Eve bit her lip and remained silent.

“Did you invent a job history?” Decker asked. “Maybe even pay someone for bogus ID?”

Eve looked up at the ceiling. “Are you going to arrest me?”

Rina stepped in. “Eve, you came to me to discover the truth. If you still want that, you have to tell Lieutenant Decker everything.”

There was a long pause. Then she said, “I was a person with no identity. I knew I had to survive. I knew I had to be some-body-to have a name and an ID. I went to one of those gigantic bookstores that have information on everything-on how to disappear, on how to reinvent yourself to avoid creditors or irrational ex-boyfriends…”

“Go on.”

“I followed the procedure step-by-step. You go to a county registrar’s office and look up death certificates of people who would have been your age. Then you pretend you’re that person and apply for a birth certificate, saying you lost your original one.

I found the name Eve Miller and decided to use it because… I don’t know, it sounded familiar. Then, once I had a birth certificate, I got a Social Security number and a passport.”

Pretty savvy for such a young woman, Decker thought. What was she running from? “Why not a driver’s license?” he asked.

“I don’t have a car, sir.”

“But you know how to drive.”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“Why’d you get a passport? Were you planning on going somewhere?”

Eve opened and closed her mouth. “I really don’t know why I applied for one. I just thought I should be prepared.”

Prepared for what? Decker wondered.

Eve shook her head. “I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t believe any of this. It sounds wild to my own ears. But I’m telling you the truth.”

Decker scribbled more notes. “You do invoicing. What software do you use?”

Her answer was immediate: “QuickBooks.”

“What other programs do you know?”

“Microsoft Word. I can also do spreadsheets.” She smiled, allowing herself a bit of crowing. “I think that’s why they hired me. I was versatile with the computer.”

“How’d you learn to use a computer?”

Eve hesitated and blinked back tears. “I don’t know.” She wiped her eyes. “You can’t imagine what this feels like! I’m sure something… traumatic must have happened to me. But I don’t know what. Please help me!”

“You need to see doctors, Eve-a medical doctor and a psychologist. They can help you more than I can.”

“I know that, Lieutenant Decker. And I swear I will get medical help. But first, I need to know who I am. Can you help me?”

Decker closed the door to his office and handed his wife a Styrofoam cup of coffee. “No Eve Miller popped out of the Missing Persons Network computer,” he said.

“That would have been too easy.” Rina took a sip of coffee. It had been three days since Peter interviewed Eve. “It took you all this time to find that out?”

“I was working on the problem from several other angles. Because once I get started, I find it hard to stop.” Decker sat down in his desk chair. “During the questioning, she kept talking about how ‘the will to survive is great’ and about ‘the need to be prepared.’ Something like that. You remember her saying those words?”

Rina frowned. “Vaguely.”

Decker smiled. “See, that’s why I take notes. If I had to trust my memory, more felons would be walking the streets. Anyway, her language set off warning bells. She was acting as if she were running from something. So I began to punch the permutations on the name Eve Miller into some of the crime databases. I’d start with Eve Miller, then Eva Miller, then Ava Miller, and so on.”

Rina’s stomach lurched. “Is she wanted for something?”

Decker took in a breath and let it out. “Eve Miller isn’t a wanted woman, but Ava Mueller is.”

“Ava Mueller.” Rina bit her lip. “She’s German?”

“Yes, Ava Mueller is German, and not a nice one. During World War Two, Ava Mueller was a Gestapo guard at the Ravensbrueck labor camp. I took the liberty of calling up the Holocaust Center to find out about the camp’s history. It was basically divided into two sections-subversive women detained by the state and Jewish women in captivity. There was a universe of difference between the two camps-their living quarters, their clothes, the treatment, the food. Namely, the non-Jewish contingency had edible food, whereas the Jewish unit survived on turnip soup and moldy bread. Ava worked as a guard in the Jewish bunkers. Afterward, she was wanted for Nazi war crimes because she was considered to be personally responsible for the deaths of over three hundred women.”

“Oh my God!” Rina blurted out. “Do I even want to hear the rest?” Though sickened, she knew she had to listen. “Go on.”

Decker heaved a sigh. “I asked the center if it had any postwar records on Ava Mueller. One of the librarians told me that Ava had somehow made it into the States using false papers, and had disappeared. This was about 1949.”

He finished his coffee and continued, “Thirty-five years later-in 1984-one of Simon Wiesenthal’s Nazi hunters in New York got a tip on Mueller’s whereabouts. She was now a doting grandmother, living a quiet life as a Mennonite in Indiana. Makes sense. The vast majority of Mennonites are either German or of German heritage. Many of them speak Palatine Dutch, a German dialect. And religious sects are very forgiving. They also tend to be isolated, generally don’t mix much with the secular world. What better place to hide?”

“I’m sorry, Peter, but I don’t see the Mennonites randomly welcoming in a former Nazi.”

“I’m sure Ava Mueller didn’t tell them about her past. Or maybe she had some Mennonite relatives. Lots of people, present company included, have a skeletal relative or two in the closet. For me, it’s Great-uncle Ray, the Alabama Klansman.”

Rina smiled. “And I have Great-aunt Bessie the Stalinist. Even on her deathbed, she insisted that Josef meant well. He was just misguided.”

Decker let out a laugh, then the room fell silent. Rina tried to break it but couldn’t find the words. Finally, she said, “What happened after Ava Mueller was discovered?”

“She, her husband, and her family left the conclave and were lost again.” Decker shrugged. “Maybe this time they ventured into the city. If so, Ava’s granddaughter, Eve, or whatever her name really is, would have been about five or six. If the family had chosen to settle in a more urban neighborhood, then Eve would have gone to a more urban school and learned things like how to operate a computer or how to drive. That scenario would explain why Eve knows the Bible so well-her early upbringing-and why she also has some contemporary skills.”

“This is all just speculation.”

“Of course.” Decker tried to be gentle. “But it does help explain some things.” He formulated his thoughts. “Suppose, as a girl, Eve didn’t know about her grandmother’s dark history.”

Rina nodded.

“Then let’s suppose that around six months ago, as an adult, she discovered her grandmother’s evil past and was horrified by it. Suppose she confronted her grandmother and demanded answers. You’ve implied that Eve is a deep thinker and doesn’t accept explanations by rote.”

“Yes, that’s correct,” Rina said.

“What if her grandmother tried to rationalize her behavior, tried to make Eve understand Ava Mueller’s state of mind. Maybe she spoke about how the will to survive is great and how you had to be prepared. Maybe Grandma gave her details on how she disappeared and reinvented herself. To me, that would be logical. Because I never bought the story of Eve going to a bookstore and carving out a new identity by reading texts. It just sounds too rehearsed, too… TV.”

“ ‘The will to survive’… ‘be prepared’…” Rina thought for a moment. “Eve was subconsciously parroting her grandmother’s words.”