AHMM, July-August 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  The phone rang.

  Wyla grabbed it after one ring, just to prove to Reilly that he wasn't getting hard of hearing. “Yeah,” he said. He listened. “Another one? What do we have here? A serial killer?” He listened again. “Right. I'll get over there."

  "A serial killer?” Reilly asked.

  "Probably something more harmless. Like a coincidence. But we do have another case. Old woman this time."

  Reilly's eyebrows shot up. “Poisoned? Like Zimmer?"

  "No. A niece called in after she found her aunt at the bottom of a cellar stairway. Said she thinks someone pushed the aunt down the stairs. Aunt's injured, but she didn't die. The thing is, she lived near Zimmer. So we're on this one, just in case something other than coincidence is at work. Let's go. The niece is at the hospital.” Wyla heaved himself out of his chair, wondering if he should call Marty and tell him to lock the door of his room, then he grabbed a cup of coffee and left the office, Reilly on his heels.

  * * * *

  Happy to see that the waiting room at the hospital was empty, providing privacy for the niece, Wyla introduced himself and Reilly.

  "I found my Aunt Hedwig this morning,” the niece said, dabbing at reddened eyes. “The doctors think she'd been there for at least a whole day. Thank God I went over early this morning before work. I should have gone over last week. I knew it. I just knew it."

  "Knew what, Miss Rowinski?"

  "That something was wrong. I mean I felt it for weeks. I should have gone sooner. I just should have made her tell me what was wrong. I was just so busy."

  Wyla nodded. “I know. We're all too busy. Take it easy, Miss Rowinski. If your aunt fell, it isn't really your fault."

  "No, but ... I know this sounds paranoid, Detective, but I don't believe she did fall. I think someone might have pushed her."

  "What makes you think so?"

  The niece took a deep breath. “My aunt is not a fragile woman. She is eighty-five, but she is strong. She cooks her own meals, cleans her own house, and walks half a mile several times a week. She never misses a step.” Miss Rowinski stopped and looked pleadingly at Wyla.

  "I get the picture,” Wyla said.

  "Okay. But the last couple of months, she's been different. This is the hard part to explain. She seemed upset, as if she were, I don't know, preoccupied."

  "Preoccupied with what? Did you ask?"

  "Of course I asked,” Miss Rowinski said. “She said she was fine, but that the present wasn't important anymore. That's how she put it."

  "Do you have any idea what she meant?"

  "Well, at first, I thought she was getting old.” Miss Rowinski sighed. “Not that she wasn't old. But somehow, getting older. Fast. You know how older people sometimes retreat into the past, tell the same stories over and over, talk about their youth.” She looked at Wyla for confirmation.

  Wyla thought of Marty. “I know,” he said. “Go on."

  "It was as if she were waiting for something to happen. I thought maybe she was sick or something.” Miss Rowinski threw up her hands. “And then this fall. If it was a fall. I know it isn't much to go on, Detective, but I know something was very wrong.” Miss Rowinski shook her head. “Poor Aunt Hedwig. She's had a lot of tragedy in her life. She was in Europe during World War II. In Poland."

  "In a concentration camp?” Wyla asked, feeling his brain stirring around some notions.

  "Oh no. Actually, she was in the northeastern part of Poland. I'm not sure exactly where.” Miss Rowinski shook her head. “I guess I didn't really pay much attention to the details. I mean World War II. I wasn't even born then. It's past history. My aunt said she had to work for Germans, then Russians. I don't know exactly what she did. It was slave labor, she said, but I guess it kept her alive."

  The stirrings in Wyla's brain began to jell. “Did your aunt ever talk about any Russian who'd been particularly cruel? Rape? Torture? Anything like that?"

  Miss Rowinski's eyes widened. “No. Never. I mean, she didn't like Russians. I guess most Poles didn't, probably still don't. But she never said any of them actually did anything to her."

  "I see,” Wyla said. “When your aunt comes out of the sedatives, Miss Rowinski, try to get her to talk a little. Don't press it if the doctors want her quiet. In the meantime, I'll go over the house tomorrow and check over the stairway where she fell."

  "Of course.” Miss Rowinski fumbled in her purse. “I have a key to her house, and I took hers when I came with the ambulance.” She handed a large key to Wyla.

