by Frank Perry
materials in the trenches. The first clue he located was a letter written by a corporal who had spent the night with a detachment stripping dead Germans and taking weapons under orders “of the CO” so that he could stuff them into empty shipping containers. He found another letter that mentioned “... Ole Suckson Pricks is up to his usual again, providing for his retirement.”
Evan took some notes then returned the box to the information desk asking, “Do you know where the 7th Quartermasters were stationed?”
“Yes, I do. The young lady asked the same thing. They were Army Reserves, National Guard, from Lansing, Michigan. They got home late from the war because they were assigned to the AEF. They actually didn’t get home until early 1921.”
“Do you know who their CO was?”
“Yes, there again, the lady asked the same thing. It’s amazing. His name was Major Hicks.”
He thanked her and turned to the internet, searching for information about Major Hicks in Lansing with the National Guard. The first piece of information was an obituary from 1922. After two hours, he’d looked at everything available about Hicks, his murder, his killer, old newspaper articles by his killer, John Albrecht and court testimony, including comments by other ex-soldiers accusing Hicks of bringing a huge shipments of crates home to the Lansing depot, then diverting it to his private barn. Some of them had helped him move the crates before being released from active duty. One again used the term “Suckson Pricks” in his testimony in court during the Albrecht trial.
Evan packed his laptop and left, thanking the archivist for her immense help. He needed to get to Lansing as quickly as possible. Rather than return to Harrisburg and try to find a flight, he decided to drive. Eight hours later, it was midnight when he reached the outskirts. His back ached, and his head throbbed from drinking too much coffee en route. The first hotel he located was a Holiday Inn Express with a “vacancy” sign. He was in bed within ten minutes of registering after taking three Advil.
Sleep didn’t come easy and he was up at dawn searching the internet for National Guard facilities around the area. After a quick breakfast, he decided to try the armory in Jackson first, since Hicks was from the city and the murder trial had been held at the Jackson County Courthouse. He set the address in his smartphone and began driving before seven o’clock. It took less than an hour to find the address.
The entrance to the building was a large hallway, stretching from front to back, with another set of doors at the other end. Evan walked to the first open doorway, which opened into a large office with a soldier sitting at a terminal playing Words with Friends. He said, “Can I help you?”
“Yes, my name is Evanoff, and I’m doing some research on a National Guard unit from the nineteen twenties.”
The Sergeant smiled, “You with that nice Russian lady that was here yesterday?”
Evan tried to hide his enthusiasm, “Yeah, we’re working on the same project. We’re not together, but we have the same objective.”
The Sergeant was impatient to get back to his game; he’d spent a couple hours with Karina the day before searching records, which he enjoyed, but working with a male college geek wasn’t as pleasant. “Well, tell you what, sir, if you’re after the same thing, then you’re looking for kin of Major Hicks. His record shows where he lived and worked. I gave that information to your associate.”
“Can you give it to me also?”
The soldier was perturbed but still had his notes from Karina’s visit. He wrote on lined paper, “Here you go, sir.”
Evan thanked him and left. The first place he visited was Hicks’ home address, which turned out to be a condemned two-story brick building that was probably a boarding house when Hicks lived there. It was half of a small city block long in a decrepit part of Jackson that didn’t have any sign of life anymore. He walked around to the back, but there was no evidence of any kind of storage unit, and nothing a soldier of the period would have called a barn.
He pressed the GPS address in his phone for the granary that Hicks had managed, which was about ten minutes south of town in the farm country. That’s where he saw her. His heart nearly stopped, seeing her in person again instead of the vision in his dreams.
Karina was standing erect, watching him drive between the twin silos along the dirt driveway. Her rental car was parked behind them, and she was about a hundred feet farther down the road. The granary was a self-serviced cooperative business, but there were no farmers depositing grain there when he arrived. Even in the dusty grounds surrounding the silos, she was radiant, dressed in tan slacks and a lightweight blue sweater over a white shirt. She was completely out of place; she belonged on the cover of a magazine. He didn’t think he could speak, afraid of what she might say.
