Uniformly Dead

by Greta McKennan

  McCarthy grinned widely. “That would be me, no doubt. But I just told you, I didn’t have it. Got anything else?”

  “Why don’t you talk to the cops? I already told them everything I know about Angeline.”

  “Angeline,” he said softly. “Such a shame to lose her. Want to see my illegal pictures?” He lifted his camera and started fiddling with buttons on the back. He held it out so I could see the screen. “Just viewing them probably makes you an accessory to the crime.”

  I shot him a sharp look and bent over the camera. The photos were remarkable, given the chaotic conditions under which they were taken. Light softly illuminated Angeline’s face in a close-up. A wider shot emphasized her beautiful ball gown. A profile caught the sheen of her styled hair. Another close-up revealed the clumsy stitches on the back of her head.

  I looked up at McCarthy. “These are wonderful.”

  His eyes twinkled. “You’ll really like the next one.”

  The image changed, and I saw myself on the floor, legs splayed out, a look of outrage distorting my face.

  “That’s my favorite of the whole bunch,” he said.

  I dove for the delete button, but he snatched the camera out of my grasp. “No one touches the equipment,” he said, his face lit up with laughter.

  “Is this man bothering you, Daria?” Jim Laker appeared at my side, dressed in full Confederate uniform. Glaring at McCarthy, he offered me his elbow. I took his arm without thinking.

  “No, I’m just waiting for Colonel Windstrom,” I said, trying to sound indifferent. There was nothing I could do about the flush on my cheeks.

  “And I was just going to take some shots of the men drilling.” McCarthy indicated the rows of soldiers going through their maneuvers, practicing lunges with their bayonets, and sweating in the hot sunshine. “So nice to meet you, Daria Dembrowski.”

  His slight emphasis on my last name sent a flush to my cheeks again. I nodded my head curtly and turned to Jim. “It’s a wonder they let him loose,” I said, raising my voice a touch in the hopes that McCarthy would hear. I was rewarded with a chuckle from his retreating form.

  “Evidently he’s not the doll thief,” Jim said, staring after McCarthy with a look of disgust. “There’ll be hell to pay with the paper, though. I heard he’s had a series of defamation cases filed against him. Colonel Windstrom joins a long line of disgruntled readers. It’s only a matter of time before he loses his job. Good riddance, I say!” He bent his head to me. “How did it go last night with your brother? He didn’t get arrested, did he?”

  “No, the cops questioned him but they had no reason to detain him.” I gritted my teeth. “Pete did not take Angeline!”

  Jim laid a hand over mine where it rested on his arm. “I never thought he did.”

  “Thanks, Jim.”

  He bowed low. “At your service, as always.” He indicated my bulging shoulder bag. “Is that the colonel’s uniform coat, then?”

  I pulled it out and displayed it.

  “Very authentic looking,” he said.

  I bundled the coat back into my bag. “Is that coming from the Civil War reenactor or the Civil War soldier?”

  Jim laughed. “You caught me! What does Jim Merrick know about the quest for authenticity in tailoring, or about a missing doll, for that matter? Maybe we should say that Jim Merrick is taking the afternoon off, and Jim Laker is at your service.”

  “Sounds good to me.” I should have stopped there, but the depths of his dreamy eyes disarmed me. “I prefer the company of Jim Laker any day.”

  He bowed once again, this time taking my hand and touching it lightly to his lips. “And I, yours.” His head whipped around. “Huh, what’s this?”

  I looked up, startled. Three soldiers made their slow way from the drill field. With a pang, I picked out Skip and Finn supporting a very pale Chris Porter.

  “Chris, what’s wrong?” I cried out, dropping Jim’s arm and darting forward. He followed close behind me.

  “It’s this beastly sun,” Chris gasped. “I’m usually sitting on the porch with a cold drink, not drilling with a gun when it gets this hot.”

  “Colonel Windstrom will see you now, ma’am,” Torey announced. I didn’t budge.

  “Do you need an ambulance, Chris?” I hovered anxiously by his shoulder. “Heatstroke can be really dangerous.”

  “Nah. All I need is a drink and a bit of a rest.” He smiled wanly at me. “I’m not worried.”

  I watched him trudge away with Skip and Finn, then headed into the tent to do Colonel Windstrom’s fitting.

  His uniform fit perfectly; it should have taken no more than ten minutes for the entire process. It took an hour and fifteen minutes. Colonel Windstrom proved to be the most particular man I’d ever sewn for. True, I mostly sewed for women, but still . . . He was worse than Marsha’s mom. He examined every seam—every stitch, really—with a magnifying glass! He literally pulled out an honest-to-God magnifying glass to inspect my work! It was all I could do to keep from snatching up the coat and marching out of the tent. But I stayed—because I wanted to get paid. I suffered through the seventy-five minute insult before Colonel Windstrom finally gave me his stamp of approval.

