Ten Plus One

4

The president of Indian Exports, Inc., the firm with which Anthony Forrest had been connected, was a balding man in his sixties, somewhat stout, somewhat pompous, somewhat German. He was perhaps five feet eight inches tall, with a protruding middle and a flat-footed walk. Meyer Meyer, who was Jewish, felt instantly uncomfortable in his presence.

The man’s name was Ludwig Etterman. He stood before his desk in what seemed to be genuine despair and he said, with only the faintest German accent, “Tony was a good man. I cannot understand why this happened.”

“How long had you been associated with him, Mr. Etterman?” Carella asked.

“Fifteen years. That is a long time.”

“Can you give us some of the details, sir?”

“What would you like to know?”

“How you met, what sort of business arrangement you had, what Mr. Forrest’s function was.”

“He was a salesman when we met. I already had the business. He sold cartons for a company that was downtown at the time—it has since gone out of business. We import from India, you know, and we ship goods all over the United States, so naturally we need cartons in which to ship them. At that time, I bought most of my cartons from Tony’s company. I saw him, oh, perhaps twice a month.”

“This was shortly after the war, is that right, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Would you know if Mr. Forrest had been in the service?”

“Yes, he was,” Etterman said. “He was with the artillery. He was wounded in Italy, in a battle with the Germans.” Etterman paused. He turned to Meyer and said, “I am an American citizen, you know. I was here from 1912, my parents came here when I was still a boy. Most of the family left Germany. Some of them went to India, which is how the business started.”

“Do you know what rank Mr. Forrest held in the Army, sir?” Carella asked.

“He was a captain, I believe.”

“All right, go ahead, please.”

“Well, I liked him from the beginning. There was a nice manner about him. Cartons, after all, are the same no matter where you buy them. I bought from Tony because I liked him personally.” Etterman offered the detectives a cigar, and then lit one himself. “My one vice,” he said. “My doctor says they will kill me. I told my doctor, I would like to die in bed with a young blonde, or else smoking a cigar.” Etterman chuckled. “At my age, I will have to be content to die smoking a cigar.”

“How did Mr. Forrest come to the firm?” Carella said, smiling.

“I asked him one day if he was satisfied with his position, because if he wasn’t, I was ready to make him an offer. We discussed it further, and he came to work for the company. As a salesman. That was fifteen years ago. Today, or rather when he died, he was a vice president.”

“What prompted your offer, Mr. Etterman?”

“As I told you, I liked him from the beginning. Then, too…” Etterman shook his head. “Well, it does not matter.”

“What, sir?”

“You see…” Etterman shook his head again. “You see, gentlemen, I lost my son. He was killed in the war.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Carella said.

“Yes, well, it was a long time ago, we must go on living, isn’t that so?” He smiled a brief, sad smile. “He was with a bomber squadron, my son. His plane was shot down in the raid on Schweinfurt on April thirteenth, 1944. It was a ball-bearings factory there.”

The room went silent.

“Our family came originally from a town close to Schweinfurt. It is sometimes odd, don’t you think, the way life works out? I was born as a German in a town near Schweinfurt, and my son is killed as an American flying over Schweinfurt.” He shook his head. “It sometimes makes me wonder.”

Again there was silence.

Carella cleared his throat and said, “Mr. Etterman, what sort of a person was Anthony Forrest? Did he get along well with your staff, did he…?”

“He was the finest human being I have ever known,” Etterman said. “I do not know of anyone who disliked him.” He shook his head. “I can only believe that some maniac killed him.”

“Mr. Etterman, did he usually leave the office at the same time each day?”

“We close at five,” Etterman said. “Tony and I would usually talk for, oh, perhaps another fifteen minutes. Yes, I would say he usually left the building between five-fifteen and five-thirty.”

“Did he get along with his wife?”

“He and Clara were very happily married.”

“How about the children? His daughter is nineteen, is that right, and the two boys are about fifteen?”

“That is correct.”

“Any trouble with them?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, have they ever been in any kind of trouble?”

“I do not know what you mean.”

“With the law, with other kids, bad company, anything like that.”

“They are fine children,” Etterman said. “Cynthia was graduated highest in her class from high school, and won a scholarship to Ramsey University. The two boys do very well scholastically. One of them is on his school baseball team, and the other belongs to the debating club. No, there was never any trouble with Tony’s children.”

“Do you know anything about his Army background, Mr. Etterman? Whoever shot him is an expert with a rifle, so the possibility that he’s an ex-Army man exists. Since Mr. Forrest was in the Army…”

“I don’t know much about it. I’m sure he was a fine officer.”

“He never mentioned having any trouble with his men, anything that might have carried over into…?”

