The Fifth Column

by James Garcia Woods

  “If, in fact, I was planning to do anything.”

  “If, in fact, you were planning to do anything,” Paco agreed. “And the reason you didn’t tell her was that you were afraid she’d try to talk you out of it. But once the deed was actually done, well, that was a different matter entirely. You felt the need to explain to her – perhaps even to justify your actions.”

  Luis Prieto’s smile widened.

  “She was the one who brought me up, and so she has always seen me as no more than her little brother,” he said. “I wanted to tell her that I am not so little any more – that I have grown up enough to be able to defend the family honor.”

  “But she wasn’t at home when you got back to boast of your triumph, was she? She'd already gone to your Aunt Asunción’s house.”

  “You seem to know everything,” Luis Prieto mumbled.

  “No, far from it,” Paco told him. “But a few things are finally starting to make sense to me.” He lit up a Celtas. “You went to your Aunt Asunción’s house yourself, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you expect to find Concha alone?”

  “Again, yes. I thought Aunt Asunción would have gone down to the market to do her shopping by then.”

  “When did you realize she hadn’t?”

  “Her coat was still hanging on the rack. And I thought I heard voices from upstairs.”

  “In order to see the coat and hear the voices, you must already have been inside the house.”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “And so you will have seen my novia.”

  “The yanqui rubia? Yes, of course I did.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  “What is there to tell? She was lying on the bed. She wasn’t moving, but I could see that she was breathing.”

  “Think carefully before you answer the next question,” Paco said. “Where was the pillow?”

  “The pillow? It was under her head, of course. Where else would you expect it to be?”

  So there had been two visitors to the house while Concha Prieto and Asunción Munoz had been upstairs, Paco thought. The first had been Concha’s brother, Luis, bringing with him the typical peasant smell of cow dung. And then there had been the second, the one Asuncion had disturbed, who had tried to kill Cindy – and might well try again.

  “You tell me that family is very important to you,” Paco said. “Well, family is very important to me, too – and Cindy is my family.”

  The young peasant nodded gravely.

  “You wish to find the man who hurt her, and punish him. That is only right.”

  “Yes. But my problem is that I can’t look for him and guard her at the same time.”

  And she would need guarding – because if Iñigo Torres was not responsible for the attack on Cindy, then revenge was not the motive behind it.

  And if not vengeance, then what?

  The only theory which would still fit the facts was his original one – that someone wanted her dead not for who she was, but because of what she knew.

  “I need someone to watch over Cindy for me,” Paco said. “Someone I can trust.”

  “Perhaps one of the brigadistas might be willing to ...” Luis suggested.

  Paco shook his head.

  “Some of them are, no doubt, trustworthy. My problem is that I don't know which ones.”

  “So if you don't want them to guard her, then who?” Luis Prieto began. Then his eyes widened with astonishment as he realized where Paco was heading. “Me! You want me to watch her!”

  “Yes,” Paco agreed.

  “But how do you know you can trust me?”

  “You have already shown me that you know the value of family, and that you are not afraid to take action when it is called for,” Paco said. “I would feel safe if you – and any of your friends you can vouch for – were looking after her.”

  Luis Prieto shook his head.

  “It’s all very confusing,” he said. “Today you put your trust in me. Yet only yesterday you seemed to think I might have been the one who had killed Sam.”

  “You certainly spoke about him as if you were glad he was dead,” Paco pointed out.

  “And I was wrong to ever have had such thoughts,” Luis Prieto confessed. “I see that now.”

  “Did you get your ideas about stringing him up from a tree from Ted Donaldson?” Paco asked.

  “What Donaldson said to me, he said in confidence,” Luis replied, a sudden hard edge evident in his voice. “If I can’t honor his trust, then why should you believe that I will honor yours? But you have still not answered my question – why has your attitude towards me changed since yesterday?”

  “A great many things have become clearer since yesterday.”

  “For example?”

  “Yesterday, I wondered what could have happened to make you change your attitude to Sam Johnson. He had been your friend, and now, even though he was dead, you saw him as your bitterest enemy. Why was that?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I wondered about your sister, too. Unlike some women from this town, she has not lost a loved one at the front – yet her face bears the same signs of suffering as those who have. And why should such a healthy-looking girl keep feeling so ill? Then there was your father ...”

  “What about him?”

  “Why hadn’t his attitude to Sam Johnson changed as yours had? It could only be because you knew something that he didn’t. Put all those questions together, and there can be only one answer, can’t there?”

  “I suppose so,” Luis Prieto agreed reluctantly.

  “Your sister must have spoken to Sam, and explained her ‘problem’. If he had run away after he had heard the news, you would have tracked him down and killed him like a dog.”

  “You are right. That is just what I would have done – or have died trying.”

  “But he didn’t run away, did he? He stayed. And if he’d lived longer, I have no doubt he would have gone to see your father, and had a long and serious talk with him.”

  “Yes. I think you’re right about that, too,” Luis Prieto admitted.

