Harry took a cab to the Four Seasons, checked in and called his office. It was 3:38 in the afternoon.
“Harry, where are you? People have been calling for you all day, including some detective from the Washington DC police,” Phyllis said. “Is everything all right?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Harry said. He didn’t want to get into it right now. “How about the guy from the IRS?”
“Haven’t heard a thing. Harry, you coming in today?”
“I’m not feeling well.” Which was not far from the truth.
“Can I do anything for you? Pick up some medicine?”
“I’ll be okay,” Harry said and hung up. Phyllis Wampler had worked for him for ten years. She was forty-two, never been married, lived in Ferndale with her dog, a little shorthaired, two-toned thing named Lily. Harry had stopped over one time to drop something off. He rang the bell, Phyllis opened the door with the dog in her arms.
“Lily, this is Harry, the man I work for,” she’d said in a baby-talk voice. “Look at her‚ Harry, she just had a baffer. That’s a pretty girl. She’s a good girl getting her baffer, all pretty girl now. Aren’t you?” The dog barked and she grinned. “Yes her is.”
Phyllis had dates periodically, but if the guy didn’t like Lily it was all over. Some people liked dogs more than people and Phyllis was one of them.
He took Detective Taggart’s card out of his shirt pocket and dialed the number, heard him identify himself.
“It’s Harry Levin.”
“I’ve got something for you. But I’d rather not say it over the phone.”
“I’ve got something for you, too.”
They agreed to meet in the Four Seasons bar in thirty minutes.
“I was investigating a double murder in Georgetown‚” Taggart said. “Didn’t get to the station till seven. By then, as I told you, the diplomat had been released.”
He drank Budweiser from the bottle, fingers wrapped around the neck, looking out of place in the swank mahogany-paneled room in his light green shirt, brown tie at half mast, brown plaid sport coat, and brown hat on the seat next to him. Just the two of them sitting at the empty bar, bartender working, mixing drinks and serving customers at tables.
“What I didn’t know, he’d been read his rights. Printed and photographed before anyone knew about his diplomatic status. He’d caused an accident and he was drunk. Looking at involuntary manslaughter at the very least.”
Harry picked up his vodka tonic and took a sip. The glass was sweating, so he wrapped a cocktail napkin around the bottom. Taggart reached in his jacket pocket, took out a folded piece of paper, and handed it to him. Harry opened it, studied the face in the photo. Drunk eyes staring at him, mustache and goatee, dark hair flecked with gray, early fifties. Something familiar about him.
“Name’s Ernst Hess,” Taggart said.
“Who is he?”
“German diplomat. That’s all I know.”
“Was he hurt?”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“There was blood in the car and blood on his pants.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve got my sources.” Harry sipped his drink.
“What do you mean you’ve got your sources?”
Harry told him about Coco.
“You investigating this on your own now?”
“I’m trying to find out what happened.”
Taggart looked offended, like Harry was stepping on his toes.
“Look, I appreciate everything you’re doing,” Harry said. “I’m not trying to get in your way. But I’ve got to find out who he is and where he is.”
“My guess, on a plane back to Germany. Get out of town, avoid any further embarrassment. What do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Harry said. Taggart’s conclusion made sense but he wasn’t so sure. Taggart picked up the beer bottle and drained it.
“Another one?” Harry said.
Taggart shook his head. “Got to get back to the office. What about you?”
“I have to go to the hospital get the medical examiner’s report, official cause of death, and have Sara’s body shipped home.”
“Take care of yourself.” Taggart slid off the bar stool and they shook hands.
Harry went back up to his room. Found a phonebook in the drawer of the bedside table. He looked up the German Embassy, got the phone number and made a call.
“German Embassy, how may I direct your call?” a woman said, Berlin accent.
“Will you connect me with Herr Ernst Hess, please?” Harry said in German.
“I am sorry, Herr Hess is out of the building. May I take a message?”
“I’ll call him back,” Harry said.
Harry dialed the front desk and asked where the nearest car rental place was, and found out there was an Avis office right down the street. He rented a black Mustang with tan interior. He studied a map of DC that came with the car, and found Reservoir Road. It ran east and west just north of Georgetown University.
He stopped at a sporting goods in West Village and bought binoculars. Then he drove to the embassy and parked across the street in a metered space in front of a redbrick colonial. The embassy was nothing like he expected. It was a modern six-storey steel and glass building inside a gated complex. There was a guard shack with a security gate, and a wide sweeping driveway that extended from the street to the building. Harry watched visitors drive in, have their ID checked by a security guard, then drive up to the entrance and park.
He unfolded the Xerox shot of Hess that Taggart had given him and waited.
At 6:15, a black Mercedes-Benz, twin of the one that had hit Sara, drove in the gate and pulled up to the front door. Harry zoomed in with the binoculars, turned the dial, adjusting the distance, and saw a man in a dark suit, white shirt and tie get out the left rear door and walk around the car, talking to a silver-haired guy getting out on the opposite side. Harry had gotten a good look at him, comparing what he saw to the mug shot of Hess, and was sure it was him. The Mercedes pulled away. Hess and the other guy went in the embassy.
At 7:55, the black Mercedes returned, stopped at the guard shack and pulled up in front of the building. He looked through the binoculars, saw Hess and two other men come out and get in the car.
Harry followed the Mercedes down Pennsylvania Avenue to Wisconsin, took a right and then a left on M Street, and a right on Pennsylvania Avenue past George Washington University to 17th Street, catching glimpses of the White House, Richard Nixon probably in there somewhere, shaving. He’d read an article that said, on occasion, Nixon had to shave five times a day.
