Chapter 12

Peters visits the CO camp, to glean information on Siegfried Janzen. While there, he meets Abram Funk, the camp medic. Abram's information may be the first solid lead for Schubert. 

Chapter 12

Tuesday, December 19. Schubert entered the office shortly after eight a.m. The aroma of stale coffee filled the workspace. He stopped at the coal stove and warmed his hands. Peters was already seated at his desk. Schubert looks beat, he thought. His boss probably hadn’t slept well, no doubt on account of the double homicide. Peters wasn’t sure he’d slept much, either. And try as he might, he had never managed the art of sleeping at his desk.

“Enjoy your walk this morning, sir?” Peters asked, stifling a yawn.

“Bloody cold. I should’ve taken up your offer of a lift.” Schubert poured himself a cup of coffee, motioning to Peters. He declined. “When did you get in?”

“When did I get in? I never left—slept at my desk most of the night. I wanted to be here when Veteran’s Affairs returned my telex.”  

“That’s going above and beyond, Bart. I gather they’ve responded?”

Peters nodded. “Unfortunately, VA was a dead-end. They don’t keep records unless they’ve assisted in placing a veteran in a community, for work, as an example. Whitehorse hasn’t been a priority because we have the COs and Yanks building the highway.”

“Nonetheless, good work. Let’s leave that for now.”

They spent the next hour reviewing notes on the previous night’s double homicide. The appearance of the Kaiser Wilhelm gold coin in Whitehorse, and clues to its significance dominated their discussion. Neither men understood how such a rare and valuable coin figured into their investigation. Perhaps when they discerned the coins’ significance, they would then be closer to understanding Wraith’s motivation.

Eventually, their discussion came to a cadence. 

“I gather you haven’t had time to check on Janzen’s bonafides?” Schubert asked.

Peters nodded.

“OK. Head over to the CO camp and afterwards, go home. Get some rest. We’ll debrief this afternoon.”

Peters drove to the edge of town, towards the Yukon River. Great heaps of snow lay piled on the sides of the road, nearly obscuring the houses behind them. On his right lay abandoned sluicing equipment, giant gravel destroying machines from a bygone era. One last paddle-wheeler, beached for the past sixty years, leaned at an unnatural angle, slowly giving way to gravity and rot. 

The CO camp was built on the old passenger staging grounds for the river boats. When Peters drove under the gate, he was reminded of prisoner-of-war camps, minus the guard towers. The men here aren’t prisoners, except to their beliefs, Peters mused, reflecting on his own religious past. While the town held no hostility towards the COs, many thought them to be shirking their duty, safe at home while their boys died in their stead. Secretly, Peters envied the COs. Every day he fought to release the memories of Passchendaele. Work was the only remedy he knew to keep the memories from overwhelming him. 

He found the administration building and entered, without knocking.

“Jah, hallo?” a voice said from behind an office door.

Peters recognized the accent immediately. Sommerfelder Mennonite, from Manitoba, probably Altona, he thought. 

“Police,” he said, in English. “I need a word with the camp administrator.”

A little man, nearly round as tall, met him at the counter. 

“Hello Const…” He leaned forward to read the name badge. “Peters. Seid ihr Mennonit?” Are you a Mennonite?

Always the Mennonite game, Peters lamented, the need to find some family connection, no matter how obscure. He debated whether to feign ignorance of German or use it to his advantage. He chose the latter. 

“Jah. Meine Eltern kommen aus Steinbach.” My parents come from Steinbach.

“Steinbach! Mein cousin, Johann ist aus Steinbach.” 

Peters remained unfazed by the man’s revelation of relatives from the same town. 

“I’m here to get information on one of your men, a Siegfried Janzen.”

Dietrich Friesen appeared disappointed that the pleasantries had abruptly ended. Constable Froese had switched to English. Friesen turned to the file cabinet. 

“May I ask what this is about?” He continued rifling through the files.

“It’s part of an investigation. That’s all I can say. By the way, which bunkhouse is Janzen in? I need to speak with whoever he lived with.”

Friesen located the correct drawer. 

“Janzen, you said? Ah, here we are. As for where he bunks, you’ll find that in the file. He works in the infirmary, if I recall correctly. You’re the second person with questions about Siegfried.” 

Peters opened the file, scanning the documents. 

