It came to me, then. “Ronny, you lied about your service record. You weren’t in the 45th Army Division. You were in the 99th… and you were a prisoner of war, right?”
Ronny laughed. “Oh, that sounds so innocent, so clean, so normal. Prisoner of war. Oh, no, Billy, I was much, much more than that… and this Kraut made me know that, day after day, week after week… month after month.”
Ledder’s face was red, fixed in a grimace. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Ronny said, “Don’t get off that couch, or you’ll get it, right between the eyes.”
“Mister Sullivan,” Ledder said. “Please… can’t you tell? That guy’s gone nuts. I’m no Kraut.”
“That’s partially right,” Ronny said. “Family was originally from Germany. You were born in Cleveland. Went back to the Fatherland when the little corporal started running things. And he ran things all right. Helped run a factory for torturing and killing people.”
I was still trying to get my head around what Ronny was claiming. “Please… what are you saying? That he mistreated you when you were in a POW camp?”
Ronny whirled on me, but still kept his pistol pointed at Ledder. “I wasn’t in any goddamn prisoner of war camp, don’t you understand? I was captured during the Battle of the Bulge, me and my whole damn platoon, and when we were sent to the rear, I got separated from my buddies. The Krauts found out I was Jewish. So everybody else went to a regular Stalag. But not me. I went someplace special, someplace where I met this asshole, one Sturmbannführer Hans Kessler, at a very special place indeed.”
He took a deep breath. “A place called Dachau.”
The room seemed still after Ronny blurted out that evil-laden word. “But Dachau… that was a concentration camp,” I said. “You were a soldier. How the hell did you end up there?”
Another, high-pitched laugh from Ronny. “What? You think the master race cared about my status as a soldier? All the hell they cared about was that I was Jewish. That’s all. Dachau had a mix of Jews from all over Europe, and a few other Americans like me as well. And German-Americans like Hans here.”
Ronny’s voice suddenly broke. “Hans came up to me when I first got there… after the first beatings, after I was stripped and given those thin striped pajamas. He said he was from the States, and would look out for me… I couldn’t believe it… and I shouldn’t have. Because the bastard looked out for me, all right. Gave me extra beatings, extra work details, extra torture.”
I stared at the man on the couch. “Is that true?”
Face still red, he said, “My name is Craig Ledder. I’m a watchmaker. I used to be a newspaper reporter for the Tribune. I don’t know why he’s saying this crap, Mister Sullivan.” He started to move off the couch and said, “Look, let’s call the police, let them sort it out, and—”
Damn, Ronny moved quick, standing close to the man, digging the end of the pistol into the side of his head. “No! No! You goddamn SS, so smart, so tough… they’re good at escaping, at slipping away. Just like at Dachau… when the Americans finally came to liberate us, it was chaos. So many of us just broke out of the barracks… some of us cornered a couple of SS guards and beat them to death with our hands. We weren’t scared anymore! And those poor troops… when they saw all the bodies piled up, all of those skeletal bodies… some troops rounded up SS guards, stood up against a wall, and machine-gunned them to death. Just like that.”
Ronny swallowed, like the terrible memories of that time were threatening to crawl up from his gullet and choke him to death, and he stepped back “But me… I was looking for Hans… looking for payback for all the time he whipped me, starved me, made me stand still in the snow, hours after hours… and yeah, I saw him all right… he had slipped into prisoner garb, like a well-fed monster like him could pass as one of us. But he was smart all right… I saw him go into a building with a guy that looked like a soldier, except he had a patch on his upper arm… Official War Correspondent, something like that…”
He swallowed again. “I’m sure he had some bullshit story to get that guy’s attention… I tried to follow him… but I was so damn weak… so weak…”
Ledder said, “Please… Mister Sullivan. You know he’s crazy… look at him. One phone call to the police, we can clear this whole thing up.”
