AL01 - Murder in the Marais

'I had to be sure you were SS,' she said.

'My record is clear,' Hartmuth said. 'This is absurd!'

Aimee thrust the faded blue sheet of paper, covered with spidery writing, at him. 'Didn't I promise you interesting reading?' she said. 'Read this.'

Hartmuth read it slowly. His lower lip twitched once. Motionless, he reread the letter.

'Who gave this to you?' he asked Thierry.

'His stepmother left this to be read with her will.'

'But why come to me?' His hands shook as he rebuttoned his cashmere coat.

'You tell us,' she said.

Thierry, his arms folded, stared intently at Hartmuth. The only sound came from scraping gravel as Thierry crossed and recrossed his legs. Somewhere in the Marais, low and sonorous in the frosty air, a bell pealed. Hartmuth remained mute, almost paralyzed.

'You had to murder Lili Stein because she recognized you,' Aimee said. 'From the time you rounded up her family and all the Jews in the Marais!'

Hartmuth stood up. 'I'm calling a guard.'

Aimee held his arm. 'Fifty years later, Lili sees your photo in the paper and knows you.'

'You're making this up!' he said.

'Lili couldn't forget your face. You beat down the door and pulled her parents out of bed.'

'I-I t-told you it wasn't like that,' Hartmuth stumbled.

She noticed how he clenched and unclenched his hands.

'Coincidentally, in the alley behind your hotel, she recognized you.' Aimee leaned into his face, pushing him back. 'Or maybe she tracked you down. Followed you. 'Nazi butcher,' she screams, or 'Assassin.' Maybe she tries to attack you, gets scared, runs away. But you follow her and you have to keep her quiet like the concierge. Keep your past hidden.'

'I-I only saw her once,' he said.

Aimee froze. So it was true. The idea she'd thrown into the frying pan was the right one.

'In 1943. I followed her to her apartment,' he said. His eyes glazed over.

'Tell me what happened,' Aimee said.

'I was afraid if Lili informed,' he said, 'they would t-trace the food to me. But I found the concierge, beaten to a bloody pulp.'

Aimee shivered. 'Those were your bloody fingerprints under the sink,' she said. She pointed to his hands. 'Those gloves hide your prints, preventing anyone from discovering who you are. You're the Gestapo lackey who couldn't get them to the ovens fast enough for Eichmann!'

Hartmuth slowly peeled off his kidskin gloves and thrust his scarred hands in the cold air. Rippled flesh whorled in strange patterns over his shriveled palms. The last two fingers of his left hands were stumps. 'These are courtesy of the Siberian oil fields, Mademoiselle.'

Unable to disguise her feelings Aimee turned away. Her own seared palm was small compared to his deformity.

'But those were your boot prints!' she persisted. 'You washed your boots at the sink, didn't you?'

A brief silence. He looked down. 'After the fact, yes. I went back.'

'You went back?' she said.

'I knew the concierge would be easy to bribe. But it was too late.'

'Who murdered her?' Aimee asked.

'I saw Lili climb out the window, over the rooftop, and escape. That's it, I just protected Sarah.'

'Protected Sarah. . .like the way you crossed her name out in the convoy sheets, then added the A to make it appear she had been sent to Auschwitz?' she said.

'Who are you?' Hartmuth demanded.

Thierry sat forward, studying this man, his eyes never leaving Hartmuth's face.

She ignored his question.

'Sarah is in danger.' His voice shook. 'I don't know how to help her.'

'She knew Lili Stein.'

A sigh. 'Yes.'

'Did she kill Lili in revenge because she'd been disfigured at Liberation?'

'N-no,' he shouted.

'Isn't she still sympathetic to Germany after being a collaborator, sleeping with you?'

'N-no, it's n-not like that. You have to find her again. Before they do.' Hartmuth raised his voice.

Aimee was surprised. 'Who?'

'People in the German government. . ..' He put his head down.

'Why should I believe you? You were in the Gestapo. I'll never have enough proof to prosecute you for war crimes. The Werewolves erased your past, resurrected a new identity from a dead man. They were masters at that. But deep down I know rats like you live in holes all over Germany.'

He rubbed his arm and spoke tonelessly. 'I supervised the local French police. They rounded up the Jews from businesses and apartments in every building around here. I worked with the Direktor of the Antijudische Polizei at the Kommandantur. We ticked off sheets when the convoys were loaded. As for shipping them out. . .' He paused, and lowered his voice. 'I didn't know what an Auschwitz or Treblinka meant. I found out later. Sarah hid from me but I found her and saved her. All the rest. . .I was one man in a wave that crushed generations. I didn't kill Lili. The only time I ever killed was in hand-to-hand combat at Stalingrad. A little Russian boy aimed a p-pitchfork at me and I sh-shot him. I see that every night when I try to sleep. Other things, too.'

'Thierry is your son, isn't he?' Aimee said.

'I don't know. This letter is in Sarah's writing b-but she said,' he stopped. 'Those eyes, y-yes. . .those are her eyes.' He choked. 'Sh-she told me we had a b-baby who died as an infant! I j-just find it hard to believe. . .'

'That I'm alive?' Thierry stood in front of him.

Aimee saw something inside of Hartmuth shift.

'Gott im Himmel, I never knew, n-never knew,' he said. His head started shaking. 'Are you my s-son?'

'Lies! Everyone lied to me,' said Thierry. His face contorted in hate. 'I had a right to know.'

Aimee saw the confusion in Hartmuth's eyes. He wondered if this really was his son. His and Sarah's, conceived in the catacombs fifty years ago.

'Sarah told me the b-baby died!' Hartmuth said.

Thierry, a stream of tears running down his own face, tentatively reached over.

'May I touch you, Father?' he asked in a whisper.

'Look at his blue eyes,' Aimee said to Hartmuth. 'Claude Rambuteau said Thierry had the same eyes as Sarah.'

Hartmuth slowly reached out his trembling fingers, and grasped Thierry's. They held hands tightly. Aimee watched as Hartmuth's hand started to explore Thierry's face. His fingers traced Thierry's cheekbones, how his forehead curved, where his ears brushed his black hair.

Fog curled into the courtyard, dimming the spotlights highlighting Picasso's sculptures. The temperature had dropped but the two men were oblivious. As they spoke, clouds of frost in the afternoon air punctuated their words.

Softly Hartmuth spoke. 'Your chin is like my grandmother's, jutting out just a little here.' He sighed wistfully as he ran his fingers over Thierry's jawline. 'Of course your eyes, coloring, and hair are hers,' he said.

'Hers?' Thierry asked, letting the question trail in the air.

'She'll come to me, to us. . .' A fierce longing shone in Hartmuth's eyes. 'That's why she's doing this, now I understand. Nothing matters anymore but that we're together. Some crazy coincidence and we've all found each other. I always hoped. But never in my fantasies did I dream we—'

'That we'd be reunited, like some happy family?' Thierry laughed sarcastically.

'No. I never knew you existed. But we are meant to be together,' Hartmuth said.

'Father, don't forget what you lived by,' Thierry said. He flashed his hand in the light so Hartmuth could see