The Letter Writer (6 page)

Cain tried to not get his hopes up. Maybe the fellow was a nut, after all. But for the moment he was Cain's only chance to put his one murder case back on the duty board before Mulhearn shipped it out at the end of the day.

“Let's start with the name.”

“Werner Hansch.” Danziger spelled it.

Cain flipped open his notebook. Seeing that he had turned to a letter he'd begun writing to Olivia the night before, he flipped to the next page even as he saw Danziger notice.

“What makes you think that the body is Mr. Hansch?”

Danziger again turned his hat in his hand. As before, he spoke slowly, deliberately, picking his way forward through the sentence as if each word was a stepping stone.

“Some of the details published in the newspaper story.”

“Such as?”

“The tattoo, with the name Sabine.”

“You've seen him when he wasn't wearing a shirt?”

Danziger shook his head.

“He mentioned it once. The girl. Sabine worked in that theater, the one on the ticket stub you found.”

Confirming that Angela Feinman had lied to him, Cain thought. To protect Sabine, perhaps.

“Also, Blackjack was his brand of gum, the same as you found in his pocket. He used to leave gobs of it stuck to the bricks outside my door.”

“Interesting. But not exactly definitive proof.”

“I have other reasons. More definitive, as you say. But I am not yet willing to discuss them.”

“May I ask why?”

“I am not yet certain you can be trusted with this information.”

Cain put down his notebook.

“Mr. Danziger, I'm a police officer.”

“Exactly.”

It was an answer Valentine would have enjoyed, given his mistrust of the 14th precinct. Cain decided to overlook it for now.

“If you've got information material to a homicide investigation then it's your duty as a citizen to offer it. But for the moment we'll work around that. This Mr. Hansch, is he a frequent visitor to your home?”

“He was a customer of mine. Of my business.”

“Which is what, exactly? I'm afraid that the word ‘Information' isn't very, well, informative.”

“It suffices for my customers. Mostly what I do is write letters. For those who are unable to write for themselves. It is a common need where I live.”

“So Mr. Hansch is illiterate?”

“Illiterate, and he speaks—begging your pardon,
spoke
—very little English. His mother tongue was German. He began employing my services several weeks ago, and I have his letters. All of his correspondence, for the entire period.”

Cain picked up his notebook again, pen poised in the air.

“You have Mr. Hansch's letters? His personal mail?”

“As I said.”

Cain leaned forward. Now he was hooked.

“I'd very much like to see those letters. Provided, of course, that the body in question is that of Mr. Hansch.”

Cain was a bit surprised by his own syntax. He wondered if Danziger's somewhat formal cadences often had this effect on others.

“Of course. Although I do not have them with me at the moment. I presumed that an identification of the body might first be in order, so for the time being I have secreted them in a safe location, outside of my home.”

“Perhaps you could take me there.”

“Perhaps.”

“In the meantime, would you be prepared to accompany me to the morgue?”

“It is the course of action that I expected. It is why I came.”

“Glad to hear it, sir.”

Danziger reached across the desk and gently placed a bony hand upon Cain's sleeve. Then, with a look of deepest concern, he said, “But first, sir, please tell me something. How much longer before your daughter arrives in the city?”

Cain, usually a master of the poker face when dealing with witnesses and suspects, couldn't prevent his mouth from dropping open in surprise. A second or two passed before he spoke.

“How do you know about my daughter?”

“Olivia, is it not? Named by her mother. Did she choose it from Shakespeare?”

Cain nodded, transfixed. Had the old man seen the page in his notebook? Even then, how would he have known how Olivia got her name? Impressive, but possibly a trick, like the way fortune-tellers fleeced your wallet and guessed at your life story from the contents. Or, worse, maybe this was all a joke, a nasty prank engineered by his new colleagues. He glanced around him, half expecting to be greeted by a host of smiles and winks, the whole thing a ruse. But no one seemed the slightest bit interested in either him or the old man.

“Good guess,” he answered. “It's from
Twelfth Night.
”

“An educated guess, of course. Otherwise I would not have ventured it. Perhaps I was only trying to impress you.”

“You succeeded.”

“I did not ask about your daughter in order to be intrusive, or threatening. I asked because I am hoping her arrival will come as late as possible, preferably after the matter before us has been concluded.”

“And why is that?”

