Isolated Judgment

by Jonathan Watkins

  “Do you have a pen, Your Honor?”

  Once it was signed, she passed it back to him, and his other hand extended a check. She didn’t look at it, just folded it in half and slipped it in her purse. She kept her face calm, and managed not to squeal in delight.

  “Very good,” he said, and settled back in the wheelchair. “I think our conversation will be brief. Darren has likely found the body of my nephew and the sword that was used to murder him. Ludolf is on his way there now, I suspect. He is very nervous by nature—an understandable consequence of spending your life wanted by the Israelis for atrocities committed against their people.”

  Chapter Three

  Darren sat, scratching behind the ear of the yellow Labrador and staring at the corpse. The dog buried its nose in the sand next to him, huffed a few times and set his muzzle in Darren’s lap.

  “You know, Chester, I’ve seen a few strange things. Things most people don’t ever run into. But I have to admit, this pretty much tops the list. Bravo.”

  Chester thumped his tail.

  Four long wooden stakes were plunged into the sand between the body and the lake waters. A burlap cloth draped over them, so that the corpse was shielded from the view of any boaters who might pass by the little beach.

  “I hope he wasn’t a friend of yours,” he sighed, and patted Chester’s back. “You dogs aren’t around long enough as it is. Shouldn’t have to suffer the loss of a pal on top of the short lifespan thing. Kind of an insult-to-injury situation, isn’t it?”

  Chester let his tongue hang out and drooled on Darren’s trouser leg with no indication of embarrassment.

  Behind him, Darren heard footfalls, stumbling then a bitter “Verdammt!”

  “Lou,” he called, without looking around. “What sort of sword is that? I want to say longsword? Is that right?”

  Lou materialized beside him. Chester peered up at the old groundskeeper, then put his head back in Darren’s lap.

  “You are American,” Ludolf said after staring at the body for a long moment, “so you would not know. It is what they call a claymore. A Scottish weapon. The movie Braveheart, you saw this?”

  “Yeah, you’re right. That’s a two-hander.”

  “Yes. A mighty weapon.”

  “You’ve got a strong handshake, Lou,” Darren said.

  “Don’t be a fool.”

  “But not strong enough to do what happened here,” Darren agreed. “And the last time I saw the Judge, he was having trouble walking on his own.”

  Lou scoffed at him and shook his head.

  “He has become weaker since he voted to cancel your lawyer practice. He is in a wheelchair now.”

  “Disbarment. Since he voted for my disbarment. Unsuccessfully.”

  “As you say.”

  Darren gave Chester a final pat on the head and stood up, so that the two men were shoulder to shoulder. Chester scampered up to his feet and bounded away toward the water’s edge.

  “Who is he?” Darren said.

  “Daniel. The Judge’s nephew. His sister’s only child.”

  “Does she know?”

  “She has been dead many years.”

  “Let me get a pull off your bottle, Lou.”

  Lou tensed and shot him a startled look, like he’d been caught in a lie. Darren grinned.

  “I caught the whiff once we were on the dock. Relax. Your business is your business.”

  Lou reached inside his flannel coat and produced a half-empty pint of whiskey. He passed it over to Darren.

  “Do you know who would kill Daniel?”

  Lou shook his head and accepted the bottle back. The presence of the whiskey, and Darren’s communal regard of it, seemed to wash some of the nervousness out of him.

  “I do not,” he said. “He was not the sort to have enemies. He was a boy. A soft American man-boy. Nobody wanted to do him harm.”

  Darren took a second swallow and grimaced against the sharp sting of it.

  “Someone did.”

  Lou was quiet as he stared at the dead man. He capped the bottle and slipped it back into his pocket. The yellow Labrador seemed to get enough of the lake water, because he appeared at their feet, soaking and coated in sand.

  “Sam found him first,” Lou said.

  The dog shook itself, sending out a sandy spray.

  “Who’s Sam?”

  “He is. This dog.”

  “Chester, you mean.”

  “No. Sam is the dog’s name. It has always been Sam.”

  Darren cocked his head and gave the dog a reproachful squint.

  “I wonder why he’d lie to me about that. Maybe he’s hiding something.”

  Lou scowled irritably.

  “I think this is the way with young American men.” He made a sweeping motion with his hand that seemed to encompass both Darren and the dead body. “You joke and love sarcasm. You make light of what should be serious. Life is serious. Death is serious. And you play name games with a dog.”

  Darren walked away from him and stopped to crouch down over Daniel Prosner’s corpse. Behind him, Lou brought the bottle out again and finished it with a swallow.

  “He’s got glass in his hands,” Darren said, without looking around. “Cuts.”

  “Yes. There is part of my greenhouse that is broken. I saw that when Sam led me here. It was just after the sun had set.”

  “I’ll need to see the greenhouse.”

  “Why? It is as I say.”

  Darren straightened and pulled out his phone. He snapped a series of photos of the dead man, the sand around him and the sword. He leaned in and saw that etched into the bottom of the sword’s handle were the initials STL. He photographed that, too.

  “I guess you put up this screen,” he said, “to keep it secret.”

