‘Let me give you a hand, Grandma,’ Nolan offered.
A moment later Nolan followed Audrey back onto the porch carrying a large wooden tray covered with five servings of pie and five cups of tea.
‘Ah, that’s a good lad,’ Audrey said as Nolan served her. ‘He’ll make a fine husband, Kelsey. These Kilkenny men all do.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind.’
‘So how is Sandstrom doing?’ Sean Kilkenny asked, joining them on the porch.
‘Good as can be expected,’ Nolan replied. ‘The docs think he’ll recover, but the scarring will be extensive. The plastic surgeon will do her best, but she was pretty frank about the limits of what can be done cosmetically.’
‘How about his attitude? Do you think he’ll be able to get back to work?’
‘He’s taking Raphaele Paramo’s murder hard,’ Nolan answered.
‘Raphaele was very much a father figure to Ted,’ Kelsey added. ‘But I get the sense that when Ted is finally out of the hospital, he’ll go right back to the lab. I think he’ll continue their work as a way of honoring Paramo’s memory.
‘For instance, just yesterday he showed signs of being his old self when Nolan and I brought him a bundle of letters that Paramo had wanted him to have. You see, Paramo was planning on retiring once Ted’s new lab was up and running, and according to his wife, he felt that these letters might help Ted further his research.’
‘Are these letters from Paramo?’ Sean asked.
‘No, they were written to him by a young physicist who was here at Michigan about fifty years ago,’ Kelsey stated. ‘I read a few of them to Ted yesterday; they’re mind-boggling.’
‘I can attest to that,’ Nolan offered. ‘Each letter began with some friendly little chitchat, then this guy would dive into some aspect of theoretical physics that lost me very quickly.’
‘There are probably fewer than five hundred people worldwide who could follow these letters,’ Kelsey explained. ‘Each seems to contain some flash of brilliance, some insight into how the universe works.’
‘Can the person who wrote these letters help this Sandstrom fellow with his work?’ Audrey wondered.
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ Kelsey responded. ‘The strange thing about these letters is that I’ve never heard of the author. Our theory is that someone this bright must have left some record of his work somewhere.’
Martin stared down into the brownish liquid in his mug, lost in thought.
‘Kelsey and I spent the better part of today just trying to find any mention of this guy on campus,’ Nolan offered. ‘We came up with next to nothing. The library has no books, articles, or scientific papers with his name on them.’
‘That’s not too surprising,’ Kelsey added, ‘considering that he was just an assistant professor and spent only two years here.’
Martin looked over at his wife as Kelsey spoke; his eyes were moist.
‘What is it, dear?’ Audrey inquired of her husband.
‘Johann.’
Audrey clasped her hands to her mouth as if to keep the breath from rushing out of her.
‘Dad,’ Sean said, worried, ‘are you all right?’
‘I’m fine, son. Just a bit surprised, that’s all.’ Martin turned toward Nolan and Kelsey. ‘Was the man who wrote these letters, this friend of Raphaele Paramo’s, was he a German by the name of Johann Wolff?’
‘Yes,’ they confirmed in unison.
‘How’d you know?’ Nolan continued on with his thought.
‘I wondered if I’d ever hear that name again,’ Martin said absently, aloud. After a moment’s silence he glanced at Audrey, who was wiping the tears from her eyes.
‘Answer Nolan’s question,’ Audrey urged as she regained her composure.
‘Johann Wolff was a friend. Back in ’forty-six, he arrived here in Ann Arbor with the clothes on his back, a few dollars in his pocket, and a job at the university. The poor fellow was an absolute lost soul, no friends or family – and the anti-German sentiment was still pretty bad. We met, quite by chance, because his office was in Randall and I was in the building next door. He was a wraith of a man when he came through the door of my shop, lost he was and looking for direction. I helped him out, and over time we became friends. A couple of odd ducks we were, with him a highly educated German scientist and me a little-schooled Irish woodworker.’
‘Johann was a bright young man,’ Audrey added. ‘He was handsome in his own way and very sweet. There was also a sadness about him, as there was with a lot of the refugees who came after the war. You see, he lost everyone who was dear to him.’
‘Not everyone, Audrey. You’re forgetting Elli,’ Martin reminded her.
‘Who’s Elli?’ Nolan wanted to know.
‘Johann’s fiancee. They fell in love just before war broke out. Unfortunately, she and her family didn’t get out of Germany and were sent to the death camps.’
‘You see, they were Jewish,’ Audrey added.
‘I think they get the picture, dear. The gobshite Hitler didn’t send too many Lutherans to the camps. Anyway, while Johann was working in Berlin, his family was killed in Dresden and Elli disappeared into those camps. He searched for her after the war but was unable to find her. But because he was well educated, he managed to get a teaching job here at Michigan. A little over a year after he arrived, he got a letter from Germany. It turns out that Elli had survived the war and was living in Chicago. They hadn’t seen each other in years, but it didn’t matter.’
Martin choked back the swelling in his throat.
‘In November of 1948 I loaned Johann a few dollars so he could buy an engagement ring for Elli. Nothing fancy, mind you – neither one of us was a Rockefeller – just a simple gold band as a token of his love for her. A local jeweler made it up for him, and he took it to Chicago. The last time I saw Johann was in my shop, when he told me she’d accepted his proposal of marriage. My God, he was happy. He even asked me to be his best man. When we parted company, we’d agreed that he and Elli would stay here with us for the weekend.’
‘Grandpa, so what happened to Wolff?’
‘I don’t know. Nobody does. It’s like he fell off the face of the earth. There were rumors, but nothing came of them.’
‘What kind of rumors?’
‘He was a German scientist, Nolan. Some said the government found out that he’d done some terrible experiments during the war and put him in prison or deported him or had him hanged. Some say that he ran away. Take your choice,’ Martin said bitterly. ‘It was all a load of malarkey. He wasn’t some Nazi bastard. For the first time in his adult life, Johann Wolff had something worth living for. His house was in order; there was no reason for him to run anywhere. Though his body was never found, I still believe that he was murdered. Death is the only thing that could’ve kept him apart from Elli.’
‘So he just disappeared?’
Martin nodded. ‘Vanished. As far as I know, Johann Wolff was never seen again.’
17
Chicago, Illinois
Walter Guk walked into Rollie’s Bar just after midnight followed by three of his coworkers from the second shift at O’Hare International Airport. The banter of the broadcasters announcing the Cubs game blared from a television hanging over the far end of the bar. Three older men nursed a couple of drinks as they watched.
‘A round of beers?’ the bartender guessed.
‘You read our minds,’ Guk replied. ‘And by the way, is the pool table in back open?’
‘Yeah.’
The bartender placed four icy Miller longnecks on the bar. The cargo handlers paid for the round and disappeared into the back. Immediately the bartender pulled a business card from his pocket and dialed the number