“Shut up!” Ronny said. “Later… I heard from a couple of troops that Ledder from the Trib had gone missing… and they had found this SS officer in the commandant’s office, head blown away, like he killed himself by putting his gun in his mouth… that’s when I knew what had happened. You had taken on Craig Ledder’s identity, put an SS uniform on him.”
Ledder was staring at me with a pleading look. “Yeah, I was there, at Dachau,” he said. “All that death… all those bodies… it was too much. I had seen too much, had photographed too much… I wanted out. And that’s what I did. You heard me earlier, right? That’s what I did. I got out. I couldn’t stand it any more.”
I shifted my glance to my client. “Ronny… give me the pistol. All right? I promise you, we’ll settle this. I promise to track down his identity, make sure he doesn’t slip away, make sure the truth comes out. All right? You’re my client. I’ll see it through. I promise.”
Ledder kept his mouth shut, a wise choice for him, and Ronny stood there still, pistol still aiming at the man on the couch.
“Ronny,” I said.
“You… you promise you’ll help me?” he asked. “Yes, I will.”
“You mean it?”
“I do,” I said, feeling the tension in the room ease out. Even Ledder was beginning to look relieved.
“All right,” he said. “You can have my pistol.” Ledder started to smile.
Ronny said, “When I’m finished with it.” And he shot Ledder three times in the chest.
I’m very much used to the sound of gunshots, but not in an enclosed space. It was pretty damn loud. Ledder fell back against the couch and I jumped out of the chair, punched Ronny in the side of the head, and grabbed him and threw him to the floor. I got to Ledder and tore open his shirt, saw the bloody grouping right in the center. Ledder remained conscious for another few seconds, his eyes dimming
out, and like those old memories —ready to jump back into life in a moment —his skin grayed out and he died.
I whirled around and Ronny was sitting on the floor, pistol in hand, pointing it at me.
We both stayed still.
Ronny flipped the pistol in his hand, and held it to me, butt first. “Here,” he said. “I’m finished with it.”
I resisted the urge to punch him out once more, and I took the pistol. I ejected the magazine, put it in my left coat pocket, and then worked the action to clear the chamber. The round —it looked like a .32 caliber—clattered on the floor. I put the unloaded pistol in my other coat pocket.
Ronny was talking but I ignored him. I went back to Ledder’s body, and after some maneuvering, removed his wallet from a rear pants pocket. I went back to Ronny and opened the dead man’s wallet, and started dropping cards on Ronny’s splayed out legs.
“Massachusetts driver’s license,” I said. “Social Security Card. Press pass from the Chicago Tribune. Correspondent pass from the
U.S. Army. And the ones with his photos, they match his face.”
Ronny smiled the smile of a man suddenly content with what he had just done, and with his place in the world. “Mister Sullivan… Billy… the SS were masters of torture, killing, and deceit. Hell, he even found himself a job at a Jewish business! Who would ever think of looking for a Nazi war criminal there? Don’t you think a man like Sturmbannführer Hans Kessler could have false identification papers prepared?”
I didn’t say a thing. Ronny coughed. “Look, please, just check one thing for me… and one thing only. And if it doesn’t pan out, then, I’m yours. I’ll confess to everything, say I forced you and duped you… and I’ll even make sure my family in Philadelphia wires you whatever compensation you feel is fair.�
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The room smelled of death and burnt gunpowder. I found my voice. “What do you want?”
“Remove his shirt,” he said. “Check his upper arm. You’ll find a tattoo of a letter there.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked. “Please… just do it… and all will be well.”
I don’t know what I did it, but that’s what I did. After my time in the ETO I’m not shy around bodies, so I went back to the dead man—Craig or Hans—and started taking off his shirt. Grabbing the back of his neck, I pulled him forward, managed to tug off one sleeve, for his right arm. I was lucky rigor hadn’t set in yet. The skin was pale, smooth and unmarked.
“Sorry, Ronny,” I said. “Nothing.”
“Check the other one,” he said, with confidence. “It’ll be there.”
