by Dan Walsh
Then he realized…if the person who’d written on the back of the pictures was the same one who’d written the notebook, he was almost certainly a natural-born German, not an American. Since all the obituaries were of American servicemen, they couldn’t possibly have been war buddies. And there was this: the pictures showed he was a little boy during the war, not old enough to be friends with any of these Americans.
There was no way these were obituaries of war buddies. That being so, why would someone paste these obituaries into a scrapbook and consider it important enough to save for all these years, hidden away in a safe stashed under the floorboards?
Jack took the notebook out of the safe and walked back to the recliner with it and the scrapbook. He set the notebook on an end table, yawned and stretched then sat with the scrapbook. There was something here, something to discover. He was sure of it. As he flipped through the pages again, he confirmed that all the dead men were World War II veterans. He also noticed something else…some of the articles had handwritten notes in some of the margins that also looked to be in German.
Holding the scrapbook in his lap with his right hand, he reached for the notebook with his left and opened it. The handwriting in both looked identical. So, all three things were written by the same person. And who was this man? Jack’s gut told him it was Senator Wagner’s father, the old man according to Bass.
Bass had said the old man talked with an accent, similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger was Austrian. But they spoke German there, so that added up. And Bass had said the son had inherited the cabin from his father when the old man died. The words on the backs of the album pics, those in the notebook, and the notes written in the margins of the obituaries were likely, then, all written by the old man. He’d left them here in the cabin for his son. Some of them hidden in a safe under the floorboards.
And for some reason, his son didn’t know or didn’t care. Why else were they still here?
So many questions were gently knocking on the door but would have to wait. His body would no longer follow where his mind wanted to go. He had to get some sleep. The only question that remained: should he leave everything out for tomorrow or put it all back where it belonged?
Jack awoke the next morning and as he went through his morning routine, did his best to ignore the budding mystery that beckoned in the living room. That was the compromise he’d made with himself last night. He didn’t put everything away, just moved it all into the living room, then he’d spread out all his Dresden research back on the dinette table.
As he sat now at that table drinking his second cup of coffee, he had to keep reminding himself…this is why I’m here. Not that. That stuff in the living room was for breaks and free time only. Still, it held a ridiculous amount of interest for him. By now, Jack knew how he was wired. Part of his success as an author and as a history teacher was his ability to make history come alive for his audience. That wasn’t his self-assessment; it’s what magazine and blog reviewers had said about his books over and over again. What his students had said about his lectures in countless emails.
Jack knew what made that possible. He had always followed after things that stirred him, things that lit him up inside. If something stoked his curiosity, he’d keep pulling on those threads and running down those rabbit trails wherever they led. It was an offbeat approach to the learning process. Some might even call it undisciplined.
But it was hard to argue with the results.
Following those same instincts had led Jack to pursue this Dresden project for his doctoral dissertation. He still believed it was the right direction to go. But right now, in the face of this unfolding mystery in the living room, its luster had faded. All he wanted to do was get up from the table, head over to the living room and give himself to this new pursuit.
He turned in his chair, as if to free his legs from their hold beneath the table, when Rachel’s parting words to him last night came to mind. “I know how you get. This photo thing might be a nice diversion right now…like, when you need a little break. Don’t let it become an obsession.”
Then a reminder of his own reply: “That’s not gonna happen.”
Here it was happening, the very thing.
Jack knew what he had to do. He stood, walked to a closet, pulled out a blanket, walked into the living room and tossed it over the whole mess. Covered the notebooks, the open floorboard…even the recliner.
He walked back to the dinette table and his Dresden research, confident he had freed himself from the pull of this distraction. If not for good, at least until his morning break.
23
Jack spent the next three hours listening to online interviews from Dresden survivors, taking notes and cross-checking things they’d said with known facts. The stories were sufficiently gripping to easily hold his interest. Before long, the project in the living room had faded and was no longer distracting him. The Dresden story really was an amazing chapter in World War II history and Jack was again glad he’d picked this topic for his research.
At the moment, he was watching a video of an elderly woman with a thick accent speaking to a library group somewhere in the US. She had been born in Dresden and was a teenager during the firebombing. It took her a while to get to the relevant part of her story but, once she did, Jack was riveted by what she said. So much so, he almost didn’t see his cell phone ringing. He had shut the ringer off but left the phone in plain view.
When he saw Rachel’s beautiful face on the screen, he grabbed it. “Rachel?”
“Hi, Jack. It rang so much, I thought it was going to be your voicemail.”
“I’m sorry. About an hour ago, I got several phone calls from the school, so I shut the ringer off.”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt your work,” she said. “Got a few extra minutes before my next class, thought I’d give you a try.”
“I’m glad you did. You’re my favorite distraction.”
“So, the research is going well?”
“Definitely. And as always, where would I be without the internet? I know it was around when I studied for my bachelor’s, but it wasn’t anything like this. Between Google and YouTube…it’s crazy to be able to listen and watch videos on almost any topic you can think of in a matter of seconds. It almost seems unfair how much easier it is to study for a doctorate now than it was twenty or thirty years ago.”
