Unspeakable Prayers: WW II to Present Day (Thaddeus Murfee Series of Legal Thrillers)

by John Ellsworth

  He quickly settled into the routine of the jail. This time his bunk had a mattress, and he had a cellmate whose name was Michael Washington. Michael hailed from the South side of Chicago, the housing projects, and he had been sentenced to a year in jail on a plea to robbery, which, Lodzi found out, had been reduced from armed robbery and a mandatory five-year prison sentence.

  At first, Michael Washington had very little to say. Lodzi was friendly enough, and helped Michael write long letters of apology to his fiancée in which he begged her to come see him and to bring their baby boy. Two weeks passed by, and Michael dictated a new letter to Lodzi every day after supper, like clockwork. Two weeks later, Michael received news he had a visitor. This was a Sunday afternoon at two o'clock and the jail had just opened for visiting hours. All aglow and jittery with excitement, Michael headed off to his visit and returned thirty minutes later with a huge smile on his face.

  "Did she come?" Lodzi asked.

  "Yes she did, and they let her bring our baby. I owe you big, Lodzi. I ain't never going to forget this."

  Lodzi shook his head and said, "You would've done the same for me. It's no big deal."

  From that day forward, Michael told everyone he talked to. Lodzi became known as the person to see for letter writing. Then it became known he was also a lawyer and he still had a law license, and he was suddenly swamped with requests for legal representation. Lodzi spoke with the shift lieutenant. He explained all of his recreational time in the community area was being taken up with prisoner requests for legal help. "Would it be possible," Lodzi asked, "to be moved out of the laundry and into the library," where he could keep hours and meet with prisoners as a service of the jail? The lieutenant spoke to his captain, who spoke to the sheriff himself, and leave was granted to implement the change. Thereafter, the head librarian moved a desk and two chairs into a windowless book repair room and told Lodzi it was his to use to meet with clients.

  Attorney visitation hours with Lodzi were from eight to eleven in the morning and one to four in the afternoon with an all day on Saturdays. It did not take long for Lodzi to learn the eight to eleven segment was going to be very slow. It turned out most of the prisoners chose to spend their free time in the weight room, in the TV room, or napping in their cells. As a consequence, Lodzi found himself with very little to do during these hours, and he began to explore the library for himself.

  * * *

  One day, as he was looking for something else in the card catalog, it occurred to him to check under the name Janich Heiss. He didn't find anything on Heiss, but what he did find instead would change the course of his life. He had found several articles on the man he had previously read about in a New York Times article, Simon Wiesenthal. He pulled the articles and began reading.

  It appeared, after the war and after the Nazis had murdered six million Jews, thousands of Nazis who had participated in the killings managed to slip through Allied lines and escaped to countries around the world. Simon Wiesenthal was himself a survivor of the Nazi death camps and was now dedicating himself to hunting down those perpetrators who were still at large.

  Wiesenthal established what was known as the Jewish Documentation Center in Vienna, Austria. According to what Lodzi read, Simon Wiesenthal personally culled and painstakingly reviewed every pertinent document and record found in Germany, Poland, France and other occupied countries where the Nazis had slain or imprisoned Jews. It turned out the man himself was a scholar in his approach to referencing and cross-referencing the documents that passed across his desk. The more Lodzi read about the man and his work, the clearer it became a visit to the Jewish Documentation Center would be necessary.

  Chapter Seventeen

  On day 364, the jail door swung wide open and Lodzi walked out onto the sidewalk. Curbside was Anne-Marie, waiting in the car with Malachi. He climbed in beside her, kissed wife and son, and looked straight ahead. “Never again,” he said simply. “They will never get me again.”

  Lodzi discussed the Jewish Documentation Center with Kaleb Rajski. The men were meeting in Lodzi's kitchen late on a Friday night. Anne-Marie entered the room and began checking the late dinner she had made for the men. She and Malachi had eaten hours earlier.

  Rajski became animated and his face glowed red when he began talking about Captain Heiss. To Lodzi's recollections, Rajski added twenty more appellations. They called the man a pig, cursed him in Polish, and swore they would see him dead and cold in the ground.

  The men continued talking, raving, actually, about Heiss and his henchmen. Anne-Marie opened the oven door and the wonderful aroma of meatloaf reached the men. They smiled and shared a moment of common understanding about those days when there was no food, no water, and no hope. Anne-Marie turned to them.

  "Why?" She said in response to the look on their faces. "What did I do?"

  "It's nothing you did," said Rajski. "We were just sharing a private moment."

  "You know what I think?" She said. "I think you men need to develop a team. I think you need to develop a team with the goal of tracking down these people."

  A slow smile spread across Lodzi's face.

  "She's right," he said. "She's absolutely right."

  "I am liking the idea," said Rajski. "I'll tell you a great addition: Andrus."

  "My God, that's right. Whatever happened to him?"

  Rajski shrugged. "Maybe it's time for us to find out."

  Kaleb Rajski worked at Ford Motor Company's Chicago assembly plant on Torrence Avenue. He was a quality control engineer and supervised a dozen other engineers. He was being promoted on a regular basis, benefits were in place, and his retirement was vested.