“It is one thing for you or me to risk life and limb, quite another to involve a child. So, while we must work carefully, we must also work quickly.”

“ ‘We,' Mr. Danziger?”

“Of course. I have rearranged my schedule to make myself available to assist in your inquiries. Provided we come to an understanding, of course. As you said, it is my duty as a citizen, especially considering the dangerous element we are likely to be dealing with.”

“That's quite a statement. What makes you so sure about this ‘dangerous element'? Apart from a dead body, of course.”

“As I said, there are matters I would prefer to discuss only after ensuring that the body is that of Herr Hansch.”

“And after being assured that you can trust me.”

“Yes, there is also that.”

Cain nodded, not sure whether to smile or frown. So he just stared, gaping at Danziger as if he were a spirit that had descended from the cloud of smoke near the ceiling. He shook his head, as if to clear it. Part of him now almost hoped the body
wasn't
Hansch. Better to have an unsolved case, perhaps, than to get entangled with this strange old mystic who seemed to know more than he should. Cain glanced again at the calling card. Information, indeed. He cleared his throat and stood.

“In that case,” he said, “we'd better go have a look at the body.”

IT WAS CAIN'S FIRST TRIP
to the city morgue. He told Danziger they'd have to travel by bus, which would require some walking.

“I'd drive you, but, well—”

“Rationing, yes?”

Cain nodded.

“Just as well. I am not accustomed to luxuries. The last time I took a taxi was 1928.”

Fourteen years ago. Must have been a grand occasion, or maybe the man had money then. Another casualty of the Depression, perhaps. It stirred Cain's curiosity, but Danziger didn't seem like the type to readily talk about himself. He'd be too busy finding out more about you.

Cain's hopes for morgues were always minimal: freshly mopped floors and strong refrigeration. Some of the ones back in his home state had failed on both counts, and his nose remembered. At least this time there would be no grieving relatives to deal with. Danziger didn't seem the least bit bereaved by the man's demise. Cain wondered if he was that detached from all his customers.

The entrance to the city mortuary, as it was officially known, was on 29th, just off First Avenue in one of the hulking brick buildings at Bellevue Hospital, which was better known for housing nuts and drunks. The dead resided in a building on the south side of the complex, and their quarters were like a lot of the city's housing—cramped and overcrowded, with low ceilings and multiple floors, a tenement of corpses. It was surprisingly noisy, with gurgling pipes, creaking floorboards, and tile walls that echoed every footstep as attendants came and went.

They approached the duty clerk at the front desk. Someone had just parked a gurney off to the side carrying the body of a boy with a livid bruise on his forehead. He was about Olivia's age. His clothes were torn and there was still a touch of color in his cheeks, as if he'd been whisked here straight from a game of stickball. Cain felt a catch in his throat as he announced his name and his business.

“So you're here for one of the John Does, then?” The clerk opened a big clothbound ledger.

“From last Monday night. Fished out of the Hudson. My name should be on the paperwork.”

“Here we go. Third floor. Murphy here will take you.” He nodded toward a stooped man in white scrubs who'd materialized next to the dead child. “Doc Bolton's report is in, too, if you want to see it.”

Cain signed for a copy, which the clerk hammered with a rubber stamp.

“Looks like he didn't get around to the autopsy until Saturday,” Cain said.

The clerk shrugged.

“Busy place. And your guy wasn't exactly a Vanderbilt. Who's your guest?” He nodded toward Danziger.

“Possible acquaintance of the deceased. I'm hoping to make an ID.”

“You'll have to sign him in.”

Paperwork completed, they followed the silent Murphy to the elevator, then trooped past rows of meat locker doorways to the end of the third floor corridor, where Murphy unlatched the door and opened it to a gust of sour, chilly air, smelling muddily of the Hudson. Murphy slid out a stretcher-like tray into the corridor. Cain recognized the body from the scene, except now it was naked, with a row of black stitches down the middle of his chest. Pinkish-blue lips gaped toward the ceiling. Filmy eyes were open to the bright lights.

“That is him,” Danziger said calmly. “It is Werner Hansch.”

“You're sure?”

“Positive.”

Cain nodded to Murphy, who finally spoke. “Everybody got what they need, then?” He gripped the railings, ready to shove it back into cold storage, then flinched as Danziger placed a hand on his arm.

