by Alex Grecian
“Is that gun loaded?”
“It is, but it has a grip safety. I have two spare magazines for it in the back of the Jeep.”
“Thank you, sir. State law requires you to have your dog on a leash at all times.” She stood at the back of the Jeep where she could easily see the pistol on the seat. She kept one hand on the butt of the Taser on her belt.
“Bear is very well trained. The dog’s name is Bear. He needed to run. Between the flight here and the car ride, he has been rather cooped up all day.”
“I understand that, sir,” Skottie said. She shifted from one foot to the other. “Good-looking animal. Pretty.”
“He prefers to be thought of as handsome,” the man said. He stole a glance over his shoulder at the dog, who had crept forward while they were talking. Skottie judged that Bear was now just outside the range of her Taser. There was no way she was fast enough to draw her weapon before the massive dog could reach her. The man made another small motion with his left hand and Bear stopped moving.
“Can you make him lie down?”
“Certainly,” the man said. “Bear, suben.”
Bear immediately dropped to his belly. He was panting hard, showing his fangs, but when he looked up at Skottie, she was impressed by the intelligence in his clear brown eyes.
“Trust me, you have nothing to fear from Bear. He respects the law.”
“Then he ought to wear a leash,” Skottie said. She glanced at the driver’s license. “I’ll be right back, Mr. Roan.”
“It’s Doctor.” He smiled at her. “Technically I am Dr. Roan. But please call me Travis.”
“Dr. Roan, go ahead and get your leash. But leave the weapon where it is on the seat.” Skottie walked back to her vehicle with the cards.
Travis Roan walked around the front of the Jeep to the driver’s side, where Skottie could still see him and where the gun was out of easy reach. Keeping things civilized, keeping her happy. She guessed he’d had plenty of experience with the police, and she wondered which side of the law he’d been on. While she watched, Roan reached behind the seat and came out with a tether, which he held up for her to see. He motioned to Bear, who trotted over and accepted the leash with grace. Roan leaned against the side of the Jeep and Bear settled down on the blacktop at his feet, and they waited while Skottie called in the rental’s license plate and ran Travis Roan’s ID on the dash-mounted computer.
After several long minutes she opened her door. Bear jumped up, but Travis put a hand out, palm down, and the dog sat again, his tongue lolling. Skottie watched Bear from the corner of her eye as she approached them.
“Everything looks in order, Dr. Roan,” she said. “Can I ask what you’re doing in Kansas?”
“Hunting.”
“What’re you after?”
Roan hesitated. “Deer,” he said. “Maybe some pheasant, if it is in season.”
“Sir, I don’t know what it’s like where you’re from, but a handgun isn’t the best weapon for hunting deer. Or birds, either.”
“I do not like traveling with a rifle or a bow. It requires extra preparation and creates difficulty. I am hoping to purchase a proper weapon when I reach my destination.”
“And where’s that?”
“I have yet to decide. I thought I might see the sights while I am here.”
“What sights are those, sir?”
Roan looked down at his dog as if Bear might remember something about the state they were visiting. “Dodge City?”
“Are you asking me, sir?”
“No,” Roan said. “Dodge City, Kansas. Historic cowboy town, right? I am a fan of American Westerns. Dodge City is where Gunsmoke was set, is it not?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Skottie said. “Never saw it. But if you wanted to see Dodge City, you probably should’ve turned south on 156 a few miles back.”
“I missed my turn?”
“If you were going to Dodge City.” She fixed him with a hard stare.
Roan hesitated again, and his smile disappeared. “Very well then. May I get something from my bag? It might help matters here.”
She was both amused and mildly alarmed by his formal way of speaking. “Your bag?”
“From the back of the Jeep.” He inclined his head toward the rental. “Not a weapon. Nothing to alarm you. But it may be easier to explain what I am doing here if I show you some documentation.”
“Sir, I’m not interested in anything except making sure you travel safe and don’t present a danger to anyone else.”
