Desert Run

by Betty Webb

  Which would be fine if Rada Tesema had actually murdered Ernst. But regardless of the provocation, I still couldn’t see Tesema tying up an old man, however reprehensible, and beating him to death. How could I allow a man I believed innocent man to “swing a deal” for a crime he didn’t commit? Before I said this to Kryzinski, I remembered the rumors that Ernst’s U-boat had torpedoed civilian ships attempting to carry European Jews to Palestine. Could Tesema have killed Ernst as an act of vengeance for them? I was still mulling over this remote possibility when Kryzinski delivered the death blow to an already miserable day.

  “Lena, there’s something else you should know.”

  “Don’t tell me Tesema’s confessed.”

  “We should be so lucky. No, it’s about me.”

  My spine straightened, as it always does when I’m about to receive bad news. “Are you sick?” Remembering how pale he had been looking, I had a vision of him on his deathbed, wasting away from some terrible disease.

  The answer he gave was only slightly less terrible. “I’m tired of the Scottsdale bureaucracy, kid. I’m moving back to Brooklyn.”

  Now it was official. Everyone I loved was leaving me.

  Hadn’t that been the pattern for my entire life? Thirty-one years ago, my father left me when he died in a forest clearing, and shortly afterwards, my mother left me to die on a Phoenix street. Then Child Protective Services shuttled me from foster home to foster home, until I found one where Madeline—my fourth or fifth foster mother—could deal with my depressions and fits of violence. But after a year Madeline left me, too. True, she’d contracted breast cancer and the battle for her life had left her unable to cope with the rigors of raising a disturbed child, but her desertion was no less real for that. By the time she’d completed chemotherapy and her tests were clear, I’d disappeared back into the system, ending up in the horrific household where rape was a weekly occurrence.

  That “mother” and “father” had left me when I stabbed the family rapist. Next up on the Let’s-Leave-Lena list came Reverend Giblin, where once again I was foolish enough to relax, to believe I was safe with a decent, loving family. Wrong. Right around the time I started to act more like a normal human being than the animal I’d become, Mrs. Giblin suffered a stroke and died, and the geniuses at Child Protective Services decided that a widower shouldn’t take care of foster children without a woman’s presence. Although he protested all the way, the Rev ultimately left me, too.

  Now Jimmy was leaving me.

  And Captain Kryzinski.

  Was the Universe trying to tell me something?

  Maybe the Universe was trying to tell Kryzinski something, too. As we talked, it appeared that the new Scottsdale police chief had decided to “upgrade the department’s image” and start handling everything by the rule book. This meant, Kryzinski groused, that management should immediately cease what had been a cozy relationship with outside sources. No more judicious leaking of information in order to receive better information, no quid pro quo, no unhealthy fraternization with PIs such as myself.

  “The world’s changing, Lena,” Kryzinski said. “Individualism’s out, bureaucracy’s in, and Big Brother’s watching us all. The other night I was talking to Steve, my son-in-law who just quit NYPD to start his own PI agency. He says it’s like this back there on the Force now, too, rules and regs up the ass. Hell, it’s so bad that most of those new college cops have science degrees. Private work is the only place left now where an old cop can do things the way he wants to do them. So I’m going back to Brooklyn and work for Steve. With him, actually. We’ll be full partners, like you and Jimmy.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Did I hear that right? You’re going to turn PI?” My mind was churning.

  “It’s either that or retire, and I’m not ready to hang ’em up yet.”

  “Jesus, boss. I’ve got an opening right here at Desert Investigations. Jimmy’s leaving to make big bucks with Southwest MicroSystems.”

  A long, long silence. Then he broke my heart all over again. “It wouldn’t work, kid.”

  “Yes it would!” It was all I could do to keep from screaming, please don’t leave me, please don’t leave me.

  He broke through my misery with a chuckle. “I appreciate the offer, but don’t you see? I’m too used to telling you what to do, and to start flipping that around would get real uncomfortable real fast. Nah, my mind’s made up. There’ll be no problem working with Steve ’cause we worked different precincts when I was back there. Besides, I miss my grandkids. All my family’s there, you know.”