“Who else has been asking for him?”

“Abram Funk. He runs the infirmary.”

Peters handed the file back. “You’ve given me the wrong file. This file is for a Mathias Wall.”

Friesen flipped it around. “I don’t understand.”

“Do others have access to this room?”

“Yes, but there is nothing secretive or sensitive about these files. We are humble men doing God’s work, nothing more.”

Peters pulled the ID card from his wallet. 

“Janzen was carrying this. Do you recognize it?”

Friesen examined the card. “Yes, this is our identification card but I couldn’t tell you if that is Janzen in the photograph—I don’t know all the men by sight.”

“Where can I find Mr. Wall? Maybe he can shed some light on why his records are in Janzen’s folder.”

Friesen reached under the counter for the daily work rota. He ran his finger down a series of columns. 

“He is in camp today, helping with maintenance. Washroom block repairs.”

“Right,” Peters said. “I’ll find my own way. If you locate Janzen’s file, call the station immediately.”

Peters walked over to the washroom block. There were about thirty men present, all making different repairs: snow removal on the roof, replacing doors and mending broken pipes.

“Who’s in charge?” Peters asked in his best Mennonite accent.

The men stopped their work, some wary, others curious. A member of the brotherhood who was a policeman was considered a lost soul. Peters knew what kind of man would approach him—an abgefallene Mennonit. A spiritual backslider.

“He is,” a big man said pointing at the foreman, “but he’s afraid he’ll be soiled by the world if he talks to you.” He extended his hand. “John Sawatzky.”

“Bart Peters.” By his handshake, Peters knew Sawatzky was no stranger to hard work. Peters considered matching it but thought better. “I’m looking for Mathias Wall. Where is he?”

“A good question, that. When you know, tell me, OK? The slacker didn’t show up for work. In fact, no one’s seen him for a few days.”

“Has his absence been reported?”

Sawatzky grinned. “He’s one of our bad boys. General Conference: smokes, drinks, fucks women. All the things Mennonite Brethren do in private.” 

The men gathered around Sawatzky laughed. Peters did his best to remain neutral. The Mennonite Brethren had always considered themselves more pious than the General Conference. His father once told him it was a feud dating back to 1860. 

Sawatzky continued. “He’s probably at Murdoch’s, enjoying what the rest of us only dream about.” He made a lewd gesture that Peters had no difficulty interpreting.

“Let me know when he returns. I need to speak with him. It’s urgent.”

“More urgent than the little tart he’s fucking?” Sawatzky bellowed. 

Peters declined to answer and instead returned to his car. He was met there by another CO. It was Abram Funk.

“Hello constable. May I have a word?”

“Sure. How can I help?”

The man hesitated, as if second-guessing the reason he wished to speak to the officer. 

“Ach, it is nothing. Sorry to disturb you.”

Peters switched to Low German, hoping it would put the man at ease. 

“My name is Bartholomew Peters. I’m from Steinbach.” 

“Abram Funk. Molotschna.” he replied.

Its like flipping a switch, Peters thought. “What’s your job here?”

“Camp nurse. ‘Medic’ is the term the English use.”

“What’s on your mind, Abram?” 

Peters leaned against the car, trying to put the man at ease, having a good idea what he wanted to talk about.

“A man came into the infirmary last week, enquiring after Siegfried Janzen. Janzen’s an orderly, new to the camp but I haven’t seen him around the past few days,” Abram said. “The camp administrator, an unsavory little man…”

Peters nodded, interrupting Abram. 

“Yeah, I just spoke with him.”

“Well, I wanted to talk about this fellow who claimed he was Janzen’s relative. Dietrich told me to mind my own business, in so many words.”

“Is Janzen reliable or is this unusual behavior?” Peters asked, knowing it unlikely that Janzen would be returning to work anytime soon.

“Hard to say. Janzen arrived only a few weeks ago. Dietrich spouted some pietistic nonsense about ‘the Lord’s conviction knows no bounds,’ or some such drivel. Siegfried showed up for work, yes, but wasn’t cut out for the infirmary. This was odd because he came to camp with a First Aid certificate and yet he would defer to me on the smallest of tasks.

“But Siegfried is not why I stopped you. The man who asked for him—that man made me worried. He said his name was Walter Penner.”

