I’m a hyper-polyglot. It’s my one true talent. I’m a good boxer and a good private eye, but I learned those skills like most people can. Languages just come naturally to me. I already speak German, Italian, French, Spanish, Latin, and ancient Greek. I have a few hundred words and basic grammar in several more languages. Living in the city helps, at least it did before gentrification got rid of most of the interesting people.”

“Eu cred cã iesti o gramadã de cãcat de cal mincinos,” Briggs said. Heinrich repeated the sentence back to her pitch perfect.

“That sounded like Romanian,” Heinrich added.

“It is Romanian. My maiden name is Golescu.”

“What did I just say?”

“It means, ‘I think you are a lying pile of horse manure.’”

“Tut tut, Mrs. Briggs.”

“Albastru means blue, subtire means thin, picant means spicy, leftin means inexpensive, moale means soft, and cuptor means oven.”

Heinrich repeated them and got them all correct.

“I’m beginning to believe you, Mr. Müller.”

“Give me a few days before I go to Poland. I’ll look into things here and get intense on the language. Aren’t you worried the murderers will come after you for the code?”

“No. This house is registered to a third party. There is nothing to tie it to us. A sensible precaution considering our business. Our apartment in the city was ransacked after my husband’s murder. Other than the theft of some money and a few minor antiques, they got nothing.”

“And they probably took those things just out of spite. I’ll get started on Polish.”

“Very well. I’ll be most interested in watching your progress. I’m looking forward to seeing you again.”

“I think you are a lying pile of horse manure,” Heinrich said in Romanian.

✽ ✽ ✽

The next day he got to work. In the morning he downloaded an app with speech identification software to teach him the basics of Polish. By mid-afternoon he had gotten to the intermediate level. Next he called the New York Polish-American Club, found a teacher, and booked a lesson for the next day. In between lessons on the app he went to the district attorney’s office and looked up the murder of Aaron Briggs.

On the surface it looked like your typical mugging, something still all too common even in the cleaned-up, boring city New York had become.

Aaron Briggs had been walking down 33rd St., heading for his bank when a white man in his early twenties wearing a hooded sweatshirt had come up behind him and hit him over the head with a short length of metal pipe. No threats, no altercation, just nailed him. Aaron had fallen to the ground at the first blow, but the assailant hit him three more times, to make sure he was dead. Aaron had been 68, small, and no physical threat. The man had then taken his briefcase and wallet and fled around the corner. Several witnesses had seen the attack and called 911 but, this being New York, no one pursued the assailant and no one could give a good description of him.