The Old House Problem (3/4)

So I’d found a house that I wanted to buy up there on a cliff with incredible sea views, two hectares of land. The house itself was charming and well built, though a trainwreck inside. The only problem was that it was haunted. Or at the very least it had a haunted vibe.

My old friend Holly and I had spent a night on the property. Holly spent about five minutes looking for paranormal activity before passing out drunk. Meanwhile, I’d cleaned and looked for clues as to what had happened to the owner. Sure enough, there were things that suggested that the lady, Lilian Hersch, had been in some kind of trouble. I found a letter to someone named Dietrich saying that she suspected ‘them’ of stealing a violin and of wanting to kill her. It had never been sent.

I realized at that point that I’d have to solve the mystery of what had happened to Lilian before I could put any kind of offer on the house.

I took documents and photos home with me and found out that Lilian was a German-American musicologist who’d immigrated to New Zealand later in her life. As a young woman, she’d married a German violinist named Karl Bader and on the occasion of her wedding her father had gifted the couple a priceless violin. Karl had subsequently been unfaithful and Lilian had divorced him; in the aftermath, Lilian had been awarded full custody of their daughter Rachel while Karl had taken the violin.

Except he hadn’t taken the violin—Lilian had secretly swapped it for a much less valuable one. She gifted the real fiddle to Rachel, who’d gone on to become a professional musician.

Fast-forward to Karl’s death in 2001, when Karl’s widow Marie discovered the violin switch. Her wrath was extreme; she sent Lilian several angry and threatening letters demanding that the violin be given back to her. In 2003, when Rachel died in a subway accident, Marie even sent a letter that seemed to gloat over the tragedy.

After Rachel’s death, Lilian seemed to deteriorate mentally and emotionally. She started seeing a psychologist named Augustus Clay, who discontinued their relationship because of ‘abuse’. Judging by a letter from him, it seems that she had been complaining about auditory hallucinations.

Holly and I drew up a bunch of questions and, thanks to Holly’s internet-search expertise, we had answers to several of them, as follows:

Names:

1. Former caregiver: Yvonne Wilson, currently an employee at Findlay Street Care Home. She was given the house in Lilian’s will and put it up for sale last year.

2.President of the Schiller Club: Professor Dietrich Schmidt

3. Psychotherapist: Dr. Augustus Clay

4. Widow of Lilian's ex-husband: Marie Baden [where was she in 2008]? She lives in Berlin. In March 2008 she played a series of concerts in Berlin, and she had a concert the night of Lilian’s death.

5. Police officer called when Lilian was found dead: Retired Detective Inspector Colin Kelly. Lives in Mornington.

Questions:

Did Marie and Karl have children? Yes. Two children, a boy named Wolfgang and a girl named Johanna.

Did Rachel have children? No

Who was at the lecture where Lilian mentioned the violin? Professor Dietrich. Other members of the Schiller Club (list of ten names)

Where is the violin now? Unknown

What were the auditory hallucinations? Unknown

How did Lilian die (coroner’s report)?  Heart failure

“Do you think any of these people will talk to us?” I asked Holly.

She sucked her non-alcoholic mojito through a metal straw and pondered.

“Well, they’ll talk to me. I’m charming. You, they’ll have a harder time with. Unless you offer a pretext.”

“First of all, thanks,” I said rolling my eyes, “Second of all, what kind of a pretext?”

She snapped her fingers.

“I’ve got it! Why don’t you say you’re writing her biography. She was a pretty big deal in music circles, seems like.”

I mulled this over.

“Couldn’t they check that pretty easily? I’ve never actually written a biography before. I’m an editor more than a writer.”

“You work for Kakapo Press, don’t you?”

“Yes…”

“OK, so. Good enough. Most of us don’t know the difference. You say you’re from a press then you make books. Simple.”

I had to admit, it sounded plausible.