  “And so you were faced with a dilemma,” Paco continued. “As a loving brother, you hated Sam Johnson for what he’d done. Yet you had gradually come to see that he cared as much about honor and responsibility as you do yourself, and that he was entitled to your respect.”

  “Are you saying I couldn’t have killed him because I respected him?” Luis asked.

  “Not exactly,” Paco said. “In battle you could probably kill men you had come to respect, because that is what honorable men do to other honorable men in that situation. But the situation which you found yourself in was much more complicated, wasn’t it?”

  “Much more complicated,” Luis Prieto agreed, almost mournfully.

  “In a battle you stand face to face with your enemy and, for that moment, you are the only two people in the whole world who matter. In this case, there is also Concha and her wishes to consider. I do not think you could ever have brought yourself to kill the man your sister loved – and I’m absolutely certain you’d never have done it once you’d learned he was the father of her unborn child.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The waiter placed the large bowl of steaming garbanzos in front of Felipe, and even before his hands were clear of it, the fat constable was attacking the chickpeas with his spoon.

  “It is all right if I have something to eat, isn’t it, jefe?” he asked Paco between mouthfuls.

  “Why shouldn’t it be?”

  “It’s just that you’re not eating yourself.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Paco said.

  He had not been hungry since the moment Felipe had burst into Dolores McBride’s house and told him Cindy had been hurt, and he did not feel as if he would ever re-discover his appetite again.

  Felipe was different. He, too, was distressed by what had happened to the American woman, but he had never been one to let tragedy – even his own – get
in the way of his love for food. Faced with the imminent prospect of facing a firing squad, the fat man would probably have polished off his last meal with gusto.

  “We seem to be getting nowhere with this case,” Paco said despairingly. “We have no more idea now who killed Samuel Johnson than we did when we stepped off the train in Albacete.”

  Felipe tore a chunk of bread from the large loaf which accompanied the chickpeas.

  “Oh, it’s not as bad as that.” he said with the optimism good food always brought him. “We may not be able to point to the murderer yet, but we certainly understand a lot more about the yanquis.”

  “But all that understanding really amounts to is a realization that we don’t understand them at all,” Paco said.

  “And we have suspects!” Felipe said, refusing to let his enthusiasm be dampened.

  “By suspects, do you mean the brigadistas who don’t have an alibi for the time when Johnson was shot?”

  “That’s right. You have to admit that’s better than nothing.”

  But not much, Paco thought.

  “Let’s examine them one by one,” he suggested. “Take Clay, the political commissar, first. Why would he want to become a killer?”

  Felipe mopped some of the juice with his bread.

  “Johnson made Clay very angry when he took some of the other brigadistas into Albacete without permission, and practically stole the ammunition from the brigade warehouse.”

  “It’s true that Clay is very much the kind of man who always likes to go through the proper channels,” Paco agreed.

  “There's more to it than that,” Felipe continued. “You know what the French are like – Commander Marty may have felt his honor had been slighted. So perhaps he made a deal with Señor Clay.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “Clay agreed to kill Johnson to avenge Marty. And in return, Marty promised him regular supplies, so there’d never be any need for him to look like such an idiot again.”

  “I don’t think so,” Paco said.

  “Why not? How often have we heard all these people say that the fate of the individual is of no importance? Ammunition is of more value to the battalion than the life of one man, so perhaps Commissar Clay decided to sacrifice Johnson for the general good.”

  “I still don’t see what Commander Marty would have got out of Johnson’s death.”

  “As I said, his honor had been slighted, and...”

  “If you felt your honor had been slighted, would you be content to let another man regain it for you?”

  “Honor’s never been much of a worry to me,” Felipe said, reaching for a fresh chunk of bread. “But I take your point, jefe. If Marty had felt humiliated enough by what had happened, he would have challenged Johnson to a duel or something.”

  “Maybe not a duel,” Paco said. “But at least he would have followed some course of action he could tell his compañeros about. No man could hope to regain his standing by bragging that he had got someone else to do his dirty work for him. And if the battalion falls apart – as it might – then both Marty and Clay will be the losers, because it’s their responsibility to hold it together.”

  “All right, forget about Clay,” Felipe said. “What about Emmanuel Lowenstein?”

  “We might be on to something there,” Paco said. “If I knew that I would be staring death in the face in a few days’ time, I’d seize the opportunity to have a little fun at the fiestas with both hands. And all the other brigadistas did. But not Lowenstein. He claims to have stayed in the barracks – though he’s not pre-pared to say why. That, in itself, is suspicious.”

  “In a way, isn’t the fact that he hasn’t got an alibi the best alibi of all,” Felipe asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If he’d planned to kill Johnson, wouldn’t he first have tried to establish at least an alibi of sorts?”

  “Perhaps he thought he wouldn’t need one,” Paco suggested. “There’s a war going on in which thousands of people are being killed, and he may have calculated that nobody would pay much attention to one more death. And even if he did think there was a chance there might be an investigation, he could have gambled on the fact that the battalion would be sent up to the front line long before that investigation would produce any results.” He lit up a Celtas. “And that gamble, if indeed he did take it, may have been a good one – we have got nowhere, and they could be sent to the front line any day now.”

