Where the Bones are Buried by Jeanne Matthews Page B

Dinah’s pacing. “What’s the story with the money?”
    Holding K.D. at bay was a fool’s game. She would ferret out the sordid details regardless of any effort to conceal them, and Dinah saw no reason to try. Theaters let seventeen-year-olds in to House of 1000 Corpses . “Margaret and Swan feel that Cleon shortchanged them in their divorces. They think Hess has some of your father’s ill-gotten gains, or a share of them, and they thought they could waltz into the country and hold him up for a bundle.”
    â€œHow funny. Away over here in Berlin and we’re still talking about Daddy.”
    â€œIt seems that all roads, particularly the one to perdition, lead back to your daddy.”
    â€œWhat’s perdition?”
    â€œEternal punishment.”
    K.D. pursed her lips and examined her purple fingernails. “Did Hess mule for Daddy?”
    â€œProbably not. He was a lawyer of some kind. Did your father ever mention a German partner, or did a German visit him?”
    â€œNo. I think I’d remember if a German came to the house, but Daddy didn’t talk business much at home except for law stuff.”
    Dinah resumed her pacing. “It’s easy to forget he had a parallel career as a lawyer.”
    â€œHow does Swan know Hess?” asked K.D.
    â€œI’m not sure. She says Cleon left evidence that Hess killed a couple of federal agents in the U.S.”
    â€œAnd she wants to sell it to him?”
    â€œThat was the plan.”
    â€œWhoa, that’s hardcore crazy.”
    No screaming shit, thought Dinah. She had assumed the dead man was Hess, but why did Swan jump to that conclusion? It must have been the way Wegener asked the questions, the repetition of his name. But if Lohendorf related Swan’s lies and evasions to Pohl’s murder, he wouldn’t rest until he’d wrung the truth out of her. “Did Margaret say anything to Swan while she was writing this note?”
    â€œThe old puss took one look at me and scuttled off to the toilet. Hashtag guilty conscience.”
    â€œHashtag drop it, K.D. It’s almost midnight. Go to bed.”
    â€œI’m going to take a shower first. Is Thor’s army sleeping bag in my bedroom closet?”
    â€œThe office closet, yes.”
    â€œThere isn’t enough space in the office with the two desks and the TV. Until he comes back, is it okay if I sleep in your bedroom?”
    Dinah smothered a groan. How many hours ago had she woken up in Thor’s arms and congratulated herself on being happy? It already felt like a distant memory. “Sure. I stored your pillows in my closet on the top shelf.”
    The cuckoo lunged out and began its infernal HOO-hooing. K.D. stopped her ears and bugged off to the shower. Dinah stopped her ears and returned to the kitchen to open another bottle of red wine. If she was going to sleep, she needed a soporific. She had just dug the angel wings into the cork when the buzzer blatted.
    What fresh hell…?
    Or could it be Thor? Had he dropped everything and rushed home? Couldn’t be. He was in Oslo less than an hour ago and he wouldn’t buzz his own apartment. Swan? Margaret? Lohendorf? She left the angel wings sticking up in the cork and went back to the living room and the intercom.
    â€œYes?”
    â€œIt’s Lena Bischoff.”
    â€œLittle Deer?”
    â€œYes, all right. I have come to see your red bitch mother.”
    Like Pohl, Lena apparently believed that Swan was camped in this apartment. What had prompted her to come name-calling at this hour and why, if the cops still had the place under surveillance, did they let her? “Is your husband with you?”
    â€œNo. I am alone. Let me in.”
    Dinah blew out a breath. You wanted to talk with her and here she is, like the mountain to Mohammed. “Okay, come up.” She buzzed her in, closed the sliding door to the bedrooms and bath, and stepped out the front door