The Cathar Secret: A Lang Reilly Thriller (10 page)

     She called up the draft of an article on local women executives, a puff piece she had written a few weeks ago to hold in reserve for the time there really wasn't anything else to write about. She moved a paragraph and changed a couple of words here and there. What sounds good at the time sometimes seems a little lame later. She saved the file and frowned at the icons displayed until the screen returned to the Appalachians.

     Finally, she got up from the table that served as her desk and stepped over to a bookcase. She ran her finger along the shelf until she came to a series of scrapbooks in which she had chronologically saved a copy of everything that bore her byline. When she had begun the process, she had told herself the articles would serve as a sort of continuous resume in case she ever considered a job change. The newspaper, of course, had an easily accessed online archive, but somehow the actual paper clippings seemed more real. Now she recognized the scrapbooks as small offerings to the ego fueled by the urge to see one's own words in print.

     Today she hoped they would serve another purpose.

     She pulled out a volume and checked the carefully typed index of contents before exchanging the book for the one next to it.

     This time she found what she wanted, an interview four years ago. The photograph at the top showed an old man extending his left arm with the sleeve rolled up. She squinted at the picture but the coarseness of the newsprint camouflaged whatever she was looking for.

     Leaving the scrapbook open on the floor, she crossed the room and pulled out a drawer of the file cabinet where she stored her old notebooks. Most interviews today were tape recorded, but Marcie took notes of dates, spellings of names, and other material that might somehow get lost in the audio. She was pleased by the neat and efficient indices she had prepared to locate the notes for each story. It took less than a minute to find the one she sought.

     Flipping a couple of pages, she came to a phone number. Notebook in hand, she fished in the pocket of her jeans for the cell phone that had replaced the land line in her home two years ago. Holding the notebook up to the afternoon light streaming through the window, she keyed in a number. Impatiently, she endured one, two, three rings before a woman's voice announced no one could come to the phone at the moment but that the call would be returned if a message was left.

     She tried again with the same result. This time she left her name and number along with a message that she was a reporter with the
Journal-Constitution.
That usually produced a call back. Most people liked to get their names in the paper.

     Taking the scrapbook to her table, Marcie read over the article she had written. She remembered most of it but she wanted to make sure she had
the details right. The notion in her head was gaining definition like a figure emerging from the morning's mist. She could make out the general form but the details were still blurred. The shape, though, was enough to make her shiver. A theory to be investigated, a thread to be pulled without any certainty where it would lead, and an opportunity to leave the Living section behind her.

     She may have had some crazy ideas, but this was the nuttiest yet. But years of working with the media had taught her that events occurred without regard to the conventional concept of sane or normal in much the same way tornados touched down pretty much where they pleased. Sane or insane, if this thing in her head, this almost-born idea, could be explained . . . that was only the first problem. The second was trying to meet even the minimalistic standards of verification common to the industry. If she could, she would have a story that would take her away from charity balls and social aspirants forever.

     But she needed proof beyond mere hypothesis, some evidence that would merit the attention of the reputable media, a possible oxymoron. Short of evidence, any evidence, her story would belong in the checkout line at the grocery store next to headlines such as
SPACE ALIEN IMPREGNATES TEENAGER
or
DRACULA'S BODY FOUND IN NEW YORK SUBWAY.
That would be a fate worse than the backwaters of the society pages.

     She was thinking about her next step when her pocket beeped. As she pulled the phone out, she noted the number.

     "Marcie Rollens."

     "Ms. Rollens, Rebecca Silverstein returning your call."

     The voice was that of an older woman. Just how much older, Marcie could not tell.

     "Thanks for calling me back, Ms . . . ."

     
"Mrs."

     "Mrs. Silverstein. About four years ago I did an article on an Alik Grituchlik. This was his phone number. Do you know how I might contact him?"

     There was a pause before an intake of breath. "Alik Grituchlik was my father. He died almost two years ago."

     "Oh, I'm sorry . . ."

     "It's all right, thank you. He was quite ill long before that. Might I ask what you wanted with him?"

     Marcie thought fast. She couldn't very well explain what she had in mind without sounding like a candidate for the asylum. "Oh, I just wanted a follow-up on the first article. He was a wonderful person to interview, so lucid as to facts from so long ago. Again, I'm so sorry . . ."

     "Odd thing," Mrs. Silverstein interrupted. "I remember your interview; he was living here at my house. That's why the phone number you called is mine. But what I was going to say, not six months after your article, someone from Washington came down here and did a video interview. He, my father, was quite thrilled by it."

     "Washington?"

     "They were from the Holocaust museum, called what they were doing an 'oral history,' trying to interview as many survivors as they could find. They're getting more scarce every day, you know."

     Marcie thought for a moment. "Mrs. Silverstein, do you have any photographs of your father, perhaps one showing the marks on his arm?"

     There was a brief pause before, "Oh no. He always wore long sleeves, even in the summer. It was as if those numbers were some sort of stigma. Far as I know, the picture for your paper was the only one."

     "The people from the Holocaust museum, did they take pictures?"

     "As I said, it was a
video
interview."

     The sharp edge convinced Marcie she had extracted all the useful information she was going to get from this source. "Thanks very much Mrs. Silverstein, I appreciate your time."

     Touching "end," Marcie searched for "holocaust museums" on the Internet. There were half a dozen Holocaust museums in the United States: Los Angeles, New York, Indianapolis . . .
Indianapolis
? She got hits from Australia, as well as across Europe. Lighting a cigarette, she selected the one in Washington, D.C., like Mrs. Silverstein mentioned. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

     She searched in vain for an ashtray. David, her husband, must have hidden it as a reminder of her promise to quit, a pledge she had no intent of keeping. She used the morning's coffee cup.

