Desert Run (17 page)

“Small world, eh? Listen, do you need this right now, or can you wait? I'm still running knee-deep in work. You want me to finish everything before I leave, don't you?”

Did he mean finish for the day, or forever? Because he wanted to take some time off between jobs, he had little more than a week left at Desert Investigations. After that, he would become my competitor. Glancing at my watch, I saw that it was only a few minutes past two. If Ian Mantz practiced in Glendale, I hated the idea of driving all the way back to Scottsdale, then driving all the way back to the west side again. “Do it now, please.” So what if I ticked Jimmy off? He was going to leave me anyway.

His voice sounded as irritated as I felt. “All right, all right. It shouldn't take more than a few minutes. I'll call you back.” Without waiting for my reply, he hung up.

I spent the next half hour trolling Antique Row, purchasing at one store a chartreuse Fifties bedside lamp shaped like a horse's head. From another store I bought a Lone Ranger and Tonto bedspread, also from the Fifties, then was gratified to see the beginning of a trend. Without even thinking, I was purchasing items for my bare apartment. One of the things I'd learned during my anger management sessions was that turning an apartment into a home was a sign of hope, not futility. I was no longer that lonely foster child who'd been shifted from home to home several times yearly with her belongings in a sack. I was now a grown woman, free to put down roots.

Free to decorate.

I was pondering the wisdom of purchasing a complete Fifties living room suite crafted from bleached saguaro cactus skeletons, made comfy by cushions covered with bright Navajo designs, when my cell phone rang. It was Jimmy, telling me that Kapitan Stefan Schauer had immigrated to the U.S. in 1953, and worked at an aircraft design firm in Seattle until his retirement. In 1998, following a particularly nasty divorce—there had been joint accusations of infidelity—he had moved to Phoenix. No wants, no warrants.

Gerhardt Mantz was born in Bonn, Germany, in 1922, immigrated to the U.S. in 1940, became a successful farmer, but eventually sold his farm to a developer and started a small construction firm. He retired in 1987, and died in a car crash with his wife Eva in 1999, leaving behind a son, four grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. That was the bad news. The good news was that the Ian Mantz of Fay's notes was Gerhardt's son. Born in 1946 at Phoenix's St. Joseph's Hospital, Ian received his DDS at University of Southern California, and after filling a few thousand teeth in the U.S. Army during the waning days of the Vietnam War, he returned to the Phoenix area. He was a member of the Lion's Club, Rotary, and the Glendale Chamber of Commerce. Neither he, his wife Huong, nor any of his children had ever been arrested. He owned his house free and clear, enjoyed a Triple A credit rating, and had never been sued.

Ian Mantz was such a sterling character, in fact, that he immediately aroused my suspicion. But what could possibly be his connection to Ernst? They lived on opposite sides of Phoenix, and from what I'd heard at Gemuetlichkeit, Ernst had only attended the club once before he'd been frozen out. But that one time he had met Mantz's father. Could Ernst have delivered an insult which his son had avenged years after his father's death? No, the idea was ridiculous. I had to stop reading mystery novels.

Since I'd left Fay's notes back at the office, Jimmy gave me Ian Mantz's business and home addresses. I decided some boot-licking was in store. “I appreciate it, partner, I do.”

He sighed. “I know you do. It's just that…Oh, never mind.” He hung up, but gently, this time.

Satisfied with the afternoon's work, I bought the cactus living room set and arranged to have it delivered the next day.

***

Ian Mantz's office wasn't all that far from the German-American club, and I was soon standing in his waiting room, telling his receptionist that I didn't mind waiting, since that was what the room was for.

“But Dr. Mantz has a full schedule!” She couldn't have been older than twenty, and was apparently inexperienced with someone who actually wanted to see a dentist.

“That's fine. I'll be here when he comes up for air.” I took a seat between a glum young woman with a swollen jaw, and a teenager with a mouth full of braces and acne so acute it looked like strawberries were erupting from his skin. Neither acknowledged my presence. Both appeared to be listening to the sound of a faraway drill.

The only reading material in the waiting room was
Sports Illustrated, Better Homes &Gardens,
and a two-year-old copy of
Phoenix Magazine
. Ordinarily I would have passed by the
Better Homes &Gardens
, but now that a truck load of furniture was on its way to my place, I decided to give the ladies' mag a try. Maybe I'd find out what color walls would compliment my new cactus-and-Navajo blanket living room furniture. Navajo White seemed too obvious.

Shortly before five, with all patients gone and the receptionist herself packing up to leave, a balding middle-aged man with the trim build of a runner stuck his head out the door. He didn't look happy. “You're still here?”

