Rocket Science

by Jay Lake

  The Sheriff kept talking, his eyes narrowing as the lightly-built dining room chair rocked on its back legs under his weight. “Doc Milliken says there’s no way you felt strongly enough to attack him, let alone try to kill him. The medical evidence points pretty clearly away from you.” He glanced at my legs.

  “Yes sir.” I wondered where he was heading — it was time for him to give me the proposition, whatever it was going to be.

  Sheriff Hauptmann cleared his throat again. I suddenly realized that unlike Deputy Truefield, he didn’t even carry a gun. Confidence? Power? “Now, this doesn’t release you as a suspect, you realize, but unofficially I’m confident that you didn’t have anything directly to do with the assault on your father.”

  I thought about that. “What do you mean, directly?” I asked.

  The Sheriff leaned his chair perilously far forward. “You have a government clearance from your work at the Boeing plant over in Wichita, is that correct?”

  We weren’t supposed to talk about that stuff outside the plant, but the war was over, and the Sheriff seemed to have something important on his mind. He wanted to say something that hung on this point. I decided for Dad’s sake to go along with him. “Yes sir, I do have a clearance.”

  “Then I am going to tell you something I wouldn’t normally reveal to an outsider. But in return for my confidence, I need your full cooperation.”

  I thought about Floyd Bellamy, and the penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth. I was already deeper than I had ever wanted to go into a bad situation, but there seemed to be nothing for it. Dad was on his way to the hospital in Wichita, somehow because of Floyd’s secret. His beating was connected with the papers, with the airplane. I needed to hear whatever the Sheriff had to say to me. “Yes sir. You have my full cooperation.”

  The Sheriff exchanged another significant glance with Doc Milliken. “The United States Army Criminal Investigation Division is here in Butler County, pursuing a highly sensitive matter.”

  “I know,” I said cautiously.

  “How, boy?” Hauptmann leaned forward in the dining chair he was using, Doc inching forward in his own flowered wingback. “Who told you that?”

  “Someone calling himself Deputy Morgan called me on the telephone about Dad, said that Dad had beaten up an Army captain.”

  Hauptmann frowned. “I don’t have a Deputy Morgan, son.”

  “That’s what Ollie told me.”

  “Did he tell you what the CID was looking for?” asked Doc Milliken.

  “No, but I think they’re after Floyd Bellamy.” I was a rat, betraying my best friend, not to mention myself, to the Sheriff. But after what happened to Dad, I would much rather deal with Sheriff Hauptmann than the mysterious Captain Markowicz. I still felt miserable about the whole business.

  “Floyd Bellamy?” Sheriff Hauptmann looked puzzled.

  “Alonzo Bellamy’s boy,” said Doc Milliken. “They have that place out there off Haverhill Road, as you head toward Leon.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Sheriff Hauptmann. “The Bellamys.” He laughed. “Why would the CID want him?” He looked at me sternly. “Is Floyd Bellamy a Nazi sympathizer?”

  I was quite surprised by the question, and it must have showed on my face. “No, no.”

  I couldn’t even imagine such a thing. Floyd had been an easy, confident liar most of his life, in the name of popularity, convenience and heavy petting back in high school. At least once he had been thief, because there was no legitimate way he could have gotten that Nazi equipment back home. But Floyd was no Fascist, I was sure of that. He loved his good old American freedom way too much.

  “Floyd is a ne’er do well, a liar, and most probably a petty thief at opportunity,” said Doc Milliken, echoing my thoughts. “I also understand he is a good Christian, a Kansas Republican, an Army veteran and, sadly, not much different from half the other men in Butler County. He is most certainly not a Nazi.”

  Doc Milliken sure knew a lot of what went on around Augusta. More than I might have thought. I wondered what he knew about Floyd’s freight delivery on last Thursday’s Kansas City train. His brother was the railway clerk, but there hadn’t been anything specific on the manifest. Floyd had fed Odus a good line about agricultural equipment. Were these two looking for a cut of that business?

  “That’s my friend,” I said with a sigh of relief. “So why is CID here?”