“I would like to inspect him a few seconds more, if it is permitted.”

“Hey, he ain't in no rush.”

Danziger leaned closer, peering down at Hansch's chest with the concentration of a surgeon.

“The burn marks are from cigarettes, in case you're wondering,” Cain offered. “All those black dots. The autopsy confirmed it.”

“Except for this one,” Danziger said, pointing at Hansch's right breast. “This is what I was looking for. Do you see?”

It was a black semicircle, and at first Cain thought it was another burn. On closer inspection he saw that it was a tiny
L
in black ink.

“Another tattoo?” Cain asked.

“The mark of the Silver Shirts. A group of fascists, or Nazis if you will.”

“Like the American Bund?”

“Lesser known. Hansch was with a group of German laborers who went west when they reached this country. Seeking jobs, adventure. I suspect they were all familiar with the tales of Karl May. From the movies probably, since none of them could read. Perhaps they fancied they would become cowboys. Hansch was uneducated and poor, but willing to do hard labor. The Silver Shirts employed them in building a compound in the California hills. Then the war came, and the authorities shut them down. So Hansch and a few others wandered for a while, until they came east, to Yorkville, where I feel quite sure that any Bundists would have welcomed them with open arms.”

“How do you know all this?”

“How do you think?”

“His letters?”

“And from things he told me, plus what I already knew, and then putting two and two together. In my part of the city, people talk about these groups quite a lot—the Silver Shirts, the Bundists. Even America First, led by the hero, Lindbergh. When you are a Jew, it is useful to know what sort of person might next come looking for you and your family.”

“Then why would Hansch come to you, if, well…?”

“If he knew I was a Jew?”

“Yes.”

“I asked myself this same question.”

“And?”

“First, allow me to boast that my services are well known among speakers of certain languages, even beyond Rivington Street. I have a reputation for accuracy, and for complete discretion, a vow of privacy which I adhere to as strictly as a priest in a confessional. So there is that. Second, my occupation is not so common anymore. In Yorkville it has practically vanished, meaning it is not unheard of for me to receive, how do you call it…?”

He searched the air above him for the right word.

“Referrals?”

“Precisely. Yet, I suspect the greater reason Herr Hansch sought me out is that, Jew or not, he wanted someone who did not move in the same circles as he. Someone who was not at all likely to know his employers or his associates. He assumed it would be safer that way.”

“Lot of good that did him.”

Murphy, who by now was leaning on the rails of the tray, cleared his throat.

“We stand here much longer and the merchandise starts to stink.”

Cain turned to Danziger.

“All done?”

“With him, yes. But there is another body to attend to before we depart.”

“
Another
one?”

“The one that made me so certain that this first one would be Herr Hansch.” He turned toward Murphy. “So, if you please…”

Murphy shook his head. “Unh-uh. It don't work that way. If you gotta second name, you gotta get back in line, down at the desk. I can't be going door to door on your say-so, like you're the mayor or something.”

“First, how 'bout an explanation,” Cain said, still reeling. “A second body? How long have you known about this?”

“Since late last night, when I went to keep an appointment with another client, and instead came upon his remains.”

“You were a witness?”

“Only to the aftermath. Police were present by the time I arrived. There should be paperwork in the appropriate precinct if you would like to check, but I will not be mentioned in it. The body, however…Well, if it is here then there is something I need to check while we have the chance.”

“I'm going to need more information than that.”

“Of course. When the time is right.” He glanced at Murphy, then whispered to Cain. “Two men are dead, sir. Information travels quickly, and often by unlikely channels, and I do not wish for either of us to become the third due to a possible indiscretion.”

Strangely worded, but Cain supposed it never hurt to be careful. “Then let's go back downstairs. It's your show from here.”

Cain expected the duty clerk to raise an eyebrow at Danziger's request. He instead flipped open his ledger with a world-weary sigh, as if requests to view additional bodies happened all the time.

“Going for the daily double, huh? Got a name for this one, or is it another John Doe?”

“Klaus Schaller,” Danziger said. “He would have arrived either last night or early this morning.”

“Bingo. Just after two a.m. Third floor again, couple doors down from where you just were. Murphy?”