  Lodzi had been thinking. An idea had crept into his mind.

  "Rajski, how much vacation time you have accumulated?"

  Rajski looked up at the ceiling and thought for several minutes.

  "I'm going to say I have six, maybe eight weeks of vacation. Why, am I taking a vacation now?"

  Lodzi was looking at Anne-Marie, who was smiling and shaking her head.

  "So when are you leaving?" she asked Lodzi.

  "When can I leave?" he asked, as if she would be the final arbiter. In truth, they both knew this time was coming sooner or later.

  "I've known for years you were going to do this," she said.

  "You have probably known longer than I," said Lodzi.

  "Where will we go first?" said Rajski.

  "Where it all began. We will return to Treblinka," said Lodzi.

  "What are we waiting for?"

  For the next two hours they made their plans. Airlines were called and reservations were made for two men traveling to Warsaw.

  Rajski’s supervisor couldn’t agree to vacation time on such short notice. Rajski was angry and cursed the man, but Lodzi insisted he would just go alone. It was no problem, he reassured his friend.

  * * *

  The Jewish Documentation Centre in Vienna was housed in a nondescript, partially furnished three room office in Vienna's old Jewish Quarter with a staff of four, including Wiesenthal. On the day Lodzi arrived, the center had open files on approximately two thousand cases.

  On the plane ride over, Lodzi had read every article he could find and clip on the JDC. He learned the purpose of the Centre was to collect and promulgate information about war crimes against the Jewish people as perpetrated by the Nazi regime in Europe during the Second World War. Wiesenthal himself was a Holocaust survivor who had worked with the War Crimes Section of the United States Army. He had thirty volunteers when he opened the center in Linz, Austria for the purpose of accumulating evidence for future trials.

  Lodzi opened the windowless outer door to the office in Vienna. It was June 1, 1972. A small, professional card said in script: Jewish Documentation Centre. S. Wiesenthal & Staff.

  He stepped inside and was greeted by a neat woman who wore her hair up, and red eyeglasses on the tip of her nose as she banged away on an IBM Selectric. He handed her his business card, which she stu
died and then tucked neatly into a small metal container on her desk. She looked up and smiled.

  "You must be Mr. Ashstein?"

  "I am. All the way from Chicago, Illinois."

  "Please have a seat. You said in your letter you are looking for a German captain of the SS named Janich Heiss. Am I correct?"

  "You are correct. Heiss is someone I am sworn to find."

  "I totally understand. We will do everything we can to help you. But you must remember, there are no guarantees. Simon himself believes we have accumulated only about one percent of the documentation the world still possesses."

  "Of course there are no guarantees. I did not come here expecting a guarantee. I would only like to trouble you for an afternoon where I might cross reference this man's name with whatever documents appear."

  "We have an office for visitors such as you. Please let me show you in."

  The woman stood and opened a side door that contained no markings, and Lodzi followed her inside. He found himself in a room with a desk, a chair, and two side chairs. One half of the facing wall was decorated with the Israeli flag. She told him to have a seat at the desk while she retrieved what the office had to offer him.

  She returned fifteen minutes later with a yellowed manila file to which a single sheet of paper was clipped.

  "This is what we have. Just so you know, I am the public liaison for the center and Simon calls me his number one research assistant. So I can assure you my search for your criminal is exhaustive and complete."

  "I totally trust you and I totally trust Mr. Wiesenthal. There is no need to explain. Let me thank you very much."

  "I will leave you alone with your work. Good luck to you, Mr. Ashstein."

  She left the room, pulling the door closed behind her. Lodzi extended his hands and cracked his knuckles. Then he smiled. At last he was here. He had dreamed of beginning the search for Heiss for twenty years and now it had arrived. He turned the file to face him, and found himself face to face with a file note, which said, simply, “Subject disappeared in Warsaw. Two days post-Treblinka uprising. Believed he assumed new identity. Will staff for follow-up in target countries."

  Lodzi was immediately stumped. he stood and went back out to the receptionist’s desk. He showed the woman the file note. She read it and nodded, “Yes?"

  "'Target countries,' what does this mean?"

  "Argentina, Brazil, United States, and any of a number of Western European countries.”

  "Just so I understand, what the file note is saying, at least it appears to me, is the Centre possessed insufficient staffing at the time of the note."

  She nodded animatedly. "Exactly, that is exactly what it means. It wasn't until early 1960 sufficient funding became available and contacts were established around the globe to do the door knocking each case required."

  "So in the 1960’s the Jews who had fled Europe and those who had successfully hidden in Europe were sufficiently reestablished to make their contributions to the cause of finding and bringing to trial the Nazis who had engaged in the murder of Jews."

  "Yes, you could say that."

  "Who did the actual door-knocking, made the arrests?"

  "Oh—just who you might think."

  He stared long and hard at her. Then a sense began to form inside.

  "So let me ask a different way. Various people were paid by the Jews to track down—"

  "Now I think you're getting the idea."

  "Putting it bluntly, the Jews hired killers for the dirty work?"

  Her face reddened. She brushed a long comma of hair from her forehead.

