Woman on Fire, page 23
“Good, yes.” He pauses as though checking something. “It wasn’t suicide.” His Dutch-accented English is heavy and slightly hard for her to hear.
“Not suicide,” she concurs. “Speak louder and slowly.”
“Dan interviewed the Spotlight editor just hours before he died,” he says. “You should follow up and call the editor, tell him who you are, and try to get information on what happened at that meeting. If you’re uncomfortable with that—I will do it.”
“I’m comfortable, and that was already my plan.” She checks her watch. “But it’s Saturday and nearly midnight, Munich time. I don’t have his information. I will have to wait and call Spotlight Monday morning.”
“That’s not a problem. I will get you the editor’s personal cell within ten minutes. Don’t wait until Monday. Call him tomorrow morning first thing, using this app. Anything important, I suggest, stays off the grid.”
“Got it.”
“And Jules . . . I know this is a hard question, but are you planning to continue working on the investigation anyway, or—”
“Of course, I am.”
“Good, because I’ve learned from a source that four paintings allegedly from the Geisler collection are now on the black market. Whatever I find out, I will let you know.”
“Thanks.” She pauses. “There’s something you should know . . . Ellis is in the hospital, in a medically induced coma. Somehow the family has managed to keep it out of the press. He had a bad fall, and his cancer has taken a turn for the worse.” She gathers her breath. “I don’t know if he’s going to come out of it. But if he does, I plan to do everything possible to get him the painting. He deserves that. Dan would want that.”
Bakker pauses. “So it’s just you.”
She thinks of Adam and shakes it off. “Just me.”
“Be careful. I’m here to help. Whatever you need.” He clears his throat. “There is something else, perhaps the bigger item . . . After I left Dan, I did my own little investigation into the Dassel clan. There’s quite a lot more to digest. Stefan Dassel’s story only half checks out . . .” Bakker’s voice fades.
“And the other half? Louder, please,” Jules presses.
“The other half is what may be the important piece. Stefan neglected to mention in his confessional that not only did his father, Franz, become a leader in the Hitler Youth, but he also later joined the Reichskulturkammer—the Reich’s Chamber of Culture—a plum post reserved for the Nazi elite. Helmuth Geisler was an integral part of that department as well.”
Jules thinks about her Stolen Art category with the purple sticky notes still laid out on her bed. “I know exactly what that is.”
“What you don’t know is that Franz Dassel was actually Joseph Goebbels’s assistant.”
“Goebbels’s assistant?”
“Yes,” he confirms. “Franz saw it all . . . but there’s more. Franz, if you remember from what Stefan revealed, was rejected by one of Arno Baum’s daughters, and because of that, he exposed the Baum family. He must not have gotten over that rejection, because he later used his influence to pluck the very same girl—Lilian Baum—out of Auschwitz. He saved her. She was the only Baum family member to survive the camps.”
Jules stops in her tracks. “Are you kidding me?”
Bakker continues. “I know, it’s unbelievable. Lilian Baum was then around sixteen or seventeen, and it appears that she became the Dassel family maid and then . . . This is the part, Jules . . .” She hears Bakker blow air out into the receiver. She clings tighter to her phone. “Lilian wasn’t just the maid. Or maybe she was, but she married Franz Dassel and divorced him a few years after the war. No kids. Stefan’s mother is actually the second wife.”
Jules stares at the two old men near her, intensely playing chess despite the freezing weather. “How could that possibly happen?”
“I don’t know, but it did,” he says. “To be honest, after years of searching for stolen art, nothing fazes me anymore. And Lilian is still alive. In her nineties. I have her contact information. An address and a phone number. I don’t know where this will lead, but you never know. Here, take it down.” He pauses, and she hears a loud exhale. He’s smoking. “I really liked Dan.”
“He liked you too,” Jules returns. “And he doesn’t like a lot of people.”
“Thank you . . . I really appreciate that,” Bakker says before he hangs up.