  “Yes, who else would—”

  “And I guess you and the Judge aren’t in a rush to tell the cops, since Chief Fish isn’t throwing me out of his crime scene right now.”

  “It is not Chief Fish who would have authority here. The State Police. They patrol the lake.”

  Darren strolled back over to the scowling old man. “And I guess maybe Judge Prosner needs me to find out who murdered his nephew, without letting on to anyone that he’s dead,” Darren said. “So that’s why I need to see the greenhouse, Lou. We can go now, unless you’ve got another pint hidden in that coat you want to share.”

  If he did, Lou did not offer it. Soon they were back through the woods and looking at the wound of spilled glass in the wall of the greenhouse. Darren snapped more pictures while Lou stuffed his hands in his pockets and frowned.

  “Nobody else lives on this island?”

  “None.”

  “You do everything? Cook, clean, mow the lawn...?”

  “Daniel cooked and tended to house chores. Before him, a woman.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “It was Doris. She is dead three years.”

  “Any other—”

  “No,” Lou said. “And no visitors.”

  “Well, at least one visitor. Unless we’re thinking Daniel tripped in a really spectacular fashion.”

  Darren knelt down at the hole in the wall, his shoes crunching. A small table of potted tomatoes had been knocked over, and several of the fat red fruits were splattered over the cement floor. Darren remained hunched there, picking through the scene, taking the occasional photo.

  “So why don’t you want the cops coming out here, Lou? Or is it the Judge who wants them shut out of this?”

  There was only silence behind him. Darren finished what he was doing, stood and turned to look at the old groundskeeper. Lou was staring at his feet, a despondent sadness seeming to have flown into him. He pulled off his cap and h
eld it in front of him, worrying it with his thumbs.

  “Lou?”

  “Ludolf. My name is Ludolf.”

  “Alright.”

  “It is all my fault,” Ludolf whispered.

  “Really? This was an easy case. No backsies on the retainer.”

  Ludolf didn’t seem to hear. He turned and began to slowly walk toward the work shed.

  “Come,” he called softly over his shoulder. “There is more whiskey in my workhouse. We will talk.”

  * * *

  Judge Prosner produced an envelope that was yellowed with age, and handed it across the desk to Issabella.

  “Read this, and you will understand,” he said. “Versions of that letter were sent to more than two dozen law enforcement agencies and departments of state after the war was won and I was back at home. To the Nuremberg Commission, eventually the United Nations, and later to the infant state of Israel...and to many others. You read it, and I will answer what questions remain when you are done.”

  Issabella pulled several folded, typed pages from the envelope and smoothed them out on her lap. She began to read.

  To Whom It May Concern,

  This letter consists of my full and best recollection of my experiences in Vienna throughout the winter of 1946. I relay these events to you with terrible urgency, as I fear that a boy who has done me the greatest of services is now unjustly labeled as a collaborator of that rotten and defunct organ, the Nazi regime of Germany. That boy is Ludolf Voni Bohm, now seventeen years old, and a native of Vienna, Austria. It is my hope that the contents of this letter will be viewed as testimonial evidence on Ludolf’s behalf. Additionally, while I am currently taxed under the weight of my legal studies here at Harvard, I assure you that I am quite ready to testify in person as to what I know of Ludolf, to any agency or governmental body, anywhere.

  I came to Vienna a first lieutenant in the United States Army suffering the fatigue of two years of incessant fighting. I was luckier than many, though. I was physically whole, and occupied Vienna seemed a paradise to my eyes when compared to the slaughter and the endless mud of campaigning across Europe. To put it bluntly, I regarded my leave time in Vienna as an opportunity to drink too much, gamble with wild abandon and court the attentions of the fairer sex.

  It was one such girl—a lovely local girl who spoke passing English and patiently suffered my enthusiastic advances toward her heart—that led me to violate the regulations of the occupation agreement and frequently slip over the border into the Soviet-held neighborhood where she and her family lived.

  I make no excuses for those lapses in judgment and duty, save for the truth: She was an exquisite beauty, and if I was starved for anything after all the fighting and the loss of countless friends, it was beauty.

  But such beauty is prone to attract more than one suitor, as I learned that winter. A soldier in the Soviet Army, whose name I have never learned, became aware of my frequent visits to this young woman. He, too, was smitten with her. Well, what to do when your rival is unaware you exist and you know full well that he is risking capture each time he slips through the border wires?

  On January third of that year, three of the Komendantskaya sluzhba were waiting for me at the home of that young lady. I never learned what, if anything, befell her or her family. As the Soviets still control that portion of the city, all of my attempts to contact her have gone unanswered. I hope, perhaps foolishly, that she met no ill treatment over her dalliances with me.

  As for me, I escaped the scene with a bullet lodged in my right thigh, courtesy of the Red Army. Though the wound has now healed as completely as it ever will, I have been assured that the cramping pain I experience when I walk will be my constant passenger through life. Now, as I sit writing this in the collegial comfort of this school’s library, I can appreciate the irony of having escaped every battle of my war unscathed, only to be shot while trying to convince some poor girl that I was more than I am.

