“The camp wasn’t Auschwitz, that much I remember. If you name some others for me, I may recognize it.”
She furrowed her brow. “Auschwitz was the main camp in Poland. I don’t know all the others by heart. Hold on. Let me get a Jewish encyclopedia.”
Rina was gone for several minutes. She came back holding a big blue tome. “Let’s see…Auschwitz, Betzec, Sobibor, Treblinka—”
“That’s it.”
“Treblinka?”
“Yes, I’m positive.”
“Hold on.” Rina left and came back moments later, holding another blue volume. “In operation from 1941 to 1943. It was designed as a liquidation camp—about 870,000 people exterminated—”
“Good Lord!” Decker couldn’t fathom that many people dying in one geographical spot.
“Auschwitz killed more,” Rina said. “That’s because Auschwitz was around longer. Almost three years longer.”
“What do you mean ‘designed’ as a liquidation camp? Weren’t they all…that?”
“Some of them—like Auschwitz—were officially labeled ‘forced labor’ camps, others were ‘holding centers.’ Both are misnomers because the end results were the same. People were either murdered or died due to starvation, exposure, or disease. According to this article, there are very, very, very few survivors from Treblinka because its specific purpose was to exterminate the Jewish population of Poland.”
“Who was in control of it? The Germans or the Poles?”
“Germans, with the Poles being willing accomplices.” Her eyes skimmed across the pages, taking in the horrors with little emotion. “Escapees who were caught were shot on the spot or hanged as examples…those that did make it into the surrounding area were turned in by the villagers. There were some efforts of resistance…. Dr. Julian Chorazycki…SS men’s physician. He was an inmate—”
“Jewish?”
“Yes…he and some others gathered contraband weapons with the help of the Ukrainians, but he was caught and put to death. Zelo Bloch led an uprising of fifty to seventy men. He was also put to death. Then Germans burned the camp down…about seven hundred and fifty escaped, but only seventy survived to see liberation.” Rina looked at her husband. “If that was Carter Golding’s father, he was certainly one of the rarified few—70 out of 870,000. It defies logic.”
Decker said, “Even if he had been one of the lucky ones, what are the odds that his mother, father, and sister also survived?”
“Nil,” Rina said. “Ernesto was on to something. Where did he say he got his information from?”
“He claims he got it off the Internet,” Decker said. “I think that’s bogus. Does the Center have lists of survivors from Treblinka?”
“I’m sure they do.” Rina thought long and hard. “Peter, what did you do with those awful pictures Ernesto left behind after he vandalized the synagogue?”
“We bagged them. They’re somewhere in the bowels of the evidence room. What are you thinking? That they could be a link to Isaac’s identity?”
“Maybe the dress or faces or area would point to a specific camp.”
Decker said, “As I recall, most of them looked like anonymous dead bodies.”
“Anonymous dead Jews.” She was dispirited.
“I’ll pull them from the evidence room, Rina. You never know.”
From the hallway, they both heard Hannah asking if it was time to go yet. Rina looked at the clock. “Oh my goodness, it’s a half hour past the start of school!”
Decker stood. “That means I’m a half hour late.”
“I’ll take her—”
“No, I’ll take her. I want to take her.” Decker grabbed Rina to his chest before she could run off, and kissed her hard on the lips. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. And you’re not old, by the way!”
“I am old. But I don’t care because I have a young wife…well, not so young anymore—”
“Now who’s being mean?” Rina slugged him on his shoulder. “Are you feeling okay about this, Akivaleh?”
“I love when you call me Akivaleh. It means you’re not mad at me.”
“I’m never mad at you.”
“Nonsense, you’re mad at me all the time.” He grinned. “I’m just not home enough to see it. Watch yourself. Lots of kooks out there.”
“I could say the same for you.”
“You could. But it wouldn’t help.”
