The trio decided to rest for a day and contemplate the best way to willingly get two suspects to admit to murder. Tannehill and Spinoza walked into The Happy Hour the following afternoon at the beginning of Vera's shift, eager to swap theories on the best way to catch a criminal. Seeing that she hadn't arrived yet, they glanced around for a comfortable booth to commandeer, as their usual one was occupied. They stood frozen briefly in the no man's land between the counter and the booths, heads moving mechanically to assess other possibilities - that booth had a jagged spring that didn't quite protrude from the seat leather; another one had a table that looked sticky with a spray of spilled salt jutting across its landscape; another hadn't been cleared at all. They considered sitting at the counter, but the round swivel stools seemed to be placed too close too one another, and they felt that they'd be knocking knees over the duration of their discourse.
"Bill, hey Bill!" A raspy voice croaked behind them from the counter, breaking into the rhythm of their seating despair. They paid no mind, looking for either Vera or a clean booth. "Bill!" It insisted with more urgency. They turned to look toward the voice and saw Flo, The Happy Hour's second-best server, staring directly at Spinoza.
A confused minute passed before he could respond. "Me?" He mouthed at her. She nodded enthusiastically with a hint of frustration that, of course she was referring to him. He adjusted his volume. "I'm sorry you must have me mixed up with someone else. My name's not Bill."
Now it was Flo's turn to look confused. "I says to Vera," she started as though already minutes deep into a particular juicy anecdote, "I says 'Who are those two fellas you been hanging out with lately?' She says to me 'The one who looks like William Powell and the other one?' I says 'Yeah.' She says, "Funny enough, that one's name is Bill, which is short for William, and the other is Claude Mulvihill." She paused and pointed a finger at Spinoza, "So, you must be Bill."
The two men grinned at each other in the realization of Flo's likely mischaracterization of her conversation with Vera. They also decided that correcting her would be a wasted afternoon for all, so Bill, for the time being, he was.
"Is Vera late? We wanted to chat with her before her shift got too busy." Aside from their normal booth near the door, which was currently inhabited by two gentlemen arguing vehemently in Russian, one other booth and a stool at the counter had occupants. The counter occupant coughed briefly as if to signal that his occupancy was equally as important as his boothmates.
"Vera's not here," Flo stated, confirming their observation with a sober obviousness. "But a little fella stopped by with a note about an hour ago. He said to give it to Vera's friends when they stopped by."
Tannehill cocked an eyebrow in interest. "Do you have the note?"
"I do." Though Flo answered in the affirmative, she made no move to follow up on remediary actions.
"I think, as you've vividly described in your fascinating conversations, that it's safe to assume that we're the friends of Vera that the gentleman was referring to, correct?"
"Right!" Flo still made no indication of movement.
"Would you mind giving us the letter then, as we are the aforementioned friends?" Tannehill's tone was cloyed to avoid betraying the acidness he wanted to direct toward this daft woman.
Flo reached slowly in a large patch pocket of her uniform, her face initially a blank mask, morphing into one of confusion with a protruding tongue as she rummaged through a pocket so deep its very inward boundaries appeared to defy the laws of physics that its outward boundaries hinted at. Eventually, she pulled a 3x3 white envelope from its maw and handed it to Tannehill. He had to tug gently to remove it from her grip.
"Thank you," he responded in the same cloying tone. She abruptly turned and left with her previous blank stair re-affixed. While curiosity may have a deadly influence over the cat, it had little pull with Flo.
"Nothing addressed on the outside," Spinoza remarked. It seemed like a poorly mannered letter if it was meant to be an invitation. No indication of an RSVP and no fancy calligraphy harkened them to a social event.
Tannehill opened the envelope with a stubby index finger and slid out the thick card stock inside. Again, nothing on the front of the card to give its intentions away. He flipped it open:
We have das Mädchen.
Call the number I gave you for next steps.
-O
"Huh," Tannehill clucked his tongue. He casually handed the card to Spinoza.
"So what now?"
"Why do you think he used the German version of 'girl'?"
Spinoza's eyes bulged in mild disbelief and suspicion of Tannehill's reaction. "That's an unusual first question to ask when you've just learned that a friend of yours has been kidnapped by a pair of double murderers."
Tannehill continued undeterred, "I wonder if he did so to pepper the message with additional menace. Do you know if das Mädchen is a nominative or accusative case?"
"What is wrong with you?!"
"I guess it doesn't matter. We know it means girl, so the grammar's not important." He sucked his teeth briefly. "To answer your question - much that we've discovered over time, but in this particular case, nothing. We now have leverage on the them. Before, we could only suppose that they'd committed a crime. Now they're actually in the middle of that commission. More importantly, he's telling me to call the number he gave me before."
"And what does that mean?" Spinoza was at a loss.
"Well, the number he gave me before was the number to Brunner's apartment. Even if they're not keeping Vera there, someone has to be manning the phone. That means, unless they're all camped across the street observing us, we can ambush or follow at least one of them to get the drop on Vera's location. But I suspect she'll be at the apartment."
"Why do you suspect that?"
"Because Otto's not smart enough to come up with a better plan."
[Author's Note: This was one of those chapters that I expected was only going to be a few words - a note gets delivered and the men take action. Then I realized setting a scene for it sounded a bit more delightful and got to 860 words. Then, on editing, I wanted to see if I could get to the usual thousand word mark, and, voilà, we're at 1056 for this chapter. The running total is 45451 words. With at least another four chapters planned, and only a scant 4549 words to cover, it looks like my July 2019 goal will be a reality soon.]
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