Peters interrupted again. “Is there a file on Penner?”

“No, and that is also strange. I managed to look through the files while Dietrich was out of the office. This man Penner claimed to be a CO but there is no record of his presence in camp.”

“Go on, tell me the rest,” Peters said, realizing this may be their first lead in the case.

“That man, well he reminded me of the Cossacks that seized my grandfather’s estate in Russia. His voice was cavernous, deep and resonant, just like the Cossacks. He spoke slowly, measured, like he was sizing me up, deciding whether or not to do me harm.”

Peters hauled out Siegfried Janzen’s ID card. 

“Is this Janzen?”

Abram inspected the card. “Yes, that’s him, but there is one other thing. Walter Penner said he was a Mennonite but his low German sounded like none I have ever heard. I don’t think it was his native tongue. And the way he carried himself…”

Peters waited.

“I used to hunt with my father. Big game like bear, mountain lion, deer. This man, he was like a grizzly, bristling with a kind of controlled violence, if that makes sense. He even walked like a bear.”

Was Abram describing Wraith?

“Take me to Siegfried’s quarters.”

Funk led the way to a long hut, dotted with windows, one of twenty identical shacks. The dormitory had two long rows, each bed evenly spaced from the next. A footlocker stood at the end of each bed.

“This is his,” Funk pointed.

Peters rifled through the footlocker. Aside from clothing, the only other article was a bible. It was big and heavy and black. He flipped through it. A couple of photos fell out. In one, Janzen was standing behind an enormous balustrade lining the courtyard of what Peters assumed was Janzen’s estate in Russia.

“Is there anything else you can tell me about Janzen?”

“In the short time I knew him, he struck me as upper class or rather someone who had been. The October Revolution made many a rich man regret he was ever wealthy.”

“Abram, I would like you to come to station and speak to Inspector Schubert. It can’t wait.”

“Friesen will object to my absence.”

“Tough shit,” Peters said, dropping his mien of a fellow pietist. “Let’s go.”

Peters returned to the station, hoping Schubert was still in his office. He was. Peters spoke quickly, not wanting to lose any time.

“Boss, I’ve got Abram Funk here. I think he’s seen Wraith.”

Schubert tossed aside the file he was reading.

“Take me to him.” 

Schubert entered the waiting room. 

“Hello Abram,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m Inspector Schubert. Constable Peters says you have important information for us.”

Abram fiddled with the rim of his cap. He was nervous. English wasn’t his first language.

“A man came to the infirmary, asking about an orderly—Siegfried Janzen. He said his name was Walter Penner, a fellow Mennonite. He might’ve been,” Abram shrugged. 

“Penner has no jacket at the camp, boss. There’s no record of him being there.”

Abram continued: “Whether he was a Mennonite or not doesn’t matter. I sensed…” He hesitated, afraid to continue.

Peters spoke, in Low German. “It’s alright, brother. We’re not here to judge.”

Abram stared at both of them for a few seconds. 

“Pure evil is what I sensed, like the devil himself had come to speak to me. I once worked in an asylum for the insane. We had a patient who would curse and shout whenever a priest entered the room. It seemed as if a cloud of evil followed him. So it was with this ‘Penner.’”

“Can you give us a physical description?” Peters asked.

“He might have been thirty, maybe younger, I can’t really say. Dark hair, thin nose—a broad face. He carried himself like an athlete or a fighter. Arrogant, for sure and like I said, hostility brewing beneath the surface.”

“One more thing, sir,” Peters added, turning to Schubert. “Janzen’s file is missing. His jacket contained a Mathias Wall’s information. Wall hasn’t been seen for a few days.”

“You know what this means, Peters.”

He nodded. “Janzen was a link to the killer. There’s a good chance Walter Penner could be Wraith.”

“We’ve got Abram’s description and the two Bismarck coins, one from Blue River and the other showing up here. Thin or not, this is our only solid lead. I suggest we start canvassing flop houses, brothels…”

“And the Irish camp,” Peters interrupted.

“Right, we’ll pay them a visit too. Let’s circulate Abram’s description. I’ll meet you in fifteen minutes.” 

He turned to Abram. “Your help has been very important. Constable Simpson will take you back to your camp.”

Serendipity had just paid them a visit. Schubert returned to his office to plan his next moves.