Nineteen

C atharina was impatient for the last of her customers to leave so that she could close up the shop. Over and over again she had berated herself for not telling Hendrik she had the Minstrel. That way, she could have protected Juliana-and even Wilhelmina. She could lead Hendrik away from them, just as Johannes had tried to do. It was a good plan; anyway, good or not, it had to be done.

If only she’d thought to do it when Hendrik was there.

But she would have another chance. She would make one.

The cleanup crew already had the kitchen spotless, and there was just one trio of friends lingering over a pot of tea and a tray of butter cookies. Catharina didn’t rush them. She laid six miniature cream puffs in a box to take home to her husband; they were his favorite. He was urging her to go to their country house in Connecticut for a few days and make wreaths, gathering the pine cones, sprigs of evergreen, and perhaps some grapevines from their own woods. She remembered herself urging Juliana to go to Vermont. Was there really anywhere they could hide?

The little doorbell tinkled, and two men entered the shop. The trio had split up their bill, and each young woman was counting out her money; they had on their coats already. Catharina started to tell the men the shop was closed, but she stopped herself, staring at them instead. One was perhaps in his early fifties with a blunt, mean face and iron-gray hair. He wore a navy blue sweater that emphasized the breadth and strength of his shoulders; she thought the sweater was intentionally snug. She noticed the bulge of his thigh muscles beneath the sturdy pants. The second man was perhaps twenty, rangy and dark, wearing a jacket and baggy jeans. Catharina didn’t think they had come to buy cream puffs.

“Afternoon,” the older one said, nodding in greeting.

Catharina nodded back, holding her head regally, and when she spoke, her Dutch accent sounded exaggerated, even to her. “Good afternoon. Can I help you?”

The older man laughed, a twangy snort that she found disturbing. “Now that’s the kind of talk I like. Yeah, you can help me-Mrs. Fall, right?”

“Yes, that is correct.” Again, the heavy accent.

“Sergeant Phillip Bloch.”

She closed up the white box, “What is it you want?”

“The Minstrel’s Rough.”

Matthew had reluctantly agreed to split up with Juliana at the airport so she could fetch her mother, mostly because he wanted to have a word alone with Wilhelmina Peperkamp. She pulled open the door wearing an apron that had sixteenth-notes across the front and fit rather cozily around the old Dutchwoman’s ample middle.

“You Peperkamps get around,” he said.

Wilhelmina was in a no-nonsense mood. “Come in, Mr. Stark.”

He did.

“Where’s Juliana?”

He explained as he followed the old Dutchwoman down the hall to the kitchen. He remembered her story about feeding her brother’s cat, but she showed no indication the silly lie embarrassed her. She just seemed peculiarly glad to have some company. She was an independent, stubborn woman-a Peperkamp.

“You two are being watched, I see,” he said. He’d compelled Juliana to describe the man who’d followed them and had spotted him outside the Museum of Natural History. He’d stopped himself just short of going over and pounding the bastard into the pavement.

“Yes, but he’s not an expert. We have our ways of dealing with him.”

J.J. Pepper, for one. Juliana hadn’t mentioned her on the plane, but Matthew had no doubt her services were called into use to handle her Burberry man.

The kitchen was a large, airy room, its faded elegance in need of remodeling, and Stark wondered how Juliana fit in with the rest of the crowd in the prestigious Beresford. Knowing her, she probably didn’t care one way or the other-or even notice such things. She had any number of small, upscale appliances, but they looked relatively unused. Wilhelmina had already started cleaning the place. There was a mop standing in a bucket of sudsy water, and the counters were sparkling.

“I thought apartments were small in New York,” Wilhelmina said as she squatted down and worked at a spot on the floor with a fingernail, “but this place! Did you see that giant green something in the entry? I can’t decide what it is. I’ve watered it, but who knows. Maybe it doesn’t need water. How is your investigation coming?”

Stark debated grabbing a sponge but leaned against a counter instead. Yes, a woman of action was Wilhelmina Peperkamp. “Facts seem to be coming my way instead of me going theirs.”

“Ahh, yes. I know what you mean.”

He had a sneaking suspicion she did. “I’m glad to see you’re just washing floors, but I have a feeling that isn’t all that you’re up to. Look, this thing’s getting serious-”

She glanced up at him, annoyed. “My brother’s body is being cremated, Mr. Stark. He died of a heart attack, but who’s to say what brought it on? You don’t need to tell me about danger, I assure you. I was in the Dutch Underground Resistance during the war. I know danger.”

Properly chastened, Stark watched her get up and swish the mop around, then wring it out. She attacked the floor under the table, complaining because Juliana had such a big kitchen for one person and so many gadgets and who knew how to work such things and there was no food in the place. No cheese. She’d already cleaned out the refrigerator, apparently, and thrown out everything that didn’t look right to her. What it might look like to Juliana didn’t seem to matter a whole hell of a lot. She finished up with the floor, dumped out the water, and proceeded to scour the sink, working fast and furiously.

Matthew found her opinionated and critical, but she also seemed to practice her own brand of tolerance: you could do as you goddamn well pleased, just so long as you didn’t expect her to approve. Hell, maybe he didn’t need to worry; the old battleax could probably handle Phil Bloch.

“Tell me, Mr. Stark,” she said, drying her hands with a linen dishtowel, “are you planning to write another book on these past few days?”

“Did Juliana tell you about LZ?”

Again annoyance flashed in her plain, square face. “No, I read it when it came out-in English, of course. I avoid translations whenever possible. It was an excellent work, but naturally with a book like that, there’s always the danger it’s the only one you have to write. Either you wrote that book over and over-under different titles, of course, and perhaps the readers don’t mind, but still it’s the same-or you just stop. If a new idea comes, it comes. If not, at least you won’t starve.” She nodded at his feet, adding, “You have good boots, Mr. Stark. I’d say you’re doing all right.”

“I’ll tell my editor: judge me by my boots, not my lack of production.”

“You’re lazy?”

A sin in Wilhelmina Peperkamp’s world, to be sure. She scowled at some expensive European hand cream Juliana had on the sink but squirted some out and rubbed it into her tough old hands.

“Unmotivated might be a better word,” Stark said. “But never mind. You and Juliana are being watched-”

“Catharina, too,” Wilhelmina added perfunctorily.

“I suspected as much. I think it’s because someone thinks one or all of you can lead him to the Minstrel’s Rough.”

Wilhelmina put the cap back on the hand cream and looked at him, her stony expression matching his. “You know, Mr. Stark, if one looks closely, one can see how your eyes tell what is in your heart. It’s not easy to see, perhaps, but it’s there. You’re not so tough.” She smiled at his look of surprise. “Why don’t you just tell me what you know?”

“I haven’t made all the connections yet,” he said, determined not to let the old Dutchwoman get to him. “I’m trying. But you put me at a disadvantage by not leveling with me. What do you know about the Minstrel?”