'We're both interested in World War Two, Detective Beaumont. Particularly the European front. We're doing a joint independent study project on the Holocaust that may eventually evolve into a joint Master's project as well.'
I'm not a golfer, so I've never hit a hole in one. The feeling, however, has to be similar. With that one effortless question and without even having to dig for it, we suddenly had a pretty good idea of what it was that had gone wrong between Kari Gebhardt and her father.
Closing my eyes, I could visualize the rank upon rank of Nazi toy soldiers standing on the shelves in Gunter Gebhardt's locked basement. A lover of Nazis would be prone to think of what had happened to Jews in Hitler's Europe more in terms of 'Final Solution' than as 'Holocaust.' Justification rather than horror. Rationalization rather than responsibility.
For some inexplicable reason, Kari, the Nazi-lover's very own daughter, had opted to identify with the slaughtered victims rather than with the perpetrators who were her father's heroes.
This was nothing short of a fundamental disagreement, but then that's how generation gaps usually work. Often, American children in particular seem to be programmed to oppose their parents' most cherished beliefs. I figured Kari was just keeping up her end of the bargain.
'Did your father know anything about this study project of yours?' I asked.
Kari shook her head. 'Since he wasn't paying a dime for my schooling, I didn't think it was any of his business. I'm not a dependent, you know. I'm on a scholarship, although when I need help, Granny usually slips me a little something.'
That figured. Inge Didriksen strikes again. Everyone should have such a noninterfering mother-in-law.
'Tell us,' Sue Danielson said, 'what was your father like?'
For the first time, tears sprang to Kari Gebhardt's eyes. 'He was a liar and a cheat,' she answered.
Kari's tears proved to be too much for Michael. Frowning, he uncrossed his arms, leaned forward, and took her hand. 'You don't have to do this, Kari,' he whispered urgently. 'You don't have to put yourself through this. Let's just go.' He stood up.
I sensed that Kari was about to tell us something important, while Michael was ready to cut and run. 'She does have to, Michael,' I said. 'Willingly withholding information in a homicide investigation is a felony. Now sit back down.'
He sat, and I turned my attention back to Kari.
When detectives ask questions, they usually have some notion of what the answers will be. We had spent two days nosing around in what had turned out to be Gunter Gebhardt's very unsavory recent past. What we had learned pretty much agreed with Kari's simple assessment. Her father had indeed been a liar and cheat. I half expected her to tell us that years earlier she had somehow stumbled across irrefutable evidence of her father's womanizing-with some distant predecessor of Denise Whitney. I thought that would be the real basis of her feud with her father. I would have missed the mark by a country mile.
'He lied to us,' Kari Gebhardt murmured. 'He lied to Mother and me about everything.'
'Everything?' Sue asked. 'What do you mean?'
Kari paused, as if uncertain whether or not to continue. The noisy clatter of a nearby table being cleared of dishes by a green-haired busboy filled Kari's sudden silence. I was afraid she'd quit on us altogether, but she didn't.
'My father was born in a town in Bavaria, a place called Kempten. He always told us that his father was a pilot in the Luftwaffe, and that he was killed during World War Two.'
'We already heard about the pilot part from someone else-your mother, I believe,' I said. 'Wasn't he shot down over France?'
'That's just it,' Kari said, her voice breaking as she spoke. 'He wasn't. That's all part of the lie along with everything else. When I was little, I used to be fascinated by all those soldiers. I'd go down in the basement and watch for hours while Dad worked on his collection. He always told me the soldiers were from his father's army, and that's why he made them-out of respect for his father. I didn't have any idea what the German Army stood for, and I didn't really come to grips with the awful reality of what went on during World War Two until I was in high school.
'I spent part of my senior year as an exchange student in Frankfurt, Germany. When we had a break from school, I hitchhiked down to Kempten and looked up the records myself. My grandfather, Hans Gebhardt, wasn't in the Luftwaffe at all. Ever. He was S.S. A Nazi guard at Sobibor.'
She whispered the last word with what sounded like wrenching revulsion, as though she could barely stand to say it aloud. Her eyes met mine. They seemed to be pleading for understanding. It was as if she expected me to recognize the full implication of what those strange sounds meant.
Certainly when the words 'Nazi,' 'the S. S,' and 'guards' are all used in the same breath, several awful images come inevitably to mind-Auschwitz; Dachau. Photographic images of skeletal, emaciated people with shaved heads staring hopelessly out through barbed-wire fences. But the word 'Sobibor' meant nothing to me.
'What's that?' I asked. 'A concentration camp?'
Kari looked at me through tear-filled eyes. She shook her head, bit her lip, and didn't answer. Couldn't. Finally overcoming his own reluctance, Michael Morris spoke up in her place.
'Not a concentration camp,' he answered. 'Not a work camp. Sobibor was an extermination camp. A death camp in Poland. The official record says the Germans killed two hundred fifty thousand people there in a little over a year. But that total only counts the ones who were transported there by train. Lots more came by truck or bus or on foot. Those weren't counted in the official total.'
Michael spoke softly but determinedly, each word enunciated with horrifying clarity. 'However they arrived, once they were inside the gate, guards gave a speech welcoming them to a work camp. Dirty and exhausted from the trip, their hair was cut off, and they were ordered to strip for cleansing showers. But gas came out of the shower heads, not water. They died like dogs being slaughtered in a pound.
'Afterward, the corpses were burned, the ashes used for fertilizer. The countryside for miles around that place is still littered with human bones.'
I glanced at Kari. Her face was pale, but she appeared to be under control.
'Maybe your father was ashamed of what his father did,' I suggested. 'With your grandfather gone, maybe it was easier for Gunter to rewrite his father's death as a pilot than to…'
'Kari's grandfather isn't dead,' Michael interrupted. 'We believe he's alive and in hiding someplace. He was an S.S. guard and a deserter besides, and people are looking for him. I hope to God they find him, too,' he added bitterly.
'But, Michael,' Kari blurted, 'what if they killed my father while they were trying to find my grandfather? I was mad at Dad. I hadn't spoken to him in years because of the way he acted about what his father did; because he lied about it and covered it up. But that doesn't give these men the right to kill him. That makes them just as bad as my grandfather was.'
Voices were rising. Other people in the restaurant were beginning to stare. 'Wait a minute,' I said. 'You're telling us that someone came looking for your Nazi war-criminal grandfather, and you think they're the ones who killed your father?'
Kari nodded. 'I'm sure of it,' she said.
I looked around the room. There weren't that many people around, but some of the customers seated at other nearby tables seemed entirely too interested in what was going on at ours.
'I'm sorry,' I said. 'This isn't something we should be discussing in such a public place. I'm afraid we're going to have to ask you to come down to the department after all. At least there we'll have some privacy.'
This time there was no objection from either Michael Morris or Kari Gebhardt.
18
Breaking up an interview at a crucial juncture like that is always a tough call, but Seattle's still a small enough town when it comes to discussing something that volatile. I opted for privacy over continuity.
I considered the privacy issue so important, in fact, that I was even willing to risk moving the interview to
