by Ed Ruggero
“By the Soviets.”
“Oh,” Harkins said.
“This was back when the Nazis and Soviets were allies. The Soviets invaded Poland from the east, and Stalin wanted to get rid of their officer corps so they couldn’t pose a threat later,” Stowe said. “This was before the Germans betrayed their so-called allies and invaded Russia.”
Harkins thought about the descriptions of Batcheller he’d heard at the memorial. An idealist. If she believed that America’s ostensible allies were capable of mass murder, that might be enough to turn her against them.
And yet.
She was pragmatic enough to recognize that the Soviets, or at least Colonel Novikov, had information that could help the all-important invasion succeed. Information Batcheller used to generate a report that she and Cushing tried to put in Eisenhower’s hands.
She hated them and had to work with them, Harkins thought. What a position to be in.
“Oh, Christ,” Stowe said, the words catching in her throat. She gulped her breath like a swimmer going under for the last time, then leaned in to Harkins and pressed her face into his shoulder, sobbing. He patted her on the back, unsure of what to say.
“You can’t let anything happen to you,” she managed, her voice muffled against him. “You’re the only one interested in any justice for poor Helen.”
She leaned back, face splotchy, hair slipping loose from its pins.
“You have to promise me you’ll be careful,” she said, her gaze intense, her pretty face just inches from Harkins’ own. “Promise me.”
“Okay, I promise,” Harkins said.
Stowe sat back in her seat, fanned herself, and took a deep breath, then another. “I’m okay,” she managed. “Can you drop me at my flat first?”
She pulled herself together in the few minutes it took to get to her place.
“I’m sorry I lost it back there,” she said. “It’s all been a little much.”
“I understand,” Harkins said. “You’ve had a rough couple of days.”
“Yes,” she said. “We all have, I guess.”
Stowe got out of the car curbside and shut the door. Before she walked away Harkins slid over and rolled down the window.
“Say, Annie,” he called. When she turned around, he asked, “Did Helen ever have that Lieutenant Payne guy stay overnight? Maybe while you were away?”
“No,” she said. “Our landlady didn’t allow gentlemen callers. Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” Harkins said. “Just wondering, that’s all.”
Harkins rolled the window back up and Lowell pulled away, leaving Stowe curbside, watching the sedan move into traffic.
“So,” Harkins said to Lowell. “You were practically taking notes. What did you learn?”
Lowell downshifted as they pulled close behind a column of trucks.
“Well, Lieutenant Payne told us he did spend the night sometimes. If we believe Miss Stowe, either she’s not very observant or he was lying. There’s something else, too.”
Lowell looked at him in the rearview.
“I’m not convinced the weeping was real.”
“Oh?” Harkins said. “What makes you think that?”
“I’m not sure, exactly. It came and went very suddenly.”
“So what reason would she have to fake a crying jag like that?” Harkins asked.
“Maybe she’s hiding something.”
“I guess that’s possible,” Harkins said.
He had come to the same conclusion: Annie Stowe’s concern for his safety fell a little short of genuine.
“Or she’s pushing something into plain view in the hopes I’ll seize on that.”
“A red herring,” Lowell said.
“Exactly.”
“So what could it be?”
“Don’t know yet,” Harkins said. “But I better figure it out quickly. Major Cushing could be on trial in a week.”
19
24 April 1944
1200 hours
Eddie Harkins spent the rest of the morning typing his report on the past seventy-two hours, laying out the timeline from his arrival at OSS Headquarters, to what he saw at the crime scene, to how he tracked down Major Frederick Cushing. Major Sinnott made him revise it. Twice.
“Too many theories in here,” Sinnott said the first time. “You’re writing like a defense attorney, for chrissakes. Just stick to the facts up to the arrest. Make sure you include that I confiscated the report—the classified report–that you found on him. And don’t worry, you’ll get a chance to shoot your mouth off in court, float all the strange theories you want.”
