Carrion Comfort (72 page)

“Yes, but . . .” began Saul. “I can’t believe you’re serious about not going after them,” said Natalie. “All the risk that Jack Cohen has taken for us in Washington, using his computers to dig up all this information. My weeks of research in Toronto and France and Vienna. The hundreds of hours you’ve spent on Yad Vashem . . .”

Saul stood up. “It was just a suggestion,” he said. “At the very least, it might not be necessary for both of us to . . .”

“Ah, so
that’s
it,” said Natalie. “Well, forget it, Saul. They killed my father. They killed Rob. One of them touched me with his filthy mind. There are only the two of us and I still don’t know what we can do, but I
am
going back. With you or without you, Saul, I’m going back.”

“All right,” said Saul Laski. He handed her the shoulder bag and their hands touched. “I just had to be sure.”

“
I’m
sure,” said Natalie. “Tell me about the new stuff from Cohen.”

“Later,” said Saul, “after dinner.” Touching her lightly on the arm, they turned back for the long walk along the aqueduct, their shadows mingling, bending, and twisting along the high banks of encroaching sand.

Saul prepared an excellent dinner of salad with fresh fruit, homebaked bread he called
bagele
which looked and tasted nothing like a bagel, mutton cooked in the Oriental style, and sweet Turkish coffee. It was dark when they went into his room to work and turned up the hissing Coleman lantern.

The long table was covered with folders, stacks of photocopied documents, piles of photographs— the top ones showing concentration camp victims staring passively out— and dozens of yellow pads filled with Saul’s tight scribble. Sheets of white paper covered with names, date, and maps of concentration camps were taped to the rough white walls. Natalie noticed the aging photocopy of the young Oberst and several SS officers smiling from their newspaper photograph next to an 8 × 10 color print of Melanie Fuller and her manservant crossing the courtyard of their Charleston house.

They sat at heavy, comfortable chairs and Saul pulled over a thick dossier. “Jack thinks that they’ve located Melanie Fuller,” he said.

Natalie sat straight up. “Where?”

“Charleston,” said Saul. “Her old house.”

Natalie slowly shook her head. “Impossible. She couldn’t be that stupid.”

Saul opened the file and looked at the sheets typed on Israeli Embassy stationery. “The Fuller house had been closed pending final legal determination of the status of Melanie Fuller. It would have taken some time for the courts to declare her legally dead, much longer for the estate to be worked out. There seemed to be no surviving relations. In the meantime, a certain Howard Warden appeared claiming to be Melanie Fuller’s grandnephew. He showed letters and documents— including a last will and testament dated January 8, 1978— deeding the house and its possessions to him as of that date . . .
not
in the case of her death . . . and giving him full power of attorney. Warden explained that the old lady had been concerned about failing health and the onset of senility. He said that it had been a technicality, that he fully expected his great aunt to live out her life in the house, but with her disappearance and presumed death, he felt it was important that someone maintain the place. He is currently living there with his family.”

“Could he really be a long-lost relative?” asked Natalie. “It seems unlikely,” said Saul. “Jack managed to get some information about Warden. He grew up in Ohio and moved to Philadelphia about fourteen years ago. He had been assistant grounds superintendent for the city park for the last four years, actually living in Fairmount Park the last three . . .”

“Fairmount Park!” gasped Natalie. “That’s near where Melanie Fuller disappeared.”

“Exactly,” said Saul. “According to sources in Philadelphia, Warden— who’s thirty-seven—had a wife and three children, two girls and a boy. In Charleston, his wife fits the same description, but they have only one child . . . a five-year-old boy named Justin.”

“But . . .” began Natalie. “Wait, there’s more,” said Saul. “The Hodges place next door was also sold in March. It was purchased by an M.D. named Stephen Hartman. Dr. Hartman lives there with his wife and their twenty-three-year-old daughter.”

“What’s wrong with that?” asked Natalie. “I can understand why Mrs. Hodges wouldn’t want to return to that house.”

“Yes,” said Saul and pushed his aviator’s glasses higher on his nose, “but it seems that Dr. Hartman is also from Philadelphia . . . a very successful neurologist . . . who suddenly quit his practice, got married, and left the city in March. The same week that Howard Warden and family felt a need to move south. Dr. Hartman’s new wife— his third— and friends were amazed that he married again— is Susan Oldsmith, the former head nurse in the intensive care wing of Philadelphia General Hospital . . .”

