Faye Kellerman_Decker & Lazarus 13

by The Forgotten

  “Give me a motive, Scott,” Martinez said, “other than ‘he’s a dumb-shit racist.’”

  “That isn’t enough?”

  “No, being a dumb racist doesn’t mean you’re a triple murderer,” Martinez said.

  “Doesn’t mean you’re not.”

  “This is beginning to sound infantile,” Marge said.

  Wanda interjected, “Is it possible that one of the camp boys glommed on to Tarpin and took one of his racist ideas to the extreme?”

  “Anything’s possible,” Decker said. “I suggest we start with what we know. Plot A—a triple murder. Plot B—double murder, suicide—”

  “The killer used a silencer,” Marge said. “If it were an impulsive thing for Dee, she wouldn’t have brought a gun and a silencer.”

  Martinez said, “Maybe she suspected her husband years ago and was just building up the courage. The thing is, we don’t know.”

  “Bert’s right,” Decker said. “What we do know is that Hank Tarpin is still alive and was up there at the time of the shooting. We know that Hank Tarpin found the bodies. We know that Tarpin—along with Holt—is a member of PEI. We know that Tarpin is a Marine, like Garvey McKenna. We need to talk to Tarpin again.”

  Martinez said, “Even though we’ve already interviewed him for four hours without an attorney and couldn’t come up with anything?”

  “Try him again,” Decker said. “Come up with a plausible story that won’t send him running for legal cover.”

  Marge said, “How about…we suspect that the Baldwins were using pull to get kids into universities, and we want Tarpin’s opinion about it.”

  “That isn’t a story, that’s the truth,” Oliver said. “The Baldwins were using muscle to get their kids into the top schools.”

  Decker said, “Even better. It’ll make us more believable.”

  “Loo, Tarpin isn’t going to know anything about that,” Martinez said. “He’s basically a drill instructor.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Decker said. “Maybe some of the kids have talked to him about how they were depending on the Baldwins to get them into universities, and that’s why they agreed to attend the Baldwins’ nature camp. If you have a better ploy, Bert, I’m here to listen.”

  Silence.

  “Good, so I’m putting Bert and Tom on Tarpin.” Decker wrote down the assignment in his logbook. “Next, we need to get hold of Maryam Estes at the Baldwins’ office.”

  “Did the warrant come through?” Marge asked.

  “Not yet.” Decker looked up from his notepad, his eyes jockeying between Marge and Oliver. “But even if you could technically look through every single file, you’d need to narrow it down. So try to get Estes to help you. I want you two to find out if there were any kids or parents who held a grudge against the Baldwins. Any questions?”

  There were none.

  “We’re on a roll.” Decker regarded Bontemps. “You can call up the Board of Psychological Examiners and find out if there have been any complaints against the Baldwins in the past…oh…how about ten years? Also, check out the Baldwins’ bank accounts, real estate holdings, assets, anything you can get your hands on. See if you can’t get an idea of what they’re worth or if there was big money going in and out. When you’re done with that, check out insurance. What kind did they have, who was the beneficiary, who had something to gain by the Baldwins’ deaths.”

  Martinez said, “Someone should find out if the Baldwins had marital problems. It would support a murder/suicide theory.”

  Decker said, “Wanda, nose around into their marriage as well. Anything on Ruby Ranger’s whereabouts?”

  Wanda said, “I do a round of calls each day. No one up north has spotted the car.”

  “So maybe she’s not up there. But keep checking.” He wrote her assignment in the book. “I think we’re all set for the time being. I’m going down to the morgue and see what Pathology has come up with. Ernesto’s body was released an hour ago. The funeral is set at six o’clock and everyone should be there. Whatever happened, even if Ernesto was involved in his own demise, it still was a terrible tragedy for the parents. Anyone have something important to add, talk now.”

  Silence ensued.

  Decker stood up. “Adios, amigos, and good luck.”