Jules stares at the name and address that she’s written down on the backside of the same Starbucks napkin. She heads farther down toward the lake and plops onto the cold damp sand at the water’s edge, the toes of her boots getting slightly wet. Staring out into the foggy abyss, she hopes for some clarity. But everything around her is gray, dreary, and blurred. Even the skyscrapers in the distance have been eclipsed by fog, as though beheaded. Too many moving parts. What am I even investigating here? A stolen painting? Dan’s murder? A criminal art dealer? Over a billion dollars’ worth of stolen art? Ellis Baum’s lost, messed-up family?
At least ten times a day, she asks herself, What would Dan do? But Dan is dead. It’s all on her. Picking up a smooth rock, she throws it as far as she can into the filmy lake but doesn’t see it land. Choose one lead, she tells herself as she gets up to leave. And if you’re lucky, that one will help solve the others. And if you’re not . . . But she pushes the contrarian right back down where it belongs, as far away from her as possible.
Thirty-Two
JULES WAKES UP from a deep sleep, disoriented. She wipes her eyes, thinking that her mother was in her dream. But she’s wrong. Her mother is live, standing in her bedroom, hovering over her, and the familiar scent of coffee mixed with toothpaste mixed with Giorgio Armani fills her nostrils. She is saying something about a young man named Adam Chase being in the lobby.
“Mom, wait, what?” Jules sits up so fast that she knocks over the glass of water on her nightstand.
Her mother picks up the glass. “Yes, Owen just called up. He says there’s an Adam Chase here to see you. This early?” Her lips tighten. “Who is he? Another sticky note category?”
“Here? Like in the apartment building?” Jules’s first thought is the dried zit cream all over her face. “He’s . . . an artist. Ellis Baum’s grandson. Just tell him I will be right down.”
Adam is here. How does he even know where she lives? She glances quickly at her phone on the pillow next to her. Three missed calls from him—one late last night, two early this morning. She has been avoiding his recent calls; the onslaught of texts too. And now he’s here in the flesh, refusing to be ignored. Jules kicks off her covers and quickly hops out of bed, catches a glimpse of herself in the passing closet door mirror, and groans. Christ, what a train wreck. Her eyes are puffy, raccoonlike, from spending practically all night at her mother’s office yesterday investigating Lilian Baum and the Dassel family with their Nazi history as thick as a phone book, as well as that photo of Margaux de Laurent in disguise. A long, tedious night staring at the computer, stuck in research quicksand, but highly productive.
Jules also took Bram Bakker’s advice and had a brief conversation yesterday morning with the Spotlight editor, who initially gave her no new information about his meeting with Dan except to say how sorry he was and that, yes, he had given Dan a confidential photo but would not be able to provide her with more details or comment on it. She pressed him hard about the photo, saying she worked closely with Dan and already has the image in her possession, but needs a basic explanation. He finally relented, admitting that, yes, the photo was taken on German soil. And after further prodding, Jules got an in Munich out of him and a date that the picture was taken. With the Munich detail, she was able to pinpoint the exact location of the photo. By 1:30 a.m., Jules found the small produce market pictured to the far-left side of the photograph, next to the apartment building where Margaux was standing in disguise. It is called Müller’s Markt, in the Schwabing neighborhood, and is located on the very same street where Carl Geisler once lived, proving that Margaux was clearly staking out the place, standing on his street two days before the murder-robbery. That must be what Dan had wanted to tell her.
Of course, the information leads to more questions: Did Margaux steal Geisler’s treasure trove with Woman on Fire, or without it? Did she murder the man? Or hire someone else to do the dirty work? Did Margaux discover Dan was onto her and kill him or have him killed?
And then there is the twisted tale of Franz Dassel and Lilian Baum. After an intensive search through the Library of Congress files, browsing through hundreds of documents and clippings from old German newspapers, tattered microfilm and public records, Jules finally found a marriage certificate dated November 1945 and a divorce certificate dated three years later. It was all right there in faded sepia. Franz Dassel remarried in 1951—Stefan’s mother. Did Lilian ever remarry? Have kids? Work? She found no other information. And Arno Baum . . . Stefan Dassel said that he came from an important banking family. After examining more than one hundred banking-related photos taken during the 1930s in Berlin, Jules unearthed a single image published in the Berliner Morgenpost at a BKommerz bank branch twentieth-anniversary celebration in 1932, taken at one of Arno Baum’s banks. Arno was photographed there with his young family standing behind him. Two small daughters flanked his wife in black and white. Zooming in, Jules saw that Lilian, even as a young girl, looked just like her father and had the same penetrating eyes as Ellis. Jules searched everywhere but found no photos of Anika Baum. What was her maiden name? Who was she? If only she could ask Ellis.
