Chapter 10 - Siberia, Seriously?

Jim and Artie arrived in Verdun at nightfall, too late to conduct business. Lily arrived the middle of the next day. She was accompanied by Jim and Artie's French colleague and friend Inspector Renaud Girard, who'd provided the information on Loveless, as well as a burly bodyguard for Lily. After depositing Lily and her bodyguard at the hotel, Inspector Girard introduced Jim and Artie to Verdun's mayor, Gilles Bocuse, and presented orders from the president of France requiring Bocuse and his police force to assist Jim and Artie in any way possible. Unfortunately, Girard had to withdraw immediately as a telegram came demanding his attention to a murder in Paris.

Mayor Bocuse seemed to relax when Inspector Girard departed, although both Jim and Artie saw a natural enough cause for that. The mayor said he was unaware of any private sanatoriums in the immediate area and when confronted with the description of Loveless and being shown a picture of him, the mayor shook his head. "I would have remembered seeing such a man outside of the circus." As to the spotting of Voltaire and Kitten six weeks ago, he had no personal information but he suggested the police would know if they were there. "A man as large as that cannot escape the attention of the police force for long. You shall have their full cooperation and assistance, gentlemen." The mayor excused himself for other business but promised to remain available and accessible to any of their needs and passed them off to the police department.

The chief of the local police was unavailable until the next day due to a family emergency, but his assistant met with Jim and Artie to discuss what was known and suspected of Loveless and the "odd shaped" friends he kept, the giant and the fat lady. They had been observed in town together a time or two many weeks ago, but did nothing to bring themselves to the attention of the department. The assistant police chief thought it possible, if not probable, that they had left town. There had been no recent sightings of either that his men could recall specifically.

Not entirely satisfied with the answers they'd received, Artie and Jim headed into the village center to speak with local merchants. This effort paid off only slightly as Kitten made more of an impression on the local merchants than the police. She was remembered well not only for her bulk but for her lack of ability to communicate in French and her rude pointing in substitution. The local merchants had little patience for her, and Jim and Artie doubted they'd been kind to her. That said, from them Jim and Artie deduced that Kitten's once a week large purchases which she placed in saddle bags meant that Loveless and his entourage had not stayed in the town, but within a day's travel to and from Verdun. Unfortunately, it had been at least a month since anyone remembered seeing Kitten or Voltaire, and possibly longer.

Meanwhile, Lily suggested seeking out the local midwives and physicians to see if any had attended Kat or been advised that their services would be needed soon. A local woman who was one of a handful of midwives was engaged to do this for them bearing orders of cooperation from the mayor. Sadly, none of her contacts proved helpful. Lily suggested that would change with time. If Loveless wanted a healthy child delivered, he would not take the chance of leaving Kat to nature's whims. This assumed, of course, he was still in the area.

Jim and Artie worried they'd come close but missed Loveless. Still, after questioning the train agent and some crewmen, as well as local coachmen, they found no hard evidence to suggest that Loveless had left either. Absent specific evidence of their departure, Jim and Artie decided the best tack was to dig deeper in Verdun, to at least discover where they stayed and, if they'd left, whether they'd left behind clues.

Artie and Jim headed back to the police station where, with the help of the assistant police chief, they spent several hours studying maps for possible hideouts of Loveless and his odd entourage. By nightfall, they'd narrowed down the probable search area to a tract of thirty square kilometers north of town which could be reached by traveling deep into the forest. There were several possible residences in this area where Loveless could live inconspicuously. One of these was a fortified castle that had been empty for two years after the death of the last in a family line. No one else wanted to take on the expensive maintenance of it, so it remained empty. Jim and Artie instantly focussed on that as the most likely property, appealing to Loveless's sense of grandeur. The mayor popped in and let the men know that the police chief, Inspector Jabot, would personally would escort and assist Jim and Artie on their quest in any manner they wished to proceed the next morning.