I winced, as I tried to work a cramp out of my leg. My muscles weren't used to such inactivity. “I sure am, Dr. Mantz. Do you have a few minutes now? Or do I have to come back tomorrow?”

“Oh, come on in. We might as well get this over with. And as long as I'm not working on your teeth, you can call me Ian.”

I dropped the
Sports Illustrated
(Better Home &Gardens
had been no help), and limped after him to a back office thankfully free of dental equipment. The office was more or less generic, with a book case, an oak desk, matching leather chairs, a couple of brass lamps, and a full wall of photographs showing Ian Mantz receiving awards, playing golf, target shooting, and posing in a speed boat at Lake Pleasant with an older man who resembled him. Gerhardt Mantz, his father? But what drew my eye was the glass-fronted cabinet displaying a collection of antique daggers and knives, the long blades on some almost qualifying them as swords. Among the weapons I could identify were a Muela boar knife, a Hebben Claw II, and several skeleton throwing knives. The centerpiece was a short Japanese Katana sword, which contrasted oddly with its neighbor: a wooden-handled paring knife no different from those used in kitchens everywhere.

Ian Mantz closed the door behind me and gestured me into a deep leather chair across from his desk. With a happy sigh, he took off his lab coat, hung it on the back of his own chair, and stretched for a moment before sitting down. I couldn't help but notice that his short-sleeved blue shirt not only matched his eyes, but showed off his gym-toned biceps. Daggers and muscles. An unusual combination for a dentist.

“Speak, Miss Jones. I've booked some time this evening at the Glendale Collectibles Club and I don't want to miss it.” His voice was as brusque as his manner.

I decided to be blunt. “What was your late father's connection with Erik Ernst?”

“Erik who?” His face showed no emotion at all, but his right hand began a tappity-tappity on his desk blotter.

“Erik Ernst. A former U-boat captain, one of the German POWs who escaped from Camp Papago in 1944. Somebody beat him to death the other day.”

He displayed no emotion, but looked away briefly. There was more tappity-tappity as he looked over to the wall of photographs, even more as he glanced at the display case with its alarming array of knives. When he looked back at me, his eyes remained determinedly steady, yet his fingers continued their dance. “What makes you think my father had a connection with him?”

When I recounted the conversation I'd had at Gemuetlichkeit
,
he surprised me. Instead of offering a flurry of denials, he threw back his head and laughed heartily. “Oh, God, I'll bet you talked to Klaus Brautigan! That old fart's memory is connected directly to his mouth with no censor in between to stem the tide. So he told you about Dad running into Ernst at Gemuetlichkeit? Did he also tell you what happened in the parking lot afterwards?”

Stefan Schauer had stopped Klaus before he could tell me anything more, but I wasn't going to let Mantz know that. “Some. But I'd like to hear your version.”

Mantz's keen look proved he wasn't fooled. “Some, huh? Well, it's nice to see that the loose-lips-sink-ships creed is still in effect with those old boys, but I guess none of it matters any more, Dad being dead and all. Plus the fact that there were about twenty witnesses to the brouhaha, not all of them Gemuetlichkeit members. So yeah, I'll give you my ‘version.' I was walking from my office to join Dad for lunch. I saw the whole thing. What happened is that my father attacked Erik Ernst. He knocked him right out of his wheelchair, and then after punching him half unconscious—although Ernst gave almost as good as he got—kicked him in the balls. If I hadn't grabbed my dad and hauled him away, he probably would have killed the old bastard.”

I tried to picture two elderly men—one of them legless—wrestling on the ground in the parking lot, screaming at each other in German. Nasty. “What could your father have against Ernst?”

His smile vanished as his fingers grew still. “As much as an honorable man can have against a dishonorable one. You see, Miss Jones, my father's real name was Gunter Hoenig.”

Chapter Seventeen

March 23, 1945

As soon as Das Kapitan left the cave, Gunter took Josef aside and tried once more to talk his friend into leaving with him. “We will hike out of these mountains the way we came in and give ourselves up. This idea of Kapitan's, that we will wait out the end of the war here, it is madness!” He no longer brought up the deaths in the farmhouse. His friend had not seen Kapitan kill the woman, and would never believe.

When Josef shook his head, wisps of auburn hair fell across his forehead. “We must obey Das Kapitan. We are Germans! To turn on him now, when he has led us through that barren desert to this miraculous refuge, would be the utmost treason. And Gunter, you know well what Kapitan does to traitors.”

Oh, yes, Gunter did know. How could he ever forget Werner Dreschler's agony that seemingly endless night? But Dreschler's treachery toward the Fatherland had earned him few sympathizers, whereas he and Josef had remained been loyal Germans throughout all the questioning, telling the Allies nothing. “To abandon Kapitan is not treachery, Josef.” Outside of their cave, birds sang and water skipped merrily over the rocks, but here in the stone chamber, Gunter thought his words rang with a graveyard echo.

