It was Thelma Brook who spoke the name that must have been on all their lips. “Mike Simpson!”
Sheriff Yates nodded. “Mike Simpson. He could sneak over from his farm any time and get back to the sugar shack. Only I guess Ben must have discovered it at last and threatened to expose him. So Mike Simpson killed Ben and made it look like an accident.”
“I can’t believe it,” Aunt Mary whispered.
“There was one piece of evidence that convinced me his story of finding the body was a lie,” Sheriff Yates went on. “He said he was attracted by the sound of the tractor’s motor, and that he turned it off after finding the body. But the tractor couldn’t be moved because it was out of gas. He couldn’t have heard the motor, because there was no gas in the tank to run it!”
There was a mumble of assent at that. “Maybe we’d better ask him some questions about that still,” my father said.
The sheriff seemed to agree. “His lights are on. I’m going over now and confront him with the evidence. If he won’t come back and answer some questions, I’m going to arrest him on suspicion.”
I watched the sheriff’s lean figure move through the dark toward the farmhouse some hundred yards away. The others were waiting inside, and I was surprised to see Uncle Charlie suddenly appear at my side. “Damn it, boy,” he muttered.
“What’s the matter, Uncle Charlie?”
“I’ve been a fool, that’s what’s the matter. Stay here!”
But of course I didn’t. I sprinted after him across the yard, seeing at once that he was following the sheriff toward the lights of Mike Simpson’s farmhouse. Suddenly they were the only lights in a night of darkness, and there was something terribly urgent about reaching them.
But Sheriff Yates was there first, just inside the doorway, and as Uncle Charlie hurled himself up the porch steps the dull crack of a single shot split the quiet of the night. I reached the doorway an instant behind Uncle Charlie, just as the sheriff whirled around from Mike Simpson’s crumpled body to cover us with his revolver.
“You damned murderer!” my uncle shouted. “A second sooner and I’d have stopped your devilish scheme!”
Sheriff Yates was sweating, but the gun in his hand was steady as a rock. “He was resisting arrest. I had to kill him.”
“Resisting arrest without a weapon? You didn’t have time to plant one on him.”
“Why would I want to kill him?” the sheriff asked.
“Because he was your partner in that illegal still, and you saw this as a good chance to get him out of the way. A perfect crime—the victim shot by the sheriff while resisting arrest for murder.”
“He was a murderer. He killed Ben.”
But my uncle only shook his head. “Nobody killed Ben. He fell off the tractor accidentally, just like everybody thought. With all your flowery theories, everybody missed the most obvious explanation. He was out in the field with the tractor after supper simply because he was trying to move that very rock on which he fell. I suppose he wanted to clear it out for the next day’s plowing, but somehow he lost his footing and hit his head on it. A simple accident and nothing more, until you heard of it and decided to twist it into a killing so you could murder Mike Simpson.”
“What about the empty gas tank on the tractor?”
“A foolish thing, really. David here even saw you letting out the gasoline Friday, but of course he didn’t realize what you were doing. It became a clue only to an illogical mind like your own, Yates. You wanted to prove that Simpson couldn’t have heard the motor running—but if Simpson was really the killer he’d hardly have made up the story. And he certainly wouldn’t have gone so far as to say he turned off the motor. He could have easily explained the empty tank by saying he left it running. No, he told the truth. You were the one who emptied the tank onto the ground to try and disprove his story.”
The gun came up an inch. “You think they’ll believe you?”
“They’ll believe that the still couldn’t have existed without your knowledge. When I—a stranger in town—could walk up to the hotel desk clerk and buy a jar of moonshine with no questions asked, the thing is pretty much out in the open. You must have known it, and you certainly knew about the still in the sugar shack.”
“Who says so? I just followed you two back there yesterday.”
“You walked into that dim shack and immediately reached under a table for a lantern none of us could see. You knew it was there because you’d been working the still with Simpson.”
From somewhere in the night there was a shout. It sounded like my father, and I prayed they’d come soon to investigate the shot they must have heard.
Sheriff Yates must have had the same thought. “That’s enough talk,” he said. “You’re both goin’ to have to die too. I’ll say Simpson shot you both.”
“With your gun? Don’t be a fool!”
“I’m no fool. Simpson was, to think he could double-cross me on the take. I’m not goin’ to prison for killing that swine.”
I think he would have shot us then. His eyes were suddenly hard and cold and decided, and I knew I was looking at death. Then, faster than my eye could follow, Uncle Charlie’s hand moved. One instant it was empty and then there was the silver flash of a knife blade. Sheriff Yates stumbled backward, startled, and I saw that the weapon had found its mark in his throat.
“They killed each other,” Uncle Charlie told the others later, while I stood silently in the corner. “Mike Simpson must have hurled his knife a second before the sheriff fired.”
Thelma Brook’s pencil was busy. “The sheriff died a brave man,” she said, already composing the lead for her front-page story. Nobody disputed her, least of all Uncle Charlie.
