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153 pages

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July 16th, 1942Andre Dumont is a collaborationist who has made a fortune buying art and valuables from Jews who sell their collections and heirlooms at ridiculously low prices in order to quickly obtain money as they attempt to escape from Europe. Dumont has befriended the Schwartzmanns so he can evaluate their art collection. He not only becomes a "friend of the family," but he becomes the lover of the Schwartzmanns' eldest daughter, Anna.Andre Dumont, using his influence and friends in the Nazi hierarchy in Paris, manages to get the Schwartzmann family listed for deportation. He wants to rid himself of any person who can claim the art he plans to have "confiscated" from the Schwartzmanns. The Schwartzmanns are arrested, but Anna, who has been living with Dumont, escapes the round-up. Dumont denounces his lover to the Nazis in order to rid himself of the last person who may lay claim to the Schwartzmann collection.Present DayAfter her mother dies, Mimi is putting away her mother's things and she discovers that the woman who she thought was her grandmother was not her biological grandmother. Her real grandmother's name was Anna, someone who, along with all of her family, died in the Nazi death camps. She comes to know all of this through Anna's diary. In it, she finds out that her family's art collection was stolen and she decides to embark on a quest to recover it.In Paris, Edouard Dumont, son of Andre Dumont, is the French Minister of Culture. He desperately needs money to finance his political career and save the financially struggling family business, a huge art gallery and auction house, from bankruptcy. He wants to sell the art his father left him, art stolen from the Jews.Edouard Dumont's and Mimi's destinies are about to cross as part of her plan to find out what happened to her family's art collection, Mimi gets a job at Edouard Dumont's art auction business. While working there, Mimi discovers that some of the art that will be sold at auction has very shady provenance. Could this be part of her family's collection?Enter Guillermo Lombardo, a retired police inspector, who rents Mimi's Paris apartment for a week and finds himself romantically entangled with the woman.Things soon take a turn for the worst for Lombardo. Upon his arrival in Brittany to see friends, a policeman shows up to question Lombardo. It seems Mimi has been reported missing and Mimi's friend, Sophie, has been found strangled in her own apartment.As Lombardo was the last person to see Mimi before she disappeared, the police consider him a suspect in Mimi's disappearance. To clear his name, Lombardo must find his missing lover, and stay one step ahead of a vicious killer.

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Thriller

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Publié par	Untreed Reads
Date de parution	01 janvier 0001
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781611874501
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0186€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Table of Contents
Copyright
The Minister’s Secret
Part 1: 1942–1962
Chapter 1: A Night of Terror
Chapter 2: A Bearer of News, Good and Bad
Chapter 3: Anna’s Diary
Chapter 4: Monsieur Dumont Gets Lucky
Part 2: 1997–2008
Chapter 5: A Meeting with a Minister
Chapter 6: Mimi Finds a Diary
Chapter 7: A Mysterious Letter for M. Berthold
Part 3: 2009 to the Present
Chapter 8: Paris and the Canicule
Chapter 9: Mimi Visits the Cemetery
Chapter 10: Lombardo in the Gare du Nord
Chapter 11: Lombardo Wanders About in Paris
Chapter 12: A Lady in Washington Heights
Chapter 13: A Disturbing Article in Le Canard Enchaîné”
Chapter 14: Mimi Meets Ms. Schwartzmann
Chapter 15: The Minister’s Favorite Restaurant
Chapter 16: Old Memories and a Young Woman’s Body
Chapter 17: Mimi’s Gruesome Find
Chapter 18: A Staff Meeting at the Galerie Berthold
Chapter 19: Lombardo Arrives in Brittany
Chapter 20: Mimi Seeks Shelter
Part 4
Chapter 21: Lombardo Wanders About in Brittany
Chapter 22: Another Staff Meeting at the Galerie Berthold
Chapter 23: Lombardo Meets Mimi’s Mother in Le Relecq
Chapter 24: Lombardo’s Turn to Ask Questions
Chapter 25: Lombardo Goes Back to Paris
Chapter 26: Inspector Minardi Presents Himself
Chapter 27: A Visit to Sophie’s Flat
Chapter 28: Ms. Schwartzmann and Mimi Develop a Plan
Chapter 29: Lombardo at the Hôtel Dumont
Chapter 30: The Mysterious Madame Schwartzmann
Chapter 31: Lombardo Receives a Little Help from His Friends
Chapter 32: Lombardo Visits the Minister
Chapter 33: Lombardo Calls Mimi’s Mother
Chapter 34: Ms. Schwartzmann Turns Up
Chapter 35: The Conspirators Conspire
Chapter 36: Mimi Is in Danger
Chapter 37: Mimi Cannot Tell Her Tale
Chapter 38: Lombardo Sets a Trap
Chapter 39: Setting the Trap
Chapter 40: A Strange Guest at the Hôtel-Dieu
Chapter 41: Tying Up Loose Ends
Chapter 42: Restitution
Chapter 43: A Sweet Good-Bye
Epilogue
The Minister’s Secret
By Rodolfo Peña

