The Day After Tomorrow_ A Novel - Allan Folsom [220]
“If Lybarger is staying in the house, it’s possible our friend here is a security operative, possibly even the man in charge.”
“Either that or he’s securing it for Scholl,” Remmer said.
“Or doing something else entirely.” McVey sat staring at the screen, intent on the frozen image of Von Holden.
“Setting us up?” Noble said.
“Don’t know” McVey shook his head uncertainly, then looked to Remmer. “Let’s get an enhancement on him too, see if we can find out who he is. Maybe we can take the circle down one more notch.”
A line lit up and the phone buzzed at Remmer’s elbow. “Ja,” he said, picking up.
It was fifteen minutes past two when they got there. Berlin police had already cordoned off the block. Homicide investigators stood aside as Remmer led the way through the shop and into the back room of the antique store on Kantstrasse.
Karolin Henniger lay on the floor wrapped in a sheet. Her eleven-year-old son, Johann, was next to her. He, too, was covered by a sheet.
Remmer knelt and pulled back the covering.
“Oh God—”Osborn breathed.
McVey eased the sheet from the boy. “Yeah,” he said, looking up at Osborn. “Oh God . . .”
Both mother and son had a single gunshot wound to the 1 head.
111
* * *
NINETY MINUTES later, at 3:55 P.M., Osborn stood at the window in a large room at the ancient Hotel Meineke staring out at the city. Like all of them, he was trying to separate the horror of what they’d just seen from what they had to do at the present. Their focus had to be on Scholl, nothing else. Still, it was impossible to shake the thoughts.
Who was Karolin Henniger really, that someone would do that to her and her child? Did the perpetrator think that she had told the police something that morning? If so, what did she know she might have confided? And then there was the other question, the one he could see in McVey’s eyes: If they had never gone to see her, would Karolin Henniger and her son still be alive? That burden had to be his and he knew it, more dead because of him. He had to forget about it.
Going into the bathroom he washed his hands and face. They’d moved the entire operation to the Meineke following the discovery of a body in a .seventh-floor bathroom of the Casino wing of the Hotel Palace, a room that had an almost perfect view into theirs in the main building. A special tech team was being flown in from Bad Godesberg to go over the room for evidence.
The reason they’d come to the Meineke was that it was only one building, and the only way up or down was via a creaky elevator that serviced the entire hotel. A stranger or even a friend would have a great deal of trouble getting past the BKA detectives in the lobby, or the team of Schneider and Littbarski detailed near the elevator lading two doors down. That protection left McVey and the Others free to consider a severe complication.
Cadoux.
He’d suddenly reappeared, seemingly from nowhere, leaving a message for Noble through his office at New Scotland Yard that, guess of guesses, he was in Berlin. He’d emphasized he was in trouble, and said it was extremely important he speak to Noble or McVey as soon as r possible and that he would call back within the hour.
McVey didn’t know what to think. He saw Osborn eye him as he dumped a handful of mixed nuts onto his palm from a plastic bag. “I know. Too much fat, too much salt. I’m gonna eat ‘em anyway.” Carefully picking out a Brazil nut, he held it up, studied it, then popped it in his mouth. “If Cadoux’s telling the truth and the group’s onto him, he is in trouble,” he said, chewing. “If he’s lying, he’s probably working for them. And if he is, he knows we’re in Berlin. His job will be to try and sucker us out to where they can—”
A knock at the door cut McVey off in midsentence. Getting up, Remmer slid the automatic from