The room was depressing because it was so static, as if expecting its occupant to walk in at any moment, like a puppy waiting for its tardy master. Decker could tell that once the space had been alive: a changing diorama reflecting Ernesto’s whims and wishes, from the choice of CDs to the posters on the wall. The boy’s workstation was almost 360 degrees of desktop, hugging the room. Ernesto had an elaborate stereo system, an elaborate computer system, a VHS player, a DVD player, a fax machine, and a phone—state-of-the-art wherever Decker looked.
The boy with everything: now he was a statistic.
On the shelving above the counters were rows of videos, stacks of CDs, dozens of athletic trophies, wrinkled candy wrappers, old letters, overdue library books, piles of papers, notebooks, textbooks, and about thirty paperbacks, most of them fiction. The room had three doors—one to the bathroom, another leading to a walk-in closet, and a third that connected to a common hallway. A queen-size bed sat in the middle of the floor and was covered by a comforter emblazoned with a leopard-skin print. It made a perfect spot for sorting and stacking the piles of paper that Ernesto had left behind.
Decker pulled out the first stack and dug in.
Two and a half hours later, he had gone through six years of Ernesto’s life via his schoolwork. The boy was a decent student—better than Jacob had been in his old days—but not a superior student. He had organizational problems with his homework, with his math problems, with his essays. No surprise, judging by the entropy of the room, although the two aspects—neat room and organized schoolwork—weren’t always correlated. Sammy was a slob, but systematic when it came to his papers. Jacob was compulsively neat, but disorganized. Paying arduous attention to detail, Decker checked every drawer and every shelf and went through the bedding. He looked behind the machines, knocked on walls, and checked the floorboards. He found lots of loose paper, but nothing regarding a family tree project. Furthermore, Decker couldn’t even find notes or drafts or a hint of his research.
Maybe Ernesto had come to terms with his origins and had thrown out all the ancient history. There were no newsletters or computer printouts from any white supremacy or neo-Nazi groups, no flyers from PEI, and no photographs of SS officers or dead Jews. Decker didn’t find any obscene letters from Ruby Ranger.
The bathroom was just as devoid of clues. On the countertops were acne creams, pills for seasonal allergies, a prescription dandruff shampoo. He searched through the towel cabinet, the sundry cabinet, the medicine cabinet. He opened old bottles and smelled them. Shook out a bottle of talcum powder, sniffed it, put it to the tip of his tongue and grimaced. It was talcum powder. Ernesto had no telltale colored pills, no hidden hypodermics, no contraband that Decker could detect. The most controversial item on the shelf was a box of condoms.
He moved on to the walk-in closet.
It had been stuffed with shirts—polo shirts, casual shirts, Hawaiian shirts, T-shirts (lots and lots of T-shirts), muscle shirts, and tank tops. He had slacks in every color, he had jeans in every style, he had khakis, he had twills, he had corduroys, he had woolens, he had cottons, he had suits and a half-dozen sports jackets, including two preppy blue blazers. Ernesto owned racks of shoes.
Decker sighed and refrained from rubbing his forehead because his hands were gloved.
He began to open the built-in drawers.
More T-shirts. Dress shirts, too, laundered and folded. Shorts and bathing trunks. Underwear consisted of both jockeys and boxers—all of it very ordinary, except for the quantity, and very depressing.
Two separate sock drawers—o
ne for athletic white crew socks, the other for colored dress socks that smelled slightly herbal.
Decker began unraveling balls of socks. He found a stash, not more than a few ounces of marijuana. That was it for drugs. But he did notice something unusual about the athletic sock drawer. When it was pulled out to its maximum, it was shorter than the other drawer by at least six inches.
Decker tried to remove the drawer from the gliders so he could look behind them, but it remained firmly affixed. Resisting the urge to yank it off by brute force, he applied reason instead of frustration. There had to be some kind of release button. He removed all the socks and pored over the empty drawer. Seeing nothing, he felt with his fingertips, and discovered a small depression not much bigger than a pen nub in the back left-hand corner. He took out a pen and punched the depression. Immediately, the drawer loosened from the brackets. Decker took it out and peeked inside the dead space.