  “The CID is in Butler County because there was a cell from a Nazi spy ring based here in Augusta during the war. The cell was responsible for watching the aircraft industry in Wichita. Your kind of work, Vernon.” Sheriff Hauptmann cleared his throat again. “Army counter-intelligence was able to control what they learned and manage the cell’s activities.”

  “Why didn’t they just shut it down?”

  To my surprise, Doc Milliken answered. “Because the operation would have just started up somewhere else, and it might have taken too long to track it down all over again.”

  “Right,” added Sheriff Hauptmann. “Better to manage it and minimize the damage where they could, than let the spy ring get away and set up somewhere else completely unopposed.”

  I wondered which of my friends, which of my neighbors, might have been recording my comings and goings during the war. I worked at Boeing, I was an engineer. I observed good security, as far as I knew, but what could a trained spy have ferreted out of me?

  “The war is over. Why is Army CID here now?” I asked. “Cleaning things up?”

  Sheriff Hauptmann shook his head. “We don’t even know who all the individuals were. And really, that doesn’t matter now. Justice should be served, but like you said, the war is over. No, the problem is the activity level is higher now in Butler County than it ever was during the war. The Army has become directly involved, because it’s a matter of military secrecy.”

  I blurted out my questions. “What do you mean, ‘higher than ever?’ Am I suspected of being a German spy?”

  “No, no, son. You’re off the hook. Common sense tells me that, and I’m confident the County Attorney will agree with me. For one thing, if you were a spy, you wouldn’t have beaten your own father, hidden him in the trunk of your car, then tipped off Deputy Truefield to come pick you up for it.”

  “So what is going on?”

  “Remember that Captain Markowicz you asked about?” asked Doc Milliken. “I did set his broken arm yesterday. He showed me identification that proved to my satisfaction that he was Captain Markowicz of Army CID He asked me to keep his visit confidential.”

  “So it’s confidential.” They were talking, but they weren’t telling much. Who had broken Markowicz’s arm? Dad could have, but I couldn’t see why he would have bothered.

  Sheriff Hauptmann stepped away from his dining chair and walked across the room to the mantel. Running his fingers along the carvings, Hauptmann turned to face me. “Captain Abraham Markowicz was found beaten to death in Kansas City, Missouri three days ago. I received a telegram from the Missouri State Police this afternoon advising me to be on the lookout for someone using his identification. His papers were presumed stolen at the occasion of his assault.”

  “And the Sheriff happened to mention it to me,” said Doc Milliken. “So I told him I had seen a Captain Markowicz yesterday.”

  “So this Captain Markowicz, you think he’s a Nazi?” I asked.

  “Quite possibly,” answered Sheriff Hauptmann. “He or a confederate doubtless posed as Deputy Morgan on the telephone to you. Interestingly, the tip that Deputy Truefield got about you came from a man identifying himself as Morgan. The question that we can’t readily answer is what interest they would possibly have in you or your dad. You’ve got some value through your work at Boeing, but with all respect, nobody here thinks you’re a big fish there.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “I buy parts. Fasteners, rivets, screws.” Big deal, I thought, but someone had to do it.

  But I knew perfectly well why the bad guys were interested in me and Dad. It was Dad’s truck t
hat Floyd Bellamy and I had used to haul that special cargo away from the train station this past Thursday. That was the interest right there. The German agents had not yet made the connection to Floyd, maybe because they hadn’t yet managed to look at Odus Milliken’s freight records. Obviously some German agent had seen me driving Dad’s truck with the stolen cargo.

  It all came back to my beautiful aircraft. Should I just give Floyd and his stolen German equipment up to the Sheriff now, or should I try to get out there tonight and warn him and his parents?

  “Vernon?” prompted Doc Milliken gently.

  I lied to two honest men who were trying to help both me and their country. I prayed the ghost of the real Captain Markowicz would forgive me. “No, sir, I can’t imagine what they would want with me or Dad.”

  Perhaps the unpleasant Mrs. Sigurdsen in the library was a Nazi agent. That would certainly explain where my envelope went.

  I talked with Sheriff Hauptmann and Doc Milliken a while longer, about the weather and football at Kansas State — the things people say to each other when they have run out of purpose but don’t know how to walk away. Every word was a struggle.

