Authors: Chuck Barrett
S
cott Katzer sat
in a white unmarked funeral home van in front of the house in Charleston, South Carolina for over two hours before he saw any sign of life. A woman walked out to the mailbox, placed an envelope inside, raised the flag, and returned inside the home. He'd done his research since he left Germany. Ashley Regan was the name listed on the police report in Garmisch who had discovered the body inside the cavern in the glacier. It also matched the name on the mailbox.
Katzer checked the time—8:00 a.m. His hands trembled. He'd never done anything like this before but his mother had instilled a sense of urgency in him to protect the family. If Ashley Regan had the book, he needed to get it from her. There was too much at stake.
Even though he didn't tell Officer Zeilnhofer, he had indeed confirmed the man's identity, his mother's intuition had been correct. The fact that neither Adams nor his body ever turned up after decades of being missing, could only mean he didn't survive the avalanche. From the stories his mother told, it was only by the grace of God that she survived. If it weren't for the rock overhang she hid under when the avalanche began, she would have met the same fate as the Austrian men who were with her. They were swept up by the torrent of snow and catapulted to their deaths on the glacier below. Their dead, broken, frozen bodies were found three days later when the storm broke. She seemed certain that Adams was killed also even though no body was ever recovered.
Katzer started the van, pulled forward, and then backed into the driveway stopping only inches from the garage door. He'd gathered all the chemicals he thought he'd need before he left Nashville and made the nine and a half hour drive to Charleston. His mother was resolute that if he couldn't find the book, he was to bring the woman back to Nashville so she could conduct the interrogation herself. If he found the book his orders were to kill her if he had to and return with the book.
He had never harmed another human. He had witnessed a lot of death in his business but never was he a violent person. As distasteful as the act of killing seemed, his mother was right. He had to protect the family.
Katzer pulled the latex gloves over his hands, opened a bottle and soaked a rag. It was an antiquated method but still effective. Besides, he had plenty of other options available if he needed them, this one was more convenient.
He walked to the door and knocked.
The door opened. "May I help y—"
Before she could finish her sentence Katzer pounced. Her size no match for him. He smothered the woman's face with the rag while he wrestled her to the floor. He kicked the door closed with his foot. Sitting on top of her, his long arms kept his face away from her claws as she kicked and squirmed.
He'd now crossed the line.
Something he could never undo.
After several seconds of thrashing, the woman stopped moving. He removed the rag and sat there. The rush of overpowering the woman was a thrill he hadn't anticipated. A feeling of power and dominance. At his age and in his profession, he didn't see much excitement. But now, he had to admit, he was aroused.
Without warning, a fist rammed into his stomach, knocking the breath out of him. She had tricked him by pretending to be overcome by the chloroform. He couldn't believe he'd been sucker punched.
With all the strength he could muster he slammed his fist into her jaw. Her jawbone cracked, blood splattered across the hardwood floor. His wrist felt like he'd hit a brick wall. She was alive, but unconscious. Katzer placed the rag over her nose and left it there while he searched for towels to wipe down the floor.
After he was certain the woman was unconscious, he searched the small home. Every drawer, cabinet, and shelf emptied. No book. The contents from every closet pulled to the floor. No book. Mattresses overturned. Every possible hiding place searched. Nothing. Katzer was convinced the book was not in the home. He leaned over, grabbed the woman, threw her over his shoulder, and carried her into the garage. He raised the garage door then grabbed the remote control attached to the visor of the car and put her in the back of the van. He used tie wraps and duct tape to secure her arms and legs and placed a strip of tape over her mouth to keep her silent after she woke up. He opened the lid to the casket in the back of the van and placed her inside. Prior to leaving Nashville, he'd rigged a special casket to allow for the circulation of air. Or sleeping gas if he needed it.
He closed the garage door, tossed the remote on the floor of the van, and pulled out for the long drive to Nashville. The best way to transport a body—dead or alive.