  What followed is no tale of valor or heroism on my part. I had seen more boys suffering gunshot wounds by then to have had my fill for a lifetime. But seeing it and experiencing it are two vastly dissimilar things. I remember the shock and the pain and the fear, and a blurry series of images that represent all I can recall of my flight.

  Suffice it to say, I sought shelter like a wounded animal is wont to do. Thanks to our bombing campaigns, there was no shortage of abandoned buildings in Vienna. I found one such structure and collapsed in what I would later learn was the flat once belonging to a family of Jews. They were, of course, no longer there. I suspect they were gathered up and sent, as were so many Jews of that city, to the Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration Camp, and murdered.

  Their furniture remained, as did much of their wardrobes, toiletries and flatware. I collapsed there, in a delirium of pain and fear. I tried my best to tend to my wound, but could only manage to tie off the leg above the wound with a belt I found among the family’s clothing.

  I was sure I was still hunted. And I was equally certain that I could not manage my injury nor hope to make it to the American sector, much less cross the border unseen. I cannot tell you, sirs, the utter depth of desperation in which I found myself, lying there on the bed of those poor, disappeared people and with the smells of their lives still hanging richly in the rooms. I was truly lost.

  And that is when Ludolf Bohm found me. His actions that day, and in the days that followed, have prompted me to write this letter. That he could come to harm while I sit here in comfort and safety is an unthinkable injustice. I beg of you: After you have read my account of that boy’s actions, find it within yourselves to reconsider labeling him a fugitive.

  Issabella paused and looked up at the old man in his wheelchair.

  “He saved your life?”

  “Yes,” Judge Prosner said. “And I will not allow him to come to any harm now, Ms. Bright. That is why you are here.”

  “I see him on the bed and I think he is a dead body,” Ludolf said, and took another swallow of the pint he’d produced from a cabinet in the work shed. “I had found many dead bodies after the bombings. I found a little girl in her bath once. Bomb destroyed her bedroom, but not the bath. But flying splinters and plaster, they killed her. A little girl in a tub of bloody water. I cannot forget this.”

  There were stools in the cluttered shed, and both men were sitting close enough to one another that the bottle could be passed back and forth. The cement floor was filled with lawn machinery, bags of grass seed and a partially disassembled outboard motor. Sam wandered in, sniffed around the floor, cocked his head to peer at Darren for a moment and wandered back out.

  “That sounds horrible,” Darren offered.

  Ludolf shrugged.

  “By then I saw too many horrible things,” he said. “Father was a grocer. A proud man and very kind. He hated the Nazis and what they had done. Do you understand how Austria was? Do they teach this in America? Most of us saw no difference with our people and the Germans. Most of us, like Hitler, believed we were one with Germany. One people. It is as it would be if a man asks you, ‘Are you, a man of Detroit, also a man of Michigan?’ You would say, ‘Of course!’ This is how my people saw themselves.”

  Darren took the bottle when it was offered.

  “But not your father.”

  Ludolf grinned widely, the first time Darren had seen the old man’s face show anything but a tired sourness. His eyes were bright and wet from the whiskey.

  “He was very kind,” Ludolf agreed. “Before the war, Jews had it bad. It was as it was in Germany. New laws to take their businesses and keep them separate from us. Taxes for them but not for us. Rules for them but not for us. Father hated this. Our store was open to any man. And when the Jews had their property confiscated and could not pay for what their families needed, Father would lend them food. When it got very, very bad, and we were clai
med by Hitler as a limb of Germany now reattached to the body...that is when Father made use of me.”

  Darren felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He took it out and glanced at the screen. Issabella was texting him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to Ludolf.

  “You people with your little toys.” Ludolf scoffed, and took the bottle back. “You are like Daniel. Toys for grown men.”

  The text from Issabella read, This is all becoming very weird. Where are you? Judge fell asleep in wheelchair. Retainer is huuuuge.

  “Go on, Lou,” he said without looking up. He typed back, Walk out back of house. From greenhouse go straight down to beach. Look at dead body. Very cool Scottish sword in him. Be there soon.

  He slipped his phone back in his pocket. Ludolf continued.

  “The Jews were being sent away. To ghettos first. Then it was the camp. We did not know that then. We knew they were being forced out of Vienna, but not to where. Some families, they knew it would not be a better place. So instead of leaving, they would hide. You know...like little Annie. The little girl with her diary—”

  “Anne Frank.”

  “Exactly, yes. So, if you are hiding in these empty buildings, still you need to eat. So Father used me for this. I was the boy who carried food to the hiding Jews.” Ludolf beamed with obvious pride, and took another swig from the bottle. He was speaking faster now, and his hands were animated, punctuating his story as he told it. “I was a rat in the night! I scampered and hid, always watching for the Nazis and the policemen. I made myself remember all their habits, where they patrolled and when and who. I was never seen. I was small and fast. A clever rat. I fed many families. My father kept many from starving. But this was only for a time. It did not last.”

  Darren took the bottle and sipped. Sam was in the room again, looking excitedly from one man to the next. Darren watched him and decided the dog was confounded by them. He imagined a big white word balloon over Sam’s head that read, Come on! There’s outside! Right out this way! Why are you guys sitting there? There is outside and sunshine and grass and come on!