Rebecca Temple Mysteries 3-Book Bundle

by Warsh, Sylvia Maultash

  Rebecca had both hands dug into his arm trying to pull it loose. It was a log.

  “Stanley. I want Stanley.”

  “Who?” She looked at Rebecca, her eyes large with confusion, alarm. “Who’s Stanley?”

  Rebecca didn’t know how long she could keep breathing.

  “The doc here called the cops on Stanley. Shouldn’t’ve done it. She can’t just get away with that. He’s my friend. I want him back.”

  “So, Stanley’s in jail? And you want him out?”

  “You got it.” He paused a second. “I just thought of something. I’ll trade the doc for Stanley! It’s, like, a hostage situation.”

  “You’ve been watching too much TV.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Okay,” said Iris, glancing nervously at Rebecca. “First loosen your hold on her neck, because you want her alive.”

  He seemed to think about this, then he relaxed his arm slightly. She could breathe again. Her lungs filled with air. Thank you, Iris.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Nigel.”

  “Nigel?”

  Rebecca prayed she wouldn’t say something flip like, What was your mother thinking?

  “Okay, Nigel. It’s like this. If the police have your friend, you have to negotiate with them. Would you like me to call them and set it up?”

  “Call the cops?”

  “You want to trade your friend for the doctor, right? She’s your hostage?”

  “Yeah. The bitch called the cops on Stanley.”

  “Well, then, it’s the cops you have to talk to.”

  “I get it. Sure. Okay. Call’em.”

  Iris hesitated in her triumph. “You won’t hurt her while I’m gone?”

  “What, do I look stupid?”

  Rebecca heard Iris on the phone in the front office, where they couldn’t make out what she was saying. Rebecca couldn’t distinguish words, only the panic Iris had kept beneath the surface with Nigel.

  She reappeared at the door. “Police are on their way. Why don’t you let her go now?”

  “She’s my hostage.”

  “You won’t go anywhere, will you?” Iris addressed Rebecca.

  She croaked out, “No.”

  “You broads think I’m stupid.”

  When they heard the police entering the office, he tightened his grip on Rebecca’s neck. The air was squeezed out again. Her eyes began to water.

  Two constables stood behind Detective Fitzroy in the doorway of the exam room. Rebecca was profoundly relieved to see him, his tall, authoritarian bulk reassuring. Yet she wondered if he could keep Nigel from choking her to death.

  “Let her go, Nigel,” Fitzroy said, massive beneath his wool coat, his bulbous nose glowing. “We’ll talk better alone, without the women. Just us guys.”

  “I want Stanley back.”

  “I know. Let’s talk about it.”

  “She’s my hostage. It’s her fault he’s in the can.”

  “Okay. But you can let her go now because we’re here. You did your job and got us here, now let’s talk.”

  “Negotiate?”

  “Yeah, we’ll negotiate.”

  “How much do you want her? I want something to let her go. Drugs.”

  “Nigel, Nigel. We’re getting away from the real issue here.”

  “Uppers and downers. Docs get free stuff from drug companies. Everyone knows that. She’s probably got stuff right here.”

  Rebecca was all out of air. She had to do something or she’d pass out. She brought one hand down from where it was unsuccessfully tugging at his arm. Squeezing her hand between her back and his front, she located his groin in the baggy jeans and grabbed his testicles in her fist, crushing them like walnuts.

  “Aowww!” Nigel groaned in pain. “Bitch!”

  He shoved her forward, away from him. She stumbled, air filling her lungs again.

  Fitzroy caught her. “Nice work.” A satisfied smile lit up his blotchy face as he handed her quickly to the constable behind him.

  Nigel didn’t have a chance. In one step, Fitzroy reached him and seized one of his arms. The big man wrenched it behind his back, pulled the other one in tandem, and locked his wrists into handcuffs.

  “You’ve done it now, Nigel. You’re in real trouble.”

  “She deserved it!” he shouted. “She ratted on Stanley! I want to see Stanley!”

  “Oh, you’ll see Stanley, all right.”

  In the hall the constable said to Rebecca, “Are you okay? Do you want to go to the hospital?”

