"But it's not much good because Bruno doesn't remember his family's name," Dina muttered.
"I'm afraid not," Erika agreed.
Dina stared blankly at the road ahead. There was one way to identify Bruno's brothers, and that was having him see them again. She started plotting how she could arrange that.
April 1636
Marcus cut the engine just as the boat started to ground. He hurried forward, grabbed the anchor, and jumped for shore. He grounded the anchor and then pulled the boat up onto the shore until it was firmly beached. It was the first time he'd returned to his old moonshine camp since the beginning of March when he'd killed two people. He removed his rifle from its scabbard, loaded five rounds into a magazine and clicked it into place before slinging it over his shoulder. It was time to explore.
The old cabin where Herman and Wilhelm had lived was a burned-out ruin. He nodded in satisfaction at the sight before moving on to the shed where they'd had their still. The fire he'd set there had left even less behind than the cabin fire. No doubt the gas had had something to do with that.
The still and all the gear they'd been forced to leave behind in the mad dash to evacuate the site were all gone, but he'd expected that. If nothing else, the police would have removed the still just to stop other people getting it.
He gave the site one final walk-around before returning to the shore. He traded his rifle for his fishing rod and found a spot on the shore where he could cast without catching his line in the trees. The wounded cop was improving, but from what he'd heard on the grapevine, was unable to give a description of Marcus or the Kindorf brothers. The most the cops had learned from Officer Heilmann was that they were looking for three people. Good luck to them with that bit of information. The cops seemed to have hit a dead end, meaning he was home free, so he might as well see if he could catch lunch.
The events of the previous month had resulted in Dina's activities being severely curtailed. She was behind in her latex collection, so today she and Bruno were carrying over fifty pounds of plant matter between them as they emerged from the woods around Deborah. She was hungry, and no doubt so was Bruno. Dina checked her purse, and taking full account of the money she should earn from the milkweed they carried, decided to divert past the bakery. They emerged with a sticky bun each.
They found somewhere to sit. Dina dug a couple of bottles of water out of her rucksack and passed Bruno one before drinking from hers. It was a warm April afternoon, so she leaned back on a tree trunk and watched the world go by while she ate her bun.
"Wilhelm!"
Bruno's horrified whimper jerked Dina back to the present. She checked Bruno. He was pale, almost white, and he was staring at a man sitting at an outdoor table.
Dina studied the man. He looked vaguely similar to one of the men she'd seen looking at the police cruiser, but then, so had a lot of men she'd seen since then. However, this was the first one Bruno had reacted to. She pulled out the camera her Aunt Lettie had lent her. She was looking at him through the viewfinder when he looked up and stared straight at her.
Click.
The man looked from her to Bruno. Suddenly he got to his feet, dropped some money on the table and hurried off.
Dina wanted to follow him, but a glance over her shoulder told her Bruno was in no state to be left alone. Movement out of the corner of her eye turned into a waitress heading for the vacated table, no doubt to recover the money Wilhelm had left under his glass. The glass! She ran, getting to the glass just before the waitress.
"What are you planning on doing with that glass, young lady?" Dee Fisher, the co-owner of Tip's demanded.
Dina edged closer and whispered. "I need to call the police. That man might be one of the men responsible for murdering Officer Harris." She could have mentioned the dead girl and the other officer, but they were both down-timers, and even after all this time a lot of up-timers, especially those around Mrs. Fisher's age, didn't seem to see them as being equal to up-timers.
"What makes you think he might be one of the people responsible?"
"Me and Bruno saw them." Dina immediately realized what she'd said and hastily looked around to see who might have heard. No one seemed to have heard, so she edged closer. "But you mustn't tell Mom that."
That drew a grin from Dee before she glanced at the glass. "You're thinking of fingerprints?"
Dina nodded.
"Okay then, you look after the glass while I call the cops."
"Thank you, Mrs. Fisher."
Dina had a box seat to watch Georg Meisner, the senior forensics technician, first lift the fingerprints from the glass and then compare them with the prints he'd taken from Car Four.
"Well," he said to the eager ears surrounding him some time later, "it looks like we have a match."
"You're sure?" Press Richards asked.
"Pretty sure, Herr Chief Richards, I've got nine points of similarity." Georg pointed to a spot on one of the prints with a pencil. "That loop there matches the loop here. And. "
"Okay, so you're pretty sure of a match. That means we have a suspect at last." Press smiled at Dina. "Good work." Press turned his attention to the six by three inch photograph of a man looking straight at the camera. "Is that as big as you can make it?"
"Yes," Georg said. "The man's face is actually a very small part of the negative. I believe Fraulein Frost was over fifty feet from the subject when she took the photograph."
Dina nodded that this was correct.
"Right, run off a couple of dozen copies and we'll start circulating them." Press turned to Dina. "We owe you a heap of thanks. I don't know how we can ever repay you."
"Cash, gold, negotiable bonds." Dina smiled at the shocked look on Chief Richards' face. She'd been dying for a chance to use that phrase ever since she heard her Aunt Lettie use it. It'd sounded so cool.
Marcus was standing on the sideline cheering Bailey's Little League Soccer team on with the rest of the parents. Right then Bailey emerged from the melee of nearly twenty nine-year-olds with the ball at his feet, jinked past the goalie, and dribbled the ball into the goal. He turned, proud as could be, to search for his family. The moment he located them he ran straight for them.
"I scored! I scored!" Bailey said as he launched himself at Marcus.
Marcus caught him, and hugged his son. "You were brilliant. The way you ran round that goalie, he didn't stand a chance."
"Daddy!"
Okay, so maybe he was spreading it on a bit thick, but he was proud of his son. He ruffled Bailey's hair and sent him off to rejoin his team.
"It was a good thing you were here to see his first goal," Jocelyn said.
"Yeah, I wouldn't have missed it for anything, but doesn't Britney have a pony club gymkhana next week?" he asked, looking down at his daughter.
"You remembered!" Britney squealed.
"Of course I remembered." He crouched down to her eye level. "Would I forget my favorite girl's big competition?"
Britney threw her arms around his neck. "You're the best daddy in the world."
Marcus hugged his little girl tightly, then swung her over his head so she could sit on his shoulders.
He was still carrying her on his shoulders when the final whistle was blown and everyone started to move towards the bus stop.
"Have either of you seen this man?"
Marcus glanced over to see a police auxiliary handing Jocelyn a photograph. He looked over her shoulder. It wasn't a great photograph, but anybody who knew Wilhelm Kindorf would easily recognize him. "Sorry, he doesn't look familiar. What's he wanted for?"
The auxiliary shrugged. "I don't know. We were just issued the photographs and sent out to see if anybody knew who he was and where he might be found."