Victory Gardens

By Bill Hand and Historium Press

It's 1941 and something is buried in Eunice's garden.... It's Eunice!

Meet Connecticut Talker Tscharner - "Cat" to his friends. It's 1941 and he wants to serve his country, but a high school football injury has left him too crippled to sign up. He has dreams of sleuthing-but

• Language: English
• Publisher: Historium Press
• Release date: Aug 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798988381778

Book preview

PART ONE:

EUNICE'S GARDEN

I believe it is peace in our time.

– Neville Chamberlain.

Chapter 1:

Doc Parker

Dr. Eland Parker looked almost comfortable in Eunice Gosner’s Adirondack chair. Though he was pushing fifty, his hair was jet black, his features clean and chiseled. His little movie star mustache was so neat it could have been drawn with a pen. The night was cold, so he had an afghan wrapped about his shoulders—he’d taken it from the back of Mrs. Gosner’s couch. Cupped in his hands was a dime store china cup resting on a saucer; in the cup was steaming tea. He’d found these inside too, and he’d boiled the water in Eunice’s kettle.

Police Chief Ed Jones was with him in the back yard with a pair of policemen, each armed with spades and a railroad lantern. They were digging in Mrs. Gosner’s garden while the good doctor watched. What they were digging for was Mrs. Gosner.

Be careful not to punch that spade through her skin, now, Doc suggested, waving an imperial hand. "If she’s ripe she could pop."

Ed winced and looked up while his officers stopped abruptly in their work. "God, Doc, do you have to?"

"Just friendly advice, Chief. Her internal gasses are swelling up something awful. She’s probably just rippling with maggots inside. Break into that, why, menhaden day at the fertilizer factory ain’t in it! He barked a laugh, sipped some tea, and gazed at the marble-white forearm hand thrusting up from the soil, the woman’s wrist at a graceful angle, the fingers being slowly drawn in through rigor morits. Like a tombstone of flesh, he muttered to himself, or a tree for the shades – shade for her shade. He took another sip, leaned back and sighed. Well, at least she was easy to find."

How about some respect, Doc?" Joe, one of the officers asked, wiping his brow with a handkerchief. Cold or not, he was sweating: murders weren’t exactly common in the little North Carolina town of New Bern. He’d been on the force for five years but this was his first corpse by homicide.

How about you tie that hanky over your mouth, Joe? Doc replied. You’ll thank me later.

The chief watched as Joe and Bill Hicks, the other officer, knotted their handkerchiefs behind their necks, covering their noses and mouths. They looked more like robbers than New Bern’s finest. "We don’t even know it is Mrs. Gosner, he grumbled, declining Doc’s advice. At least not yet."

"Her car’s out front but she’s not inside. Her neighbors haven’t seen her in three days. Who you think it is? He took another sip. That is good tea. Wonder where she bought it?"

Why’d you even call him? Joe asked Ed under his breath. Whyn’t you ring up the coroner?

’Cause Ulysses is gone away, Doc answered for him. Out hunting moose in Maine.

Elk in Montanna, Ed corrected.

Different state, same temperature. Pop off her ring for me.

Jones looked at the claw-like hand. Are you crazy, Doctor Frankenstein?

Doc offered a wry smile. If you boys are too delicate to dig up her body, maybe we can identify her through her ring. All I’m sayin’.

Then whyn’t you just come take it off? Jones offered.

Tea’s finished anyway, Doc agreed. He set the cup on the slightly-inclined arm, hearing it clink distinctly against its saucer. Heaving himself up he stepped, somewhat daintily, into the tendrils of dead cucumber plants then knelt before the equally dead hand.

Use a handkerchief, Doc, Jones said. Don’t need your fingerprints compromising all my evidence.

There’re already compromising fingerprints right here, he said, pointing to the corpse’s fingertips, then added, proximal, distal, middle!

What’s that?

Name of the bones, Jones!

The kid was saying that when we found him here. Doc looked up quizzically and Ed continued, Roger Ipock: over and over, ‘Carpals, carpals, metacarpals: proximal, distal, middle!’

Doc smiled. He reported the crime?

No: neighbors heard him screaming and came running. They called the department; I hurried on over. We think he was playing army with some boys, took a shortcut through the yard, tripped and landed face-first right in front of her arm. He’s back home, white as a sheet. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.