  Most of the library’s free floor space had been taken up with boxes and folding chairs from last night’s lecture—a very successful event with over two hundred in attendance according to Georgia Rackman, the Center’s primary archivist. She was a big woman with thick wrists and ankles and big hair—bleached blond and sprayed stiff. Her face was round, open, and smooth, her brown eyes emphasized by a heavy coat of eyeliner. She spoke with a heavy Texas drawl, and made no excuses when her voice elevated above acceptable volume levels.

  “In Dallas,” she exclaimed, “we do everything on a grand scale.”

  The library was filled with standard bracket shelving that held thousands of tomes, all of them dedicated to the ashes of war. So many titles…too many memoirs: The Archives of the Holocaust, The Holocaust and the History of the Rise of Israel, The Jews of Warsaw, The Death Camp Diaries, The Warsaw Uprising, Walking with Ghosts…But Jews weren’t the only ethnic group represented. There were also sections on the massacres of the Armenians, the bomb drops and subsequent carnage wreaked upon the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the annihilations of the Cambodians under Pol Pot, the civil war between the Hutus and Tutsis in Africa, the bloodbath in the Belgian Congo. It was clear to Rina that no one group could claim its persecution as unique—a very sad commentary on the human condition.

  The small library supported one full-time librarian, one full-time archivist, one part-time archivist, and two male exchange students from Austria who satisfied their country’s military obligations by working for the Center for a year.

  Georgia sat at her desk in front of her computer and sifted through the black-and-white photographs that Rina had given her. “They don’t tell me much. I don’t even know if they’re authentic. The paper looks too new.”

  Rina mulled over the options. “You can do a lot with computers nowadays. Or maybe they’re recently printed but taken from old negatives.”

  “Now, there’s a thought.” Georgia looked. “Unfortunately, they don’t tell me anything specific. But I’ll show them around. Almost no one survived Treblinka. You know that.”

  Rina sat next to her. “I know that.”

  “It would help a great deal if you had that piece of paper with the Polish writing. It could be a work permit, it could be a visa, it could be transport papers…it would tell us a lot.”

  Rina sighed. “I’m sure if Mr. Golding had had it at the tip of his fingers, he would have given it to us.”

  “And he’s not sure if the language is Polish?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “It makes a difference. Because there were lots of Jews who came through the Warsaw Ghetto, especially at the end—before the city was bombed out of existence. There were Czechs, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Danes, Swedes…” She held up her hands. “The Nazis were liquidating them as quickly as they could find them. It would really help to have more information.”

  “I bet Mr. Golding wishes he had more as well. When I spoke with him this morning, he was in a terrible state. I’m sure he doesn’t remember hardly any of the conversation.” Rina sighed. “Poor, poor man.”

  “Why is he bothering with this now? Doesn’t he have more important things to think about?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t want to think, Georgia. Besides, men deal with pain by being proactive. Females talk.”

  “I see you’ve been reading those pop psychology books, eh?”

  “No, not at all. I just observe my husband. Whenever he’s nervous, he starts fiddling around the house. Which is really good because Peter is very talented with his hands. All the drippy faucets get fixed when he’s anxious.”

  Georgia smiled. “And you’re not even sure if this Yitzchak Golding is alive or de
ad?”

  “No, I’m not,” Rina said. “Ernesto Golding, the murdered boy, had claimed that he had found some information about a Yitzchak Golding who died in Treblinka. All his relatives died there as well. But there could be another Yitzchak Golding and that could have been Mr. Golding’s father. I don’t know, Georgia. That’s why I’m here.”

  “From what source did he find that piece of data about Golding dying in Treblinka?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Could he have been making it up?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you know the year Yitzchak Golding died?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll start with the Records of American Gathering. If that doesn’t pan out, we’ll go to the Red Cross, the registry at Yad V’shem, the Central Archives, the HIAS…the list is long. Except most of them deal with those who survived to ’45 or beyond. As you well know, Treblinka was liquidated way before that.” Georgia hesitated, then looked down. “Hmmmm.”