On his right was the Washington Monument, and in the distance the arched dome of the Capitol. The Mercedes pulled over in front of a restaurant, Les Halles. Harry knew it, had taken Sara there at the start of the school year. The three men got out of the car and went inside. Harry waited till the Mercedes pulled away and valet parked.
The restaurant was one big room, bar in front, with maybe a dozen stools, the dining room behind it, crowded, bustling. Harry found an empty stool, sat on the side of the bar and ordered a Canadian Club and soda. He could see the Germans twenty feet away, three men at a table for four, speaking German, their voices rising above the din like smoke from their cigarettes. Harry unfolded the Xerox mug shot, positioned it next to his drink, studying the face of Hess in the photograph.
The same man was sitting at the table, no mistake about it, same mustache-goatee, same sturdy jaw. Harry sipped his drink and watched Hess. Hess telling a story maybe, or a joke, having a good time. Harry reached for his wallet, took out a ten and put it on the bar top. Folded the Xerox page and put it in his shirt pocket.
Harry picked up his drink, slid off the bar stool, walked to the table where the Germans were sitting. “Gentlemen, good evening, I heard your Bavarian accent,” he said in German, looking at Hess, “and for a moment I thought I was back in Munich. May I join you?”
The silver-haired guy was about to object until Hess raised an arm to stop him.
“It is all right. He is one of us.”
Hess nodded at Harry, and he sat in the empty seat. “So you are from Munich?” Hess said.
“I was born there,” Harry said. “In 1927. I remember Hitler driving around the neighborhood in his open car, giving speeches.” He threw that out and had their attention now. The third man was big and solid, built like a linebacker, looked about fifty, quiet, didn’t say a word.
“That was an unprecedented time in our history. Unparalleled,” Hess said. Looking like he wanted to relive the past, pumped all of a sudden, grinning, recalling the good old days. “What part of Munich are you from?”
“We lived on Sendlinger Strasse,” Harry said.
“Altstadt,” Hess said, smiling. “I know this street.” He paused. “And where do you live now?”
“Detroit.”
“You must work in the automobile industry?” Hess sipped his drink.
“I sell scrap metal,” Harry said, still in German.
Hess said, “What brings you to Washington?”
“I came to see my daughter,” Harry said, holding him in his gaze. “I had to identify her body.”
Hess looked nervous now, face turning serious.
“You killed her last night, and you’re out having a good time,” he said.
“It was an accident,” Hess said. “I am truly sorry for your loss.”
“Yeah? Doesn’t look like you’re sorry. Doesn’t look like you care one way or the other.”
Hess was flustered‚ got up and started moving across the dining room. Harry went after him, reached out, grabbed the collar of his suit jacket, aware of diners at other tables looking over now. Hess stopped and turned but the big man was on Harry, holding him from behind. He could feel his strength. He went along without resistance for a few steps and then turned his body quickly, slipping out his grasp. The big man came at him again and Harry threw him over his hip on top of a long table, and watched him slide across taking plates and glasses with him onto the floor.
Harry kept moving, heading for the door, but two DC cops in uniform intercepted him before he got there. They cuffed him, took him outside and put him in the back of a squad car.
7:30 in the morning, Detective Taggart woke Harry up, escorted him out of jail and took him back to the station. They went into a big open room, a bullpen with rows of desks lined up, detectives at work, phones ringing, cops moving around. Taggart’s desk had piles of papers and folders on it and a couple white Styrofoam cups with coffee stains on them. There was no place for Harry to sit, so Taggart went down the row to an empty desk and wheeled a chair back. Harry noticed crime-scene photos amid the clutter, eight-by-ten black-and-white shots of a man and a woman naked on their stomachs, blood pooled around their heads. Taggart picked them up and turned them over.
“Shouldn’t be looking at those.”
“I already did,” Harry said. “What happened?”
“Shooter took them down the basement, bam, bam, one each in the back of the head.”
“Looks like they were executed.” The photographs reminded Harry of something he’d seen a long time ago. “Why are they naked?”
“Good question.”
“Who are they?” Harry said.
“Dentist and his fiancee. Maybe it’s a pissed-off patient, guy got a bad root canal,” Taggart said. “This is why I missed the diplomat yesterday morning.”
“Who found them?”
“Somebody called it in.”
“The killer?”
“Crossed my mind. Anxious for us to find them. Maybe that’s part of the buzz.” Taggart sat in the chair behind his desk. “Harry, I appreciate your interest but I think you should be concerned about your own situation.”
Harry sat, blew on his coffee and took a sip.
“I guess I had you all wrong,” Taggart said. “You don’t strike me as the vigilante type.”
Harry pictured Sara’s battered face and felt himself getting angry. “Guy killed my daughter, you think I’m going to let that go?”
“I don’t know but you’re being charged with assault. The bodyguard needed four stitches to close a cut on his face.” Taggart sipped his coffee. “How’d you do that?”
“Judo.”
“Judo, huh? You don’t look Oriental. Where’d you learn that?”
“I took lessons,” Harry said.
“You a black belt?”
“Brown.”
Taggart drank his coffee. “They also got you on destruction of property.” He took out a piece of paper. “Restaurant says you owe them for six Bordeaux glasses, four Limoges plates.” He pronounced the “s.” “Total of two hundred and eighty dollars.”
Harry sipped his coffee.
“German consulate says they’ll drop the assault charges if you go home, promise to get counseling.”
“Counseling?” Harry could feel his bile rise. “They’ve got a lot of nerve.”