Wrapping his handkerchief around the ashen wrist, Doc tugged gently. Stiffened in death the fingers were reluctant to straighten. She’s not planted very deep, he observed.

What made her arm pop out of the ground like that? Jones asked. Rigor mortis?

     Then wouldn’t we see two arms sticking up? Bill asked.

"Maybe she lost an arm," George suggested.

"Maybe that’s just an arm, Bill replied, with no body attached."

Doc ignored them, twisting the ring back and forth, working it loose from the swollen flesh. What do you think of Uncle Adolph, Mr. Jones?

"Who? Hitler?"

None other! Doc replied.

We’re working with a corpse, the chief asked, "and you talk about Hitler?"

Seems appropriate. He’s been playing Grim Reaper all across Europe for two years now. Think we’ll join the Brits?

Lord, I hope not, Ed frowned. I’ve got a distant cousin over in England, a doughboy, and his mother says it’s awful.

We got no business in another country’s war, George added. Hell, didn’t we spill enough blood for ‘em in the last one?

Apparently the Huns didn’t learn their lesson, Bill said. Somebody’s gotta beat ‘em again.

This one, they’re gonna win, Doc observed, still working the ring. The Germans undid Poland in a week. France didn’t hold out much better…

Yeah, but England’s a different nut. George protested.

Doc worked the ring a little harder. "Now that they booted Chamberlain, England won’t fold like a deck of cards at least. But, see, gentlemen, the Germans have the whole world beat out in technology and medicine. And that’s what wins a war today: the best machines and the healthiest army."

They lost the last one bad enough, Bill said.

"That war was won by the side with the most chopped liver to throw at the enemy guns. My God, what a slaughter! The ring flipped loose Ha! There we go! Doc pulled a pair of reading glasses from his vest, balanced them on his nose and turned the ring back and forth in the lantern light. E. B. and F. G. May thirty-first; ‘thirty-nine. That would be Eunice Banks and Frederick Gosner if I’m guessing right… Banks being Eunice’s maiden name. She grew up under my stethescope; I got her through mumps, measles, chicken-pox and her first sanitary napkin."

So we know it’s Eunice, Ed frowned. Okay, boys, slip the spades under her body and prize her up easy.

She’s not more than a foot deep, Doc said. If you can find her other arm—I’d say right about there—we can ‘prize her up’ that way.

George didn’t seem convinced. What if she pops?

Doc was kidding about that, Bill said.

Sure I was, Doc coughted. Now tie that hanky tighter.

George grumbled but dropped his spade into the soil where Doc had pointed. He pried at the handle and felt a root or two pop—but no flesh, thankfully. Then something firm resisted, then raised: another arm broke the surface and George’s face drained of color. "You were expecting that, right?" Doc asked as the chief bent down and placed a hand under her upper arm; Doc did the same on the other side.

Nice and easy, Ed warned.

The body rose, soil tumbling from it while Ed thought of Frankenstein again. Bill and George dragged Eunice out of the garden and onto the grass: her face was purplish-white, her eyes sockets already inhabited by beetles.  Jones silently thanked the gods that he had eaten light that day while George dropped to his knees and offered his supper in a holy offering of regret, his retches booming like foghorns in the night.

Eunice’s dress was a red polka-dot number, badly soiled but neatly buttoned, her legs in tattered stockings, without shoes. A bright red scarf was twisted around her neck. Take off that scarf, Doc said.

Removing it was easier said than done—the knot was wet and tight, and Bill wound up using a pen-knife to cut through. Doc held the lantern close, tracing his finger along a thin bruise around her throat. Ligature strangulation, he said. See? Bruise runs in a nice, neat circle like a ring on a mallard’s neck. There’s your cause.

Anything else you see?

She’s dead. But then, you gents knew that. He stood up, shaking out the knees of his trousers. Well, I know my way out.

Ed cleared his throat. Ulysses won’t be back for a week.

And on the eighth day God created Western Union, Doc smiled.

It’ll take more God than Western Union to find that man if he don’t want to be found. I thought maybe you could…

"Me?"

Just look her over. Get things started while we track Ulysses down. See if there’s any clue to what happened: broken bones. Bruises, cuts. I dunno.