Colin Kelly

The first person I contacted was the detective who’d been on the scene when Lilian died, Sir Colin Kelly. He’d received the ‘Sir’ for being instrumental in solving the infamous Shao twins murder case.

He sounded rather formidable on the phone: terse and abrupt. He listened to my pitch in silence—I was researching the life of Lilian Hersch, looking into the circumstances of her death, I’d noticed some odd things. I was on tenterhooks for a few moments, thinking he was going to denounce me as a fraud or else rage at me for trying to access confidential information. Instead, to my surprise, I heard a sigh.

“I’ve thought about Lilian Hersch on and off for many years. If you can come to my house I have some time this afternoon. I sprained an ankle yesterday so I can’t get about very well.”

I showed up with a tin of Roses chocolate and a thank you card. A small, wiry woman, all smiles, opened the door. She introduced herself as Sharon and ushered me into a cozy living room characterized by a bewildering array of ceramic ducks, displayed in glass cabinets.

Sir Colin sat on an armchair, his leg propped up on an ottoman. He was a man who looked to be in his early seventies, with a neatly trimmed white moustache. He was reading a book on true crime—this surprised me as I thought that would be the last thing to interest someone who’d had decades of true crime at their back.

“You’re looking at my ducks,” he said. “There’s a story there. Every time I caught my criminal, I bought a new one. They were my reward for a job well done.” He smiled wryly. “I should tell you now, I did notbuy a duck with the Hersch case.”

“But I thought she died of a heart attack, officially?” I said. “So there was something suspicious about it?”

He nodded.

“Fishy as a can of sardines. I dropped the ball, I’m afraid.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lilian Hersch had made multiple calls to the police in the months before her death, complaining of harrassment.”

“What sort of harrassment?”

“She said, she insisted, that there were people in her house. She said she heard them talking at night. An officer visited one night and found nothing. So we dismissed it as dementia.”

“Then she wasn’t batty?”

“Her doctor said she was as sharp as a tack. And she produced that report the next time she complained.”

“And then?”

“Well, again an officer went again, and again he found nothing. To be frank, we didn’t take it seriously. Even if she wasn’t barmy, she was being a nuisance—call it what you like: wasting police time, attention seeking. We were busy with boy racers, with domestic disputes, with drunk and disorderly students—a rather imperious old lady hearing voices just didn’t seem to be any of our business. It’s no excuse of course. But that’s the way it was.”

“Well, what makes you think she wasn’t just being a nuisance?”

He coughed and looked abashed.

“After she, er, died…my team searched the house and as it turned out, there were signs that the basement had been occupied. There was a mattress down there, a turntable for LPs, some cigarette butts.”

“You mean, someone had been living down there?”

He nodded.

“That’s the way it looked.”

“Do you know who it might have been?”

“No. We ruled out most of the city’s homeless community because, well, it’s quite a hike to her place from town and someone would have noticed. And, well…the coroner report said heart failure so there was no evidence that there had been foul play in the matter of her death. Even so,” he shook his head, “I have sometimes thought of that poor woman being terrorized and then made to feel as if she were going crazy. I regret it.”

Sharon Kelly came in with the tea and a plate of chocolate digestive biscuits and we paused for refreshment as I wondered how to broach another subject.

“One thing I have been wondering,” I began, “Is whether she ever complained of a burglary. You see, she was in possession of a very valuable violin and as far as I know, it was not found among her effects when she died.”

He stroked his moustache.

“Is that right? Well, that is interesting. As far as I know, she never mentioned it. I may be able to check the records, if you like. I still have a certain amount of pull down at HQ.”

“That would be very helpful, if you wouldn’t mind,” I said gratefully.

Yvonne Wilson

The next person I saw was Yvonne Wilson. I caught her during a lunchbreak at her rest home job. She was still dressed in her scrubs.

