they’re hitting you. Then they stopped.”
“Yes …” Her eyes focused on her lap. “Finally.”
“Are you all right?”
She whispered, “It’s … go on. I’m all right.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded.
“Okay. But don’t hesitate to stop if you need to. What happened after they stopped beating you?”
“One man raped me … the other …” She dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “He must have gone to the safe.”
“One man raped you while the other went to the safe.”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember what happened after the man came out of the safe?”
“I think … maybe they broke more things …” She looked at him with urgency. “He found what he wanted in the safe. I don’t know why he destroyed the room.”
“Could he have been looking for something else?”
“Impossible.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“He found what he wanted in the safe.”
“Yes.”
“What did he want, Lilah?”
“I wish all your questions were that easy to answer. It’s obvious that they were after my father’s memoirs.”
There was a moment of silence. Decker said, “They attacked you and trashed your bedroom for your father’s memoirs?”
Lilah bristled. “You don’t know who my father was?”
“He was a director—”
“Not just any director! He was the director. Hermann Brecht! As in the Brecht School of Performing Arts at Heidelberg. As in the Brecht Chair at Bonn University! He was not just a genius. He was the genius. His unsurpassed brilliance in film direction has and will be studied for years. The premier director of this century—fifteen masterpieces and all before he reached his untimely demise at twenty-eight!”
“Your father died at twenty-eight?”
“Yes.” Lilah’s eyes became shiny pools. “I was just a little girl so I don’t remember him too clearly. That’s why the memoirs are so important to me. They’re my history!”
“Lilah, I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but why would they be important to anyone else?”
Her face turned stony. “My father was a visionary of unsurpassed magnitude. About a year ago, dear Freddy let it slip out that Father had written his recollections and had willed them to me. Up until that time only he and I knew about them. Once Freddy let the cat out of the bag, I was suddenly deluged with calls and letters from universities asking me if I’d care to donate them. Donate! Can you imagine such gall!
“When it became clear I wouldn’t donate them, they tried to buy them away. Three thousand, thirty thousand, three hundred thousand. I wouldn’t have let them go for three million. Not for thirty million. But apparently someone else wanted them and was willing to do whatever was necessary to obtain them.”
“What’s in your father’s papers that makes them so coveted?”
She regarded him with disgust, then softened her look. “My father never granted interviews. The memoirs are the only living record of him lecturing about his films—his art—in his own words. And now, I may never know …” She exploded into tears.
Decker felt a headache coming on. She wasn’t making a lot of sense. Could it be a subtle sign of brain injury due to the beating? He’d ask Dr. Kessler. After she stopped crying, he said, “Why do you say you may never know? You haven’t read your father’s memoirs?”
“Oh, dear, why is life so complicated?”
He waited for her to continue.
“The papers were willed to me on the condition that they not be opened until the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death. That date falls two months from now. Of course I had to obey his wishes. Others have been after me to break my promise as soon as they found out the papers existed. But I would rather die than ignore my father’s last request in his suicide note.”
Suicide. Decker let that sink in. “The papers were with him when he committed suicide?”
“No, all of Father’s papers were left with an old, trusted friend. I was mailed the memoirs when I reached eighteen. They were delivered into my hands, completely sealed, the wrapping untampered with. Father’s wishes were recorded by the friend on a separate cover letter.”
“So your father’s friend knew the memoirs existed.”
“Oskar died six years ago. Before Freddy opened his mouth. Poor Oskar had nothing to do with the theft of the papers if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Decker tapped his pencil on his pad. “Was the cover letter written in English or do you read German?”
Lilah’s smile held strained patience. “Both the letter and the memoirs were written in English. They were dedicated to me, Peter. Father obviously wanted me to understand them. Father was fluent in five languages.”
“Why you and not your brother, Miss Brecht?”
“Poor Freddy …” Lilah sighed. “Always second-class citizen. He felt so neglected.” Her face soured. “So did Mother. When she found out about the memoirs, she was absolutely shocked, livid! The witch actually insisted that I open them and disregard my father’s wishes. She probably wanted to find out what was written about her. As if Father would waste his time recording their silly squabbles!”
Lilah seemed suddenly impatient.
“You never let me finish describing my attackers. Don’t you want useful information?”
“I thought we’d wait for the police artist.”
“Is your artist any good?”
“The best.” Decker looked up from his pad. “Lilah, how long a look did you get of each man?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you see each of them for thirty seconds? A minute?”
“I saw them as long as I wanted.”
“What do you mean? You were blindfolded.”
“As soon as they touched me, I was able to image their faces in my mind. That’s why I’m able to recall such detail. Brain imaging gives much more resolution than does the optic nerve.”
Decker