  There it was, the “F” word again. Family.

  Everybody had one but me.

  Chapter Eleven

  I couldn’t stand it, I simply couldn’t stand it.

  With a quick glance outside, I saw that the skies were still blue and the sun was still shining. Life would go on. Nevertheless, I shoved away from my desk, hit the lights, and locked up. When Jimmy returned from lunch, he could answer the phones. For now, I was getting the hell out of the office.

  I dashed upstairs to change into something more upscale than my Wal-Mart turtleneck and jeans, then headed for Papago Park. After parking the Jeep next to the Studebaker Golden Hawk—it looked prettier every day—I ambled slowly onto the set trying to act casual. No point in letting Warren realize how desperately I needed to be with someone who still had feelings for me. Irrational, perhaps, but I didn’t care. I stationed myself between Harry Caulfield, looking more like a pirate than ever with his crooked grin and eyepatch, and Mark Schank, who was here either as a film buff or to make a buck off the Golden Hawk. Given his avaricious expression, my betting was on the latter. At the time, though, both men were intently watching Warren direct Frank Oberle, who looked thrilled to be taking over Ernst’s place.

  I felt better just listening to Warren’s soothing voice. “Now, Frank, what I want you to do is sort of meander around underneath the guard tower where you used to be stationed, and say whatever comes into your mind. Talk about the Germans, how nice they were, how well you guards got along with them. And don’t worry about anything, you’ll be great. If you flub up, which I doubt you’ll do because you’re a natural, we’ll just do it again.”

  Oberle ingnored Warren’s flattery. “Them Germans weren’t all nice. Kapitan Ernst…”

  Warren interrupted with a pained smile. “This scene’s the film’s emotional payoff, so let’s try to stay positive.”

  “Listen, son, if you’d a lived through World War II like me, you’d know what to do with all that positivity crap. Das Kapitan was a thug and I’m glad he’s in hell.” But he did as Warren directed, hobbling on his false leg across the rocky ground, stopping once to prod his cane at a rusted beer can, talking all the while. The camera and sound crew followed, skipping nimbly over the cactus.

  Oberle’s voice carried toward us on the soft April breeze. “I remember the night of the escape like it was yesterday, especially the Christmas carol those Germans was singin’. Stille Nacht. It made everybody feel warm and fuzzy-like, you know, two nations, one faith, Baby Jesus gettin’ born and all that rot. Some of us guards sang along with them. Course, what we didn’t know was that the Germans was just usin’ all that commotion to cover the sounds their buddies was makin’ as they crawled on their bellies like snakes through the tunnel. The sneaky bastards.”

  Harry chuckled and Warren rolled his eyes, but kept the cameras rolling.

  Oberle pointed up at the reconstructed guard tower. “There’s where I was stationed that night, in Guard Tower Two, overlookin’ Compound 1A, where they escaped from,” Oberle said. Then he squatted down and slapped his hand on the ground. Warren was right: Oberle was a natural. “You can still see here how the ground’s all sunk in from the tower’s weight.” Using his cane for leverage, he stood up. “Problem was, there’s a blind spot here, all the way from Guard Towers Two and Three, and us guards could never see everything that was goin’ on with those German boys. Captain Parshall, th
e camp’s provost marshal, warned the high mucky-mucks about the blind spot, but they ignored him. So guess where the Germans dug, huh? Unlike our pointy-headed brass, they wasn’t fools.”

  Beside me, Harry chuckled again. I knew he’d heard it all before, but the tale his buddy spun about the ‘pointy-headed’ brass’ screw-ups warmed the cockles of his old enlisted-man’s heart. Near us, several extras stood smiling and nodding. Most were tall, blond-haired and blue-eyed, cast for their resemblance to their real-live counterparts. All were dressed in khaki pants and shirts with PRISONER OF WAR stamped in large letters across their backs. Their uniforms contrasted vividly with the high-tech film equipment that surrounded us, making me feel as if we were all wobbling around in a time warp. And in a way, we were. A twenty-first-century film was being made on top of the remains of a World War II prison compound, which in turn had been built on top of the remains of an ancient Hohokam Indian village. If ever I needed a reminder that the past never died, this was it.