She didn’t see him at first inside the car until he cam closer. She looked shocked when he drove near enough and got out, “Evan, what are you doing? How did you find me? You can’t be here!”
He smiled, “Nice to see you, too, Karina. You’re not the only researcher on this case you know.” It sounded coarser than he intended.
“Evan, you cannot be here. Please, leave me alone!”
He took one step nearer, “Karina, what’s going on? You’ve been avoiding me; you’ve shut me out. What changed?”
She looked around nervously, “You cannot be here, Evan. It is important.”
From her cue, he also looked around, signaling her to walk closer to one of the big silos. “You’ve got to give me a reason, Karina. You don’t answer my mails or my calls. It’s like a switch was thrown, and you don’t want to talk to me anymore.”
“It is not about wanting anything; it’s about staying alive, about my mother staying alive.”
He understood her terror; it didn’t take a PhD in Russian history to understand the leverage Jelavich had over her. “He’s got your mother as hostage doesn’t he?”
She didn’t answer.
A man hidden in the woods almost a quarter mile away with binoculars was texting a message: “She is no longer alone. A young man fitting the description has joined her at the granary.”
Moments later: “You must kill the man immediately.”
The observer answered: “I don’t work that way. It takes planning.”
The response was immediate: “Do it now! I will double your usual rate!”
Rack Angelis, Odd Job, would normally tell his client to fuck off. It was one thing to do an ad hoc surveillance, but a proper assassination needed to be carefully planned. He was successful only because he was studious and careful. He needed intel on the subject, then plan something technically innovative to kill them. He’d never been caught or even under suspicion because of his practices. Now the Russian thug was ordering him around like a common houseboy. He’d long ago figured out that his anonymous client was Russian. He carefully moved back to his car for a weapon. It wasn’t as though he couldn’t kill impromptu; it was just that he didn’t like taking the risk without planning everything in advance. Two hundred thousand dollars went a long way toward convincing him; besides, there were no witnesses around from the farmlands right now, except the girl who his client obviously wanted to see the man killed.
The Call
Back at his townhouse, Jim Olander listened to Kiki tell her Dispatcher that she would stay longer in Michigan and to log her out on vacation. He commented when she finished, “Is that a problem for you?”
She smiled, “No, not really. She says it’s all under control and the other officer was planning to be there the whole time. She’ll call if anything important happens.”
“Well then, how about some wine while I cook a couple steaks?”
She smiled wider, “Only if I can make a salad.”
“I was going to suggest it.”
They worked well together in the kitchen. At one point, she threw a carrot top at him, and he grabbed her, spinning her around. When he stopped and released her, they kissed, then embraced and kis
sed more passionately. After lingering long enough, he said, “You know, that’s our first kiss, I hope there’re more.” She didn’t say anything, but gave him a quick peck before returning to salad making. He beamed and went out to the grill.
That night, after finishing the wine and beginning a movie, they embraced on the couch. When it was over, he said, “Well, I guess I’ll turn in.”
She agreed. Within minutes, while he was brushing his teeth, she appeared in his bedroom in a short nightgown, “Which side to I get?” He just smiled and joined her.
In the morning, they made love again, knowing each other more intimately. Breakfast was late, after eight o’clock. To them it seemed like a honeymoon, nearly forgetting why she’d come back to Michigan. They were about to go back to the bedroom when Jim’s mobile phone rang. As a sheriff’s detective, he couldn’t ignore it. He answered, “Olander.”
“Ah, Mr. Olander, this is Jason from the farm.”
He gave her a glance, signaling recognition, “Sure Jason, what’s up?”
“My mother said she would meet with Ms. Joyce.”
“Okay, when and where?”
“She said at the farm, this morning. She said she would meet her in the house, alone.”
“She’s not coming alone, Jason. I come also.”
“Yeah, that’s okay, I’ll be there too. She just wants to talk to Ms. Joyce alone. We can be outside. Look, my mother is in her