  “What does that ‘Hmmmm’ mean?”

  “If Golding’s father was a Nazi, and if he took on Yitzchak’s name, first off, he would have to have known that Yitzchak Golding was dead. Secondly, to take on his name…Yitzchak Golding would have to have made an impression in his mind. Because remember the camp was leveled by ’43 and the war wasn’t over until ’45. Millions of Jews died after Treblinka was long gone. Golding had to have been on the impersonator’s mind for at least two years. So you know what that says to me?”

  “What?”

  “That the dead Yitzchak Golding was a force to be reckoned with. I’m thinking that maybe he was involved in some kind of revolt and had made a name as a local hero. Like in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.”

  “But the Jews in the uprising died defending the Ghetto, not in Treblinka.”

  “So maybe he was involved in one of the camp’s uprisings. There were several of them, you know.”

  “I’m aware of that. I didn’t see the name Golding in any of the accounts.”

  “Thousands were involved and died anonymously. He could have been one of the forgotten masses.”

  “Not so forgotten,” Rina said. “Someone has his name even if he isn’t a relative.”

  “Curiouser and curiouser.” Georgia glanced at her watch, not because she was in a hurry but because she was tense. “What I tell you stays between us, all right?”

  “I hear you.”

  “I know this man—Oscar Adler. He’s around ninety…from Czechoslovakia. But he was transported to Warsaw, then to Treblinka at the very end of the camp’s existence. When the Nazis tried to burn the camp down—this was right before the Russian invasion—a rarified few souls escaped and hid out in the woods of Poland. Even of those who escaped, most of them were returned to the Nazis by the Polish police. This man is a real survivor in every sense of the word. He’s very coherent and very alert. But there’s a problem.”

  She let the words hang in the air—either for dramatic effect or it was hard for her to vocalize them.

  “He won’t talk about his experiences, Rina. I’ve begged and begged him to record his story for posterity. I’ve used every tactic known to mankind…he remains mute.”

  Not unlike Golding’s father. “Where do you know him from?”

  “He’s in the same rest home as my uncle. You know me: I’ve got a big mouth, and old folk are the talkiest people in the world when you give them a chance. He let it slip one day that he survived Treblinka—kind of accidentally on purpose. You could have picked me off the floor. I was shocked beyond belief. I started thinking about how much good he could do for the Center. But when I mentioned it, he froze like an icicle. He turned red with fury and hypertension and told me under no uncertain terms was I allowed to mention his experience to anyone. I thought that was terribly unfair, but I was not about to give the man a coronary. So I’ve kept my promise, and as much as I’d like to bombard him with questions, I’ve kept my mouth shut. So far.”

  It was unfair, but who was Rina to judge someone who had gone through that monstrous ordeal? She said, “It’s a shame. I’m sure there are people out there who don’t know what happened to their loved ones.”

  “Not in this case. Treblinka wiped out entire families—all generations. Now, once in a blue moon, I’ll mention a name to Oscar. If he knows the name, he’ll tell me yes or no. But so far, he hasn’t known any names. That’s because by the time he got to Warsaw, the Nazis were killing the Jews at such a fast rate, he never got a chance to know anyone for more than a week at a time. He only survived because he hid out until the bitter end.”

  “I guess at ninety he feels that he earned the right not to talk.” Rina thought for a moment. “Is there anything he especially likes to eat? How about some homemade soup?”

  Georgia rocked her hand back and forth. “Soup may be good.”

  “How about if I make him some homemade chicken soup? Or better yet if I make him some old-fashioned cabbage soup with boiled flanken?”

  “How about both?”

  “Easy enough. I’ll make two pots. And I’ll even include matzoh balls and kreplach with the chicken soup. Noncontingent upon his talking about his awful experience. He gets the soup no matter what.”

  “You may have something there.” Georgia shrugged. “But don’t be disappointed if he refuses to talk to you.”

  “Once he tastes my soup, he won’t say no.”