The attendant frowned and took them back upstairs. Cain eyed Danziger the whole way, trying to figure out this strange old fellow—or not so old, who could say for sure? He might be an oracle, might be an accomplice, or even a psychopath who got his jollies by killing people and then viewing the bodies later with a cop. Or maybe, as he claimed, he was simply the guy who opened everyone's mail, and wrote their replies. Although at the rate he seemed to be losing clients, he'd soon be out of a job.

Murphy slid out another tray from the cold. No smell from the river this time. The victim's chest had been blown open by some sort of blast, but once again there was a tiny black
L
tattooed on his right breast.

“Another Silver Shirt?” Cain said.

“It would appear to be so.”

“You didn't already know?”

“I was not positive for either man. Certain things they said led me to believe it would be the case. And I know they were friends. Or acquaintances, rather. Traveling companions, from Hansch's time out west.” He lowered his voice again. “The rest I will tell you later.”

Not that Murphy looked particularly interested. Cain nodded. The attendant slid the body back into the darkness and relatched the door with the same sound the door of Cain's icebox made when he put back the milk.

After they reached the street, he waited for Danziger to speak.

“Well?” he prompted.

“Not here.”

“All right, then. We'll go back to the station house.”

“Not there, either. In a police station there are too many ways in which your words can reach the wrong ears. Besides, as I told you, I do not have Herr Hansch's letters with me. But now I am willing to show them to you.”

“So I passed the test?”

“For the most part.”

Cain laughed. “What an honor. But how do I know
you're
reliable?”

“What more do you need to know about me? I am a man of simple means, with nothing to gain from this situation but my honor. Is it my origins that trouble you?”

“Your origins?”

“As a
Mischling.
That is what Herr Hitler would call me. Descended from both Jews and Prussians. The blue of my eyes owes to the latter. West Prussia, city of Danzig. Thus my family name, from my father's side. My mother's people were Jews, a White Russian on one side, Bessarabians on the other, thrown together by pogroms and long rides in ox carts and, later, by transatlantic crossings in leaky, verminous ships. I arrived on these shores when I was eleven. By the time I was fourteen, both my parents were dead. I am fifty-two years old.”

Cain was astounded by his age, having pegged him for well over sixty. Then, looking closer, he wasn't. Danziger was a shape-shifter, an apparition in progress—ancient one moment, deceptively youthful the next. The ratty clothes, the pale skin, and the silver hair all made him look ancient. But the moment he moved, or spoke, or squinted in thought, activating the wheels inside his head, the years melted away, and Cain could imagine him as a young man with big ambitions and a full head of lustrous black hair, a glamorous woman on his arm. Something seemed to have aged him prematurely, and something else kept him young, and safe with his secrets. He lived alone. Cain sensed that much already, and he wondered if it was by choice.

People as exotic as Danziger were new to Cain. In Horton you were pretty much either black or white, Baptist or not, rich or poor or of middling income. Go back far enough among your white neighbors and you might find German Lutherans on one side, Scots-Irish on the other. But no one in Horton ever paid much attention to that. The first things anyone ever wanted to know were where you went to church and whether you owned land. In all his years in Horton he'd met only one Jew, Mr. Goodman, who ran a general store. The only New Yorkers he'd come across in recent memory were his wife and his father-in-law, a starchy Episcopalian who fancied himself a “true Knickerbocker,” whatever that meant, although it was probably safe to say Harris Euston had never rubbed elbows with the likes of Maximilian Danziger. Not if he could help it.

“You know, the way we're doing this isn't exactly proper procedure. If I wanted, I could run you in right now based on what you've already told me. You're a material witness in two homicides.”

“I suggest we meet tomorrow evening,” Danziger responded evenly, ignoring Cain's challenge. “By then I may have been able to gather more information. Let us say Caruso's, a saloon on Eighth, just above 44th. There is some drinking ritual you are supposed to attend there, yes?”

“So you know about that, too.”

“It was the topic of much discussion in your station house. I could join it in progress.”

“By that time I might be too drunk to care.”

“You do not strike me as that sort of drinker. Besides, these police events, these rites of…” He searched for the word. “…of
initiation.
From what I know of them, you may be eager for a pretext to allow for an early exit.”

“That bad, huh? As you wish, then. Caruso's it is.”

Cain couldn't help but smile. Danziger was running this show, yet somehow he didn't mind. With any luck he might learn something. An old hand from one of the oldest parts of the city. There was probably a lot of knowledge to be tapped from that noggin of his.