by James R Benn
“Impressive,” Kaz said. “Should we look further for the major, or is this a dead end?”
A dead end. A missing major. I looked again at the footlocker, and pushed it with my boot. It was heavy, and I had that real bad feeling again. I’d been sidetracked by the fire, and hadn’t thought about the next victim since then. There was a padlock in the latch.
“Why is this locked, if he hadn’t finished packing?” The tray, its compartments filled with shirts, sat on the cot.
“Perhaps he has his valuables inside?” Kaz sounded hopeful, but it was that false hope, the hope you feel when you go for an inside straight. Brief, insubstantial, useless. I took the dagger from Arnold’s souvenir box and began working the latch. The footlocker was plywood, not built to withstand a steel blade. I dug around the top latch, loosening the screws until I could pull the latch free. I hoped that all I’d end up with was a chewing out from a superior officer for destroying his footlocker, but that was inside-straight thinking. I lifted the top, and the only card I saw was the queen of hearts, stuck between the dead fingers of Major Matthew Arnold.
He was short, which was a good thing. He was on his side, knees to his chest, hands up to his face, as if at prayer. The card stuck out from between two fingers, the red heart at odds with the pale face of the dead major.
“Strangled,” I said. “Strangled and stuffed in a box. Why?” His neck was bruised and the blood vessels in his eyes had burst.
“It had to be a major,” Kaz said. “The odds were it would be one from the Third Division, since the first two victims had been.”
“No, I mean why stuffed in a box? The killer didn’t hide either of the first two bodies. Galante was tucked against a wall, but he was in plain sight. Why hide the third victim? It’s not the same pattern.”
“To delay his being discovered?”
“Has to be. In order to give the killer time to get away. Which means he was seen by someone, and he needed to put time between that and the discovery of the body.”
“We should go back to division headquarters,” Kaz said. “Report and contact CID.”
“Not yet,” I said, shutting the footlocker. “Let’s go.”
“It’s more important that we find out where the GIs in Landry’s platoon have been today,” I said as I gunned the jeep down the muddy road to the bivouac area. “It all started with him and it has to go back to him. Galante, Cole, Inzerillo, they all connect to Landry and his men. If we reported the body now, we’d be tied up for hours with CID and filling out reports. We’ll go back as soon as we talk to Sergeant Gates and get an accounting of where his men have been.”
“I suppose Major Arnold is in no hurry,” Kaz said. Traffic was light, and I was glad we hadn’t stumbled straight into the entire Third Division pulling out. I turned into the churned-up, muddy field and drove to the same small rise I had before, claiming what dry ground I could. Before us was the bivouac, rows of olive-drab tents of all sizes, with vehicles loading and unloading supplies around the perimeter, just as before. But there was something different.
“Those are British trucks,” I said. The men unloading them were British. Not a Yank in sight. As we drew closer, I noticed a pile of white-painted signs at the end of each row of tents. Signs for units of the 3rd Division, no longer needed.
“Has the Third Division pulled out?” I asked a British sergeant leading a work detail of Italian civilians. Brooms, shovels, garbage cans, wheelbarrows. I guess more than ten thousand GIs can leave a fair-sized mess.
“Whoever the Yanks were, they’ve gone,” he said. “Got to clean up for our lot to move in tomorrow. Can I help you, Lieutenant?”
“No,” I said. “I doubt it.”
I walked along the perimeter until I saw the signpost, lying on the muddy ground. 2nd Battalion, Easy Company. Soon I found the tent where the poker game had been in session. Third Platoon territory. Everything was cleared out, nothing but folded cots and the debris of a departing unit. Empty wine bottles, mostly. Crumpled paper, odds and ends that men had accumulated when in camp but tossed out as unnecessary when they were on the move, back to the sharp end.
Garbage cans had been placed along the wooden walkway, but not enough to handle the last-minute discards. The one in front of the poker tent was overflowing with bottles, broken crates, and other indefinable rubbish. On top was a single tan leather glove, holes worn through the fingertips, the kind the wire crews had been wearing when I first came here.