  "Did you move or disturb anything in the house when you entered?"

  Miss Rowinski thought. “I came in through the kitchen and dining area. It's all one room. Then I saw that the cellar door was open. I thought my aunt was down in the cooler where she keeps canned goods, drinks, things like that. So I called out.” She paused, reliving her movements. “I didn't get an answer, so I started down the stairs. That's when I saw her. I raced down. I didn't move her. I know you're not supposed to. I had my cell phone and called 911. I stayed with her until the ambulance came.” Miss Rowinski paused. “So, no. No. I didn't disturb anything."

  "Miss Rowinski, do you know if your aunt knew a Mr. Peter Zimmer?"

  Miss Rowinski nodded. “Yes. Once when I went over, he was there. He left when I came. Why?"

  "Did your aunt tell you anything about him?"

  Miss Rowinski frowned. “No. Just that he was a neighbor. Why?"

  "Probably nothing. Now one more thing, Miss Rowinski. When you get the go-ahead from me, check around the house. I can't tell you what to look for, but check the mail, calendars, anything that might indicate something unusual in your aunt's life."

  "I'm staying here all night, if they'll let me."

  "Fine. If I see any reason to call in a forensics team, I won't want you in the house for a day or so anyway."

  Wyla sought out the doctors for Mrs. Rowinski, but they had little to tell him, except that, though it had been close, they expected the woman to live, at least for a while.

  One of the doctors had also treated Peter Zimmer. “Mrs. Rowinski has not been poisoned,” he reassured Wyla.

  "But,” Wyla said, “you didn't know Zimmer had been poisoned until he was already dead, right?"

  "Wrong. Before he died, Zimmer said he was being poisoned. I admit we thought at first that he was probably delusional, but he was not able to hold down whatever it was he had drunk in the afternoon, and the tests showed he was right. Unfortunately, it was too late to save him."

  Wyla stared. “Zimmer actually said he was being poisoned?"

  "Yes, he did."

  "Did he say who he thought poisoned him?"

  "No. He was very, very ill. He could hardly walk or talk. He just mumbled about being poisoned before he lost consciousness."

  Wyla nodded. “If you find out anything more on Mrs. Rowinski, let me know."

  * * * *

  "What do you think?” Reilly asked when they were back in the car.

  For a moment, Wyla watched raindrops splatter on the windshield. Then he turned on the wipers. “Don't know. Could be we have a pretty perceptive niece. Could be we have a niece with paranoid tendencies.” Wyla stared at the wipers. World War II. No record. Two old people, one dead, slowly poisoned, one meant to be dead. He fished out his notebook and called Michael Zimmer. He told Zimmer about Mrs. Rowinski's fall and asked if he knew about any connection between her and his brother.

  "Don't know,” Zimmer said. “Is she dead?"

  "Well, she's injured but not dead. The doctors expect that she'll recover. I might need to talk to you again after I see her."

  Zimmer didn't respond.

  Wyla rung off.

  * * * *

  By nine the next morning, Wyla, with Reilly in tow, pulled his Taurus up to a clapboard house, a typical older home with the front yard only five feet deep from porch to sidewalk. Wyla had grown up in a house like this. He stepped out of the car and stood looking at the house. It had two gables, a green
shingled roof that needed attention, a porch with two columns, and a green swing. The white of the house's wood had grayed, rather like the color of Zimmer's skin.

  "What are we looking for here?” Reilly said.

  "Don't know. Maybe I'll know it if I see it.” Wyla felt a little sorry for Reilly. He thought Reilly would feel more confident doing a virtual tour of the house on his computer.

  Wyla climbed the six porch steps. The top one squeaked and dipped a little beneath his step. To the left, lacy curtains, gray with age and dust, hung behind a large window whose central pane was flanked by stained glass panels over which snaked purplish vines. The walnut wood of the front door was deeply carved with peaked arches. Wyla stared at the dark wood. He was reluctant to enter. He felt as if the secrets behind the door were best left buried in the past, as if to exhume them would raise clouds of pestilent air it was best not to breathe.

  Behind him, Reilly coughed. “Funny sort of old house, isn't it?"

  Wyla nodded, glad to know that the aura of decay and miasma was not something he'd conjured in his mind. Young, computer-smart Reilly had felt it too. Reilly, Wyla thought, had potential.