  “Fine.” He pulled out a cracked leather wallet and extracted some bills. “Three fifty, right?”

  I gritted my teeth. I hated this part, where the satisfied customer tried to weasel out of paying full price. I pasted on a smile. “Actually, we had agreed on four hundred, if you’ll remember. I have the contract here in my purse . . .”

  He didn’t make me fish for it. “Four hundred,” he snapped. He stuffed the bills into a used envelope and thrust it at me.

  I thanked him and ducked out of the tent before he changed his mind. Thank God that job was over!

  I slipped the bills out of the envelope and counted them rapidly. Darn him—he’d stiffed me twenty bucks! I shoved the money back into the envelope and stuck it in my purse. He was going to get away with it—there was no way I was going back into that tent. It was worth twenty bucks to see the back of him and his miserable camp!

  The sunshine was so bright I was nearly blinded. I looked for Torey, but she was gone. A burly sentry with a ginger beard had taken her place. An eerie stillness lay over the camp—the men had obviously finished their drilling. The cameramen had disappeared, and it was too late to catch a ride home with Pete.

  “Are you still here?”

  Groaning, I turned to see Sean McCarthy grinning behind me.

  “I could ask you the same question,” I retorted.

  His grin widened. “And you’d get the same answer—obviously I’m still here.” He waved toward the dormant campfires, surrounded by exhausted soldiers. “I wanted a few more shots of the troops at ease before I move on.”

  “Have fun with that.” I turned on my heel to walk away. I’d had enough of this camp to last me until the next war between the states. I hoped my next job would land me in a less war-torn historical era. I threaded my way between tents and campfires, looking for the way out. They all looked the same: dirty white canvas triangles staked down in long, even rows. The musty smell of canvas rose in the shimmering air. I felt sorry for Chris, lying down in that close, moldy heat trying to recover from too much sun. Imagine if he was a real Civil War soldier, nursing a bullet or bayonet wound while stretched out on his narrow cot in the searing heat or shuddering cold. The twenty-first century men in this camp enjoyed dressing up and staging a mock battle, but the real thing could only have brought misery and despair to those who had to endure it. I loved a hoop-skirted ball gown as much as anyone, but I could not appreciate the excitement of reenacting a bloody, devastating battle. I wondered if I should check on Chris, even if he wasn’t worried about his health. Had anyone taken his temperature? That would be a good measure of the seriousness of his heat exhaustion.

  Measure! Nuts! I’d left my tape measure in Colonel Windstrom’s tent. I stopped in my tracks,
picturing it jumbled in a heap on top of the washstand. I hated the thought of braving Colonel Windstrom’s presence one more time, but I needed that tape measure. Not that there was anything special about it, but it was the third one I’d had to buy in the past two weeks. I’d accidentally cut one in half with my rotary cutter, I’d ruined another in the laundry, and then I’d lost a third when I took it to church to measure the windows in the nursery for new curtains. With a huge sigh, I abandoned Chris to his fate, and retraced my steps to Colonel Windstrom’s tent.

  For once, the colonel’s tent was quiet. No sentry stood at attention at the entrance. No querulous tones floated from within. I couldn’t believe my good fortune. Colonel Windstrom must be out, so I could nip in and grab my tape measure without facing him.

  I ducked through the tent flap. My eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the dim light within. But even before I could see clearly, I knew I wasn’t alone. I heard the ragged panting before I could make out the figure standing frozen with his back to me. Bent forward, staring at the ground, he paid no attention to my entrance. I blinked, following his gaze. An appalling sight met my eyes. Colonel Windstrom lay crumpled on the ground. His brand new Confederate uniform—that I had stayed up half the night finishing—was stained bright red with blood.

  I tried to scream, but only a strangled squeak escaped my lips. It was just enough to alert the shadowy figure to my presence. He whirled around, a bloody bayonet clutched in both hands. Drips of blood flew from the blade, splattering in an arc on the ground. His face was pale—paler even than when he had stumbled off the training field suffering from heat exhaustion. It was Chris—sweet, fun-loving Chris—advancing on me with a lethal weapon in his hands.

  Chapter Five

  My brain couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing. Chris lurched in my direction, and I screamed again.

  “My God, Daria, I think he’s dead!” Chris kept moving toward me, but I dodged away. He didn’t notice. His arm holding the bayonet fell to his side. “We’ve got to get help.” Drops of blood splattered the ground.

