Deal with the Devil

by J. Gunnar Grey

  She was so beautiful. But unlike the cold phantoms of beauty inhabiting the sonnets, she was real, and realistic. “Miss Stoner. I meant to ask earlier, how is your grandfather?”

  “Dr. Harris says he’s doing better than expected. Thank you for asking.” She eased into the guardroom, two soundless steps that echoed within him. Her glorious eyes never looked away from his face. “Sergeant Tanyon tells me you’re reading something from Chief Inspector Hackney.”

  The barest hint of rose invaded her round cheeks. Granted, he was staring. But as usual, he couldn’t look away. He’d been blind. Finally he had the right poetic reference. Not Anne Boleyn, not Campaspe, not even Sidney’s Stella, but John Skelton’s merry Margaret. “I am.”

  She drew a deep breath. Her breasts rose. Although his body throbbed, threatening to embarrass him, he couldn’t look away. This midsummer flower, Gentle as falcon Or hawk of the tower. He should have realized it the first time he’d seen her ferocious and tender face.

  “Does he say where he’ll be this afternoon?”

  Faust blinked, and her unbelievable beauty transformed into pleasant and pleasing plainness, her expression vaguely uncertain and hopeful. The guardroom intruded about them, Bruckmann and Tanyon watching poised in the doorway, evening sunlight pouring through the window. Carmichael, silent and white, had relieved Pym an hour ago and sat behind the transceiver as if it could support him in his misery.

  “No, he doesn’t.” Faust caught a breath, too. “I’m sorry, is he missing? Has something happened?”

  She hesitated another moment. The poetic rose faded from her cheeks with the vanishing of her spell. Then she drew another deep breath, lifted her chin, and stepped into the guardroom, invading it with her practical presence and not stopping until she stood beside the work table. Bruckmann and Tanyon trailed behind her, the lieutenant uncertain, the sergeant tense. Carmichael swiveled his chair about and watched.

  “I’ve found my sister Harriet’s missing dress.” Her chin tilted, just as Stoner’s did when he threw out one of his unfieldable zingers.

  Automatically Faust braced. But although her statement was a zinger, it wasn’t like one of Stoner’s. Instead of probing for a weakness or pushing him into a corner, she threw out a problem and invited him to help her solve it. She’d considered what Hackney might have given him to read — notes, information, a plan. And then, perceptive as Stoner, she’d figured out what Hackney might have intended — catching the killer.

  And here she was, offering her help while asking for his. Rather than inviting him to collaborate, she met him halfway. His pulse picked up speed. He’d intended to track down the killer regardless. But her way was better.

  “I see. I gather it was someplace unexpected?”

  The last of the roses vanished from her cheeks. “It’s hanging in her wardrobe.” She dipped a hand into the pocket of her tweed skirt and pulled out a balled-up handkerchief, encrusted with dried blood and nameless other fluids. “This was on the shelf beneath it.”

  Faust’s stomach twisted. Grace’s dress had been hanging in her closet with the used and discarded handkerchief on the floor nearby. “Has anyone checked Sally’s closet?” She, too, had been found nude.

  Tanyon’s usual poker face cracked. He turned to Carmichael. “What was she wearing?”

  “Her blue dress.” Carmichael didn’t hesitate, a bitter rage blossoming beneath his white-faced misery. “Her sailor dress.”

  “The one with the square, white collar?” she asked, her voice gentle.

  He nodded, two hard bobs of his head. His ragged and uneven hair swayed with the motion. But his eyes, older and tougher than they’d been the day before, permitted no humor.

  “I’ll know it.” She ran from the room, soundless as usual.

  Faust’s stomach twisted harder. Before he could speak, Tanyon turned to Bruckmann. “She shouldn’t go alone.”

  Without a word, Bruckmann ran after her, footsteps pounding and diminishing down the corridor.

  The sergeant glanced at Carmichael, then at Faust. The grim set to his jaw remained, but his eyes were uncertain.

  Faust shook his head. “Carmichael’s not a suspect.”

  “I better not be.” The last of yesterday’s charming and tentative youngster vanished. Carmichael, it seemed, had grown up that morning in Stoner’s office.

