The Last Word bbtbm-3

by Ellery Adams

  Never had she imagined that the end of the investigation would lead to the door of a friend. She’d always assumed that the killer would be some cruel and twisted stranger, a vengeful, spiteful, or greedy man with a black heart. But this one was funny, kind, and hardworking. He was one of them. He belonged to them.

  Olivia sped through town, oblivious of everything around her. Five miles beyond the business district, she turned onto a narrow lane sloping down to the harbor. A small house with brown shingles sat perched on a gentle rise above the water. A worn path led to a small dock where a one-man fishing skiff was tethered, leisurely bobbing in the mild current.

  The sight of the tiny vessel nearly made Olivia stumble, but she managed to make it to the front door.

  There was no need to knock. Heinrich Kamler had seen her coming and had opened the door to welcome her inside.

  “I’m glad it’s you, ’Livia,” he said in a voice heavy with sorrow. “Of all the people in this town, I’d have chosen you to know the truth.”

  Olivia nodded, angry that she could not control the tears that rushed down her face.

  “There, there,” the man said and reached for her. “I reckon we’ve got time for a glass of sun tea before the chief comes for me.”

  She went to him, putting both arms around his back, taking in the frailty of his body. She traced the vertebrae of his spine and could feel his ribs through his thin, aged skin. Yet in her mind, she saw him as Evelyn White had seen him, a young man in the prime of life. A young man doomed by a lie.

  The only comfort she had to offer was this embrace.

  Olivia held him close. Haviland licked their hands and whined anxiously, as she whispered his name over and over again. “Wheeler . . . Wheeler . . .”

  Chapter 17

  Your children are not your children.

  They are the sons and daughters of Life’s

  longing for itself.

  —KAHLIL GIBRAN

  Wheeler led Olivia into his tidy kitchen. The room was Spartan, lacking the bric-a-brac, photographs, and souvenirs displayed by most people who’d lived for eight decades. Every surface was clean, and the scent of oranges and vinegar hung in the air.

  Three storage containers, a knife block, and a cutting board were lined up with mathematical precision on the countertop. Wheeler placed a lemon and a lime onto the board, cut the fruit into nearly transparent slices, and stuffed them on the bottom of a glass tumbler. He then smothered them with ice cubes, poured in his homemade sun tea, and beckoned Olivia to join him out on the small deck.

  They settled on a pair of chairs overlooking the harbor, and Olivia waited for Wheeler to speak, sipping the tea as though this was a relaxed social call, as if there wasn’t a phantom hourglass present, its grains of sand already falling.

  Wheeler sat for a few minutes, watching a sailboat pass beyond a pair of marker buoys. As the vessel headed for the open sea, he said, “Ziegler’s boy was the spittin’ image of his daddy. When he came into my place for breakfast, I thought I was seein’ a ghost. A ghost with glasses and better manners, sure enough, but I saw through his mask. That writer thought he was above the rules, that he was better than the rest of us, just like his daddy did. When men like that think no one’s watchin’, their eyes go cold. They both had those ice-cold eyes.”

  “What happened the night Ziegler escaped?” Olivia asked. She wasn’t ready to hear about Plumley’s death.

  In the tired afternoon light, the harbor seemed lethargic and calm, a contradiction to the turbulence and sorrow that ran through Wheeler’s past like floodwaters.

  “You gotta understand somethin’,” Wheeler said. “Ziegler was a Nazi. He was brainwashed through and through, and he looked at the rest of us like we weren’t worth the pot he pissed in. He reckoned we were traitors, workin’ with the Americans the way we did. Watchin’ their movies and learnin’ baseball.”

  “Why were you on that U-Boat in the first place?”

  Wheeler shrugged. “I wanted to see the world. My folks were farmers and I would’ve done anythin’ to get away from that life. I didn’t wanna get stuck, see? I was so young . . . I thought it was gonna be such a thrill to travel underwater, silent as a shark, and surface to find a white beach filled with beautiful women.” He laughed. “Lots of boys got in that war outta boredom. What fools we were.”

  “But Ziegler was a true Nazi,” Olivia stated.