Behind it was a tiny lock box, shut tight by a combination lock. He took out the box and hefted it. It was surprisingly light. The dilemma now was whether to bother the parents for the sequence of numbers or just to pick it.
He opted to bother the parents, specifically Carter, who wasn’t aware of the combination because he hadn’t even been aware of the box. He was defensive, but it was born out of protectiveness of his son’s memory.
“What do you expect to find?” Golding said.
“I don’t know. Maybe drugs.”
“And if it’s drugs, it hardly matters, does it?”
“Unless he was dealing, sir. That could be a reason for his murder.”
“He wasn’t dealing.”
“He was using. I already found a small stash in his socks. It could be he has a brick in there, that he broke off a little for personal use.”
Golding said nothing, a tormented and torn man.
Decker said, “What was Ernesto’s birthday?”
An easy question that even Golding could answer. He gave it to him, albeit reluctantly. After fiddling with the right/left of the dial, the lock finally popped. No drugs, no firearms, no letters, no family report, but lots of incriminating pictures that filled the entire space. Not pornography, but obscene. Men in striped prison garb, all of them dead. About twenty black-and-white snapshots and all of them in perfect focus, with each man holding a different death mask. Some had open mouths, others had open eyes, but they all wore the skeletal face of starvation.
Golding stared in horror. “These are repulsive…disgusting. Get them out of my sight!”
“I want to take them—”
“Take them! Get them out of here!”
Decker hid them from Golding’s view. “These are original photographs. Any idea where Ernesto might have picked these up?”
“No!” Golding whispered in abject dread. “No! How would I know?” His eyes began to leak tears. “Please just take them and get out of here!”
“I’m sorry to intrude—”
“Please, just go!”
“Mr. Golding, are you sure that you still want us to delve into your father’s past?”
“Yes.” Slowly, Golding focused his eyes on Decker’s face. “Yes, I want your wife to look into my father’s past. I want to know about it. I need to know about it. But that doesn’t mean it has to be shoved in my face.”
24
Usually, she took a combination of freeways and canyons to go “over the hill.” But today, since she wasn’t stopping at her parents’ house, it was pure speed until she hit the Robertson Boulevard exit on the 10 East, heading north though the haunts of her childhood.
It had been almost two decades since she had lived in her old neighborhood. The area had become so Jewish that, except for the palm trees, it felt as regional as Brooklyn. Not that she didn’t have occasion to go back to the city, but she rarely went beyond her parents’ house in North Beverly Hills. The valley’s frum community was self-contained—from cheap pizza joints for the kids, to family restaurants with booths and wine. Kosher butchers and bakeries weren’t problematic, so why should she bother to travel? Still, the area felt nostalgic, passing all the kosher establishments, the fruit and vegetable storefronts, as well as the Jewish bookstores that sold sepharim as well as religious articles. Even the independent food market, Morry’s—which was actually owned by Irv—catered to the neighborhood inhabitants, carrying hard to get items such as kosher cheeses and kosher flour tortillas.
So many religious schools and yeshivas in the area, they overflowed with children, spitting in the face of Hitler. So it was only natural that a Holocaust memorial would find its permanent home among those who had lived through the inferno firsthand.
Rina’s own parents—both of them camp survivors—were getting on in years. Her father now walked with a cane, and her mother was slower in gait as well as in speech. They were still sharp mentally, but sometimes the pain of old age crimped their smiles. They loved Hannah, but oftentimes Rina could sense that the little girl was just too much for them. She didn’t bring her as often as she had brought the boys, and that saddened her.