  “Chief Inspector Hackney doesn’t work that way,” Faust said. “He bases his investigation on the evidence and only eliminates people from his suspect list when he can do it scientifically. In this case, both you and I have the wrong blood type.”

  The defiance spewed from Carmichael like air from a balloon. He glanced down at his hands in a brief echo of the boy he’d been. “Oh. Sorry, sergeant.”

  “Sergeant Tanyon, on the other hand, has the right blood type, or the wrong one, depending on how you look at it.” He paused, letting Tanyon darken with rising anger. “He also has the same hair color as the killer. But he gave me an alibi on Tuesday and it cuts both ways. I couldn’t murder Grace because I couldn’t cross the road, and that’s because I saw him there. If I didn’t have time to kill her, neither did he.” Faust paused. He hadn’t noticed the tension between the two men until it dissipated. “So the killer isn’t in this room.”

  Hurrying footsteps sounded in the corridor and murmured voices traveled ahead of them.

  “Nor is it Lieutenant Bruckmann,” Faust said. “He has the wrong blood type and hair color, and he has an alibi for the time of Grace’s murder.”

  Jennifer’s low voice was still loud enough to carry. “Did you find your keys?”

  Bruckmann’s answered. “Someone put them on my bedside table.”

  “Are you certain it wasn’t you?” She burst through the doorway, a flush of color in her cheeks as if she’d run all the way from the residential wing.

  “I’d used them to unlock the entry only a few minutes before.” Bruckmann trailed her, breathing hard. “I dropped them on the lawn in the rain, and someone found and returned them. But no one’s admitting it.”

  Faust knew nothing of Bruckmann’s keys and didn’t care to. He watched Jennifer and she smoldered, eyes narrowed. If he’d needed a symbol for her then, he’d look no further than Jack London’s dominant primordial beast. His pulse stumbled within him; she was magnificent.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “It’s there. The handkerchief, too.” She shuddered. “It’s still wet and awful. I didn’t touch it.”

  He knew the answer. But he asked the question anyway. “How many people can get inside both Woodrow and Margeaux Hall, find his way about, and put those dresses away in the proper women’s wardrobes, all without being seen and noticed?”

  “Ruddy few.” Tanyon turned to Carmichael. “We’ve got to find Chief Inspector Hackney or Constable Mercer. Call the Abbey Arms again.”

  When Carmichael cradled the receiver, he shook his head. “Sergeant, you know it’s got to be one of our squad. What can we do?”

  Hackney had reached the same conclusion, although he’d based it upon the timing of the third murder, which had happened before any of Kettering’s troops or the Home Guard even knew their least-favorite German officer had escaped. Faust waited, barely breathing. He needed to take charge of the discussion and guide it in the proper direction. But before he could do so, they had to accept his authority. And there was little he could say to convince them, particularly the sergeant. It would have to be a matter of trust.

  Tanyon, Carmichael, and Bruckmann glanced at each other then turned as one. Faust found himself facing four stares, three of them uncertain and skeptical, but the other feminine, steady, and confident. And she mattered most. He suddenly needed air and drew a deep breath.

  “Chief Inspector Hackney left this folder — this information, in Stoner’s office for me to find. I think he intended for me to sneak it out, hidden under my sling.”

  He paused. If Jennifer had any inkling of ripping him to shreds, now was the time. But she hi
tched a seat atop the sturdy work table, spread her tweed skirt about her legs, and waited. She preferred to hear him out rather than blame him for Stoner’s collapse. A gentle, hopeful flame flickered to life within Faust. This was a woman worth fighting for.

  “I’m convinced Chief Inspector Hackney wants us to draw the killer out and capture him.”

  “Wait one minute.” Tanyon, of course, objected first. “I’m not willing to take any such chance without Mr. Stoner’s approval in advance.”

  Jennifer didn’t turn. “He can’t be awakened.”

  It was an unexpected complication and not a welcome one. Faust froze. “Don’t tell me. One of Dr. Harris’ famous anodyne concoctions?”

  She scowled, the expression cute on her wide, heart-shaped face. The flush faded from her cheeks but her anger remained. “He’s not going to be available until sometime tomorrow. Do you believe we can wait?”

  He spoke the honest truth. His face would show his sincerity. “I don’t believe we can. And I can explain why not.”

