Purity Pursuit: A Gripping Crime Thriller (Private Detective Heinrich Muller Crime Thriller Book 1)
Purity Pursuit
Robert Brown
© Robert Brown 2018 All Rights Reserved.
This is a work of fiction, any names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are purely from the imagination of the author or used for fictitious and entertainment purposes only. Any resemblance to real people living or dead and actual events is purely coincidental.
No parts of this book may be reproduced. Reviewers may quote small passages in the book for reviewing purposes.
Dedication
This is for my wife and children without whom this book and my first would never have been written. This is also dedicated to all the writers who are working away on their first work, keep writing.
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
Small plea from the author
Preview of “Deadly Illusions” the first book from Robert Brown
CHAPTER ONE
Heinrich Müller did not like the sound of this assignment.
The widow sitting in front of him, with her frail voice scratchy and warbling as if it came from an old 78 record, was telling him the most remarkable things, none of them good.
The decor matched the widow. They sat in her stuffy drawing room—she was old enough to call it a drawing room—drinking weak tea from fine china while surrounded by oaken bookshelves, oil paintings, and glass cases filled with knickknacks.
All typical decor for a wealthy senior citizen, except that the bookshelves were crammed with titles in German set in Gothic typeface circa 1940, the oil paintings showed Aryan heroes in full military regalia smiting caricatures of Russians and Americans, and the knickknacks were all Iron Cross medals and rusty Lugers.
Heinrich Müller had never punched a woman in his life, and he had never punched a senior citizen, but he felt like breaking both rules today.
What the widow told him kept him from doing it.
“My husband’s case has been closed. A routine mugging, they said. I know that’s not true. I know it was them. I know it was the Purity League.”
Those two final words hit him like a beer bottle smashed across his face. He’d heard of the Purity League. Its so-called purity had sullied the one pure thing in his life. He decided to give her a second chance. The enemy of my enemy is my friend as Genghis Khan once said.
“So your husband dealt in this trash,” Heinrich said, nodding at a bust of Hitler on a side table. “And you’re surprised that some neo-Nazis came after him for it?”
The widow shook her head with a disdainful air. She’d had a disdainful air ever since he’d stopped by. He was the hired help, and she made sure he knew it. He might as well have been cleaning the pool out back.
“The Purity League has the funds to buy my late husband’s entire collection, if they didn’t have many of the items already. No, they wanted the one thing they couldn’t buy.”
“And what’s that?” Heinrich asked.
“First, I need to know if you will take the case.”
“Investigate the murder of a dealer in Nazi antiques? No thanks, lady. But thanks for the tea.”
Heinrich rose to leave.
“Where are you going?” the widow asked in a tone that made her sound like a schoolteacher telling a student they hadn’t been dismissed.
“Anywhere but here. I don’t work for neo-Nazis.”
“Aaron and I are not neo-Nazis,” the widow said.
Heinrich raised his hands to show all the items on display.
“This is just business,” the widow said. “It sells very well.”
“Business you used to decorate your living room? Yeah, I’m sure it sells well, lady, but you ain’t selling to me.”
Heinrich started to leave.
“Fifty million dollars.”
Heinrich stopped. Turned.
“Excuse me?”
“Fifty million dollars in gold and gems. That’s what at stake.”
Heinrich shook his head. “I don’t believe for a minute you’re offering me fifty million to find who murdered your husband.”
The widow straightened up, looking insulted.
“Of course not. You’ll only get one percent, that’s still half a million dollars. The rest will go to charities that benefit gypsies and homosexuals.”
Heinrich paused. This had gotten just weird enough to catch his interest.
“Back up. You got my attention with the gold and gems, but lost me on the gypsies and homosexuals.”
“They’re the forgotten victims of the Third Reich. The Nazis killed millions of them. As far as I know there’s only one monument to homosexuals killed in the concentration camps, and that’s in Amsterdam.
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