She must have been about in her mid-forties, quite tall with short blonde hair and had a look of  a kind soul who’d had a rough road in her life. There were laugh lines about her eyes suggesting a good sense of humor and deep lines around her lips and a hoarse voice suggestive of a heavy smoker.

Sure enough, she suggested we sit in the garden section of the café because she was ‘dying for a fag.’

“Lilian Hersch! That name takes me back,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “I was still a young thing then. Not thirty yet, I had long hair too. That was before I started working at the rest home. She was a character, was Lilian.”

“In what way?”

“Oh, eccentric, you know. Used to sing at the top of her voice. One moment she’d be flying into a rage, the next she’d be sweet as apple pie. She was all right if you knew how to handle her though. You just had to not take her too serious.”

“Would you say she was insane?”

“Oh, no. Just emotional. Larger than life, you know. Plus she was foreign,” she shrugged. I knew the implication: foreigners are emotional—they can’t help it!

“Did you ever see a violin around the house?”

“The violin, you mean? Oh yes, she was very proud of that. She told me how she’d got the better of her ex—she’d swapped this one with a shoddy one and he was none the wiser. He sounded like a right git, to be honest, so I said, ‘Good for you Lilian, good for you.’”

“Did she ever tell you about hearing voices?”

“You know about that?” she gave me a sharp look and flicked away some ash. “It wasn’t just voices. It was music. I heard it too, once. She was that scared, she asked me to stay over one night. And when I heard it, I went straight to the cop shop and gave them a real rark-up—someone needed to come and check it out. But would they listen? Nah. The pigs always know best, don’t they.”

“What did you hear? What kind of music?”

“Classical music—a violin. Creepy. It got to Lilian bad.” She shook her head.

“Were you the one who…found her?”

“When she died? Yep. I let myself in at nine o’clock as usual. The poor dear had fallen, must have happened in the night. She was in her nightie and had spilled a glass of water.”

“And it was a heart attack?”

“Looked like it. That’s what the coroner said.”

“Do you think she was alone when it happened?”

“What, you mean did she have anyone over at the house with her?”

“No, I mean, was there a chance that there had been an intruder? Like someone had broken in and it has given her enough of a shock that she died?”

“Oh. Well…it was so long ago now. But I didn’t notice anything like that.”

“The house wasn’t in a mess? As if there had been a struggle?”

“Oh no. It was always very tidy. I’d put it in order the day before and it was the same as usual.” She said it with a certain degree of professional pride.

“Do you know what happened with her estate?”

“The will, you mean? She never mentioned anything like that to me. I think she had a brother and sister in the states, but no other family. It wouldn’t surprise me, though, if she made a gift to that German club she belonged to. She was very involved with that, right up to the end.”

“Do you know who her lawyer was?”

“I have a feeling it was Thomson, Thomson & Stitch in Moray Place. I drove her there a couple of times. Not sure if they’re still around to be honest.”

She looked at her watch.

“Ah crap, time to get back to the grind. It’s been interesting going back down memory lane. Let me know when the book comes out, will you? Will I get a mention?”

Feeling a pang of guilt at the lie, I assured her that she would certainly be mentioned whenever the book came out.

Professor Dietrich Schmidt

Dietrich Schmidt had a big house up on Maori Hill, nestled in a garden that must have been established about a hundred years ago judging by the size of some of the trees. Tuis flew like bullets between branches and I think I heard a couple of bellbirds as well.

He was a sturdy, compact looking guy with white hair. Although he must have been in his eighties, he gave the impression of having boundless energy, like a coiled spring. The hallway smelled of fresh paint and he explained he’d been giving the lounge a spruce-up.

He pointed me towards his study, which was wall-to-wall books. He then sat on a leather armchair and leaned forward, looking at me with surprisingly piercing blue eyes.

“So you’re writing about Lilian, is that it?” he said.

I wavered.

“No, no, not writing. I’m a research assistant. The author prefers to stay anonymous right now.”

