Fifteen years ago, as my wife lay in the hospital bed with tubes in her body and needles in her arm, I held her hand and confessed. I wanted to tell her before they began the morphine drip so she could be fully aware and know the gravity of what I was saying. I told her what had happened in Mittelwerk. How I had signed the statements, supported the inmate hangings. With the goal of moving the V2 progress forward at all costs. How I had begun to see these men from the camp who had asked for relief as animals, hindrances to be dispensed with, so the V2 project could move faster.
I held her hand and called her by name. I told her I remembered what she was wearing that day at Peenemunde, when I first met her. What it was like walking along the sand with her on those days we’d managed to slip away together.
Then I told her the truth about what I’d done. I looked into her eyes.
I did not soften it. I did not excuse it.
I wished I’d told her sooner. I felt like a coward having waited till this moment.
After I finished, she gripped my hand. A weak smile crossed her face as she said it.
Keine Zahlung erforderlich
No payment required.
51
That night after Reyna made dinner, Ruiz volunteered to do clean up and load the dishwasher. Reyna looked at him as if trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with him, then went to her phone and began scrolling through Facebook.
After he finished, he went into Jacky’s room. The boy was lying on his bed, scribbling away at math problems in handwriting that Ruiz doubted any teacher could read.
“You almost done?”
Jacky nodded. He had a worried look on his face. He was a smart boy.
“Maybe five minutes.”
“When you finish, you get an hour of time on the computer for gaming. Just one hour. Headphones on.”
The look on the boy’s face was priceless. His eyes wide, his mouth open.
“Th-this is a school night.”
“This is special. Not a reward for anything. I felt like being nice.”
The boy was still stunned. Confused. And perhaps suspicious. But he turned back to his homework pages and continued writing furiously.
Once Jacky was installed at the computer desk, headphones on, full focus on the elves and dragons on the computer screen, Ruiz asked Reyna to meet him in the bedroom.
Reyna didn’t often look scared. She rarely showed emotion. But tonight her cheeks flushed. Small frown lines appeared on her forehead.
They settled themselves across from each other on the bed. She pulled back a strand of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. She brushed her thigh nervously with the long, polished nails of one hand.
Ruiz wanted to wait, to take it slow. If he did, he wondered if she would admit what had happened—just for the relief of having the tense silence end. This was, in many ways, an interrogation. There were effective ways to do this.
“Thank you for cleaning up after dinner,” she said quietly.
Ruiz nodded. There was some hope in that. After thinking about it, he changed his tactics a bit.
“You do so much. You have kept this house spotlessly clean—something I never had growing up. You do laundry, you do the shopping—getting all the bargains at the Asian markets. The only reason we have this house is because you put us on a budget to save for it. You have raised Jacky to work hard, to do well in school, to be respectful. To be different than either of our brothers. Thank you for that.”
Reyna’s face morphed into something he didn’t recognize. Her lips twisted slightly. She looked down at her nails.
“I know about you and Flores.”
Reyna closed her eyes. As if she’d been waiting for the blow, and it had hit her, but it had come just a few minutes too late, when she hadn’t expected it.
“I don’t own you. I know there are many things you want in life. If you don’t love me, you can leave. But it will be like that Jenga game we play with Jacky. You pull a piece out, and everything around it falls. Jacky, your friends and the people you work with.”
There was a long silence. An uncomfortable one for Ruiz. But he waited.
“Jimmy, you are a good father. You helped me get started again.” Her voice was quiet and firm. “But I am not attracted to you. I can’t remember the last time I was.”
The truth sucked the air out of his lungs, but he’d known it. Though it made him mad that Flores had also known it.
The truth of it slowly became real to Ruiz as the words replayed in his head. He was in a whirlpool, being sucked down, fighting hopelessly against the pull downward.
He wanted to ask: But then what happens? Like Karl Schuler, was there any life after the truth was told? Or did everything have to end?
His life would change. He would be Frank, trying to lure anyone he could to hang out with him so he wouldn’t have to be alone.
He cleared his throat.
“Thank you for being honest with me.”
He looked over to see she’d turned to face him on the bed. She didn’t seem to be avoiding him. He’d hoped she’d show something. Crying. Repentance. Gratitude. Concern for him.
