The Nazi Hunter

by Alan Elsner

  Delatrucha was buried quietly in Florida a week later. According to Fabrizio, who was there, only a few people showed up. One who did appear, and made sure she got herself photographed outside the cemetery, was Susan Scott, looking chic behind a black silk veil. Elissa, the grieving widow, kept her silence, refusing all requests for interviews. In a way, she was another of Delatrucha's victims.

  As we had hoped, the press zeroed in on the Rachel Levitas story. Saying that Delatrucha had helped kill half a million people would have left people numb. The number was too vast to grasp, and he wasn't the one doing the gassing. Giving them the name and a picture of one pretty young girl made Belzec seem real. Soon, her face was everywhere, especially when Yitzhak Levitas, her brother who was still living in Israel, came forward. Now in his mid-seventies, he had survived the war as a refugee in the Soviet Union. On TV, he leafed through an old family photo album that contained several more pictures of Rachel and the rest of the family. One of the five-year-old Rachel holding a tiny violin pulled at my heart.

  “Rachel was my beloved sister,” Yitzhak told the TV interviewer. “I always wondered what happened to her. She never left my thoughts in all these years. She was the talented one in the family. She could have been a great violinist.”

  Eric decided we needed to publish Beck's complete diaries and letters as quickly as possible. George was named editor, with the task of writing an introduction explaining the significance of Operation Reinhard and Belzec and providing footnotes putting Delatrucha's comments into perspective. We hoped to have it in bookstores by April, with profits going to Holocaust education in the United States.

  A week after the shooting, the McCready committee formally revoked Delatrucha's award. It was too little too late. The prizes would forever be linked with that horrific night.

  Conroy seemed anxious to accept our unspoken offer of a truce. He wanted the story to go away as quickly as possible. Two days after the press conference, Doneghan called.“Mark—I can call you Mark, can't I?”

  “Sure, Jack.”

  “The speaker doesn't blame you for that mix-up in communications we had that day. He knows, and I know, you tried to keep us in the picture, and we appreciate that. Of course, like I told you before and like I'm telling the press, we were one hundred and ten percent behind your investigation every step of the way. That's the message that needs to get out. If it hadn't been for the snow, your messages would have definitely arrived in time,” he said.

  “I'm glad you see it that way,” I said.

  “I do, and the speaker does, too. And he wants you to know the new Republican majority is fully behind the work y'all are doing for the American people. We looked at the figures, and every penny in your budget is well spent. We may even be looking to raise it a bit, seeing as how time is running out and there may be a few more of these Nazi types still hiding out and evading justice. And of course, we're going to look seriously at Eric Rosen's idea of expanding your mandate to deal with other crimes against humanity.”

  “Thank you, Jack,” I said.“It's much appreciated.”

  After that, Conroy's folksy Texan drawl didn't pop up quite so much on TV and radio. He obviously felt the need to lower his profile, at least for a while. Political pundits reckoned his position as speaker was secure, but it was doubtful he would ever be able to run for president. The association with Delatrucha would forever hang over him.

  John Howard quietly tendered his resignation. A week later, he was working for a Republican lobbyist on K Street.

  One strange and unexpected outcome: sales of Schubert lieder soared at the record stores and garnered more air time on classical radio stations. It wouldn't be for long, but it was nice while it lasted. At least Mary Scott, the accompanist on most of Delatrucha's discs, would get a financial boost from the royalties.

  Lynn and I decided not to get engaged. Actually, Lynn decided.

  “I'm not ready,” she told me a week after the press conference. “Ever since I've known you, you've been obsessed with Delatrucha.” For a horrible moment, I thought she was breaking up with me, and my heart sank. “It's been awesome and exciting and all, but now I want to see what you're like when he's not there, buzzing around in your brain. I want to see what we're like together when it's normal.” I heaved a silent sigh of relief. I could do normal as long as she was still around.