Her husband’s gonna go all to pieces, Bill said, shaking his head.

"Where is Fred?" Doc asked.

Somewhere in the Pacific, I think, the chief said. He’s Navy, on a destroyer or something.

Doc looked at the body once more. Eunice Gosner: cute in spite of her overbite, shy but sweet-natured, fond of her plants, a slave to migraines. She’d had pretty eyes, Like a muley brown cow, as his father used to say. Take her down to St. Luke’s, chief, he added, turning to Ed. "I think Joe Patterson’s there on rounds. Have him clean her up and I’ll swing over after I clean up and see what I find."

Chapter 2:

Connecticut Talker Tscharner

I swung my feet from under the blankets and landed them hard on the floor. It’s my way of reminding myself every day that I’m still alive. The jarring shock in my crippled left knee wakes me quicker than coffee. I gritted my teeth and scratched my scalp while I looked about my room. My curtains were drawn, the room musty. From my walls a dozen portraits, most of friends and family that I had taken with my Brownie, looked back at me. On my bureau was a pile of today’s togs, neatly folded. Draped next to my bed I kept a Windsor chair whose finish was worn through in spots to virgin wood. On it, at night, I always hung a blue flannel robe and my cane.

Connecticut!

I closed my eyes. It was my mother’s shrill morning call, right on time.  Shivering I stood up, keeping the weight on my good left leg, and slid into the robe. Across the room, in the bureau mirror, a strange, hollowed-eyed kid stared at me, his yellow hair standing all over like a science experiment in static electricity. A frown was pasted on his face.

"Connecticut Talker Tscharner! Your breakfast is getting cold!"

Coming, Ma! I slid into a pair of flannel slippers, took the cane in my left hand then limped out of the room and down the stairs. At the landing I heard a bird singing through the tiffany panes, like one of those bluebirds in that Snow White movie. Snow White would have sung back, but my knee was especially sour today and I felt more like Grumpy; maybe even the queen. I wanted to feed the bird a poison apple.

By the time I reached the ground floor my nose was picking out the heady vapors of coffee and bacon. My mother is an indifferent cook, but it takes more than indifference to mess up bacon. I limped on down the basement steps and tended the furnace—the coals, banked under a layer of white soot, were still hot, and a couple shovels-full got it hopping. Then I climbed back upstairs and into the kitchen where my mother stood at the stove, stabbing away at some eggs in a pan. She glanced up as I kissed her cheek. You’re not dressing? she asked.

Dad sat at the table reading a newspaper that was spread out before him. On his good days he was quick-witted, talkative and fun. But currently he was on one of his downturns, morose and glassy-eyed. As I sat, he grunted, Nothing clean, Cat?

Cat. That’s how he liked to shorten my first and middle name—Connecticut Talker. It’s C-A-T instead of C-O-T because there’s just nothing respectable in being called a portable bed. Cat had been my nickname in high school when I’d been one of the quickest running backs in Bears history…a position I lost when some Kilroy the size of a house landed full-force on the inside of my knee three games into my senior year. The crackling pops coming from deep within my leg—the pain and the nausea that washed over me on the field and stayed with me for days afterward—these are things I’ll never forget.  I actually dream that pain sometimes, feeling it in my sleep then waking suddenly, soaked in sweat. No bones were broken: just ligaments torn loose and a peroneal nerve damaged. Doc Parker himself did the examination after the game, clicking his tongue and muttering that a compound fracture would have done me less harm. In his best bedside manner he assured me I would spend the rest of my life using a cane. After that day Cot would have been more appropriate. My friends, I noticed, started calling me plain old CT.

I hung my cane on the back of my chair and sat gazing at my Dad. His expression was more glazed than a donut. Ma was pushing bacon onto a plate and watching Dad intently. PJs at this hour? she asked me.

I just thought I’d eat first, I said. Glancing at the dirty plate at my brother’s place I added, Where’s Tom?

Thomas left a while ago to open the store, Ma said, bringing my plate. Once Dan’l and Mamie get in, he’s going out to the McIlwean farm. Said they had a few pecks of apples to sell.

"Need produce to run a produce store," Dad said sagely. Ma went back to the stove to retrieve eggs. I hobbled to the percolator and poured two cups of coffee.

Your father doesn’t need coffee, my mother said. "I’m making him tea."