  Generally, I tried not to lie to people. For one, I wasn’t very good at it. Every time I opened my mouth to those two, the whole story threatened to pop out, about Floyd and the Battle of the Bulge, about the Nazi “Report on the Arctic Expedition for Secret Contact,” and airplanes frozen into the Arctic ice, and the unbelievable machine sitting in Mr. Bellamy’s barn on top of Dad’s old Mack stake bed. The truth strained to escape my grasp and soar upward into the world.

  I couldn’t afford to tell them, not yet. I was worried about the Bellamys. Even though Mr. Bellamy didn’t like me very much any more, I still liked him. I’ve always had a soft spot for old people. They’ve tried so hard in life, and for their reward they get ground back into dust. The world owed old people better than most of them ever get.

  I owed my father better than I gave him.

  I begged out of our conversation after a few minutes.

  “Gentlemen,” I finally said, “I need to be getting along. It’s been a terrible day for me.”

  “Of course, son,” said Sheriff Hauptmann. “You’re worried sick about your dad, I’m sure.”

  “Doc, can I borrow your car?”

  “Why?” he asked. “You only live two blocks from here.”

  This was a reasonable question. “I want to go out to Dad’s place and check on things,” I said. “It’s dark, and that’s a long walk. The Augusta police are holding my Hudson as evidence in the assault on Dad.” I suspected that Chief Davis had seized the car as minor local protest against Sheriff Hauptmann getting involved in business in town, but either way just as inconvenient for me.

  I still had no car.

  Doc Milliken smiled. “The keys are in the Cadillac. I can drive Ruthie’s Dodge tomorrow if I need to go anywhere. Just get the car back to me by Monday morning. Without any dents, if you please, Vernon.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  We all shook hands as if we were friends and neighbors instead of conspirators working at cross-purposes — for certainly that’s what I was. I bid Mrs. Milliken good night and walked outside.

  The night air smelled of wood smoke and leaf mold. People joke about Kansas being like an ironing board, but eastern Kansas has rolling hills and lots of hardwood stands. West of Wichita, it’s what the movies show you. Around here, you could be in Missouri or Arkansas. It’s the edge of the Ozarks. Even with the lights in town, I could see plenty of stars in the cold sky, and voices rose and fell as a distant mutter.

  Not a lot went on in Augusta, Kansas on a Saturday night. A few people scurried in and out of the Augusta Theatre, and Lehr’s restaurant had late hours for the highway traffic trying to make it on to Wichita. Otherwise people stayed home and listened to the radio. Or whatever it was that normal people did at home on Saturday nights.

  I stopped and breathed in the smells and sounds of my town, pleased to be at rest for a moment, back in control of myself after a day of being pushed, pulled and frightened nearly out of my wits. Mom, Dad, the airplane, Floyd — they all receded into the peace of the night.

  After a few minutes of communing with nature, I was ready to get on with my evening. For one thing, I was cold, still only in my work shirt and khakis.

  The Cadillac was the first car I had ever driven with a radio in it. It was also the nicest car I had ever driven. It was 1941 Series 62 convertible, factory painted blue, from the last production year before the war. Doc Milliken had kept it up like showroom new, even gotten fresh tires somewhere. My poor Hudson still had the wartime civilian-issue bald tires almost everyone else had.

  Doc Milliken had left the top on the Cadillac down, and I didn’t bother to put it up even though the night air was chilly. Nothing wrong with the heater, and I really enjoyed convertibles. I could just imagine cruising with a girl — maybe Lois if she decided to talk to me again — top down, the wind in our faces, sitting close to stay warm. A fellow could get a lot of going steady done with a fine ragtop like this.

  I drove through quiet streets of Augusta and listened to radio talk about the United Nations — a new League of Nations that was being ratified into existence from the charter signed last summer in San Francisco. Overseas, Italians squabbled over their first post-war elections, while all the sections of occupied Germany were restless.

  It was a wartime habit, obsessively listening to news.

