Paul Johnston - Maps of Hell

“Have you by any chance been working on guinea pigs in the depths of Maine?”

This time she kept quiet. I would be following that angle up later.

When we got to the house, I asked Clem to take Dana Maltravers in first and see if the twins knew her. I waited in the car for his call.

“Nope,” he said, after a couple of minutes. “No obvious signs of recognition.”

“Okay, I’m bringing in the Queen Bee.” I opened the car door and pulled Irma Rothmann out.

“What is this ridiculous game you are playing, Wells?” she demanded, as I led her toward the house.

I wanted to mess with her-maybe the twins would lose their respect if they saw her in a distressed state.

“You have no idea how much shit you’re in,” I said, my lips close to her ear. “If I find out you had anything to do with Joe Greenbaum’s death, I’m going to strangle you with my bare hands.”

Her face went even paler than it normally was, but she held her nerve. “Greenbaum?” she said, twisting her lips. “Is that a Jew name?”

“It’s a German name.” The woman was trying to rile me, too. I smiled. “Rothmann. That sounds quite Jewish, too.”

She looked away. I reckoned I’d won that round, and pressed the bell. Versace opened the door.

“So this is what a Nazi looks like,” he said, in a low voice. “Welcome to hell.”

I frowned at him.

“Sorry, Field Goal,” he said, stepping back. “My best friend at high school was a Jewboy. His grandparents were gassed by pieces of shit like her.”

I pushed the women in after him, wondering in how many states Jewboy was an acceptable term.

Pinker led us into the dining room. The table was laid with plates and cutlery and there were large bowls of chili, rice and salad. The smell was enticing, but the reaction of the twins to Irma Rothmann made me forget the food immediately. In the seconds before they saw her, they were sitting quietly at the far end of the table. The instant they took in the tall woman, their backs straightened and their expressions became ultraserious.

“No introductions necessary,” Clem said.

I was studying Gwen and Randy. They still hadn’t spoken, but I had the impression some sort of silent communication was under way. I turned to Irma Rothmann. Her expression was pinched, her eyes flicking from one twin to the other.

“You can talk to them, if you like,” I said.

For a few moments, she didn’t respond. Then she moved her bound hands upward slowly and said, “We are not in camp now.”

Gwen and Randy relaxed slightly, then looked at Dana Maltravers.

“Who’s she?” Randy asked.

Fraulein Rothmann glanced at me. “She is my daughter.”

The twins stiffened again. It struck me that they gave no sign of fear, for all the talk of the horrors they had experienced at the camp.

“Right,” I said, “it’s time for a question-and-answer session. Where can I take contestant number one?”

“Upstairs,” Versace said. “Use any of the bedrooms, but don’t you dare make a mess.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Clem.

“Better not. Let’s not leave your partner alone.” There was a strange aura about the twins and the professor.

Clem nodded, though it didn’t look like he was tuning into the vibes I was getting. I took Irma Rothmann upstairs and pushed her into the nearest bedroom.

“Can you unfasten my hands, please?” she asked.

“No chance.” I had Dana Maltravers’s gun, but I’d seen the emptiness in her mother’s eyes at Woodbridge Holdings and I wasn’t going to give her the slightest opportunity. I sat her down on the bed.

“I’m not going to talk,” she said, before I opened my mouth.

“So you say.” I took the pistol from my belt and laid it on the bed next to her.

She gave a contemptuous laugh. “You don’t frighten me. You are very far out of your depth, Matt Wells.”

I raised my shoulders. “All right. I’ll go and get Dana.”

She frowned. “What for?”

“Do you think the Gestapo had a monopoly on extreme methods of torture?” I was thinking of Joe again, and of Karen. I told myself again that she hadn’t been the woman I’d seen sacrificed; I willed myself to believe that was the case.

“She’s hurt,” Fraulein Rothmann said, more animated now. “You can’t-”

She broke off when I touched my groin. “Good-looking woman, your daughter,” I said, licking my lips ostentatiously. “I’m looking forward to giving her everything I’ve got.” I was not proud of this strategy.

“You’re disgusting,” Fraulein Rothmann said, spittle flying from her lips. “There are policemen downstairs. You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me. Have you see any warrants? This is hardly an official operation.” I got up and headed for the door.

“Stop!” she said, stretching out her bound hands. “Please! Leave Dana alone!”

“All right,” I said, going back to the bed. “But I won’t hesitate if I think you’re lying.”

She kept her eyes off me as I sat down next to her and picked up the gun.

“Where’s Karen Oaten?” I asked, my heart suddenly thundering. “I hope for your sake she’s still alive.”

“I don’t know.”

“But you do know who I’m talking about.”

“Of course.”

“I suppose you just saw the news reports of her disappearance.”

Her eyes burned into mine. “Don’t be ridiculous. She was in the camp, the same as you. I don’t know where she is now.”

I rocked back at the unexpected admission.

“Why was she there?”

“For the same reason you were. To learn the error of her ways.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” I demanded-I wanted her to spell out what she and her brother were doing.

Irma Rothmann sighed. “She was getting too close to an associate of Woodbridge Holdings.”

“Gavin Burdett.”

“If you know, why do you waste time asking?”

I let that go. “Has something been done to Karen’s memory?”

“Oh, I think so,” she said, with a tight smile. “Don’t you?”

I forced myself to move on. “The occult murders. Who’s the killer?”

“What makes you imagine I know?”

It was my turn to sigh. “We know of Woodbridge Holdings’s links to the North American Nazi Revival and the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant. You decided to make examples of occult people you didn’t approve of, didn’t you?”

She gave a harsh laugh. “Oh, come now.”

“Loki was an embarrassment to your puritanical movement. He made Nazism ridiculous.”

She pursed her lips.

“And Monsieur Hexie was black, Professor Singer was a Jew and Crystal Vileda was a Hispanic. Untermenschen, all of them.”

“I cannot argue with that characterization.”

“So who killed them?”

“I’m not sure,” she said, looking away.

She wasn’t sure, but she obviously had suspicions. The murderer had to have some relation to the Rothmann twins and their activities-the pairs of murder weapons, the choice of victims, the way I’d been framed as soon as I left the camp, Woodbridge Holdings’s timber and newspaper businesses-everything was connected.

Then I thought of the diagrams that had been attached to the victims: squares and rectangles in four different arrays-what did they mean? Lights flashed before me and I heard an echo of martial music; something I’d seen when I was under the machine in the camp, something that had started as shots of fences and guard towers, a gate with German words above it, rows and rows of huts…and then was mapped from above, into a composite picture…a familiar map of hell:

“Auschwitz,” I said, my voice faint.

A smile spread across the woman’s thin lips. “Ah, the maps,” she said slowly. “You understand them… Bravo.”