Oh. I left the extra cup on the counter and returned to my chair.

Talmage isn’t feeling well, poor dear, she said, sliding the eggs onto our plates and kissing Dad on the head. The yolks were nice and hard, just the way I didn’t like them. The kettle sang and she delivered his tea. Special tea, a medicinal, herbal concoction whose ingredients she refused to name.

You need to tell me what’s in that someday, I said as dad idly sniffed it.

  Ma’s nose pinched up.  "It’s a family secret."

I’m family.

"You’re a boy. You get married, have some children, then you’re ‘family.’"

Huh, Dad said.

     Does Uncle Royce have the recipe?

Judge? She always called her brother by his title rather than his name—a family pride thing. No. Don’t you remember Aunt Doris died? Apparently from lack of tea.

Dad sipped daintily. Eunice is dead. he said, pushing the morning paper toward me.

I reacted with a stupid look, so Ma filled in. Eunice Gosner. Used to be a Banks, but she married that Frederick boy who joined the navy. Lives over on North Craven all by herself, just a couple of blocks away.

"Lived," Dad said.

How’d she die?

 Found dead in her garden, he shrugged. Stroke or heart attack, maybe.

She was only a year older than me. I perused the article. Awful young to die of stroke.

Ma frowned. Found in her garden, not two blocks away! It’s more than your father needs to be thinking about, poor thing.

Could be your first case, Dad said, smiling slightly.

And speaking of such foolishness, Ma went on, "I do not want to see these trashy books of yours lying around!" She dropped a dog-eared novel on the table beside me. A woman’s image filled its cover, her eyes closed. Her shirt was not buttoned in the Presbyterian way. The Postman Always Rings Twice, the title warned me.

It’s a good book, Ma.

"It’s trash. Blood and murder and look at that woman."

She didn’t have to tell me twice.

They banned it in Boston, you know, she added.

Ma, they ban everything in Boston.

She began pulling items from the table, plopping them in the sink—I hadn’t finished my eggs yet, but up they went anyway. "Wordsworth! Tennyson! We have a wonderful library! We have Eliot! Do you know I named your brother after him?"

"Yes, Ma. Thomas Stearns. But I like mysteries."

 Merchant of Venice! Macbeth!

Shakespeare wrote plays, not novels!

There’s Chaucer—

I read the Miller’s Tale and you grounded me for a month.

"You were twelve. And this, this, this… Mr. Cain! And Ellery Queen. Dashiell Hammett… they put terrible thoughts into your head! Like that naked woman on the cover!"

She’s got a shirt on.

"Only to titillate." Her word choice made me want to titter. These books, she went on, pausing to think of the right words, they have you dreaming crazy delusions!

"He’d make a good detective," Dad cut in.

Thank you, Dad.

Not when there’s your store to run, Ma growled. And where would he ever find a case in New Bern?

Dad tapped the paper. What about Eunice?

You said it yourself, dear: she died of a sunstroke.

In November? I asked. Besides, after I get my license I won’t stay here. I’ll go to a big city.

Raleigh?

New York, maybe. Philadelphia.

"And who there would hire a cripple?

Gee, thanks Ma!

"Honey, honey, I’m just trying to protect you. What about your pictures? I’ll bet you could work part time at the Wootten-Moulton studio, learn the dark room, after the store closes. Mr. Moulton likes you."

He does, dad agreed.

"Ma, I want to be a detecttive."

Well, you’ve got to face facts!

That I’m a hopeless cripple?

You’re a smart young man. We need a smart young man at the grocery.

"Let Tom run it. He loves the store."

"He’s no good with numbers. You know that. Besides, he’s been thinking of working at that new Marine base down in Havelock. They can use him down there."

I’m not good with numbers. Daniel and Mamie handle that.

"And you cand handle them."

This was going nowhere. I got out of my chair. I’ve got to get to the store, I said.

I should hope so. Our customers will come and see just Dan’l and Mamie there and think our Negroes are running the place. She glanced at the book in my hand. "You’re not taking that with you?"

I’ll keep it behind the counter, I promised. I want to finish it over lunch.

She rolled her eyes and Dad stared quizzically at his tea. Dad? I asked.

It  has a… whaddya call it? An aura around it. Like one of those Monet paintings. You do, too, he added, looking up. I think my eyes are going whacky.