W
hat should have been
a nine-hour drive turned into a thirteen-hour drive due to a six-car pileup on Interstate 40 at the North Carolina/Tennessee state line. Katzer's van sat motionless for over two hours while rescue helicopters flew in to triage, stabilize, and fly out the critically injured. He knew from his experience that the rescue vehicles were transporting those bodies that were laying in the median covered with sheets to the morgue. When the wreckers finally cleared the debris from the mountain interstate, traffic crept along for nearly thirty miles before reaching speed limits.
He arrived in Nashville shortly after 11:00 p.m., pulled the van into the loading area, and crawled through the back to open the rear van door when it suddenly opened.
"It's about time," Heidi Katzer said.
"Give me a break, Mother. I called and told you about the traffic backup. I got here as fast as I could without risking being pulled over by the cops."
"Let's get her inside. Is she awake?"
"No," Scott explained. "She started making noise around Knoxville so I gassed her again. She should wake up within an hour or so."
S
cott Katzer looked
at the embalming table when he heard the woman groan. He'd tethered her arms and legs to the table with makeshifts bindings, duct tape still strapped on her mouth. He walked across the room and pressed the intercom call button, "Mother, she's coming to."
The newly remodeled embalming room was equipped with all the latest mortuary features. One wall was lined with stainless steel cabinets and sinks. Three white-porcelain embalming tables lined up side-by-side along the white tile floor. A drain in the floor near the middle of the room made wash down quick and easy. The white ceramic tile floor and walls gave the room a sterile look and feel. Above each table hung new H/Vac ventilation fans supported by articulating arms. The previous embalming room was dark and the rancid smell from decades of embalming had permeated the wooden cabinets and old equipment. Katzer's investment in the new embalming room was worth the money, he thought. His mother had initially objected to the expenditure but with some subtle advertisement, Katzer Funeral Home's new facilities had taken enough business away from its competitors to pay for the upgrade. And, as much as the grieving families would never realize, competition in the funeral home business could be ruthless at times.
Heidi Katzer opened the door. "How cognizant is she?"
"Still groggy but she'll be lucid soon enough," Scott replied.
"Turn on the heat spatula and melt some wax," Heidi instructed. "Just in case."
Obviously realizing her predicament, the horrified woman snapped her head from side to side as she struggled against her restraints. Muffled yells behind the tape strapped over her mouth grew louder.
Heidi stood next to the woman, held her head down, and ripped off the tape.
"What the hell is this all about?" The woman yelled. "Let me loose."
"Your fate depends on you, young lady," Heidi said. "First you're going to answer some questions. If I like your answers, you will be set free."
His mother's voice was too pleasant, Scott thought, given the fact that the young woman had just been abducted.
The woman jerked again against her restraints. "Where am I?"
Scott saw the woman's head lift, her eyes taking in her new surroundings.
"What the hell is this place?"
"None of that matters, my dear," The old woman reassured. "All that matters is that you cooperate." She paused. "Or the consequences will be quite severe."
The woman looked at Scott. "What's she talking about?"
"Just do as she asks," Scott said, "and you won't get hurt."
"Get hurt? What do you mean 'get hurt?' Let me go," she yelled.
Heidi leaned close to the woman's face. "Where is the book?"
"Book? What book? What are you talking about?"
"Let me refresh your memory," Heidi said. "A few weeks ago you climbed Zugspitze, correct?"
"Yes. What's that got to do with anything?"
"You found a corpse inside a glacier, correct?"
"Yes, but—"
"On that man's body was a book. A leather journal that belonged to me before he took it from me. I want it back," Heidi continued, "so tell me…where is my book?"
"There was no book. I promise" The young woman pleaded. "Now please, let me go."
Heidi stepped back. "Last chance. Tell me where you hid the book."
"I don't know what you're talking about. There is no book."
Heidi motioned to Scott then pointed to the table. "Stuff that rag in her mouth."
"But Mother, she doesn't know—"
"Do it now, Scott," Heidi ordered. "Do not question my judgment. I will get her to answer…one way or another."