  She stroked her neck with her fingers, feeling fragile as a bird. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll cancel today’s patients,” Iris said. “You should go home.”

  Rebecca kept taking deep breaths. Just because she could. “No. I’d rather be busy. We’ll just finish early. Don’t book anyone past four.”

  The constables sandwiched Nigel from either side and shuffled him out through the waiting room, his hands cuffed behind him. A woman patient entered the office as they were marching to the door.

  “What’re you lookin’ at?” Nigel spit out.

  The woman stood in place, mouth open.

  “Office isn’t open yet,” said Iris.

  “Could I just wait in here?” the woman asked, peering after the constables. When Iris shrugged, she found a seat in the waiting room.

  Iris led Rebecca to her private office and sat her down in her black leather chair. “Relax in here for a while. No hurry to start.”

  Rebecca leaned her head back and closed her eyes, but Nigel’s arm kept squeezing her neck. After a few minutes there was a quiet rap at the door.

  Detective Fitzroy poked in his large, round head with the scant hair. “Did he hurt you? Do you need a doctor?”

  She sat up. “I’m okay. Just shaken up. What’s going to happen to him?”

  “He’ll be charged. You’ll have to make a statement.”

  “He may’ve killed the old woman.”

  “Oh yeah? He say so?”

  “He said he couldn’t remember. Said he was high on something.”

  “That’s no help.”

  She leaned her elbows on her desk. “You think Stanley did it?”

  “He denies it.”

  “You don’t believe him?”

  “Most of these guys wouldn’t know the truth if it came up behind them and bit them on the ass. You should go home, doc.”

  “Too much work to do.” Then she remembered. “I’ve got something for you.”

  She stood up and came round the desk unsteadily.

  “Take the day off,” he said. “I’ll write you a note.”

  She gave him a wry smile as she pulled on a fresh pair of latex gloves. His eyebrow went up. She retrieved the dirty shopping bag from her closet. After leading him into one of the exam rooms, she deposited the bag on the paper-lined exam table.

  “Birdie gave this to me the last time I saw her.” She unravelled the baby blanket to reveal the broken doll.

  “It looks like something she got out of the trash.”

  “There’s an old hospital ID bracelet around its neck.” She held it sideways so he could read it.

  “Eisenbaum,” he said, shrugging. “Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

  “Not really,” he said. “That was her name.”

  “Her name was Eisenbaum?” She felt her heart contract. Sentry was such an English name, it invoked no feeling in her. But Eisenbaum. The woman might have been a Jewish grandmother.

  Rebecca threw herself into the day’s work. At lunch, Iris brought her some egg drop soup from a local Chinese restaurant, along with some General Tso chicken and rice. These kept her going. By the time she finished her last patient at four-thirty, she was exhausted.

  Iris looked up sheepishly from her desk when Rebecca brought her the last patient’s files. “I’m sorry, dear, but your neighbour from across the street just walked in and begged me to let her see you.”

  “Mr
s. Sentry?”

  chapter twenty-eight

  February 1940

  “Appel! Appel! Raus! Schnell!”

  Four o’clock in the morning. Everyone jumps from their flea-infested bunks. Frieda seizes Mutti’s hand while the female guards storm them from the barracks along with the hundreds of other women. The guards rain blows on their backs with clubs as they fly past the dead bodies in the bunks, on the floor. Shrieks of pain. Howls. Outside in lines. Sub-zero. Floodlights shine in Frieda’s eyes.

  The muscles in her legs cramp after two hours of standing for roll call. The guards have been counting the thousands of women since 4:00 a.m. in their obsession with accuracy. The prisoners all wear striped dresses with long knickers, kerchiefs, and aprons, but no stockings. All in the same posture of arms across their breasts to keep in what small measure of warmth is left. All shivering, shivering.

  Frieda is beyond numb and can only glance at Mutti beside her. Her mother’s eyes are closed: perhaps she has managed to send herself into one of her books. Ivanhoe? Jane Eyre? As long as her body remains to be counted, that is all the guards care about, night after night. Their numbers must add up; the bodies of those who have died in the night — the death toll is staggering — are dragged out of the barracks to be included in the lineups.

