Faye Kellerman - Decker 13 - The Forgotten

by The Forgotten

  Marge said, 'Pardon my ignorance, but aren't the Baldwins, being therapists, supposed to be savvy when it comes to reading people? You're saying that they didn't have an inkling that Tarpin was out to get them?'

  'They were arrogant,' Oliver persisted. 'You know kind of like that Greek thing... pride before the fall.'

  'Hubris,' Marge answered.

  'How'd you know that?'

  Marge stiffened. 'First of all, Scott, I'm not a moron. Secondly, Vega's studying Oedipus Rex in school.'

  'Tarpin was the first one to find the bodies,' Oliver said. 'He was the only one capable enough to pull it off. The kid that Webster talked about... Riley Barns. He thought he saw a couple of shadows.'

  Decker said, 'Barns was vague. He might have seen shadows; he might have been dreaming.'

  'He wasn't dreaming,' Oliver insisted. 'He saw two shadows -Holt and Tarpin. They're both survivalists; they're both militia based. They wait until everyone's asleep, they slip into camouflages, do Baldwin and Ernesto, then slip back into the woods. Tarpin goes back to the boys, Holt does Dee—'

  Martinez said, 'Scott, it's just as likely that Dee Baldwin whacked herself in remorse for whacking her husband in a fit of rage after she found him with Ernesto.'

  Marge made a face. 'I don't believe that for a minute.'

  'Well, you didn't see her positioning. Consistent with suicide.'

  Webster said, 'Tarpin associated with bad news, Bert. Y'all should've seen the literature on Garvey McKenna and his militia - the Methods of Mad White Boys.'

  'They're crackpots,' Martinez said.

  'That don't mean they aren't evil,' Webster retorted.

  'So maybe that's why Tarpin broke away from them,' Martinez suggested.

  'Why are you defending a jerk like Tarpin?' Oliver asked Bert.

  'I'm not defending him,' Martinez said, bristling. 'I think it's odd that Tarpin and Holt - even with their racist views -would twiddle their thumbs for years before murdering the Baldwins. Especially since he and Holt may have known each other for years.'

  'Maybe a money motive was introduced,' Wanda said.

  'There's a thought,' Oliver said. 'Someone in PEI paid Tarpin to murder the Baldwins because the Baldwins were liberals,

  asshole shrinks, and PEI knew that Tarpin could get them easier than anyone else.'

  Decker made a face. 'I don't remember hearing that the Baldwins were crusading against PEI or any hate group. They seem like an odd target.'

  'Isn't Ernesto's father very liberal in his politics?' Wanda asked.

  'Aha!' Oliver said triumphantly. 'Tarpin got three in one day.'

  'Ernesto was murdered, not his dad,' Marge said.

  'You want to cripple someone, you attack their children,' Oliver said.

  'That's true.' Decker formulated his thoughts. 'But if Tarpin did it, he certainly cast himself in the limelight. There are safer ways to murder someone.'

  Martinez said, 'Exactly. Why would Tarpin set himself up?'

  ' 'Cause he's a dumb-shit racist,' Oliver said.

  'Give me a motive, Scott,' Martinez said, 'other than "he's a dumb-shit racist".'

  'That isn't enough?'

  'No, being a dumb racist doesn't mean you're a triple murderer,' Martinez said.

  'Doesn't mean you're not.'

  'This is beginning to sound infantile,' Marge said.

  Wanda interjected, 'Is it possible that one of the camp boys glommed on to Tarpin and took one of his racist ideas to the extreme?'

  'Anything's possible,' Decker said. 'I suggest we start with what we know. Plot A - a triple murder. Plot B - double murder, suicide.'

  'The killer used a silencer,' Marge said. 'If it were an impulsive thing for Dee, she wouldn't have brought a gun and a silencer.'

  Martinez said, 'Maybe she suspected her husband years ago and was just building up the courage. The thing is, we don't know.'

  'Bert's right,' Decker said. 'What we do know is that Hank Tarpin is still alive and was up there at the time of the shooting.

  We know that Hank Tarpin found the bodies. We know that Tarpin - along with Holt - is a member of PEL We know that Tarpin is a Marine, like Garvey McKenna. We need to talk to Tarpin again.'

  Martinez said, 'Even though we've already interviewed him for four hours without an attorney and couldn't come up with anything?'

  'Try him again,' Decker said. 'Come up with a plausible story that won't send him running for legal cover.'

  Marge said, 'How about... we suspect that the Baldwins were using pull to get kids into universities, and we want Tarpin's opinion about it.'

  'That isn't a story, that's the truth,' Oliver said. 'The Baldwins were using muscle to get their kids into the top schools.'

  Decker said, 'Even better. It'll make us more believable.'

  'Loo, Tarpin isn't going to know anything about that,' Martinez said. 'He's basically a drill instructor.'

  'I'm not so sure,' Decker said. 'Maybe some of the kids have talked to him about how they were depending on the Baldwins to get them into universities, and that's why they agreed to attend the Baldwins' nature camp. If you have a better ploy, Bert, I'm here to listen.'