“Exactly,” Travis said. “I can see that I have misjudged you, and now you think it possible that Bear and I present a danger. So long as I remain in your jurisdiction—”
“My zone.”
“Yes, your zone. I am afraid that, even if you allow me to continue through your zone, you will alert the next man down the line and I will eventually have to explain myself to someone. More police will stop me. Am I wrong?”
“I can’t speak for anybody else, sir.” She rested her palm on the butt of her Taser again.
“I had planned to present myself to the authorities when I got where I am going, but I had hoped for more time to gather information. You have forced my hand.”
“What kind of information?”
He shrugged.
“You can get your bag,” Skottie said, “but move very slowly. Be careful here.”
“Of course. I mean you no harm.” He moved to the back of the Jeep and opened the hatch door. He looked back and raised his eyebrows at Skottie, then leaned slowly inside, unzipped his bag, and reached into it without taking his eyes off her. Skottie was watching the dog. Bear’s reflexes would be faster than Roan’s. She was ready to zap the dog first. But Bear licked his muzzle and grinned up at her, and Roan turned around and showed her a thick manila file folder.
“See?” he said. “Only paper.”
Skottie withdrew her hand from the Taser and took the folder from him. She opened it and glanced at the top sheet, which was a letter of introduction from the Noah Roan Foundation in San Diego. There was an insignia embossed in silver foil at the top of the page: the letters N, R, and F, all intertwined in a cursive script. She looked back up at him.
“Same as your name,” she said.
“My grandfather started the Foundation. I suppose you might call me a legacy.” He smiled, but didn’t get a smile from her in return. “Your name is Foster?”
She looked down at the name tag on her uniform: S. M. Foster. She indicated the folder. “What is this?”
“There is a woman—”
“The short version, please,” Skottie said. She wasn’t looking at the paperwork, but up at him. His smile didn’t touch his eyes, but she didn’t sense any malice. She hoped she was as good a judge of people as she thought she was.
“A few weeks ago, a woman saw someone here in Kansas, someone she had not seen in seventy years.”
“Long time. People change.”
“The circumstances … This woman—her name is Ruth Elder—she was in Germany during the Second World War. A camp there. The man she saw earlier this year was at the camp, too. But he was not a prisoner.”
“A guard?”
“Something like that. Administration, she thinks. A paper-pusher.”
“A Nazi,” Skottie said.
“Yes. If it is indeed him, he was a Nazi.”
“I guess I assumed they were all dead by now.”
“He would be in his nineties now, at least, but it is possible he is still alive.”
“And she’s sure it was him. Like I said …”
“Yes. You are quite right. Often people are mistaken. They think they see a ghost from their past, but it is their memory playing tricks on them.”
“And that’s why you’re here? To take a look and make sure it’s really him?”
Travis held out his hand, his index finger and thumb an inch away from each other. “There is something more.”
“You’re here to kill him,” Skottie said.
&nb
sp; “Kill him? No.”
“Wait. You said she saw him weeks ago.”
“Approximately.”
“And it took you this long to come out here to make sure?”
“That is the other thing. I am not the first person the Foundation has sent here. Another came before me. He has not communicated with anyone in more than a week.”
“Something happened to him?”
“That is what worries me. Why I wanted more information before talking to the authorities.”
“Have you filed a missing person report?”
“With whom would I do that? He is a grown man. If he wants to stop talking to us, that is his prerogative, is it not? Besides, I do not know what he was doing when he vanished, or where he was. Somewhere in Kansas, but where? Should I contact the police in Topeka? In Wichita? How would they help me? What could they do?”
“How long was he here before he disappeared?”
“Three days. Not longer than that.”
“So it still took a long time before anyone came out here to see if we have a Nazi on our hands.”
“It is a process. There are legalities and there is paperwork that must be filed. And there are not a lot of us left in the field, not a lot left who actually track these … these bad people. I was in Africa when Ruth Elder saw a Nazi here. It took me some time to extricate myself. Otherwise it might have been me who came first. Perhaps I would have vanished.”