Copyright 2012 by Rodolfo Peña
Cover Copyright 2012 by Ginny Glass and Untreed Reads Publishing
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Also by Rodolfo Peña and Untreed Reads Publishing
An Inconsequential Murder
Un Asesinato Inconsecuente
Venus of the Metro

http://www.untreedreads.com
The Minister’s Secret
Rodolfo Peña
Part 1: 1942-1962
Chapter 1: A Night of Terror
The pounding on the door was insistent and threatening. The sound traveled through the house, rushed up the stairs, and barged into the master bedroom, waking up Monsieur Schwartzmann and his wife. Monsieur Schwartzmann got out of bed, put on his robe, and hurried out into the hallway in his bare feet.
The soldiers in the street, their guns at the ready, looked up as the lights in the third and second floors of the elegant house of the 16th Arrondissement came on.
The pounding on the door grew louder and shouting in German and French could be heard between the bouts of thumping as Monsieur Schwartzmann hurried down the stairs. When he opened the door German soldiers rushed into the house, nearly knocking him down as they brusquely brushed past.
An SS officer, who held a gun in his right hand, asked in accented French, “Qui d’autre est dans la maison?” Monsieur Schwartzmann answered that only his wife and his aged mother-in-law were in the house.
As the soldiers ran about, looking into the various rooms, breaking closet doors open with the butts of their rifles, the SS officer said, “Tous les trois, vous venez avec nous . ”
Monsieur Schwartzmann started to protest saying that it was very late for them to leave the house, that it was almost midnight, and that his aged mother-in-law was a frail woman, who was ill.
The German SS officer turned and pointed his gun at Monsieur Schwartzmann. In a cold, menacing tone he said that he was not asking them to come along, he was ordering them to do so.
Monsieur Schwartzmann nodded and went upstairs. In the bedroom his wife was still sitting in bed-a look of fear and alarm distorted her usually calm face.
He sighed and said in resignation, “Ils sont venus pour nous. Ils sont enfin ici.” They had indeed been expecting this day to come since insistent rumors had started circulating in the Jewish community that Jews, especially the foreign Jews that had fled to France from Germany, Poland, and other European countries, were to be deported.
When she heard her husband’s words, Madame Schwartzmann uttered a cry, which she muffled with her hand. As her husband had said, the dreaded moment had finally arrived, and although expected, it was no less terrifying.
Down in the street, the buses conveniently provided by the Parisian Transport Company were moving into place to receive people. Their windows had been sealed and curtained. Things were to be done with certain discretion, it was said.
The French policemen, the so-called guardians of the peace, advised the people that were being led from their homes into the buses that they were to turn off all electricity, gas, and water services, and that the keys to their homes or apartments were to be left with the appropriate concierge or a neighbor.
“Tu ferais mieux de t’habiller chaudement, chérie,” advised Monsieur Schwartzmann, handing her a thick coat that would protect her from the cold, wet night. He looked out of the window at the commotion below. “Je suis sûr qu’ils vont nous prendre dans un de ces autobus,” he added, nodding toward the buses that occupied the street in front of his house. He could see the other people that were already being herded into them, as surely they would be.
As his wife started to dress, he said, “Je vais aller réveiller votre mère; il semble qu’ils veulent qu’elle vienne aussi.” He left to wake up his mother-in-law and help her dress.
When Monsieur Schwartzmann, his wife, and his mother-in-law walked out of the house, they saw that the soldiers were going only to certain houses in the neighborhood, breaking down the doors or barging in when these were opened. They pushed and bullied all the people in the selected houses into the buses. He recognized several of them. They were, of course, all Jews.
The houses that were left undisturbed were dark and silent, as if oblivious to the tragedy unfolding in the street.
With the help of a couple of the men who were already in the vehicle, Monsieur Schwartzmann first got his mother-in-law up into bus, the and then his wife followed. He was about to hand a small suitcase to his wife when a figure standing in the darkness of a doorway gestured to the soldiers standing on either side of the bus’ door. One of the soldiers stepped forward and said something in German to Monsieur Schwartzmann. At the same time, the other soldier yanked the suitcase from his hand.
Monsieur Schwartzmann started to protest but the first soldier shoved him with his rifle and yelled at him in German. Monsieur Schwartzmann raised his hands as if in surrender and then climbed into the bus, leaving behind the little suitcase into which he had hurriedly packed his shaving kit, a few clothes for his mother-in-law and his wife, and a bundle of Franc notes.
In the bus, Monsieur Schwartzmann sat on the cold seat next to a neighbor whom he only knew by sight. “Où vont-ils nous emmener?” he asked his neighbor; but the man only shook his head slowly and said he didn’t know where they were being taken.
“Mais je peux vous assurer une chose: nous ne reviendrons jamais ici,” added the neighbor. And he was right: none of the Jews that left the 16th Arrondissement that night of mid-July, 1942, ever returned.
A few minutes later, after every Jew in the neighborhood had been herded into a vehicle, orders were shouted by the German officers, a couple of soldiers jumped into each of the buses, their doors closed, and the buses started off.
Monsieur Schwartzmann leaned over to his wife and discreetly said to her in German-accented English, “Not a word about our children. Not to anybody, Jew or otherwise; do you understand?”
She nodded. Tears welled in her eyes. Several of the women in the bus were softly sobbing; Monsieur Schwartzmann was thankful for the absolute darkness produced by the window covers-it mercifully kept his wife from seeing the tears that rolled down his cheeks.
As soon as the buses were away, the man who had been standing in the darkness of the doorway walked across the street and signaled to the French policemen who had also been standing by, watching as the Germans and their French colleagues rounded up the Jews. Accompanied by two of the uniformed gendarmes, he retrieved the keys from the non-Jewish housekeeper, who was standing shivering by the main entrance. He told her that her services were not needed any more because the house was now confiscated property, so she should go home. He said to one of the policemen, “Dites-leur de préparer notre camion.” The cop ran off to call up the vehicle as ordered.
André Dumont, for that was the man’s name, entered the Schwartzmann’s home, put on a pair of black leather gloves, and opened the door that led from the reception room into the study. He turned on the lights and slowly wa