In his third version, Harkins didn’t mention that he’d found no murder weapon or motive, but made it clear Cushing’s uniform had no traces of blood, that he’d identified no witnesses who’d seen Cushing and Batcheller together outside the pub. He left obvious gaps in the timeline big enough for a blind man—a blind defense counsel—to see.
Harkins signed the form, then waited until he was sure that Sinnott was out of his office before ducking inside to slip it onto the major’s desk. He jogged downstairs and out the front door, where he found Patrick and Lowell side by side, leaning against the fender of the staff car.
“I hear you had an exciting night,” Patrick said.
“A little more than I bargained for, yeah,” Harkins said. “What are you doing here?”
“I wrangled that twenty-four-hour pass. I was hoping we could spend some time together, though I can’t promise anything as interesting as what you just went through.”
“You know I’m on this case, right?”
“That’s okay,” Patrick said. “I can tag along.”
“How do you feel about a ride out to East Anglia?”
“What’s out there?”
“Just the whole Eighth Air Force,” Harkins said. “And the only suspect we have so far.”
“The pilot you told me about?”
“Yeah. I need to talk to him now that he’s had a chance to dry out, maybe become a little more coherent. Also, there are some things I need to corroborate, stuff that has to do with the air campaign.”
“Well, doesn’t sound like it’ll be as much fun as what I had planned,” Patrick said.
“Which was?”
“Touring another few cathedrals.” He reached into a small canvas bag and pulled out a book. “I got this guide to churches. The stuff about how the architecture evolved to reflect the changing theology is fascinating.”
“Be still my heart,” Harkins said. “And get in the car.”
“Why not the train?” Patrick said as he climbed in.
“We took the train last time. Too many drunk GIs. Too many guys trying to make time with young Lowell here.”
Lowell climbed into the driver’s seat, red-cheeked again. Harkins’ sisters had learned to ignore his teasing, eventually gave it back to him in spades. He wondered if Lowell would get to that point.
“Let’s go to the airfield outside Stratford, see if we can catch a ride,” Patrick said.
“On an airplane?” Harkins asked.
“That’s what you find at airfields,” Patrick said. “Don’t worry, we won’t parachute out. I’ll make sure we find one that will let us stay on board for the landing.”
“You think you can get us a ride? Lowell, too?”
“I’ve never been in an airplane,” Lowell said. “That would be very exciting.”
“There’s a group we train with, a troop transport outfit that drops paratroopers. I talked to some of the guys the other day and they were supposed to be down this way. They said if I needed a lift somewhere they’d see if they could oblige me.”
“I hate airplanes,” Harkins said. “Got sick flying from Ireland to Scotland, and that was on a clear day.”
“Think of it as a training opportunity for Private Lowell,” Patrick said.
Harkins rolled his eyes. “I never really liked you.”
The ever-competent Lowell found the exact airf
ield and, true to his word, Patrick knew some of the pilots who were eating in the mess hall. There were two aircraft scheduled to fly out to the Eighth Air Force area, and space enough for the three of them among a cargo of repair parts to be delivered. Lowell could barely contain her excitement.
“This is turning out to be quite a day,” she chirped as they climbed up the narrow aluminum ladder at the rear of the C-47 Dakota. Patrick went after her, then extended a hand back to his younger brother.
“Come on, Eddie, it’s perfectly safe.” An air force sergeant—the crew chief—stood near the bottom of the ladder, smirking at the back-and-forth. Harkins looked at the nose art: a woman in a skimpy bathing suit and high heels leaning over script lettering that said “Malibu Baby.”
“Perfectly safe right up until it’s not,” Harkins said. “What if Hermann-goddamn-Goering makes a surprise appearance and shoots us down?”
“He’s too fat to get in an airplane,” Patrick said. “Let’s go.”
“I need a bag or something,” Harkins said to the crew chief. The sergeant reached into a pocket and pulled out a folded, waxed paper bag.
“Don’t throw up all over my airplane, Lieutenant, okay?”
Harkins nodded, and the sergeant said, “That big guy is a paratrooper, right?”