“There’s nothing terribly unusual about a doctor marrying a nurse, is there?” asked Natalie.

“No,” said Saul, “but according to Jack Cohen’s inquiries, Dr. Hart-man’s relationship with Nurse Oldsmith might have been described as coolly professional up to the week they both resigned and were married. Perhaps more interestingly, neither of the happy newlyweds had a twenty-three-year-old daughter . . .”

“Then who . . . ?”

“The young lady whom Charleston now knows as Constance Hartman bears a strong resemblance to a certain Connie Sewell, a nurse in intensive care at Philadelphia General who resigned the same week as Nurse Oldsmith. Jack hasn’t been able to make a certain match, but Ms. Sewell left her apartment and friends with no word of where she was going.”

Natalie stood up and paced back and forth in the small room, ignoring the hiss of the lantern and the dramatic shadows she threw on the wall. “So we assume that Melanie Fuller was hurt or injured in the craziness in Philadelphia. Those newspaper stories talked about a car and body being found in the Schuylkill River near where the FBI helicopter crashed. It wasn’t her. I
knew
she was alive somewhere. I could
feel
it. Okay, so she’s hurt somehow. She gets this park guy to take her to a local hospital. Did Cohen check the hospital records?”

“Of course,” said Saul. “He found that the FBI— or someone posing as the FBI— had been there before him. No record of a Melanie Fuller. Lots of old ladies in the hospitals, but none who fit the profile of Ms. Fuller.”

“That doesn’t matter,” said Natalie. “The old monster covered her tracks somehow. We know what she can do.” Natalie shivered and rubbed her arms. “So when it came time to convalesce, Melanie Fuller had her group of conditioned zombies bring her home to Charleston. Let me guess . . . Mr. and Mrs. Warden have an invalid grandmother with them . . .”

“Mrs. Warden’s mother,” said Saul with a slight smile. “Neighbors haven’t seen her, but some commented to Jack about all the sickroom equipment that had been carried in. It’s doubly strange because Jack’s inquiries in Philadelphia showed that Nancy Warden’s mother had died in 1969.”

Natalie paced back and forth excitedly. “And Dr. Whatshisname . . .”

“Hartman.”

“Yeah . . . he and Nurse Oldsmith are there to keep up the first-class health ser vice.” Natalie stopped and stared. “But, my God, Saul, it’s so
risky
! What if the authorities . . .” She stopped.

“Precisely,” said Saul. “Which authorities? The Charleston police are not about to suspect that Mr. Warden’s invalid mother is the missing Melanie Fuller. Sheriff Gentry may have become suspicious . . . Rob had an incredible mind . . . but he is dead.”

Natalie looked down quickly and took a deep breath. “What about Barent’s group?” she said. “What about the FBI and the others?”

“Perhaps a truce has been called,” said Saul. “Possibly Mr. Barent and his surviving friends can tolerate no more publicity of the kind they received in December. If you were Melanie Fuller, Natalie, fleeing from fellow creatures of the night who wanted no more notice of their bloody doings, where would
you
go?”

Natalie slowly nodded. “To a house that’s received national attention because of a series of bizarre murders.
Incredible
.”

“Yes,” said Saul, “Incredible and incredibly good luck for us. Jack Cohen has done all he can do without eliciting the wrath of his superiors. I’ve sent him a coded message thanking him and asking him to hold further investigations pending word from us.”

“If only the
others
had believed us!” cried Natalie.

Saul shook his head. “Even Jack Cohen knows and believes only part of the story. What he knows for sure is that someone murdered Aaron Eshkol and his entire family, and that I was telling the truth when I said that the Oberst and U.S. authorities were involved in ways that I did not understand.”

Natalie sat down. “My God, Saul, what happened to Warden’s other two children? The two girls Jack Cohen mentioned?”

Saul closed the dossier and shook his head. “Jack couldn’t find anything,” he said. “No signs of mourning. No death notices in Philadelphia or Charleston. It’s possible that they were sent off to close relatives, but Jack could find no way to check that without making himself visible to everyone. If they are all serving Melanie Fuller, it seems possible that the old lady simply grew tired of having so many children around.”

Natalie’s lips grew pale. “That bitch has to die,” she whispered. “Yes,” said Saul. “But I think that we have to stick with our plan. Especially now that we have located her.”

