“It’s always a pleasure to eat your cooking, Magda,” Decker parried.
Magda smiled. “You are being very charming tonight.”
“I’ve been practicing.”
She hit his shoulder. He and Rina’s parents got along well, although it hadn’t always been that way. It had taken a dozen years and the production of a granddaughter to get to this level of congeniality. He thought about that as Cindy came to mind. Decker had slipped up with Koby. He was still smoldering from her relationship with Scott Oliver and maybe that was the problem. He was too involved. Black, white, purple, old, young, female, whatever—he should have done better with her date. He made a pledge to mind his manners in the future, regardless of whom she brought home.
Sammy and Jacob pushed away their plates and groaned. Sam said, “Really dynamite, Omah, but I ate too much. No room for dessert.”
“Aaah.” She dismissed his announcement. “Just a leetle strudel. Mostly fruit.”
“Apple?” Sammy asked.
She nodded. “And a little nut cake.”
“There are cookies, too,” Jacob added. “I saw them in the kitchen.”
“For Hannah!” Magda explained.
“Where’s Papa?” Rina asked.
Magda pointed to the back room. Without fanfare, Stefan Elias had retired to the den, to his chair and his TV programs. Usually the routine required Decker to join him between dinner and dessert. Rina began helping her mother clear the dishes. Decker picked up a platter. He whispered to his wife, “So when are we going to talk about Hannah’s family-tree report?”
“Soon, soon,” Rina told him.
“Why don’t you just tell her—”
“Shhhh.”
Decker rolled his eyes. “Are you going to wash the dishes?”
“No, the boys are going to wash.”
“We are?” Jacob said.
“Most definitely.”
Magda interjected, “I have a dishwasher.”
She had a deeshvasher.
Rina said, “This is good china.”
“I have a delicate cycle, Ginny. You think I live in the nineteenth century?” She turned to her grandsons. “You just rinse and put it in the racks, okay? Then you work up an appetite for dessert.”
Sammy said, “Yeah, I hear that dishwashing is the new aerobics, Omah.”
Decker smiled and elbowed his son’s ribs.
Magda said, “You go join Stefan, Peter? He is expecting you.”
“In a few minutes. I wanted to hear you talk about your family with Hannah.”
“I don’t have much to tell.” Magda’s face tightened. “It was not a happy childhood.”
“I know that.” Decker went over to her and kissed her cheek. “If it’s too hard, we can skip the childhood and start with after you came to America.” Rina gave him dagger eyes. He ignored her. “It’s totally up to you.”
“That would be better.” Magda went back to the dinner table and began gathering dirty dishes.
“The boys will do that,” Rina said. “Sit.”
“No, I like to move around.”
Decker said, “Like mother, like daughter.”
They brought a new round of soiled dishes into the kitchen.
“Oh goody,” Sammy said. “I was almost through and just hoping for more.”
“Stop complaining,” Rina told him.
Magda went back out to the dining room. Decker and Rina followed.
“Sit down, Magda,” Decker told her. “The boys can get the rest.”
The old woman sat.
Rina said, “How come you listen to him and not to me?”
“He eats my food,” Magda retorted. “Where is Channaleh?”
“With Opah,” Decker answered.
It was interesting how he called Rina’s mother Magda but Rina’s father was Opah—grandfather. Decker sat on one side of his mother-in-law, Rina on the other. “The two of them are watching Animal Planet. How about we do this, Magda? You go over your childhood really briefly so Hannah will have something to put down. Not more than a couple of minutes. Just things like where you lived in Germany, what you remember about Munich before you moved to Budapest—”
“Not too much,” Magda said. “I moved when I was nine.”
“What year was that?” Decker asked.
“It was 1928 or maybe 1929. Before ’33. We moved because my mother died.” She whispered, “You know about her?”
Decker nodded. “I know what happened to her, yes.”
She looked around nervously. “I don’t want to tell Hannah this.”
“I agree,” Decker said. “Too much for her.”
Magda went on. “Then in Budapest, my father met my stepmother and they get married. They have three children together. So with my sister and me, we are five. Only my sister and I survived. I was at Monowitz, you know. That was the goyish side of Auschwitz. All the rest of the family went to Birkenau. Only my sister Eva made it through. I still see her. She lives in New York. She married very well.”
“So did you,” Decker said.
“Yes, I did,” Magda confirmed. “I married the best!”
Rina smiled. It was wonderful how much her parents still loved each other.
“Is Eva a whole sister or half sister?” Decker asked.
“Half sister,” Rina said. “The middle of the three girls from Mama’s stepmother.”
“And Eva only survived because she was transferred back to Dachau—not to the main camp but to one of the smaller camps.” Magda’s face tightened. “There were many smaller camps—twenty, thirty in southern Bavaria—all of it Dachau. You know?”
Decker shook his head and looked at his wife.
“Satellite camps,” Rina said. “The entire complex was referred to as Dachau. It was very ironic. Hitler had succeeded in making Germany Judenrein—Jewish free—but then toward the end when things were falling apart, he became desperate for domestic labor. So he brought the Jews back into Germany to work in armament factories—slave labor. Most of these smaller camps produced weapons and armaments, but they were also death camps. We don’t have to talk about this, Mama. How about happier times, like earlier in your childhood?”
