Bearing Witness (27 page)

We walked to the far end of the room and went down another set of stairs.

“Over there,” Benny said.

I aimed the flashlight to where he was pointing. The beam illuminated an archway cut into the side wall. I moved toward it cautiously. As we got closer, I could make out a metal stairway through the arched opening.

“I think we found it, Benny.” I could hear the excitement in my voice.

We stopped in the doorway, and I pointed the flashlight upward. The metal stairway zigzagged along the interior walls like the stairs on a park ranger lookout tower.

I swept the beam across the ground. “Yech.”

There were dead pigeons on the floor—dozens of them. Some obviously dead for years—just feathers and bones. Others more recent. I picked a careful path through the corpses over to the ladder. Benny followed.

I pointed the beam upward again.

“What is
that
?” I asked, squinting.

About two-thirds of the way up the tower there was a large roundish metal object that filled up most of the interior space. It was difficult to make out details this far away with just a flashlight. “Some sort of water reservoir?”

“Maybe,” Benny said. “Could be this thing used to double as a water tower for the building.”

I lowered the beam and stared at him for a moment. “Well?” I was grinning.

He tilted his head back and studied the stairs for a while. Then he looked at me and winked. “You have a fascinating law practice, Counselor.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

It was indeed a water reservoir—rusted and neglected, long since abandoned. The stairs snaked around it, and the air above it was much colder than below. We climbed past narrow windows, more like slots cut in the thick walls. The wind whistled through them. I paused to peer out of one. It looked north over Market Street and the immobile fountains across the street. Another quarter turn up the stairs, another open window, this one looking west over the maroon tiled roof of the Headhouse.

Behind me, Benny was gasping. “Time-out,” he wheezed, slumping onto a stair. “Christ, my heart sounds like a tympani drum.”

I came back down several stairs and sat next to him. I shined the flashlight overhead.

There was a platform less than thirty feet above. I put my hand on his shoulder and gave him an encouraging squeeze. “We're almost there,” I said.

Benny leaned back, saw what the beam was illuminating, and nodded, his breath still wheezing. I sat quietly, listening to his breathing return to normal.

“By the way,” I said, “I'm impressed with your tool collection.”

“Most women are.”

“I'm referring to your tool tools, you goofball.” I lifted the backpack and shook it, rattling the equipment inside. “You always put yourself down as a Jewish mechanic, but when we needed a chisel and a special hammer, you came through like a champ.”

He shook his head. “I got those from my neighbor. He's some sort of genetic freak.”

“How so?”

“He's a urologist but he isn't Jewish. Probably the only Gentile urologist in the Midwest. And a goy through and through. Took me down to his basement. Place looked like a TrueValue Hardware wet dream. I ask him for a hammer, he shows me a wall that looks like the goddamn Hammer Hall of Fame. I took two for tonight—a normal one and a big mother that looks like it once belonged to Thor.”

I was smiling as I stood up. “Come on. Let's find the judge her corroborating evidence.”

The platform overhead turned out to be the clock landing, and it had clearly been refurbished since Warnholtz began his prison term. All four clocks were new, with whirring electronic motors and special illumination bulbs. There were wires and cords and electric panels. Even more important, there were additional stairs. I had mistakenly assumed that this platform was the highest point in the tower, but in fact the clocks were set in the walls about fifteen or twenty feet from the top of the tower.

We left the clock platform and headed up the stairs into complete darkness. There were no windows up here. I clicked on the flashlight as we reached the final landing. The wind howled outside.

“The northwest corner,” Benny said as he turned, trying to get a fix on our location. His breath vapored in the frigid air.

I moved the flashlight beam slowly around. The area was a square, and three of the four corners were standard right angles. But the fourth one was beveled—essentially a narrow extra wall set at a diagonal into the corner from floor to ceiling. I tried to visualize the outside of the clocktower. The little minaret was attached to the northwest edge of the tower. The beveled corner must have been the common wall with the minaret.

“This is it,” I said, pointing the flashlight beam.

I kneeled in front of the wall and set the backpack on the floor. Unlike the other walls, which were made of brick, this beveled corner was composed of limestone blocks. The blocks were a little longer than regular bricks and about twice as high—about twelve inches long, five inches high. I shined the light along the masonry as I moved my other hand slowly over the blocks and mortar.

Benny was kneeling beside me and unzipping the backpack. “Where's it supposed to be?”