You’re just tired, dear, Ma cooed.

Yeah. You might want to go back to bed, Dad. Rest up.

I gave them both a hug and left.

Chapter 3:

The Grocery

AS I RODE down Hancock street I was so mad I trembled. It would be grand to say I hopped into my Ford Coupe and left tire marks smoking on the pavement—but this was New Bern, after all, and we were in the Depression; plenty of people didn’t have cars. Besides, New Bern was small and there wasn’t anywhere you couldn’t walk. Walking was cheap. Walking was also painful and so I pedaled a bike, dangling my cane over the handlebar and carrying my inappropriately-unbuttoned-lady, wrapped in brown paper, in the basket.

Tscharner’s Grocery was a wood-paneled storefront with big pane windows and a need for paint. It was juxtaposed next to the modern, yellow-brick Pinnix’s Drug Store, a one-storied edifice that carried Alka-Selzer, enema powders, cameras and Bibles. Behind a marble sandwich counter an acne-ridden soda jerk made foaming cherry-and-Pepsi concoctions and shakes while kids in their teens or just beyond danced to the Andrews Sisters, Bing Crosby and Dick Robertson on the juke box. From Pinnix’s you could throw a stone across the street and bounce it off the railroad station where engines waited, belching lawyers and businessmen and steam while porters and baggage men whistled and shouted throughout the day. Travelers often ran in to our store for an item or two to take along on the next leg of their ride. While the coins spilled from their hands to ours they would give us the most recent news from Raleigh or chat about Lefty Gomez and his 3.74 ERA.

I parked my bike along the side of the store. Chickens chuckled in the coop out back and Bodger, an old dog whose duty was to keep foxes from stealing our merchandise, waved his half-bare tail at me. I patted him then walked around front, waving to Mrs. Gaskins who was walking out with a basket of collards under her arm, and ducked inside, jingling the bell over the door. At the counter, a chocolate-colored face looked up and smiled.  "Hey, there, Mr. Tscharner! How you doin’ today?"

I’m good, Daniel.

That’s fine! Just fine!

Any sign of Tom?

Oh, Thomas took the truck about eight o’clock. That’s what happened every time I said Tom. People came back at me with a corrective Thomas, as though they wished I’d get the name straight. Said he didn’t know when he’d be back; he ‘spected McIlweans’d give him a hard time.

Was his fishing pole inside the truck? I asked, smiling a bit.

Now, you know it ain’t my place to say! he laughed.

’Specially not if it means some nice bass on our table come dinner time! That melodious voice was Mamie’s. Daniel’s pretty sister, she was the opposite of him in nearly every way: slender and petite where he was stocky and tall, educated from hours of reading, often from books I got her from the local library where No Negroes Were Allowed. Her skin was lighter than Daniel’s—what old-timers used to call yaller. Her hair was done up in a colorful scarf and she held a broom in one hand and a dustpan in the other, up in the air like a waitress’s tray, 

So what are you serving today? I asked.

Dust bunnies au gratin, she laughed, special of the day.

Longhorn or pepperjack?

Hard to tell through the dust, she said, holding the pan in front of my face and blowing.

"Le’s see ol’ Pinnix beat fixin’s like that," Daniel snorted.

Outside, a train whistle blew, followed by the heady blast of steam as a locomotive pulled into the station: the 10:10 from Goldsboro. Daniel began to straighten the already-neat jars of penny candy: fathers on the road loved to fill their pockets with Mary Janes and squirrel nuts for their kids at home. The phone rang and Mamie picked it up. Hello? Yes, ma’am… Yes, Miss Paul… How you doin’? Oh, good, good… She took up a pencil and scribbled on a Big Chief tablet. Yes, ma’am. How soon? Yes, ma’am. Will do. She hung up the phone. A half-peck of green beans, pound of rice and a chicken. She wants it yesterday.

Where’s Boomer? I asked, looking around. He was our usual delivery boy.

He’s not coming, she replied. His momma swung by, said he’d had a late night, Mr. Tscharner.

C T, I said.

She smiled. Mr. Tscharner.

Mamie, I’m not old enough to be a Mister. I wish you two would lighten up and call me C T. Or Connecticut. Or Cat. Or anything but Mister!