Jim and Artie returned to the hotel, ate dinner with Lily and the bodyguard in a private salon, and then retired up to their rooms to make preparations for a possible excursion to a chateau the next day. In the morning, Jim, Artie and Lily — with the bodyguard hovering nearby — ate breakfast in the dining room. Just as Jim took his first bite of a croissant, a young boy ran in the room and presented Jim with an envelope. "Por vous, Monsieur West, c'est urgent."

Jim tipped the boy a franc and took a large envelope from his hands. The outside bore stamps which read "U.S. Embassy, London" and "URGENT". Inside the large envelope, Jim found a note wrapped around another envelope. This note read: "Please forward to James West, U.S. Secret Service, immediately." It bore the signature of President Ulysses S. Grant. Jim unwrapped this note and found a gossamer thin envelope with a postmark of several weeks ago from Siberia. The envelope was addressed to James West, U.S. Secret Service, Washington D.C., USA. Jim inhaled deeply as he recognized Kat's writing.

"What is it Jim?" Lily asked with wide eyes.

"It's a letter from Kat."

"Is it real?" Artie asked with surprise.

"It's her writing on the envelope," Jim shrugged.

"Well, for God's sake man, open it and read it," Artie urged as he and Lily waited nearly breathlessly.

"Maybe Jim would prefer some privacy to read it," Lily suggested as the delivery itself had already drawn more attention than Lily felt was needed.

Jim wasn't listening anymore, however. He was already opening the missive. He read it silently. Artie carefully watched his longtime partner's eyes for reactions that he might not wish to voice in a public space.

Dear Jim,

I write this letter full of shame and regret at my actions. Know that I truly did and do love you. In a moment I am hard pressed to explain but cannot deny, I deceived you cruelly. Know too that I have been duly punished for what I did.

I gamely went along for months of city travel away from my beloved horses, worrying each day that I had forever given up that life I loved despite our agreement to face those decisions jointly later. By the time we'd been in London a week, I suspected I was pregnant, but I was not ready to admit it to myself let alone you. In time I became certain, and when we were in Madrid with the support of kind Lily, I knew the time had come to tell you — whether or not I perceived myself ready for the reality of motherhood.

I asked you for a day away from the city after the bullfights, and you graciously agreed, easily and apologetically. I began to think that all would be fine; that we would find a compromise between city and country to suit us both. That with your help and support maybe I could face motherhood, something I did not feel ready or qualified to do.

Perhaps it was my initial wicked doubts that led to what happened next. After the three of you left for the bullfights, I began to cramp badly and bleed. I knew at once I'd lost the baby. Then, as if on cue, the flowers arrived. There was something about them that set me off, maybe lilies being the flowers associated with death. I guessed they were for Lily, but with a mistake in spelling and room number. She certainly was deserving of them. I felt anything but worthy at the time.

Desperate for distraction from despairing emotions bubbling up within me, I took them back to the florist, or I should say what was left of the florist. The explosion must have rocked the ground blocks away. I was not that far when it happened, however. I'd been knocked to the ground by the concussive blast of the nearby explosion. Although I was not aware of being specifically hurt, everything that happened afterward was as if I was moving in a fog or dream, for I have no other rational way of explaining what I did next.

I was overtaken by feelings of enormous disappointment in myself, grief at losing the child I'd not yet told you about, and disgust at my misgivings about our new life together supplemented by a child I wasn't certain I wanted just yet. It was as if the explosion I'd just witnessed mirrored some similar explosion within me. Without conscious thought, I acted. I removed my wedding band, threw it in the fire and fled with only the clothes on my back and a thoughtful and generous amount of pesos you'd slipped in before you'd left for the bullfights in case I went shopping.

Still in this same nightmarish fog, I wandered to the train station. I boarded the first train, which was bound to Zaragoza, a place that looked utterly uninviting to exit. I paid to stay aboard the same train which continued on to Toulouse. Then a wild hair took root and I determined to work my way towards Camargue to see the wild horses, as if seeing them would heal whatever had broken inside me.

