"He's got good eyes, your nephew." The steward washed and rinsed my cup, dried it carefully, and added it to the row of clean cups.

When the boat reached the next stop, we disembarked. We would not use the rest of our sightseeing tickets.

"I'm only up to eight rats," Anton said. "The brave wants to find ten."

"Next time," I said.

I hailed a taxi and directed it to the bottle factory. The factory was closed Saturdays and the gate locked. I walked toward the river.

"What are we doing?" Anton scrambled through the mud behind me as I reached the bank.

"We are looking for signs." I searched the wet ground in front of me for evidence of Ernst's presence.

"Like animal spoor?"

"Anything unusual." I thought of Ernst's taste in clothes. "Also anything red."

We walked along the bank, staying as close to the water as possible. I did not know what I looked for as I trudged along, circling away from the bank, staring at the ground. The recent rain had obscured any marks. Mud sucked at our shoes as we squelched along. I would find nothing here.

I walked back to the cobblestone street that ran from the bottle factory along the riverbank. Perhaps I could find something there. I scanned the ground for anything out of place.

We were not far from the willows where the steward had seen the body when Anton called out. "Mother, I found something."

I hurried to his side, too eager to see what he found to explain again that I was not his mother.

He pried an object from between two cobblestones. Probably a bottle cap, I told myself, or part of a dead rat. That would bring his rat count for the day to nine.

"It's a soldier," he said. "But he's wearing a dress."

Resting on his muddy palm was a lead soldier, painted like a woman. Anton's sharp eyes had found what mine could not. My hands began to sweat.

Tears blurred my eyes as I took the soldier from his hand and turned her over and over, thinking back to the day that Ernst had clothed her. The day that I had taken him away from Father for a week and created the Code of Manliness. He had carried this small soldier with him all those years, up until the moment he died with it.

"Soldiers don't wear dresses," Anton said.

"This one does." I reached into my satchel and pulled out the soldier's twin, wrapped in Ernst's silk handkerchief. I smelled lavender orange water perfume, nearly overpowered by the smell of mud and rotting leaves in the alley. "And so does this one."

Anton lost interest and wandered back to the alley.

I stared at the soldiers, fighting the urge to flee from the alley, to run and never look back. Halfway down the alley, Anton poked the cobblestones with a stick he'd found.

I pictured Ernst lying in this alley, bleeding to death. Had he known his killer? I wanted it to be a stranger, an accident, so that he felt only surprise in those last minutes, not betrayal. But the thought of him dying alone, or in front of a stranger who cared nothing for him, not even enough to hate him, felt bleak too.

I drew my new burgundy coat tighter around myself and gritted my teeth to keep them from chattering as I walked to Anton.

"I found something," he said, excitement in his voice. "Under the dustbin."

This was a treasure hunt to him.

His small hands held a dagger. "It's rusty."

I lifted it out of his hands. The dagger had a polished wooden hilt with curves that looked like a woman wearing a long sheath dress. A nickel eagle carrying a wreath encircling a swastika perched right below the curve that looked like a woman's bottom. Blood, not rust caked the words engraved on the blade: "Everything for Germany." The other side had the initials W. L. I thought immediately of Wilhelm, the boy who had seen Ernst on the last night of his life. Wilhelm Lehmann.

"Why are your hands shaking?" Anton asked. "Are you cold?"

"Yes," I said. "Very cold."

A circle at the top of the hilt, where the face would be, if it had been a woman, contained a runic SA. A Sturm Abteilung dagger, like the one Wilhelm had said he'd lost. Thousands of men had them; certainly there must be others with the initials W. L., but Wilhelm had told me he lived near a bottle factory. How many other W. L.'s with such daggers lived near a bottle factory? And how many of them were with Ernst on the last night of his life?

"But I am warm," Anton said. "I don't need a jacket."

I knelt down and looked in his clear blue eyes. "I feel cold inside," I said. "In my heart."

"Did the knife hurt you?" Anton reached for it.

"It's a dagger." I slipped it into my satchel. I did not want to answer his question.

I took his warm hand, and we walked to the edge of the river together. I hiked all of the way back to the willows where Ernst's body had been found, thinking of Ernst climbing out of Wilhelm's window happy and in love, probably only a few blocks from where we were walking. Did Wilhelm follow him? Perhaps they argued. Or perhaps they never made it to Wilhelm's house. I had only the word of a Nazi boy.

"Are you scared?" Anton asked.

"I am scared, Anton." A dead rat floated down the river. "There's your tenth rat."

"Nine," he said. "Will men hurt you? That happened to Aunt Sweetie."

Of course it had. She'd been paid to let men beat her. "Hopefully not like that."

"I can keep them away," he said. "With that dagger."

"You are very strong and very clever. But so am I," I said. "I am keeping the dagger."

I would have to turn Wilhelm in to Fritz as soon as I recovered my papers. After all my worries about Rudolf, Ernst had been killed by someone he loved and trusted. Someone I had trusted. And I knew that the police would probably let Wilhelm go. They had only my word for all of it. But I knew.

"There's the tenth rat!" Anton shouted.

22.

