The musty smell in the room made me doubt that Paul had changed the linens since his father’s death those six or seven years ago. I poked through the wardrobe and dresser drawers, wondering if Ulrich had left anything in his pockets or tucked beneath his severe pajamas. I was beginning to get discouraged. An old house filled with stuff that hadn’t been sorted out in thirty years-I doubted if seven maids with seven mops could get through it in under a year.
My spirits flagging, I went across the hall. Fortunately, that room and another further up the passage were both empty, not even holding bedsteads-no houseguests for the Ulrichs. Paul’s own bedroom was the last one on the left. It was the only room in the house with new furniture. He had made an effort to spruce it up-perhaps to separate himself from his father-with the most extreme, angular examples of modern Danish design. I looked through it carefully but didn’t see Ninshubur. So had he gone out again-to Rhea?-carrying the dog with him as a trophy?
A bathroom separated Paul’s bedroom from a hexagonal room overlooking the rank back garden. Heavy drapes in a dull bronze shut out any outside light. I flipped on the overhead light to reveal an extraordinary sight.
A large map of Europe was attached to one wall. Red pins were stuck into it. When I got close enough to read the lettering, I saw they marked the concentration camps of the Nazi era, the big ones like Treblinka and Auschwitz, and others like Sobibor and Neuengamme that I’d never heard of. Another, smaller map next to it showed the paths of the Einsatzgruppen through eastern Europe, with Einsatzgruppe B circled and underlined in red.
Other walls had the photographs of horror we’ve all become used to: emaciated bodies in striped clothes lying on boards; faces of children, their eyes large with fear, crammed into railway cars; helmeted guards with Alsatians snarling at people behind barbed wire; the chilling smoke from crematorium chimneys.
So startled was I by this display that I noticed the most shocking sight almost as an afterthought. I think my brain first saw it as one more garish exhibit, but it was horribly real: crumpled face-forward beneath the bronze drapes lay Paul Radbuka, blood staining the floor around his out-flung right arm.
I stood frozen for an interminable second before darting around the papers littering the floor to kneel next to him. He was lying partly on his left side. He was breathing in rasping, shallow gasps, bloody bubbles popping out of his mouth. The left side of his shirt was soaked with blood that had formed a pool on the floor beneath him. I ran to the bedroom and grabbed the comforter and a sheet. My own knees were stained now with blood, my right hand as well from where I’d pushed against the floor while feeling for his pulse. I returned to Radbuka, draping the comforter over him, turning him gently within its warmth so I could see where the blood was coming from.
I ripped his shirt open. The dog Ninshubur, greeny-brown with blood, fell out. I tore a length of sheet and pressed it against Radbuka’s chest. Blood continued to come from a wound on the left side, but it was oozing, not spurting: he wasn’t bleeding from an artery. When I lifted the pad I could see an ugly gash near the breastbone, the telltale jagged tear of bullet into flesh.
I tore another piece of sheet and made a pad, which I pressed firmly against the hole, then tied it into place with a long strip. I wrapped him in the comforter, head to toe, leaving just enough of his face showing that he could get oxygen through the labored breaths he was taking. “Keep you warm, buddy, until the paramedics get here.”
The only phone I remembered was in the living room. I ran back down the stairs, leaving a trail of bloodstains on the carpet, and called 911. “The front door will be open,” I said. “This is an extreme emergency, gunshot wound to the chest, victim unconscious, breath shallow. Paramedics should come up the stairs to the north end of the floor.”
I waited for a confirmation, then unlocked the front door and ran back upstairs to Radbuka. He was still breathing, wheezing as he exhaled, gasping as he sucked in air. I felt the pad; it seemed to be holding. As I adjusted the comforter, I felt a lump in his pocket that must be his wallet. I pulled it out, wondering if it would have some proof of identity that would let me know his birth name.
No driver’s license. An ATM card for the Fort Dearborn Trust in the name of Paul Radbuka. A MasterCard, same bank, same name. A card saying that in an emergency one should call Rhea Wiell, at her office. No insurance card, nothing to show any other identity. I slipped the wallet gently back into his pocket.
It dawned on me that I didn’t look my best, with my latex gloves now red with blood and my picklocks in my tool belt. If the cops came with the paramedics, I didn’t want to have to answer awkward questions about how I got in. I ran into the bathroom, washed my gloved hands quickly but thoroughly, and opened one of the windows in Paul’s bedroom. I tossed the picklocks at an overgrown shrub in the garden, disturbing a cat that took off with a heart-stopping yowl. It disappeared between two broken boards in the back fence.
Back in the room with Paul, I picked up Ninshubur. “Did you save his life, you poor little bloodstained hound? How’d you do it?”
I inspected the damp plush figure. It was the dog tags I’d given Calia for him. One of them was bent and dimpled where the bullet had struck. They were too soft to stop or deflect a bullet, but maybe they’d helped slow it down.
“I know you’re a piece of evidence, but-I doubt you’d tell a forensics team much. We’ll get you cleaned up and back to your little girl, I think.”
I couldn’t think of a better way to secure Ninshubur than the one Paul had used: I wrapped him in the last piece of sheet, unbuttoned my coveralls, and tucked him inside my blouse. I listened to Paul’s breath and checked my watch: four minutes since I’d called. One more minute and I’d call again.
I got up and looked at the rest of the shrine, wondering what the shooter had wanted so badly that he-or she, of course-had shot Paul to get it. Whoever had rifled Ulrich’s study had looked in here with the same ferocious impatience. The books were hurled open in the same horrifying fashion. I didn’t touch them, in case there were fingerprints, but they seemed to be a major collection of Holocaust writings: memoirs, histories ranging from Elie Wiesel to William Shirer, with everything in between. I saw Lucy Dawidowicz’s War Against the Jews flung against Judith Isaacson’s Seed of Sarah. If Paul had read this stuff day after day, he might have had a hard time distinguishing his memories from everyone else’s.
I was starting down the stairs to use the phone again when I finally heard footsteps in the front hall and a loud shout. “Up here,” I called, taking off the latex gloves and stuffing them in a pocket.
The paramedics trotted up with their stretcher. I directed them to the end of the hall, following so as not to get in their way.
“You his wife?” the medics asked.
“No, a family friend,” I said. “I was supposed to collect something from him and walked in on this-this chaos. He isn’t married, doesn’t have any family that I know of.”
“Can you come to the hospital to fill out the forms?”
“He’s got independent means; he can pay the bill himself if necessary. I think his wallet has something in it about whom to notify in an emergency. What hospital will you take him to?”
“Compassionate Heart-they’re the closest. Go to the reception desk in the ER to fill out the forms when you get there. Can you help take this blanket away? We’re going to shift him to the stretcher.”
When I picked up the comforter, a key fell out-something Paul had been holding that had dropped from his flaccid grasp. I squatted to pick it up while they slid him to the stretcher. Being moved jolted him briefly awake. His eyes flickered open, not quite focusing, and he saw me kneeling at face level.