Max realized that he could no longer postpone the deed. He must act—soon, this week. Time was running out on Marcelus Prandus. Who could say when he would die of the cancer? He must not be allowed to die without experiencing at least part of what Max had experienced in the Ponary Woods.
It was easy for Max to locate the school attended by the eight-year-old Marc Prandus. It took only a couple of days for Max to figure out Marc’s routine. He walked four blocks to school every morning—alone. He had to cross one major intersection with traffic lights and a crossing guard. How easy it was, Max thought, to plan, even rehearse, a murder. Surprisingly, it all came so naturally to Max, the most unlikely of criminals. As he drove his aging Volvo back to Cambridge, Max could almost hear Reb Mordechai whispering, “Nekama, nekama,” giving him instructions. The real test, however, was still a few days away. Like Raskolnikov, Max would not know whether he could actually kill an innocent human being until the moment was at hand.
That evening Max was to learn something that resolved all of his doubts in favor of even more deadly action.
Chapter 16
TRACKING PRANDUS
“All right, what have we got?” Abe asked as he paced around his large work office with the picture windows facing the Charles River. The room was sparsely furnished. A large stand-up desk faced the window. Because Abe rarely sat when he worked, there were no chairs around. He would see clients in the library, around a large oak table. Rendi was perched on a low file cabinet. Emma, Jacob, and Angela sat on the floor.
Rendi began. “We know where he lives. He has two children—one a lawyer, the other a stockbroker. He belongs to some Lithuanian social club. Votes Republican. Doesn’t like blacks or gays. Goes to church. Used to be a mechanic. Retired. A widower. Two grandchildren. Belongs to the Rotary Club. No criminal record. He’s a regular Archie Bunker.”
“What about Vilna?”
“I researched that,” Emma said, looking at her notes. “It turns out that it was really two cities living together in an uneasy proximity. Vilnius, the capital, was a hotbed of nationalism and fascism. Vilna, the city’s Jewish name, was called ‘the Jerusalem of the North,’ because of its large number of highly educated Jews.”
“What happened to them?”
“Even before the Nazis occupied Lithuania, the nationalists targeted the Jews. Here, let me read from a directive issued by their leader: ‘There must be no possibility of continued Jewish existence in Lithuania.’ ”
“Haskell told me they accomplished their goal,” Abe noted.
“Haskell was right,” Emma continued. “Here is an account I found in the Los Angeles Times: ‘While the Germans were fighting the Soviets for control of Lithuania, Lithuanian nationalists formed para-military units and killed thousands of Jews in a matter of days. After the Nazis took power, many young Lithuanians volunteered for the execution squads in killing fields such as the Ponary Woods. Within months, 95 percent of Lithuania’s nearly quarter of a million Jews were dead. Most weren’t even sent to the death camps. The Lithuanians couldn’t wait to kill them. They were taken to the woods, lined up beside pits, and shot.’ ”
“How did they manage to kill so many Jews in so little time?” Rendi asked.
“I want you to look at this segment from Sixty Minutes,” Emma said. “It will shock you.”
Emma popped a video into the office machine that hung from the ceiling. The face of Antanas Kenstavicious flashed on the screen. He had been a former police chief in Lithuania who had moved to Canada after the war.
He had a warm smile and a large, gentle face. He could have played Santa Claus in the local Christmas pageant. But then the old man described what the militia had done to the Jewish families he helped to round up during that April of 1942:
We commanded them to lay down, and Jews would come and lay down . . . no screaming. They was like a sheep. And then coming the commander, they shoot, bang, and they fall down . . . they fall in the ditch. . . . One o’clock finished. No more Jews.*
Emma began to sob softly. Jacob put an arm around her shoulder.
“How did that bastard escape to Canada?” Angela asked.
“It was easy right after the war. Canada welcomed Nazis without asking any hard questions, as long as they were anti-Communists,” Rendi replied.
“After the Sixty Minutes piece, didn’t they try to deport him or prosecute him?” Abe wondered.
“He died shortly after the piece aired. He was eighty-five years old,” Emma said. “That’s what I’m afraid may happen to Prandus.”
“How did Prandus get into America?” Abe asked.
“I checked into that,” said Rendi. “He swore under oath that he had been a professional soccer player during the war years. Not a word about any militia.”
“That’s great!” Abe exclaimed, pounding his desk. “If we can prove he killed Max’s family, we can get him deported for lying on his visa application.”
“Like Al Capone was convicted for lying on his tax return,” Angela interjected.
“Yeah, but even if that were to happen, he would go back to Lithuania and be treated as a hero. There’s a story on the Web about Nazi mass murderers living the life of Riley in Vilnius, even now,” Emma said.
“At least he will die apart from his family—if we can prove he was a killer. Any luck on that?”
“I haven’t found a single reference to Marcelus Prandus in all the files I accessed. There are other names of Lithuanian collaborators, but Prandus’s name is absent. Is that bad, Mr. Ringel?”
“It’s not fatal. Remember that absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence,” Abe said pedantically, repeating an argument he frequently made to jurors. “Keep looking.”