“You were hunting Nazis in Africa?”
“No,” Travis said. “It is as you say. There are not many Nazis left alive. Not enough to make it a full-time job.”
“So you hunt Nazis for a hobby?” Skottie raised one eyebrow.
“Not a hobby, no. But I must do other things, find other bad people when there are no Nazis to look for.”
Skottie handed the file folder back to him without having looked past the topmost page. “Look,” she said, “I can’t let you run around playing Batman. You’re not breaking any laws by being here, not yet, but—”
“I am not a vigilante,” Travis said. He set the file folder down next to his bag in the back of the Jeep and raised his hands again in a placating gesture. “I am not here to hurt anyone, not even a Nazi. I must find my … my colleague. And I must talk to Ruth Elder. Hopefully she will lead me to both of the missing people.”
Skottie took a deep breath and looked away, out at the highway. Cars and trucks zoomed past, some of them slowing noticeably when they saw the cruiser parked at the rest stop with its lights flashing. She didn’t look at Roan when she finally spoke. “So I guess you’re not headed to Dodge City. Where are you going?”
“Up near Phillipsburg. The place is called Paradise Flats. It is where my … where the first man from the Roan Foundation was going. I am planning to stay somewhere along the way tonight, and I ought to arrive there fairly early tomorrow.”
“That’s right on the Nebraska border,” Skottie said. “I know the sheriff up there. He should be put in the loop on all this.”
“You think he will give me any trouble?”
Now Skottie turned her head to look at him. “I’m not your friend,” she said. “I’m not here to make things easier for you.”
“I apologize,” Travis said. “I did not mean to presume.”
She shook her head. “But to answer your question, yeah, I do think he’s gonna give you some trouble.”
“All right.”
“I’m not his friend, either. But you lied to me.”
“Sometimes people are warned that I am coming before I am able to find them. They run. The more people who know what I am doing here, the greater the chance I will fail. And it is possible that my colleague was betrayed by someone here.”
“Don’t lie to the police anymore. You’ll need to be on your best behavior when you meet Sheriff Goodman.”
“Is he that bad?”
Skottie shook her head again and smiled. “Sheriff Goodman isn’t going to like having a stranger running around in his backyard. Like I say, you’d better be straight with him and not surprise him in any way.” She thought for a moment and then added, “Won’t do you any good to drop my name with him, either, so don’t bother.”
“All right,” Travis said. “I will get in touch with him as soon as I arrive tomorrow. Thank you. Is Hays a decent place to stay the night?”
“It’s all right. I live there.”
“Anywhere you would recommend for dinner?”
“The usual chains. Red Lobster, Applebee’s, but there’s a decent steakhouse that’s local. The Roundup. If you eat red meat, it’s probably the best spot.”
“I do not, but Bear does.”
“Good luck,” Skottie said. “I hope you find your friend.” She handed Roan’s ID and license back to him. “Doctor, I’m gonna ask you to keep that handgun holstered or put away in the back of your vehicle while you’re traveling.”
“I will,” Roan said.
Skottie tipped her hat and turned away. “Stay out of trouble, Dr. Roan.” She walked back to her Explorer, pulled out, and rolled away. She parked on the ramp and watched the lot behind her in the mirror.
Bear got back to his feet and shook himself all over, his loose skin rippling up across the solid muscle beneath, his mane bristling. Roan reached down and unclipped the leash, threw it on the back seat. Bear jumped up into the Jeep and Roan followed. He waved in the general direction of the cruiser and accelerated past her, back onto I-70.
Skottie didn’t wait until he was out of sight. She set her hat on the seat beside her and picked up the handset, keeping her eye on the dwindling black Jeep as she pressed the send button.
“One-Eleven Norton.”
A moment later, Sarah’s voice crackled over the radio’s speaker. “Norton here.”
“Hey, is Paradise Flats in Phillips County?”
“Nope. It’s over in Burden.”
“Do me a favor then—put me through to Burden County. I wanna talk to the sheriff.”
