Haunted Justice

I thought I knew Jerry well. He owned a country inn with a pub attached to it somewhere in the New England countryside. He loved people, or so I thought because he was always at the bar or the dining room smiling, laughing and joking. He loved his inn and he loved the pub and it seems that he was happiest here, for who would not be happy coming into a warm and cozy inn where you were treated as a long-lost friend who had to come out from the cold. I thought I knew Jerry well.

           Jerry’s inn and pub was known in town as the Happy Monk’s Cellar because he was a churching going Catholic who went to Mass daily and sometimes, during the slow times, could be seen sitting in his favorite arm chair in front of the fireplace praying with his rosary in one hand. I assume he was praying the rosary but he never uttered a word. He just sat there staring into the fire as if something was pre-occupying his mind. A solitary tear sometimes would roll down his cheek but as soon as you would talk to him, he would pluck up and be his usual smiling self.

           Jerry lived in the outskirts of town on a five-acre farm that he ran himself with the help of some tenant farmers. The food and the livestock he raised there supplied the pub with all of its wants and needs and the food he prepared for his guests was the typical New England fare that he grew up with; Yankee pot roast; chicken and turkey pot pies; locally fished brook trout and traditional Indian pudding for dessert. When guests were seated, he would put out a relish tray complete with crackers and cottage cheese.

           Jerry didn’t seem to be the person to harbor secrets. Though married and without children, he was a respected member of the community. Jerry came to town shortly after World War II and began working as a cook at one of the local restaurants called the Gaslight Grill. Every penny he earned there he saved and after ten years of putting away money, he bought his farm and started farming it. People missed his cooking at the Gaslight Grill, especially during breakfast time and lunch. They started showing up at his doorstep and soon he was entertaining people at his farm. Eventually, he saved some more money, that he bought the local grist mill by the millpond and renovated it turning it into the inn and the pub that he knew so well.

           As time wore on, the inn and the pub began to be so popular that many times during the summer and the fall, there was no room and the line to get into the pub stretched for a mile around the block. Eventually, Jerry hired a lady by the name of Mrs. Cooper, who was able to compliment his cooking with her own. There was no doubt about it. Jerry’s Happy Monk’s Cellar was the home away from home that people craved even during the holidays, when he would hold Thanksgiving and Christmas parties for the town in appreciation for the success that he had during the years. Jerry was just that person, that I would never suspect to be hiding secrets.

           One day a mysterious stranger came to town. He was tall with blonde hair and blue eyes with a scar across his face. He walked into the Happy Monks Cellar and asked for Jerry. When Jerry saw the mysterious stranger, his face turned white and for the first time I saw the look of fear in Jerry’s eyes. The mysterious stranger smiled and said something to Jerry in a foreign language but Jerry just looked at him and shrugged his shoulders seemingly unable to understand a word he was saying; the look of fear still chiseled on his face.

           The stranger again spoke in the foreign language and Jerry looked at him saying, “I’m sorry I don’t understand a word you are saying. You, can’t stay here. We don’t have any room,” and with that Jerry grabbed the stranger’s suitcase and though it out the front door of the inn. It was the first time I had seen Jerry be less than hospitable than usual. The stranger looked at him and in broken English said, “After everything we have been through, I thought you would be happy to see me but I guess I was wrong.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” responded Jerry, “Please leave and never come back,” and with that the stranger left without a further word.

           In the evening, Jerry sat as usual in his arm chair in front of the fire with a stone-cold gaze while nervously twirling the rosary beads in his fingers. I asked him if everything was alright and he tried to perk up with a smile, but I could tell that the smile was fake and the tears welling up in his eyes made them dark and hollow. They were not the usual tears but tears that betrayed a look of fear as if a terrible secret was about to reveal itself.

           In the mornings, I saw Jerry at Mass but always kneeling as if he was pleading to God to relieve a burden that was weighing down on his shoulders. His hands would tremble and when he walked up to receive communion, he seemed unsteady on his legs. One day, Mrs. Cooper came up to me terrified wanting to talk to me. I asked her what was wrong. Jerry had locked himself in the bathroom and started screaming to the top of his lungs. When he came out, he seemed agitated about something and then suddenly, for no apparent reason, he began to smash plates on the floor.