“This is what he wore,” I said to Kaz. “Leather gloves. A new pair would give enough protection.”
“You mean whoever beat Inzerillo?”
“Yeah. I wanted to check the knuckles to see who’d been using their fists. But leather work gloves would do the trick.” I tossed the glove back on the pile, and wondered if that new pair, complete with bloodstains, might be at the bottom of the can. It would prove the connection I was certain of, so I tipped the can over, glad that the British sergeant and his work crew weren’t in sight.
I moved stuff around with my boot, but didn’t see another glove, bloodstained or not. Out of the corner of my eye, I did catch something red poking out of the mess. It looked familiar, as if I ought to know what it was.
“What is it, Billy?” As soon as Kaz spoke, I knew exactly what it was. A rag doll in a red dress.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I watched as CID agents searched Arnold’s tent, knowing they’d come up empty. I had. The rag doll was in my jacket pocket, and I was keeping quiet about it for now. Without Gates and the others to confirm it was the same doll from the girl in the basement, it didn’t mean much as evidence. Even then, it was only my word that Cole had said he’d seen the doll, in his dreams and while awake. I had thought he meant he saw it in his mind’s eye, but now I knew different. Someone had kept that rag doll from Campozillone, someone who wanted to spook Cole, to terrify him, to push him over the edge. Or was it to control him, keep him dependent?
He was my friend, Cole had said. I see it in his face, see everything all over again.
A friend, a buddy from 3rd Platoon, who kept the memory fresh, the wound open. Manipulating Cole, keeping him under control. For the pearls? Were they wound up in the killings, or was it something less sinister? Looting went on all the time; maybe this was just a higher class of loot. Who wouldn’t scoop up a pearl necklace found hidden behind a wall or in a drawer with a false bottom? It was like the house on Mattapan Square. Original owner long gone, no questions would be asked. But had Cole stumbled on it, or had someone told him where to look? What difference would it make? Maybe a life-and-death difference. I tried to make sense of what I knew for certain.
Cole and Inzerillo, dead. No evidence they knew each other. One a suicide, the other beaten up and then burned. His death could have been a Mafia hit for all I knew.
Landry, Galante, Arnold, dead. Ten, jack, queen. All killed up close, the same calling card left on their corpses. They all knew each other to some extent. Arnold must have processed Cole’s transfer at Galante’s request; I doubted Colonel Schleck would have approved it.
The rag doll bothered me. Or was I reading too much into it? Maybe Cole just couldn’t take it anymore. Maybe seeing his pal, whoever it was, was too much of a reminder. Maybe the pain was too much to bear. Maybe Inzerillo antagonized a mafioso, or didn’t pay a debt. First a warning, then the torch. Maybe Cole found the pearls on his own, by accident, and had no idea of the story behind them. Maybe. But the rag doll was real, in a place where it shouldn’t have been.
If all those maybes held water, then I had less to go on than I thought. Three dead officers, with the king and ace waiting to be dealt. A colonel and a general. Did the killer have them picked out already? Or was it simply a target of opportunity? If the killer was in the 3rd Division, it made sense that he’d have more contact with 3rd Division officers than anyone else.
If, maybe. I didn’t have much to go on. The only good news was that colonels were not as easy to come by as more juni
or officers.
Arnold’s body was carried out on a stretcher. Luckily rigor mortis wasn’t fully established yet, probably due to the warmth in the closed footlocker.
“We have to find out where Third Division is headed,” I said to Kaz as the stretcher passed us. They loaded it into an ambulance, which drove off at a sedate pace, no sirens, no rush for the late Major Arnold.
“No one knows, or admits to knowing,” Kaz said. “I found several officers packing their gear, and they all claim ignorance.”
“It shouldn’t be hard to find an entire division. The front line is about thirty miles north. If we follow the main road, we should catch their tail soon.”
“But Colonel Schleck said they were staging to Naples. That’s due south.”
“That might mean the coast road north from Naples, or the harbor. They could be shipping out to England for all we know.”
“We should report to Major Kearns,” Kaz said. “He may be able to tell us.”