The tone in his mother's voice frightened him. How could a woman only five feet tall be so intimidating? Scott obeyed her like a robot. He grabbed a cloth rag, walked over and clenched his hand around the young woman's throat. When she opened her mouth, he stuffed the rag inside, and then looked at his mother. "What are you going to do?"
"Offer her some incentive to talk."
Heidi grabbed an apparatus that looked like a wood-burning iron with a duckbill shaped attachment. He'd used the tool many times to reshape or reconstruct bodies disfigured by injury. The tool, called a heat spatula, allowed the embalmers to smooth wax across the deceased skin to remove blemishes.
"Is this really necessary?" He asked.
"Not another word, Scott." The old woman turned the dial on the tool. "Now my dear, you
will
tell me where my book is."
His mother poured the hot wax on the young woman's left arm. Hot enough to scald but not blister the skin. The woman bucked on the table and screamed into the rag. Tears rolled down both cheeks. After the wax cooled and the woman calmed down, his mother placed the heat spatula on the woman's arm.
Scott Katzer watched as his mother repeatedly burned the woman's arm with the heat spatula. When the hot duckbill attachment melted through the wax and touched the woman's skin, he could hear the sizzle of burning flesh followed by a wisp of smoke rising from the wound. The pungent smell of singed flesh filled his nostrils.
He always knew his mother could be callous. Her lack of empathy to their clients always bothered Katzer. But what he was witnessing now was torture and should be making him sick to his stomach.
It wasn't.
On the contrary, he was filled with a desire to torture the woman himself. Take control of the situation. Dominate. Get even for sucker punching him in the stomach in Charleston. He knew his mother would never relinquish control so he sat back and watched. The whole time imagining he was doing the torturing.
His mother worked the apparatus from the woman's elbow and slowly burned a small patch at a time along her upper arm until she reached the woman's shoulder. With each scald the woman jumped, her eyes bulged and more tears ran down her already tear-stained cheeks. Her mascara left black lines streaking from her eyes down the sides of her face.
Finally, his mother stopped.
She put down the heat spatula. "Remove the rag," she ordered.
The woman's moans filled the room. Impulsively, Scott grabbed the woman's jaw and held the scalding device inches from her face. "Stop your wailing, bitch, or you'll get more of this."
The woman took short gasps of air, sobbing uncontrollably.
His mother stared at him. He could only imagine what she was thinking. Finally she looked back at the woman and spoke. "Now Ms. Regan, I'll ask you one more time before we start on your face. Where is my book?"
"Ms. Regan?" The young woman panted in broken speech. "I'm not Ashley Regan. I'm Samantha Connors."
J
ake and Francesca
arrived at the park office in the Andersonville National Cemetery at 8:30 a.m. with instructions from Evan Mackley to meet with a man named Adam Marshall. The Andersonville National Historic Site consisted of not just the cemetery but also the National Prisoner of War Museum and the associated Civil War prison site.
Camp Sumter, as it was originally known, was built in early 1864 and was one of the largest Confederate military prisons of the Civil War. The prison pen covered 26 ½ acres and was manned by guards who stood watch in sentry boxes spaced at thirty-yard intervals. These Confederate soldiers in the
pigeon roosts,
as the prisoners called them, monitored an area referred to as the
deadline,
a nineteen-foot sterile area between the stockade fence and the prisoner containment area. Any prisoner crossing the
deadline
was shot—dead.
The Andersonville Confederate Prison was in operation for only fourteen months and closed in May 1865. In July of the same year, Clara Barton, along with a detachment of laborers, soldiers, and a former prisoner named Dorence Atwater, came to Andersonville Cemetery to identify and mark the graves of the dead Union soldiers.
