Evil for Evil: A Billy Boyle World War II Mystery

by James R Benn

  "What do you mean if, Lieutenant? A second ago you said you knew what was going on. Leave me alone, please." With that, he pulled his arm from my grip and walked out the main door, glancing left and right as he headed for a jeep. I took a deep breath, shaking my head at Brennan's foolishness. Hoping I was wrong for his sake, I walked into Thornton's office and pushed the door hard, so it slammed against the wall.

  "What the--I'll call you back, I have to go," said Thornton, slamming down the receiver. "Boyle, are you drunk?"

  "I was last night, Major. You know what would have tasted really good for breakfast? Ham and eggs. Not powdered eggs and Spam, but the real thing. Know what I mean?" I sat myself down on the corner of his desk and stared at him.

  "Any problem, Major?" A corporal leaned into the office from the hallway, glanced at me and back to Thornton.

  "No, nothing wrong," Thornton said. "Wind took the door. Shut it, will you?"

  The door clicked shut and we were alone. Thornton didn't say anything. He didn't ask me why I was blabbing on about ham and eggs, like any innocent guy would've. Instead, he gulped as sweat broke out on his forehead.

  "I have a few questions," I said.

  "Have you found the BARs yet?" Thornton was putting a brave face on things, trying to put me on the defensive. It might have worked with some lieutenants but not this one.

  "Gee, Major, no. You see, things have been kind of confusing, trying to figure out who's involved in a dangerous arms theft and who's involved in penny-ante bribery and skimming of army funds."

  "What are you talking about?" He tried to put some indignation into it, but it came out as desperation.

  "First, where did the whiskey come from?"

  "Huh?" I knew I was right. Any honest senior officer would have called the MPs by now. Instead, Thornton sat looking up at me, his mouth hanging open.

  "That's one of my questions. Where did the whiskey come from?" I pointed to the corner of the room, where three cases of Irish whiskey had been the last time I was there. This morning, only one remained.

  "You know how it is, Boyle. . . ."

  "OK, let's try this one. How did Brennan find out?"

  "Find out what?" The last word had a long, drawn-out sound, as if he were about to start crying.

  "That's OK, Major, I have more. Like what did you do with the paperwork you took from the communications center?"

  "It's around here somewhere, I may have misplaced it. I wanted to look into it myself, I thought maybe I, I . . . I don't know," Thornton said, exhausting himself with lies.

  "What's in that drawer?"

  "Which drawer?" Thornton asked, his eyes darting for a second to a desk drawer.

  "That one," I said, pointing to the middle drawer on his right. "The one you stuffed some papers into when I was here. It's locked I bet. Right?"

  "No, look, it's empty," he said with pathetic eagerness. He pulled the drawer open, revealing a paper clip and dust.

  "Your other drawers empty too?"

  "No, they aren't. Why?"

  "Because, you stupid oaf, why should that drawer be empty unless you got rid of everything in it?"

  "Boyle, you can't talk to me like that, really."

  "OK, call your CO. Tell him. Tell him there's a second louie in your office saying real bad things about you."

  "Hold on, hold on. We can work this out."

  "Maybe," I said. "Let's start by me telling you a few things, and you tell me if I've gotten anything wrong." I raised my eyebrows, waiting for him to answer.

  "Huh? Oh, OK, sure." He shook a cigarette from a pack and lit up. He didn't offer me one.

  "You and Jenkins cooked up some sort of scheme. My guess is that he started with a few personal gifts to you. Whiskey to start, then some nice cuts of meat, pork, and lamb, just for you. You liked it, and then one day he suggested an arrangement. Basically he bills the army for more than he delivers and gives you a kickback. Who's to know? It's all food to be consumed, and you're in charge of the paperwork. Once you leave, it will all disappear anyway. Why not make some dough while you can? Hell, you know the division is headed for trouble, might as well make some hay while the sun shines, right?"

  "He's a very nasty man."

  "I'm sure he forced the arrangement on you. But then Brennan comes along, assigned to kitchen detail. I don't know how, but he sees that things don't add up. Maybe he compares a bill of lading from a delivery with the invoice or the receipt, it really doesn't matter. I bet he went straight to you."

  "I told Jenkins it had to stop. I did!"