  "I'm sure you would have to ask Simon that question. I'm sure—"

  "I think I have my answer already. The documents you provided are still in the visitors' room on the desk. Thank you for your graciousness, but I believe I'm done here."

  "As you wish. I'll look after the file."

  With that, he said goodbye.

  Now he had the temperature of the patient. He understood the status of the treatment.

  In Warsaw he would begin the house calls promised to him all those years ago. He had no doubt his answer lay somewhere other than Warsaw. But Warsaw was Heiss’s last known contact with Nazi Poland in 1942.

  Book 3

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE HUNT

  Thaddeus Murfee stood up from his desk, slammed the lid on his laptop, and stormed over to the window overlooking Lake Michigan. His tower was in downtown Chicago and his office, on the building's east side, had an unobstructed view of the lake, roiling and curling under the whip of the blustery March winds. Streaming down across Chicago was a late-winter snow, big clumpy flakes sticking. But at the moment, he saw none of it. His face was mottled red with an anger that had him in its grip and blinded him to an essential truth he was facing. Not five minutes ago he had received a frantic call from his daughter, Turquoise. She was a senior at Evanston High East and she was calling from the Cook County Jail.

  The call had come through as a "no-ask" call, meaning in his office the receptionist didn't bother asking Thaddeus if he wanted to take it. Instead, “no-ask” calls were put straight through, as they were always from family.

  "Dad?" she had said in a trembling voice.

  "Turquoise?"

  "Dad. Something horrible has happened."

  "Go ahead. I'm right here."

  "I’m in jail. They're letting me make my one phone call."

  The air had immediately gone out of him and he had slouched back in his chair. He pushed his round eyeglasses onto his forehead and pinched the sweet spot between the eyes.

  "Okay, don't tell me what happened, not on the phone. Just tell me what they are saying you did."

  "We were riding down Michigan Avenue with the top down on my car."

  "Who's 'we'?"

  "Melinda and me. They pulled me over and found drugs. Some were in my purse."

  "Drugs? You? I don't believe it."

  "Dad, I'm not lying. There were drugs in my purse. They say."

  "Why would you have drugs?" he asked, violating his own rule cases never be discussed on the phone.

  "It's a long story. Let's just say there wasn't much."

  "Did someone put them in your purse?"

  "Dad!"

  Thaddeus' heart sank. Never in a lifetime would he have thought Turquoise would ever get mixed up with drugs. His mind raced over the last two years—the move from Flagstaff to Chicago where Turquoise planned on attending college, the new house out in Barrington—horse country—where Turquoise and Sarai kept horses, the 4.0 GPA—none of this indicated there were drugs in her life. In fact, these markers indicated the opposite; she was a healthy, happy seventeen-year-old enjoying her life and her adoptive family. He closed his mouth and tried to be there for her, to be someone who listened without judgement.

  "I love you, Dad."

  "We love you, Turq. That's never a question."

  She had become one with them after the adoption two years ago. She rarely spoke of the past and indicated no desire to remain in touch with her birth father. He was out of her life and Thaddeus and Katy were fine with that. There had been weekly counseling for the abuse she had suffered out on the Navajo reservation, but not a whisper about drugs. But now this? Drugs? And what about driving down Michigan Avenue with the top down on her VW while it was snowing? What the hell was that all about? Of course it's going to make the cops look twice. But he couldn't get into that yet—not on the phone. He restrained himself.

  "I'm on my way."

  "Hurry, Dad. It's horrible down here."

  He turned away from the window and went to the closet for his overcoat. It was in the low-thirties outside and, with the March wind, the wool-lined coat would be required. He felt the pockets and found the gloves. He pulled everything on, went through the paralegal office adjoining his, where he told Christine he had to run over to the jail and to clear his calendar. She nodded and held up a finger, as she was on the phone. She finally hung up and he tol
d her Turquoise had been arrested and he was headed over to California Avenue. "Got it," she coolly said. "You need cash for bail? Anything I can do?" He told her he would keep her on speed dial (she always was anyway) and would let her know.

  Out into the reception area, where he smiled at Wendy sitting behind the reception desk speaking into her headset. She didn't look up, nor did he expect her to. He pushed through the double glass doors. Straight across were the four elevator cars, one light flashing from two floors up. He hit the down arrow and waited.

  Two minutes. He checked his watch. Three minutes. Then the doors whooshed open and he stepped inside. One other person, looking familiar. Who is this guy? Thaddeus wondered. I've seen him before.

  The man gave a curt nod and held out a hand.

  "We should meet," he said. "My name is Lodzi Ashstein. I'm two floors up."

  Thaddeus guessed the man to be about ninety. He was with Ashstein Rydell, the go-to personal injury firm. Thaddeus shook his hand. The grip was firm, the gray eyes full of light and missing nothing as he studied Thaddeus' face.

  "Thaddeus—"

  The man smiled. "Murfee. I know you from my friend Ansel Largent's case."

  "You knew Ansel? Don't know where he ran off to, do you?"

  Ansel was a missing client who had absconded with his law firm's trust account. Everyone was looking for him including, it was rumored, some very bad people from a very dangerous side of Chicago.