“I see,” he said, stroking his chin. “Well, I must say, I think it’s overdue. She was a formidable scholar. It’s not very well known here, but she’s quite famous in her field, especially in Germany and the States.”

“And she was active with the Schiller Club, correct?”

“Oh yes, she was one of our most dynamic members. We were very lucky to have her with us. She was a mine of information about 18^th-century history—not just music history but history in general. I considered her a great friend. We shared a rather peculiar sense of humor. Oh! I must show you something.”

He strode out of the room and returned with a statue. It was hideous—a kind of stylized papier-mache mannequin with pale skin, a blonde wig, bright red lips and a sort of winged helmet.

“She made this—she was an amateur artist,” he chuckled, “Emphasis on ‘amateur’. She started work on it, oh, about a year before she died. And she said, ‘You must take good care of this, Dietrich, because it’s the only thing you’ll get from me.’ Well, of course it’s hideous. And when the lawyer contacted me to say it was mine, I laughed long and loud. And she’s right--it reminds me of Lily every time I see it, so to me it is valuable.  She called it Brunhilde, so I follow suit. I keep Brunhilde in the guestroom and she is quite comfortable.”

I smiled politely but I thought if it were me, no matter how much I’d liked the artist, I’d keep it far out of sight—in an attic or a cupboard!

“I believe you hosted a talk that she gave.”

“Oh yes, at least one. Which are you thinking of?”

“It was one she gave in 2006, about being a Jewish woman who was a proponent of German culture.”

“Ah yes!” he clapped his hands and sprang to his feet and walked over to a shelf full of folders. He selected one and brought it over to me. “I have the transcript here, if you’re interested in getting a copy?”

“Yes please,” I said. “And any others of hers that you might have. Tell me,” I added, “Is there any way of knowing who was attending her lectures?”

“Yes, of course,” he shrugged. “It is written on the front page, who is present at the talk.” My spirits soared as he pointed out a list of seven or eight names. “Though,” he frowned, “I don’t see how that will help your author exactly.

“Oh, you never know,” I fudged. “They might have recollections that would add some color to any descriptions.

We talked for another half hour, that is, he talked at length about the Schiller Club and a few memories he had of witty conversations with Lilian. Quite often the jokes went over my head but I laughed along anyway.

“There’s one other thing,” I said, as we were about to close the interview. “The relative who sent us boxes of her documents…among those documents we found this letter. It seems to have been addressed to you.” I showed him the letter I’d found on the table:

Lieber Dietrich,

Du must mir helfen. Ich hörte die Stimmen wieder. Die Geige ist weg und ich habe Angst, dass sie mich töten werden.

Translated, it read thus:

Dear Dietrich,

You have to help me. I have heard the voices again. The violin is gone and I am afraid they will kill me.

His reaction was to frown gravely and to click his tongue.

“Dear, dear. And I see this was written very shortly, very shortly before she died. Poor Lilian. And can it be true, after all?” He seemed to be talking to himself rather than to me.

“Can you cast any light on it?” I asked. “Do you know who she meant by ‘they’?”

Dietrich nodded.

“Only that they were her enemies.”

“Did she say anything to you about them?”

“She tried. I didn’t listen.” He looked at me, almost blindly, “God help me, I didn’t listen.”

I didn’t get much more out of him after that. He looked shaken to the core. I let myself out, clutching the copy of Lilian’s lecture and vaguely unsettled.

Dr. Augustus Clay

“Hello, how are you? Please come in,” Augustus Clay said, unctuous and with a gloriously smooth baritone voice.

“Hello Doctor Clay,” I said. “I’m here to ask you about a woman you once knew. Lilian Hersch.”

“Ah,” he grimaced a little and nodded shortly. “Well. Ms. Hersch was one of my patients, you know, and I am bound to tell you that I can not in good conscience discuss confidential patient information.” He steepled his fingers.

“Oh, of course,” I said, conciliatory. “But I’m not so interested in details about her therapy. I really just want to know your opinion about a couple of things. And completely off the record—it will go no further than me.”

