A Voice in the Crime – Chapter 12
The Empty Apartment
Samuel Reinhardt’s apartment was in Cambridge, on the third floor of a faded brown building that smelled of old wood, curry, and the particular sadness of places where people lived alone. Detective Rivas parked illegally in front of a fire hydrant—she was a detective, Felix reflected, which meant she could do things that would get ordinary people towed—and led him up three flights of stairs without breaking a sweat.
Felix, who had spent most of the past twenty-four hours sitting in coffee shops and museum corridors, was breathing harder than he would have liked. He blamed the stairs. He blamed the lack of sleep. He blamed the almond croissant from yesterday that was still sitting uneasily in his stomach.
The door to apartment 3B was closed. A uniformed officer stood outside, a young man with acne scars and earnest eyes. He nodded at Rivas.
“Superintendent let us in twenty minutes ago,” the officer said. “Place is empty. No sign of forced entry. No sign of struggle. But he’s gone, and he took some things with him.”
“What kind of things?”
“Clothes. A backpack. A laptop. The super said he left around midnight last night. Carried a duffel bag. Said he was going on a trip. Didn’t say where.”
Rivas looked at Felix. “Midnight. That’s before you met him at the loading dock.”
“By about four hours,” Felix said. “He met me at 4:00 AM. So either he came back after midnight—”
“Or he never left. Or he left, came back, and left again.” Rivas pushed open the door. “Let’s see what he left behind.”
The apartment was small—one bedroom, one bathroom, a living room that doubled as a kitchen. The walls were bare except for a single framed photograph: Ruth Reinhardt, the same woman from the museum photograph, but younger, her dark hair longer, her smile less burdened. The furniture was cheap and functional: a couch from IKEA, a coffee table with ring stains from countless cups of coffee, a bookshelf overflowing with paperbacks and academic journals.
Felix walked to the bookshelf. He ran his fingers over the spines. Art history. Holocaust studies. Repatriation law. Several books about the Nazi looting of Jewish property. And, at the very end of the shelf, a worn copy of a mystery novel that Felix himself had narrated five years ago—The Prague Cipher, about a stolen painting and the family who spent decades trying to recover it.
He pulled the book off the shelf. Inside the front cover, written in pen, was a note: “For Samuel – The truth is in the details. – Mom.”
Felix’s throat tightened. He put the book back.
Rivas was in the bedroom, opening drawers, checking closets. “He packed light,” she called out. “Most of his clothes are still here. He took only what he could carry. This wasn’t a planned disappearance—it was a quick decision.”
“Or he wanted us to think it was quick,” Felix said. “He could have packed days ago and left some clothes behind to make it look spontaneous.”
Rivas appeared in the doorway. “You’re suspicious of everyone.”
“I narrated a mystery last year where the killer left a false trail by packing a bag with old clothes and then buying new ones at a thrift store. It’s a classic misdirection.”
“This isn’t a novel, Mr. Greer.”
“No. But criminals read novels too. And Samuel Reinhardt grew up reading his mother’s books. He knows how stories work.”
Rivas studied him for a moment. Then she nodded. “Keep looking. Tell me if you find anything that doesn’t belong.”
Felix turned his attention to the desk in the corner of the living room. It was small, wooden, cluttered with papers—receipts, post-it notes, a calendar with appointments scrawled in pencil. He flipped through the calendar. Most of the entries were mundane: *”Dentist – 2 PM.” “Bookstore shift – 4-9.” “Call Mom.”* But one entry, three weeks ago, caught his eye.
“Bank – 11 AM. Box #447.”
Felix’s pulse quickened. Safe deposit box #447. The same box where the museum kept the emergency override key. Ruth Reinhardt had worked at the bank. She had a copy of the key. And three weeks before her death, Samuel had visited the bank.
He called out to Rivas. “Detective. Look at this.”
Rivas came over. She read the calendar entry. Her expression didn’t change, but her eyes sharpened. “Box #447. That’s the museum’s box.”
“Yes.”
“If Samuel accessed that box after his mother’s death, he could have taken the key. Or he could have left something there. Or both.”
“Or someone else could have accessed it. Someone who knew his mother. Someone who knew the box number.”