  "But why would he …” Felipe began. Then a look of realization came to his face. “You’ve thought of a motive, haven’t you?”

  “A possible motive,” Paco agreed, cautiously.

  “And what is it?”

  “If one of the brigadistas can fall in love with a local girl, then why can’t another?”

  “We know Samuel Johnson fell in love with Concha Prieto, and you’re saying it’s also possible that ...”

  “That Lowenstein could have fallen in love with her too. Why not? He visited the Prieto house, just as Johnson did. There is no reason to believe he was any less susceptible to the charms of an attractive young woman than the Negro was. But it was Johnson that Concha chose. And suddenly Lowenstein found his principles had turned to dust. For all his talk about equality, he could not stand the thought of being beaten in love by a black man.”

  “I’ve never understood that kind of love,” Felipe confessed. “A man marries a woman because that’s what a man does. I can accept that easily enough. But all the high drama and agonizing that some men go through over one particular female seems pointless. Women are like buses – if you miss one, you can be pretty sure there will be another one along in a few minutes. And possibly the next one will be a better cook.” A look of horror came to his face as he saw the expression which was forming on his boss’s face. “I’m sorry, jefe, I wasn’t getting personal. I know that you and Cindy are different.”

  Paco shook his head as if the remark had not bothered him, though it felt like a needle had been driven through his heart.

  “Put personal considerations aside,” he said. “Whatever Cindy and I are to each other has no part in this discussion. We’re two policemen talking through a case, and it’s important for me to know whatever's on your mind. So if you don’t think that jealousy could be a motive ...”

  “I didn’t say that,” Felipe interrupted. “But if we’re only looking for one suspect, I’d put my money on that big stevedore, Ted Donaldson. After all, Samuel Johnson was a black man and Donaldson did admit to us that he was once a member of the Ku Klux Klan.”

  “And shouldn’t the fact that he’s chosen not to keep it secret mean that we can rule him out?”

  “That’s one possibility,” Felipe admitted.

  “And what’s the other?”

  “That it could be a double bluff.”

  ·Go on,” Paco said encouragingly.

  “How often, in the old days back in Madrid, did a suspect under questioning admit to a part of his criminal history that we didn’t know anything about?” Felipe asked.

  “Often enough,” Paco admitted.

  “Now sometimes they’d admit it either because they were so panicked they didn’t know what they were saying, or because they thought we already knew all about them. But there were a few instances where I think it was nothing more than a bluff. And what these bluffers were gambling on was that we’d think that anyone who was that honest about his past had to be honest about his present as well. Couldn’t that be the case with Donaldson? He confesses that he used to be a racist, and the message that we’re meant to receive from him is, ‘And because I’ve confessed, I couldn’t possibly be a racist now’.”

  Paco shook his head in admiration.

  “Even after all the years we’ve been working together, you can still surprise me once in a while,” he told his partner.

  Felipe positively simpered.

  “Oh, I’m not just a pretty face, you know,” he said, running his index finger over his double chins.


  “So you think that Donaldson is our man?”

  “Not necessarily. But if we were in Madrid, our suspicions would be enough to get a magistrate to sign a warrant.”

  “But will they be enough to get James Clay to do the same thing?” Paco wondered.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The two Madrid policemen and their American translator stood in front of the mansion which had once belonged to a rich landowner, and was now the barracks of a group of foreign brigadistas, most of whom would never have dreamed of entering such a house in their own country – except through the servants’ door.

  Dolores McBride took a large key out of the pocket of her combat jacket.

  “It wasn’t easy getting Jim Clay to agree to go along with this, you know,” she said.

  “I’m sure it wasn’t,” Paco agreed.

  “Nope, it wasn’t easy at all. And it didn’t exactly help that I couldn’t tell him why you were suspicious of Ted Donaldson.”

  “You didn’t mention the Ku Klux Klan to Clay?”

  “I most certainly did not!”

  “Why? I would have thought ...” Paco began.

  “Then you’d have been wrong,” Dolores interrupted. “Aside from the fact that I’d promised Ted I’d never tell anyone in the Party that he’d once been involved with the KKK, if I had brought up your theory about him being some kind of Klan undercover agent, Clay would have laughed in my face. And I can’t say that I’d have blamed him – because the whole idea’s nothing more than a dime novel fantasy.”

  Not according to Greg Cummings, Paco thought. But then Cummings was not weighed down by all the ideological baggage that most of the other brigadistas were compelled – by their devotion to Comrade Stalin – to carry around with them.

  “The only reason I’m going along with this farce is because I want you to see for yourself just how wrong you are,” Dolores said.

  “Perhaps I am wrong,” Paco agreed. “We’ll soon find out.”

  Dolores inserted the key in the lock, and pushed the big door open. She stepped through the gap and into the hallway, with the detectives close on her heels.

  “The guys all sleep on the second floor,” she said. “The room Ted shares is the third on the left at the top of the stairs.”