Jules also followed up on Bram Bakker’s information and discovered that one Lilian Dassel—she kept his last name—lives in Baden-Baden. And not in a single-family home; rather, a convalescent home. She is ninety-three years old. No living relatives. If only she could talk to Lilian. If the woman still has her memory. So many ifs.
After nine straight hours of research, Jules turned off the computer, having chosen her lead, the one road to follow. It breathed. She felt it in her bones. And now Adam is here on her doorstep, about to complicate everything. Her brain hurts from all the thinking. She tosses back two Tylenol and scrounges around her drawers for her favorite black yoga pants and a clean sweatshirt. She splashes water on her face, gargles mouthwash, topknots her hair, slips on Uggs, grabs a jacket just in case, and heads out the door. As angry as she is, a tiny, hardened part of her begins to thaw. He showed up.
ADAM SITS, ELBOWS to knees, staring at the floor on the bench across from Owen, their doorman of fifteen years—who is more than just a doorman, her mother always says. Owen is their guardian angel, their protector, always watching out for them. Adam looks up with a hopeful gaze as Jules slowly exits the elevator and walks toward him. She realizes that it’s no longer anger she is feeling. It’s deep hurt.
“Hey,” she says, because nothing else comes out.
Adam takes a hesitant step toward her. His words are slow in coming. “Hi . . . I know this is weird that I’m here. I came because you wouldn’t answer any of my calls.”
A beat of silence. A hundred thoughts merge into one. “Is it Ellis?” she asks. Please say no.
Adam swallows hard. She sees the rocklike protrusion of his Adam’s apple. “He’s still in a coma, but hopefully they are taking him out of it as early as next week . . . we’ll see. No one knows anything for sure. It’s all up in the air. My family hasn’t left his side.” He shuffles his feet, clearly trying to keep it together.
“I’m sorry,” Jules says sincerely. And yet you’re here.
His gaze bores into hers, and it feels like he’s trying to talk to her through his eyes. He is so handsome, but painfully shy, like an awkward boy who grew into his good looks too late. She saw that the very first time she met him in Montana. She remembers thinking that his introverted, self-conscious demeanor didn’t match the wild stories written about him.
“How did you find me?” she asks, wishing her heart would just stop pounding so damn fast.
“It wasn’t hard. Google.” He holds up six fingers. “Did you know that there are a half dozen Jules Roths in the Chicago area, and two happen to be in elementary school?” He glances at Owen, who is eyeballing Adam like a provoked pit bull.
“Impressive.” Jules laughs, despite herself. “For an artist.”
He smiles back, and then the corners of his mouth turn downward. “I know what you think you saw at the apartment. But that didn’t happen.”
The seductive brushstrokes, your basic all-around sex on canvas. “I know exactly what I saw. I didn’t think it,” she counters.
Owen is still glaring at Adam. Jules sees it, smiles appreciatively, and waves that all is okay.
“Is there anywhere else we can go to talk?” Adam asks.
“Say what you have to say right here.” She knows her icy tone belies all the mixed feelings swirling inside of her.
“Okay, fine.” He sighs hard. “I didn’t sleep with Margaux. I painted her. She tried to seduce me. She took off her clothes and tried, but nothing happened.”
“And yet you painted her naked.” Jules states the facts. She thinks about the other painting at the cabin. Margaux standing nude on the globe in stilettos. “And that’s not the first time . . .”
“No, it’s not.” His voice is a hoarse whisper. “But it’s definitely the last.” Jules doesn’t say anything. He tugs nervously at the scruff on his chin. “Look, I was really upset when I found the painting on the bathroom floor and you took off without saying goodbye.” He gives her a pained stare. “How can I make you believe me that it was nothing?”