“Not that we have much to report. I’m sure he’s heard about Arnold by now. I’m sure every colonel and general at the palace has.”
We made a stop in San Felice, figuring it might be worth it to search Arnold’s office desk and files, unless his corporal had packed everything up and shipped out too. We were in luck. There was still a skeleton staff at 3rd Division headquarters, the corporal included. Most of his crates and boxes were gone, but he was still on duty, clacking away on his typewriter.
“You’ve heard about Major Arnold?” I said.
“Yeah, word travels fast. You really find him in a trunk?”
“We did. In his tent. Did he mention meeting anyone there?”
“Nope. But if it was souvenir trading, he wouldn’t have. He made it clear he preferred things on the QT.”
“We found two boxes of souvenirs, ready to be shipped home. Including a Walther P38.”
“Jeez. You ain’t supposed to send Kraut pistols to the States, are you? Where is it now?”
“It’s evidence, sorry.”
“What a waste. The major, I mean.”
“Yeah. It’s important that we find out where the division is going. Do you know, or can you find out?”
“You think the Red Heart Killer is one of us? That’s what they’re calling him, I heard.”
“Yeah, catchy. I asked you a question.”
“Sure. I mean, no, I can’t. They got this thing locked down tight. If we were going back up on the line, we’d all be there by now. But they’re staging everyone on a staggered schedule. Naples is all I know. Maybe we’re going to be garrison troops, that’d be nice.”
“I don’t think that’s in the cards,” I said, disappointed that no one laughed. “Tell me, do you remember paperwork on Sergeant Jim Cole, transferring him to CID?”
“Sure I do. Doc Galante came in, waited until the colonel was gone, and spoke to Major Arnold. He knew Schleck would never go for it.”
“But Major Arnold did?”
“Yeah, no problem. Routine stuff.”
“We’re going to search the major’s desk, okay?”
“Be my guest,” he said, pointing to the far corner. “I ain’t packed it up yet.”
I sat at Arnold’s desk as Kaz wandered about the room, looking through paperwork stacked up on a table, ignoring the corporal’s stares. There were half a dozen personnel files on top of the desk, all new second lieutenants who had just transferred in from stateside. They weren’t suspects, and they were safe, at least from the carddealing murderer. The Germans would probably get half of them within days, most of the rest within weeks. I put the files aside.
Mimeographed orders from the division chief of staff were stacked by date, the latest directing Arnold to await transport to Naples until the rest of the headquarters unit arrived there. All the others had to do with the mundane daily routine of any HQ. Boring, repetitive, useless.
I went through two drawers and found nothing of interest. Forms in file folders, lined up alphabetically. In a bottom drawer, under a copy of Stars and Stripes, was something more interesting: a Luftwaffe forage cap, filled with wristwatches, rings, and a few German pay books. Soldbuch, they called it. It contained a photograph of the soldier, his unit, rank, that sort of thing. I dumped the lot onto the desk.
“The major collected those books,” the corporal said.
“And he had a nice sideline in watches too. Taken from the dead, stripped from POWs. Interesting guy.” I flipped through one Soldbuch, looking at the photo of a young kid who could have been wearing any uniform. I didn’t like looking at war souvenirs. It made me think of some fat Kraut pulling my wristwatch off.
“I’m not seeing anything here but evidence of a tidy mind and an acquisitive nature,” I said.
“Billy,” Kaz said. “You should look at this.” He held a clipboard, one of six hung from nails on the wall.
“Those are replacement lists,” the corporal said, “the latest batch. I ain’t had time to file them away yet.”
“What?” I asked Kaz. His finger pointed to a list of names, and traveled down three from the top. A column of serial numbers and names.
BOYLE, DANIEL P., PVT.
“What is your brother’s middle name?” Kaz asked.
“Patrick,” I said. I felt sick as I said it, and leaned on the table for support. “Daniel Patrick Boyle.”
“Hey, you found a relative?” the corporal asked. “Lucky guy.”
“Is this the ASTP group you were telling us about?” I pointed to the clipboard.
“Yeah. Those are the replacements Major Arnold brought out. Before he got it.”