  Georgia stared at Rina. “I’ll tell him you’re pretty. In addition to soup, Oscar’s a sucker for a pretty face.”

  26

  When Emma Lazarus wrote her famous words underneath the Statue of Liberty, she must have had places like the Foothills Division of the LAPD in mind, the area being a multicultural mix of displaced and struggling whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and other ethnicities thrown into the immigrant salad. It was arid terrain, making it Saharan hot in the summertime, swimming in the smoggy haze of vehicular combustion. It had been the division that Decker had called home for fifteen years, working there even as it sat under microscopic scrutiny after the Rodney King beating. In this lonesome geographical glitch called the Northeast Valley, the title of “Hero of the Century” still belonged to Ritchie Valens. To Bert Martinez, the deceased singer was still tops.

  At the helm of the unmarked Dodge, he sped along the 5 North, driving by groups of peeling stucco houses and apartment units, disassembled car parts spangling weed-choked lots. In the harsh sunlight, the chrome and steel reflected heat but no warmth.

  “I went to school not far from here,” Martinez said.

  Webster glanced at him. “Really?”

  “Yeah. Pacoima High. My prom date lived off the freeway…before this was a freeway. In the old days, the only things out here were houses and a White Front discount department store.” He changed lanes. “My old man was a housepainter, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know.”

  “Yeah, him and his brother. Between the two families, we were seven boys. My father wore a big, black belt and felt free to use it on our butts.” A smile. “Those were the days when Children’s Services meant a hot lunch at the cafeteria.” He shook his head at the passage of time. “I’m not saying corporal punishment is a good thing, but neither me nor my three brothers resented him for it. Just the way it was.”

  “Or maybe your old man knew when to stop.”

  “Maybe.” Martinez exhaled. “When I lived here, it was home. Now it just seems like another blighted area—depressing as hell. And it hasn’t even changed all that much. Amazing what perspective does.”

  “Do you still have relatives out here?”

  “Nah. The minute any of them got a little money, they moved away.”

  “Where does Luis live?”

  “Montebello.”

  “Where he works.”

  “Yeah. Did I tell you he made sergeant?”

  “No. Tell him congratulations from me.”

  “I will. The other two live in the Union Station area.”

 
“That I know. I think my wife has taken half our neighborhood down to the store. They all like the part when your brother takes out the screwdriver and starts pounding the shit out of the wardrobe to prove how strong that fabric is.”

  Martinez chuckled. “He’s got the routine down pat.”

  The Dodge whined as it ascended the smooth grade up to the mountains. The temperature gauge started to rise. Not precipitously, but enough to cause some concern.

  “Open the windows?” Martinez suggested.

  “It’s better than overheating.”

  Immediately, a scorched wind filled the Dodge. Webster sighed and unbuttoned his shirt. “When you think about it, we work in a division that has all ends of the spectrum. Some very wealthy live in the area, some not so wealthy…”

  “Go on,” Martinez said.

  “Sometimes, I go to a house…like Alice Ranger. She’s living in this spanking-new mansion with every kind of amenity, drinking herself comatose. Here I am, a college graduate working my ass off, sweating like vegetables in a frying pan for fifty-two grand a year.”

  “Plus benefits.”

  “I’m not complaining,” Webster said. “I reckon there were lots of ways I could have gone, but I chose this, and I’m not complaining—”

  “You already said that.”

  “So it sounds like complaining?” Webster smiled. “I’m all right. But I do wonder what the hell people like Alice have to bitch about. And we don’t only see women like Alice Ranger. We deal with lots of working stiffs. So what must it be like for a macho, hyper-American Marine like Hank Tarpin to work with the rich day in and day out? It’s got to eat at you.”

  “Not if you never aspire to it.”

  “C’mon, Bert. No one ever aspires to grow up average.”

  “Tommy, if your life was below average growing up, average can look pretty damn good.”

  Webster didn’t say anything.

  Martinez hesitated. “Being poor isn’t the reason that these buttholes wind up racists.”

  “It’s one of the reasons.”