She reached out a hand to him. Put it near his on the bed.
“I have to get to bed now. You know I have—
“I know.” He said firmly. “Spin class in the morning.”
He nodded and held her hand. It felt warm and soft. He held it up and kissed it lightly. As if it mattered.
Then he got up to put his son to bed.
52
Flores downed the last of the bourbon.
Each sip had slid down a little easier, bringing a golden, numbing burn to his senses.
He wasn’t tracking the time. He thought he’d come to Someplace Bar and Grill at 5 p.m., after his difficult talk with Buckley—and, if that hadn’t been enough, a meeting with Jesperson, as a new member of his team for the double homicide on Silver Creek Road.
The evening crowd was coming in now, talking and laughing. Stories of the workday drifted in the air above them like smoke. Somebody called out the punchline to a joke and a table erupted in laughter. A hockey pre-game show blared on the TV. The Sharks were playing Detroit.
He couldn’t believe he’d been here that long. He looked down at his phone and saw it was 6:30 p.m.
He rubbed his face and looked up. Tara was returning from the tables with a tray of dirty glasses. When she saw him, she raised her finely drawn eyebrows, looking like a very concerned Disney princess.
“Are you okay, Mario?”
“Yeah. Fine.” He nodded and tried to smile, but he didn’t have the mojo today. He had no idea what his face ended up looking like.
“You’ve been here a while.” She set the tray down on the counter, a look of interest in her eyes. “If you want to talk about anything, just let me know.”
It would be so easy. The way she looked at him, had always looked at him. They could go to her place when her shift ended. He knew he wanted her more for her kindness than her body. She was probably willing to give him both.
“Could I get some water, Tara?”
She smiled and brought him a glass, and he drank it down.
The buzz must have worn off, because he began thinking again. He saw the events of the past month as if they were happening to someone else.
How do you become what you’ve always hated?
He laid the question out there, in his thoughts, but got no answer. Even his sister Dawn’s imaginary voice was refusing to talk to him.
He always swore he would never be like Anthony Flores. He was smarter and more self-aware. Things would turn out differently for him. Now he knew that wasn’t true. There was a seed planted in him long ago that had grown into something twisted. He had to know where it had come from.
He would book a flight into Orange County for the weekend.
Mario Flores picked up his phone and called his father.
The small plane took off early Saturday morning from San Jose’s Hillman
Airport, racing along the runway, then leaving the ground behind with a sudden thrust upward.
Ruiz pictured the air rushing over the cartoon wings Karl Schuler had drawn in his Smithsonian demonstration. On this clear cold day, he looked out at the valley, its business parks and freeways shrinking as the Cessna climbed higher.
Christoph Schuler’s son, Zach, was at the controls, just a few feet ahead of him, yet off in his own world, encased in headphones and exchanging words with the control tower as they headed over the valley to the Pacific Coast. Ruiz was glad that Zach, a flight instructor back in Florida, had volunteered to do this today.
Ruiz was Duke Sorenson’s guest today. Duke sat in his window seat next to Ruiz, wearing his classic blue windbreaker, gazing out the window, baring his teeth like a dog with his head out of the window of a car. Ruiz had only known Duke during his time of grief. He liked seeing a smile on the man’s face.
It had been two hard weeks. Rose had been arrested as an accomplice in her father’s murder. Then the family had held a short service at a funeral home for Christoph.
There was a lighter feeling on the plane. Randall Mulvaney, Shayante Miland, Duke and Ruiz had met early that morning at the airfield. Shayante had brought coffee and donuts, which they’d eaten before boarding.
“How are we supposed to do this again?” Randall Mulvaney asked loudly as he leaned back in his seat, his long legs swung into the aisle. Shayante, oblivious to her man’s whining, had her 35mm camera out, absorbed in documenting the flight in photos.
“We’ll get to that.” Duke turned back to them from the window. “When we get to the right place and altitude, we’ll empty both at the same time.”
The plan was to scatter both Karl and Agnieszka Schuler’s ashes out over the Pacific, releasing them into the air so that they blended as they fell into the ocean. Ruiz was the only one present who hadn’t known Karl or Aggie. He felt like an outsider, someone who’d come to know Karl only through the people who’d loved him and who’d wrestled with his sins.
