Gregg Loomis - The Julian secret

And assignations, Lang thought but did not say. Don Juan's largely boastful memoirs were full of adjoining bedchambers. "Did the police check the other rooms?"

"I-I guess so. You'll have to ask Sonia. I didn't get here until yesterday. I called you before I left. Anyway, Sonia was here when the police inspected the place."

Gurt had been poking through the stacks of papers. She held up several. "These are research notes all. Does anyone have the manu, manu…"

"Manuscript," Lang finished.

"Does anyone have a copy of the whole manuscript?"

Jessica shook her head. "According to Sonia, there was only one complete copy, but it is missing along with the computer's hard drive."

So much for the theory Don Huff was killed for something other than the manuscript.

"And this?" Gurt was holding up a small metal filing box full of index cards, a device that reminded Lang of how he wrote term papers in the age before computers.

Jessica shrugged again. "I don't know. I hadn't seen Dad in over two years, had no idea even how he was going about his writing."

Lang took the box from Gurt. Each card had a single name, address, and what Lang gathered to be phone numbers at the top. Under that were one or two words in what looked like German. The rest of the card had handwritten dates, some as recent as two weeks ago.

Lang handed it back to Gurt. "What do you make out of the cards?"

She flipped through slowly. "It is a list of subject matter and people. For instance, here is someone with a reference to the Nuremberg Trials, another with reference to a parachute jump over Crete."

"What does that all have in common?" Lang asked.

No one had an answer.

Hotel Alphonso XIII

17:30 (the same day)

A call to the police station from Don Huff's house had informed Lang that Inspector Pedro Mendezo, the investigating officer, observed the usual siesta and would return to duty around 18:00, six o'clock. With nothing better to do and the shops shuttered for the next four hours, Gurt and Lang had returned to the hotel. Before succumbing to jet lag, they had made love, a wild and noisy affair that Lang suspected could be heard all the way down the sumptuous hall.

Neither cared.

Refreshed and sated, they awoke famished.

"Should I telephone the room servicers?" Gurt asked.

"Room service. No, let's go out," Lang called back from a shower that far exceeded those in most European hotels. This one allowed the bather to actually stand rather than squat in a tub while using a flexible hose with a nozzle at one end. The normal arrangement reminded him of the German word for shower, Dusche. Stepping out of the shower, he helped himself to a luxurious robe and walked into the other room, where Gurt was lighting her first cigarette of the day.

"Do you have to?" he asked.

"You smoke cigars," she replied, shaking out a match.

"Once or twice a month, maybe."

"So your cigars are five or six times larger than my cigarettes. I smoke one, two cigarettes a day-it is the same, yes?"

There was a logic error there somewhere, but Lang wasn't sure where. At least he had gotten her habit down from over a pack a day. If she didn't quit, she wasn't going to be around long enough to become the next Mrs. Lang Reilly. So far, though, he had had little luck in persuading her into marriage. Instead, she seemed perfectly content, pointing out that their relationship worked just fine as is. He had had no success in finding the logic error there, either.

Minutes later, they were getting out of a taxi in front of a building with the unmistakable facade common to 1930s-era dictators, a style of architecture Lang referred to as Fascist Modern. After they passed through metal detectors found in public buildings worldwide, a uniformed officer directed them to the office of Inspector Mendezo.

Blinds against the still-fierce afternoon sun created an artificial twilight. Silhouetted by a dim lamp, a thin figure rose to extend a hand and a "Buenos dias." A chink in the blinds behind him allowed sunlight into the two visitor's chairs in front of the desk, an arrangement that made it difficult to see the face of whoever was behind the desk, a setup Lang was certain was intentional.

In Spain, manners required the usual prefatory discussion of the weather, Lang and Gurt's accommodations, their impressions of Seville, and the inspector's recommendations as to local restaurants, a suggestion that was amended when he learned of their arrival by private plane. Lang guessed his potential dinner tab had doubled.

Preliminaries out of the way, the inspector produced a pack of cigarettes and looked at Gurt. She nodded, producing a pack of her own. Lang, unable to say a word, prepared for a double volume of secondhand smoke.

Or double lungful.

The inspector leaned across the desk with a gallant flourish to light Gurt's smoke with a lighter encased in gold. Pushing a cheap glass ashtray across the desk, he asked in heavily accented English, "So how may I help you?"

Although he couldn't see the face because of the light in his eyes, Lang would have bet the policeman was giving Gurt an appraising stare. "The Huff murder," Lang said. "His daughter asked us to look into it."

"Hmmph!" Lang could not tell if the snort was derisive or angry. Americans. They see too many detective programs on the televisions, believe every crime can be solved in sixty minutes with time for advertising. Even in your country, I think crime is not solved that quickly."

"Of course not," Lang said, "but the woman, Miss Huff, is emotional and cannot understand the diligent efforts you and your department are making. If you would be so gracious as to explain them to me so I may comfort the unmarried daughter of an old friend…"

"Diligent?"

"Working very hard," Gurt supplied, flicking an ash into the tray. Lang made a mental note to keep the language simple. It was difficult enough to carry on a conversation in a tongue not native to all participants. Employing unusual words would only alienate the Spaniard.

"We are working hard," the Inspector said. ''You see, here in Seville, or all of Spain, for that matter, we have less murder than in, say, your New York. Almost always a hombre…"

"Man," Gurt supplied.

"… man killed, it is because he and a friend get drink. A woman, gamble, you know? Narcotics also. Sometime, not many, a… man, he bust into house to take, steal, get caught, he kill to get away. Here, Mr. Huff, look like only papers get stealed, yes? Very difficult, this thing, this killing. It was… How you say? Like your gangsters."

"Execution?" Lang offered. ''Yes, execution. Bullet to the back of the neck, powder burns on skin. Very intentional."

"Do you have any idea why someone would kill Huff to get his manu

… his book?" Lang asked.

"I never see before in twenty years," the inspector answered. "To kill for a book…? It is not thinkable. I tell you, Senor, Mr. Reilly, we will not quit until we find man who do it."

The inspector stood, indicating the interview was over. He had demonstrated a talent for packing a maximum number of words into a minimum of information.

Lang remained seated, indicating he was not quite through. "Could we see the papers you took from the house?"

"Ho-kay." The policeman handed a cardboard box across the desk. "If they tell you anything, you call?"

"Sure."

"Ah, I forget." The inspector handed Lang an envelope. "CD. Only one has anything on it, pictures, old pictures, maybe sixty years old."

As Lang and Gurt reached the door, Mendezo said, "One more thing" Mr. Reilly."

Lang turned. ''Yes?''

"Any assistance you give your friend's daughter is kindness. Interfering with professional police investigation is something else. You will please leave that job to us."