  After a while, Oberle and Warren drifted out of hearing range and I grew bored. It was then that I noticed Lindsey, who had been studying the shooting schedule, staring at me. Curious, I left Harry to Mark Schank’s sales spiel about a 1946 Chevrolet coupe and wandered over to her. “Nice day, huh?” When you can’t think of anything to say, talk about the weather. Which is why conversations can get so boring in Arizona. We don’t have a lot of weather to talk about. Except for summer, when we fry.

  Lindsey didn’t appreciate my attempt at friendliness. Waving the shooting schedule at me, she snapped, “Can’t you see I’m busy here?” Although almost Warren’s age, in her early forties, she still looked like a runway model with her impeccable black linen slacks and shirt, flawless makeup, and hair as glossy as a television shampoo commercial. She always made me feel sloppy.

  “Just making conversation.” I began to walk away, but what she said next stopped me in my tracks.

  “Stay away from him.”

  Him? I glanced back over at the barrier tape, where Mark Schank was handing Harry his business card. Did he think the retired deputy was in the market for a Deusenberg? Beyond the two, standing on a small rise, were Warren and Oberle. “Stay away from who, Lindsey?”

  “You know damn well who, you bitch.” Lindsey’s eyes danced with malice. Then she turned and walked away, until she became hidden behind a large lighting umbrella.

  Mark Schank was right. Life throws curve balls.

  ***

  As I drove toward MaryEllen Bollinger’s North Scottsdale condo, I made a mental note to call my therapist. In the meantime, I vowed not to think about my own unhappiness. This lasted until the first afternoon rush hour slow-down on Loop 101, when my frustrations boiled over and I cursed at the witless drivers around me before realizing the true targets of my rage were Jimmy and Kryzinski. One was leaving me for a woman, the other for a city.

  How fair was that?

  Without her theatrical makeup, MaryEllen looked much younger than she had at The Skin Factory and I envied her peaches-and-cream complexion while deploring the big shiner that marred it. After she settled me on the white sofa and poured me a cup of chamomile tea I started right in. “As I said on the phone, I still have a few questions, but first, I need to ask you something, if only to satisfy my own curiosity. The cops gave you a speeding ticket near Anthem at four a.m. on the night of Ernst’s murder. What were you doing up there?” I already knew what she’d told the cops, but I wanted to hear it from her, because a wee hours trip to the far north housing development still made no sense to me. If she’d have kept going, she’d have wound up in Flagstaff.

  When she smiled, MaryEllen looked about nineteen. “I was going to visit Clay. My boyfriend.”

  “The guy who gave you the shiner, right?.”

  She reached a manicured hand to the bruise. “I didn’t have it then. That came later.”

  In other words, after the cops stopped her she continued on her way, and sometime later that night—or morning, to be exact—her boyfriend hit her. “What did you and Clay fight about?”

  “We had a disagreement over where the relationship was headed. But that’s been settled now.” She sipped slowly at her tea, savoring the delicate flavor.

  From the other room, I could hear her roommate moving about. At least I hoped it was her roommate, not the eye-smacking Clay. It had been my experience that women like MaryEllen forgave and forgot too quickly, convinced that they couldn’t do any better, anyway. “Okay, let’s move on. You’ve said you confronted Ernst, hoping he’d confess and that it didn’t work out, but here’s my next question. When he first opened the door and saw you, what did he look like?”

  She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “Did it look like he just woke up, or did it look like he’d been up for a while?” There was a chance Ernst had entertained an earlier visitor, and the person was still there, hidden out of sight in a back room.

  “Oh. Yeah, I got the bastard out of bed. The lights were out when I arrived, but it didn’t take him long to get to the door. Less than a minute.”

