“Who?” asked Woody.
I raised my voice in accusation. “Pierre Lefevre.”
“Who’s that?”
Maybe I was pronouncing it wrong. “Pierre La-FEV? La-FURV? La—”
“My name’s not Pierre,” spat Woody.
“Well, you just admitted you were an imposter, so if you’re not Pierre, who are you?”
“Woodrow Jolly the Third!”
Cal threw out his hand in exasperation. “See what I mean? I hope he’s making sense to you, because he’s making no sense to me.”
“I’m Woodrow Jolly the Third,” he continued, a pained expression reshaping his features. “But I’m afraid I’m not the honorable, trustworthy guy I’ve always pretended to be.” He hung his head as he hocked the words up from his gut. “I’m a thief.”
Nazi collaborator wasn’t bad enough? He was a thief besides?
“What do you mean you’re a thief ?” Cal fired back. “What kind of thief ?”
“The kind I always taught you to condemn.” He sat down on the bed across from us, shame running rampant in his eyes. “I take things from the dead.”
Euww.
“Jeezuz, Dad! Are you crazy?”
He stared at his hands, shoulders slumped, voice halting. “I couldn’t help myself. It started with this.” He poked his ring. “I just couldn’t force myself to bury it with the guy. What good would it do him anymore? It was way too nice to be locked in a casket and buried. That would have been a terrible waste. It needed to seen, admired. So I … borrowed it.”
“That’s how you justified what you did? By calling it borrowing?” Cal’s chest was heaving so violently, he looked to be in danger of hyperventilating. “You didn’t borrow it, Dad. You stole it. You committed a crime!”
“It’s only a crime if you’re caught.” A hint of a smile touched his lips. “I never got caught.”
“JEEZ!” raged Cal. “I can’t believe this!”
“I started out small,” he said matter-of-factly. “A ring here, a tie pin there. But you can’t get rich off men’s jewelry, so I cast my net wider. The ladies were a goldmine. Necklaces, broaches, favorite dinner rings, earrings, wristwatches, evening bags, diamond tiaras.”
My Grampa Sippel had been buried with his fishing pole, so I understood the concept of being interred with a bit of your favorite stuff, but still, who were Woody’s clients? Royalty? “You bury women who can’t part with their diamond tiaras?”
“Indeed I do. Straight into the ground they go, after I remove the tiara, of course. Society ladies are quite attached to their bling. Considering the extravagant way they insist on being laid out, I sometimes don’t know if I’m preparing them for a wake or a charity ball.”
Cal bent forward, elbows on knees and head in hands. “How long, Dad? How many years have you been desecrating the family name and reputation?”
Woody nodded thoughtfully. “Goes a long way back. Long before you were born. When I was learning the business from your grampa after the war.”
“He never caught you?”
“If he’d caught me, I would’ve stopped.”
“Who fenced the stuff for you?” demanded Cal.