When the Citation 750 landed at Souther Field in Americus, Georgia, Jake's reserved rental car was waiting, a black Dodge Charger R/T equipped with a 5.7 liter HEMI V-8, all of which appealed to Jake's hot rod mentality. The 8-mile drive down the barren country road from the airport to the park office took him just under six minutes. He'd grown up in Georgia and was at home on the Peach State's back roads. His father had brought him to Andersonville on occasion when Jake was younger, usually in conjunction with their father-son fishing trips to Lake Blackshear.
Jake noticed the heavy dew on the grass left by the cool September morning. While he and Francesca walked across the parking lot toward the office, Jake noticed a motorcade and a hearse parked across the cemetery lawn. As a former Naval officer, he recognized the sailors in U. S. Navy Dress Blues standing at attention under the Rostrum while family and friends mourned the loss of another of America's heroes.
Adam Marshall greeted Jake and Francesca in the office lobby. He was Jake's size except more of his chest had given way to gravity and moved to his waistline. He had short dark hair and wire-rimmed glasses and wore a uniform.
"You must be Jake Pendleton and Francesca…" Marshall paused. "I won't try your last name, I'm sure I'd butcher it."
"Catanzaro." She extended her hand as a greeting.
Jake and Marshall shook hands. "What is your job function at Andersonville?" Jake asked.
"Chief of Resource Management," Marshall said. "Most people see the uniform and just assume I'm a Park Ranger. After all, this historic site is part of the National Park Service and most people have been to a national park so they've seen the uniform."
"I take it you've already been briefed on the purpose of our visit?" Jake asked.
"I received an email from the Director of Park Services in D.C," Marshall explained. "He said I was to give you full access to the file of the deceased and the police report. He indicated there had been other instances similar to this." It was more a question than a statement. "I can show you the pictures but the grave is actually still open if you'd like to take a look for yourself. It had been scheduled for covering and repairs this morning but after the email, I postponed it until after your visit. Figured you might want a first-hand look."
"That would be great." Jake looked at Francesca. "Let's take a look."
Marshall picked up a folder from the receptionist desk. "If you'll wait out front," he pointed to the door, "I'll pick you up in the groundskeeper's cart. The grave is in the northeastern corner of the cemetery in Section P. No need to walk when we can ride."
Five minutes later the cart pulled up to an open grave surrounded in yellow warning tape. A canopy covered the site. The casket hung suspended in midair by straps attached to a lowering device.
"Looks like the exact same casket from Arlington," Francesca said.
"There's a reason for that, Ms. Catanzaro," Marshall said.
"Francesca," she corrected.
"Okay, Francesca it is." Marshall continued. "The Springfield Metallic Casket Company, now defunct, made thousands of these for the United States Government to ship back remains from World War II. Armco ingot iron, lead coated, glass sealed in patented cement. Each casket was packed in a wooden crate and stuffed with a wood curl packing material then transported by ship to a receiving station in the States. From there, the crates were transported as freight in rail cars to a depot nearest their destination, usually the soldier's home or national cemetery."
Marshall pointed to the open grave. "As you can see, this casket was buried in the ground. Sometimes caskets were buried in brick or concrete vaults with a concrete cap. Some even had a steel vault placed over the casket before it was covered. The casket is preserved better inside a vault, especially when there is no water intrusion."
"Are all of your World War II soldiers buried here?" Jake swept his arm across the landscape.
"Absolutely not. And that's probably why this is such a big deal." Marshall pointed to an old section of the cemetery where small white headstones were lined tightly next to each other. "Until this soldier, the only colored soldiers buried at Andersonville were those who died during the Civil War. They are buried in trenches like all the rest that died here during the war prison days."
"You buried them in trenches?" Francesca asked.
"Yes, ma'am. During the Civil War, 45,000 prisoners were sent to Andersonville. Almost 13,000 died here. The casualty rate was so high they decided it was easier to dig long trenches and inter the soldiers side by side. Even in the mid-1940s, no section plot had been set aside for colored soldiers from World War II, or World War I for that matter, until this man's family made the request for him to be buried here."
"It seems barbaric that black and white soldiers couldn't be buried next to one another," Francesca said. "They died equally, they should be buried equally."
