Without Trace

by Rae Richen

  “Who are they, my friend?”

  “The ones who put us on trains, sent us to build those dangerous weapons.”

  “I don’t want that to happen to you. I want you to stay here as long as you need to.”

  Doctor Sartan had added, “Geneva, I believe your friend, Willie, is just making sure that you are not at the hospital without your consent.”

  Geneva had looked at Doctor Sartan and said, “Please, let me stay. I can tell my story, and be safe here.”

  Then she had turned to Willie. “Read my books. My favorite books. And read anything you find there. It’s all part of the plot. Read it.”

  Willie had begun to ask, “What plot ...?”

  But Doctor Sartan had shaken her head because Geneva became very agitated. “Let’s read and see if we can understand,” Doctor Sartan said.

  So Willie had gone into Geneva’s room, watered the plants and found another computer printed note under the door..

  “Keep your mouth shut. We’ll send you to Dora again if you talk.”

  A note from someone who had heard of Mittle-bau Dora, but clearly didn’t understand what it was, or what it really had been named. A threat from an idiot? From someone who didn’t listen carefully? Who understood only part and not all of what frightened Geneva ...?

  A someone who thought Geneva might talk about a thing that was a threat now.

  Willie had picked up the most recent reading on Geneva’s desk – neatly stacked as always, so hard to tell what she felt was most important.

  But she had dutifully brought them here and tried to find a hint in any of them.

  Nothing on Geneva’s desk spoke of trains from warehouses to workhouses.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  In the morning, Glyn crawled out of bed, opened the door and looked down the hall toward Geneva’s.

  Geneva was still visiting with her friend.

  Grandma Willie came up beside him. “Yesterday, she asked me to take care of her flowers. I’ve still got a key to her room. You go on down to work in the kitchen, and I’ll take care of this.”

  He looked at her, amazed she would care about the flowers. But then he read her face. She clearly steeled herself to face whatever the room would reveal about Geneva’s fears.

  **

  Once locked inside Geneva’s apartment, Willie recognized that Geneva’s neatness was absolute. However, still on the desk was her ledger for expenses.

  The first page showed many donations to the Wiesenthal Center and others to a local reformed synagogue. What caught Willie’s eye, though, were the deposits to Geneva’s account from the place where she had worked until about eight months ago.

  Larson Lumber and Woodland Supplies had been Geneva’s home for forty years. The payments stopped eight months ago, and since – only social security deposits. Forty years and no retirement benefits? No health benefits?

  Willie saw that donations to the Wiesenthal Center had suddenly risen at the time that Geneva left Larson Lumber. All these donations seemed to have come from her savings. And then there began to be donations to the Holocaust Museum and to a fund for the renovation of the Mittlebau-Dora Memorial.

  Willie left the bank statements where Geneva left them.

  She stepped over to Geneva’s book collection and took out a book by Elie Wiesel, a prize-winning author who had survived both Auschwitz and Buchenwald extermination camps, and had lost mother, sister and finally father to the Holocaust. Willie had seen Geneva reading and re-reading this book.

  And in the margins, Geneva had written notes.

  Inside the back cover, Willie saw a note in a different color of pen, perhaps written after the normal black-inked pen had run out, or before she bought the black-ink pen.

  The note stood out because of one word. Warehouse.

  This was the memory that Geneva had been worrying for the last several months. Warehouse.

  Willie read the notes around it and found other words that made no sense to her.

  Garlon and Crossbow.

  She would have to look these up. Crossbow? English crossbow was credited with increasing the firepower of the English army by many times. What did that have to do with warehouse, or with Geneva’s fears? and what was Garlon? Maybe some sort of French weapon.

  Willie decided to borrow the book. She lifted the next book, intending to pull it out somewhat so that she could replace this one appropriately when the time came.

  And then, she realized that the next book was not a book, but a box made to look like a book. She set it on the nearby desk and opened it.