“Will anyone do?”
“That’d be Goodman up there, right?”
“Him?”
“I know. Just do it, would you, please?”
“Got it,” Sarah said. “Give me a minute.”
Skottie hung up the handset and pulled the cruiser around. She waited for a break in traffic, then nosed out onto the highway and followed along in Travis Roan’s wake.
Her cell phone rang and Sarah’s name appeared on the screen. She wasn’t using the radio, which meant she was calling back with a personal matter.
Skottie hit the green button. “You get through to Goodman?”
“Not yet,” Sarah said. “Maddy’s school just called.”
“She okay?”
“I think so. She got in a fight.”
Skottie sighed. Another fight. “They want me there?”
“The principal’s got her in the office. Wants a word with you when you pick her up.”
“Tell him I’m on my way.”
“You still want me to raise Goodman?”
Skottie hesitated. “Can you get him a message? Tell him to be on the lookout for a rented black Jeep?”
“I can try.”
“He’ll figure it out from there. Thanks, Sarah.”
“No problem. And don’t worry. Maddy’ll calm down after a while. It’s an adjustment’s all it is.”
Skottie ended the call and tossed her phone onto the passenger seat. Since they had moved to Kansas, there had been some new kind of trouble every day. Maddy’s grades were suffering and she wouldn’t speak to her mother anymore, responding only in grunts and prolonged silences whenever Skottie attempted a conversation.
Skottie found a turnaround in the median and headed back toward Hays. Someone else would have to deal with the mysterious Dr. Roan. As serious as she felt about her job, her first priority would always be her daughter.
August 1951
The clapboard house was small but solid, and it had recently been painted. Its outside walls were
blinding white with red shutters, and there was a garden in the front where someone had planted Taglilien and Glockenblumen. He did not know the English words for the flowers. The red roof rose at a steep angle and flattened out at the side to form a carport, where Jacob Meyer parked the truck. Meyer gave Rudy a key to the front door and fetched his bags from the back of the truck. Inside, the walls were smooth plaster and the hardwood floor was tightly joined.
Rudy took his bags from Jacob and thanked him. “Danke, Jacob.”
“Bitte,” Jacob said. “You are most welcome, Mr. Goodman.”
When Jacob had gone, the truck farting away down the street, Rudy walked through the house and took stock. The kitchen was little more than a wide corridor at the back of the house, but it had been fitted with a new stove and an icebox. There was a cellar with a dirt floor and shelves along one long wall. Someone had left a dozen jars of stewed tomatoes. Rudy remembered that there were tornadoes in Kansas and a cellar was an essential safety feature. He wondered what tornadoes looked like and how much warning they gave before striking.
Upstairs there were two bedrooms, and Rudy set his bags down on the floor in the smaller one. Sleeping did not require much space. The bigger room would be his office, as soon as he relocated the bed that was in there. He found a pencil and a tablet of yellow paper in his smaller bag and began a list of the things he would need for the house. At the top he wrote the word desk. After a moment’s thought, he skipped down a line and wrote map. He used the English words, sounding them out as he wrote and repeating them to himself, mimicking Jacob’s flat Midwestern dialect.
There was a comfortable old sofa in the living room, and he moved it so he would have a good view of the street through the front window. He walked through the kitchen and out the back door. Three steps led down to a stone path that petered out twenty feet behind the house at the edge of the tall grass. Someone—Jacob, perhaps?—had recently mowed, stopping at Rudy’s property line. He breathed in the fresh green smell of the lawn and then sneezed, wiped his nose on his sleeve. Beyond the grass was a dense tree line, and Rudy knew from the drive in along winding country lanes that there was nothing beyond the trees but mile after rolling mile of farmland.
Only a week before, Argentina had loomed over him: tall pale buildings that hid thick jungle behind them in every direction, a multitude of brown people who had smiled at him for no reason, birds of every color that squawked at him from parapets and lampposts. Even the air had pushed him down, made him feel small, smothered him under a steaming blanket of perfume.