           Later that day, I went to go see Jerry and asked him what was wrong. “Nothing is wrong,” he said curtly. “I’m fine now leave me alone,” and as he said this, he stormed out of the inn and got into his car. I followed Jerry all the way back to his farm where I saw the blonde-haired, blue-eyed stranger that had come to the inn there. I snuck up to the main house, making sure not to be seen. There was a lot of screaming and yelling going on in a language I could not understand and Jerry was doing most of the yelling and screaming. It surprised me to hear Jerry speaking in a language that was not English. All of the sudden I heard shots being fired from a gun and then complete silence. That was the last I saw of the stranger and there was no mention of it ever again. The next day, I went up to Jerry and told him, “You know you can talk to me about anything.” I never knew what the gunshots were even though I had my suspicions but I never pressed the subject with Jerry.

           The years went by. Jerry went from being the vibrant young man that he was to a more serious middle-aged person. After the visit of the mysterious stranger, he began to be more guarded around people. He began to drink a little more heavily than before. As Jerry grew older and needed more help around the house, he hired a maid that helped him around the house as well as at the in. I got to know the maid, her name was Hildebrandt and she was from Germany. I would ask her about Jerry and she would tell me that sometimes he screamed in German in his sleep as if he was having a nightmare and then would wake up with cold sweats. He would go downstairs and drink a glass of whisky straight up which seemed to calm his nerves. The next morning, Hildebrandt would go into his bed room to clean and she would find the sheets soaked with sweat.

           One day I went up to Jerry to ask him how he was and I told him, “I didn’t know you spoke German.” He yelled back to me saying, “I don’t!” and with that he threw me out of the inn. Hildebrandt looked at me and I knew from then on, that Jerry was lying. Later that day Hilderbrandt found me in the office later that day and asked me to forget about what she told me. I asked her, “what secret is Jerry desperately trying to hide?” and she answered, “It is not for me to tell.” It seemed as if Hildebrandt knew of the terrible secret that Jerry was trying to hide but to her credit, she would respect Jerry’s wishes to keep it a secret.

           Years went by and day by day Jerry began to be more withdrawn to the point that no one would see him anymore around town. He mostly kept to himself on the farm and from time to time would peer into the inn to see how business was. The inn was as popular as ever, especially during the fall when the leaves would turn. Jerry expanded the inn to accommodate the greater number of tourists that were coming into town for the changing of the autumn leaves.

           One day an elderly Jewish couple came into town. Mr. and Mrs. Nussbaum. They were a lovely couple and I got to know them well. They both had survived the Holocaust and immigrated to the United States where they met, got married and had children. They were previously married and had families when they were in Europe but their family got caught up in the Holocaust and got wiped out. They were left to pick up the pieces but fortunately they were young enough that they could start a family of their own. They were a delightful couple and they were a pleasure to speak with. There seemed no hint of any residual trauma that they had suffered even though they still lived with the pain of having lost their families.

           One day, Jerry walked into the inn and went to his usual chair in front of the fire place where he sat quiet and pensive. Suddenly, I saw Mr. Nussbaum pale as if he had seen a ghost from his past. He excused himself and went to the bathroom for a short while. Mrs. Nussbaum seemed perplexed. She had never seen her husband turn white and breakout into a cold sweat. Mr. Nussbaum emerged from the bathroom and took a seat right next to Jerry on the sofa in front of the fire. He looked at Jerry intently as if he were reliving a memory he did not want to live again. Mr. Nussbaum then addressed Jerry in German and when both of their eyes met, it seemed as if they knew each other from before. “I don’t speak German,” said Jerry but Mr. Nussbaum continued on in German. Both men were trembling and both had the seem ghostly countenance; both men were reliving a memory they cared not to remember and then suddenly I realized what the terrible secret was that Jerry had been hiding all these years.

           Mr. Nussbaum continued pressing Jerry in German until Jerry could no longer contain himself and yelled something back to Mr. Nussbaum in German. The room grew silent. The next day the Nussbaum’s left never to return but the secret was out that Jerry knew German although no one could guess why he was arguing with Mr. Nussbaum. I tried to talk to Jerry about it but then he clammed up on me and ran away to his farm never to emerge from there again. Hildebrandt pleaded with me, “don’t press him anymore about his past. He doesn’t want to talk about it.”