Now how would that look, a customer comes in and hears me being so familiar with a white man? she asked, a lilt in her voice.

I don’t see any white man about.

"That’s ‘cause you’re standing behind your eyes."

I got the beans and rice, Daniel cut in, setting two bags on the counter. "Chickens is out back, Mister Tscharner!"

And what am I supposed to do with them?

Pick one out an’ deliver the whole order. Number Nine Edenton.

Why don’t you?

Then who’s gonna handle the gentlemen, they come in from that train? Daniel smiled. "’Sides, I ain’t got no bike."

The hens clucked indifferently until I grabbed one who cackled angrily over her fate while I stuffed her in a burlap bag. The ride was easy enough—New Bern is about as hilly as a straight-edge rule. I got to Nine Edenton street, leaned the bike against the porch and hobbled up the steps with my parcels, leaving the cane on the handlebars. Mrs. Paul opened the door before I could knock. She was a woman probably in her late thirties. I knew her husband was a guard at the colored prison camp out on the edge of town and that she had a couple of kids. She glanced at me, the angry chicken, and the rice and beans. Well, hello Mr. Tscharner. I thought I’d see Boomer today, so I prepared a cup of chocolate, not coffee. Hope it’ll do.

It’s more than I expected, ma’am, I said.

Well, step inside when you’re done.

"’Done,’ ma’am?"

She craned her neck to look past me, at my bike. Where’s your hatchet?

Hatchet? Ma’am?

You think I’m gonna chop that chicken’s head off on my own?

The chicken did not agree with her plans and for the next half hour my life was traumatized.

*  *  *

I RODE BACK to the grocery where things were hopping. A string of young men in military uniform were streaming in and out of both Pinnix’s and our place, some eating ice-cream bars, others lighting up Luckys or balancing sodas and rolled up editions of the Sun-Journal in their hands. These were recruits from Cherry Point,  a new Marine Corps base twenty miles away, aviators and others who were heading into town on weekend leaves. I envied them—I had planned to sign up for the Marines back in high school. I knew if I got into officer school and did well enough I could choose my own career—become one of the fly-boys. Strawberry Conderman, the postal inspector’s son, had done just that and now he was somewhere in the Pacific, piloting one of those big Grumman Wildcats. Kilroy of Morehead put an end to my dream, but I still loved hopping the bus to Havelock whenever I could to watch the flyboys train.

I started to walk the bike behind the grocery when a sharp whistle made me spin around. There in Pinnix’s doorway was Doc Parker. Soon as he knew I was looking he turned and went inside. I leaned my bike against a telephone pole and followed him in.

The juke box was playing the Andrews Sisters’ Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen. Some of the leathernecks were dancing—I saw a couple of girls I knew, bobby-socked and laughing, swinging away. It was quite a feather to be seen with a jarhead in your arms. An old man was seated at the lunch counter on a stool with a cherry-red seat. Doc was at a table, rapping his fingers in time to the music. He was alone, sharing company with two ice cream sodas. I sat down.

Who else is here? I asked, looking around.

Just you, he replied, sliding the soda my way. Somebody punch you in the nose?

Huh? I looked down and saw blood spattered across my shirt. I’d have to go home and change out of that. I had to kill a chicken, I said.

Yeah, I know. I went into the store and they were rolling around on the floor laughing. Made ‘em tell me why. Nice people, Daniel and Mamie.

Better than folks know. Mamie’s ma was my mammy.

Boy, say that three times fast, Doc laughed. Who’s Mamie’s mom the matriarch mammying now?

No one. Rheumatism slowed her down. She lives with Dan’l and Mamie.

Rheumatism, huh? Who’s her doc?

Doctor Mumford, I believe.

Down at Good Shepherd. He’s a good man. How’s the knee?

Not bad. I tried not to wince as it reminded me otherwise.

Don’t ever play poker, C T.

I sipped at my soda, wondering what he was leading up to.

You’ve heard about the Gosner woman?

Yeah, I said, a little surprised.

He sipped his soda then leaned back. Wonder how she died?

Paper didn’t say.

Neither did the cops. Maybe you should dig around a bit there.

Why? I asked. I’m just a grocer.

See what you can turn up. Find out if you’ve got the chops for what you really want to do.

Ma thinks I need to stick to the business.