I suppose I had some notion that we were kith and kin, these horses and I. I stayed there for a few days living rough in a primitive shelter trying to befriend some of those beautiful creatures thinking I might tame and train a few before I realized how wrong it was of me to even want that. And maybe that's what made me keep going and not turn back to you and seek forgiveness. I had seen how swimmingly you negotiated high society and government over the last several months of travel, seeming to take true pleasure in all of it. You had finally healed and could resume your work in that orbit. I would be your only excuse for not doing the work you love. I coped better than I expected during those months and then it all felt wrong and broken. I felt broken.

I needed money so I headed further east, taking on small farm jobs where anyone would have me. I met with much resistance in France, for to them it was men's work that I sought. Using the last of my funds and working or begging for some others along the way, I eventually made it to Munich. I recalled in my youth that German girls on farms were permitted to do man's work fairly freely and hoped that I might do so as well. It was all that kept me going then, a return to what I have always found as my solace, working with horses.

Of course, it was just another series of dreadful miscalculations on my part, especially my reverting to my birth name to seek work. Though I never advertised an actual connection to the empress, I used our common name because, well, everyone knew of Ekaterina Romanov's supposed "affinity" for horses, and that might give me the entry I needed to find decent work for which I was in fact qualified. The thing I hadn't thought about — for I was innocent then — were those three dreadful suitors my father pressed upon me in New Jersey, the ones whom Nadja used my poor Schumann to kill, one of whom was a German noble.

As proof of what bad luck can follow a girl when she is not busy making her own, my presence in Munich somehow got back to the one living man who bore me the most ill will: my father. Thus he had his revenge upon me for tarnishing what little was left of his good name, and more so, for failing to secure his dotage by marrying one of those three European twits and also costing him the value of whatever assets he had left behind in the States. He turned me in for the murder of the German, collected a reward from the man's family, and bid me good riddance.

Jim, I don't know what you know of German criminal law, but it is nothing like in the States. I understood from the moment I was taken into custody what would follow. I was presumed guilty. Upon that lay the further handicap that it was a woman's word against a man's, and I was a penniless and alone too. I would be afforded no access to a meaningful defense had I even wanted one. A judge would find me guilty. But even that is not enough for German justice. A confession would be required too. And though a part of me was self-loathing enough at this point to feel I deserved the means by which it would be extracted, torture, I chose to bypass that part, confess and accept a quick death penalty instead.

So now you must wonder how is this letter in your hands and why is it from Siberia? When has anything ever proceeded in a straight line for me? Before the penalty was to be applied, the Emperor — my cousin Wilhelm — was somehow advised of it. My father again? Was my death not enough to satisfy his desire to punish me or did he repent some and it was too much for him given the truth? I will likely never know, but my fate again zagged. My date with death was temporarily deferred upon the discovery that I was in line to the throne of Germany. (I had neglected to renounce the German title and succession right as I did the Russian one because, well, let's just say my Russian arrogance never thought much of the German right!)

Instead of executing me, cousin Wilhelm sent me for appropriate disposition to my cousin Alexander (III) presently upon his own thrown in St. Petersburg. (I suspect that the current tension between Russia and Germany may have had more to do with Wilhelm's actions than my status, or perhaps there was an exchange of prisoners, for it seems hardly likely to me that cousin Alexander was about to start a war over Wilhelm executing me. Now you might see why I've never wanted anything to do with any of them and prefer the company of horses!)

Anyway, Cousin Alexander— out of some sense of family fealty and fondness for my dearly departed mother whom he knew better than I ever did — chose not to uphold the death sentence. I also suspect that he did not think ill of my crime, killing a German noble unrelated to us. Had he not been such a religious man, I might have skated! In the end, he settled upon exiling me to my current and permanent home: Siberia.

It is perhaps better than I deserve for my bad decisions. Though it is a wild and desolate land, I am permitted to work with horses and do not live in nearly such rough conditions as do many others here. Winter will be a test, but I have weathered Russian winters before, haven't I? And if the food is abysmal, so what? I deserve that and much worse too.