  Transferring from bed to the wheelchair would have entailed a certain amount of effort and time, so her answer didn’t sound right. I pictured Ernst, lying in bed, waking to the sound of someone banging at the door. He would have to raise himself by his arms, somehow swing off the bed over to the wheelchair, then position himself there. “Was he dressed in street clothes or pajamas?”

  “Slacks and a shirt. Because of, um, him not having any legs, the slacks were pinned up.”

  Another answer that didn’t make sense. Not only would Ernst have had to make the bed-to-wheelchair transfer, but also get dressed. Unless he slept in his clothes. But why would he do that? “Exactly what did he say when he opened the door?”

  She gave a bitter laugh. “You think he said, ‘So glad you could drop by, my dear’? Not hardly. He asked me what the hell I thought I was doing, banging on his door in the middle of the night.”

  “To which you said….”

  “I asked him if he recognized me.”

  Her answer took me off guard. “How could Ernst recognize you? You told me that every time you went by the set, you made sure he didn’t see you, that all you did was call him on the phone.” Now that I considered it, her caution made no sense. What difference would it have made if he saw her or not? She would have been just another spectator.

  “Because Daddy always said I looked like his little sister.”

  Ten-year-old Jenny Bollinger, who’d been murdered in 1944 along with the rest of her family. “Did Ernst recognize you?”

  “Only after I said who I was. Well, let me rephrase that. He said he didn’t but I’m pretty sure he was lying.”

  MaryEllen was somewhere in her twenties, and the night she’d gone over to Ernst’s house, she had been slathered in stage makeup. Considering the sixty years that had passed since the Bollinger murders, it would have surprising if Ernst saw a family resemblance, even if he’d been in the Bollinger farmhouse in the first place. I dropped that line of questioning. “Tell me about Ernst’s house, what it looked like.”

  She gave me a look of disbelief. “You want the Better Homes and Gardens tour?”

  “Was it neat? Or did it look like someone had been rifling through things?”

  “Say, what’s this all about? Are you accusing me of theft? Ernst had nothing I wanted, other than the truth!”

  That I believed. MaryEllen didn’t have the emotional makeup of a thief. In her own topless dancer way, she was much too naive. “When the police searched the house, it looked like someone had been trying to find something. I’m only trying to discover if that happened before you got there or after.” And why Ernst answered the door fully dressed.

  “Sorry. I guess I’m pretty touchy these days. The answer to your question is no, the house—what I could see of it—looked perfectly normal. But I never went beyond the living room.“

  If she was telling the truth, Kryzinski was rig
ht, and Rada Tesema was probably the person who’d gone through the house in search of his Star of David, leaving a trail of bloody fingerprints. Hiding my disappointment, I said, “Let’s see if I have the time line straight. On the night of Ernst’s murder, after your shift at The Skin Factory, you drove over to his house and woke him up. His place hadn’t been rifled yet. Afterwards, you drove thirty miles north to Anthem and had a fight with your boyfriend. Tell me, did you get into any more arguments that night? Or after your boyfriend gave you the black eye, did you call it a day and go home?”

  She actually laughed. “It does sound crazy when you put it that way, doesn’t it? Look, I’ll admit I was pretty revved up that night. I’d been planning on getting the truth out of Ernst ever since I found out that he was living here in Scottsdale. And as it happens, Clay had stopped by The Skin Factory just before my shift and told me…Well, never mind what he told me. Let’s just say I was feeling pretty pissed off when I left the club and decided that the time was right to settle some old scores.”

  We talked for a little while longer, but she had no more information to give me. Then, just as I was about to leave, she stopped me. “Don’t you want to ask my father about Ernst?”

  I stopped dead. “Your father’s still alive?”

  An odd expression settled on her face. “In a manner of speaking. He has Alzheimer’s, and isn’t all that lucid anymore. Which is just as well.”

  The excitement I’d started to feel faded. Alzheimer’s meant that his memory, or what remained of it, would be spotty. On the off chance that he might be able to help, I took down the address of his nursing home. At the door, I turned and asked her one final question.

  “You said you wanted to settle old scores that night. First with Ernst and then with your boyfriend. Did it work out?”