  She wonders how long Mutti will survive the work details during their twelve-hour days. Her grey hair has turned white. Exhaustion is shrivelling her face with each day. The work would be bad enough, but the guards take great pleasure in beating the prisoners whether they work or not. Truncheons, whips, resounding slaps with an open hand. She has seen her mother beaten on the head with a club by a woman guard just passing by. Mutti is all she has left, the only familiar face in a sea of faces. They have grown close, these few weeks in the camp, sharing a bunk with two other women. Mutti’s face lights up when she sees Frieda.

  Like most middle-aged women, her mother’s waistline has thickened over the years. But the thin soup and piece of dry bread that passes for their main meal, the black ersatz coffee twice a day, have eroded their bodies. Frieda can feel the outline of the bones in Mutti’s body beside her in the bunk.

  Some of the sick and elderly, the children too young to work, have been put on a truck and taken to a nearby youth camp they are told will be less harsh. A coddling camp named Mittverda, it is said, where conditions are easier and the food is better. Everyone wants to go. At first Frieda considers asking the block leader to put Mutti’s name on the list. Then the rumours begin to spread: there is no camp, or if there is, it’s being used as a killing ground for prisoners. Someone saw one of the trucks come back within the hour, loaded with the clothes that the “coddled” were wearing. How could they have thought otherwise?

  A layer of thick grey cloud hangs above their snow shovelling detail. Their group has been assigned to clear the road between the barracks. Though she told the camp authorities she was a doctor when they questioned her on arrival, they have not seen fit to use her medical skills. Instead, she lifts the heavy snow one shovelful at a time, the muscles in her back complaining with each movement. She is unused to physical labour and hopes her youth will make up for it. But what about Mutti?

  She glances sideways at her mother, who pushes her shovel along but manages to lift very little snow off the road.

  “You!” barks a woman guard. “What d’you think you’re doing!”

  Frieda is the only one who looks up to see the whip lash out at her mother. The others keep working. Instead of trying harder, Mutti drops the shovel to the ground. Clink. The sound breaks Frieda’s heart.

  She wants to shout at her mother, Pick it up — shovel harder! But the words die in her throat as the guard begins to bawl out obscenities.

  “I’ve been watching you, you Jewish whore! That’s it for the likes of you!”

  She grabs Mutti’s arm, wrenching her elbow. Mutti groans with pain. The guard pulls her away from the group.

  “You’ll see what we do with people who won’t work!”

  As she is dragged away, Mutti turns large eyes on Frieda one last time. Their eyes lock for a moment.

  “Mutti!” Frieda says, stepping toward her. The one face left that she loves and that loves her moves further and further away till it vanishes around the corner of the barracks. She is so angry — not at the guard but at Mutti. Why couldn’t she keep working? She didn’t even try — she wanted to die. She didn’t care if she left Frieda alone.

  “Keep working!” a guard shouts, lashing her whip at Frieda, who is in a daze.

  The pain stings her body, but her body has separated from her and drifted off somewhere. Where has it gone? She is barely there, feels nothing. Who is she? Come back! she thinks to herself frantically. Don’t leave me! Whose voice is she hearing? Her own or Mutti’s? Mutti. Then she remembers: they’ve taken Mutti away.

  What will they do with her? Frieda thinks wildly, as she digs her shovel under the snow again. What does she think they would do? Mutti is too old. She won’t work and she’s too old. Fifty-two. They have a cement corridor where they take “asocial” women. Frieda has passed by it and seen the blood. People have heard the shooting. She will not picture her mother in the corridor. She will not. Though she is shovelling snow faster and faster, Mutti’s eyes haunt her. She will see those eyes long after Mutti is gone.

  Weeks go by, and Frieda loses track of time. The other women in the bunk, Lola and Herta, consoled her after Mutti was taken away. But there was another transport and two more women now share their bunk. Six in a bunk meant for two. In their misery and exhaustion, they have forgotten Mutti. Except when they say she was the smart one, choosing death. Frieda has not forgiven her mother for leaving her and tells her so in her dreams. Sometimes Mutti comes to visit in the barracks at night when no one but Frieda can see her.