“Yeah. He’s my brother.”
“He going to recruit you?”
“Not in a million years,” Harkins said, setting his foot on the ladder’s bottom rung.
They found seats among the crates just before the engines turned over, shaking the fuselage, rattling the cargo, punching their eardrums. Harkins saw his brother pull a wad of cotton from his satchel. Patrick broke off two small pieces for Lowell, two for Harkins, and two for himself, which he stuffed into his ears. Lowell and Harkins did the same. It helped with the noise, but Harkins was still sure his teeth would come loose if the flight lasted more than thirty minutes.
The plane bumped down the muddy runway and Harkins grabbed the rail that formed the front edge of the canvas bench. Through a small window across from him, he could see the ground fall away and the houses shrink to the size of toys.
Patrick and the other paratroopers made this kind of trip at night, with antiaircraft fire slicing up at them, flak bursting all around. Crammed into the plane, the troopers could only hope that the pilot had found the drop zone, that he wasn’t putting them out over the sea—as had happened in Sicily—or on top of some enemy formation. Harkins tried to imagine what that kind of courage felt like. He had never fired his weapon in battle, had never seen a German who was not dead or a prisoner. He’d been under artillery fire a few times but hadn’t done anything brave, unless you counted running for cover as a courageous act.
“Hey!” Patrick yelled. When Harkins looked at his older brother, the priest said, “I’ll bet I can get you to say a few prayers now, right?”
Harkins answered by opening the vomit bag.
He looked to his left at Lowell, who smiled and shot him a thumbs-up. Patrick sat between them, yelling and gesturing something about how the paratroopers prepared to jump. When the plane took a sudden dip, Harkins’ stomach tried to maintain altitude, ending up somewhere in his chest cavity. He held the bag up to his mouth to catch his breakfast, now liberated. When he managed to look up again, both Lowell and Patrick were smiling at him.
“Come on!” Patrick shouted at Harkins. “Say it with me! Hail Mary, full of grace!”
* * *
It took Pamela Lowell only thirty minutes to sign for a staff car once they landed, and that was barely enough time for Harkins to feel human again.
“I’m sorry about the teasing,” Patrick said.
“No, you’re not,” Harkins croaked.
“Did I get you to pray?”
“Yeah. I prayed that you’d lose your breakfast, too.”
Harkins practically fell into the backseat when Lowell pulled the car up, and Patrick sat up front to give his younger brother room to stretch out. The flight seemed to have energized both priest and driver, and they chatted amiably. Finally, Harkins was able to sit up.
“Lazarus!” Patrick said. “Back from the dead!”
“You should tour with Bob Hope,” Harkins said. “You’re so goddamned funny.”
Patrick spent the next ten minutes catching Harkins up on news from home: which men from the neighborhood were overseas, who’d become a colonel, who was in a stockade somewhere. After he’d exhausted the list of mutual friends, there was only one name he had not mentioned.
“We’re coming up on the anniversary of Michael’s death,” Patrick said.
When Harkins didn’t respond, Patrick addressed Lowell. “We lost our youngest brother last year, in the Pacific. His ship was torpedoed.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, sir,” Lowell said.
Harkins wanted to tell Patrick that he dreamed of Michael, that some nights he was stalked by panic and nightmare images of small spaces. But that would be putting himself at the center of the story, which seemed wrong and selfish.
“Lowell has lost family, too,” Harkins said. Then, to his driver, “I hope it’s okay I said that.”
Lowell nodded but didn’t answer, and they rode in silence. From time to time, great fleets of bombers passed low overhead, their engine noise filling the sedan. Lowell rested her forearms on the big steering wheel and looked up through the front windshield, keeping her thoughts to herself.
