The Forgotten (21 page)

Decker asked, “Polish Jews didn’t speak Polish?”

“The rare educated ones did; those that lived in the city did. But most Polish Jews were very poor and lived in these small border villages. They were ghettoized even before the Warsaw Ghetto became official—do you know about the Warsaw Ghetto?”

Both of them shook their heads.

Rina ran her hand over her face. “When the Nazis were stepping up their eradication of the Jews, they herded them all in an area in Warsaw to keep track of them. It made the extermination easier. It’s not important right now. Maybe it’ll be important later on.”

Golding tapped his toe. “And what does it mean if my father spoke Polish?”

“Did he?” Rina asked.

Golding waited before answering. “Ernesto showed me
some papers…in my father’s handwriting. The language wasn’t German. And it wasn’t a Romance language either. Maybe it was Polish.”

“All right,” Rina said. “That tells me that your father was either an educated Jew or city Jew or…he wasn’t Jewish, but a Pole.”

Decker said, “Where did Ernesto get his information from?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. I…” His eyes misted up. “I haven’t gone through his school papers. I suppose there might be information there.” He sighed. “He told me that an Isaac Golding had died in a Polish camp. I don’t remember the name. At that point, it didn’t seem consequential. Maybe the written language was Russian.”

“You’d know if it were Russian,” Rina said. “They have a different alphabet.”

“Yes, of course.”

Rina said, “The big cities in Poland have some records, you know.”

“I know, but I don’t know how to…” He sighed. “Everything in that part of Europe is so foreign to me. My father…he gave me nothing about his past. He used to say that now we are in America, and that’s all that mattered. He considered himself an American. He was very angry with me when the Vietnam War came and I protested against it. Though he never raised his voice, I’m sure he thought I was ungrateful. The subtleties of First Amendment rights were as foreign to him as the sixties’ hippie, drug-laden culture.”

Rina cleared her throat. “I was planning on going to the Tolerance Center in the next day or two. They have archivists there whose specialties are filling in blanks. If you give me Ernesto’s school papers, maybe I can look through them—”

“Not until we do,” Decker interrupted. He regarded Golding. “I’d like to go over your son’s room first thing this morning.”

Golding nodded permission. “If you think it will help
bring the monster to justice. I have my own opinions, of course.”

“Which are?”

“That the horror had nothing to do with my son,” Golding stated. “Dr. Dee Baldwin was murdered miles away from my boy. He was just in the wrong place….” The man looked away. “You can go through his room if you have to. But I have my doubts.”

“Thank you,” Decker said.

“And if you find anything relevant to my father, you will give the papers to your wife…so she can check it out with the Holocaust Center’s archivist?”

And what could Decker say to that? “Mr. Golding—”

“Carter, please.”

“Carter, what if the information is…painful to you?”

“I already said that nothing could compare. I owe this to Ernesto. And I will do this for him! And if you can help me, you’d be doing something for Ernesto as well. But if there’s a conflict, I’ll hire someone privately.”

“It may come to that,” Decker said.

“In the meantime, maybe your wife can find out something.” Golding reached into his pocket and pulled out a colored Polaroid of an elderly man, Carter, and two burgeoning adolescents. “The most recent picture I have of my father. Dad was notoriously camera shy.” He looked down. “If he were a wanted man, that would make sense.”

Rina took the photograph and studied it—a study of three generations. Grandfather Yitzchak was flanked by Carter on the left and the boys on the right. Carter and his sons wore T-shirts, jeans, and big smiles. Grandfather Yitzchak had on an old narrow-lapel black suit, white shirt, and a thin tie to match. His expression was not exactly stern…more like shy. “How old is this?”

“Four years. Dad was seventy-eight. He was the last of my family to go. Mom died ten years earlier.”

Rina nodded. “And the boys?”

“Ernesto was thirteen, Karl was eleven.”

“All I can do is try.” Rina stood, snapshot still in hand. “I’d better go check on Sammy.”

“The boy with the phylacteries?”

“Yes, he just got back from Israel.”

“Go check on him.” Golding stood and held out his hand. “Thank you, Mrs. Decker.”

She took his hand, securing the agreement to help him. As soon as Rina left, Golding began to pace, making tracks with mindless, nervous motion. “I need to get back to Jill…and Karl.”

“When may I look at your son’s room?”

Golding checked his watch. “My goodness, it’s early. How about in two hours? At eight or eight-thirty?”

“I’ll be there.”