Mamie and Daniel are running it fine.

We can’t let colored people run Tscharner’s. We’d lose half our customers.

They run it now, from what I see.

Yeah, but the customers don’t know that. Doc just sat there wiggling his straw with his index finger. Maybe… I began. Maybe once Dad’s back on his feet again and running things. I don’t know.

I’m not suggesting you turn your back on your folks. Just nose around.

From what the police said in the article, she probably died of natural causes anyway. Probably an anyou… anyou…

Aneurism, Doc said. "Could be. That can drop you fast as anything. Artery in the brain pops: Boom! You’re gone. Most people don’t see it coming, though if she had one, she knew it was on the way."

What do you mean?

I mean: she took the time to bury herself in the back yard before she died.

I blew a startled burst of air into the straw that made soda and ice cream bubble up over the glass and splash the table. Doc laughed. How do you know this? I demanded.

The coroner’s off in Fandango so I was called in to have a look. She was strangled, sure as Mary.

Then why didn’t the chief…?

They’re afraid of setting off a panic in town: young woman, all alone, her husband off at sea… she’s not the only lady around here like that.

Shouldn’t they warn the others?

I’m just the country doc here, Doc said, exaggerating a drawl. Stir the nest a little. See if hornets come out. Maybe you can help Chief Jones find his man. Then the truth can out without a panic.

I shook my head. Thanks for your confidence, Doc, but I really can’t.

Why not?

Curiosity killed the cat, I shrugged.

Curiosity invented the light bulb, son.

Chapter 4:

U-68

The black Maybach Zeppelin rolled onto the Brest docks, pausing at a security booth just long enough for its expressionless driver to exchange a few words with the guard and offer a stiff-handed salute. Konrad Bauer, sitting in the back seat, smiled and gave the guard a cheery and completely unnecessary wave, earning him a sharp glance from the SS officer seated beside him.

Take it easy, Herr Huber! I’ve never been chauffeured before.

You’re not a little boy in the Alps, Konrad. You’re a man with an important mission.

And I promise to grow up as soon as it begins.

Shifting into gear, its twelve cylinders purring, the Zeppelin rolled around forklifts and under massive cranes, passing busy workers and German sailors. It stopped before the blackish-gray silhouette of an IXC U-boat.  Konrad looked at it and whistled. "That’s it? I’m going to America in that?"

"There is nothing more sea-worthy than an Unterseeboot," Herr Huber replied.

Unless someone sinks her, Konrad mused as Huber smiled. Or she springs a leak and sinks herself.

Are you claustrophobic?

Well… Konrad tugged at his tie with his good left hand and thought. "She’s big enough, I suppose."

Oh, yes, she is big, he laughed. Sixty-seven meters; 761 tons.

By now the driver had stopped the car, hauled Konrad’s duffel bag out of the trunk, and opened his door. You have your instructions, Herr Bauer? the SS officer asked.

Of course. Konrad climbed out and shouldered his bag.

Tell me your name, Herr Huber asked in strongly-accented English.

Joe, Konrad replied, with a Pittsburgh accent. Name’s Joe Bower.

And you are in the South…why?

"Looking for work. I’ve read that they’re hiring at the new base.

Where are you from?

My folks live in Mount Oliver. That’s Pittsburgh, really. My father’s a steelworker. We go to Forbes Field to watch the Pirates. You should see Arky Vaughan at the bat!

Good! Herr Huber laughed. In fact, amazing. They tell me your accent is perfect. Herbert Köhler is the commander of U-68, and will help you settle in. He also has the sealed orders for your mission. You’ll unseal them once at sea. Good hunting, Comrade. Heil Hitler!

The SS man’s hand shot out in the enthusiastic snap of the Nazi salute. He returned it in a haphazard form that only a man who was technically a civilian could get away with and watched as the Maybach drove off. He glanced toward the u-boat where sailors scurried about, lowering supplies through deck-top hatches. While she was mainly steel and iron, her decking plates were of wood. At her conning tower an intent young sailor was touching up the silhouette of a bright red satyr beneath the large, white U-68.

