Faye Kellerman: Street Dreams

Book 15 in the Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus series, 2003

Because the murder hadbeen kept “secret” for so long, it had taken on mythological proportions. Yet here was the proof, the tangible evidence that it really had happened. In the dead of night, in the privacy of her own home, Rina gingerly slit open the manila envelope postmarked from Munich and, with shaking hands, pulled out the papers within, photocopies of documents dated from the late 1920s. Mama had always said she was ten when it happened, but now it appeared that she’d been even younger. The faded writing would be almost indecipherable even if it had been in English. It was going to take more than her knowledge of Yiddish to make out the text.

The envelope had arrived in the late-afternoon mail. This was her first opportunity to view the pages without the kids or Peter as distractions.

Peter.

She hadn’t told him. It had happened so spontaneously, during one of Rina’s solo strolls through the Bavarian capital, getting some air while he had been sleeping off jet lag. She had taken the walk to shake off that niggling restlessness plaguing her since the plane had touched down on German soil.

To think that she had chosen Munich for leisure. Then again, she’d had only one week to plan something, so her options had been limited. Mainly, she had given in to laziness. She had been so tired after New York ’s ordeal that she was more than willing to leave it up to a third party. And it wasn’t as if she and Peter had any choice. Peter was on the verge of total shutdown. They needed to get away.

Things were better now-or so she told herself-but were still far from normal. Rina had been privy only to the superficial facts, to what Peter had told his superiors and the press about the murders and his being shot. But there was much more lurking in his gray matter. Incidents that he didn’t choose to share with her, though thankfully, he had done some talking to his cop brother, Randy.

God bless Randy. He had demanded that they go, and go alone, assuring them that he’d watch over Hannah so that Peter’s parents wouldn’t have to shoulder the entire burden alone. It had been desperation that led them to Europe, to a week in Munich with everything set up by Rina’s friend Ellen Nussburger.

I can’t believe I’m actually agreeing to this, Rina had told her.

You won’t be sorry, Ellie had responded. It won’t be anything like you think.

But it had been like she’d thought, her gut constricting as soon as she’d heard German as a living language. She had purposely declined going to Dachau. What Peter didn’t need was more destruction in his life, or in her life-come to think about it. But there remained a certain heaviness throughout the week, because it was impossible to walk the cobblestones of Kaufingerstrasse in the Marienplatz without thinking about all the Jewish blood that had been spilled on German soil. Every time they passed the Hofbrauhaus beer hall, it was as if ghosts were belting out the “Horst Wessel Song.”

The saving grace was Ellie’s work. Here was a woman who was trying to build up a religious Jewish community, not toss it into the furnace. The fact that Ellie and her husband, Larry, chose Germany was a testament to their nonconformity, but that was Ellie to a T. Rina remembered their years together in school, in kindergarten when both of them had been five years old and it had been Purim. All the other girls had dressed up as Queen Esther or some other unnamed princess. There were also a few ballerinas, several clowns, and a couple of butterflies. Ellie had come to school wearing a homemade costume that wasn’t much more than a sack. It was designed in sandwich-board style with two sides. The front was imprinted with a blue sky and white fluffy clouds with a big felt sun stuck in the center. The back fabric was black and glitter-studded with a crescent moon in the corner.

What are you? Amy Swartzberg had demanded to know of Ellie.

Ellie had retorted in her most adult voice: I am Bereshit- the creation of the sun and the moon. It’s a conceptual costume!

Rina had no idea what conceptual meant, but by the way Ellie had stated the word, conceptual had to be pretty darn important.

From the moment they had arrived overseas, Ellie greeted them with such warmth that soon Rina’s misgiving melted and it was old times again. Ellie’s enthusiasm was infectious.

This is Hitler’s worst nightmare, Rina, a resurgence of Jewish life where the Nazi party was born.

Not a particularly big resurgence, Rina thought, but everything had to start somewhere. Munich had several synagogues, a small kosher shop owned by a Moroccan French Jew in the main Viktualienmarkt, a kosher bakery in Schwabing, and a kosher restaurant in the old Isarvorstadt area. The Bavarians were a particularly unique lot. When they thought she and Peter were Americans of possible German descent because of their surname Decker, they were outgoing and friendly, boastful and proud. But the minute she spoke to them in Yiddish, a clear indication that she was Jewish, most probably with relatives from “that other period,” they’d remain polite but the conversation turned stilted, their words carefully chosen.

Still, it had been a different adventure, more soul-searching if not rip-roaring fun. And there had been some breathtaking scenery, the two of them exploring the countryside and the foothills of the Alps, holding hands and sipping tea from a thermos while hiking through the wet foliage, with spring just around the corner. The rushing streams and the incredible vistas seemed to be a balm to Peter’s troubled mind.

And yet the more relaxed he became, the more she tensed internally. Germany was not only the land of her national destruction, but was also the soil of a personal catastrophe-an unexcised cancer on her mother’s soul. What mystical forces had led her into that police station some two months ago, asking the Munich desk sergeant where could she find information about a seventy-five-year-old crime? At the time, all Rina had wanted to do was provide her aged mother with some peace of mind. Now she wondered if she wasn’t stepping into a hornet’s nest.

There was no reason to pursue what had become a cruel distant memory in an old woman’s mind. But as she scanned the pages of the crime report, reading her grandmother’s name Regina-Rina’s English name-followed by the word “ totschlag ”-homicide-she knew with surety that she had to see this through.

Isaw him franticallywaving the white flag, a man admitting defeat. As I pulled the cruiser into one of the alley’s parking spaces, blocking a silver Mercedes S500, I realized that the banner was, in fact, a napkin. He wore a solid wall of white, the hem of a long, stained apron brushing his white jeans midshin. Though it was night, I could see a face covered with moisture. Not a surprise because the air was a chilly mist: typical May-gloom weather in L.A. I radioed my whereabouts to the dispatcher and got out, my right hand on my baton, the other swinging freely at my side. The alley stank of garbage, the odor emanating from the trash bins behind the restaurant. The flies, normally shy in the dark, were having a field day.

The rear area of The Tango was illuminated by a strong yellow spotlight above the back door. The man in white was short, five-seven at the most, with a rough, tawny complexion, a black mustache, and hands flapping randomly. He was agitated, talking bullet-speed Spanish. I picked up a few words, but didn’t ask him to stop and translate, because I heard the noise myself-the high-pitched wails of a baby.