“I have one good lead,” Jacob said. “The Russians have begun to open their wartime files, and I have a friend who is studying in Moscow for the year. I asked him to look through the war archives. I should have something in a week.”
“Tell him to make it a day,” Abe demanded. “This guy Prandus may not live that long.”
“I’ll try.”
“What else?” Abe asked.
“How is Max doing?” Emma asked.
“Not too well. Knowing that this murderer has been living nearby has really thrown him for a loop. We have to do something soon.”
“Can you go to Washington with what we’ve got?” Emma asked impatiently. “Max can ID Prandus.”
“Still, we’re going to need corroboration. After the Demjanjuk fiasco—remember, Ivan the Terrible?—they’re a little gun-shy down there about uncorroborated eyewitness accounts. We’re not ready yet. We need more.”
“What about his statement that he was a soccer player? Isn’t that enough?” Angela asked.
“Not quite. Maybe he was a soccer player—in his spare time when he wasn’t busy killing Jews. Unless we can find documentary evidence that he killed Jews, there is nothing other than Max’s uncorroborated account to show he was lying. We’re counting on your friend in Russia, Jacob. I hope he comes through—and quickly.”
Chapter 17
THE SMOKING GUN: A FEW DAYS LATER
“Mr. Ringel, Mr. Ringel—we have it!” Jacob was running as he broke into Abe’s office with Emma behind him. In his hand there was a sheaf of fax paper.
“These files just came in from Moscow over the office fax. I’ve glanced at them, and Marcelus Prandus’s name is all over them.”
“Bingo! Quick, let me see them.”
Abe began to read as Jacob and Emma peered over his shoulder. “It’s the transcript of a trial, but the defendant is a guy named General Heinrich Gruber. So far no mention of Prandus.”
“Read on,” Jacob said breathlessly. “Gruber was the German Gestapo chief in Vilna. At the end of the war, he was captured by Soviet troops and put on trial. The names of some of the Lithuanian collaborators were mentioned at the trial. Gruber’s defense was that the Lithuanians did the killings themselves.”
“Here, here,” Abe s
aid, pointing to the name of Marcelus Prandus. “Here it is.”
Abe began to read from the transcript.
“On the morning of April 3, 1942, I received a report from Captain Marcelus Prandus of the Lithuanian Auxiliary Police about an action on the previous night. He reported that his men had arrested 126 Communists and traitors and took them to the Ponary Woods for interrogation. When they arrived at the woods the collaborators and traitors attempted to escape and to resist. They were all shot and buried in collective graves.”
“The bastard,” Emma exclaimed. “Trying to blame the victims.”
“That was a standard claim,” Jacob said. “I came across it many times in my research. Jews, no matter how young or old, were always referred to as Communists or traitors, and they were invariably trying to escape when they were shot. The Soviets rejected the claims after digging up some of the common graves and finding babies and close-up gunshot wounds to the back of the head.”
“Can anyone trust the Soviets? Remember this was the time of Stalin,” Abe commented.
“Most historians believe these findings were fairly accurate, especially when they were based on hard evidence such as pathology reports. When only confessions were relied on, they were suspect,” said Jacob.
“Okay, let me read on.”
Abe continued to read through General Gruber’s testimony, finding reports of additional actions conducted by Captain Prandus.
“Here’s something interesting,” Abe noted. “Listen to this question and answer.
“Question: Do you know the whereabouts of Captain Prandus? Answer: I was told that he was living in Vilnius for a while after the war. But when I tried to summon him as a witness, I learned that he and his mother had escaped to America.”
“Well, this is certainly enough to take to Washington,” Emma said.
“More than enough,” Abe exclaimed enthusiastically. “I’ll make the call right now. In the meantime, you two star researchers read through the rest of the file and highlight every single reference to Prandus.”
“You got it. This is great. I feel like a real lawyer.”
“You are a real lawyer, sweetie. You too, Jacob. And this is a very real case. We’re going to get this bastard deported—before he dies,” Abe said with a look of determination that Emma recognized from past cases. “He’s going to die alone, somewhere in Lithuania, or in handcuffs on the way there. Now you kids go back to the library, while I call my contact at the Justice Department.”
“Can I please speak to Martin Mandel in the Office of Special Investigations?” Abe asked, and waited to be connected.
“Mandel, OSI,” came the clipped response a moment later.
“Hi, my name is Abe Ringel.”
“I know who you are, Mr. Ringel. Haskell Levine used to do some work with us. He told me about you. It’s a pleasure speaking to you.”
“Well, I’m afraid I’m calling about a rather unpleasant subject.”
“That’s all we deal with down here. What do you have?”
“A man named Marcelus Prandus. Lives in Salem, Massachusetts. Came to the U.S. in 1947, claiming he was a professional soccer player. My client, Max Menuchen—an old friend of Haskell Levine’s, by the way—will testify that Prandus was a captain in the Lithuanian Auxiliary Police and that he personally shot several members of Max’s family, including his pregnant wife and baby.”