“That’s true,” she said, “but you’re still the one doing all the work and the one who’s going to have to write that big paper. Oh, before I forget, I had a brief chat with my dad on my drive to school this morning. He said to say hi, by the way.”
Jack still wasn’t used to being on such familiar terms with Rachel’s dad, a retired Air Force general. Especially a man he had served under many years ago.
“He called just to touch base,” she said, “nothing special. I was telling him about our little adventure last night. You know, that photo album you found with all the little German children. Of course, he wasn’t in the military during World War II. Vietnam was his era. But he told me something I didn’t know about his story. He was stationed in Berlin for a few years, was there when the wall went up.”
“Really? That’s pretty cool.”
“Isn’t it? I thought I knew his whole story. Anyway, I asked him about those last few pictures we saw when the little boy was a little older. Remember that one when he was standing under a big banner with those big letters?”
“FDJ?” Jack said.
“That’s the one. My dad knew what that was. I thought you’d find this interesting.”
“What’s it stand for?”
“The exact German translation is Freie Deutsche Jugend. In English it means, Free German Youth. My dad said he always found that to be an ironic title for a group of young people who were anything but free.”
“What do you mean?”
“They were in East Germany, Jack. It’s a communist youth group. Apparently, that little boy in the photo album grew up on the
other side of the Iron Curtain.”
“Really?”
“That’s what he said. FDJ was a huge communist youth organization. He said it reminded him of the Hitler Youth the Nazis had set up. It was all about indoctrinating young people in the communist ideology from the ground up. He said it was especially big among the thousands of orphans raised in East Germany after the war ended. It became like their family. I bet you if you kept looking at the rest of that album, you’d see a lot more pictures of life in East Germany before the Wall came down.”
As he listened, Jack stood and walked over toward the living room. He pulled the blanket back exposing the end table and recliner. He was looking right at the photo album, but also at the scrapbook with all the obituaries of the American pilots. He wanted to tell her all about it but wasn’t sure that was a good idea.
“Jack?”
“What?”
“You didn’t answer. Usually that means you’re distracted. What are you thinking about?”
Women’s intuition was a scary thing. “I’m wondering if you want me to hold off looking at the rest of the album until you get over here and we can do it together.”
“I’d love to come back, but I don’t want to get in the way of what you are supposed to be doing.”
“You won’t be in the way. I can’t do my research day and night. My head would explode. You could come after dinner, after I quit working for the day.”
“I suppose I could do that.”
“Of course, you can. Let’s plan on it. I’ll finish up, let’s say, around six thirty.”
“How much time will you need for dinner?”
“That includes dinner. I’m going to work through it. I just bought some of those frozen dinners. I’ll pop one in the microwave and eat while I’m working.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll do it. I’ll be over there sometime just after six thirty.”
“Great.”
“Well, I better go. Can’t wait to see you.”
They both said “Love you” and hung up.
Jack was standing behind the recliner now. He looked at his watch. The phone call had only lasted five minutes. Really, not much of a break when you think about it. She really did interrupt the flow of his concentration, in a good way. Maybe he should just go with the flow and take his lunch break a little early.
Yes, that made sense. And while he was eating, he could spend a little more time on this project. Eat on the couch, as he looked over the scrapbook with the obituaries.
He’d save the photo album for this evening, when Rachel came over.
24
Jack sat in the recliner with a fresh cup coffee, the scrapbook lying open in his lap. As intrigued as he was by the photo album, he had quickly become even more so with this. A photo album made sense. A collection of one’s pictures over time. This did not. Unless it was a collection of obituaries from deceased family members, which this was not. Jack had already concluded it wasn’t a collection of old war buddies, either. So, what was it? What was the point of cutting out various obituaries from a local newspaper—of people who were not relatives—and pasting them into a scrapbook?
Jack slowly turned the pages and quickly realized…none of these obituaries were from the local newspaper. None were even from the same newspaper. He read them aloud. “The Florida Times-Union, The Miami Herald, The Sarasota Herald-Tribune, The Post and Courier from Charleston, The Daily Sentinel in Texas, The Houston Chronicle, The Roanoke Times and The Kansas City Star.”
Eight in all.
Jack noticed something else, something he hadn’t realized before but should have. All these obituaries were written in the 1990s. He had assumed they were newer than that. But given that the ages of the dead men represented were all in their seventies, the articles would have to be that old. World War II veterans dying now were in their nineties. He quickly thumbed through them and confirmed something else: the obituaries had been pasted in chronological order. In other words, the first article was about a man who’d died in February, 1993; the last one died in April, 1998.
Eight men in five years.