I dragged myself to my feet. The river flowed by as it had all morning, as it would long after my own death. But Anton needed lunch. I decided to make him an omelet and then take a long nap. I hated to believe that Wilhelm was the murderer, not after all his tears and worries. Did Ernst's death have anything to do with the letters, the ring, or the mysterious package that Rohm expected delivered tomorrow? Perhaps Wilhelm too, was involved with Rohm.

I tucked Anton's hand in mine and did not let go all of the way home. Usually he chattered, but today he stayed uncharacteristically silent. My thoughts were on locking myself alone in the bathroom so I could cry without him having to see. As much as I wanted to shield him from it all, I did not think I could keep up a faade of calm much longer.

I checked the mailbox, wondering if Ernst had left me any more unexploded bombs. A letter fell out, unstamped. It must have been hand-delivered. I tensed, but then relaxed when I recognized the handwriting. Boris. I slipped it into my satchel.

Silently we climbed the stairs.

The apartment door stood ajar. A stripe of light ran along the door frame and spilled onto the dirty landing floor. I stopped dead, listening. No sound came from my apartment.

I bent down and slipped a hand over Anton's mouth. "Quiet," I mouthed.

He nodded, and I pulled my hand away. He drew in a quick breath.

"Go up one more flight of stairs," I whispered. "And wait for me. The brave must be silent."

He tiptoed away. I waited until the sound of his footsteps reached the top of the stairs before I pushed open my front door.

Every dish in the kitchen was smashed on the floor. The iron pot where I had once hidden the ruby ring lay on its side. The drawer where I kept my story notes sat on its side on the floor, empty.

I drew the SA dagger from my satchel and stepped inside. Every instinct screamed that entering was a foolish thing to do, but I was furious that someone had destroyed my home. If it was Ernst's killer, I wanted to meet him.

No one was in the kitchen. I tiptoed to my bedroom and opened the door. No one was there, but my clothes were thrown out of the wardrobe and onto the floor.

Someone had slit the mattress and pulled out the stuffing.

I tightened my grip on the dagger and opened my bathroom door. Mitzi's body hung out of the toilet, tail hanging limp down to the floor. I bit back a shriek. Slipping the dagger in my satchel, I ran out of the apartment.

Before I could slam the door, a familiar, high-pitched voice called, "Fraulein Vogel?"

Trembling, I turned to face Kommissar Lang. What was he doing here? Was he responsible?

"What has happened to your apartment?" He pushed past me.

"I don't know," I said. "Someone came when I was out."

I clenched my hands and followed him into my kitchen. He pulled one of the chairs upright and held it for me.

"Where were you going?" he asked.

"To find a policeman," I said. I had only known that I was going away. "Why are you here?" I tried to keep sharp suspicion from my voice, but did not succeed. Had he ransacked my apartment? How did he have my address? I edged away from him.

"I came to call on you," he said. "Perhaps to arrange another meeting."

"It is good that you came." I realized that he was innocent. If he had wanted to attack me, he would have closed the front door. And as an innocent man, he would expect me to be helpless, terrified by what had happened. As if I were innocent myself. "What do I do?"

"Did you go through the house?" he asked.

"I was afraid to," I lied.

"You were correct to be afraid," he said. "Wait here."

He walked quickly through the rooms. I sat, at a loss for what to do.

"There is no one here," he said quietly. "Let us go through the rooms together to see if anything is missing." He helped me out of the chair as if I were old and fragile.

I thought of fleeing, but I would have to go upstairs to get Anton and we would never make it past Kommissar Lang on the way back down. I followed Kommissar Lang into the bedroom.

"I have nothing of value."

"No jewelry?"

At Herr Klein's, fortunately. I shook my head. "1923 was a tough year."

He smiled sympathetically. Everyone in Germany knew that most people had been forced to sell everything to survive through the inflation years. "Especially for a woman alone."

I took in the damage to my bedroom. The slit in the mattress gaped like a wound.

"Whoever did this was angry," he said, looking around. "I think they were threatening you. Are you perhaps involved with a man who-"

"No. There is no one." My heart raced. My vision blurred around the edges, and I sat on the ruined mattress.

"Let me fetch you some water." Kommissar Lang disappeared into the bathroom. I was grateful that I had not been forced to see Mitzi there again.

He came out with my toothbrushing glass full of water. "Do you have a cat?"

I drank the water and nodded. "Why?"

He sat next to me on the bed and put his hand on my knee. "I-"

"Mother?" called Anton, coming in to the room.

"Here, Anton."

Kommissar Lang looked from me to Anton. I could see his mind working. He was remembering that Fritz had told him I never married. And yet I had a son-what must be an illegitimate son. Kommissar Lang yanked his hand off my knee as if it were covered in sewage. He stood and took a few steps back from me.

"I must fetch your local police officer," he said, not meeting my eyes. "Wait for us in your kitchen. Do not leave, Fraulein."

His voice told me that he expected obedience.

I nodded politely, as if his entire attitude toward me hadn't just changed. "Thank you."

I took Anton's hand. He stared at the apartment, and his eyes grew round.

I gave Kommissar Lang a few moments to reach the bottom of my stairs. When the front door to the building slammed, I pulled Anton down the stairs, and we crept through the back door.

All I had was the ring, the letters, and Anton. More than enough.

I hailed a taxi. "Turn around here," I commanded.

The taxi driver swore and pulled the wheel around.

"Now left."