     A few mouse clicks later, she was reading about the Benjamin and Vladka Meed Registry of Holocaust Survivors, an active list of survivors who had come to the U.S. after the war. The museum's webpage said that worldwide over 196,000 inmates managed to survive their imprisonment by the Nazis.

     Interesting, but not what she was looking for. She took a deep drag of smoke.

     The next button seemed more promising. The museum included a touch screen monitor for oral histories. There was a catalog online. Sure enough, there was Alik Grituchlik's name, but there was no way to call up his story.

     Marcie pushed back from the screen and sighed, stubbing out half of the cigarette. That was like keeping part of her promise, right? She was cutting down if she only smoked half the cigarette, right? Damn, but she simply had to get to that museum. But how? It was a safe bet her editor wasn't going to front the money. Cash in the newspaper business was tight. More and more people's news was limited to thirty-second sound bites on television than the morning paper. Reporters on the social scene were lucky to get reimbursed for MARTA fare, let alone airline tickets. Besides, her idea would be regarded as better suited for a psychiatric evaluation than the expense account.

     She called up her VISA account. Four hundred and twenty-seven dollars under her limit. Then she switched to AirTran's website and scrolled through ticket costs. One seventy-five one way to Reagan-National. Round trip would just about leave enough for a cab and lunch. She would have nothing left over for that cute pair of shoes she had seen, the ones she had tried on at Neiman's last week. A potentially career-changing story versus a pair of open-toed shoes she might wear once or twice.

     No contest.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

100 Raoul Wallenberg Place

15th Street

Washington, D.C.

The Next Morning

T
HE BUILDING WAS IMPRESSIVE BUT IN
a very different way than its neighbors. The exposed pipes and drab brick walls of the first floor Hall of Witnesses were a sobering variation from the power and wealth of marble halls and soaring ceilings more common in the nation's capital. The architecture Marcie described as Federal Cookie-Cutter Massive worked very well, she supposed, for, say, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing next door. Here, strategic lighting illuminated exhibits but also created shadows of gloom and despair. The designers had achieved an atmosphere of somber reflection, of memories of tragic loss.

     Yawning from her early morning flight, she chose the stairs rather than wait for the elevator to the second floor. The few visitors spoke in churchlike whispers as they gathered around the monitors the website had promised.

     She extracted her notebook from her purse and checked the number she had written there after a second visit with Paige and Wynn-Three yesterday. It had bothered her a little to deceive her friend, pretending to simply be checking on the little boy, when her real intent had been to make sure she had the scratches on his arm in sequence. But personal ethics had no place in the news business, something the big names in the profession had demonstrated over and over. Betray a confidence? No problem; the public had a right to know. Release a story before it was
reasonably confirmed, no matter the consequences to those involved? Better than letting a rival beat you to it. A real news journalist checked their qualms at the door when they went to work. Everything had its price, and making it big in the news business was no exception. Move over, Woodward and Bernstein. Make way, Dan Rather.

     It took only seconds to scroll through the index to the name
Grituchlik.
The face she remembered appeared on the screen and she slipped the soft rubber earphones over her head. The story was little different from the one the old man had told her four years ago. Once again, he rolled up his left sleeve, displaying a faded tattoo. His daughter had been mistaken.

     Marcie looked closely. Although the numbers were different, there was the triangle that had also been on Wynn's arm and both were located on the left forearm.

     As Alik Grituchlik faded from the screen, Marcie continued to stare at it as though it were refusing to answer her questions. What would be the odds of a three-year-old American child, purely by chance, scratching numbers onto his arm that resembled those tattooed on Auschwitz prisoners over seventy years ago? But if not chance, what?

     She could almost make out a face on the thing creeping around the edge of her mind. Almost, but not quite.

     She glanced around the room. She hadn't come here merely to refresh her recollection of an old man who had witnessed more horrors in a few years than any should see in a lifetime. But now what?

     There were more reference machines and a film on the third floor. It only took a few minutes to learn about the significance of the triangle: it denoted Jew, as opposed to homosexual, Russian, Gypsy, or political dissident, each of whom had their own code. Although not stunning in itself, the fact took her breath away for a moment. If there had been any doubt as to the origins of the marks on Wynn-Three's arm, it had vanished like smoke.

     She decided she could use a cigarette.

     Outside the building's 14th Street exit, she shivered in the February chill made even more uncomfortable by the pervading dampness that characterizes some of Washington's winter days. She should have brought a warmer jacket. Her hand shook as she lit a cigarette, her first of the day.

     Assuming she had solved the riddle of the origin of the numbers, she
was now faced with a bigger mystery: Where had they come from? Were they real, actually having been tattooed on some unfortunate Jew's arm? Or had they popped unbidden into a three-year-old's imagination? But even the most fertile imagination had to have some origin, some source where fact left off and fancy began. What if . . .

     "Depressing, isn't it?"

     Marcie had not noticed she had been joined outside by a small band of modern-day lepers, the smokers. The young man who had spoken was wearing a Washington Redskins knit cap and a ski jacket.

     She nodded. "Yes it is. You work here?"

     "Sure do." He took a step closer and lowered his voice slightly. "Been here since it opened."

     Marcie put her left hand in her jacket pocket so the wedding ring didn't show, a frequently effective move when she was asking a man for information. "I looked at the registry of survivors. Is there any place former inmates are listed by number?"

     The young man took a deep drag from his cigarette and chewed his lower lip. "Number?"

     "You know, the number tattooed on the left arm."

     He exhaled a column of smoke. The wind snatched it away so quickly she wondered if she had really seen it at all. "You mean Auschwitz survivors."

     "That was the only place they tattooed prisoners?"