To you, and to Artie and Lily especially, my sincerest apologies for my rash decision and the pain I know I put you all through. I meant to advise you of the truth sooner, but first I had to face a good many other truths that set me back. I am not proud of my behavior, I assure you. I hope in time that you find a woman who can give you all the things a husband as wonderful as you should have, things that in the heat of the moment of my sorriest decision ever, I thought I could not.

With love and infinite regret,

Kat

P.S. Even if you are so generous as to forgive me, please immediately discard any ridiculous notion of rescuing me from the mess I made this time. I will live out the rest of my days here learning true humility at last!

Jim crumpled the letter up and tossed it on the floor in disgust.

Artie bent down to pick it up but would not look at it without Jim's permission. "What is it Jim?"

"It's time to get Lily out of here," Jim said. "You two can make the midmorning train." Jim arose from his chair, leaving the two envelopes and the note on the table.

"Okay, Jim," Artie said seeing Jim's eyes blazing with certainty. Artie picked up the papers Jim left behind and turned to his wife. "Let's head upstairs to pack, Lily."

Lily looked questioningly at Jim and then her husband. Jim looked right through her. Artie gently shook his head, warning Lily not to ask anything, not to say a word. Lily nodded and placidly followed Artie upstairs, the bodyguard glued behind her now.

Once upstairs, Artie entered Jim's room through the door that connected their two rooms. Artie still held the crumpled letter and other papers that came with it.

"What's up Jim?"

"He knows we're here, Artie. We've got to move fast."

"What does a letter postmarked from Siberia have to do with Loveless?" Artie arched in puzzlement.

"Read it yourself. It's a decoy." Jim paced the room while Artie read the letter.

"Jim, the scary thing is that what the letter says is plausible. We have nothing that actually ties Loveless to Kat except the ring at the florist shop."

"Did you send Lily flowers that day?" Jim asked pointedly.

"No, nor Lilia, either," Artie admitted.

"You think it was all some kind of innocent mistake that drew Kat to the florist's that day?" Jim's pacing became more agitated.

"Jim, it is conceivable it was a fan of Lily's who sent the flowers, using the Spanish version of her name. Remember the man at the Spanish embassy dinner a few days earlier who was fawning all over Lily?"

"And the rest of this letter, it sounds like Kat to you?" Jim argued, certain of his position.

"It sounds like a distraught young woman who knows things only Kat would know."

"So it's just a coincidence that Loveless had recently bought the shop and installed Kitten there?" Jim threw his hands in the air in disbelief. "Artie, she was forced to write this tripe. I'm guessing it was in response to threats made against me, or you, or worse still, Lily."

"It's not that I disagree, Jim, but how can you be so certain when everything in the letter is plausibly true?"

"Kat's signature."

"Huh?" Artie shrugged in confusion.

"We had a running joke about her full name, Ekaterina Anastasia Natalya Olga Marina Tatyana Romanov. There was one name she hated. I teased her with it regularly. She began to play along. After that, every single note she ever left for me was signed 'Olga' not 'Kat,'; every note I ever left for her was for 'my darling Olga.'"

"Maybe since this is essentially a dear John letter, she didn't feel it necessary to play the game any more?" Artie asked calmly, aware of Jim's growing agitation at his questions.

"No, Artie, I'm telling you, if she wanted me to believe this, she'd have used Olga. If not in the signature, it would have been elsewhere."

Artie brought his right fist up to his chin and pondered a second. "It does make you wonder. If this was done at Loveless's command and Kat did sign it as she normally would, would Loveless have thought it a clue that the letter was fake and insisted she use her first name instead?" Artie pursed his lips, drew in a breath and let it out. "Okay, I trust your instincts on this one."

"If you trust my instincts, Artie, why all the arguing first?"

"Just to let you get the anger out."

"Really? Because now I just might be angrier," Jim growled.

"No, Jim. I was using the time to scrutinize the postmarks and the President's signature. They are all forgeries."

"Artie, sometimes . . .," Jim began and shook his head.

"Jim, don't you think it's time we head back to Mayor Bocuse's office and set things in motion?" Artie winked at Jim. Just like that, the partners were back to business.