  She crossed her legs. “Well, then.”

  Tanyon and Bruckmann glanced at each other. The lieutenant blew out his cheeks, slumped into a nearby chair, and fingered his white-blond hair back from his face. “All right. We’ll listen. For now.”

  A better reaction than he’d hoped for. “In his notes, Chief Inspector Hackney talks first about the killer’s possible motive — why this man is killing, and the related question of why he only kills when I’ve escaped.” Faust pulled the chair from behind his table and sat. “He says originally he thought the killer timed his murders for during my escapes to implicate me. And then he wondered if there was something about me specifically that set the killer off. But when he thought about it, that didn’t seem right, especially in regard to the first murder.” Oh, he sounded insensitive. Hesitant, he glanced at Jennifer.

  She didn’t flinch. “You mean Harriet’s murder. Please go on.”

  Ferocious and tender, kind and brave and now tough, as well — Faust shook himself. He couldn’t let his mind wander, not even to her. “Because it doesn’t seem right, does it? I mean, at the time of the first murder, I wasn’t even here yet. It’s true I’d bailed from the plane—” not the right time to explain Erhard’s perfidy “—but I was miles away and no one had seen me. I was just some faceless, unknown entity somewhere out there. So whatever it is driving this man to kill, it’s not me specifically.”

  Bruckmann threw out his hands. “Well? What, then?”

  “What else happened Saturday night?”

  Tanyon crossed his arms over his barrel chest. He still stood, forcing Faust to look up at him. “The air raid.”

  “The area’s first air raid,” Faust said. “Or at least, the first since the squad has been here. Am I right?”

  Tanyon paused. He and Bruckmann glanced again at each other. But Carmichael nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Well, on the front lines I’ve called in air strikes, and I’ve been strafed, and I’ve fired anti-aircraft guns at attacking planes. But Monday afternoon was my first air raid, and it’s different from anything else. It’s distant, impersonal, and just as deadly as combat but without the ability to fight back. I felt vulnerable and scared, and I hated it.”

  For the first time, Bruckmann seemed interested, perhaps despite his better intentions. “Are you saying the air raids are driving this man to kill?”

  “The war,” Tanyon said.

  Faust nodded. “The war itself. During the first air raid, the real character of war came home to the killer and it scared him. So he tried to prove it didn’t.”

  “By killing Harriet?” Jennifer straightened and threw back her hair. The flowing red-gold shimmered in the sunlight blazing through the window. “Then why didn’t he kill during Monday’s air raid?”

  “Well.” Faust thought a moment. “The inspector didn’t address that, but my guess would be the killer couldn’t get alone. I mean, he’s not likely to kill in front of witnesses.” He glanced at Tanyon. “Norris was with us in the hospital air raid shelter, which was packed. How about everyone else?”

  Tanyon pursed his lips. “Peckham was in the shelter near the Patchbourne market, and that would be crowded on a summer afternoon.”

  “All the local farmers would be in town selling their crops, right?”

  The sergeant nodded.

  Faust turned to Bruckmann. “And the soldiers who were here?”

  “Carmichael was on the radio—”

  “I was,” Carmichael said, “and I didn’t leave it.”

  Bruckmann ran his fingers through his hair, combing it back from his temple. “Sloane was at the front gate, and Glover was on the switchboard.” He paused, eyebrows up.

  Faust shook his head. “Both Sloane and Glover have the wrong blood types. They’re not suspects.”

  Bruckmann shrugged. “The Alcocks and Wainwrights went down into the cellar with Sally, and the old man walked to Woodrow to be with you.” He nodded toward Jennifer, and she nodded back. “I gathered the squad into the ballroom sitting area and had Pym read aloud from the civil defense manual while I kept working. Plan was, if any of the bombers came too close, we could jump into the cellar. But it was never necessary.”

  “So I’m right.”

  “It seems so.” Bruckmann leaned his head back. “I asked Chief Inspector Hackney this question and didn’t get an answer. Now I want one. Who’s on the suspect list?”

  He’d memorized it and didn’t need to look in the folder. “In alphabetical order — Ellington, Norris, Peckham, Pym, Reynolds, and Whiteside, although Pym’s and Ellington’s hair might be too light.”