I replayed Warnholtz's words in my mind. “Five from the left, three up from the floor.”

We counted. I held the flashlight close to the wall. The masonry looked the same as what surrounded it.

“He was either a helluva bricklayer,” Benny said as he positioned the chisel against the mortar, “or full of shit.”

Fifteen minutes later, Benny had cleaned out the mortar on all four sides of the block. It took the two of us several more minutes to loosen the block and slide it out of the wall. It was an ample piece of limestone, far heavier than an ordinary brick. Benny reached his hand inside the opening and scooped out loose pieces of mortar.

“There's something hard back there,” he said as he brushed out more debris.

“Let me see.” I leaned down with the flashlight to train the beam on the opening.

“Well?” he asked.

“Look.”

He put his head close to mine as we peered inside. The flashlight illuminated the lower-left quadrant of what had to be the front of a safe.

“Whoa,” he said quietly.

To expose the entire door of the safe, we needed to extract three more blocks. Fortunately, the opening created by the first brick sped up our task. We had the other three blocks out of there in under fifteen minutes. Once we'd cleared away all of the loose pieces of mortar, I shined the flashlight in the large, square opening. The sturdy little safe was in good condition. The numbers on the combination lock were clearly visible.

“What was the combination?” Benny asked.

“Hitler's birthday: April 20, 1889.” I peered into the opening and trained the flashlight beam on the combination knob. “I'm guessing it's four right, twenty left, eighteen right, eighty-nine left.”

I guessed right. On the second try, I pulled down on the little handle. There was an audible
click
and the door swung free.

“We're in,” I said.

I opened the door and shined the light inside. The safe contained one thick manila envelope bound with twine. I reached in and lifted the envelope out of the safe and through the opening in the wall.

“Let's get the hell out of here,” Benny said. “I'm freezing.”

“Wait.” I sat down with my back against the wall. I placed the manila envelope on my lap. “Let's just take a peek.”

I fumbled with the knot until Benny, exasperated, opened his pocket knife and cut through it. I pulled off the twine and opened the big envelope. It was filled with papers. I carefully removed them, making sure not to get any out of order, and I placed them on the ground between us.

I lifted the top page. It was an old, yellowed bill of lading. I wasn't used to reading them, but from what I could decipher, it pertained to a consignment that left the Port of Buenos Aires in South America on a vessel named
La Guardia
on June 7, 1948, and arrived in the Port of New Orleans thirty-three days later. The bill of lading was difficult to understand: parts were in Spanish, parts were in English, and many of the entries, including the weight of the goods shipped, were in abbreviations that I didn't understand. But the goods themselves were identified quite succinctly: DENTAL GOLD.

The next several documents made up the paper trail that followed the shipment from the Port of New Orleans to St. Louis via two different railroad trains. When the gold reached St. Louis, it was unloaded and transported to the Gravois State Bank & Trust, where it was placed in the vault. Sixteen days later, according to the documents, the gold was sold to a dealer in Chicago named Hubert Schwinn for the sum of $300,000, which was placed into Account #2438712, a new account opened that day at the Gravois State Bank & Trust in the name of “Die Spinne.” The next document was a carbon copy of the signature card for that account. I held the card up and shined the light on it so both of us could see. It was dated August 12, 1948. There were two signatures, each one neat and legible: Herman Warnholtz and Conrad Beckman.

I turned to Benny. “Time to go. We've got a long night ahead of us.”

I helped him close the safe and shove the four limestone blocks back into place in the wall. He slipped on the backpack and adjusted the straps. It was his turn to carry it.

We'd passed the clock landing and were almost at the water reservoir when Benny stopped.

“What's wrong?”

He shook his head in disgust as he slipped off the backpack and set it on the stairs.

“Please, please,” he grumbled as he unzipped the bag and shined his flashlight inside. “Aw, shit.”

“What?”

“I left the damn chisel up there.”

I shined my light overhead. “You want me to?”

“Naw, it's my fault. I'll go get it.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, yeah. I need the exercise. I'll meet you below.”

“I can wait.”

“No, go ahead.” He turned and started up the stairs. “See if you can get your bearings there, figure out how we get out of this dump.”

