Bearing Witness (24 page)

My question had been capable of a yes or no answer. Thus, everything he said after the first eight words was technically nonresponsive. I could have moved the court to strike it from the record, but that would merely emphasize it for the jury. Moreover, Judge Wagner was not about to let me put Conrad Beckman on a short leash. Given that fact, my best strategy was to ignore his speeches and keep nudging him in the direction I wanted him to go.

“But let's focus on these five companies, sir,” I said in a pleasant voice as I pointed again toward the chart. “Your relationship with each of these founders dates back before World War II?”

“Objection, Your Honor. Irrelevant.”

“Overruled.”

Beckman studied the chart. “Miss Gold, three of the five companies did not even exist before World War II.”

“I realize that, sir. My question had to do with the
founders
of the companies. You had a relationship with each of those men that predated World War II, correct?”

“A relationship?” Beckman asked rhetorically. “Perhaps I knew them. I don't know whether I would call that a relationship.”

“Fair enough,” I said with an amiable smile. I moved over toward the jury box. “Let's try to figure out what to call it, Mr. Beckman.” I stared at the chart and pointed toward the entry for Eagle Engineering.
Might as well hear his rationalization early on
. “Why don't we start with Max Kruppa. Tell us about the origins of your relationship with him.”

Beckman crossed his arms over his chest and wrinkled his brow, as if trying to remember. “I can't recall where or when I met Mr. Kruppa, Miss Gold. Max was a German immigrant. During the years before World War II he still had strong feelings about the old country. He knew that my parents came from Germany. For some reason, he thought that made a special bond between us. I recall that he tried to interest me in certain German-American organizations.”

“Which German-American organization, sir?”

Beckman rubbed his chin. “This was many years ago. I believe it was originally known as the Friends of the New Germany.”

“The Friends of the New Germany changed its name, didn't it, Mr. Beckman? It became the German-American Bund, correct?”

He fixed me with dead eyes. “You may be right, Miss Gold.” He paused and shrugged. “As I said, that was many years ago.”

“So you and Mr. Kruppa were both members of the German-American Bund?”

He shook his head. “I don't know about Mr. Kruppa's affiliations. I certainly was not a member. I will concede that I attended one or two of their meetings, although curiosity was the primary motivation. They held their meetings in the neighborhood where I grew up.” He paused. “I am not proud of that, Miss Gold. I was a teenager, and I did some stupid things back then.” He turned to the jury and shook his head with chagrin. “Frankly, I regret it.”

It was a masterful parry. His answer contained just enough truth and exactly the right tone of contrition to make any effort at follow-up too dangerous. I'd poked the stick, and the diamondback had made sure I heard his rattle. Although I could use the English translation of Kruppa's letter to argue to the jury that Kruppa must have been writing to someone with far more than a mere “curiosity” in the American Nazi movement, it wasn't a clear shot, and I'd risk antagonizing the jury in the process.

Beckman had already conceded the key point—namely, that he had attended at least two Bund meetings. He dismissed his actions as the foolishness of youth, and the more I harped on it, the more I risked giving Kimberly an opening to rebut it with character evidence. Judge Wagner wouldn't need much of an excuse to let Kimberly put on a conga line of testimonials from the heads of all the charitable organizations that had given him awards over the years. By the time they were done, he'd be St. Conrad.

So I moved on.

He conceded, in an almost offhand way, that he had known each of the founders of the other four companies for several decades.

I didn't come right out and ask whether his company had been a co-conspirator in the bid-rigging conspiracy. No sense lobbing that fat pitch over the plate. He'd get plenty of batting practice when it was Kimberly's turn. Instead, I tried to keep my pitches around the edges of the plate. It wasn't easy. I showed him a blowup poster of Max Kruppa's seemingly incriminating American Express receipt. Beckman readily—indeed, almost casually—conceded that he'd attended meetings over the years with different industry representatives. Then he turned toward the jury to assure them that his company had never participated in any discussion of bids or pricing at those meetings.

As for the words that Max had scribbled on the back of the receipt in the box entitled “business purpose”—“
Meet w/ Koll, Muller, Beckman, Beek & Eicken to divide up pending federal IFBs
”—he shrugged them off. “I was not at that meeting, Miss Gold, and I certainly would not want to speculate as to what Max meant by those words.” He shook his head sadly. “It's a shame he isn't here to tell us himself.”

