"A complete manuscript?" Tannehill slowly stirred a small bit of cream into his coffee. A piping hot egg sandwich sat next to it.
Spinoza nodded, "the parchment didn't show any defects, so it had to be made for someone of note."
Tannehill whistled and paused, "Miniscule script or gothic?"
Vera's gaze bounced between the two men, "Am I the only one who hasn't taken a course on ancient dark ages manuscripts?"
"Technically," Spinoza was eyeing Tannehill's egg sandwich, "the dark ages occurred a few centuries prior to the creation of the illuminated manuscripts. Don't worry, kid," he emphasized the last word, "you're just not familiar with the books because you weren't around when they were created, like we were." He gestured with his pointer finger between himself and Tannehill, eyes temporarily distracted from the egg sandwich. "I, for one, remember when Constantine sanctioned Christianity as a state religion and had a feeling that would cause trouble for my people."
Vera's mouth was drawn into a shallow pout, but she remained silent.
Tannehill continued, unphased by the exchange between his companions, "So, you think this is some sort of robbery ring against Jewish households?"
"Not exactly. I don't think anyone's being robbed of goods, at least in the traditional sense."
"Not in the traditional sense? What do you mean?" With this last statement, Tannehill stuffed a quarter of the egg sandwich into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully.
"Given the volume of treasure and the fact that it appears to be predominately - if not exclusively - artifacts originating from Jewish households, I think these are valuables confiscated by the German government."
"The Nazis? I know they're not the friendliest of political parties, but governments enrich themselves through graft, corruption, and, in virtuous cases, taxation. They don't participate in outright theft."
"You live in Capital City and you can say that with a straight face?"
"Fine," Tannehill amended his statement, "they don't do it at such an egregious rate and in plain view of everyone watching."
"The German government isn't a normal government and who says anyone's actually watching?"
"It's not out of the bounds of reality," Vera chimed in.
"That a modern Western government simply confiscates the property of its citizens without due process?"
"Ah," Vera countered, "but that's just it. Jews are no longer citizens in Germany."
Tannehill recalled the article he'd read traveling downtown the night of Snell's death. "Maybe so, but they were just stripped of their citizenship recently. The accumulated wealth in that room alone - which I can only assume to be a minuscule fraction of what's probably still left back in Germany - indicates that this started long before the laws were enacted."
"This is a government that murdered it's most ardent supporters last summer without trial for no discernible reason." Spinoza's voice was calm but a thread of exasperation was beginning to creep into his tone.
"Ok," Tannehill responded in a placating tone, but one still bordered with skepticism, "if the German government has confiscated these items there's still a more pressing question surrounding them."
"Which is?"
"What are all these artifacts doing in a warehouse storage room 6000 miles from where they were taken?"
The three of them sat in silent contemplation of an answer. Tannehill took the opportunity to indulge in another bite of his egg sandwich.
"This sandwich is really good," Tannehill's statement was barely comprehensible through a mouthful of bread, egg, and butter.
"We make good egg sandwiches here," Vera responded.
"I've had egg sandwiches here dozens of times and they've never tasted like this." He picked up the remaining sandwich and inspected it for visual clues to its culinary excellence.
"Most of the sandwiches here are made from fried eggs, so they're either too messy or too over-cooked. It's tough to do a fried egg right."
"Oh, yeah," Tannehill turned the sandwich to face him, "they're scrambled."
"CH is may know medieval manuscripts, but epicurean he ain't," Spinoza added in defense of his friend's rather obvious statement.
"Ok." Vera said hesitantly, expecting that the fine line between epicurean and not was more nuanced than being able to identify how eggs were prepared.
"Anything else make the sandwich special?"
"It's got more butter than most. And it's dressed with arugula."
"With what?" Spinoza asked. Tannehill's look of confusion echoed Spinoza's tone.
"It's like mini-lettuce," Vera deadpanned, a dawning awareness that neither of her companions would likely qualify as epicurean.
Tannehill swallowed his final bite. "How do you know so much about the sandwich?"
"I made it."
Both Spinoza and Tannehill nodded in dawning understanding and appreciation at Vera's declaration.
"What news, ho," Vera quipped, changing the subject, worried that the men would soon begin waxing poetic on the virtues of iceberg lettuce.
"Hmm?"
"You said you had news as well when you arrived at the diner?"
"Oh yeah," Tannehill swallowed a remnant bit of mini-lettuce, "Bertucci's dead."
"Who?"
"Sorry, I mean Bellucci."
"Who?"
"Beederman."
"Who?"
"The john. Brunner's john."
"Wait, Brunner's a prostitute? That's new information. It adds a new complication."
"No, wait. That's not what I... It's just, well, I don't know what to call him."
"Lover?" She offered.
"It didn't look like love to me. And I don't think they're married."
"I don't think love and marriage are necessary and sufficient conditions for being together."
"No, that's not what I meant either, I just..."
"Who's Brenner?" Spinoza interjected aware he was two paces behind Vera, who was apparently two paces behind Tannehill in the unfolding of the tale.
"Brunner." Tannehill exhaled. "Brunner is the woman I caught having sex with Bellucci, Beederman - whatever! - the night Snell was murdered. She and her goon of a partner," he slowed his speech deliberately unaware if he was annoyed with himself for not communicating clearly before or with his audience for asking too many questions, "Otto. His name is Otto. She and her goon of a partner had some connection with Snell and this treasure stash. Otto admitted to roughing Snell up to find out the stash's location, but swears he didn't kill him."
"And now Otto Beederman is dead?" Spinoza murmured, eager to keep up.
Tannehill exhaled again, "No. Otto and Beederman are two different people. Beederman (or Bellucci) is dead. Apparently strangled himself in his cell even though the laws of physics seem to prove otherwise. Otto's still lurking around the city. Probably looking to brain someone else for a good time."
"Looks like any working theory we've got needs a little more work first," Vera picked up Tannehill's empty plate and headed toward the kitchen. She looked over her shoulder and pointed a backward-facing index finger toward Spinoza, "you want an egg sandwich?"
Spinoza nodded vigorously.
"Good. I'll add extra arugula. I'll also put on a fresh pot of coffee, because it looks like we may be here a while."
[Author's Note: Today's edition is 1137 words for a running total of 39792. It was relatively easy to confuse Beederman/Bellucci/Bertucci's name, since I constantly have to go back to previous chapters in order to remember his name].
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