  Wyla pulled from his pocket the key Miss Rowinski had given him. Iron gray, it had a large open head and a body of almost four inches, with the serrations on a double block at the end of the stem. It was heavy with the weight of lead and years. He slid it into the door lock. The key turned with a satisfying clap.

  Wyla pushed open the door and stepped into the large open combination kitchen and dining room. In the middle stood a heavy red mahogany table. To the left, past an old porcelain sink and a new stove, a door stood open. Stairs descended. At the top lay pieces of glass. Red-brown splotches stained the small tan rug. Wyla knelt and touched the stain. He could not tell what it was.

  "All right,” Wyla said to Reilly behind him. “Let's check down the cellar first."

  They descended carefully, avoiding any touch to the round banister that ran down on the right wall. Wyla noted that the treads on the stairs were in good condition. No rips or bulges to cause a trip. From the last step, he sidled over to the edge and down, avoiding the probable spot where Mrs. Rowinski had lain unconscious. More broken glass lay on the basement floor.

  Wyla pointed to a piece. “Looks like the stem of a wine glass.” He looked around. He could see no stains on the brown linoleum. He looked at the banister, wondering if Mrs. Rowinski had managed to catch it at the last moment, saving herself from a worse blow to her head than she had received. He turned to Reilly. “I don't see anything here that sheds light on how or why she fell, but we'll have forensics check out the glass and the stains. I'm going back up. You poke around here. I can't tell you what you're looking for. But check around. The shelves, the cabinets, whatever."

  Wyla started back up the stairs. As he climbed, he ticked off what he was looking for. He'd been a detective quite long enough to know that finding revealing letters or audio cassettes with a victim's or murderer's life story happened only in B-grade thrillers. But real people did keep pictures and mementos. Perhaps Mrs. Rowinski had kept something that connected her to Zimmer as more than a neighbor.

  He stood for a moment in the kitchen-dining room, then rejected looking there first. People didn't keep mementos in a kitchen. He walked into the next room. A blue sofa in mint condition sat against a wall next to the door that led to a backyard. A worn, tan cloth recliner sat in front of a TV. On the wall above the TV hung a black-and-white print with more than a hundred faces on it, and in the middle, a crowned eagle.

  Wyla recognized the print. His grandmother had had one: a print of the kings of Poland.

  He looked round again. On the table next to the recliner was a basket with needles and wool. This was the room where Mrs. Rowinski had spent her time. This was the room that would have mementos.

  He opened the top drawer of the table and picked up a photo album. He sat in the recliner and flipped pages. He recognized the niece and assumed the man and women in some of the pictures were her parents. He ran through the typical postcards: Hawaii, San Diego, Yellowstone Park, a dozen others. Most seemed to be from the niece and her parents. About halfway into the album, he found a picture that gave him pause.

  In the black and white photo, an officer in double-breasted uniform had struck a stiff pose, his dark hair swept back from his high forehead, his dark mustache arcing over the sides of his mouth, his crossed hands clasping leather gloves. His high cheekbones lent him a sculptured look that Wyla had seen in the pale face of Mrs. Rowinski. Her father, Wyla wondered. The picture had a date pasted at the top: 1939. Wyla was no expert in army uniforms, but he guessed that this man, if he were Mrs. Rowinski's father, had been an officer in the Polish army. World War II again.

  Wyla sat flipping through mental pictures of World War II tragedies. There were certainly plenty of them: the concentration camps, the siege of Leningrad, the beaches at Normandy. Then he thought of one that most people did not know, especially if they were not of Polish origin or did not have an Uncle Marty who kept close tabs on every account of World War II: the slaughter at Katyn. At least five thousand Polish army officers had been shot and buried in the forest. A crime of World War II, forgotten by most until the fall of the Soviet Union unburied the records of the past. Marty said he'd always guessed the Russians had done it.

  Wyla started at Reilly's voice booming from the kitchen stairway. “Haven't seen much of interest down here so far. The usual stuff old people have. Lots of newspapers and magazines stuffed in the cabinets. Want me to go through them?"

  "Not now,” Wyla said. “I think we need to talk to Mrs. Rowinski. It's a wild guess, but maybe,” he added to himself.