  “And another thing—I'm starting my new job next week,” she said.“You can woo me. I want to be wooed. We'll go to movies, concerts; we'll go out to dinner if we can afford it, and if you can find somewhere kosher. Maybe I'll come to shul with you. If you play your cards right, I may even stay to study the Mishna with you from time to time.”

  “What about weekends away? Sunset walks on the beach? Evenings in front of the log fire? Red roses for Valentine's Day?”

  “Now you're talking!”

  My father announced he was not quitting West Virginia to move to Washington after all. As soon as the snow melted, he planned to start rebuilding his cabin, with extra rooms for grandchildren. I told him not to hold his breath, but he just smiled and said he could wait.

  Two weeks after Delatrucha's suicide, I received a letter from the Department of Justice inspector general advising me that an internal inquiry into my behavior was under way and that I might be required to testify at some point. I had the right to legal counsel if I so desired. I asked Eric if I was in danger of losing my job. He said it was highly unlikely after all that I'd done, but advised me to hire a lawyer, just in case. He also told me to see a shrink, muttering something about posttraumatic stress disorder. Oddly enough, I'd stopped having nightmares and was sleeping better than I had in years.

  All this time, the Sophie Reiner case remained open. Fabrizio called me one day to say that the little guy who had tried to blow up the Department had confessed to the murder. He insisted he had been working alone.“Do you believe him?” I asked.

  “No. He was definitely working for someone. Eventually we'll worm it out of him.”

  “Why did he do it?”

  “He's borderline paranoid, I would say. He seems to have a personal fixation with you. He keeps swearing he's going to kill you and mount your head on his wall.”

  “What!?”

  “Don't worry. He'll never see the outside of prison again. The attorney general's probably going for the death penalty.”

  “Even though his plan didn't succeed?”

  “I forgot to mention—he's a serial killer. He's also confessed to shooting that jogger a few weeks ago and to pushing a young woman off the platform in the Metro.”

  “Jennifer? Oh, God!”

  “Did you know her?”

  “She was my ex-girlfriend. She was on her way home from my apartment. She'd just come to collect some stuff. Her family was told it was an accident. She would still be alive if she hadn't come that night.”

  “Don't be stupid. Of course it wasn't your fault.”

  “Why didn't he just kill me instead of her? And that jogger he killed—was that instead of me as well? He was killed where I go running almost every day.”

  “We'll have to go ask him.”

  As soon as she hung up, I called Jennifer's brother in California and explained what I'd just learned and how sorry I was. He was kind and told me not to blame myself. But I couldn't help it.

  A few evenings later, I was sitting with Lynn watching TV when Susan Scott came on. NBC had been promoting an exclusive interview with her for days, promising that Delatrucha's daughter would make “shocking revelations.” I wondered if she was planning to reveal the existence of Delatrucha's other, secret daughter, Sophie. But the interview took a different track.

  “We've all heard about the ghastly crimes committed by Roberto Delatrucha as a young man,” the stone-faced anchor began, as footage of his final performance at the Willard Hotel ran behind her on screen. “But what was he like as a man? What was it like to live with him, to grow up with him? What was it like to have a secret Nazi as a father? Ton
ight, we speak with Delatrucha's daughter, Susan Scott, the only person who can answer these questions. Welcome, Susan, and thanks for having the courage to share what must be very painful memories.”

  “Barbara, I had to. I felt I had a duty,” Susan replied. She was wearing a demure pink cashmere sweater, with a string of pearls around her neck. Her hair had grown since I had last seen her, framing her face and giving her a younger, more innocent look. Her lipstick and nails were a pale rose. Everything was calculated to produce a picture of softly understated elegance with a sort of bruised vulnerability just beneath the surface.

  The interviewer asked her what she had known about her father's past and how she felt about his death. Susan said she had known nothing and was confused and devastated. Then the subject turned to her childhood and her own musical studies. Susan's memories flowed like a well-rehearsed sonata.

  “I remember one time. I was sixteen and taking violin classes at Juilliard,” she began. The screen cut to a picture of her as a teenager, holding her instrument. She was a gorgeous young woman, elegant and self-possessed even then.