The rainy day on the mountain was the last time he’d seen Flores, who had not been invited to join the flight. For a while when Flores had pulled away, he’d missed their camaraderie. They had managed to work together up on the mountain. He felt no hatred for Flores. He had been clear in his words to Flores. He did not doubt Flores would abide by them.
His thoughts about Reyna were different. Something had been torn from him, and the wound still ached. She had sat at the computer in the kitchen this morning, drinking her coffee. She had said goodbye as he’d left, looking up only briefly. Did she care that little for him? Maybe she was ashamed to have been caught.
After a long flight over the green, misty Santa Cruz mountains, Zach announced they were approaching the ocean. A layer of fog hung over the water. Zach descended so they could see the grey-blue water undulating below them.
“If you want to say something, now is the time to do it.” Duke said unceremoniously, then returned to his perch at the window, taking in the view.
They looked around at each other.
Shayante started first, resting the camera on her lap and turning toward Randall thoughtfully.
“No payment required. That’s what Aggie Schuler said to Karl when he told her what he’d done. That all would be forgiven. The past is with us. It doesn’t go away. But now it is washed and renewed. Let the good parts of it remain.”
Ruiz finally understood Karl Schuler’s last word. After hearing about Karl’s confession to Aggie, he knew Karl had said Zahlung. German for payment. Maybe he’d felt Rose and Christoph had demanded a payment.
“My grandfather was a Nazi.” Randall began, with the seriousness of someone reciting poetry. “The two of us didn’t get along. He pissed me off pretty regularly. But he wanted what he thought was best for me and I’m sorry he’s dead.”
Duke looked around to see if anyone else was going to speak up. Then he began in a shaky voice.
“Karl was my friend. Nothing he did before I knew him changed that. I hope he’s free now. No more guilt.”
Ruiz noticed Zach Schuler, who continued to look straight ahead. Whether he couldn’t participate because of his duties as pilot, or whether he was still dealing with disappointment and shock about his father and grandfather, Ruiz didn’t know.
As he spoke, Randall Mulvaney’s face changed. The mocking look faded. His voice turned soft, the kind of voice people use when talking to small pets.
“Karl Schuler and Agnieszka Kaminski Schuler, I release you now. Go in peace.”
And with that, Duke dumped out the box of Karl’s ashes. Randall Mulvaney and Shayante tilted out Aggie Schuler’s box. A spray of ashes and lumps tumbled down into the Pacific Ocean, swirling together on the way down.
Ruiz moved to the other side of the plane to watch them fall. The tenseness in him started to loosen. His head felt empty, swept clean. It had been three weeks since he had sat Reyna down to talk.
Every day was something new and uncertain.
He could not see where this story would end.
But he knew now.
He would open his hands and let it all go.
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Acknowledgments
To my husband, Pete, for his love and support. To the writers groups: The Highway group—Leira Lewis, Rie Neal, Rosanna Griffin and Becky Cuadra George. And the Palo Alto group—Pam Milliken and Patrick Andersen, copy editor extraordinaire, for encouragement and commiseration in good times and bad. Thanks to the Sisters in Crime Coastal Cruisers chapter and to Alec Peche, for showing me the ropes of publishing and telling me to just do it.
Also, thanks to Moffett Field Air Museum; to Esther Jude for the German help; for police questions: Vicinio Mata, and Adam at Writers Detective Bureau.com
I also owe a debt to Annie Jacobsen’s great book, Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America (Little, Brown and Company)
Special thanks to Debbie Cunningham, for delivering support and the best snacks ever during NaNoWriMo. And to Chris Anderson, for her mystery expertise and the socially distanced porch get-togethers.
And of course, to my dad, Stanley Vierk.
About the Author
Victoria Kazarian lives and writes in San Jose, California. A former Silicon Valley marketing professional, she now teaches high school English. Her short story, “Good Neighbors,” appears this year in the sixth Sisters in Crime Guppy Anthology, The Fish that Got Away. You can contact her and sign up for her newsletter at victoriakazarian.com
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