  “Would have killed us all if he could, his yellow-bellied countrymen, but what he wanted most was Evelyn.” Wheeler winced, as if the act of speaking her name caused him physical pain. “That devil stole my knife and stabbed a good, hardworkin’ man in the back. Poor guy never saw it comin’. We coulda walked outta there anytime without hurtin’ a soul, but Ziegler wanted blood. He’d wanted it since the war started. Craved it, even. I followed him that night ’cause I saw his eyes at suppertime. There was murder in those icy blues. It was shinin’ out like the ghost lights you see in the fog every now and again.”

  Olivia knew about those lights. She’d seen them the night her father had disappeared, while she’d waited, shivering and alone in a small dingy, to be rescued. More than once, she’d spotted a glow and expected the prow of a ship to slice through the curtains of fog, but the luminescence had faded as quickly as it had appeared. Many a fisherman had gone temporarily mad in the deep waters, having gone adrift far off the coast because of a storm or mechanical problems. These grizzled seamen talked of hearing strange noises and seeing an unearthly light, unable to completely believe that the soft twinkles were the product of hallucinations brought on by dehydration.

  “After curfew, I heard Ziegler leave his tent. I followed, my knife in my pants,” Wheeler continued. “I figured on rescuin’ someone that night, savin’ some poor sod from him, seein’ as that boy was hell-bent on killin’ a Yank. He’d lusted for blood since the war started, but he’d had lots of schoolin’ and was given a desk job. That made him mad too. He hadn’t been able to take a shot at a single GI.”

  It was easy to get caught up in Wheeler’s narrative, to see Ziegler creeping out in the darkness. The guards, who’d never been threatened by one of their prisoners, relaxed at their posts. Perhaps they played cards or dozed off or stared at the moon as they smoked cigarette after cigarette, their hushed voices rising with the smoke into the night air. “Did you fight him?”

  Wheeler nodded. “Aye, but I was no good. He sucker punched me in the gut, grabbed my knife, and stuck it in the guard’s back before I could catch my breath. I rolled the man on his side to see if I could help him, and that’s when another pair of guards approached on their rounds. I knew they saw my face and that they’d find my knife. When all was said and done, I was still a Kraut. I was the enemy. Didn’t matter that I loved everythin’ about this country. Didn’t matter how pretty my paintings were. Didn’t matter that she was waitin’ on me, waitin’ for the war to be over . . .”

  “You had to run,” Olivia said soothingly.

  His face clouding with grief, Wheeler nodded. “I wanted to go straight to Evie, just to tell her I’d be back for her and that I didn’t do what they were gonna say I did, but I didn’t know where she lived.” He stared at the water, the hopelessness of that night replaying across his features. “I had a general idea, but there wasn’t time to roam around the streets lookin’ for her window.”

  “Did you know where Ziegler was headed?”

  “No. If I’d known, I’d have gone after him, dragged him back by his hair. He was a snake and a coward and all twisted inside.” Wheeler gestured to the west. “I made my way to the mountains. Took clothes hangin’ out to dry and pinched scraps from farms. I hated myself for it too. I’d always been good with my hands and I found work at a mill, fixin’ gears and wheels and such.”

  Olivia looked at him. “And you became Wheeler Ames. Wheeler by trade and Ames as a show of respect to the murdered guard?”

  He sat back in surprise. “That’s what his buddies called him. See, one of the non-Engl
ish-speakin’ prisoners couldn’t get the J out, and after that, Ames just stuck. I never wanted to forget the man, so I used that name for my own. By that time, I could pass as a local and I never did talk much anyhow. Folks thought I had gone soft in the head durin’ the war and they were only half wrong. Havin’ to leave Evie . . . havin’ her wake up to hear I was a murderer and a liar . . . a runaway . . .” He trailed off.

  “You never tried to contact her?”

  Anguish pulled the corners of Wheeler’s mouth down. “I sent her letters in the beginning, but she didn’t answer. I reckoned she’d washed her hands of me, that she thought I was a killer. I even found her house when I thought it was safe to come back, but she and her family were gone.” He shook his head mournfully. “I let her go. Or tried to. I’ve been with other women, but I never loved any woman but her.” His eyes flashed, anger chasing away the regret. “And when I heard Ziegler’s boy talkin’ about her, whisperin’ to that ex-wife of his and her lump of a boyfriend, I knew I was gonna end him. It’s a scary thing, girlie, to realize you’ve got that inside you. And I’m not real sorry either, ’Livia. Only about hurtin’ folks like you. But I don’t have much life left in me anyhow. If folks think bad of me, I won’t hear about it for long and I don’t have to read the papers in jail.”