“They were not so happy. …”
“Before it happened,” Decker said. “What do you remember about your mother?”
“She was very, very beautiful.”
“So you must have looked like her.”
Magda’s smile was radiant at the compliment. “She made beautiful gowns. The most wunderbar fabrics.”
“Silks?”
“Ja, ja, seide—silk. In such beautiful colors.”
The woman was Hungarian, but when she spoke of her childhood, rudimentary German came back. Decker said, “Who’d she sew the gowns for? Who were her clientele?”
“The rich people—the aristocrats, the bourgeois.”
“You know, Peter and I just came back from Munich,” Rina told her.
Magda was quiet.
“We saw a lot of old Jewish Munich. You lived near Gartner-platz, right?”
She thought long and hard. “Nein, not the Isarvorstadt. That is for the Eastern Jews … the poor ones. My father was only a tailor, but my mother made money, enough for us to move. We were middle class. We even had a cleaning lady twice a week—an Austrian girl from Tirol. All the cleaning girls were Austrian.”
She searched the recesses of her memory.
“They used to fight—my father and my mother. He did not want her to work. It did not look nice, like my father was a poor man. But my mother loved to sew.” Magda furrowed her brow. “I used to go with her to visit the women, to the beautiful villas in Bogenhausen. Ach, such splendor, I remember so clear, especially the villas where the Russian aristocracy lived. There were many Russians in Munich … those who fled the revolution.”
She was quiet.
“My father did not think this was good for a woman to visit by herself to the rich goyim. They fought about it. It was not happy time
s.” She brushed her hand in the air. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I don’t blame you,” Decker said empathetically.
Rina tried to hide her frustration. “But you don’t remember where you lived, Mama?”
“I remember the name of the big street. We lived off of Turken-strasse.”
“Schwabing,” Rina said.
“Ja, ja, Schwabing, of course!” Magda hit her head. “I am an old woman.”
“Schwabing was and still is kind of a bohemian area.” Rina kissed her mother’s cheek. “Very sporty of you, Mama.”
“It was probably my mother’s idea. She was very sporty. My father was a good German bürger. A good man, but very strict.” Her eyes started to water. “He would have been so proud of you, Ginny.”
Rina held her hand. Magda brought the free one to her chest. “It is so hard to talk.”
Decker said, “We can move on, Magda.”
She wiped her eyes with her finger and nodded.
Decker said, “Just for the record, do you happen to remember any names of childhood friends? I think that would be neat for Hannah to hear. You know how your granddaughter feels about her buddies.”
Magda gave him a tearful smile. “Let me think. There was Briget and Petra.” A pause. “Oh … there was also Marta. She was Marta number one. I was Marta number two. Marta was my name before we moved to Hungary.”
Rina was surprised. “You changed your name?”
“My father changed my name. So I would fit in better with the Hungarians, yes.”
“All these things I never knew.”
Magda shrugged.
“Last names?” Decker said.
“Of the girls?”
“Yes. Do you remember their entire names?”
“Not the first two, no. The memory is gone. But Marta, yes, because in the schule, I was Marta Gottlieb and she was Marta Lubke. I was the Jew and she was the Protestant, which was not so common in Munich. Bavaria is very Catholic. My sister and I went to a very liberal schule—also my mother’s idea. My father wasn’t happy about that, either.” She sighed. “I remember my father with my mother; then I think about my father with my stepmother. The first marriage … I don’t think it was a happy one. I won’t tell Hannah this, either.”
“I think Hannah would like to hear about how her grandparents met and got married and came to the United States,” Decker said.
“We escaped in ’56 when the Communists came. Another story.”
Decker patted the old woman’s hand. “You’re a real old-fashioned hero.”
“Bah!” She slapped him on the shoulder and stood up. “I go see what my boys are doing in the kitchen. Do you want a piece of strudel, Peter?”
“Only if you serve it with decaf coffee.”
“What you think? Only decaf at this hour. Otherwise I spend the night on the phone with Ginny.” She laughed at her joke.
As soon as she was out of earshot, Rina whispered, “You did a good job of drawing her out.”
“Thank you.”
“But we barely even scratched the surface. We still don’t know anything about her mother’s life.”
“And we’re going to leave it at that,” Decker whispered emphatically.
“Peter—”
“Rina, listen to me. She’s what? In her eighties? It’s a painful memory in a woman who has suffered many painful memories. We’re not going to push her any further. End of discussion.”
Rina sighed. “In my heart, I know you’re right. I just think she … she deserves to know what happened.”
“She’s fine with it. You’re the one who’s curious.” Decker rubbed his temples. “Rina, from what she told us, it could have been her father who murdered her mother—”
“No!” Rina was appalled.
“Yes!” Decker insisted. “By her own recollection, they had a troubled relationship. How would you feel uncovering that?”
She was silent.
“I have a few unsolved cases that still bug me, but I’ve learned to live with them.”
