Surprised, Indy took a moment. "I'm sorry to hear that."
"Well, the man lived a better life on the page than he did in reality. We really puffed him up in the obit. It should make his family happy."
"If you don't mind, what happened?"
"He took the big plunge himself. At least that's what the cops determined. It took them long enough."
"They weren't certain it was suicide?"
"I'm still not certain its suicide. If you have a gambling problem, then one of the worst jobs you can have is a reporter. You just don't make enough. And the absolute worst job if you're a gambler is a sportswriter. Craig really didn't have a chance. It's like being an alcoholic bartender. That's why I tried to move him over to the opinion side of things full time, but the man was as addicted to the writing as much as the betting."
"My friend had just moved. He had loaned Craig some documents for a story. He was hoping to get some of them back."
"What sort of documents?" Sam asked suspiciously.
Indy realized he was oddly vague. "Family documents. Historical and genealogical stuff."
Sam shrugged as if he had just given up. "Sure. Why not." He looked under several piles of paper, careful not to disrupt them too much lest the whole tower come crashing down. "Here's his final check. The address is on the envelop."
Indy memorized it and left.
The landlord had little problem with opening up Craig's old apartment to a stranger. All it took were a pair of twenties. "It's not like he's gonna mind," he told himself as much as Indy. "Besides, Craig was the kind of tenant who was always two months behind on rent."
"Did you know Craig, I mean more than just as a tenant."
"Not really. I always gave him a bit of leeway just 'cause I liked his column in the Herald. When Reagan put his hat in the ring for the nomination, the Herald was the only newspaper who took him seriously. And that was especially true for Craig. So, I had a soft spot for the guy, even if he never paid me on time."
The apartment looked as cluttered as the Albany Herald's newsroom. Piles of paper formed everywhere. "And you said no one has picked up his stuff."
"Nope. You got here just in time. The police said not to touch a thing until they had a chance to comb through this mess. I just got the okay to toss everything. By tomorrow it will be gone."
"Why did the police want you to keep all this junk? What were they still investigating?"
"They weren't sure if he really offed himself. It wasn't unusual for Craig to have visitors. It sometimes kept up the other tenants. But, here's the thing, if you're already renting out one of my apartments, then there's few other options for you. You can't go much lower, you what I'm saying. So, the other tenants got used to the fact that they would have to listen to a loan shark stop by Craig's every couple of weeks."
"Is that the only reason they thought he may have been killed?"
"There was something funky about how he died."
"And how did he kill himself?"
"It was a combo deal. Pills and then hanging. Very thorough. But I guess the cops thought something was funny. There was no struggle, and he may have been dead before he was hung. I don't really know the details, and I'm no coroner."
"Do you mind if I take a moment to look around?"
"Take all the time you want. Everything's going in a dumpster tomorrow mornin'."
After the landlord left, Indy started poking around. The stacks of paper contained a variety of notes and documents. Figuring out whatever organizing principal Craig had in mind would have been more difficult than translating Koihoma.
A written page hung limply from Craig's typewriter, likely the start of some article, probably the last thing he had worked on. Indy quickly skimmed, but he got the gist quickly. It was the usual racist complaint about good immigrants and bad immigrants. It was the same argument Indy had heard on a cycle. At first, it was about the Irish and Italians flooding into our country, but now it's the descendants of those Irish and Italians complaining about the next group of immigrants looking for a better life and better opportunities.
Now in his eighties, the repetition became tiresome. He spent his life devoted to discovery and new knowledge, but it seems like the opinion class has always been immune to new knowledge. What was all that work for?
"I'm sorry to say, Craig, but I don't think you left behind any lost masterpieces," Indy said to himself. But if there was a connection between Craig and Fred, it must be here.
He wasn't going to find anything in the stacks of paper, but if Craig had anything of importance, then surely he would have hidden it. Indy started looking underneath furniture, behind the bed, and between the mattresses.
He went back to the desk and surveyed the mess, riffled through drawers, tried to start organizing papers into piles of the potentially useful and the obvious junk. When he got through all of the potentially useful papers, only to fail to find anything of use, he thought about leaving. How long could he spend searching for something he didn't know even existed. Hell, he didn't know exactly what he was even trying to find. And if Fred really did have something to do with Craig's death, then wouldn't he have taken any blackmail information the man had.
Before leaving, though, Indy decided to pull the desk drawers all the way out. On the back of the top drawer was tape residue. Something had been here, leaving behind bits of scotch tape. He pulled out the second to find nothing, and then the third. On the third drawer, he found a key taped to the bottom along with a three-digit number on a torn strip of paper. Craig didn't seem like the kind of guy who could afford a second apartment, so it made the most amount of sense that the number referred to a storage unit.