“It wasn’t nothing to me. You once told me, ‘Every painting has a story.’”
He rubs his eyes, which are red streaked, as though he, too, hasn’t slept. “Okay . . . Just before Margaux left the apartment after telling me about my Basel exhibit, she took off her clothes, and like I said, she tried to seduce me—that’s her way. She uses her body to get what she wants. It’s not about sex—it’s about control. I won’t lie to you. It has always worked in the past. Always. Before, it was all about the drugs for me. It was our sick, codependent relationship. Yeah, that’s what I got in therapy.” His forehead perspires slightly, and Jules feels a little guilty. She knows she is making him work hard for this right now. “But everything has changed. Margaux has nothing over me anymore. I find her repulsive.”
Jules crosses her arms, still not done with it. “So repulsive that you had to paint her?”
His upper lip is sweating. “I don’t know how to explain this. But in that moment, I also saw her as an artist would . . . not as a man. Beautiful on the outside, but monstrously ugly, like Medusa. I wanted to capture that dichotomy. Not her in bed—that. There’s a difference.”
Jules remains quiet, letting his words sink in.
“It’s the truth. Please believe me,” Adam pleads. “I’m here. I care. You matter. That night mattered. What more can I say to convince you that I feel nothing but contempt for Margaux?” He reaches out and lifts Jules’s reluctant chin upward. “Look at me. The night we spent together meant something.” His gaze softens as his grasp on her chin tightens. “It was the first time in years that I made love sober.”
Jules doesn’t want to feel or let him off the hook, and yet . . .
“Sorry that I hurt you,” he whispers sincerely, the hand on her face falling limply to his side.
“Okay,” she says under her breath, so quietly that she only hears it inside her heart. He’s telling the truth. It’s not perfect, but it’s real. She glances over at Owen. Still glaring. “Let’s go to the lake. It’s nearby.”
Fifteen minutes later, they walk along the beach and sit on a large rock formation beside the water. It’s much colder out than she anticipated. Jules zips up her jacket and digs her hands deep into her coat pockets. She’s aware of their bodies touching, and of the way he is glancing sideways at her. “I need to tell you a few things,” she says quietly. “I need to trust someone . . .”
He waits patiently as she draws in the cold air, glances up briefly at the cashmere-gray sky, then spills it all—Dan’s death, the photo of Margaux in Munich, Lilian Baum/Dassel, her recent conversations with Bram Bakker and the Spotlight editor, her mother’s concerns for her safety—all of it.
Adam’s eyes pop at various points, but he says nothing. When she’s finally done, he takes her hand inside his. “I’m going with you.”
“What are you talking about? Going where?”
“Baden-Baden. The nursing home,” he says. “That’s your plan, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” She stops blinking. “It’s my plan, but—”
“I’m paying for it too,” he says adamantly. “And don’t argue. The flights, the hotel, expenses, everything. I have money, Jules. After all the drugs I consumed, all the waste, all the cash I blew . . . I never touched my trust fund, and it’s substantial.” He stares out at the lake as he speaks. “Full disclosure, I tried hard to get to that trust fund money to feed my drug habit, but my parents protected it and locked me out. I hated them for that. Not anymore. I’m grateful. It’s all there, all mine, and available.” He turns to her. “And it’s more than enough for us—you—to do whatever we can to find the painting before . . .”
Before Ellis dies.
He nods silently as though hearing her thoughts. “You’re not doing any more of this alone,” he emphasizes again. “That part is over. And you can tell your mother that too. In fact, if I get a chance to meet her, I will do it myself.” Just as Jules opens her mouth to protest, he lightly presses his fingertip against her lips. “It’s my grandfather, remember. My grandfather. I have a large stake in this. Dan is dead, and I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Especially now, after everything.” He throws a small rock far into the distance and they watch it plunk into the water. “Agree, or I’m not leaving Chicago.”
Jules feels a warm flush rise in her cheeks. I have my team. “Fine, but I call all the shots.” She straightens her shoulders. “Your money, my plan.”
