“They were, like, celebrity friends when they were young. My mom was a big tennis star, Angelica was a young actress. I guess they hung out. What’s the difference?”
Ema just frowned.
“I have a thought,” Spoon said.
Ema gave him a withering look. “I can hardly wait to hear this.”
“This sandy-blond guy. Let’s call him the Butcher, okay?”
“What about him?”
Spoon pushed up his glasses. “He tried to kill you. Doesn’t it make sense that maybe he also tried to kill Rachel?”
Silence.
“And if that’s the case, wouldn’t it follow that maybe, just maybe, he’s trying to kill us all?”
More silence.
“I hate to admit it,” Ema said, “but Spoon may have a point.”
“Thank you. I’m not just eye candy for the ladies, you know.”
“We are going to have to be extra careful,” I said.
“Has anyone heard from Rachel since we sneaked into the hospital?” Spoon asked.
So here we were. I could lie to them or I could betray Rachel’s confidence. I aimed for something in between. “I have,” I said as, mercifully, the bell rang. “But for right now, I need to leave it at that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ema asked.
“Yeah,” Spoon added. “Aren’t we in this together?”
“Just… trust me here.” I remembered my schedule-visit Rachel, basketball tryouts. Hmm. They were both still looking at me, waiting for more. “How about this? Let’s meet right after basketball tryouts. I should be able to tell you more then.”
CHAPTER 28
When the final bell rang, I got my backpack and prepared for the walk to Rachel’s house. I was just closing my locker when I heard Mrs. Friedman say, “Mr. Bolitar? A word, please.”
Some kids nearby said, “Oooo, you’re in trouble.”
Mature, right?
After I moved into her classroom, Mrs. Friedman closed the door behind us. “I found something you might find interesting,” she said.
“Oh?”
“I have a colleague who works at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Have you ever been?”
“No, ma’am.”
Her face looked so sad. “You should. Everyone should. It is horrible and yet so necessary. You go into that museum one person, you come out another. At least, you do if you have a conscience. Anyway, I spoke to my colleague and I asked her about Hans Zeidner, the Butcher of Lodz.”
I waited for her to say more. When she didn’t, I said, “Thank you.”
Mrs. Friedman pinned me down with her eyes. “Do you want to tell me why you’re so interested in this subject?”
I almost did. I thought about all that I knew, about Lizzy Sobek being the Bat Lady and living so close to where we now stood. I thought about the Butcher and my father and the fire. But in the end, I knew that I shouldn’t and couldn’t.
“I can’t,” I said. “Not yet anyway.”
I figured that there would be a follow-up question, but there wasn’t. Instead Mrs. Friedman opened her desk drawer and said, “Here.”
There was a photograph in her hand. I took it from her. It was another old black-and-white picture of a man wearing a Waffen-SS uniform. The man in the photograph had dark hair and a thin mustache. His nose was pointy and mouselike. His eyes were two black marbles.
“Thank you,” I said, looking up at her. “Who is this?”
Mrs. Friedman made a face. “‘Who is this?’”
“Yes. Who is the man in the photograph?”
“Who do you think?” Mrs. Friedman said. “It’s Hans Zeidner. The Butcher of Lodz.”
CHAPTER 29
Occam’s Razor.
My father had often repeated that one to me. Occam’s Razor states the following: “Other things being equal, a simpler explanation is better than a more complex one.” Put more succinctly, the simplest answer was usually the best one.
So why hadn’t I even considered the simple possibility that Bat Lady’s photograph was merely Photoshopped?
As I walked to Rachel’s house, my mind traveled between rage at Bat Lady and rage at myself-mostly at myself. How could I be so gullible? In this day and age when any idiot with a computer can alter an image, why had I jumped to the conclusion that a Nazi from World War II hadn’t aged a day in nearly seventy years and now worked as a San Diego paramedic?
What kind of naïve dope am I?
The sandy-blond paramedic with the green eyes was not the Butcher of Lodz. He was not ninety years old. He was not the same man who had tortured and killed scores in 1940s Poland, including Lizzy Sobek’s father. Ema had simply Photoshopped the guy’s face onto a modern photograph to send out to San Diego, right? Why couldn’t someone do the opposite-take a picture of a guy in his thirties and superimpose it on an old black-and-white?
Someone-the Bat Lady or Shaved Head, I guessed-had fooled me with simple digital photography.
Why? And what could I do about it?
It would have to wait. Right now, I had to concentrate on Rachel. When I approached her house, I saw a police car pulling out. I ducked behind a tree. Chief Taylor was in the driver’s seat. No one was with him. As he drove past, he looked distracted and… scared?
I didn’t know what to make of that. I waited until the police car was out of sight before making my approach. The gate at the entrance to Rachel’s driveway had closed after Chief Taylor drove out. I pressed an intercom button and looked up into the camera. Rachel said, “I’ll buzz you in.” She was waiting for me at the front door. Other than the bandage on the side of her head, you would never guess that she’d been shot. Of course, the bullet hadn’t entered her skin, just skimming the scalp, but somehow that made it all the more poignant. Probably half an inch, no more, was the difference between minor injuries and death.
The thought made me want to hug her, but it didn’t feel right.
“I’m so glad to see you’re okay,” I said.
Rachel gave me a tight smile and kissed my cheek. She wore a short-sleeved shirt so that the burn mark was visible. I had always wanted to ask her how that had happened because it still looked painful, but of course, now was not the time. The red in her eyes told me that she’d been crying recently and probably a lot.
“I’m so sorry about your mom.”
“Thank you.”
“Did I just see Chief Taylor drive out?”
Rachel nodded and frowned.
“What did he want?” I asked.
“I don’t know. He’s been talking to my father a lot. Every time I come near them, they tell me it’s nothing. Oh, and Chief Taylor keeps asking me what I remember.”
He had done that at the hospital too. “I guess that’s normal. Him investigating what happened and all.”
“I guess,” Rachel said. But she didn’t seem convinced. “It’s just weird.”
“Weird how?”
“He seems on edge or something.”
Rachel shrugged and led me down the hall. We stopped at an open doorway with yellow crime-scene tape across it. This, I could see, was clearly where it had happened. There was still blood on the floor. I moved closer to Rachel. She began to shake. I put my arm around her and pulled her toward me.
“Why don’t we go somewhere else?” I said as gently as I could.
“No, it’s okay. I wanted to show this to you.”
The house was silent.
“Who’s home with you?” I asked.
“No one.”
That surprised me. “Where are your father and stepmother?”
“My stepmother needed a vacation-thankfully. She’s at a spa in Arizona. My father is at work.” When she saw the concerned look on my face, she waved it away. “Believe me, it’s better.”
For a moment we both just stared at the blood on the floor. Rachel’s eyes flooded with tears again. Not sure what to say, I went with, “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
“I got my mother killed,” Rachel said. “It’s as simple as that.”