  “My teachers liked me. I had real talent; everybody said so,” Susan continued. “Not that I would ever have been a big-time soloist. I didn't have the personality. Chamber music was my passion. My mother encouraged me. Everything was going well.”

  “And your father?” the interviewer asked.

  “He encouraged me, too, at first, but less and less as time went on.”

  “Maybe he felt you were a threat to him.”

  “How? He was so great, such an enormous talent, such a towering personality. Everybody thinks of him now as this evil Nazi, and I guess he was….” She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “But they forget what an incredible musician he was. I could never have rivaled him. Even if I had joined a chamber group or an orchestra, I would never have been famous like him.” She paused.“Anyway, I recall this particular winter evening. I was at home in the music room, working on a piece. It was the Trout Quintet. I was working on the fourth movement, the theme and variations.” She hummed a few bars of the now-familiar song in a pleasant soprano.

  “I heard the door slam when my father arrived home,” Susan went on.“He'd had a couple of drinks, maybe more than a couple. I could smell the liquor on his breath.”

  “Was your father a drinker?” Barbara asked in that quiet, understanding voice interviewers adopt with victims of trauma.

  “Not really. He drank very rarely, but every six or eight months he would go on a big bender. He'd put away a whole bottle of whiskey. He must have been haunted by his past, but at the time neither my mother nor I could understand why he did it. This was one of those times. As soon as he came into the house, he started shouting at me from the hallway to stop playing. Of course, having read his diary, I know now what that theme must have meant for him—but I didn't know then. So I ignored him and carried on playing. He kicked the door open and burst into the room. I'll never forget it. He was screaming and yelling, ‘How dare you defy me?’ I'd never seen him like that. Never! He was almost incoherent.”

  A picture of Delatrucha in his SS uniform flashed on-screen as the announcer intoned,“When we come back, more dramatic revelations from Delatrucha's daughter.”

  A beer commercial came on, and Lynn muted the sound.“She's quite a piece of work,” she said.

  “Very illuminating.”

  “Like hell. Don't you see what she's trying to do?”

  My own thoughts were beginning to crystallize, but I wanted Lynn's opinion.

  “She's portraying herself as another of his victims, another Rachel. Of course, she just happened to be playing the Trout Quintet when he had his big tantrum. Don't you find that a bit far-fetched?”

  “It could be true. What else would have made him blow up like that? Susan's always told us the truth. Why would she start lying now?”

  “For a man of thirty-six, you —”

  “Thirty-five until April 8.”

  “For a guy in his mid-thirties, you're still so naive. This interview is totally bullshit, and it's pissing me off. I wonder how much they paid her for this sob story.”

  The commercials ended, and the program resumed. For the benefit of viewers just tuning in, Barbara gave a quick recap. “So you were practicing the Trout Quintet, and your father came in and started yelling at you. What happened next?”

  Susan put her hands to her face, the same way she had when we had interviewed her in her office. Again, she struggled not to cry, gulping and turning her head away from the camera. The interviewer's face was a picture of sympathy and concern.

  “It's been inside me for so long, for so many years,” Susan said. “This hasn't been easy for me.”

  “But you feel you have to do it.”

  Susan nodded bravely.“I do, Barbara. I do.”

  “So you were playing, and he yelled at you to stop.”

  “That's right. And I remember looking up at him and saying, ‘Why should I stop?’ and I carried on playing. Then he…” She faltered.“He… He grabbed the violin out of my hands, and he…he smashed it to pieces over the piano. That violin was a birthday present from my mother. It was so beautiful, rosy-colored wood, almost golden—and now it was in splinters, the neck snapped and strings hanging everywhere.”

  “What happened then?” the interviewer asked.

  “My mother came in and led him into the bedroom until he sobered up.”

  “And that was the end of it?”

  “No. Later that night, when I was asleep, he came into my room to apologize and make it up to me. The best way he knew how.” She was weeping, tears coursing down her cheeks.