“It’s not your grandmother.”
“Then talk to her when I’m not here. I’m not going to be party to any more subterfuge.”
“All right,” Rina conceded. “You’re the detective, I’ll trust your judgment.”
“Thank you.” Decker regarded his wife. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I’ve got an idea. I asked for the full names of her girlfriends for a reason. The memory may be painful for her, but probably not at all painful to Marta Lubke—if she’s not dead, if I can find her, and if she remembers anything.”
Rina looked at her husband with newfound admiration.
“Yeah … I’m good at what I do.” He unbuttoned the waist-band of his pants and untucked his shirt. “I ate too much.”
“I’ll make a light supper tomorrow night.”
“For the next six nights, please.”
“Thank you, Peter, for going beyond the call of duty.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He gave her a mock frown, then kissed his wife’s lips. “You’re welcome. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Rina kissed him back.
He stood up. “I’m going to join your father and Hannah and watch Animal Planet. Last time I checked, they were watching a special on Vietnamese potbellied pigs. I should feel right at home.”
25
Wednesday morning’s e-mail simply read:
Still working overtime. Talk to you soon.
Koby
He didn’t even bother to address it with my name.
And not even love Koby—just plain Koby.
I could take a hint.
I knew a brush-off when it smacked me in the face.
I didn’t bother to answer.
Another one bites the dust.
“Fuck him,” I whispered as I wiped away the tears.
I was exhausted doing paid patrol-officer work and detecting on my own time, but work was a good substitute for a life. I debated making an appointment with David Tyler’s conservator, but decided to show up in the flesh.
Century City is L.A.’s attempt at a business district. The entire area had once belonged to Fox Studios and there still was a mammoth-size location back lot. But most of the neighborhood was dominated by office high-rises with underground parking that charged outrageous rates.
Raymond Paxton’s office was on the twenty-second floor, an ear-popping elevator ride that I wouldn’t have taken, had I been afflicted with a cold. I got off, turned left, and walked through a door embellished with a brass nameplate that told me Paxton was a legal corporation. The secretary, a twenty-something Asian with her hair tied in a ponytail, greeted me with the typical “Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Mr. Paxton,” I told her. “I don’t have an appointment.”
“That could be a problem” was her response. “He’s booked straight through until one. Then he has a lunch meeting.”
This meant he was in the office. Opportunity presented itself. I showed her my badge.
Now she looked worried. She had on a red silk blouse and she fingered the corner of the collar. “What’s this in regards to?”
“David Tyler. And it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”
“I’m not sure I know the name,” she told me.
“But Mr. Paxton will know it.”
She picked up the phone and spoke into the receiver with muted tones. Paxton came out a moment later. He was around five-nine, dressed in a silver suit with a black shirt and tie. He was also black, and when I realized that I had made that immediate distinction, I sort of realized my father’s point. I had also identified his secretary as Asian—using race as a descriptive factor. Confession wasn’t easy for me.
“You’ve heard from David?” Paxton’s voice was anxious.
“No, I haven’t heard from him. Can I talk to you for a few minutes?”
His expression fell. The lawyer frowned and checked his watch. “Five minutes?”
> “More than enough time.”
I followed him through the interior of his firm, down hushed and carpeted hallways. These places were labyrinths to me, and I always thought that such convoluted pathways were meant to confuse the enemy. Disorientation distracted from the purpose at hand and gave a home-court advantage when doing depositions. Eventually, we came to an open space. It wasn’t his office. It was a conference room, and a small one at that. He was kind enough to offer me coffee and I was smart enough to refuse politely. We sat down across from each other.
He said, “Is he all right? David?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m here. I take it you haven’t heard from him since Mr. Klinghoffner called you.”
“If I had, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” He leaned over the table. “Why are you here?”
“I have a story that might interest you. David had a girlfriend at the Fordham Communal Center, where he worked as an art instructor. Her name is Sarah Sanders. They used to go to the park and have sex. One day, a gang of punks walked in on them, raped Sarah, and beat David. They left him in a trash can. I believe that was the last time anyone who knew him has seen or heard from him. Forgive me for encapsulating this in a blunt manner, but you told me to be quick.”
His face registered pure shock. “Is … is this true?”
“I don’t have any reason to doubt it. Sarah Sanders gave a statement to the police just yesterday, although the incident happened about six months ago. This information was just given to me a couple of days ago. Why? you may wonder. Because Sarah Sanders was the girl in the paper who dumped her baby in a trash can. I found the infant and have taken a personal interest in the outcome and in everyone’s welfare.”
“Wait a minute.” He brought a finger to his forehead. “This is all coming way too quickly for me to absorb.”
“What would you like me to repeat?”
He stared at me with dark piercing eyes. “You haven’t found David?”
“Not yet. But I haven’t started looking for him.”
“Okay. And you think he was beaten up and … then what?”
“Sarah told us—us being the police—that they beat him and stuffed him down a trash can. Being frightened and retarded, she left not knowing what happened to him. She never told anyone because she was just too scared.”
Faye Kellerman Page 20