  "But he said no. He told you he'd take care of Brennan."

  "I didn't want that to happen."

  "No, it would draw too much attention. So you move Brennan out of the kitchen, which suited him just fine. I'm sure you said you'd implicate him if he said anything. Then you started pulling paperwork, getting rid of any evidence. That's what was on your desk the other day. That's why you were so upset."

  "How did you know?"

  "Heck has been pawing through Lasner's communications, you knew that. It didn't make any sense that it was part of his investigation into the BAR theft. He had to be looking into something more long- term. I knew Brennan had been nervous about seeing Jenkins's delivery trucks on the base, and then I remembered he'd been working in the kitchens when he first got here. I figured Jenkins had threatened him, and that you and Brennan were each holding the threat of talking over each other's heads. Then, when the BAR raid came along, you figured it was the perfect opportunity to take Brennan down for a crime he had no part of."

  "But I'm not arresting him; there isn't going to be a court-martial."

  "Right. Because he's got something on you. Something he probably showed you this morning." I leaned to look into the wastepaper basket by his desk. A thin layer of ash lay at the bottom. "Which you burned. What are they? A stack of invoices and receipts that don't match?"

  "Yes," said Thornton, as he held his head in his hands. His voice cracked with emotion. "He had receipts from the deliveries at the mess hall, matched up with invoices I signed off on. It's enough to put me away."

  "What does Brennan want?"

  "That's just the thing," he said, looking up to me as if I might have the answer. "He said all he wants is to be left alone. But Jenkins won't leave him alone as long as he has that evidence. I tried to reason with him, to give him money, but he won't listen."

  "Why was he so cheery when he left here?"

  "I told him I'd work on a transfer for him, back to his old outfit."

  "In Italy?"

  "Yes. They're still on the line, attacking along the Volturno River, someplace I never heard of. Can you believe it? He wants to go back to that."

  "Yeah, hard to believe a guy would want to go back into combat rather than associate himself with you."

  "Hey, if Brennan had just kept his mouth shut, everything would have been fine. But no, he had to go and screw things up. If Jenkins does anything to him, it won't be on my head, I'll tell you that."

  "Where's the money?" I asked.

  "What money?"

  "Don't even try--"

  "Listen, Boyle, if you've got some evidence against me, go ahead and take it to Heck. Come to think of it, why isn't he here? If you've broken this big case, why aren't the MPs taking me away in irons?" Thornton was finally adding it up. He was right. All I had was a story. If he'd gotten rid of all the evidence, except for what Brennan had squirreled away, then I'd have a hard time making it stick.

  "How come you lied to me about wanting a combat command?"

  "I do."

  "Ordnance officer at Corps HQ is not exactly in the line of fire."

  "Get the hell out, Boyle."

  "OK," I said, thinking over my options. I should just walk away, forget about Thornton, and get on with the investigation. "Mind if I take this?" I pointed to the whiskey.

  "If it gets you out of here, then with my compliments. No reason you can't share in the wealth. Maybe you're not as du
mb as you look after all."

  "Could be," I said, lifting the case. "We'll see."

  CHAPTER * FIFTEEN

  I STOPPED AT the communications center, gave Lasner a bottle of Bushmills, and said I needed to use a telephone in private. He put the bottle in his desk drawer, me in a small office down the hall, and shut the door without asking a question. I put in a call to Captain Hiram Heck, and held the receiver away from my ear until he calmed down enough to listen. I managed to get a few words in, got a grunt in return that I interpreted as agreement, and winced as he slammed the phone down, his way of saying goodbye.

  It was about sixty miles to Brownlow House in Lurgan, according to the directions Lasner gave me. I could tell I'd gone up a notch in his estimation of me as a rookie second lieutenant when he took the time to walk me out to the jeep, going over the route he'd marked on a map to lead me to Corps Headquarters.

  "In the center of Newcastle you'll see a sign for Castlewellan Road. Take that; it goes to a town of the same name. You'll cross the Dublin Road in Castlewellan, then take the Ballyward Road to the village of Ballyward," he said, pointing out the towns. The next one was Katesbridge.

  "Let me guess. Then I take the Katesbridge Road?"

