Chapter 25

"What did you do?" I asked Wolfgang, reclining on the floor with my back against the sofa. Sofia's legs were spread around me and she'd been playing with my hair while we listened.

"I called an acquaintance, a friend who worked with the Bundeskriminalamt..."

"The what?" Sofia interrupted him.

"It's like the American FBI," Wolfgang shrugged. "If someone was looking for me, they would know. My friend would know."

"And he'd tell you?" I wondered.

"Probably not in so many words," Wolfgang admitted. "But his voice would tell me."

"Sure," I said with a nod. The surprise at getting a phone call from an old friend wanted for murder would probably be hard to hide.

"I called on the pretext that I would be in town and perhaps we could catch up," Wolfgang explained. "He sounded pleased, a little curious as we hadn't spoken since my dismissal, but there was nothing out of the ordinary."

"So you were okay?" I asked him.

"It seemed so," he said. "The next day I used the library, the computer there, to check newspapers. It had been two weeks, but there was nothing about a dead Russian in Hamburg. The death of Dubert was a mystery. The police blamed it on gangsters, drug dealers, but they had no suspects."

"So you got away with murder," Sofia said dryly and I glanced up at her.

"The difficulty," Wolfgang cleared his throat, ignoring Sofia, "was Eva, of course. She had no identification and so far as the world was concerned, she was a dead girl."

"I know the feeling," I said with a sardonic giggle.

"Fortunately," Wolfgang smiled from his chair and Eva gave him a playful look, "the last thing anyone wanted was to see her again."

"The Berlin police commissioner was very accommodating," she said with a laugh.

"I don't understand," I said, looking between the two of them.

"Eva contacted the commissioner, explained who she was and that her only desire was to live a private life," Wolfgang told us. "She was very reasonable about it."

"I was issued new papers two days later," she said. "Eva Koeller from Potsdam."

"Just like that?" Sofia sounded doubtful. "They didn't want to ask you questions or..."

"They probably wanted to take her into the forest and put a bullet in her head," Wolfgang said without humor. "It would have solved many problems all at once."

"I told them I had insurance," Eva shrugged.

"She made it clear that she'd left proof of her identity with a third party, with a respected law firm, and if anything should happen to her..." Wolfgang explained.

"You blackmailed the police?" I rolled my eyes.

"It was necessary," Wolfgang said. "If they had called our bluff it would have been very bad, but they couldn't take that chance."

"God!" Sofia snorted. "You guys are crazy. And you got away with all this?"

"Just so," Eva nodded. "A week later and we were..."

" ... Married." Wolfgang smiled at his sister. "Her identity changed again, this time to Eva Brandt and..."

"You guys are married?" I stared at them.

"That is why we have the same name," Eva said, as if it hadn't occurred to her that we wouldn't know that.

"Eva was never adopted by our father," Wolfgang said. "She had her mother's name."

"Oh." I looked at Sofia. "Did you know they were married?"

"Uh..." she made a face, " ... I thought they were just ... related."

"They are!" I looked at Wolfgang. "You married your sister. Legally?"

"Of course," he said with a small shrug. "Who would ever know?"

"And, so what?" Sofia wondered. "You want to have kids some day and..."

"We cannot," Eva sighed. "No. My last abortion, it was not so good, ja?"

"Eva can't have children," Wolfgang said. "Some problem with the lining in her uterus, the egg will not, uh ... stick? I don't know the word for it."

"Ah, right," I nodded my head and Eva shrugged.

"Perhaps that is God correcting His mistake," she said, looking at Wolfgang. "For allowing us to love each other."

"We have each other," the man agreed, reaching for her hair. "That's enough."

"And now we have you as well," Eva turned her brilliant eyes on me. "Ja?"