  Out fell receipts – rental receipts for equipment belonging to

  Larson Lumber, the first was a backhoe rented to a company called International Relocation Services.

  “We Care for your Precious Objects.”

  Another receipt was for a building in Seattle, rented to Hiltown Moving. And a receipt for Pauls Trucking. Several others were stacked neatly in the box, as Geneva would do.

  Willie knew Geneva no longer worked for Larson Lumber. So, it was possible these had merely been forgotten when Geneva quit.

  Quit, but not retired, after forty-some years. That didn’t make any sense.

  But Geneva had not been making sense for months.

  Puzzled, Willie decided to borrow this book as well. She pulled other books into the space, so that these would not be missed if the wrong people came into this apartment.

  Next, she studied the desk, but found only neat rows of pens and a stack of paper. She went to the coat closet, reached back inside and found the key to her apartment hanging exactly where Geneva had once asked her to hang it. She pocketed it.

  A few minutes later she had watered Geneva’s flowerpots and carried the watering can back to her room. In her other hand, she carried the top few sheets of paper from the stack.

  Once in her room, she pulled out a drawing pencil and ran the side of the lead over the paper. Nothing showed up. She held it up to the light. Still nothing.

  So much for what you learn about detective work from television, she thought.

  Of course, it was possible Geneva had also known this trick and what she’d left on the stack was the second or third sheet below.

  Willie sat on her bed and tried to imagine what Geneva had been trying to tell her. It had always been difficult to know how much had been memory, and how much a real worry from the present.

  She glanced at the Elie Wiesel book and realized that the most continuous thread in their conversations had been warehouses of children.

  Children waiting for trains to extermination camps.

  Had those who threatened Geneva heard her talking this way and known that she knew something no one else should know?

  So, who had heard her ramblings and accusations?

  Nearly everyone in the dining room. But there was no way to know what the conversations meant to those who heard.

  Willie’s phone rang. When she answered, the voice at the other end was soft.

  “Mrs. Stamps, Leneld here.”

  Glyn came into her room. She waved him to quiet.

  “I’m here, Leneld,” she said.

  “I followed the guy who lives above the pharmacy, you know, the one Arwain was following. I lost him among the grocery warehouses and other buildings that back on the railroad.”

  “Are you whispering because you think he’s near?”

  “He must be, but I can’t see him.”

  “Leave your phone on. Put it in your shirt pocket and lean against a building to protect your back and then don’t move.”

  She heard him fumbling the phone into his pocket. She waited, holding a finger up to keep Glyn quiet.

  After a minute, she heard a voice, far away from Leneld’s phone.

  “Who are you and what you doing here?”

  “I’m Jane Fonda and I don’t want my dad to know I smoke.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Yeah. Well, my mom is just as much a dictator about smoking as anyb
ody I know, so I come here.”

  “But you’re not smoking.”

  “Need a light,” Leneld said.

  “A green light? Or white,” the voice asked.

  “Marlboroughs’ll kill my horse and he’s got arthritis. Green smokes would help his knees.”

  Willie shook her head, thinking, Stop smart-mouthing. Just get out of there.

  The voice said, “Too bad for you, I don’t use either. Just move on away from here,” the voice had gotten a lot closer.

  “You out for a walk? or you the security for the railroads?” Leneld asked.

  “I own this building, and you’re trespassing.”

  “Okay. Guess I’ll have a smoke with someone else.”

  “Git going.”

  Willie heard moving cloth. The next time she heard the voice, it seemed farther away.

  “I see you around here again, I’m calling the police.”

  Leneld hollered back. “I’m gone.” Just then he bumped into a shorter round man with balding hair.

  “ ‘scuse me,” Leneld said.

  “Get out,” the man said.

  Leneld scooted.

  Willie waited while he kept moving. She didn’t dare say anything in case others were around who might hear the voice in his pocket.

  After a few moments, Leneld whispered. “Got pen and paper?”