  “You sound almost relieved that you’ll be locked up,” Olivia said gently.

  Wheeler reached over and placed a weathered hand over hers. “I’m tired, my girl. I’m old and there are places achin’ inside that I thought were all scarred over. I just wanna sit down for a spell, read a few books, and die in my sleep. Don’t care where that happens. Jail’s as good a place as any other.”

  Olivia tried to imagine her aged friend lying quietly on a cot, reading a novel as his cell neighbors adorned themselves with homemade tattoos or wrote entreating letters to a family member or, if they were lucky, to a lover.

  “Do you wanna know it all?” Wheeler asked, and Olivia knew that he hoped she’d say no.

  “I do,” she answered without pause. “We’ve all been involved, my friends and I, in some way or another. I need to know.”

  Wheeler hesitated. “I hate to have you look at me with different eyes, but it’s too late to fret about that now.” He took a long drink of sun tea, and Olivia was aware that she had never heard Wheeler speak as much as he had for the past few minutes. The effort was draining him, the paper-thin wrinkles beneath his eyes drooped lower on his cheek and his breath was slightly labored.

  “I didn’t have a plan,” he began slowly. “Just spent the whole night imaginin’ how Plumley had killed Evie. They didn’t whisper about that part, he and that Cora woman, and I only heard as much as I did because she thought he wasn’t gonna pay up anymore. She started hollerin’ at him when I was in the kitchen diggin’ around for more coffee filters, but I heard. I heard her mention Evie and what Plumley did to her with her own pillow. I nearly went blind with hate. It crippled me, or I would have killed the man then and there.”

  “Cora Vickers,” Olivia said. “She and Boyd came to Oyster Bay to collect Cora’s scheduled payment. Plumley had to pay or she’d sell the story of what he’d done to Evelyn to the highest bidder.”

  “I don’t know the ins and outs, but Plumley was stallin’, tellin’ her to be patient. Guess he’d been burnin’ through his book money real quick—seems he was a gambler and not a very good one—and had to wait for some check to come in. That’s when his ex said Evie’s name, and I felt like Ziegler had sucker punched me all over again.” He put his glass down, hard, and strung his fingers together. “The next mornin’, I grabbed Plumley’s favorite bagel and drove over to the big house he was rentin’ near yours.” He frowned. “I never thought you’d find him,’Livia. If there’s somethin’ I really regret, that’s it.”

  Olivia touched him on the arm. “Go on.”

  Wheeler nodded. “He was in his robe with a cup of coffee in his hand when I rang the bell. He was surprised to see me, but he asked me in. I sat across from him at the table and told him my real name. I told him how Evelyn White had been the shinin’ star, the brightest memory of my life and how a day didn’t go by that I didn’t think of her.”

  “Wow.”

  “I asked him if what that Cora woman said was true. For a second he thought about lyin’, but he knew I’d already seen the answer in his eyes.”

  It was impossible for Olivia to imagine how Nick’s confession had impacted Wheeler, and she listened in astonishment as her old friend continued to talk about the moments leading up to Nick Plumley’s death.

  “He told me how she’d read his book and nearly lost her mind. She was that upset. He promised that he’d just wanted to get her to hush up, and that before he even knew it, he’d killed her.” Wheeler’s hands curled into fists. “He acted sorry while I was starin’ him down, but then he managed to finish most of his breakfast. What kind of man can do that?”

  Turning her gaze to the horizon, where smudges of gray clouds hung low in the sky, Olivia thought about Wheeler’s question. “A man who could no longer separate fact from fiction. I think Plumley had come to believe his own version of the truth. It allowed him to survive, to act normal.”