  “He abused you.”

  “I'm sorry, Barbara. I can't. That part of my life is over. It's over. I'll never speak of it.”

  The show ended with the accusation hanging in the air. A week later, the New York Times reported that Susan had signed a contract with a major publishing house for three million dollars to write her memoir.

  “Big surprise,” Lynn said when we met in the office. It was her last day. Eric was hosting good-bye drinks for her that night after work.

  “Why do you say that?” I asked.

  “That's Susan Scott's specialty, selling other peoples’ stories of childhood abuse. This time it's her own story. It's big bucks for her.”

  “You've never liked her,” I said, playing devil's advocate.

  “Not true. I believed her in her office. Mostly. And I felt sorry for her. But now I see what she is. She's an operator, a player. Sometimes she'll tell the truth, and sometimes she'll stretch it. And sometimes she'll outright lie, if it suits her. Plus, she's a brilliant actress. They should give her an Emmy for that performance. You don't believe her, do you?”

  “Not completely. The problem is sorting the truth from the lies.”

  “I don't believe a word of that interview. It's not enough her father was a Nazi. Now he's also a child molester, raping his own daughter. She said she'd never speak about it because it's so, so painful, but she's the one who brought it up! Excuse me while I dry my tears. She was jacking up the price of her book contract.”

  And the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. That's it!

  “I need to call Fabrizio,” I said, fumbling for the phone. “We're going on one more trip.”

  “When?” Lynn asked.

  “Right now.”

  29

  I am done with all dreaming

  Why linger among those asleep?

  —“IN THE VILLAGE” BY WILHELM MüLLER, MUSIC BY FRANZ SCHUBERT

  WE REACHED MEDFORD LATE THAT AFTERNOON. The door to Susan's office was flanked with packing boxes. The waiting room was empty, no furniture, the posters and photographs gone from the walls. Susan was sitting behind her desk, feeding documents into a shredder. I knocked on the open door, and there was a momentary flash of shock on her face until she rearranged it into an expression of semi-welcome. She was back to the dark, metallic look—black turtleneck, bla
ck pants, silver chain around her neck, silver earrings, silver bracelet, silver nails.“What are you doing here?” she asked.“And Ms. Daniels, too. Why didn't you call to say you were coming?”

  “Are you going out of business?” Lynn asked.

  “No,” she laughed. “Hardly, my dear. In fact, business has never been better. I've taken a new office on Beacon Hill. Much more appropriate for my needs. My clients didn't like having to trek out to boring old suburbia. This place was only temporary until things picked up. And of course, I need a more suitable place for writing my own book.”

  “Ah yes, your child abuse memoir,” I said. “The memories so painful they couldn't be spoken of ever again. I can hardly wait to read it. Will it be shelved in the fiction or nonfiction section?”

  She laughed again.“Now, now, Mark. No need to be jealous. You could write your own book if you wanted. Memoirs of a Nazi Hunter. Catchy title, great concept — I'm sure I could sell it for a tidy sum. I take a fifteen percent commission.”

  “I'll consider it,” I said. “But surely you want to know how the story ends.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You want to know what happened to your half-sister, Sophie Reiner, and why she was killed. That's the heart of the mystery, isn't it?”

  “That little guy confessed. Case closed, no?”

  “He did, but that still leaves the question of who ordered him to.”

  “I take no pleasure in saying this, but it had to have been my father. He did it to keep her quiet.”

  “That's what I thought for a long time, too. But I think it was someone else.”

  “Really?” she said.“Who?”

  “You, of course.”

  Her face registered surprise, fear, and outrage before settling on anger. She pointed a sharp, metallic finger at me. “You're crazy. Your case would never have gone anywhere without me. I helped make you world-famous.”

  “I know. At crucial moments, you supplied important snippets of information that kept the case going. That's why I was so slow to catch on. Lynn keeps calling me naive, and I guess I am. I was really naive about you.”