  "Yeah, but you have to watch out. They also name the roads from the other direction, so this same roadway becomes the Castlewellan Road again, once you get to Banbridge. Then you're almost there. After Banbridge, take the Lurgan Road."

  "To Lurgan."

  "Right. In the town center there are signs for Corps HQ. Brownlow House is a huge place, a manor house, I'd guess you call it. Hard to miss anyway; it's the biggest thing in town."

  "OK, thanks, Sarge," I said as I took down the canvas top to the jeep. I saw him glance in the back at the case of whiskey.

  "You have a whole case of Bushmills," he said, a slight petulant tone creeping into his voice. I guess one bottle seemed like a lot when he thought that was all I had to give.

  "Less one, Sarge. Sorry, I need these. I'm not even keeping any for myself."

  "Well, OK, Lieutenant, if you say so. I haven't seen that much quality hooch in one place since I've been here. Good liquor doesn't seem to make its way down the chain of command."

  "Ain't that the way of the world?" I waved as I drove off, glad that Lasner seemed cheered by the thought that he had one more bottle than I'd end up with. He was right about all the good stuff going to the higher ranks, and I was too low on the rank scale to disagree with him. Lieutenants were a dime a dozen and didn't get much of a cut; the valuables went up to captains, majors, colonels, and generals. Stuff like scotch, whiskey, fleece-lined leather coats meant for bomber crews, penicillin, these things all flowed in a supply line from the States to bases all over the world on their way to the front. At each stop, the freight got lighter and guys like Heck sported jump boots and other gear they needed to make themselves feel like they were real soldiers.

  Booze was one thing, especially here when we were practically in the backyard of the Bushmills distillery. But cold-weather gear, cigarettes, morphine, I'd seen it all pilfered at rear-area supply depots, and it made me sick. I had no desire to hack another foxhole out of the hardpacked Italian ground, but if I did, I'd want to be warm once I climbed into it. If I was wounded, I didn't want to run out of morphine syrettes because a quartermaster had a habit or a connection in Belfast, London, or Algiers who was offering top dollar.

  Everyone's a thief, I told myself, enjoying the sun on my face as I drove through the pines, down the hill to Newcastle. From the cop on the beat who takes an apple from the greengrocer to the government that takes a cut out of your paycheck. It's simply a matter of how much harm you cause when you take what isn't yours. I didn't know where the line was, the place where the harm was serious, but I knew enough to stay on the side of it that let me sleep at night.

  I found Castlewellan Road in Newcastle and quickly left the town behind, as homes and shops gave way to neatly squared-off fields, their stone walls and thin lines of trees corralling masses of sheep, all quietly eating, their heads down to the ground, intent on nothing but the green stalks in front of them. Fattening up for the hard winter, as were the GIs at Ballykinler and bases like it everywhere in Great Britain, North Africa, and Italy. Those who had been based here before them had gone ashore in North Africa when I did, and now a lot of them were dead, more wounded, some prisoners, and others, like Pete Brennan, alive by no grace they could understand. Me, I wasn't that deep a thinker. I was glad to be alive and I was as ready to thank God for the favor as a carved wooden pig. I had no idea if God played a part in deciding who was going to die on the battlefield or in the parlor of an RUC policeman's house. Not too long ago, a guy next to me on a ridgeline in Sicily had taken a bullet to the forehead. If that was how God spent his time, I'd take my chances with Pig.

  I slowed as I drove through Castlewellan, sharing the wide roadway with trucks, motorbikes, and farmers' carts drawn by sturdy horses. In the town center the road was lined with large, old chestnut trees, hanging onto the last of their greenery before the harsh cold took hold and pulled it down. I passed a Celtic stone cross set in the middle of an intersection and a series of shops in whitewashed stone buildings. Henry Devlin, Spirits and Grocer. Bustard's Shoes and Boots. Shilliday Hardware. For the first time since I'd landed, I felt as if I was in Ireland. Not the Republic but the island of Ireland, away from the war, the British, and the IRA. The names, the streets, shops, and people all felt comfortable to me, like a pair of old boots I might have bought years ago at Bustard's.