  She answered, “I do.”

  “199 SE 2nd Avenue”

  She heard traffic and loud brakes. “Get out of there.”

  “Catching the bus right now.”

  She waited, listening to the sounds of greeting the bus driver, the rustle of his shirt as he moved and, she thought, as he sat down. Then his voice came back on, close up. “I’m safe.”

  “Would you recognize the guy that accosted you?”

  “Yes. Tall, next to no hair, strong, but cushy.”

  “Cushy?”

  “Hasn’t used his strength in a long time.”

  “Ahhh. Cushy. Good word.”

  “There was a second guy,” he said. “Short, round balding, with a vacant stare.”

  “You should take up writing, Leneld.”

  “Think I will. Next week at the carcel, the prison.”

  “The guys there accepted you.”

  “See you soon, in the band’s carcel in Holly Hill basement.”

  She laughed. “Go home. Be safe.”

  “Nearly there. Good night.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  After Grandma described the phone call and Glyn took in the information about where Leneld was when he called, Glyn and Grandma Willie went over what they knew.

  Glyn said, “We need help, especially for Rosaria and her friend Liza. We have no clues about them, only the LeapFrog bus.”

  “And the boyfriend,” Grandma said. “This Chuck person. Police know who he is, but they haven’t found him yet.”

  “They know him? Why?”

  She said, “Captain Reese says they’ve had him in their sights as a drug dealer, but this seems beyond drugs.”

  “Or an extension,” Glyn said, “ a related business.”

  Grandma Willie glanced at him, biting her lips. After a moment, she said, “How is Violeta doing?”

  “I think she’s going to her school track work outs, and getting her homework done, but she’s very quiet, and trying hard to have a stiff upper lip.”

  “Scary stuff. Is she safe at the track? On the way home?”

  “Her dad picks her up from everywhere. His boss has told him to be where she is and come to work in between. The whole crew is worried for her.”

  “What does Mr. Aguirre do for a living?”

  “He’s part of a crew that works on tree farms. They plant, they harvest, they clear land and fertilize it. That sort of stuff.”

  Grandma Willie glanced up at him. “Do they own their own equipment? That’s expensive machinery.”

  “Gee, I don’t know. Never thought about that.”

  Grandma Willie stood up and shoved her walker toward her desk. “I want to show you something.”

  She pulled out a box that looked like a book, but opened on a pile of receipts.

  **

  The receipts box pointed them at a company, but they weren’t sure where that took them.

  Grandma Willie said, “Geneva was very logical until she stopped working, so let’s figure that something made her quit without waiting for retirement. She seems to have cut off all ties with Larson Lumber. I don’t get it. She hasn’t even tapped into her 401k, which she could do without contacting the company. And she has no pension, no company health coverage.”

  “So,” Glyn said, “maybe something went down there that made her feel unsafe – like get-out-now. And maybe she feared any contact with her retirement and was afraid her 401k would get back to the company, showing her home here at the retirement center.”

  “There may be more clues in her apartment, but

  the only one we have now is this box of receipts.”

  “Was she the bookkeeper?” Glyn asked.

  “She was the secretary to the chief financial officer.”

  “Let’s go through these, then, and see if there is some kind of pattern.”

  Twenty minutes later, Glyn said, “There are machine rentals – that’s about a third of what they do.

  “What kind of machines?” Grandma Willie asked.

  “Backhoes, ditch diggers, something called a Krummy, and personnel transport.”

  “Personnel transport. What’s that?”

  “Probably executive talk for ritzy cars,” Glyn said. “What’s a Krummy?”

  Grandma Willie said, “Woods talk for a basic van. It becomes crummy by jouncing over unpaved roads all day, every day.”

  “Oh, a long Jeep in forest green,” Glyn guessed. “Maybe the Jones Family Tree Farms need a Krummy.”

  “Your mom is about to buy one.”

  “Pretty much.” Glyn said.