“Lieutenant, when can we bury our son? I know you’re conducting an investigation, but my wife and I need some…some…”

“Closure.”

“Something tangible to weep over.” Again Golding looked away.

Decker said, “I’ll try to have him released as soon as possible. Can I help you with anything else?”

Golding shook his head. “Not unless you can raise the dead.”

Rina’s late husband’s last name was Lazarus. Decker kept his face neutral, not knowing if the name was an omen for positive outcome or irony.

Sipping coffee, Decker
sat at the kitchen table, the paper opened in front of him, and pretended to be casual. “I have problems with your searching for the identity of Golding’s father, Rina. For all I know, it might be the reason behind the murder.”

Rina adjusted the kerchief on her head, then sliced strawberries into a bowl of cereal. “All the more reason for you to find out what’s going on.”

“I agree.” Decker looked up. “It’s exactly how you said it. All the more reason for
me
to find out. Me, not you.”

“And
which
of your detectives knows the area of post Holocaust Jews?”

“Rina—”

“Excuse me. I have to go feed your daughter.” She marched out of the kitchen, marching back in a minute later. “You had no idea what questions to ask Golding. And even if you had stumbled upon the right questions, you’d have no idea what the answers would have meant. And
you’re
the best of the lot.”

“Now you’re being chauvinistic.”

“Peter, I am doing the man a favor—parent to parent.”

“And I am trying to run a murder investigation.”

“Even better. I’ll tell you everything I find out.”

Decker rolled his eyes.

“Don’t give me that!” Rina scolded him. “Didn’t you ask me to take Tom Webster to the Tolerance Center?”

“To give him their information on hate groups. Not for genealogy.”

“So while he’s looking at hate groups, I’ll talk to the archivist.” She looked at him with defiant eyes. “Don’t you have to be somewhere?”

“You’re trying to get rid of me?”

Rina regarded her husband’s hurt face. Sighing, she pulled up a chair and sat next to him. He put down the paper, took a final drink of coffee, and shrugged her off. “I’ll go now.”

“Stop.” A pause. “I’m sorry.”

“Why do we have these stupid conflicts?” Decker growled. “You shouldn’t be involved in my business.”

“You had no qualms about asking me to take Tom Webster—”

“So now I changed my mind. Tom can figure it out himself.”

It was Rina’s turn to be offended. “Fine. Solve your own cases.”

“Thank you very much, I will.”

No one spoke.

“What is it, Peter?” Rina blurted out. “An ego thing?”

“C’mon!”

Silence.

Rina checked her watch. “Are you taking Hannah to school?”

“I will if you want me to.”

“She likes it. She enjoys time with her father.”

She got up. Decker held her arm. She looked at him with downcast eyes.

“I hate this!” he said. “You’re giving me heart palpitations.”

“That’s caffeine. Or old age. Don’t blame your palpitations on me!”

“Old age? That’s mean, Rina! True…but mean.”

It was mean. Rina sat down. “Sorry.”

“I’m worried,” Decker said.

“Peter, no one is going to come after me for trying to find Isaac Golding’s true identity.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

Rina was touched by his admission. His fear came from caring. She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Peter, this is
your
case. I have enough obligations without adding conflict with you. Okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“You’re brushing me off.”

“I’m in a terrible bind. I want information that you can help me with, but I feel like I’m betraying some protective husband code by getting you involved.”

“Why don’t you let me be the judge?” Rina hesitated. “What do you
really
need from me?”

A good question. He said, “Tom is perfectly capable of getting information from the Tolerance Center. But since you’ve been setting up this hate prevention council, I figured you’ve done lots of the research work on local hate groups…. You could give him some background, so he’ll know how to ask the right questions.”

“That’s certainly true.”

“And by your being there, you can help him ask the right questions if he gets stuck.”

“Fine.”

“Also, by being with someone he knows…even tangentially…he’ll feel less like a fish out of water.”

“I have no problem going to the Center with him, Peter.”

Decker gave her a weak smile. “I really do appreciate your help.”

She smiled back. “I know.” A pause. “Anything else?”

“No, that’s it.”

“All right,” Rina said. “But now I have a problem. You have to figure out a way to help Carter Golding so I don’t appear to be going back on my word.”

A quandary. Decker said, “Exactly how does one go about finding an anonymous concentration-camp victim?”

“First of all, Isaac Golding isn’t anonymous. He has a name. There are lists, Peter. The Center has archives.”