  Silence.

  'Good, so I'm putting Bert and Tom on Tarpin.' Decker wrote down the assignment in his logbook. 'Next, we need to get hold of Maryam Estes at the Baldwins' office.'

  'Did the warrant come through?' Marge asked.

  'Not yet.' Decker looked up from his notepad, his eyes jockeying between Marge and Oliver. 'But even if you could technically look through every single file, you'd need to narrow it down. So try to get Estes to help you. I want you two to find out if there were any kids or parents who held a grudge against the Baldwins. Any questions?'

  There were none.

  'We're on a roll.' Decker regarded Bontemps. 'You can call up the Board of Psychological Examiners and find out if there have

  been any complaints against the Baldwins in the past... oh... how about ten years? Also, check out the Baldwins' bank account, real estate holdings, assets, anything you can get your hands on. See if you can't get an idea of what they're worth or if there was big money going in and out. When you're done with that, check out insurance. What kind did they have, who was the beneficiary, who had something to gain by the Baldwins' deaths.'

  Martinez said, 'Someone should find out if the Baldwins had marital problems. It would support a murder/suicide theory.'

  Decker said, 'Wanda, nose around into their marriage as well. Anything on Ruby Ranger's whereabouts?'

  Wanda said, 'I do a round of calls each day. No one up north has spotted the car.'

  'So maybe she's not up there. But keep checking.' He wrote her assignment in the book. 'I think we're all set for the time being. I'm going down to the morgue to see what Pathology has come up with. The body was released an hour ago. The funeral is set at six o'clock and everyone should be there. Whatever happened, even if Ernesto was involved in his own demise, it still was a terrible tragedy for the parents. Anyone have something important to add, talk now.'

  Silence ensued.

  Decker stood up. 'Adios, amigos, and good luck.'

  Most of the library's free floor space had been taken up with boxes and folding chairs from last night's lecture - a very successful event with over two hundred in attendance according to Georgia Rackman, the Center's primary archivist. She was a big woman with thick wrists and ankles and big hair - bleached blond and sprayed stiff. Her face was round, open, and smooth, her brown eyes emphasized by a heavy coat of eyeliner. She spoke with a heavy Texas drawl, and made no excuses when her voice elevated above acceptable volume levels.

  'In Dallas,' she exclaimed, 'we do everything on a grand scale.'

  The library was filled with standard bracket shelving that held

  thousands of tomes, all of them dedicated to the ashes of war. So

  many titles... too many memoirs: The Archives of the Holocaust, The Holocaust and the History of the Rise of Israel, The Jews of Wa
rsaw, The Death Camp Diaries, The Warsaw Uprising, Walking with Ghosts... But Jews weren't the only ethnic group represented. There were also sections on the massacres of the Armenians, the bomb drops and subsequent carnage wreaked upon the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the annihilations of the Cambodians under Pol Pot, the civil war between the Hutus and Tutzis in Africa, the bloodbath in the Belgian Congo. It was clear to Rina that no one group could claim its persecution as unique - a very sad commentary on the human condition.

  The small library supported one full-time librarian, one full-time archivist, one part-time archivist, and two male exchange students from Austria who satisfied their country's military obligations by working for the Center for a year.

  Georgia sat at her desk in front of her computer and sifted through the black and white photographs that Rina had given her. 'They don't tell me much. I don't even know if they're authentic. The paper looks too new.'

  Rina mulled over the options. 'You can do a lot with computers nowadays. Or maybe they're recently printed but taken from old negatives.'

  'Now, there's a thought.' Georgia looked. 'Unfortunately, they don't tell me anything specific. But I'll show them around. Almost no one survived Treblinka. You know that.'

  Rina sat next to her. 'I know that.'

  'It would help a great deal if you had that piece of paper with the Polish writing. It could be a work permit, it could be a visa, it could be transport papers... it would tell us a lot.'

  Rina sighed. 'I'm sure if Air Golding had it at the tip of his fingers, he would have given it to us.'

  'And he's not sure if the language is Polish?'

  'That's correct.'

  'It makes a difference. Because there were lots of Jews who came through the Warsaw Ghetto, especially at the end -before the city was bombed out of existence. There were

  Czechs, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Danes, Swedes...' She held up her hands. 'The Nazis were liquidating them as quickly as they could find them. It would really help to have more information.'

  'I bet Mr Golding wishes he had more as well. When I spoke with him this morning, he was in a terrible state. I'm sure he doesn't remember hardly any of the conversation.' Rina sighed. 'Poor, poor man.'

  'Why is he bothering with this now? Doesn't he have more important things to think about?'

  'Maybe he doesn't want to think, Georgia. Besides, men deal with pain by being proactive. Females talk.'

  'I see you've been reading those pop psychology books, eh?'

  'No, not at all. I just observe my husband. Whenever he's nervous, he starts fiddling around the house. Which is really good because Peter is very talented with his hands. All the drippy faucets get fixed when he's anxious.'

