped his phone shut.

“Sebastian Otto isn’t at Steinhof. He hasn’t been there since the day before yesterday but he called the nurses’ station a half hour ago. Our men are looking for the nurse he spoke to. Seems she’s on break.”

Meer thought about Sebastian as a father…thought about her own father…the adventurer who fired guns and got arrested and smuggled treasures across borders…who would have done anything to help her. Broken any law. Committed any crime.

“Inspector, there’s a special concert tonight at the Musikverein. I think it’s going to be broadcast, is that right?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Can you find out for sure?”

His forehead creased in consternation. “Why do you want to know?”

“Please…”

Over his shoulder he asked Fiske, who answered in English. “Yes, it will be broadcast.”

“What time is it now?” She’d lost her watch in one of the tunnels.

“Almost seven,” Krantz said.

“We have to go. That’s where Sebastian is. I have to talk to him…to stop him.”