“When did you last see Ernst?” I tried to remember the date under the photograph. The body was found Saturday.
“Friday night.” Rudolf sniffed. “Not that it concerns you. Or me since he abandoned me for that youth.”
“You let him leave the bar with a stranger?” I felt like a hopeless old maid as soon as the words left my mouth.
Rudolf laughed, a sound like a horse’s whinny. He walked down the street. “Your brother does what he wants.”
“What is in the box?” I followed him. I cast a glance over my shoulder at Ernst’s front steps, imagining him sweeping down them, admonishing Rudolf and me for arguing over him like two dogs over a bone. A delectable bone, he would add, arching his eyebrows. I bit my lip. He would never come down those stairs again.
“The box has only trinkets I gave your brother to show my feelings. Back when he shared them.” Rudolf tossed his head like a horse without upsetting his thick gray hair. I suppressed a smile at the feminine gesture. He certainly did not do that around his rich law clients.
“May I see these trinkets?” I hurried to keep pace with Rudolf’s long-legged stride.
“Why?” Rudolf asked. “They do not belong to you.”
“Nor are they yours,” I said. “If you gave them to Ernst.”
Rudolf narrowed his eyes and stopped walking. A crowd of workmen in caps and open necked shirts pushed by us on their way from the subway station.
“Are you stealing them, Rudolf?”
Rudolf sighed, and his pockmarked face sagged, caving in under the weight of his fifty years. As angry as he was, he was hurt, too. “He might cast them out on the street,” he said. “If they mean nothing to him now, I should have them.”
“Perhaps they have financial meaning?”
“I have no need to stoop to petty thievery,” he said. “Take them. Pass them along when you see him.” He thrust the cardboard box into my hands.
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