* * *
Colonel Montgomery Corland, whose official title was Chief of Information for the Eighth Air Force, had set himself up in an English country house outside Norwich. When Lowell turned the car onto the narrow lane from the town road, Harkins thought he was looking at a public building, a country hospital or school. The house—which Lowell referred to as a “cottage”—was a symmetrical pile of dun-colored brick, four stories, with a square tower on the southeast corner that climbed another two, at least. Large windows wrapped the upper floors all the way around, none of them boarded up. Harkins would not have been surprised to see a coach-and-four parked in the gravel driveway, instead of three jeeps and two other staff cars.
“Nice digs,” Patrick said as they pulled up. “Where are the footmen?”
“I hope we’ll be able to come inside, sir,” Lowell offered. When Harkins looked at her and cocked an eyebrow, she added, “I mean, Father Harkins and me.”
“I hope they’ll let me in,” Harkins said. “I got thrown out of a college whose buildings were smaller than this.”
They climbed out of the car and approached the entrance, where a large dog slept on the top step near the main door. The dog looked up without lifting its gray muzzle, thumped its tail in greeting.
When no one answered Harkins’ knock, he pushed open the heavy door, all thick wood and iron bands. They entered a large hall where hunting trophies—mostly small deer along with an elk head or two—hung on the walls to a height of at least twenty feet. A balcony wrapped around the mezzanine level, but the great space was mostly empty. The surfaces of two enormously long sideboard cabinets were covered in used drinking glasses, overflowing ashtrays, discarded napkins, and small plates of half-eaten hors d’oeuvres.
“Hello?” Harkins called. “Anyone here?”
“Look at this,” Patrick said.
Harkins looked over to where his brother and Lowell were standing by five or six stacked crates, one of which was open. Patrick reached into the packing straw and lifted a bottle by the neck.
“Whiskey,” Patrick said.
“Looks like it was a helluva party,” Harkins said.
“Hey!”
Harkins looked up. A man in a dressing gown stood leaning over the railing of the mezzanine.
“You want to put that back, bud?”
Patrick lowered the bottle.
“We’re looking for Colonel Corland,” Harkins called out.
“I’m Corland,” the man said. “Come on up.”
Harkins found a wide staircase, the steps covered in thread
bare oriental carpet, burned through in a couple of spots by discarded cigarette butts. He climbed past a nearly life-sized statue of a naked woman with a bow and arrow. Diana, goddess of the hunt.
Colonel Corland wore a dressing gown over silk pajamas, velvet slippers peeking out from the cuffs. His hair looked like it had been styled by a pillow. It was two o’clock in the afternoon.
“Are you the gang from OSS?” Corland asked. “One of our lawyers told me you might come by.”
“Yes, sir. I’m Lieutenant Harkins.”
“And those two?” Corland said, looking over the railing. He held a china cup in one hand, a cigarette in the other.
“My driver and my brother. He’s on pass, so we’re spending a little time together.”
“Okay,” Corland said. “Welcome to our little place in the country.”
Corland took a sip from his cup, then ground his cigarette in an ashtray on a side table.
“I understand you arrested one of our fliers who murdered an analyst in London,” Corland said.
“Allegedly murdered,” Harkins said. “He’s a suspect, but I’m not convinced we have the right guy, to tell you the truth.”
“Well, I asked around about him. He was a troubled soul, poor guy. Cracked under pressure, is what I hear. Of course, you’ll want to be sure about something like that,” Corland said, holding out his hand. “Montgomery Corland.”
“Eddie Harkins.”
He looked to be in his late thirties, Harkins thought, with pale skin and dark, thinning hair. The belt on his dressing gown was cinched tight around a thick middle.
“This lawyer, Captain Gefner, said you might want to ask me a few questions about the strategic bombing campaign. You’ve come at the exact right time.”
Corland led Harkins into a large dining room. All but a few of the curtains were closed, which made the room gloomy. The chairs had all been pushed back to the wall and the long table was an inch deep in aerial photographs in haphazard piles. Another dog of indeterminate breed trotted out from under the table to sniff Harkins’ leg.
“What’s all this?” Harkins asked, stepping up to the table.
“BDA,” Corland said, lighting another cigarette with a gold lighter. “Bomb damage assessment.”