  “What else is in that box?”

  “The Larson Lumber Company has three times more personnel transport vehicles than Krummies.”

  “In that stack of receipts? I saw Cross-bow.”

  “Yes,” Glyn said.

  “Cross-bow, something called Garlon and Ketalar.”

  “That sounds like chemicals Grandpa Jones, dad’s dad, and the family use d to use on the tree farm,” Glyn said.

  Grandma Willie sat there a moment and then said, “Hand me your cell phone, please.”

  Glyn handed it over and showed Grandma Willie how to turn it on. Then she stopped and asked. “Can you look up things on this phone, like on a computer?”

  “Sure. Here’s the internet icon.”

  She clicked on it and spoke as she spelled, “GARLON”.

  Studying the screen she said, “Hmmm... a weed killer.” She frowned. “Triclopyr.”

  Then she spelled out Cross Bow.

  “Ahh...tripclopyr and 2,4-D ... hormonal plant growth regulator. Wow! The Crossbow is now illegal for forestry use. Why are they selling that stuff?”

  Glyn asked, “But the Garlon is legal for forestry use, right?”

  “Right.”

  Glyn said, “What about that other stuff? That . . .?”

  “Ketalar?”

  Glyn grabbed his school backpack and hauled out his tablet computer. “Ketalar with a K?”

  “Yes.”

  After several punches at the keyboard he said, “Ketamine, sold as Ketalar is a medication mainly used for starting and maintaining anesthesia. Induces a trance-like feeling while providing pain relief, sedation and memory loss.”

  Grandma Willie stood up and stared out the window to the east. “What does a lumber company need with Ketalar?”

  “Get this, Grandma, it’s on the list of World Health Organizations Essential Medicines, the most effective and safe medicines needed in the health system.”

  She turned and stared at him. “Who are Larsons selling it to?”

  Glyn went back to the receipt
s. “The biggest shipment seems to go to Elmore’s Veterinary hospital.”

  She frowned. “I don’t think lumber companies have animals – not since the donkey was replaced by the steam engine.”

  “Injured loggers? Need sedation?” Glyn suggested.

  “Lumber company’s not a hospital, nor that far from medical help. And that’s a lot of Ketalar.”

  Gryf asked, “Why would a lumber company to be the source of Ketalar, and why sell so much to a Vet hospital?”

  “Good question.”

  “ Something’s backwards here,” he said.

  “Let’s get Captain Reese.”

  **

  An hour later, Captain Reese and Officer Seneca had Glyn, Grandma Willie, Leneld and Violeta pouring over photos of possible people – people who may have had anything to do with either Trace, Rosaria or Liza Cramer.

  At the same time, Reese asked for a warrant to search the books of Elmore’s Veterinary Hospital.

  In the perp photos, Leneld held up his photo album. “Here’s the guy Arwain followed from the high school to the pharmacy on Grand and I followed him to that area around Second Avenue.”

  Officer Seneca came over, saw who it was and said, “Man, you gotta tell her not to get into this stuff.”

  Leneld threw up his hands. “I don’t tell that one ‘not to’ anything.”

  Seneca glanced at Leneld and said, “I thought she was your girl.”

  “Arwain? She ...” and then he stopped, not sure how or whether to let Seneca in on the joke of the other day. “That Arwain is somethin’, but she is presently under the sole ownership of Arwain Jones.”

  Seneca blanched, took the number and name off the photo, and said in a low voice. “You got any sway with her?”

  “Her Grandma, maybe. Her mama, maybe. Nobody else I know tells Arwain what to do.”

  “This guy she followed – we think he’s killed over nothing. Suspicion of being laughed at, that’s enough for him to whip out a gun.”

  Leneld whipped out his phone. “Here’s her phone number. Text her. She’s probably in class at U of P during this hour.”

  Officer Seneca took the number into his cell, fumed a moment, started and then erased two text messages, and then strode over to Grandma Willie.