Brodie asked, “When did Harry arrive in Berlin for this last visit?”
“Tuesday. Late afternoon. I was busy and couldn’t meet him at the train station, so we met in the neighborhood around six-thirty.”
“Did he have a key to your apartment?”
“No. He didn’t want one. Except when he was staying here. So, we met at the Japanese place across the street.”
“Were you together from Tuesday until early Sunday morning?”
She shook her head. “I’d go to work in the morning, and he’d go do… whatever it was he was doing. We saw each other in the evenings, and the weekend.” That seemed to bring up something painful, and she added, “Sunday morning I rolled over toward him, but his side of the bed was empty. I saw he’d texted my phone, said he couldn’t sleep and was going for a walk, would be back by dawn. I called him and he didn’t answer. I tried again. And again. And then…” She paused. “I was a wreck all of Sunday. I wanted to contact the police, but I told myself that would be overreacting… and the police might contact his wife… And then the news comes, Monday morning. I learn along with everyone else. His wife is the one who gets the phone call, yes? I was just…” She trailed off.
That was the price of being the other woman. Harry might have given his heart to Anna, but it didn’t come with next-of-kin status and a legally binding contract.
Brodie asked, “Was Harry’s wife aware of your relationship?”
“He was getting divorced.”
“Please answer the question.”
She hesitated. “No.”
“She must have suspected something.”
“We didn’t talk about it,” said Anna brusquely. “By our third time together, he told me he was getting a divorce. It was that simple. He wasunhappy. I made him happy. And if you find happiness in this shit world, you grab it and don’t let go.”
It seemed that Ms. Albrecht was more defensive about this topic than about withholding key information from the police who were investigating her boyfriend’s murder. Also, something about this wasn’t making sense. Why wouldn’t Harry have told his wife, Julie, about the affair when filing for divorce? Once the deed was done, why not come clean? Shame? A desire for a more amicable and speedy settlement?
Then Brodie thought about Mark Jenkins, whom Harry had also kept in the dark about this relationship, and who seemed perplexed about what Harry could have been up to in Berlin that was so secretive that he wouldn’t share it with his CID partner and close friend.
This secrecy could all be explained by the Uniform Code of Military Justice: Adultery was a punishable offense. So were actions unbecoming an officer. Not to mention actions that brought discredit to the Army. Having an affair was not a career builder. And that might be the answer to Harry’s silence on the subject.
But maybe now they had another answer.Odin. Harry’s relationship with Anna and his hunt for the American traitor were part of the same thing in Harry’s mind. To tell his wife or his partner about Anna Albrecht was to risk revealing what he was really doing in Berlin beyond a romantic dalliance.
Was Harry using this woman? Did he just happen upon her art gallery? Or was he seeking her out because he already knew about her father and her family’s search for justice? In other words, was Harry Vance on a case? Not according to Mark Jenkins, or Colonel Trask, or anyone else at 5th MP. Well, something was propelling Warrant Officer Vance forward on this search for Odin, and Brodie needed to figure out if there was more to it than a keen romantic interest in Ms. Albrecht, and moral outrage over the American military traitor who had betrayed his country, and betrayed Anna’s father. Something more in the present.
Brodie asked, “Is there anything Harry mentioned—or something you might have overheard—that could shed some light on who he was in contact with while he was in Berlin?”
Anna shook her head.
“Maybe you saw something on his phone.”
Anna shot him a look. “I saw nothing on his phone. I respected his privacy. We trusted each other.”
Taylor said, “Harry must have left some of his belongings here.”
Anna nodded. “Clothes, mostly. Plus his passport, which he told me he always traveled with, even within Germany, in case he got unexpected orders to travel abroad. His bag sat there on the floor in my bedroom, I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t even want to touch it. I eventually got up the nerve to throw it in my wardrobe.”
Brodie asked, “May we see it?”
“Why?”
“I won’t know until I see it.”
Anna stood and led them back into the hallway, into a bright, airy bedroom with tall windows facing the street.
The room was a mess. Unmade bed, pillows tossed on the floor, books and loose papers on every surface. Anna opened a tall wooden wardrobe across from the bed and retrieved a black nylon overnight bag, which she handed to Brodie. “Some of his shirts and slacks are still hanging in here, everything else is in the bag.”
Brodie set the bag on the bed and opened it. Socks, boxer shorts, a few T-shirts and undershirts. He pulled out a worn paperback copy of Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent and handed it to Taylor. “Appropriate reading.”