  As I headed east, towards El Dorado and the Bellamys’ place, I turned the radio back off and pretended that the Cadillac was mine, and Lois and I were driving to California on vacation. The muddy Kansas roads out near the Bellamys’ farm became the parkways of sunny southern California, lined with orange trees and eucalyptus. I had never seen a parkway, but I sure could imagine one, smelling like cough drops and drenched in endless sunlight.

  * * *

  The Bellamy house was dark as I drove up. The Willys pickup was back at my boarding house, while the Farm-All was parked out front near Mr. Bellamy’s old Ford coupe — which to the best of my knowledge hadn’t moved in years. The barn was closed up.

  I parked Doc Milliken’s Cadillac. The night was clouding up and we had a new moon. I found a flashlight in the glove box, so I borrowed it and went into the house.

  The old frame farmhouse was quiet. It was about ten in the evening, long after Floyd’s parents normally retired, but I had expected to find Floyd around. Not wanting to wake anyone up by lighting a fire or the oil lamps, I flicked on the flashlight and looked around the living room. I knew the place like I knew my own bed — spent a lot of nights out here over the years — but tonight was different. I don’t know what I thought I was looking for, but I imagined Nazis under every piece of furniture. Here in the quiet dark, the old house creaking in the cool night air, Sheriff Hauptmann’s descriptions of spy rings and the murder of Captain Markowicz made me nervous all over again. The calm I had felt in the car vanished like smoke in the wind.

  Despite my newfound case of nerves, the living room seemed normal. I moved on into the dining room. A loose board by the door creaked under my weight and I froze. All I could hear besides the rough hiss of my own tight breathing was the wind rattling in the eaves of the house.

  The flashlight deepened the sharp shadows around its bright cone of light. It was hard for me to tell what I was seeing. Mrs. Bellamy’s massive breakfront startled me, looming the darkness like a kommando on the prowl. I banged into an unseen side table, barking the shin on my lame leg. I sucked in my breath at the pain, stifling a yelp.

  Darn it, I’d spent years of my life in this house, now I was stumbling like a burglar.

  Covering the flashlight with my hand, I walked to the kitchen door, which was shut. I put my ear against it, listening for any kind of noise. I heard a slow creaking.

  What the heck was it? It sounded like a door being opened, only the noise went on and on, as if the door were infinitely large. After a
moment I realized that it was the noise of a rope bearing a heavy load.

  I looked down at my feet, dimly visible in the glow of the hooded flashlight. There was a dark stain between them. I spread my fingers a little.

  Blood.

  My skin crawled, and I swear my hair stood up on end. I thought of old Mr. Bellamy and his dead twin Archie, and what the Nazi pretending to be Captain Markowicz had done to my Dad. The rope creaked again, and I realized that I had to go into the kitchen. I reached up a hand to push the door open.

  There was a loud clack, the sound of a shotgun being pumped. I felt cold metal right behind my right ear as barrel pressed into my skin.

  “Yah!” I spun to the left, favoring my bad leg and swung my flashlight like a club. There was a deafening roar as the shotgun went off, then the back of my head stung like fire. I must have taken some birdshot. My flashlight hit the barrel of the shotgun, knocking it out of Mr. Bellamy’s hands.

  “Vidal!” he shouted, “What in the name of God Almighty are you doing sneaking around in my house at night?”

  “You could have killed me!” I screamed back. Blood sheeted down my neck from the scalp wound.

  “It would have served you right, you idiot delinquent.” Behind him, Floyd ran into the dining room brandishing a baseball bat.

  “What’s going on down here? Daddy, you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” grumbled Mr. Bellamy in a more normal tone of voice, rubbing his hand. “Just tried to top off young Victor here, that’s all.” He glared at me, demonic in the light of my dropped flashlight. “Should have finished the job when I got the chance.”

  Floyd peered at me. “What’s the matter with you, Vernon? Sneaking into people’s houses like a crook. Daddy could have killed you.”

  I remembered the blood on the floor. It didn’t make sense — Nazis hadn’t slaughtered Floyd’s family in their beds like I had feared. What was it doing there? “Where’s Mrs. Bellamy?”

  Floyd coughed, looked nervous. “Mama’s at her sister’s tonight. My Aunt Perneta over in Leon.”