“Gentlemen, he was in the Army during the war. The war has been over for a long time. Surely, no one would carry a grudge for so many years.”

“Anything’s possible,” Carella said. “We’re looking for a place to hang our hats, sir.”

“It must be a maniac,” Etterman said. “It can only be a maniac.”

“I hope not, sir,” Carella said, and then they rose and thanked him for his time.

On the street outside, Meyer said, “I always feel funny when I’m around Germans.”

“I noticed that,” Carella said.

“Yeah? Was it really noticeable? Was I too quiet?”

“You didn’t say a word all the while we were up there.”

Meyer nodded. “I kept thinking, ‘All right, maybe your son was killed flying an American bomber over Schweinfurt, but maybe, on the other hand, one of your nephews was stuffing my relatives into ovens at Dachau.’ “ Meyer shook his head. “You know, Sarah and I were at a party a couple of weeks ago, and somebody there was arguing with somebody else because he was selling German cars in this country. What it got down to, the guy said that he would like to see all the German people exterminated. So the other guy said, ‘There was a German once who wanted to see all the Jewish people exterminated.’ And I could see his point. What the hell makes it more right for Jews to exterminate Germans than vice versa? I could understand the point completely. But at the same time, Steve, something inside me agreed with the first guy. Because, I guess maybe deep down inside, every Jew in the world would like to see the Germans exterminated for what they did to us.”

“You can’t hate a people here and now for what another people in another time did, Meyer,” Carella said.

“You’re not a Jew,” Meyer said.

“No, I’m not. But I look at a guy like Etterman, and I see only a sad old man who lost his son in the war, and who two days ago lost the equivalent of a second son.”

“I look at him, and I see the film clips of those bulldozers pushing thousands of dead Jews, that’s what I see.”

“Do you see the son who died over Schweinfurt?”

“No. I think I honestly hate the Germans, and I think I’ll hate them till the day I die.”

“Maybe you’re entitled to,” Carella said.

“You know, there are times when I think you’re Jewish,” Meyer answered.

“When I think of what happened in Germany, I am Jewish,” Carella said. “How can I be anything else and still call myself a human being? What the hell were they throwing in those ovens? Garbage? Animals? Don’t you think I feel what you feel?”

“I’m not sure you do,” Meyer said.

“No? Then go to hell.”

“You getting sore or something?”

“A little.”

“Why?”

“I’ll tell you why. I don’t think I even knew a Jew until I was twelve years old. That’s the God’s honest truth. Oh, yeah, there was a guy who used to come around to the door selling stuff, and my mother called him ‘The Jew.’ She used to say, ‘The Jew is coming today.’ I don’t think she meant anything derogatory, or maybe she did, who the hell knows? She was raised in Italy, and she didn’t know Jews from a hole in the wall. Maybe, for her, ‘Jew’ was synonymous with peddler. To me, a Jew was an old man with a beard and a bundle on his back. Until I got to high school. That was where I met Jews for the first time. You have to remember that Hitler was already in power by then. Well, I heard a joke one day, and I repeated it to a Jewish kid in the cafeteria. The joke was built on a riddle, and the riddle was: ‘What’s the fastest thing in the world?’ The answer was: ‘A Jew riding through Germany on a bicycle.’ The kid I told the joke to didn’t think it was very funny. I couldn’t understand what I’d said to offend him. So I went home and asked my father, who was also born in Italy, who was running a bakery, well, you know, he still does. I told him the joke, and he didn’t laugh either, and then he took me inside, we had a dining room at the time, with one of those big old mahogany tables. We sat at the table, and he said to me in Italian, ‘Son, there is nothing good about hatred, and nothing funny about it, either.’ I went back to school the next day, and I looked for that kid, I can still remember his name, Reuben Zimmerman, and I told him I was sorry for what I’d said the day before, and he told me to forget it. But he never spoke to me again all the while we were in that high school. Four years, Meyer, and he never spoke to me.”

“What are you saying, Steve?”

“I don’t know what the hell I’m saying.”

“Maybe you are Jewish, after all,” Meyer said.

“Maybe I am. Let’s stop for an egg cream before we look up Norden’s wife.”

Mae Norden was forty-three years old, a brunette with a round face and dark-brown eyes. They found her at the funeral home where Norden’s body lay in a satin-lined coffin. The undertaker had done a remarkable job with the front of his face, where the bullet had entered. The casual observer would never have known he’d been shot. The room was filled with relatives and friends, among whom were his wife and his two children, Joanie and Mike. Mike was eight years old and Joanie was five. They both sat on straight-backed chairs near the coffin, looking very old and very bewildered at the same time. Mae Norden was dressed in black, and her eyes looked as if she had cried a lot in the past day, but she was not crying now. She led the detectives outside, and they stood on the sidewalk there and smoked cigarettes and discussed her husband, who lay dead on satin in the silent room beyond.

