The Wurst Is Yet to Come by Mary Daheim Page A

door.
    The cousins heard the locks click while the officer went around to the driver’s side. “Stick with Mrs. Flynn,” Judith murmured.
    â€œWhat?” Renie said, aghast.
    â€œTry it. He’s already baffled. It might work for us.”
    Renie had no chance to respond. Hernandez was behind the wheel, driving westward three blocks down the main street and turning right. The police station was on the next corner, discreetly tucked out of sight. The sturdy gray one-story building took up half the block and bore no resemblance to the rest of the local architecture.
    â€œGee,” Renie said loudly, “that looks like a jail. How do you say that in German?”
    â€œThe Clink?” Judith suggested.
    â€œNo,” Renie said, “that was a real English prison, and a very notorious one. I suppose in German it’s der Klinker —with a K, right, Lieutenant Fernandez?”
    â€œIt’s Hernandez, ” the officer snapped. “I don’t speak German.”
    â€œOh.” Renie sounded uncommonly meek. “Sorry. I have trouble with names. I get them mixed up sometimes.”
    Judith elbowed Renie. “Knock it off,” she said under her breath.
    Hernandez got out of the car, opened the rear door on Judith’s side, and ushered the cousins into the police station. To Judith’s surprise, the small reception area was vacant except for a fair-haired young woman behind the service counter. Various maps and flyers covered the walls, but the only local decor was the mounted head of an elk with enormous antlers and a wanted poster hanging around its neck.
    â€œCall me a taxidermist,” Renie whispered to Judith. “I’ll bet that thing with the horns on its head is the former police chief.”
    â€œShut up,” Judith said, barely moving her lips.
    â€œInterrogation room,” Hernandez said to the young woman, before speaking to the cousins. “Follow me.”
    The room was small and spare with a window that Judith assumed had one-way glass since she couldn’t see anything except dim reflections. There was a table with two chairs on each side, a small file cabinet, and another, much smaller table with a coffeepot on a hot plate.
    â€œWould you like something to drink?” Hernandez inquired, indicating that the cousins should sit down.
    Judith and Renie both declined. The officer sat down across from them, opened a laptop, and cleared his throat. “We understand that you attended the cocktail party this evening at Wolfgang’s Gast Haus. What time did you arrive?”
    â€œAbout six,” the cousins answered in unison.
    â€œPlease,” Hernandez said. “One at a time. Mrs. Flynn?”
    Renie made a face. “Maybe it was six-oh-five. Or maybe six-oh-three. It might even have been—”
    â€œClose enough,” the officer interrupted before nodding at Judith. “And you?”
    â€œSix.”
    Hernandez nodded in apparent approval. Perhaps deciding that Judith was prone to more succinct answers, he kept his dark eyes fixed on her. “What did you do once you got to the party?”
    â€œI went to the bar and ordered a drink.”
    â€œAnd then?”
    Judith gestured at Renie. “She joined me. Then I recognized someone I knew—vaguely—so we chatted a bit.”
    Hernandez had an unsettlingly steady gaze and rarely blinked. “You remained together?”
    â€œThe three of us, yes.”
    â€œAnd?”
    Judith thought back to the sequence of events. It had been only three hours since the cocktail party had begun. Yet it seemed much longer. “About the same time Dietrich Wessler entered the ballroom, we met some recent acquaintances. Many of the guests rushed to greet Mr. Wessler, but we merely watched.”
    â€œDid you know Wessler?”
    â€œAh . . . no,” Judith said, reluctant to mention the older man’s son, Franz, by name. “Someone told us who