  Wheeler didn’t acknowledge Olivia’s reply. “Seein’ him eat with the same hands he’d used to snuff the life outta my Evie . . . I felt myself growin’ cold all over, deep into my bones. Every part of me was cold. I thought I’d surely see my own breath . . . I had the gloves I use for handlin’ food in my pocket and I put them on. Then I unrolled a painting I’d done when I was in prison. It was nothin’ special. Just a bunch of guys smokin’ and play-in’ cards, but I told Plumley he needed to wear gloves if he wanted to touch it.”

  “And he put them on?”

  Wheeler said nothing. The answer was obvious. “Then I walked behind him while he was porin’ over the painting, slid the belt off his robe, and paid him in kind for what he’d done to my sweet, darlin’ girl.”

  After a moment, he placed his hands on his chest. “I know I don’t look strong, but I’ve worked every day of my life. It was over quick enough, but it felt like I was watchin’ myself from far away. I barely remember doin’ it. Then I saw the book . . .”

  “You stopped to read the scene in The Barbed Wire Flower, the one that had upset Evelyn so much, the one depicting you as the villain,” Olivia finished for him. When he still didn’t say anything, she said, “It brought back all you’d lost.”

  But Wheeler had retreated somewhere within himself, and Olivia didn’t try to draw him out. Her time was almost up and she wanted to say something comforting and poignant before Rawlings arrived, but when she most wanted to have the right words at her power, they zipped off like dragonflies.

  “Evelyn always believed in your innocence,” she spoke into the silence. “I visited her old friend Mabel in a nursing home. She told us that Evie never doubted you.”

  A light surfaced in Wheeler’s eyes. “We showed her the painting Evelyn hid inside her house,” Olivia continued. “Do you remember it?”

  Wheeler smiled. “It was her favorite. She’d never seen snow, so I made her snow. She wanted me to paint a place in the woods, a place we’d build someday up in the mountains. Every time we had an art lesson, she’d ask me what a snowflake felt like. If they were really as different as stars. I promised her a million snowfalls as soon as the war was over.” He sighed heavily, decades of sorrow in his breath.

  “It’s a beautiful piece,” Olivia said softly. “People all over the country admire your work. Your paintings are worth tens of thousands of dollars.”

  At this, Wheeler released a dry laugh. “There’s a sucker born every minute. I’ve got a pile of them in the bedroom. Besides fishing, it’s how I pass the time. You can have the lot, ’Livia. I won’t be takin’ them with me.”

  Olivia heard the rumble of a car engine and knew that her hour was up. She needed to tell Wheeler that Evelyn had given birth to a child, his child, but she was still taking in everyt
hing he’d told her. She was overwhelmed by stories and images, by the past and the frightening future that would become the present the moment Chief Rawlings knocked on Wheeler’s door.

  Wheeler stood up and made his way to the bedroom. He walked over to a large pine storage chest and lifted the lid. Removing a stack of unframed watercolors tucked between two pieces of cardboard, he untied the twine securing the package and fanned out a half dozen paintings on the top of the pile, Olivia observing him in mute awe.

  There were scenes of men working at a paper mill, men and women harvesting peanuts, fishermen at the docks, shopkeepers sweeping their sidewalks, and a baker kneading dough. Olivia’s favorite was a landscape featuring an elderly couple strolling hand in hand on a white beach. They were just smudges of peach skin and gray hair, disappearing into a large blur of blue sea and sky, but she couldn’t take her eyes from them.

  “Take it,” Wheeler said tiredly. “Take ’em all.”

  Olivia stared unblinkingly at the watercolor couple, walking shoulder to stooped shoulder, two people who’d loved a lifetime together and knew how to take the time to enjoy a moment of peace and beauty.

  She could not condone what Wheeler had done. Even in the name of revenge, even after what he’d suffered, she could not support his act of violence. Yet, his crime did not blot out the other things she knew about him, the other ways she knew him—all the years they’d shared snippets of gossip, laughter, or quiet conversation. He was still the man who supported a Little League team each year, who donated the day’s leftover bagels and pastries to the food bank, who supported local artists by hanging their work on the café’s walls. He’d always spoiled Haviland and treated Olivia like a daughter.

  He was her friend. He was worthy of forgiveness.

  To show Wheeler that nothing would stop her from caring about him, she took the painting. “Thank you.”