           Several months passed by until by chance some strangers came into town. They were FBI agents from Washington. Eventually they found their way to the inn. “Good morning,” said one of the agents, “we are looking for a man by the name of Siegfred Hufstedler.” The lady working the desk to the inn shook her head and answered, “there is no one by that name here.” The agent then took out a photograph from his coat pocket and showed it to the front desk lady. It was the photograph of a very young Jerry in an SS uniform from World War II. “Mr. Hufstedler is accused of having committed war crimes while serving in the Waffen SS and having lied about his past while applying for American citizenship.” I went up to the agent and told him, “I know where he lives.”

           The agents could not tell me anything specific about the case except that they had received information from an anonymous source in which they had accused Jerry of being a Nazi and having an active role in the Holocaust. We walked up to the door of Jerry’s house and knocked but there was no answer. The agents knocked on the door again but this time with more force. They yelled, “Mr. Hufstedler, we have a warrant for your arrest for war crimes,” but still there was no answer. Finally, Hildebrandt answered the door. “Where’s Jerry?” I asked her. “He’s locked himself in the cellar,” she said.

The agents barged into the house and walked inside. They went down the cellar stairs but couldn’t get into the cellar. I talked to them and convinced them to go upstairs and that I would talk to Jerry. They did as I asked and stepped outside. I knocked on the door and said to Jerry, “Jerry, let me in please. I want to help you,” but there was silence from the other side of the door. “Jerry, please let me help you.” Hildebrandt said something to Jerry in German and though I could not understand it, it caused Jerry to sob unconsolably.

We called the Catholic priest over to convince Jerry to open the door. He would not. The sobbing kept getting louder and louder. Then faintly we heard his voice, “Mein Gott, mein Gott! Warum hast du mich verlassen?! Es tut mir leid,” and then from behind the door we heard a gunshot. We broke the door down and there was Jerry lying still in a pool blood with a gunshot wound to the head. He was dressed in his Waffen SS uniform. The pistol was still in his hand and the smell of gunpowder filled the room. Jerry had taken his own life.

The FBI agents rushed into the cellar. Inside the cellar was a treasure trove of Nazi memorabilia and a bust of Adolf Hitler. A Crime Scene Investigation unit was called in. There were boxes and boxes of documents that Jerry had hidden all these years that detailed the crimes that the Nazi’s had committed. In one of the boxes, I saw another picture of a person I had recognized. It was the blonde-haired blue-eyed man that had wandered into town also dressed in a Nazi uniform. I told the agents about the man in the picture and how one night I had heard gunshots from Jerry’s house. Dogs were called in and they found hidden in the fields shallow grave where they found the skeleton of someone who had been shot in the head.

The news was now all over town. Jerry was a Nazi in hiding and justice had finally caught up with him. The inn, the pub and the farm had been confiscated by the government and sold. The proceeds went to a fund for the victims of the Holocaust and all of the documents went into an archive where for years, experts poured over them to find new details about the Holocaust. The government cremated Jerry’s body and the ashes were scattered in the ocean to avoid being a place of pilgrimage for neo-Nazis. No one ever mentioned Jerry by then. Hildebrandt eventually left as well and I never heard from her again.

Many years later, a thick fog descended over the town. It was the thickest fog I had ever seen in my life. I was at Jerry’s inn which was sold to a family that had taken it over. I was seated in front of the fire next to the chair that Jerry used to sit in. Suddenly, I heard screaming from outside and the sound of chains being dragged on the ground. A misty cloud came through the closed door. The lights went out and the flame of the fire turned blue. I looked over to where the sound was coming from and seated in Jerry’s chair was a ghost. It was Jerry. He was dressed in his Nazi uniform and wrapped up in chains. I could see the gunshot wound on the side of his head. Jerry looked over at me with a profound sadden look and then he vanished into thin air. The lights returned; the flame of the fire resumed its natural color but the memory of Jerry’s ghost remained in my head. For the rest of my life I heard the wailing and the chains and in my dreams Jerry would come to haunt me. I saw his face everywhere. Who he was, his story and his fate now haunt me still.