“I see…” he said, as if he did not really see at all.

“One, I want to know if you think she was insane, in your opinion. Two, I want to know if she ever mentioned having a grandchild.”

He cocked his head to one side, thinking carefully.

“First, in my opinion, no, she was perfectly sane, though she had some personality traits that could be… challenging to those who knew her.  Second, she mentioned quite often that she did not have a grandchild. Her daughter, of whom she was very fond, was pregnant when struck down by an untimely death. Lilian grieved doubly for this reason.”

“I see,” I bit the tip of my pen. “That’s very interesting. Tell me, doctor. Are you a fan of classical music at all?”

“Me? I prefer jazz,” he said. “Give me Miles Davis or Chet Baker or the divine Diana Krall any time.”

He was behaving a little impatiently—his leg jiggling and his hands fiddling with things on his desk—so I took the hint and left after thanking him nicely.

I went to the Golden Center foodcourt and had a coffee and a blueberry muffin. As I sat there, I scrawled  notes on my napkin:

· House break-in/burglary after the death

· What was the LP on the turntable?

· Check the will-who profited? [Thomson, Thomson & Stitch]

I called Holly that night.

“I have news!” she said.

“What?” I asked, biting viciously into an apple.

“I was talking to my friend Jeremy.”

“Jeremy who?”

“The real estate agent.”

“Oh him. And…?”

“Well, I told him we went to the house and noticed ghostly activity.”

“What? Why? Why did you tell him that?”

“Relax! He thinks it’s cute and girly. Not only that, he was trying to impress me so he told me something that could be a clue.”

“What?”

“You know how it was all an unholy mess when we went in?”

“Yeah.”

“He said that when he got the house and first checked it out about a year ago, it was completely tidy. So when he showed you the house, he was as surprised at the state of it as you were.”

“So, it was ransacked relatively recently?” I mused.

“Exactly. And the spooky thing is that he checked everywhere for signs that someone had broken in, but there was nothing: the doors were all perfectly fine, there was no sign the windows had been broken or tampered with. He said it was the first time he’d really considered that there might be something supernatural—apart from God of course. Anyhow, what have you been up to? Any progress?”

I told her my news and how I’d come to the conclusion that the break-in had happened after Lilian’s death.

“It’s strange,” I said, “It’s all still very hazy but I feel like there’s a thread  leading to the Minotaur, you know, that the trail is there for me if I just follow it.”

“Maybe it would be better not to follow it?” Holly suggested after a pause, much to my surprise.

“Wait a minute, wasn’t this whole investigation your idea?” I squealed, indignant.

“No! I was just interested in ghosts!” she squealed back. “You’re getting into danger territory. Don’t you realize,” said Holly, “That you’re tracking an in-the-flesh coldblooded killer and that he or she will not like being tracked?”

“Yes, of course,” I said, though I realized at once that that had not fully occurred to me before. I’d been thinking of it more as an intellectual exercise, not a—to put it bluntly—high-stakes hunt.

“Okaaay,” said Holly doubtfully. “The thing is, I have to go back to London soon. And if I know that you’re merrily traipsing about asking people if they’re murderers, then I’m going to worry, that’s all.”

“Well, thanks,” I said, touched. “But I promise I’ll be careful. I didn’t know you were going back to London so soon though?”

“Weeell,” she said. “I’m thinking about going to Germany first.”

“What?” I exclaimed. “You’re joking! Just to see Marie Baden?”

“Not just for that, no, of course not. I’ve always wanted to see Berlin and it can be a stopover on my way back to London. But I admit, I’m curious.”

“When are you going?”

“I’ve booked a flight for next week.”

I secretly resolved to have figured out the case before she left. She might be worried about me, but from what I’d learned so far, Marie Baden was someone you really, really didn’t want to mess with unless it was absolutely necessary.