My father wondered vaguely how Mike Simpson had ever obtained a knife that was made in Trinidad, but nobody wanted to ask too many questions. Uncle Charlie went away after the funeral, back to his job in New Orleans, and things began to settle into their familiar patterns.
I guess I was the only one in town who knew just what happened that night, but nobody ever asked me.
To Slay an Eagle
AUGSHEIM THAT AUTUMN WAS still a place only beginning to recover from the destructions of war. Coming in low on the airport approach, Emerson gazed out over the ruins and remembered how it had been. He remembered his first sight of the city, flare-lit at midnight as he streaked in over it in the lead bomber. He remembered especially the blaze from the fire bombs, destroying everything in its path. Circling that night and heading back for home, over the burning city, he never imagined he’d see it again, never imagined he’d want to return there to the wounded land whose scars he’d caused.
He didn’t want to return now, but he had a job to do. A dirty job.
“November is a bad month anywhere,” the girl said.
“Especially in Germany. Drizzle and fog and mist.” Emerson lit an American cigarette and settled back in his chair.
“You’ve been here before?”
“To Augsheim? Only once, from the air. But I’ve seen Berlin and Munich. And Bonn, of course.”
She was young and almost beautiful and her name was Mona Kirst. They’d met by careful prearrangement in a back street bar that catered to prostitutes.
“Augsheim used to be beautiful,” she said, “before the war. I remember when I was only a child how I used to play in the park. Now it’s only a mud hole, without flowers or even grass.”
“It’ll come back,” he assured her. Then, glancing at his watch, he said, “Hadn’t we better…?”
“Yes.” She finished her drink and rose to leave. Emerson followed. It was the most natural thing in the world in the place, at that time. Nobody even looked up.
Mona Kirst lived on the third floor of a sagging apartment house overlooking the mud hole she’d mentioned. Further down the block the steel skeleton of a new building was rising—the first visible sign of the phoenix which would come from this fire. “You were lucky,” he remarked, following her up the stairs. “No
t many buildings survived.”
“Were any of us lucky? Really?”
They passed an old woman on the stairs, and a British soldier who seemed embarrassed. Both of them looked away as they passed. Then Mona unlocked the door at the top of the landing and they entered a dingy, dank room with a double bed and a battered kitchen set as its only furniture.
There was a man stretched out on the bed, fully clothed. His name was Visor, and Emerson had journeyed four thousand miles to meet him.
“Ah! You must be Emerson!” He rose to shake hands. “Do you have a word from Washington?”
Emerson had always thought passwords were foolish, but he said it anyway. “The Sphinx is drowsy, her wings are furled.”
Visor nodded. “Her ear is heavy, she broods on the world.” He motioned Emerson to sit on the bed. “A fitting quotation for someone with your name. How much did they tell you of the mission?”
Emerson looked at the girl. “What about her?”
Visor shrugged. He was a big man, and he did it well. “She was necessary for the meeting. In this neighborhood, no one pays any attention to a prostitute’s customers. Not even if there are two at a time.”
“I mean, can she be trusted?”
“She is my sister,” Visor replied.
Emerson stared at the two of them, not knowing whether to believe it. Finally Visor motioned her into the bathroom. Emerson nodded to show his approval and started talking. “I was sent because of Eagle. That’s all I know.”
The big man nodded. He was close to fifty, more likely the girl’s father than her brother. But it was obvious he’d been in the business a long time, and when he spoke he chose his words carefully. “As you may know, Eagle is the code name for an American army colonel. His name is Roger China, and he must be dead within forty-eight hours.”
“All right.”
“Washington tells me you’re a good man, a killer. Have you ever worked in this area before?”
Emerson gazed out the window at the mud hole. “Yes. Once.”
“Have you ever killed a fellow countryman before?”
“No.”
“Then perhaps I should tell you something about Colonel China. Since the beginning of the occupation, he has looted German art treasures valued at something like two million dollars. The proceeds from this looting have gone to set up a neo-Nazi movement of highly dangerous potential. Unfortunately, and ironically, his fame as a war hero and his influence in Congress made his removal and court-martial extremely difficult. For urgent reasons of national security which even I do not fully understand, the verdict of Washington is that Colonel China must be removed.”
Emerson nodded. “You don’t need to tell me any more.”
They shook hands. Then Visor added, “There’s one other thing.”
“Yes?”
“It must look like an accident.”
Emerson was staying at a small hotel a mile across town from Mona Kirst’s room. When he returned there, the sky to the west had taken on a sort of glow, diffusing the pale light of the full moon through a layer of mist. He’d flown many missions under a moon like that, skimming over the ice-blue clouds with a sense of power he couldn’t put into words. All was silent in his world above the clouds, and even the bomber’s roar muffled by the sands of night. It was a world he hoped to recapture someday, somewhere.
“This is a man to see you,” the balding little desk clerk told him. “Over there.”
Emerson turned to see a stocky, middle-aged German standing by the side of the desk. He had a folded newspaper stuffed into one pocket of his topcoat. “Mister Emerson? I’ve been waiting for you.” He spoke English well, but with a strong accent.