“I don’t know who could have done this,” Mae said. “I know it’s common for a wife to think her husband was well-liked, but I can’t think of a single person who disliked Randy. That’s the truth.”

“How about business associates, Mrs. Norden? He was a lawyer, isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”

“Is it possible that one of his clients…?”

“Look, anyone who shoots someone has to be a little crazy, isn’t that so?”

“Not necessarily,” Meyer said.

“My point is, sure, Randy lost cases. Is there a lawyer who doesn’t lose cases? But if you ask me whether or not any of his clients would be…be angry enough to do something like this, then I have to say how do I know what a crazy person would do? Where’s the basis for…for anything when you’re dealing with someone who’s unbalanced?”

“We’re not sure the killer was unbalanced, Mrs. Norden,” Meyer said.

“No?” She smiled thinly. “A perfectly normal person went up on that roof and shot my husband when he came out of the building, is that it? Perfectly sane?”

“Mrs. Norden, we’re not psychiatrists. We’re talking about sanity in the eyes of the law. The murderer may not have been what the law considers insane.”

“The hell with the law,” Mae said suddenly. “Anyone who takes another man’s life is insane, and I don’t care what the law says.”

“But your husband was a lawyer, isn’t that right?”

“That’s exactly right,” Mae said angrily. “What are you saying now? That I have no respect for the law, therefore I have no respect for lawyers, therefore I have…”

“We didn’t say that, Mrs. Norden.” Carella paused. “I feel certain a lawyer’s wife would have a great deal of respect for the law.”

“But I’m not a lawyer’s wife anymore,” Mae said. “Didn’t you know that? I’m a widow. I’m a widow with two young children, Mr.—what was your name?”

“Carella.”

“Yes. I’m a forty-three-year-old widow, Mr. Carella. Not a lawyer’s wife.”

“Mrs. Norden, perhaps you can tell us a few things that might help us to find the man who killed your husband.”

“Like what?”

“Did he usually leave the apartment at the same time each morning?”

“Yes. On weekdays. On Saturdays and Sundays, he slept late.”

“Then anyone who had made a habit of observing him would know that he went to work at the same time each day?”

“I suppose so.”

“Mrs. Norden, was your husband a veteran?”

“A veteran? You mean, was he in the service?”

“Yes.”

“He was in the Navy for three years during World War Two,” Mae said.

“The Navy. Not the Army.”

“The Navy, yes.”

“He was a junior partner in his firm, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“How did he feel about that?”

“Fine. How should he have felt about it?”

“How many partners were there, Mrs. Norden?”

“Three, including my husband.”

“Was your husband the only junior partner?”

“Yes. He was the youngest man in the firm.”

“Did he get along with the others?”

“Very well. He got along with everyone. I just told you that.”

“No trouble with any of the partners, right?”

“That’s right.”

“What sort of law did he practice?”

“The firm handled every kind of case.”

“Criminal?”

“Sometimes.”

“Did your husband ever represent a criminal?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“Three or four, I don’t remember. Four, I guess, since he’s been with the firm.”

“Acquittals or convictions?”

“Two of his clients were convicted, two were acquitted.”

“Where are the convicted men now?”

“Serving jail sentences, I would imagine.”

“Would you remember their names?”

“No. But Sam could probably…Sam Gottlieb, one of the partners. He would know.”

“Was your husband a native of this city, Mrs. Norden?”

“Yes. He went through the city school system, and also college and law school here.”

“Where?”

“Ramsey.”

“And how did you come to know him?”

“We met in Grover Park one day. At the zoo. We began seeing each other regularly, and eventually we were married.”

“Before he went into the service, or afterward?”

“We were married in 1949.”

“Had you known him while he was in the service?”

“No. He went into the Navy immediately after graduation. He took his bar exams as soon as he was discharged. He passed them and began practicing shortly afterward. When I met him, he had his own small office in Bethtown. He didn’t move to Gottlieb and Graham until three years ago.”

“He had his own practice up to that time?”

“No. He’d been with several firms over the years.”

“Any trouble anywhere?”

“None.”

“Criminal cases at those firms, too?”

“Yes, but I can hardly remember what…”

“Can you tell us which firms those were, Mrs. Norden?”

“You don’t really believe this can be someone he lost a case for, do you?”

“We don’t know, Mrs. Norden. Right now, we have almost nothing to go on. We’re trying to find something, anything.”

“I’ll write out a list for you,” she said. “Will you come inside, please?” In the doorway of the funeral home, she stopped and said, “Forgive me if I was rude to you.” She paused. “I loved my husband very much, you see.”