  The days are not quite as cold, but the nights still freeze them as they stand for appel, the roll call, night after night, hour after hour, to be counted.

  One day as she is lifting bags of sand to carry them from one spot to another, she hears a strange sound. Yet eerily familiar. Birdsong. A bird is whistling in a tree somewhere, maybe near that picturesque lake beyond the cement walls of the camp. How can that be, in this place? The gentleness of the song amid the barking of the guards confuses her. The truncheons beating on women’s heads, backs — how can the birds sing here?

  The week the birds start singing, Frieda is in a detail digging an area of ground that will be a garden. The guard sits on a rock with the sun on her face, her eyes closed as if she’s on a beach. Frieda looks up to see a line of prisoners passing by. The same striped dresses with aprons, kerchiefs on their heads. Wait! A face in the line pops out at her.

  “Hanni!” she cries.

  The guard looks up. Frieda doesn’t care.

  Hanni’s face turns, her mouth opens when she sees Frieda.

  “What barracks are you in?” Frieda says, trying to keep her voice down. The guard is staring at her.

  Hanni points to the distance in front of her. “The end.”

  “I’ll find you,” Frieda says quietly.

  The line passes. Hanni turns her head as far as it will go to take Frieda in one more time.

  Frieda digs into the soil with renewed strength. The guard lifts her face to the sun again and closes her eyes.

  When their shift is over that evening, Frieda’s detail walks back to their barracks. Frieda slips away and heads past her building, past one barracks after another, no small distance. The full face of the moon shines in the black sky, outlining the women lingering in the open air like ghosts taking in their last fresh breath of spring.

  As she passes Frieda hears someone murmur, “Pesach.” So, it is Passover. Yes, she remembers the full moon during the holiday. They were not religious, but they celebrated the deliverance from bondage in Egypt with a special dinner, matzo ball soup, potato kugel, a fluffy sponge cake. They would eat matzo that night and relapse the next day to eating bread. They could h
ave denied themselves bread for the week and eaten matzo, the bread of affliction, as was the custom. But like many German Jews, they didn’t. Were they being punished for it now? Was God punishing them for not worshipping him enough? Frieda has thought about this at length during the months of incarceration while her body has gone through the motions of shovelling and lifting and digging. Such a God would be unworthy. More likely they are alone in the universe and God has been dreamt up by people asking unanswerable questions.

  Frieda reaches the last barracks. She asks some women standing in groups if they know Hanni Sussman.

  A figure bolts toward her and launches herself into her arms. Frieda feels her heart lift for the first time in months. Hanni’s body is lean but muscular, still healthy.

  “When did you get here?” she asks, holding Hanni at arm’s length, trying to see the dark eyes, the dark unruly hair in the moonlight.

  “Two days ago.”

  Frieda hesitates but has to ask. “With your mother?”

  Hanni looks away. “They took her. Almost as soon as we got here. They put her on a truck to the youth camp, and I thought they were saving her. Then people told me ...”

  Frieda puts an arm around her shoulder.

  “And your mother?” Hanni asks.

  Frieda shakes her head, her eyes down.

  Hanni says no more but swallows in the silent dark. They don’t speak for a while.

  “At least Wolfie is all right,” she says finally. “I was with him the day before they took us. He’s still in hiding.”

  “Wolfie.” Frieda turns the name over on her tongue as if it is candy, a taste from another life. She smiles at the memory of the handsome face.

  During the hot months Frieda helps trim the trees and bushes, tend the marigolds, carnations, and chrysanthemums in the ornamental gardens that give the camp a deceptively benign look. Her back aches picking the tomatoes and beans on the low vines, the cucumbers on the ground that will go to the kitchen for the guards’ dinners. This, she decides, is the cruellest job. She is being driven insane by constant hunger, yet she dares not put anything in her mouth. If she is seen chewing, they can shoot her. She wonders how long she can keep a bean in her mouth without chewing. Whether she can swallow it whole without moving her jaw. She is too much of a coward to try.