He flipped back to the first article and began to read:
WWII Pilot Dies in Accidental House Fire
William James Hanover, son of Tom and Madilyn Hanover, died in his home on Sunday, May 13, the likely cause was smoke inhalation. He was 71 years old. An investigation of the fire is still underway but authorities do not suspect foul play. Hanover was known to be an avid smoker. He appears to have died while taking a nap on the living room sofa, a fire department spokesman said. Results of an autopsy are still pending.
When the fire department arrived, one whole side of Hanover’s house was fully engulfed in flames. He was a widower and lived alone.
Hanover was a long-time Tampa resident, having moved here in 1952 with his bride, Mary Gleason from Vermont. The couple had been married since 1945, shortly after Hanover came home from the war.
Hanover served in the U.S. Air Force during World War II. He was a First Lieutenant, captain and pilot of a B-17 bomber in the 379th Bombardment Group. His crew successfully flew 35 missions over Germany from Kimbolton airfield in England. Hanover won the Distinguished Flying Cross after one harrowing mission to Cologne, where he managed to bring his bomber home with only one remaining engine.
Jack continued reading a few more paragraphs, but the article shifted to things like what Hanover had done after the war and listed the names of his surviving children and their spouses.
He carefully turned the black scrapbook page and began to read the second obituary. It was from the Miami Herald, dated about six months later. This man’s name was Franklin Hodges, who died at age 74. Like Hanover, he had also died in his home but Hodges was killed from what appeared to be an explosion. Fire department officials suspected a ruptured gas line. Once again, no foul play suspected.
Jack read down a bit until he found the paragraph describing Hodges’ World War II involvement. Again, like Hanover, Hodges had flown B-17s in the war. The article didn’t mention which bombardment group Hodges flew for, but it did say he was based in Kimbolton, England. Jack was pretty sure that meant Hodges must’ve also flown for the 379th. He set the scrapbook aside for a moment, went over to his laptop at the dinette table and googled it. Sure enough, Kimbolton was where the 379th had been based.
Hmmm. What were the chances?
He brought the laptop back over to the living room and set it on the coffee table, in case he had any more details to look up. Picking up the scrapbook, he went on to read the third obituary, dated five months after the second.
Okay, this was becoming ridiculous. The headline itself grabbed Jack’s attention:
Former World War II Bomber Pilot Dies in Fire
Before reading any further, Jack read the headlines and first few sentences of all the other obituaries. Every single man, in one way or another, had died at home in some kind of fire-related accident. He spent the next thirty minutes reading through each article, only this time he took notes.
Besides the fact that they were all killed in some kind of fire in their homes, none of the fires appeared to be listed as arson. All of them were cited as accidental deaths. No foul play suspected. If not plainly stated, that was the implication.
The other astounding coincidence? All of the men had flown B-17 bombers during the war and all but the last one mentioned either Kimbolton airfield or that they had flown for the 379th bombardment group. The last one didn’t mention any bomb group affiliation, but Jack was certain if he looked it up he’d find this pilot had flown for the 379th, as well.
This was crazy.
Jack set the scrapbook down on the coffee table next to his laptop and sat back on the recliner. The implications of what he’d discovered began to set in. A scrapbook of former bomber pilots, all from the same bomb group, all killed in their homes over a period of five years in fire-related accidents.
And no one suspected a thing.
Why would they?
The deaths took place in different cities across several different states. The internet was alive then but in its infant stage compared to now. Most local police departments had no way of comparing data with other police departments, let alone different law enforcement agencies.
If someone had a mind to kill these men this way, and make it look like an accident, Jack saw how they could easily get away with it. Just then, part of that first conversation he’d had with Mr. Bass played through his mind. They had been standing out on the porch. Bass had been talking about “old man Wagner.”
He was a strange one. Had this fierce look in his eyes. I was a younger man then, bigger than I am now. Linebacker in high school if you can believe it. Wasn’t afraid of nothing. But if I’m being honest, I was afraid-a him. Made me feel like he’d snap my neck if I crossed him.
Jack shuddered. He was certain he was holding a scrapbook old man Wagner had put together himself. Jack had no idea why just yet, but what else made any sense? These obituaries were his trophies. Men, who for some reason, Wagner had killed in house-related fires made to look like accidents.
And Jack was holding in his hand the only thing that tied them all together.
25
It was another gorgeous afternoon in downtown Culpepper. Burkhart Wagner—called Burke by friends, Senator Wagner by the rest—stood by the thick burgundy drapes in his plush sixth-floor office peering out at the sight. He was looking down at the array of historic shops and buildings that surrounded the manicured city square.
Wagner had paid some serious dues for this view and liked to catch it whenever he could. Right now his eyes focused on the County Courthouse Annex. He could see it clearly from his office. It was a place he knew well—from the inside. As exciting as it was arguing live cases before a jury, these days Wagner preferred to avoid courtrooms. Too much work for the money. Of course, it was his ability to sway juries in those same courtrooms during some high profile cases ten years ago that secured the leverage he now enjoyed, as he hammered out far more lucrative financial schemes behind the scenes.