The Day After Tomorrow_ A Novel - Allan Folsom [210]
There was the sound of a beeper in the other room. A moment later Remmer came in wearing surgical gloves like the others, and picked up the telephone. Dialing, he waited, then said something in German. Taking a small notebook from his pocket, he wrote something in pencil. “Danke,” he said and hung up.
“Cardinal O’Connel called back,” he said to McVey. “Scholl’s expecting your call. This number.” He tore off the sheet and handed it to him. “Maybe we won’t need the warrant after all.”
“Yes, and maybe we will.”
Remmer went back into the other room, and McVey began working the front room again. Paying close attention to the couch and the carpet directly beneath it, where whoever was drinking the coffee and looking at the newspaper would have been sitting.
“This Avril Rocard.” Osborn was working to be civil, logical, to make some sense of what was so overwhelming to him. “You say she’s with the Paris police. Have they positively identified her body? Maybe it was someone else. Maybe Avril Rocard is here, maybe it’s not Vera at all.”
“Gentlemen—” Noble stood in the door to the bedroom. “Would you come in, please.”
Osborn stood back and watched with the others as Noble slid open the door to the bedroom closet. Inside were two sets of day clothes, a black velvet evening dress, and a silver mink stole. Leading them to a low bureau, Noble sat down, pulled open the top drawer and lifted out several pairs of lace underwear with matching bras, five unopened packets of Armani pantyhose, and a see-through silvery silk nightgown. The drawer beneath revealed two purses, one a black formal clutch to go with the evening dress. The other was a brown leather over-the-shoulder bag.
Taking out the black clutch, Noble opened it. Inside were two jewelry cases and a velvet drawstring bag. The first jewelry case held an opera-length diamond necklace, the second matching earrings. In the drawstring bag was a small, silver-plated, .25-caliber automatic. Putting them back the way he found them, Noble hefted the over-the-shoulder purse. Inside, held together by a rubber band, was a packet of unpaid bills addressed to Avril Rocard, 17 rue St.-Gilles, Paris, 75003. A Paris Préfecture of Police I.D. and a small, black nylon sport bag. Opening it, Noble laid out Avril Rocard’s passport, a clear Ziploc bag containing a packet of German Deutschmarks, an unused first-class Air France ticket from Paris to Berlin, and an envelope with a reservation confirmation from the Hotel Kempinski, dated for arrival on Friday, October 14, and checking out on Saturday, the fifteenth. Looking up at the faces surrounding him, Noble reached into the purse once more and came out with an elaborately engraved envelope, already Opened. From it, he took out an engraved invitation to the dinner for Elton Lybarger at Charlottenburg Palace.
Instinctively, McVey reached inside his jacket for the guest list.
“No need. I’ve already checked, an A. Rocard is there, a half-dozen names ahead of Doctor Salettl, one of the guests we had no information on,” Noble said, getting up. “One more thing . . .”
Crossing to a bedside table he picked up an object wrapped in a dark silk scarf. “It was tucked under the mattress.” Unwrapping the scarf, he pulled out a long, dog-eared leather wallet. As he did, he saw Osborn react. “You know what it is, Doctor Osborn—”
“Yes—” Osborn said. “I know what it is. . . .”
He’d seen it before. In Geneva. In London. And in Paris. It was Vera Monneray’s passport case.
106
* * *
OSBORN WAS not the only distraught man in Berlin.
Waiting for Von Holden in his office at the Sophie-Charlottenstrasse apartment, Cadoux was an anxious wreck. He’d spent two very troubled hours complaining to anyone who would listen—about German coffee, about a why he couldn’t get a French-language newspaper, about nothing at all; every bit of it disguising his growing concern over Avril Rocard. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since she should have completed her assignment at the farmhouse outside Nancy and reported back