She glanced at Tom Webster, seated beside her, hands in his lap, eyes staring out the windshield. She had gotten the Volvo washed before she picked him up, but it still smelled a little stale. But perhaps that was due to L.A. smog rather than the condition of her station wagon. The detective hadn’t said much since she picked him up from the station house. No doubt he was little nervous being around the boss’s wife, a strange Jewish lady who wore kerchiefs on her head and long sleeves rolled up to her elbows even in the summer. Tom was about as gentile as it got with his blond hair, blue eyes, and sharp features, as well as that thick Southern accent. Perhaps he was antsy about visiting the Tolerance Center as well. Webster was as out of his element as she was in. She knew she should make an effort to talk to him. He sat stiffly in a blue suit, white shirt, and blue tie. Since both of them were dressed in hot clothing, she blasted the air-conditioning in the car.
“Anything you want to ask me?”
Tom turned and looked at her, his hands remaining in his lap. “No, ma’am, not at the moment.” His voice was tight. “Although I reckon later on I’ll have lots of questions.”
“We’re not going to the museum. The research offices are across the street. That’s where the library and the archives are located until they finish remodeling.”
“All right.”
“Have you ever been in this neighborhood before?”
“I can’t say that I have, though I’ve been in Beverly Hills a couple times when they had the classic car shows on Rodeo Drive. Ever been down there? They close off the roads and make a big street fair out of it. It was fun, especially for my boy. He likes cars.”
“I imagine they have some impressive automobiles.”
“To me, they were very impressive. But I guess they’re run-of-the-mill for the city’s well-heeled residents.”
Rina said, “My parents live in the area and drive a Pontiac.”
Webster blushed and stammered out something by way of an apology.
“Oh please!” Rina smiled. “My parents are well-heeled, but not interested in cars. Peter likes cars. He loves his Porsche. My younger son, Jacob, likes cars, too. He likes hot rods.”
“A kid after my own heart.”
“He likes the Viper and the Sheldon…is that right?”
“Shelby?”
“Yes, that’s it.” Rina laughed. “My elder boy couldn’t care less. He lives in his head. Funny how that works.”
“Yeah.” Webster stretched uncomfortably. “So…you grew up around here?”
“Yes, I did.”
“But not the lieutenant.”
“Oh no…” Rina smiled. “He grew up in Gainesville, Florida.”
“Really?” Webster seemed surprised. “He’s more of a good ole boy than I thought.”
“Very much so.”
Webster started to talk, but stopped himself. Rina, however, knew what his question would be if he dared to ask it. How i
n the world did she and Peter meet? They met on a case. He was the principal investigator; she was a principal witness. They didn’t have anything in common. He was worldly, she was provincial. She was religious, he was secular. He was divorced, she had been widowed. They had come from different worlds, and it shouldn’t have ever come to pass.
Except that there was this incredibly strong physical thing.
She smiled to herself.
That was what Webster wanted to know. But she didn’t tell him any of it, instead returning her attention to the road, maintaining a professional distance that made them both feel comfortable.
The actual museum was a towering edifice of pink and black granite; the offices across the street much more utilitarian. They walked into a tiny lobby secured by a guard, Webster showing his badge, Rina writing down their names on the sign-in sheet. The sentry radioed their arrival through a walkie-talkie, and a minute later a fifties-plus, pencil-thin woman came through the parted doors of one of the four elevators. Dressed in a sheath of black, she had startling blue eyes and her head was a nest of inky, short curls. She could have been Rina’s much older sister. She kissed Rina’s cheek.
“How are you doing, darling? Your husband must be going crazy with those awful murders.”
“Yes, it is awful. That’s one of the reasons why we’re here. This is Detective Tom Webster. He needs information.”
The woman gave him her hand. “Did we ever meet before?”
Her Long Island accent was as broad as a put-on.
Webster said, “I don’t b’lieve—”
“Yes we did, yes, we did.” She tapped her head with long, red, manicured nails. “But it wasn’t in a professional capacity. It was at…” Again, she tapped her head. “Wait, wait…Baja Mexico, the fast-food joint, not the country. Your son ordered a chicken fajita grande and shared it with my grandson, who ordered that vegetarian burrito. Your wife was very pregnant. That must have been like…seven, eight months ago at one of those car rallies in B.H.” She jabbed the elevator button. “What’d she have—boy or girl?”
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