“So all that you’ll be doing is looking at lists?”

“I don’t really know.” Rina got up and poured a cup of coffee for herself. “What exactly did Ernesto tell you?”

“That there was a discrepancy between the supposed date of his grandfather’s arrival in Argentina and the actual date he did arrive. Then he told me that he had found an actual Yitzchak Golding, but he had died in the camps. I was thinking that maybe his grandfather just made up the name.”

“Could be, although it doesn’t sound random to me. If Grandpa had been a Nazi who had wanted to pass himself off as a Jew after the war, what better way to present yourself than as a dead man? No one showing up to prove you wrong. Where was Ernesto’s Yitzchak Golding from?”

“I don’t know, but he supposedly died in a Polish camp.” Decker mulled over his thoughts. “I believe he told me a name. I have his entire confession on tape. I’ll replay and tell you the name he told me if you promise not to fink on me.”

“Scout’s honor.”

“The camp wasn’t Auschwitz, that much I remember. If you name some others for me, I may recognize it.”

She furrowed her brow. “Auschwitz was the main camp in Poland. I don’t know all the others by heart. Hold on. Let me get a Jewish encyclopedia.”

Rina was gone for several minutes. She came back holding a big blue tome. “Let’s see…Auschwitz, Betzec, Sobibor, Treblinka—”

“That’s it.”

“Treblinka?”

“Yes, I’m positive.”

“Hold on.” Rina left and came back moments later, holding another blue volume. “In operation from 1941 to 1943. It was designed as a liquidation camp—about 870,000 people exterminated—”

“Good Lord!” Decker couldn’t fathom that many people dying in one geographical spot.

“Auschwitz killed more,” Rina said. “That’s because Auschwitz was around longer. Almost three years longer.”

“What do you mean ‘designed’ as a liquidation camp? Weren’t they all…that?”

“Some of them—like Auschwitz—were officially labeled ‘forced labor’ camps, others were ‘holding centers.’ Both are misnomers because the end results were the same. People were either murdered or died due to starvation, exposure, or disease. According to this article, there are very, very,
very
few survivors from Treblinka because its specific purpose was to exterminate the Jewish population of Poland.”

“Who was in control of it? The Germans or the Poles?”

“Germans, with the Poles being willing accomplices.” Her eyes skimmed across the pages, taking in the horrors with little emotion. “Escapees who were caught were shot on the spot or hanged as examples…those that did make it into the surrounding area were turned in by the villagers. There were some efforts of resistance…. Dr. Julian Chorazycki…SS men’s physician. He was an inmate—”

“Jewish?”

“Yes…he and some others gathered contraband weapons with the help of the Ukrainians, but he was caught and put to death. Zelo Bloch led an uprising of fifty to seventy men. He was also put to death. Then Germans burned the camp down…about seven hundred and fifty escaped, but only seventy survived to see liberation.” Rina looked at her husband. “If that was Carter Golding’s father, he was certainly one of the rarified few—70 out of 870,000. It defies logic.”

Decker said, “Even if he had been one of the lucky ones, what are the odds that his mother, father, and sister also survived?”

“Nil,” Rina said. “Ernesto was on to something. Where did he say he got his information from?”

“He claims he got it off the Internet,” Decker said. “I think that’s bogus. Does the Center have lists of survivors from Treblinka?”

“I’m sure they do.” Rina thought long and hard. “Peter,
what did you do with those awful pictures Ernesto left behind after he vandalized the synagogue?”

“We bagged them. They’re somewhere in the bowels of the evidence room. What are you thinking? That they could be a link to Isaac’s identity?”

“Maybe the dress or faces or area would point to a specific camp.”

Decker said, “As I recall, most of them looked like anonymous dead bodies.”

“Anonymous dead Jews.” She was dispirited.

“I’ll pull them from the evidence room, Rina. You never know.”

From the hallway, they both heard Hannah asking if it was time to go yet. Rina looked at the clock. “Oh my goodness, it’s a half hour past the start of school!”

Decker stood. “That means I’m a half hour late.”

“I’ll take her—”

“No, I’ll take her. I want to take her.” Decker grabbed Rina to his chest before she could run off, and kissed her hard on the lips. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. And you’re not old, by the way!”

“I am old. But I don’t care because I have a young wife…well, not so young anymore—”

“Now who’s being mean?” Rina slugged him on his shoulder. “Are you feeling okay about this, Akivaleh?”

