As I dropped the report back on Mary Louise’s desk, Amy Blount came to the door. She had on her professional wardrobe, the prim tweed suit with a severe blue shirt. Her dreadlocks were once again tied back from her face. With the formal attire her manner had become more guarded again, but she took Ulrich’s two journals and looked at them carefully, comparing them with the photocopy of the fragment I’d found in Fepple’s office.
She looked up with a rueful smile that made her seem more approachable. “I hoped I was going to perform some kind of hocus-pocus on this, impress you beyond expression-but I can’t. If you hadn’t told me you’d found it in a German man’s home, I’d have guessed some Jewish organization-the names all look Jewish to me, at least the ones on the document you found in the Midway Insurance office. Someone was keeping track of these people, marking off when they died; only Th. Sommers is still alive.”
“You think Sommers is a Jewish name?” I was startled: I only associated it with my client.
“In this context, yes-it’s there with Brodsky and Herstein, after all.”
I looked at the paper again myself. Could this be a different Aaron Sommers altogether? Was that why the policy had been paid out? Because Fepple’s father, or the other agent, had confused my client’s uncle with someone else with the same name? But if it was just a case of simple confusion-why had someone cared enough to steal all the papers relating to the Sommers family?
“I’m sorry,” I said, realizing I’d missed what else she’d been saying. “The dates?”
“What are they? Attendance records? Payment records? It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to say they were written by a European person. And you know the man was German. Other than that, I can’t help you. I didn’t find anything like this in the files I looked at, but of course Ajax has company files, not client records.”
She didn’t seem quite ready to leave, so I asked her if she had heard any further accusations from Bertrand Rossy about feeding Ajax material to Alderman Durham. She played with a large turquoise ring on her index finger, twisting it and looking at it under the light.
“That was a strange event,” she said. “I suppose that’s really why I wanted to come by. To ask your opinion-or to trade professional opinions. I hoped I could tell you something about your document so that you could give me your opinion about a conversation.”
I was intrigued. “You did your best, I’ll do mine.”
“This-is not an easy thing for me to tell you, and you would oblige me by promising to keep it confidential. That is, not to act on it.”
I frowned. “Without knowing in advance-I can’t promise that if it makes me party to a crime, or if the information would help clear my client of a potential murder charge.”
“Oh! Your Mr. Sommers, you mean, your non-Jewish Mr. Sommers. It’s not that kind of information. It’s-it’s political. It could be damaging politically, and embarrassing. For me to be known as someone who gave out the information.”
“Then I can safely promise you that I will hold what you say in confidence,” I said gravely.
“It concerns Mr. Durham,” she said, her eyes on her ring. “As a matter of fact, he did ask me to give him documents from the Ajax files. He knew I was working on their history-everybody did. Mr. Janoff-you know, the chairman of Ajax-was quite gracious about introducing me to people at the gala they held for their hundred-fiftieth anniversary, even if he was a bit patronizing-you know how they do it, ‘Here’s the little gal who wrote up our history.’ If I’d been white, or a man, would he have introduced me as ‘the little guy’? But at any event, I met the mayor, I even met the governor, and some of the aldermen, including Mr. Durham. The day after the gala he-Mr. Durham, that is-called. He wanted me to give him anything I had found in the archives which would support his claim. I told him it wasn’t mine to give, and that even if it were, I didn’t believe in the politics of victimhood.”
She looked up briefly. “He didn’t take offense. Instead-well, I don’t know if you’ve met him in person, but he can have a great deal of charm, and he exercised it on me. I also was-relieved-that he didn’t start haranguing me as a race traitor, or something of that ilk, as people do sometimes when you don’t go in lockstep with them. He said he would leave the door open for further discussions.”
“And has he?” I prodded, when she stopped.
“He called me this morning and said he would take it as a favor if I would overlook his having asked me for the material. He said it had been out of line for him, and he was embarrassed to think that I might have thought of him as a man who would behave with such little attention to ethics.”
She turned her head away. “Now that I’m here, this seems-you know someone stole all my research notes.”
“And you’re worrying whether he might have engineered the theft? And that he’s called to ask you to lay off because he already has what he needs?”
She nodded, miserable, still unable to look at me. “When he called this morning, I was only annoyed. I thought, How gullible do you believe I really am, although I didn’t say it.”
“You want my professional opinion? Just with that bit of information-I’d agree with you. You see an empty cream jug and a cat licking its whiskers-you don’t need to be Marie Curie to add two and two together. But there’s another little wrinkle on this.”
I told her about Rossy and Durham talking in the middle of Tuesday afternoon’s demonstration and Durham going up to Rossy’s apartment an hour later. “I’ve wondered if Ajax was trying to buy off Durham. Now-your news makes me wonder if Durham was trying to blackmail Rossy. Was there anything in the data that Edelweiss would pay blackmail to keep quiet?”
“I didn’t see anything that struck me as that kind of secret. Nothing on Holocaust files, for instance, or even a serious slavery exposure. But there were hundreds of pages of archives, things I copied that I thought I might look at later for a different project, for instance. I’d have to be able to see them. And of course I can’t.” She turned her head so I wouldn’t see the tears of frustration.
Durham and Rossy. What had brought them together? Posner had said it was only after he had started demonstrating outside Ajax that Durham began his campaign-but that didn’t prove anything except Durham ’s flair for the limelight.
I leaned forward. “You’re a trained thinker. I told you yesterday what’s been going on around here. Now Durham ’s demonstration has completely stopped. He was a big presence at the Ajax building last week and up to Tuesday afternoon, when Rossy spoke to him. I called his office: they say they’re pleased that Ajax blocked the Holocaust Asset Recovery Act since it didn’t include an African slave reparations section. So they’re putting their demonstrations on hold.”
She flung up her hands. “It could be that simple. I suppose it could have nothing to do with my papers at all. I see it’s a complicated problem. I’m sorry to say that I have another appointment-I’m teaching a seminar at the Newbery Library at seven-but if you can give me one of the photocopies I’ll study it later. If something occurs to me, I’ll call you.”
I walked out with her, locking everything carefully. I brought the photocopies I’d made along with the two books themselves. I wanted Max to look at the material to see if he understood the German. The original might be easier for him to decipher than a photocopy.
I stopped at home to collect Ninshubur from the dryer. The little dog was still slightly damp, and he was a paler blue than he used to be, but the stains around his head and left side were almost gone: a week of being dragged around by a child would soon mix enough dirt into his fur to make the faint line of blood unnoticeable. Before I left, I tried Rhonda Fepple again, but she was either still out, or not up to answering the phone. I left my name and cell-phone number a second time.