I poked the stick a few more times before Judge Wagner announced that court would be in recess until nine-thirty the following morning. When the last of the jurors had filed out of the courtroom and the door had swung closed behind them, Kimberly jumped to her feet.

“Your Honor,” she said, her face twisted in anger, “Miss Gold is using this lawsuit as a vehicle for running a smear campaign against one of the most respected and revered citizens of St. Louis.” She gestured toward the gallery. “She's playing to the press out there while she shamelessly attempts to prejudice this jury with totally irrelevant gossip that is more than half a century out of date.” She flung her arm toward me. “In the name of fairness and decency, defendant implores the Court to enter sanctions against this woman.”

Judge Wagner turned a stern face toward me. “Well?”

And once again we rehashed the same evidentiary issue we'd argued several times before, and once again Judge Wagner cut it off with a stern warning.

“You are on very, very shaky ground, Ms. Gold.” She spoke slowly and clearly, presumably to make sure that every member of the press heard her words. “It was your decision to open this can of worms. I'm warning you right now that you had better be able to reach in there and pull out a big fat night crawler before this trial is over or I'm going to give this jury a special instruction on attorney misconduct that'll make your curly hair stand on end.” She stood up and turned to leave the bench. “That's all for today.”

Chapter Twenty-five

The phone rang at quarter after six that night. I was slumped on the couch in the corner of my office with my shoes off, my feet up, and a half-empty bottle of Samuel Adams Boston Lager resting on my lap. Exhausted, I turned toward the phone and tried to will myself up.

“I'll get it.” Benny walked over to the credenza and lifted the receiver. In a ridiculous Japanese accent, he announced, “Dese are Raw Office of Honorable Rachel Gold.”

He listened a moment and grinned. “Hey, dude. Yeah, rough day in court, but she's holding up.” He looked over at me and winked. “Jonathan, you wanna join us for a traditional Jewish meal? No, man, I'm talking about the food of our people: Chinese takeout.”

He listened a moment and then laughed. “Come on, dude, remember that passage in the Haggadah? Let's see, how's it go? ‘Rabbi Elazar, the son of Azariah, having come to Bene-Berak on the night of Passover, said, Verily, I am like a man of seventy years of age, yet I have never found a matzoh-meal version of potstickers that doesn't taste like fried ca-ca.' You sure? Hey, I understand. Yeah, she's right here.”

He brought the phone over to me. “It's Mr. Wonderful. Listen, I'm going out to the car for a moment. I think I left the rest of the brewskis out there.”

I took the receiver. “Hi,” I said in a listless voice.

***

I had a road map of Missouri open on my desk when Benny came back with three more bottles of Samuel Adams.

“They were hiding under the dry cleaning,” he said. “What are you looking for?”

“Potosi,” I said.

“Potosi?” Benny said, as he set the bottles on the desk. “There's nothing down there but the prison.”

“Exactly.” I tilted the takeout container of Hunan chicken and used the chopsticks to scoop out the last of it. Chewing slowly, I studied the map.

The Potosi Correctional Center occupies the slot within the Missouri penal system that Marian does within the federal system. It houses the eight hundred or so inmates classified “maximum custody” or “risk to the public,” all of whom are serving at least twenty-year sentences. It also houses Missouri's death row inmates, whose final seconds are spent strapped to a gurney in a special room in the prison infirmary known among the inmates as “the cage.” The condemned man gets to watch as the white-coated attendant meticulously swabs his arm with rubbing alcohol to protect him from, heaven forbid, contracting an infection from a contaminated needle used for the lethal injection.

Benny had a baffled expression. “Who the hell is in Potosi?”

I looked up at him. “Herman Warnholtz.”

Benny's eyes widened. “He's still alive?”

“Barely,” I said. “He's in his eighties and has terminal cancer.”

“How did Jonathan locate him?”

“Easier than you'd think. One phone call to someone in the corrections division. They ran the name through the computer and pulled it right up. Jonathan had someone in the A.G.'s office call down to Potosi to tell them that I needed to talk to Warnholtz as soon as possible. He told them it had to be at night because I was in trial all day.” I checked my watch. “I have an appointment in two hours if I want it. All I need to do is call down there to confirm it.”

“You've got an appointment tonight?” Benny repeated in disbelief. “Just like that?”

I shrugged. “Jonathan called in a favor. It's not as if Warnholtz has a prior engagement.”

Benny came around the desk to look at the map with me. “Where the hell is Potosi?”

“There.” I pointed to a spot about ninety miles south of St. Louis in the heart of the Lead Belt mining district.