Three guns were mounted on the superstructure—the largest a 105 mm fore of the tower—plenty large enough to deliver a coup de grace to any merchant vessel that was still afloat after receiving a torpedo. Behind the conning tower a 37 mm gun was mounted and, on the bridge, a 20 mm gun to deal with aircraft.  In a surface battle, U-68 would be hopelessly outclassed by just about any naval craft afloat but to Konrad’s eyes the three guns made her positively bristle.

What do you want? Who are you?

Konrad turned to see an officer, perhaps in his late twenties, scowling at him. He saluted and offered his papers. Konrad Bauer, reporting, Herr Leutnant, he said, throwing what he hoped was appropriate sharpness into his voice.

"Ach! Our guest, the officer said, his mouth relaxing in a friendly smile. I am Leutnant zur See Otto Jansen. And forget that Nazi salute. In the Navy we are not stooges of Hitler." He offered his hand and, using his left, Konrad shook it.

Noticing Jansen’s glance Konrad flexed his right hand. Reckless driving on the  Führer’s autobahn, he explained. "It’s useless to me, but the surgeons decided it was too pretty to cut off.

Jansen grinned. It would be a better story if you worked a pretty girl into it. Come aboard, Konrad, and stow your things. I hope you’re not claustrophobic.

Not at all.

Lange! Jansen called to the sailor who’d been touching up the ship’s mascot. Stow Herr Bauer’s seabag below. 

I hope you’ll enjoy the voyage, Jansen said below, escorting Konrad through a narrow tube of rivets and steel. The deck plates beneath his feet rattled at his step; the walls seemed lined at every point with pipes and a dizzying number of bright wheels, red on one side and green on the other, to open and close an infinity of valves. Each compartment was closed off from its brethren by a bulkhead—the hatchway through those walls was round and annoyingly small; he had to step high, as if mounting a ladder, to get through, and to duck at the same time if he valued his skull. Twice Konrad didn’t value it enough and once he saw a whole constellation of stars as a result of these meetings of metal and mind.

There are four pressurized compartments in our boat, Jansen explained. Aft we have two torpedo tubes, of course, the air compressor, the diesel engines—they roar like bears—and a pair of electrical motors…

"Diesel and electric?"

Diesel for when we’re on the surface; electric for when we are not. The diesel pushes us at better than twenty knots—a fair speed, though not as fast as the destroyers who pursue us.

"How fast do they go?"

Thirty knots and more.

My God.

Don’t worry: We can dive in under twenty seconds to avoid them, and our telegraphists can hear the turn of their screws from kilometers away.

How fast do the electric motors take us?

Under water we can only do seven knots, and we usually hold her to two or three.

"How long do we stay under water?"

Jansen gave him a serious and studied look. Most of the time. We surface only once every few days: it’s the only way to be safe. Father Time will give you gray hairs before you see the Outer Banks, my friend. And I hope your nose isn’t too sensitive. A day or so under the water and everything stinks: men’s sweat, the urine, the food… mildew creeps into everything. As he spoke Konrad’s face blanched whiter and whiter until, finally, Jansen broke into a loud, hearty laugh. He pounded Konrad’s shoulder. I am being crazy, comrade! The electric motors run off batteries—immense batteries, and we have to use the diesel to charge them every twenty-four hours on the surface. Besides, after a few hours the men breathe up all the oxygen in a submerged boat. We either surface or suffocate.

My God, Konrad said again, thankful and terrified at the same time. And if we’re hunted and can’t surface?

You take a very deep breath, my friend. But what I said about the smell? All true! Come. The next compartment included a galley—not big enough for more than half a dozen men, Konrad thought—and a little washroom. You can clean up in there, Jansen said. But water is precious so you can’t shave. Forget your razor until we put  you ashore.

Where do you put the food?

Where ever we can shove it! Jansen laughed. In the galley, under floor plates, under beds. You’ll see a ham hanging in the control room. The first half of our patrol we only have one head because the other one is stuffed with food! This compartment is where all the petty officers sleep. Beneath our feet are half the electric batteries.

Are they dangerous?

Only if the bilge water floods them. Then they create chlorine gas. Watch your head.

"Scheisse!"

Oh. And your shins.

They stood in the control room where a serious-looking officer inspected an array of wheels and gauges. Sir, Jansen said, and the officer turned to them. "May I introduce Konrad Bauer. He is Commander Köhler’s ‘special package.’ Herr Bauer: Oberlueutnant zur