Rivas pulled out her phone. “I’m calling the bank. I want a record of every time that box was opened in the past year. And I want to know if Samuel Reinhardt was on the authorized access list.”
She stepped into the hallway to make the call, her voice low and urgent.
Felix continued searching the desk. In the bottom drawer, buried under a stack of old utility bills, he found a leather-bound notebook. The cover was worn, the pages yellowed, the handwriting small and cramped. He opened it.
It was a journal. Ruth Reinhardt’s journal.
The first entry was dated twenty-three years ago. The last entry, six months ago, two weeks before her death.
Felix sat down on the couch and began to read.
*”January 15, 2001. Samuel is twelve years old today. He asked me why we don’t celebrate his great-grandfather’s birthday. I told him that some people are not worth remembering. He asked me if that meant we should forget them. I didn’t know how to answer.”*
“March 3, 2004. I went to the bank today. The museum’s safe deposit box was opened. Dr. Ashworth herself was there. She looked tired. I wonder if she knows the truth about the pendant. I wonder if she cares.”
“September 12, 2008. I found a photograph today. In my father’s old papers. It shows the pendant—the real one—in a private collection in Switzerland. The collector is dead now. His heirs don’t know what they have. Or maybe they do. Maybe they’re hiding it on purpose.”
*”November 22, 2015. I told Samuel everything. About Klaus. About the pendant. About the museum. He cried. I cried. We held each other. Then he said, ‘We have to fix this, Mom.’ He was twenty-six years old. He had been carrying the weight of his great-grandfather’s crimes without even knowing it. Now he knows. Now we both carry it.”*
“June 8, 2019. I have cancer. The doctors say it’s aggressive. I don’t have much time. I’ve started planning. The theft. The note. The chicken bone. Samuel doesn’t know yet. He’ll try to stop me. He’ll say it’s too dangerous. But I have to do this. I have to make the truth visible before I die.”
“October 30, 2025. Two weeks left, maybe less. I’ve told Samuel everything except one thing. The location of the original pendant. I can’t tell him. Not yet. It’s too dangerous. But I’ve written it down. Hidden it somewhere he’ll find it after I’m gone. He’ll know what to do. He’s always known.”
The last entry was shorter. Just three words.
“The truth waits.”
Felix closed the journal. His hands were trembling.
He looked at Rivas, who had just walked back into the apartment. “Detective. We need to find Samuel. Not because he stole the pendant. Because someone else is looking for him. Someone who wants what he knows.”
“What does he know?”
Felix held up the journal. “Where the original pendant is. His mother knew. She wrote it down. Hidden somewhere. Samuel has it. Or whoever took him does.”
Rivas’s face went pale. “Took him? You think he was taken?”
“I think he didn’t disappear on purpose. I think he met me at the loading dock, went back to his apartment, and someone was waiting for him. Someone who knew about his mother’s plan. Someone who wanted the pendant—the real one.”
“The person who left the photograph at the museum.”
“Yes.” Felix stood up. “The game isn’t about the fake pendant anymore. It was never about the fake pendant. It was about the real one. The theft was a distraction. The chicken bone was a symbol. The note was an invitation. But the real prize—the original Greyfield Star, the Kaufmann pendant, the one that’s been missing for eighty-six years—someone else wants it. And they’re using Samuel to find it.”
Rivas was already on her phone, barking orders, mobilizing her team. Felix walked to the window and looked out at the gray morning.
Somewhere out there, Samuel Reinhardt was alone. Or not alone. Held by someone who would stop at nothing to find a pendant that had been lost for nearly a century.
Felix pulled out his phone and started a voice memo.
“Chapter Twelve,” he said softly. “Samuel is gone. Not by choice. His mother’s journal says she knew where the original pendant was hidden. She wrote it down. Samuel has that information—or whoever took him does. The theft of the replica was never the main event. It was a prelude. A warm-up. The real crime is still happening.”
He looked at the photograph on the wall. Ruth Reinhardt, smiling, unaware of the legacy she was passing to her son.
“The truth waits,” Felix murmured. “But I’m not going to wait for it. I’m going to find it. Before Samuel pays for his mother’s secrets with his life.”