I’d been hoping for that inside straight to come along, and how did I finally manage to beat the odds? By having my kid brother show up and join a division about to end up in combat, if my guess was right. Replacements were flowing in to Caserta, filling the ranks after other replacements had been killed, wounded, or captured. I traced the line with his name on it to the right, past numbers that meant something to the army and nothing to me, until I came to his unit. Private Daniel P. Boyle had been assigned to the 3rd Division, 7th Regiment, 2nd Battalion, Easy Company, 3rd Platoon.
Right in the goddamn middle of not only the shooting war, but my investigation.
Kaz drove us back to Caserta. I was in a daze, unable to get my mind off Danny. The plan was to report to Major Kearns and find the 3rd Division. I was certain of two things: my kid brother was headed for trouble, and the Red Heart Killer was going to strike again.
Kearns was busy, so I waited outside his office while Kaz went to check on something he said was bothering him. A lot of things bothered me, so I didn’t ask what it was. I watched messengers, aides, high-ranking officers, British airmen, and a couple of civilians scurry in and out of the Intelligence section, everyone in a hurry. I bet none of them gave a hoot about my kid brother and all the other green kid brothers heading up to the line. I was upset, and the more I watched them, the more I wanted to deck one of them, just to see how they liked it. But I held back, because of the two MPs on duty outside Kearns’s door, and because while I knew it would be satisfying, it wouldn’t help me find Danny.
“Boyle,” Kearns said, appearing in the open doorway. “Get your gear and be back here in one hour. We’re shipping out.”
“We, sir? Where?”
“You’ll drive with me to Naples. We’re joining VI Corps staff.”
“Third Division is part of VI Corps, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Kearns said. “That’s why you’re coming with me. I’ve been transferred, and you need to find this killer. Something big is about to happen, Boyle, and we can’t have one of our own gunning for the brass. One hour, you and Lieutenant Kazimierz.”
“You’ve heard about Major Arnold then?”
“Me and every GI, Italian, and Brit within ten miles. The damn Krauts probably know by now.”
“Where are we going?”
“That’s top secret. You’ll know when you get there. Now hustl
e, goddammit.”
He was steamed, so I hustled out of sight. I waited for Kaz, who showed up twenty minutes later. I told him what Kearns had said and we beat feet to the jeep and made for Signora Salvalaggio’s. We grabbed our gear and said our good-byes. The signora promised to cook la Genovese for Kaz when he returned, and gave him a curtsy that wouldn’t have been out of place at the palace, a lifetime ago. She didn’t ask about the pearls, and I was glad, because I had no idea what we were going to do with them.
“What were you doing, back at the headquarters?” I asked Kaz as we drove to meet up with Kearns.
“Asking around, about the Fourteenth Carabinieri, the unit our friend Lieutenant Luca Amatori served with. I was curious, after the reaction of the officer in Acerra.”
“What did you find out?”
“The unit served primarily on the island of Rab, off the coast of Yugoslavia. As concentration camp guards.”
PART THREE
ANZIO BEACHHEAD
CHAPTER NINETEEN
For the hundredth time in this war, I sat in a jeep at a crossroads, watching a convoy of trucks crossing an intersection ahead of us. Worrying. Everyone was worried, about getting killed or wounded, about fear and what your buddies thought of you, about trench foot and the clap, about chickenshit officers and insane orders, about Schu -mines and what your girl back home would do when she heard you were alive but minus your private parts.
Everyone worried, everyone sat, everyone waited. But now I had a new worry. My kid brother. When Dad would get mad at Danny and me, he’d say that if he could put the two of us in a sack and shake it up good, he might end up with one son who was smart enough to stay out of trouble, and strong enough to get out of it when it came looking. Trouble was, Danny was a skinny kid, smart enough in class but just plain dumb anywhere between home and school. I was always stronger than most, but I used up all my smarts before I got to the schoolhouse door. We’d come home with our fair share of black eyes and pants torn at the knee, usually as a result of trouble Danny got into and I got him out of. Or in deeper, he claimed. I wondered if he had any idea how deep this trouble was.