I waited a few minutes. I could hear him trudging up the stairs and cursing under his breath. But by the time I'd squeezed past the rusted water reservoir, his footsteps and grumbling were no longer audible. With the manila envelope under my arm, I mulled over possible exit routes as I continued down the stairs. We'd entered the upper section of the Headhouse on the far west side, had crossed over the center section, and were now at the eastern edge of the building. Instead of a fifteen-minute hike all the way back to the other side, we might be able to find a stairway and an exit nearby.

I reached the bottom of the stairs and paused to listen. From far overhead I could barely hear the muffled echoing of Benny's footsteps. Clicking on the flashlight, I carefully picked my way between the pigeon corpses and through the arched opening.

I hadn't taken more than a few steps when a powerful beam of light flashed in my face. “Well,” said a deep, resonant voice, “look who finally came down from her tower.”

Startled, I stumbled backward a step, squinting into the glare.

He chuckled. “I don't suppose you're Rapunzel, eh? Not with that hair.”

I was unable to see him, unable to see anything. Although flustered, I remembered the archway. It was directly behind me. Benny was on his way down. Trying to shield my eyes from the light, I staggered off to the side, moving in a wide arc, trying to draw him with me, away from the archway. The whole time he kept the beam of light on my face, like a prison spotlight. Blinded, I heard the scrape of his shoes as he followed me.

“Whoa, sister,” he said with a chuckle. “Hold still. Turn off your flashlight.”

I did.

“Who are you?” I said, my voice shaking, still backing away from the archway. His voice was familiar. I struggled to place it. “Are you a guard?”

Another chuckle. “Not the kind you're hoping for. Where's the Pillsbury Jew Boy?”

I stood there dazed, squinting into the light. I recognized the voice. I couldn't believe it.

“I asked you a question. Where's the Pillsbury Jew Boy?”

“He went to get the car. He's out front waiting for me.”

“Left you here all alone?” Another chuckle. “Pretty little girl like you. Fat boy sounds like a pussy to me.” He shifted the beam to the manila envelope under my arm. “You find something interesting up there, Rachel Gold?”

The sound of my name made me flinch. “Who are you?” I asked, stalling for time, my heart racing.

“Answer my question first.”

He had his back to the archway. Benny might be in earshot. I had to warn him.

“
Who are you
?” I shouted. “
Who are you
?”

“Ssh,” he said. “No need to get all in a lather here. If I was going to hurt you, I'd have done that already.”

“What do you want?” I asked, struggling to keep control of myself.

He shifted the beam toward the envelope again. “Just that.”

I pulled it closer to my body.

That made him chuckle. “You don't have much leverage here. First of all, you're inside this place illegally. I believe you lawyers call it trespassing. Second of all, you're unarmed. Third, you're alone. I have an automatic in my jacket and three men waiting up those stairs back in that old ballroom. They're armed as well. But don't worry. All I want is that envelope.”

“Why?”

“We lost track of you and the Pillsbury Jew Boy back there—in fact, we didn't figure out where you'd gone until one of my men spotted a flashlight moving up the clock tower.” Another chuckle. “Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure there must be something awfully important inside that envelope—important enough to make you break into this building in the middle of the night in the middle of your trial. That kind of behavior is just unusual enough to get me thinking that maybe, just maybe, whatever's in that envelope has something to do with our dearly departed Herman Warnholtz. Now, if that's the case, I can—”

There was a sudden
Whomp
.

He groaned in pain as something hard clunked to the floor. His flashlight beam gyrated. There were the sounds of heavy footsteps charging, then an
Oomph
of a collision. Two bodies crashed to the ground. I clicked on my flashlight just as Benny was raising his claw hammer. He was straddling the other man, who was facedown on the floor. Benny smashed the hammer down hard into the middle the man's back. I could hear a rib crack. He smashed it again. Another crack.

I grabbed Benny's arm. “Enough. There are others back there.”

Benny looked up at me, his eyes wild. He nodded and got to his feet. We both stared down at the man on the ground, who was whimpering.

“This way,” I whispered, pointing the flashlight toward the east.

“Wait.”

Benny leaned over and grabbed the man by his shoulder. He pulled him to his side and shined the flashlight on his face. We were staring down at Bishop Kurt Robb. His glasses had been knocked off in the fight, his nose was scraped and bloody. He winced in pain.

Benny turned to me. “You got tape in that backpack?”

I nodded.

He raised the hammer over Robb's head and waggled it menacingly. “Keep your mouth shut, you Aryan asshole, or I'll crack your head open like a soft-boiled egg.” He turned to me. “Get me the tape.”