“I love when you call me Akivaleh. It means you’re not mad at me.”

“I’m never mad at you.”

“Nonsense, you’re mad at me all the time.” He grinned. “I’m just not home enough to see it. Watch yourself. Lots of kooks out there.”

“I could say the same for you.”

“You could. But it wouldn’t help.”

The room was depressing because it was so static, as if expecting its occupant to walk in at any moment, like a puppy waiting for its tardy master. Decker could tell that once the
space had been alive: a changing diorama reflecting Ernesto’s whims and wishes, from the choice of CDs to the posters on the wall. The boy’s workstation was almost 360 degrees of desktop, hugging the room. Ernesto had an elaborate stereo system, an elaborate computer system, a VHS player, a DVD player, a fax machine, and a phone—state-of-the-art wherever Decker looked.

The boy with everything: now he was a statistic.

On the shelving above the counters were rows of videos, stacks of CDs, dozens of athletic trophies, wrinkled candy wrappers, old letters, overdue library books, piles of papers, notebooks, textbooks, and about thirty paperbacks, most of them fiction. The room had three doors—one to the bathroom, another leading to a walk-in closet, and a third that connected to a common hallway. A queen-size bed sat in the middle of the floor and was covered by a comforter emblazoned with a leopard-skin print. It made a perfect spot for sorting and stacking the piles of paper that Ernesto had left behind.

Decker pulled out the first stack and dug in.

Two and a half hours later, he had gone through six years of Ernesto’s life via his schoolwork. The boy was a decent student—better than Jacob had been in his old days—but not a superior student. He had organizational problems with his homework, with his math problems, with his essays. No surprise, judging by the entropy of the room, although the two aspects—neat room and organized schoolwork—weren’t always correlated. Sammy was a slob, but systematic when it came to his papers. Jacob was compulsively neat, but disorganized. Paying arduous attention to detail, Decker checked every drawer and every shelf and went through the bedding. He looked behind the machines, knocked on walls, and checked the floorboards. He found lots of loose paper, but nothing regarding a family tree project. Furthermore, Decker couldn’t even find notes or drafts or a hint of his research.

Maybe Ernesto had come to terms with his origins and had thrown out all the ancient history. There were no newsletters
or computer printouts from any white supremacy or neo-Nazi groups, no flyers from PEI, and no photographs of SS officers or dead Jews. Decker didn’t find any obscene letters from Ruby Ranger.

The bathroom was just as devoid of clues. On the countertops were acne creams, pills for seasonal allergies, a prescription dandruff shampoo. He searched through the towel cabinet, the sundry cabinet, the medicine cabinet. He opened old bottles and smelled them. Shook out a bottle of talcum powder, sniffed it, put it to the tip of his tongue and grimaced. It was talcum powder. Ernesto had no telltale colored pills, no hidden hypodermics, no contraband that Decker could detect. The most controversial item on the shelf was a box of condoms.

He moved on to the walk-in closet.

It had been stuffed with shirts—polo shirts, casual shirts, Hawaiian shirts, T-shirts (lots and lots of T-shirts), muscle shirts, and tank tops. He had slacks in every color, he had jeans in every style, he had khakis, he had twills, he had corduroys, he had woolens, he had cottons, he had suits and a half-dozen sports jackets, including two preppy blue blazers. Ernesto owned racks of shoes.

Decker sighed and refrained from rubbing his forehead because his hands were gloved.

He began to open the built-in drawers.

More T-shirts. Dress shirts, too, laundered and folded. Shorts and bathing trunks. Underwear consisted of both jockeys and boxers—all of it very ordinary, except for the quantity, and very depressing.

Two separate sock drawers—one for athletic white crew socks, the other for colored dress socks that smelled slightly herbal.

Decker began unraveling balls of socks. He found a stash, not more than a few ounces of marijuana. That was it for drugs. But he did notice something unusual about the athletic sock drawer. When it was pulled out to its maximum, it was shorter than the other drawer by at least six inches.

Decker tried to remove the drawer from the gliders so he could look behind them, but it remained firmly affixed. Resisting the urge to yank it off by brute force, he applied reason instead of frustration. There had to be some kind of release button. He removed all the socks and pored over the empty drawer. Seeing nothing, he felt with his fingertips, and discovered a small depression not much bigger than a pen nub in the back left-hand corner. He took out a pen and punched the depression. Immediately, the drawer loosened from the brackets. Decker took it out and peeked inside the dead space.