  Reilly came into the room, and Wyla tucked the picture of the Polish officer into his shirt pocket. “You know anything about World War II, Reilly?"

  "Sure. I know we won."

  "Know anything else? Ever hear of a place called Katyn?"

  "No. Was that in the Pacific?"

  "Not exactly. It was the site of a massacre that happened in the forests at Smolensk, in Russia, under Stalin around 1940. Check it out on your computer, Reilly.” Wyla grinned. He didn't expect Reilly to know about Katyn or World War II. That was history, as Miss Rowinski had said. Except maybe, maybe if you were in your eighties, that war wasn't just a piece of history.

  On the way out of the house, Wyla told Reilly to contact a forensics team to collect the broken glass and test the stains.

  * * * *

  At the hospital, Wyla spoke with Mrs. Rowinski's doctor.

  "She's taken a bad blow, but she's regained consciousness. She is basically okay for now. I think she had a mild stroke, but she can talk. I've put her on blood thinners, but I can't operate on the carotid artery. She's just too old."

  "I'll go easy,” Wyla said. “But I need to ask a few questions."

  "Get the niece's permission."

  Wyla did.

  In her hospital bed, Mrs. Rowinski looked tired, but not frail. Her brown eyes were bright, her skin thin, but pale pink, not gray. Her lips moved as the fingers of her left hand slid slowly over the blue crystal beads of a rosary. Her right hand was still and stiff.

  Wyla hesitated, then went ahead. “Mrs. Rowinski,” Wyla said. He pulled out the picture he had taken from the photo book. “Is this your father?"

  Mrs. Rowinski looked at the photo. Her eyes darkened. “Father,” she said.

  Wyla nodded. “He was a Polish officer?"

  Mrs. Rowinski blinked.

  Wyla wanted to stop. He wanted to go home, have a beer, and watch a movie. This was not his business. It was no one's business. It belonged in the past. Zimmer was beyond help and no one cared anyway. He wanted to let Mrs. Rowinski rest.

  He took a breath and pressed on. “Was he at Katyn? Was he murdered with five thousand other Polish officers?"

  Mrs. Rowinski closed her eyes.

  Wyla pulled his chair closer to the bed. “From what I've heard,” he said, “I d
on't care about Zimmer. I don't care what happened to him. Especially if what I'm thinking is so. Your niece said you knew him."

  Mrs. Rowinski opened her eyes and looked at Wyla.

  Maybe, he thought, he was only imagining it. But he'd read a lot of eyes in his years as a detective. And he was reading sorrow now, and fear, and something else. He thought of Zimmer's brother. Relief. Something finally over. “Did you know Zimmer in Poland, when you were working for the Russians? Was Zimmer there? Was he involved?"

  Mrs. Rowinski's voice rasped, but it was clear enough. “They were both there."

  Wyla stared. Two brothers of nearly the same age. Both eligible for the draft. Yet Reilly had found no Zimmer or Zimmerovsky in the army records. Wyla now guessed why. Both brothers had left the country.

  Mrs. Rowinski's lips moved.

  Wyla bent nearer to her.

  "He boasted,” she said.

  "Peter Zimmer? He boasted about it?"

  Mrs. Rowinski nodded.

  "But how did you know him so many years later?” Wyla smiled. “Of course. The scar. Over the eyebrow. So you gave him what? Wine? Gradually, with the rat poison?"

  She moved her head up and down slowly in a kind of proud affirmation. “Is he dead?"

  "Yes. He died yesterday. Had you told him what you'd been giving him?"

  Mrs. Rowinski closed her eyes. Her breath came out in a long sigh. “No. He saw me.” She let go of the rosary and lifted her hand. “He came often at noon. For a glass of wine. I kept the wine in my cool cellar. I would take two glasses and go down to get the wine.” She paused. “And the poison. This time, he must have come down to the cellar and stood on the steps. I didn't see him at first.” She stopped.

  Wyla waited.

  "I took the box of poison from the cabinet. From behind some magazines. I put the poison into one of the glasses."

  She stopped again.

  Wyla had the eerie feeling that she was confessing, not as to a policeman, but as to a priest.

  "He must have watched me do it,” she went on. “Then he went back up the stairs. I went up too. He asked me why I was poisoning him. I told him."

  "He pushed you down the stairs then?"