  Bruckmann and Tanyon both froze, their jaws slack. The six suspects, absent physically, paraded invisibly through the guardroom. Ellington, with his dreamy expression and mental escapes, who might need for some sick fantasy to become real to counter nameless fears. Norris, who wanted to be brave but hadn’t managed it, whose teetering self-image could depend upon belying his failure. Peckham, clever and sturdy, able to unload the hospital wall from the lorry’s cab and just as able to muscle a woman about to fulfill his needs. Pym, steady and unflappable, perhaps hiding a looming psychological cracking point. Reynolds, content to hover in the background but who might long for more, and more respectful, attention. Whiteside, guarding the front gate in even the worst weather, seemingly taken for granted but for some reason maintaining his complacency, as if he had hidden sources of satisfaction.

  Bruckmann said one foul phrase and buried the heels of his hands in his bloodshot eyes. “Sorting this out is going to be wonderful.”

  “But—” Jennifer didn’t even glance at the lieutenant. She rubbed her forehead and tried again. “There wasn’t an air raid on Tuesday afternoon when Grace was killed.”

  “Oh, but by then I was here,” Faust said, “the big, bad enemy officer, and that changed things. Now the war was even closer and it had a face.” He turned to Tanyon, still standing with his arms crossed. “I bet you told the squad to keep away from me because I’m dangerous. Right?”

  Tanyon flushed beneath his bruises. “On Mr. Stoner’s orders.”

  “That’s right,” Carmichael said. “He said, even with one arm injured, you could still beat us, or worse.” He froze, uncertain, as if afraid he’d said too much.

  Better not to go there. “The point is, you guys were prepared for the worst and even seemed to expect it. So when I slugged Norris and jumped from the car, suddenly I was no longer under control. The war broke loose, wearing my face, and the killer panicked.”

  “Which drove him to kill again.” Bruckmann nodded sagely, lower lip jutting out. “And the same would hold true for last night.”

  “So I’m right.” Jennifer leaned forward over her clasped hands. “If you just stop escaping until he’s caught—”

  But Faust shook his head. “Even if by some miracle the war is declared over tonight and I’m sent back to Germany, never to be seen here again, something sooner or later
will still frighten him. Remember, he’s not afraid of me specifically and his fear doesn’t have to be rational. It just has to be something that makes him feel he’s lost control, or respect, or something.”

  She hung her head. The red-gold hair cascaded about her face, hiding her like a camouflage screen. Then she sat back up, her hands pushing her hair behind her ears. “So chances are he’s going to kill again.”

  Tanyon grunted. “Haven’t seen any sign he doesn’t like it all of a sudden.”

  “True enough.” Bruckmann crossed one ankle over the other knee. “Whatever made Hackney think of such a motive?”

  “If I’m reading these notes correctly,” Faust said, tapping the folder, “it originally occurred to him when he interviewed Mr. Wainwright on Tuesday night. He said he caught a glimpse then of a man afraid of the war and uncertain how best to confront it. The concept lodged in Hackney’s mind, but he says it took him a while to sort it out.”

  Bruckmann nodded. “Is this all, then? Anything else?”

  Faust opened the folder and withdrew the two photos of the living girls. He glanced at Carmichael. “I’ve never seen Sally, so if this doesn’t hold true for her, tell me, okay?” He propped the photos against his sling and held them vertical with his left hand — Grace on the left with her bow poised over her violin, Jennifer and Harriet on the right. “Does anyone notice anything interesting about them?”

  His audience stared at the photos. A line creased Bruckmann’s forehead first. Then Jennifer grimaced. But it was Tanyon who spoke.

  “Their hair.”

  “That’s right,” Faust said. “They both had dark hair, worn loosely about their faces.” He raised his eyebrows at Carmichael.

  The young soldier nodded. “Sally wore her hair a lot like Grace’s and it’s just as dark.”

  “It seems an odd coincidence,” Jennifer said.

  “Chief Inspector Hackney doesn’t think it’s a coincidence at all,” Faust said. “He believes the killer knows exactly what he likes—” he glanced at Jennifer and canted one eyebrow “—as most men do — and he’s noticed the girls and women in the neighborhood who fill his bill.”