A Voice in the Crime – Chapter 20
The Heir
The week after the press conference was a blur of interviews, phone calls, and sleepless nights. Felix gave statements to three different law enforcement agencies—local, state, and federal. He was interviewed by two newspapers, a podcast, and a cable news program that mispronounced his name four times in thirty seconds. His editor, a woman named Carolyn who had the patience of a saint and the vocabulary of a longshoreman, finally stopped asking about Chapter Twelve and started asking if he needed a lawyer.
“I don’t need a lawyer,” Felix said, for the fifth time. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Felix, you found a stolen pendant that’s been missing since the Holocaust. You’re on every news channel in the country. People are going to come out of the woodwork. Lawyers, reporters, relatives of relatives of the Kaufmann family. You need someone to protect you.”
“I have Detective Rivas.”
“Detective Rivas is a cop. She’s not your lawyer. Take the name I texted you. She’s good. She’s expensive, but she’s good.”
Felix looked at the name on his phone. Rebecca Stein, Esq., Restitution Law. “I’ll think about it.”
“Think fast. The sharks are circling.”
Carolyn hung up. Felix put down his phone and stared at the ceiling. The water stain was still there. He had started to think of it as a friend.
The first shark arrived three hours later.
Her name was Talia Kaufmann, and she was the great-great-niece of the original owner of the pendant. She was thirty-one years old, a graphic designer from Chicago, and she had never known that her family had once owned a priceless sapphire until she saw Felix’s face on the evening news.
“I didn’t believe it at first,” Talia said, sitting across from Felix in The Last Honest Man. Emmett had given them the back booth and a pot of coffee, and was hovering nearby with a level of protective concern that Felix found both touching and embarrassing. “I thought it was a scam. Somebody trying to get money out of me. But then I did the research. I found the old photographs. My grandmother had a copy—she never talked about it, but she kept it in a box under her bed. The pendant was real. And it was ours.”
“Was,” Felix said carefully. “The pendant is in police custody now. They’re going to release it to the rightful heirs—if they can be identified and verified.”
“I brought documents.” Talia pulled a folder from her bag—thick, bulging, filled with photocopies and photographs and handwritten letters. “Birth certificates. Marriage licenses. Immigration records. My great-great-uncle was Jakob Kaufmann. He was the one who owned the pendant. He died in Auschwitz. His wife died there too. Their children—my grandmother’s cousins—were murdered. But the line didn’t die out. There are cousins in Israel, in England, in Australia. I’ve been in touch with all of them. We want the pendant back. Together. As a family.”
Felix looked at the folder. At the years of history contained in its pages. At the woman who had come from Chicago to claim something her family had lost before she was born.
“The pendant is yours,” Felix said. “It was always yours. The museum had no right to keep it. The police will return it. I’ll make sure of it.”
Talia’s eyes filled with tears. “You don’t know what this means. My grandmother—she never talked about the war. She never talked about her family. She just… closed herself off. But I think she always knew. About the pendant. About what was lost. She just couldn’t bear to remember.”
“Maybe now she can,” Felix said. “Maybe now all of you can.”
Talia nodded. She wiped her eyes. She took a breath. “Thank you, Mr. Greer. For finding it. For telling the story. For not letting it stay hidden.”
“Call me Felix.”
“Felix.” Talia smiled. “I have a question. Something that’s been bothering me.”
“Ask.”
“The chicken bone. Everyone is talking about it. What did it mean? Why would someone leave a chicken bone in a museum?”
Felix hesitated. He had told the story of the chicken bone a dozen times in the past week—to reporters, to police, to Dr. Ashworth, to Samuel. But each time he told it, he felt like he was getting it wrong. Like he was missing something. Like the chicken bone was still hiding a secret.
“It was a ritual,” he said. “A Jewish ritual called kapparot. You transfer your sins to a chicken, and then you slaughter the chicken. The bone is what’s left. A reminder that sin has a cost.”
“And the person who left it—Margaret Chen—she was trying to transfer her sins? Or someone else’s?”
“I think she was trying to transfer the sins of the museum. The sins of the people who hid the truth. The sins of everyone who knew about the pendant and did nothing.”
Talia was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “Do you think she’ll ever come back?”
Felix thought about Margaret Chen standing in the alley, her silver hair loose, her eyes clear. He thought about her words: I’m not a saint. I’m not a hero. I’m just a woman who couldn’t let go.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I hope so. I have more questions.”
“About the pendant?”
“About her. About why she waited so long. About what she’s going to do now.” Felix looked at the window, at the gray afternoon light. “She’s not a villain, Ms. Kaufmann. She’s not a hero. She’s just… complicated. Like all of us.”
Talia nodded. She stood up, tucked her folder back into her bag, and extended her hand. “Thank you again, Felix. For everything.”
“Thank you,” Felix said. “For coming. For claiming your family’s history. That takes courage.”
Talia smiled. “My grandmother used to say that courage is just fear that’s been around long enough to get tired. I think she was right.”
She walked out of the coffee shop. Felix watched her go, then looked at Emmett, who was standing behind the counter with his arms crossed.
“She seems nice,” Emmett said.
“She seems genuine.”
“Are you going to help her get the pendant back?”
“I’m going to try.” Felix stood up, leaving money on the table for the coffee. “I made a promise to Ruth Reinhardt. To tell the story. To make sure the truth came out. That includes returning the pendant to the people who deserve it.”
Emmett nodded. “And Margaret Chen?”
Felix paused at the door. “I made a promise to her too. Even if she doesn’t know it.”
“What promise?”
“To understand. To not judge. To tell the story the way it deserves.” Felix looked back at the old professor. “She waited twenty years for someone to listen. I’m not going to make her wait anymore.”
He walked out of the coffee shop into the cold afternoon, his breath visible in the air, his mind full of chicken bones and pendants and women who disappeared into shadows.
He pulled out his phone and started a voice memo.
“Chapter Twenty,” he said. “The first heir has come forward. Talia Kaufmann. She’s young, she’s determined, and she wants her family’s pendant back. I’m going to help her. Not because I have to—because it’s the right thing to do.”
“But Margaret Chen is still out there,” he continued. “And until she’s found—until she answers for what she did—this story isn’t over. Not really.”
“I don’t know where she is,” Felix said. “But I know she’s watching. She’s always watching. And sooner or later, she’ll come back.”
“When she does, I’ll be ready.”