It only took Indy two calls pretending to be Craig to track down which self-storage company the key belonged to. By the time he got there, the sun had set, and he used his flashlight to illuminate the numbers on each unit. He was the only person there, penned in by the rows of storage units and the fence topped with barbed wire. When the beam of his light revealed the luminescent eyes of an opossum, Indy became startled.
The creature stood, unfazed next to Craig's storage unit. Indy thought that by simply walking towards the animal, it would become frightened and scurry away. But even as he walked forward, the opossum simply stared right back at him, his glowing eyes unmoving. Finally, Indy had to toss a few pebbles towards the creature to finally frighten him off.
The metal door of the storage unit opened with a rolling clank that broke the quiet of the night. Whatever Indy expected Craig to keep in storage, it certainly wasn't this. The flashlight beam crossed the storage space to reveal a coterie of items, most marked with swastikas. Dinner plates, cutlery, hats, uniforms, a Vis pistol, and a Gewehr rifle.
The man had quite the collection. And clearly it meant a lot to him because despite being heavily in debt, he didn't sell it off.
Amid the Nazi memorabilia, Indy found a folder with a single piece of paper inside. Written in Craig's unruly cursive were the dates 1944-1945, the word Darmstadt, and a series of numbers. Shoving the paper in his pocket, Indy left swiftly. Fred Martin was a Nazi. Craig knew.
Indy knew that the name Darmstadt sounded familiar beyond the fact that it was a city and region in Germany. Upon returning to Connecticut, he made a quick library visit to confirm that the Nazis built a concentration camp near there, initially to hold the city's Jewish population. Eventually, it became more of a way point, the final stop before many Jews, Roma, gays, lesbians, and dissidents were sent to their final destination, the death camps.
If Fred were in a leadership position at the Darmstadt concentration camp, then surely someone in the government is looking for him.
At home, Indy trawled through the checked out library books and those in his own collection for more information when the phone began ringing. He ignored it at first, but soon the ringing started right up again. Eventually, he gave up, answering with a gruff "What do you want?"
"Well, hello to you too." Marion said.
"I'm sorry. You just caught me in the middle of some research."
"It sounds like you are keeping busy. Is that why you didn't call yesterday?"
Yesterday he had spent his time driving to and from Albany or investigating Fred. It slipped his mind. "You said that I should keep busy. Well, I think I was just too busy with my research. But I'll make sure to keep in touch. You don't have to worry about me. I can survive on my own."
"I know that you can feed yourself, Indiana Jones. I'm more concerned with your emotional wellbeing. Can I ask what you're researching?"
"I'm just looking back at some old World War II stuff."
"Is this a nostalgia trip? I'm sure there are better avenues you can explore if you're taking a trip down memory lane."
"It's not like that. I'll tell you more when I'm sure I've found what I'm looking for. How's your visit going."
"These kids are keeping me busy. They're wearing me out, if I'm being honest. Did we ever have this much energy?"
"I don't know about me, but you sure did. Whenever we were together, I felt like I was trying to keep up with you."
"That's funny. That's what I always felt about you."
When the conversation ended, Indy returned to his research, only to be interrupted by the telephone again. He thought about ignoring the call, but there was a chance Marion had forgotten to tell him something, so he picked up. It was Dr. Zhao.
"Dr. Jones, I want you to know that I thought about what you said. If I can't help an old colleague, then am I even doing my job?"
"Does that mean you'll give me access to the university's artifact collection?"
"Not exactly. As I told you, that would take some time. But come to my office. I think you'll be happy with the alternative."
Dr. Zhao ushered Indy into his office and entreated him to close the door quickly. "I can only keep these items for a short period of time before they know they're gone."
On the table were several ceramic pots, a couple brown with black stripes, but most were of a striking ebony. The rounded body and neck made many of the artifacts look like jolly little men, and sure enough, one of the pieces included a face on the neck and two hands holding his "belly." The Mapuche clearly anthropomorphized these pots in the same way.
Most of the items were asymmetrical, with the neck and lip extending from the body at an angle rather than straight upwards. One piece resembled a rooster, with wings on the side and a face and comb emerging from the spout. The resemblance to the duck-shaped vessel on Fred's mantle was uncanny. He couldn't be certain until he examined the pottery at Fred's house again, but the design and coloration all pointed to it being of Mapuche origin from Chile.
"So, does this help you out with your puzzle?"
"It helps me with placing a few more pieces, yes."
"And here's another thing," Dr. Zhao said as he handed him a slip of paper. "This is Aaron Roark's number."
"You're full of surprises today."
"If we can't use what little power we have to help friends, then what's it worth? So, what's next for you? Are you going to contact the authorities about this suspected smuggler?"
"Yes. Definitely. I will. But first I have a couple of loose ends to track down."
"Be careful, Indiana. If you need further help, I can be your back up."
"It's nothing I can't handle," Indy said, ruffled by the offer of help.