He studied the map for a moment and turned to me. “Are you really going down there tonight?”

I shrugged. “Maybe it's just a wild-goose chase, but I have to do it.”

Benny frowned. “Even if this creep knows something, what makes you think he'll tell you?”

“I don't, but I'll never find out if I don't try. What's the worst that could happen? I drive a four-hour round trip for nothing, right? I'm still home before midnight. How bad is that? It'll be quiet in the car, I'll be able to think about the case, maybe come up with some good ideas for cross-examination. Oh, and I bought myself a treat last weekend: Bob Marley's greatest hits. I can listen to that, too.”

Benny stared at me for a moment and uttered a weary groan. Silently, he opened a bottle of beer, took a big sip, swallowed, and rolled his eyes heavenward. “I can't believe this.”

“What?”

Grumbling under his breath, he turned toward the phone, lifted the receiver, and punched in a number. As he waited for it to ring, he shook his head in frustration.

“Hi,” he said into the phone, his voice subdued. “It's me. Listen, something's come up in this case. They're going to need my help tonight. Yeah, I'm real sorry. Maybe we can get together later this week. Sure. I'll call you. Take care.”

He hung up and stared at the phone.

“Oh, Benny, you didn't have to do that.”

He snorted as he headed over to get his coat. “Right. Did you happen to notice where Potosi is located? Smack dab in the middle of
Deliverance
country, that's where. And you're planning to head down there alone? And at night?” He slipped on his coat. “Let's roll.”

“Benny, you really don't—”

“Enough,” he said, holding up his hand to silence me. “Move it, woman.”

I was, of course, delighted and grateful. I called the prison to confirm the appointment, and then I stuffed a yellow legal pad, my portable dictation machine, and three dictation cassettes into my briefcase. On the way down the walk toward my car, I asked him who he had called.

“Who?” He looked over at me and shook his head sadly. “Here's a hint: what do you call a sexy twenty-one-year-old aerobics instructor who can suck a golf ball through a garden hose?”

I knew the punch line, but it took a few seconds to get the point. “Oh, Benny,” I said sympathetically, hugging his arm. “You're an angel.”

“An angel?” he said sarcastically. “No, I believe ‘imbecile' is the correct term for someone who just passed up an evening of, shall we say, high-impact aerobics to spend some quality time inside a state penitentiary with a Nazi cretin doing life for murder.”

“Well,” I said, kissing him on the cheek as I slipped my arm through his, “you're my imbecile, and I think you're the greatest.”

“Words suitable for an epitaph. Oh, well, as Bob Marley would say, ‘No woman no cry.'”

***

Look at the bright side,” Benny said impatiently. “If you marry him, at least you can start getting laid again.”

We had exited the divided highway about ten miles back. We were now on Highway 47, an unlit state road that cut west through St. Francois County and into Washington County. We were definitely in the boonies now, many miles from the nearest
minyon
.

I glanced over at Benny in the darkness. “You know what my sister said? She told me that Jonathan is what you'd call a real Jew.”

“Oh, really?” he said caustically. “Did you tell her that her husband is what you'd call a real putz?”

“She didn't mean it as an insult, Benny. It's just that he's so…well, you know.”

“Religious?” Benny put his hand over his chest in mock horror. “What a disgrace.”

“Benny,” I said, exasperated.

“Listen,” he said, holding up his hands, “if it was me marrying him, you could understand my reluctance.”

I gave him a baffled look. “Huh?”

“I'm talking about a female version of me, okay? I'm making a cogent point here.”

A female Benny Goldberg. The image made me giggle.

“What I'm saying,” he continued, “is that we'd be like oil and water, Jonathan and me. I'm about as likely to spend a Saturday morning at a synagogue as I am to have an elective colostomy. But look at you. What more could any nice Jewish boy pray for? You light the candles on
Shabbat
, you fast on Yom Kippur, and you've got a tush that would make the Ayatollah recite the
Shema
. The perfect Jewish wife.” He paused. “Right?”

I looked over at him with a smile. “I thank you, and my tush thanks you, but neither one of us has any idea what you just said.”

“Look, Rachel, it's not like you're marrying some Lubavitcher zealot in a black coat and felt hat who gets his jollies throwing rocks at cars. The man's got cable TV, for chrissakes. I even watched
Beavis and Butt-head
with him one night.”

“Now there's a testimonial.”