  Georgia smiled. 'And you're not even sure if this Yitzchak Golding is alive or dead?'

  'No, I'm not,' Rina said. 'Ernesto Golding, the murdered boy, had claimed that he had found some information about a Yitzchak Golding who died in Treblinka. All his relatives died there as well. But there could be another Yitzchak Golding and that could have been Mr Golding's father. I don't know, Georgia. That's why I'm here.'

  'From what source did he find that piece of data about Golding dying in Treblinka?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Could he have been making it up?'

  'Sure.'

  'Do you know the year Yitzchak Golding died?'

  'No.'

  'I'll start with the Records of American Gathering. If that doesn't pan out, we'll go to the Red Cross, the registry at Yad V'shem, the Central Archives, the HIAS... the list is long. Except most of them deal with those who survived to '45 or

  beyond. As you well know, Treblinka was liquidated way before that.' Georgia hesitated, then looked down. 'Hmmmm.'

  'What does that "Hmmmm" mean?'

  'If Golding's father was a Nazi, and if he took on Yitzchak's name, first off, he would have to have known that Yitzchak Golding was dead. Secondly, to take on his name... Yitzchak Golding would have to have made an impression in his mind. Because remember the camp was leveled by '43 and the war wasn't over until '45. Millions of Jews died after Treblinka was long gone. Golding had to have been on the impersonator's mind for at least two years. So you know what that says to me?'

  'What?'

  'That the dead Yitzchak Golding was a force to be reckoned with. I'm thinking that maybe he was involved in some kind of revolt and had made a name as a local hero. like in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.'

  'But the Jews in the uprising died defending the Ghetto, not in Treblinka.'

  'So maybe he was involved in one of the camp's uprisings. There were several of them, you know.'

  'I'm aware of that. I didn't see the name Golding in any of the accounts.'

  'Thousands were involved and died anonymously. He could have been one of the forgotten masses.'

  'Not so forgotten,' Rina said. 'Someone has his name even if he isn't a relative.'

  'Curiouser and curiouser.' Georgia glanced at her watch, not because she was in a hurry but because she was tense. 'What I tell you stays between us, all right?'

  'I hear you.'

  'I know this man - Oscar Adler. He's around ninety... from Czechoslovakia. But he was transported to Warsaw, then to Treblinka at the very end of the camp's existence. When the Nazis tried to burn the camp down - this was right before the Russian invasion - a rarefied few souls escaped and hid out in the woods of Poland. Even of those who escaped, most of them

  were returned to the Nazis by the Polish police. This man is a real survivor in every sense of the word. He's very coherent and very alert. But there's a problem.'

  She let the words hang in the air - either for dramatic effect or it was hard for her to vocalize them.

  'He won't talk about his experiences, Rina. I've begged and begged him to record his story for posterity. I've used every tactic known to mankind - he remains mute.'

  Not unlike Golding's father. 'Where do you know him from?'

  'He's in the same rest home as my uncle. You know me: I've got a big mouth, and old folk are the talkiest people in the world when you give them a chance. He let it slip one day that he survived Treblinka - kind of accidentally on purpose. You could have picked me off the floor. I was shocked beyond belief. I started thinking about how much good he could do for the Center. But when I mentioned it, he froze like an icicle. He turned red with fury and hypertension and told me under no circumstances was I allowed to mention his experience to anyone. I thought that was terribly unfair, but I was not about to give the man a coronary. So I've kept my promise, and as much as I'd like to bombard him with questions, I've kept my mouth shut. So far.'

  It was unfair, but who was Rina to judge someone who had gone through that monstrous ordeal? She said, 'It's a shame. I'm sure there are people out there who don't know what happened to their loved ones.'

  'Not in this case. Treblinka wiped out entire families - all generations. Now, once in a blue moon, I'll mention a name to Oscar. If he knows the name, he'll tell me yes or no. But so far, he hasn't known any names. That's because by the time he got to Warsaw, the Nazis were killing the Jews at such a fast rate, he never got a chance to know anyone for more than a week at a time. He only survived because he hid out until the bitter end.'

  'I guess at ninety, he feels that he earned the right not to talk.' Rina thought for a moment. 'Is there anything he especially likes to eat?'

  Georgina rocked her hand back and forth. 'Soup may be good.'

  'How about if I made him some homemade chicken soup? Or better yet if I make him some old-fashioned cabbage soup with boiled flanken?'

  'How about both?'

  'Easy enough. I'll make two pots. And I'll even include matzoh balls and kreplach with the chicken soup. Noncontingent upon his talking about his awful experience. He gets the soup no matter what.'

  'You may have something there.' Georgia shrugged. 'But don't be disappointed if he refuses to talk to you.'

  'Once he tastes my soup, he won't say no.' />
  Georgia stared at Rina. 'I'll tell him you're pretty. In addition to soup, Oscar's a sucker for a pretty face.'