So I did that again, with the smell rising of the man’s body, the burps and gasps as his body shut down, and when the other sleeve was off, I had to stop.
There was a tattoo, just like Ronny had said.
I lowered the body back. “You’re right,” I said. “There’s an ‘AB’ tattooed on his upper arm.”
The content smile was still there. “Most members of the SS had their blood types tattooed on their upper arms, so if they were wounded, they would get priority medical care, no matter what. All German doctors had orders that SS personnel would go to the head of the line. Conniving bastards, weren’t they.”
At the mention of the word doctor, another memory spun to the surface, back in Belgium, back in 1944, back at that medical tent. Me and the other MP named Cooke, struggling with those two dead American soldiers, trying to get them into body bags, and Cooke saying to the doctor, “You’re saying the Krauts executed these guys?” And the exhausted Army surgeon had said, “No, not Krauts. Their hardcore. The SS.”
Masters of death, of torture, and of deceit. Deceit.
And it came to me, what had bothered me just before I had left, when the man in this apartment had lit up his cigarette. Rather than hold the Chesterfield between his index and middle finger, the way an American does, he held it with his thumb and index finger.
Like a German.
I wiped my hands on my coat. Ronny slowly got up, weaving, and sat on a chair. “What now?” he asked.
“Earlier you said you wanted my help,” I said. “You still thinking that?”
“Of course.”
“Then you got my help.”
Ronny looked confused. “To do what?”
I looked back at the couch. “To get rid of this bastard’s body.”
MURDER ON THE BRIGHTON RUN
by Amy Myers
Once upon a time long ago I sat next to a stranger at a Malice Domestic conference and mentioned I wrote short stories as well as the Auguste Didier crime novels. ‘Send some along to me,’ he said, and lo and behold Doug Greene – for ’twas he – magicked them into a collection. Thank you, thank you, Crippen & Landru, for your enormous contribution to the crime-writing and crime-reading world in the past twenty-five years and for having included me on your list. I am so proud of Murder, ’Orrible Murder.
‘Murder on the Brighton Run’, first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine some years later, is set on Emancipation Day in 1896, which in the UK was the first of the famous London to Brighton car rallies, still an annual and popular event.
Auguste Didier was cold, he was wet and he was miserable. The correct place for a master chef on a November Saturday morning was adding the finishing touches to an exquisite luncheon and not struggling through thick mud in the Surrey countryside to push a contraption that frightened horses and called itself a motor carriage. “That’s done it. Hop up, old chap,” called the Earl of Sattersfield encouragingly from the driver’s seat as the contraption condescended to lurch forward again.
Fuming at being dubbed “old chap” (the earl was many years older than he was), Auguste once more took his place next to him on the two-seater Panhard et Levassor vehicle. He was all too conscious that much of the mud on the road was not due to Mother Nature but to the horses that used it.
The fourteenth of November 1896 was apparently an important step forward for the future of mankind. The Locomotives on Highways Act had come into force this very day and it was no longer necessary for a gentleman to walk before one of these horseless vehicles with a red flag to indicate that the monster was on its way. This, it seemed, was cause for great celebration amongst those of Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s subjects who could afford such entertainment. One of them had seen fit to organise at short notice a run for motor cars from London to Brighton on the south coast and a gold medal would be awarded to the first to arrive. That was all very well for the earl, but for Auguste it would be an ordeal with no reprieve.
“Nearly there,” His Lordship added. “They do a good luncheon at the White Hart.”
The halt at the Reigate Inn about halfway to Brighton would indeed be welcome. The day had brought nothing but misery for Auguste since the celebratory breakfast at the Metropole Hotel in London’s Northumberland Avenue earlier that morning. A red flag had been ceremoniously ripped in half to the cheers of most of the population of London, judging by the crowds that had gathered to see the motor cars depart. So many people jostled for this privilege that it had been hard to see the other contestants, especially through the fog.
