Shadows Reel (Joe Pickett #22)(62)

“Julius Streicher?” Joe asked.

The man nodded. “Might have been it. Like I say, I can’t remember for sure. It was fifty years ago. Dick and me got into an argument over a cow and we never spoke again. Bert wouldn’t talk to me, either. But I saw what I saw.”

Joe thanked the man and gave him a card.

Thirster turned and pointed at the red metal door. He said, “Those two, they’re not all innocent. They wanted to take advantage of Bert. I could see it. When Bert told them about his treasure, suddenly John was his best friend on earth. Once a dealer, always a dealer, is what I say. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was them who called the collectors. Those two might have blabbed what Bert had and caused this whole thing to happen. No, they ain’t all innocent and good, if you ask me.”

He said it in a conspiratorial way, as if unspooling a great revelation. The man reached out and grasped Joe’s arm.

“Things aren’t always what they seem,” he said, his eyes sparkling. “Just like those Nazis. Just like Hitler. They weren’t all bad, you know.”

“Gotta go,” Joe said, jerking his arm loose.





CHAPTER TWENTY


    Voilà!


Two hours before, when he returned from the Wet Fly Bar, Joe found Marybeth awake and seated at the kitchen table with the photo album open in front of her. He wasn’t surprised to see her still up. It was nearly midnight.

“The girls went to bed, but I can hear them talking,” she said. “The four of them are sleeping together in the first bedroom. I gave Liv and Kestrel the spare room for the night. I wanted to keep everyone here in one place. Liv agreed with that when I told her what was going on.”

“What are you up to?” he asked.

She gestured to the album. “I’m trying to figure out what it is in this book that these people want. Or why they want it. I can’t believe it’s the album itself. It can’t be that valuable except maybe to historians of the war. There has to be something specific in these photos—or somebody—the bad guys don’t want anyone to know about. Something personal.”

Joe sat next to her and told her what he’d learned over the past two hours. He ended it with “So you were right. The album belonged to Bert Kizer. Somehow, he found out people were coming here for it and he ditched it at your library.”

“But why, we’ll maybe never know,” Marybeth said. “I just can’t help but wonder what it is in this album that would make somebody do what they did. Do you think it’s a couple of crazy Nazi war memorabilia collectors?”

Joe shook his head. “Not according to the Sheftics. They say there’s a real market for this kind of stuff, but that it’s limited. I have to say I believe them. I just can’t see how it would be worth killing over.”

He told her about the swastika plates that Thirster claimed he had used at the Kizer residence.

Marybeth took it all in.

She said, “This is pure speculation, but I want to try to tie together what we know so far.”

“Go.”

“Bert’s father, Dick Kizer, along with Alton More from Casper, were two of the first American GIs to enter Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest. Along with the rest of the Band of Brothers, they looted the place and brought back what they could get away with. Alton More hit the motherlode: Hitler’s personal photo albums. Dick got honorable mention with this Julius Streicher album, but it was still something he was very proud of. And he brought it back. Maybe some Nazi dishware as well.”

“That he must have gotten rid of at some point,” Joe said. “I would have seen it at Bert’s place. Or Norwood would have said something when he searched it.”

She said, “Bert worshipped his father, or at least he had a lot of respect for his service, so he kept Dick’s wartime souvenirs in that footlocker under his bed for decades. He could have donated all that to the local museum or to an archive, but he kept it all close.”

Joe nodded for her to continue. Thus far, it all fit.

“For whatever reason, Bert decides after all this time that he wants to find out what the album itself might be worth to someone. Maybe he was on hard times or he just realized he was getting older and he wanted to see if he could get a reward for it. I don’t blame him. Or it could be that Bert wanted to find out the value of the album so he could borrow against it.”

Joe liked that. He said, “Maybe Bert wanted to use the loan to buy a new drift boat. The one at his house looked pretty beaten up.”

“Maybe,” she said before plunging on. “Bert knows next to nothing how to go about either trying to sell it or find out its value. Who would? But then he meets John and Connie Sheftic, who have a background in collectibles. The Sheftics, unlike Bert, know what channels to use and who out there might be interested in the album—and what they might pay for it. Maybe the Sheftics post to World War Two sites, or military forums. Or creepy neo-Nazi sites. Who knows?”

Joe said, “They didn’t get into the details at the bar, but they did something like that.”

Marybeth said, “Artifacts like this album are worth whatever someone is willing to pay for them, I do know that from the library world. That’s how rare books get exchanged. So by the Sheftics getting the word out on this thing, it was kind of gambling. They had no idea what they were getting into, and neither did Bert for that matter.”