“Was he an eyewitness?”
“Yes. Prandus shot him, too, but he survived.”
“We need corroboration. An eyewitness who was shot isn’t enough. Not after Demjanjuk.”
“We have corroboration.”
“What kind?”
“A Soviet trial transcript. Hot off the press. Just released in Moscow.”
“Fax it to me.”
“I will. But there’s a rub.”
“There always is. What is it this time?”
“Prandus is dying of pancreatic cancer. He’s probably got only a few months to live.”
“That’s a serious rub. It takes time to put together a case, even as clear a case as this one seems to be. We need to get the transcript certified. With the Russian bureaucracy, it could take a few months.”
“Can’t you speed it up? The guy is dying.”
“We can try, but it’s still going to take some time. Prandus is going to get himself a lawyer. You certainly understand that. And his lawyer is going to play the delay game. You know about that, too, Mr. Ringel.”
“Can you arrest him in the meantime?”
“Does he have a family, roots in the community?”
“I’m afraid he does.”
“No way a judge is going to deny him bail. He’ll be allowed to stay at home.”
“Is there anything we can do quickly?”
“I’m afraid not. I have to be honest with you. There’s no way we could get this guy in custody or deported in less than six months to a year.”
“He’ll be dead by then.”
“I’m sorry. That happens to us all the time. Our colleagues in Canada just had a case—it was on Sixty Minutes—of another Lithuanian killer. He died at home with his family before they could make a case. And he confessed on television. I’m sorry, Mr. Ringel, but it’s probably too late for the legal system to do much to Captain Prandus. Let’s hope there’s a hell. It’s the only punishment Prandus is going to get.”
“Damn!” Abe shouted as he hung up the phone. He ran toward the library.
“Bad news,” he exclaimed as he threw open the library door and saw Emma crying in Jacob’s arms. “What’s the matter, sweetie?” he asked. “Is everything all right?”
“No, it’s not,” Emma said, unable to control her emotions. “It’s about Sarah Chava. We found out what happened to her. I’m going to kill that bastard Prandus. Don’t ever let me near him. I’m going to kill him with my bare hands.”
“What happened to her, sweetie? We’re going to have to tell Max.”
“He raped her,” Emma cried, remembering her own ordeal. “Prandus raped her. Then he . . .” But she couldn’t go on. She began to cry as Abe tried to comfort her.
“Here,” Jacob said, pointing to a highlighted paragraph. “It’s the testimony of a member of Prandus’s group who gave evidence against General Gruber. It’s all right here.”
Abe read the page quickly, gasped, and said, “I need to tell Max about this right now.”
He ran out of the office holding the transcript, trying to suppress his rage at Marcelus Prandus and his frustration at the inability of the legal system to bring him to justice.
Chapter 18
SARAH CHAVA
Abe hurried to Max’s house, clutching the files. He pounded on the door, wondering how he would break the terrible news to his old friend.
Max came to the door with a teacup in his hand.
“Abe, what’s wrong? You look as if you ran all the way here.”
“I did. I have news. It’s very bad.”
“They can’t do anything about Prandus,” Max said fatalistically. “It’s too late. I expected that. You did your best—I appreciate it.”
“You’re right. I spoke to the head of the Nazi-hunting unit in Washington. It would take at least six months.”
“Prandus will be dead by then,” Max said, raising his voice slightly.
“It’s worse than that,” said Abe, moving nearer to his friend and looking into his eyes. “I’m afraid I have some even more distressing information.”
“What could be more distressing?”
“It’s about Sarah Chava.”
“She’s dead. You have proof?”
“Here, let me read what Jacob just received from Moscow. Sit down. This is going to be very difficult.”
Max sat behind his desk and put his head in his hands as Abe began to read from the testimony of Jarus Plunk, a member of the Lithuanian Auxiliary Police.
“A sixteen-year-old girl, family name Menuchen, was raped by Marcelus Prandus and then turned over t
o the local German Gestapo chief, Heinrich Gruber, who also abused her and then sent her to Auschwitz to work as a prostitute for the German guards.” Abe then turned to a paragraph from the court’s findings: “Menuchen (female) was not among the prisoners liberated at the end of the war and is presumed to have been gassed after a few months along with other Jewish women who had been forced to work as prostitutes.”
Max cried out loud as he imagined what his teenage sister had been through in the months or years between Ponary Woods and the time she finally died. Did she try to escape? Had she become pregnant? Did she have an abortion? Did she contract a venereal disease? Had she been driven crazy by her tormentors? “If only she had died along with the rest of the family,” Max moaned as these horrible images rushed through his mind. “If only I had also died along with the rest of the family.”
Then he began to shake. He felt dizzy and nauseated, immobilized by fear and powerlessness. This feeling of paralysis was familiar. His mind went blank. Then, suddenly, he understood. His body was replicating the same feelings he had experienced as Marcelus Prandus pronounced the death sentence on his family.
Abe, concerned that Max might harm himself, tried to comfort him, but he could not allay the old man’s anguish.
Just Revenge Page 8