This gloomy rainy day was dubbed Emancipation Day, although to Auguste there seemed no logic in this. Would the villagers of England see it as emancipation as they took their cattle along the lanes only to be mown down by thunderbolts hurtling towards them at anything up to 12 miles per hour? Would elderly people sitting peacefully outside their front doors enjoy coughing in steam and petrol fumes during this great step forward for mankind?
“Pity about old Pilkington,” His Lordship yelled, his hands gripping the stick that apparently controlled – or otherwise – this regrettable invention. “He would have enjoyed this.”
Auguste doubted that. The reason for Colonel Edward Pilkington’s absence from this motor car run had been trumpeted last evening not only to his cousin the noble Earl of Sattersfield, but to an entire roomful of diners in the restaurant of Plum’s Club for Gentlemen where Auguste was employed.
“You can deuced well do as you like if you’re so set on winning this gold medal,” he had boomed. “I shall be travelling to Brighton by railway in a civilised manner and you, Sattersfield, can look elsewhere for another damned fool to be your passenger.” (A role that as Auguste had since discovered to his discomfort included pushing, engine-cranking, solving mechanical problems and navigating.)
His Lordship had therefore looked elsewhere and browbeaten Plum’s secretary into loaning him Auguste’s unwilling services. Auguste had begun a polite protest when the most extraordinary row had broken out at the next table.
“To the Léon Bollée and the glory of France!” shouted Henri, younger son of the Comte de Montrousse. He was a handsome young man of about twenty-five and a habitué of the private gambling houses. Auguste knew that for Henri each throw of the dice was a gamble between riches on the one hand versus disgrace and bankruptcy on the other, and he feared for the young man’s future.
“Only my motor car,” Henri had declared, flushed with wine and excitement, “deserves the gold medal.”
His attention had been fixed not on Colonel Pilkington, however, but on his own dining companion. The Baron von Merkstein was his chief rival at the gambling tables, a correct and proper gentleman who played with cold determination against Henri’s reckless bets – which were based, as far as Auguste could tell, on his whim of the moment.
The Baron raised his glass slowly and deliberately. “The Benz, Monsieur le Comte. To the future. The Benz alone deserves the gold medal. The Léon Bollée is but a French toy.” He picked up his glass. “To Germany and the Benz.”
Henri’s face darkened. “Twenty thousand francs that you are wrong, Baron. I shall arrive in Brighton before you, and win the gold medal too.”
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The baron rose to his feet. For a moment Auguste thought he would whisk out a duelling pistol, but fortunately not. “Twenty thousand marks,” he replied, “that my Benz arrives before the Bollée.”
Auguste froze. This was an insult on the baron’s part, as the gold standard value of the mark was considerably higher than the franc”s.
Henri went white, his hand shaking on the glass. “Thirty thousand francs.”
“Thirty thousand marks,” the baron whipped back.
By now everyone was listening to the battle, and both men had risen to their feet the better to trade insults.
“Forty thousand,” Henri had hurled back.
The baron smiled. He must have heard the tremble in Henri’s voice. “Monsieur le Comte, we are in England. Shall we say two thousand pounds must be paid by the loser?”
Even the Earl of Sattersfield had gulped at that. And no wonder, Auguste thought. This sum would keep many of Plum’s members in comfort for a year. He began to dread the coming Emancipation Day ordeal even more. This bitter quarrel between Henri and the Baron von Merkstein, together with the impression Auguste had gained of the chaos earlier that evening at the Holborn Skating Rink in Oxford Street, increased his foreboding. The motor cars were to be guarded there for the night and their misguided owners had been heatedly arguing as to which of them deserved the gold medal for first arrival at the designated finishing point, Preston Park on the outskirts of Brighton. From there, the motor cars would drive in a stately procession to the Metropole Hotel on the Brighton seafront, where the winning driver would be presented with his medal at dinner.
Tomorrow, Auguste had feared, would be a formidable day. He agreed with Colonel Pilkington.The civilised way to travel to Brighton was by railway train.
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