“Yes?” Emerson’s muscles tensed. Had Colonel China somehow heard of his mission?
“My name is Burkherdt, and I’m with the Augsheim Zeitung. I would like an interview.”
Emerson raised an eyebrow. “Do all American businessmen rate newspaper interviews?”
The stocky man squinted and shook his head. He needed a shave. “All, no. But you are something special, are you not? You led the bombing raid in Augsheim in the final days of the war.”
“Oh?”
“Now can we talk in private?”
Emerson glanced at the room clerk still hovering behind his desk and motioned toward a little bar off the lobby. “How about in there?”
The bartender frowned as they entered. “It’s late,” he said. “We close in ten minutes.”
Emerson laid a bill on the bar. “That’s all right. One drink and then leave us alone. We just want to talk.”
The reporter slipped off his topcoat and tossed it over a chair. Underneath, his suit was rumpled and stained. He gave the appearance of a man without a woman’s care, a man no longer interested in his appearance. “So you came back to see the city, Mr. Emerson.”
“The reporters on the Augsheim Zeitung are very alert. How did you know about me?” There was no sense denying it at this point, and the web of a plan was beginning to form in Emerson’s mind. Perhaps he could use this reporter’s story to reach Colonel China.
“I researched an article on the bombing raid last year. Your name appears in the Air Force’s official history. I was checking airport arrivals this morning and I recognized your name on the passenger list. Simple, no?”
“I suppose so. What do you want, Burkherdt?”
“A story. What does any newspaperman ever want? Why did you come back—to see the place?”
“Perhaps you might say that, I suppose. I had an interest in it, and I heard they were rebuilding here.”
“Rebuilding, yes. All Europe is rebuilding this November. Have you seen the ruins?”
“I’ve seen them.”
“Like Rome, no? Or ancient Greece?”
“Not exactly.”
“You are out of the Air Force now?”
Emerson nodded. “I’ve been out for almost two years.”
The stocky man was making notes on the back of an old envelope. “I was in it, you know—in the bombing. My wife, too. She was horribly burned.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She was a Catholic. Religion never meant much to me, but that night she died… She was begging me to kill her at the end, to put her out of her pain. I knew it was against her religion. I sat there for two hours holding her hand, just talking to her, making her want to live again. When finally she overcame the pain enough to say she still wanted to live, only then did I give her the release of death. The sin, if there was a sin, would be on my soul, not hers.”
Emerson looked at his hands. “A lot of innocent people died in the war.”
Burkherdt nodded sadly. “But you helped to end the war. They say Hitler himself flew over the city on the morning after the bombing, looking down at the fires that still were burning. Perhaps it was then that he knew it was hopeless.”
“Look, what do you want of me?”
“Only your observations on the city, Mr. Emerson. What do you see of Augsheim now, three years after you destroyed it?”
“I see a city trying to rebuild itself, trying and seeming to succeed. I see a city far from dead. I see… hell, what do you want me to see? If I hadn’t led that bombing raid, someone else would have!”
Burkherdt scratched his bristled face. “Of course, of course. Tell me, do you ever dream about them? About the people who burned to death in Augsheim?”
“No. I never dream.”
“They say that killing people from ten thousand feet is different from killing them face-to-face. They say it’s an impersonal thing, with no feeling afterward. Did you find it so?”
“There are feelings,” Emerson said, aware that his palms were sweating. “There were for me, anyway.”
“Feelings, but no dreams.”
“I think you’ve got enough,” Emerson said, getting to his feet. “They’re closing now.”
“You haven’t finished your drink. Just one or two more questions, please. Are you married?”
“No.”
“What is your job?”
“I’m a buyer for a chain of specialty shops. I’m looking for possible gift items to import.”
“There is nothing for you in Augsheim.”
Emerson got to his feet. “Nothing but memories. Thank you, Mr. Burkherdt, but I really must be going now. I’ve had a long day.”
“Certainly.” The German studied him through drooping eyes. “I appreciate the interview.”
Emerson went upstairs to his room and undressed for bed. He fell asleep almost immediately. It was a trick he’d learned during the war.
Burkherdt’s interview was not in the morning paper, and so he waited till afternoon. He found it on page one of the Zeitung, complete with a candid photograph of himself emerging from the hotel on the previous day. He wondered if Burkherdt had followed him on his journey to Mona’s room, but then decided against it. The reporter surely would have mentioned something.
Toward evening he went again to the bar where he’d met Mona. This time they dispensed with the preliminaries and went at once to her room. Visor was not there.
“He didn’t think it would be safe two nights in a row,” she explained. “But here is the information you wanted. China’s picture and a schedule of his usual movements.”
Emerson studied the face in the photograph, an ordinary enough face, set between officer’s cap and eagled shoulders. “All right,” he told her.
“Stay a bit,” she cautioned, “in case someone is watching. My customers are always good for at least a half-hour.”
He sat down on the bed. “Why do you do this, anyway?”
She smiled sadly, staring at the darkened square of window. “An odd question for you to ask. Why do you do it? Why do you kill?”
Night My Friend Page 21