“I guess so,” said Natalie, “but the thought of her not being stopped . . .”

“They will be stopped,” said Saul, “all of them. But if we are to have a chance, we have to have a plan. It was
my
fault that Rob Gentry died.
My
fault that Aaron and his family died. I thought that there would be little danger if we could approach these people unobserved. But Gentry was right when he said that it would be like trying to catch poisonous snakes with one’s eyes closed.” He pulled another dossier closer and ran his fingers over the cover. “If we are to reenter the swamp, Natalie, we have to become the hunters, and not merely wait for these lethal monsters to strike.”

“You didn’t see her,” whispered Natalie. “She’s . . . not human. And I had my chance, Saul. She was distracted. For a few seconds I had the loaded pistol in my hands . . . but I shot the wrong
thing
. Vincent hadn’t killed Rob,
she
had. I didn’t think fast enough.”

Saul firmly gripped her upper arm. “Stop it. Now. Melanie Fuller is just one viper in the nest. If you had eliminated her at that second, the others would have remained free. Their numbers would even have remained the same if we assume that it was the Fuller woman who killed Charles Colben.”

“But if I had . . .”

“No more,” insisted Saul. He patted her hair and touched her cheek. “You’re very tired, my friend. Tomorrow, if you like, you can ride with me to Lohame HaGeta’ot.”

“Yes,” said Natalie, “I would like that.” She bowed as Saul kissed her on the top of her head.

Later, when Natalie had gone to bed, Saul opened the thin folder labeled HAROD, TONY and read for some time. Eventually he put that aside and went to the front door, unlocking it. The moon was out, bathing the hillside and distant dunes in silver. David Eshkol’s large home lay dark and quiet on the hilltop. The scent of oranges and the sea came from the west.

After several minutes, Saul locked and bolted the door, checked the shutters, and went into his room. He opened the first file that Wiesenthal had sent him. Atop the stack of banal forms in Polish civil ser vice double-talk and terse Wehrmacht shorthand was clipped a photograph of a Jewish girl of eighteen or nineteen, small mouth, wan cheeks, dark hair hidden under a cotton scarf, and huge, dark eyes. Saul gazed at the photograph for several minutes, wondering what had been in the young woman’s mind as she stared into the official camera lens, wondering how and when she died, wondering who had mourned her and if any of the answers might be in the dossier; at least the bare facts of when she was arrested for the capital crime of being a Jew, when she was transported, and perhaps . . . just perhaps . . . when her file was closed as all the hopes, thoughts, loves, and potentials that had been her short life were scattered like a handful of ashes in a cold wind.

Saul sighed and began reading.

They rose early the next day and Saul fixed one of the huge breakfasts that he insisted was an Israeli tradition. The sun was barely over the hills in the east when they tossed a backpack in the rear of his venerable Landrover and drove north along the coastal highway. Forty minutes later they reached the port city of Haifa spread out at the base of Mount Carmel. “Your head crowns you like Carmel, and your flowing locks are like purple,” said Saul over the rush of wind.

“Nice,” said Natalie. “Song of Solomon?”

“Song of Songs,” said Saul.

Nearing the northern sweep of Haifa Bay, signs announced Akko and translated it as both Acre and Saint John of Acre. Natalie looked west at the white, walled city gleaming in the rich morning light. It was going to be a warm day.

A narrow road led off the Akko-Nahariyya Highway to a kibbutz where a sleepy security guard waved Saul through. They passed verdant fields and the kibbutz complex to stop at a large blocky building with a sign outside announcing in Hebrew and English: LOHAME HAGETA’OT, GHETTO FIGHTER’S HOUSE and giving the times it was open. A short man with three fingers missing on his right hand came out and chatted with Saul in Hebrew. Saul pressed some money into the man’s hand and he led the way in, smiling and repeatedly saying
Shalom
to Natalie.

“
Toda raba
,” said Natalie as they entered the dim central room. “
Boker tov
.”

“
Shalom
.” The little man smiled. “
L’hitra’ot
.”

Natalie watched him leave and then wandered past glass cases with journals, manuscripts, and relics of the hopeless Warsaw ghetto re sistance. Blown-up photographs on the walls depicted life in the ghetto and the Nazi atrocities that had destroyed that life. “It’s different from Yad Vashem,” she said. “It doesn’t have the same sense of oppression. Maybe because the ceiling is higher.”