"Keep in mind," Marshall continued, "this is the Deep South, and in the mid-1940s, racial prejudice ruled the day. The superintendent of the cemetery at Andersonville didn't want to make the decision so he kicked it up the food chain. Even in his letter you can detect a hint of a prejudicial mindset. Fortunately the decision came down from the Quartermaster General of the U. S. Army that all persons who served in the armed forces of the United States and honorably separated are entitled to burial in a national cemetery without regard to race or religion."
"I guess it goes without saying," Jake rifled through the folder Marshall had given him, "that if they died in the line of duty, the same privilege is extended as well?"
"Correct." Marshall rubbed his chin. "Shall I open the casket so you can see first hand?"
"I'll pass." Francesca stepped back.
"Jake?" Marshall asked.
"Was there any damage to the inside?"
"None the police or the park service could detect. That glass was still sealed and the clamps had not been tampered with. There was substantial decay and the top liner had fallen loose. The log roll cap was rusted as well."
"Is that unusual?" Jake asked.
"For a casket that had been placed directly in the ground over 65 years ago…I'd say no, not really, that wouldn't be odd. Matter of fact, I expected much worse. This casket held up remarkably well over the years."
"The casket at Arlington had the same thing. The top liner was loose in the pictures."
"It happens," Marshall said. "Not very often, but it does happen. And I wouldn't say it would be too unusual for both caskets to have similarities. They are the same model, by the same company around the same year. Was the Arlington soldier buried in the ground like this one, or in a vault?"
Jake opened his folder and studied the pictures. "I don't know. How do you tell?"
"May I look?" Marshall asked. Jake handed Marshall the photos. "He was buried in the ground. See here in this picture?" Marshall pointed to the photo of the grave with the casket at the bottom. "It's all earth and casket, no vault of any kind. Below the glass, the casket is sealed tight with clamps. The lower portion of the casket is an airtight barrier to better preserve the remains. Not so above the glass. Moisture can work its way in over the years and liners decay and rot. I wouldn't even call it a coincidence. I'd say it should be expected."
"Better go ahead and open it." Jake looked at Francesca. "Sure you don't want to look?"
"I'm sure."
Marshall opened the casket. The glass had clouded over the years but Jake could still see the partial remains of the dead soldier.
Marshall pointed to the edges of the glass. "You see these clamps pull the glass against a rubber seal underneath. The only way inside is to remove these clamps and lift out the glass."
"Or break it," Jake said.
"This glass is pretty thick." Marshall rapped on it with his knuckles. "You'd need a sledgehammer and a strong arm to break it."
Marshall pointed to the headliner on the casket lid. "Notice how the mold and mildew has grown in here?"
Jake nodded.
"It adds to the decay of the material. All caskets this old will show some degree of decay. It varies, of course, with ground conditions. Dry, arid climates like the western states would show less sign of decay. Hot, humid, and rainy conditions like we find here in the South, the decay is much faster. Below the sealed glass, where the remains are contained, there is very little decay in comparison to above the glass."
"I've seen enough," Jake said. "Francesca, got anything else?"
"No." She looked at Marshall. "Adam, you've been a tremendous help. This has been very informative, as well as interesting."
"No problem. This is my interest. I have a master's degree in history. It's one reason I wanted to work here."
Adam Marshall dropped Jake and Francesca off in the parking lot.
The two slipped inside the hot Charger.
"Whoa. It's hot as hell in here," Francesca said, "turn on the A. C."
Jake started the engine and turned the air conditioner on high. It was amazing how stifling the inside of a car could get in such a short time, especially in the South in September. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead in a matter of seconds.
Jake turned to face Francesca. "Did you notice the similarities?"
"You mean how the liner came loose from the same corner and was neatly folded back in the same two-fold pattern?"
"Yeah. You know what that means, don't you?"
"Someone was looking for something," Francesca said, "and it is the same someone."
"Which means there will be more." Jake's eyes lit up. "Or have been more."