“Kapitan would see it as treachery.” Then Josef lowered his voice, as if afraid Erik Ernst lurked around the corner. “You know the rumors, that Kapitan has friends in the Gestapo. If either of us displeases him, our families would pay. I would not see Marlena again! Never see our baby! I will never know if I have a son or a daughter!” Filled with an emotion he couldn't control, his voice rose to a near shout, and Gunter had to reach out a calming hand.

The conversation had always ended in this stalemate. Josef had too much to lose. Gunter was unmarried and his own parents were dead, so the only power the Gestapo had over him would be to take away his own life. So what if they did? After the war's horrors he had seen these past few years, death might be a comfort. Josef was in a far more vulnerable position, with his entire family, including his pregnant wife, remaining in the same Bavarian village where the Hoenigs and Brauns had lived for centuries. To take them away would be a simple thing. All across Germany, hundreds of people—perhaps even thousands—
had vanished. Evil had taken up residence in the Fatherland and Gunter was not certain, if he lived through these dangerous times, that he could bear to return.

“I understand, Josef.” Sadly, he reached over and tousled his friend's auburn hair. “We will not speak of this again.”

To ease his disappointment, Gunter gathered up the pencils and thick notebook he had taken from a nearby ranch house, along with the small paring knife he used for sharpening. For weeks he had written down his feelings about the war, his captivity and escape, but now perhaps it was time to put aside angry words and focus on the beauty around him. As a child, he had loved to draw, but time and duty had stilled his hand. Not that the world lost anything by being denied his artistic endeavors, but the attempt to capture on paper a singing bird or high-stepping deer never failed to lift his heart. Already smiling in anticipation, he moved toward the mouth of the cave, pausing only once to call back to Josef, “I think today I will hike closer to that odd mountain in the distance and draw whatever I find there.”

Josef's answering voice was light with relief and hope. “Bring me back a masterpiece, Gunter. Something with birds and fairies and beautiful girls.”

Gunter would do that, if only to make his friend happy.

***

After what seemed like hours, Gunter heard footsteps. It was probably Das Kapitan, on his way back to the cave after his morning's search for food. To be on the safe side, he put his little knife into his pocket, tucked his journal inside his shirt, and hid himself in a small copse of yellow-bloomed bushes. A few moments later, Kapitan emerged from the brush, two bled and gutted rabbits dangling next to the long butcher knife on his belt. Thanks to Kapitan's hunting skills, they would eat meat tonight, a welcome respite from the stolen sack of beans that made up their usual diet. When this war was over, he would never eat another bean. His diet would consist of nothing but steak and ice cream.

He stepped out of the yellow bush and raised his hand in greeting. “Heil, Kapitan! I see you have once again been successful!”

The smile Kapitan gave him was fierce, like a wolf's. “The rabbits in this place are as stupid as the Americans and it takes little skill to snare them. But I have an idea. We have become too thin eating only the rabbits, beans, and the berries we glean from this valley. We big Germans must have our fat so that we will be strong enough to play our part when this lax country submits to the iron boot of the Reich. Therefore, tomorrow we will return to that farm at the mouth of the valley where we found such largess in the root cellar. We will wait until the tall man leaves for the fields, then we will overpower the two women we saw earlier and take what we will. Butter. Eggs. Perhaps even a chicken or two. And for dessert, we will explore the delights of the young fraulein with the long, yellow hair.”

The golden girl, Gunter had called the young fraulein in his dreams. Before heading into this valley, they had all watched her from behind the ridge as she, dressed in her Sunday finery, joined her mother and father in the old pickup truck and drove away.

He had to keep Ernst away from her. “Kapitan, if we wait for Sunday they will be gone and the entire contents of their larder will be ours for the picking.”

Kapitan's smile grew more wolfish. “I hunger for dessert, Gunter. It has been too long. Much too long.”

Gunter knew that when Kapitan had finished sampling his “dessert,” he would do to the girl what he had done to the woman in that other farm house. The memory of that woman's ruined beauty, her pleading eyes, rose up again. No, Gunter could not allow it! Almost without thinking, he withdrew the small paring knife from his pocket and charged Ernst.

But Kapitan was faster. He sprang aside, allowing the momentum of Gunter's unplanned charge to dissipate into empty air. Then Kapitan made a charge of his own and knocked the off-balance Gunter to his knees. Before Gunter could stumble to his feet, Kapitan unhooked his butcher knife from his belt.

“You will pay for your treachery, farm boy,” Kapitan snarled.

With despair, Gunter watched his death approach.