We'd reached Highway O, which was about two miles east of the town of Potosi. My smile disappeared as I turned right at the intersection. It was up ahead, a few hundred yards down Highway O, looking more like a space-colony garrison than a high-security prison. We stared at it as I drove slowly along Highway O. The prison consisted of a group of low-slung, gray-block modules topped with huge rolls of coiled razor wire that shimmered beneath the powerful overhead spotlights. Facing Highway O was the large gray door where the hearse drives in and out on execution day. I'd read somewhere that the grassy expanse on either side of that road fills with black crows on execution days.

We passed through the first checkpoint and parked in a guest spot near the entrance to the administrative building. Once inside the building, we moved through another checkpoint, this one with a guard behind a glass enclosure, and then we entered the spartan waiting area. Five minutes later, deputy assistant warden Billy Dillard came out to greet us. He was a pudgy man in an off-white short-sleeve shirt and a wide iridescent tie held in place by a Southeast Missouri State tiepin. In his forties, Dillard looked remarkably like an updated version of Oliver Hardy, right down to the unkempt black hair and splayed little mustache. He'd obviously been briefed in advance and instructed to be courteous.

“I talked to one of the paramedics an hour ago,” Dillard explained as he escorted us down the hallway and through the first of several checkpoints. “He said Herman seemed alert.”

“That's not always the case?” I asked.

Dillard pursed his lips and shook his head. “Oh, no. I'm afraid Herman's in bad shape.”

“What kind of cancer does he have?” I asked.

“Prostate. Inoperable. He's dying. He's lost a lot of weight in the last three months. They don't give him more than a few weeks, a month tops.”

“What kind of inmate was he before the cancer?”

“Well, ma'am,” he said thoughtfully, “he's been a resident here since this facility opened. He was transferred from Jeff City with a clean record, and he's never been a problem here. He pretty much keeps to himself. Likes to do woodwork. It's his hobby, you might say. He subscribes to one of those carpenter magazines and works down in the prison shop a couple days a week—or used to, back before the cancer got him. Tables, chairs, that sort of thing. We donated some of his stuff to the local library. He was a pretty decent carpenter in his day.”

We stopped at the prison infirmary checkpoint. The guard acknowledged Dillard's arrival with a nod and a polite “Evening, sir.”

“Where'd they put Herman, Ray?”

“Room C, sir.”

We followed Dillard through the main section of the infirmary, past the execution room (with curtains drawn over the observation window), and down a short hallway lined with doors. Dillard stopped in front of the one marked “Room C” and peered through the narrow observation slot. Then he opened the door and stepped in.

“Herman,” he said in a loud, artificially cheerful voice, “here are the folks I told you about.”

Dillard turned and gestured for us to join him. I filed into the small windowless room, followed by Benny. A hospital bed dominated the room. I stood at the foot of the bed as Dillard introduced us to Herman Warnholtz.

I was surprised and I was disappointed. This was not the Herman Warnholtz I'd expected to see. Perhaps it was the ravages of age and disease, but there was no sign of the brute in the shrunken ghost that gazed up at me from the bed. He may once have been a Nazi thug who headed a vicious gang named after the SS guards that ran Treblinka and Buchenwald. He may once have celebrated Hitler's birthday by tying up a Jewish shopowner with baling wire and incinerating him in his store. But these were not the eyes of the Devil's henchman. These were weary eyes—faded blue but still clear—eyes that seemed almost benign. This was a dying old man, a faded stick figure with sunken cheeks and a bald head sprinkled with age spots. His arms were at his sides on top of the sheet, the skin as thin and fragile as tissue paper. A slight palsy caused his left hand to make a faint patting noise on the sheet.

“Good evening, sir,” I said.

He nodded in acknowledgment, a tiny movement of his head.

As he stared at me, I thought of his old adversary, Harold Roth. Both men so young and vibrant back in 1939, decades later so withered and frail, Harold now dead, Warnholtz soon to follow.

“I'm here to ask you some questions,” I continued. “I hope you'll be willing to answer them.”

“About what?” His voice was soft and husky.

“Conrad Beckman, sir.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“Because you knew him.”

He gazed at me, his eyes closing. “What makes you say that?”

“Because I know things about you, sir.”

His eyes remained closed. For a moment I thought he was asleep, but then he asked, almost in a whisper, “What things?”

“I know about the Deutsche-Horst family camp along the Meramec River.” His eyes opened and then narrowed. I continued. “I know that you were one of the camp counselors, along with Rudolphe Schober and Conrad Beckman.”

His expression was blank, but his eyes were now alert.