  I resisted the urge to find a pub and have an early lunch and chat with the regulars. I felt that if I did, I might not ever leave. Strange that in this alien place of my childhood nightmares, where Orangemen lurked to lop off the heads of young Catholic boys, I should feel as if I were driving home, maybe from a Sunday outing to Weymouth, coming back through Dorchester and seeing the familiar shops and stores drift past my window, as Dad waved to the town cop directing traffic, his white gloves moving in gleaming arcs toward Southie.

  The ground rose west of Castlewellan, the rock-enclosed patches of land tilting themselves upward on either side of the road, a damp chill blowing around me as I pulled my cap down tight. The sun was bright but not warm, the November air cooling the rays that cast shadows at my back, as if the sunlight itself were a lie.

  This wasn't the hot warmth of Jerusalem, it was the shining light of my ancestors' homeland, and I shivered in it, thinking of Diana, wondering if sweat was still running in rivulets between her breasts, or if she too had been sent to serve under a different sun, and if she was warmed or chilled under it. Too soon, I told myself. It's too soon. She'd have to be briefed and made ready. Outfitted with the right clothes, all with European labels, that sort of thing. They can't produce that stuff overnight, can they? I ached to have those moments in Jerusalem back, to say the right things to her. I didn't know what they might be, but I knew I hadn't said them. I couldn't have; I was only thinking of myself, how her choices affected me. I felt like a bum.

  Thinking about Diana started me worrying about her, and that made me drive faster. I took a curve too quickly and had to brake hard to keep from drifting off the road. I downshifted and took a deep breath. OK, relax, I told myself. Think about something else. BARs. Think about BARs.

  Before I could, I had to brake again, this time for a slow-moving wagon coming my way, pulled by two thick-hoofed horses clip-clopping along, their load of manure destined for some farmer's field. Lucky him. I tried not to breathe as we passed on the narrow road. Except for that stretch through Castlewellan, I hadn't seen a wide road anywhere since I'd gotten here. The roads of Northern Ireland--and I expect those of the Republic as well--had not been built for the volume of army traffic they were seeing these days.

  That's right. It was slow going around here. And on a rainy night, like the night the BARs were stolen, how far could you drive? I reminded myself to check out a map and estimate the maximum distance, and compa
re that with where the truck was found. If it was at the outside distance, then they transferred the BARs right there. If not, they could have done it elsewhere and then dumped the truck. But why? Close to someone's home? Or did they have another car nearby? It was worth looking into.

  I drove into Lurgan, which was a sizable town with cramped, sooty brick buildings hooded by gray slate roofs. It looked like it needed a good rain to wash the grime away. Past the town center, the buildings thinned out and I followed a sign for U.S. Army Corps HQ, taking a right and driving along a road with a tall, black wrought-iron fence pacing me on the left. I slowed and turned at a gate in the fence, which was decorated with all sorts of curlicues. The monstrosity in front of me had to be Brownlow House. The sun bathed the brown stone with yellow light, turning it almost golden. It was topped by a single large turret, something out of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp. Surrounding the turret was a forest of chimneys, set at every height the house had to offer. It looked like every room had one, which meant they were probably the only source of heat.

  I pulled the jeep over behind a line of others, grabbed my case of whiskey, and walked up to one of the snowdrops guarding the main entrance.

  "Hey, pal," I said, "Where's the G-1's office?"

  "Whaddya got there, Lieutenant?" The MP asked. Apparently the word BUSHMILLS, printed in three-inch letters, white on black, didn't mean anything to him.

  "You a teetotaler?" I asked him. His buddy snorted a quick laugh, and then looked away.

  "No, I ain't," he said, fast and loud enough to tell me he'd rather be pegged as illiterate than as a nondrinker. "I just can't let you walk in here without checking, that's all." He opened the case as I held it. "You're missing one," he said as he closed it back up.

  "Thanks. Must be a crime wave. So where's the G-1 and what's his name?"

  "That'd be Colonel Warrenton. Go up the main stairs and ask at the duty desk. This place is a maze."

  He was right. At the top of a staircase wide enough for a squad to march abreast, a duty officer guided me down two hallways and pointed to a door. As I walked up to it, I glanced into the office across the hall. The door was open, and the chair at the desk was empty. A tall, wiry officer in a jeep coat stood with his back to me, smoking as he stared out an open window. I turned away and knocked on the closed door with G-1 stenciled on it.