  I fought the urge to run. Whatever had happened here, Chris would never hurt me. “Dead? What happened?” I risked a glance at the body sprawled on the ground, covered in blood. I gasped and averted my eyes.

  “I don’t know. I got a message to report to the colonel. I got here and there he was, with a bayonet sticking up out of his chest.” He held out his right hand, still clutching the bayonet. I shrank back and collided with a crowd of gray-clad soldiers blocking the entrance to the tent. They swarmed inside, yelling. They tackled Chris to the ground, twisting his hands up behind his head to hold him down. The bayonet flew out of his grasp and speared the ground, quivering in the dirt. Blood dripped into the torn-up grass.

  My head spun at the sight of all that blood. “Chris . . .”

  He tried to turn his head, but the man on top of him shoved his face into the dirt. Did they think Chris was dangerous? That he was a murderer?

  “Hey!” I protested, but no one heeded me. My ears buzzed with the shouts of frightened men. Then I heard the general’s booming voice.

  “Clear out. Everyone out!” He strode into the tent, a massive man with a bald head and a long gray moustache. He was wearing a worn gray uniform glittering with gold bars and stars and other military stuff telling us that he was the man in charge. He looked at Colonel Windstrom for a long minute, and then pulled out a cell phone and punched in three numbers.

  The sight of that anachronistic cell phone in the midst of this nineteenth-century scene completely freaked me out. I shoved my way out of the tent, knocking aside soldiers in my haste to get out of there.

  I ran smack into Sean McCarthy.

  It was my turn to knock him over; we both went down in a heap of camera gear and sewing tools.

  “Whoa!” he exclaimed, pushing me off and scrambling to his feet. He reached down to scoop up his camera, then extended a hand to me as an afterthought. I looked up to meet his eyes. They were pale blue—grim eyes without a trace of laughter in them. He grabbed my hand and pulled so hard that I staggered forward on my way up and ended up in his arms.

  “Let go of me!” I cried, beating at his hands in a frenzy to escape.

  He held me at arm’s length, steadying me as if afraid I would tip over. Then he was gone. I could hear the clicking of his camera coming from inside that horrible tent.

  I stood in a daze, watching the tent flap fluttering behind him.

  Jim ran up and caught me by the arm. “Are you okay, Daria? What the hell happened in there?”

  I clutched at him. “It’s Colonel Windstrom. He’s dead.”

  “Dead?” Jim gripped my arms so hard, the pain cleared away some of the fog from my brain.

  All I could do was nod. I shook; my teeth chattered. Jim sat me down on a tree stump and draped his uniform coat around my shoulders. I clutched its woolen folds around me, shivering in the blazing sunshine.

  “He was murdered . . . They think it was Chris,” I whispered. “Chris is so nice, so easy-going. I’m sure he couldn’t have done it.”

  Jim knelt beside me, shaking his head sadly. “There’s been a lot of ugliness this week, Daria. Some of the men are Progressives—hard-core authentics, you know. They want to believe they are living in eighteen sixty-two, and they don’t want anyone else to spoil it for them. Colonel Windstrom was their ringleader. Chris wasn’t buying that view, and he stood out as a total Farb. He took a lot of flack from Colonel Windstrom about that. He probably hated the guy.”

  I pressed my hands to my temples. “Chris couldn’t hate anyone—he’s the sweetest guy I know.”

  Jim just shrugged, as if he knew something I didn’t.

  Emergency vehicles arrived with screaming sirens and squealing tires. Paramedics entered the clearing to deal with Colonel Windstrom and Chris, while police officers fanned out among the crowd, pulling people aside for questioning.

  Jim left me to circulate among the men. I watched him move from soldier to soldier, a murmured word here and a handclasp there, spreading comfort as he went. I noticed the sentry with the ginger beard, the one who was supposed to be guarding Colonel Windstrom’s tent, sitting on the ground in a daze. He rubbed a bump on the side of his head while paramedics attended to him. I could hear him muttering, “Something hit me . . . I dunno . . .” Then my gaze sharpened, as I caught sight of a lone soldier hovering at the edge of the clearing. Short, slight and beardless, he shifted from foot to foot, twisting a length of rope between his hands. He looked up and caught me staring. For a brief instant our eyes locked. Turns out, it wasn’t a “he” at all. I recognized Torey Brand, skulking in the shadows on the edge of a murder scene. She turned in a flash to slip away into the woods, flinging her rope over her shoulder on the way. I clutched Jim’s coat closer around me, staring after her.

  * * *

  For the second time in two days, I waited for the police to question me. When my turn came, I looked up without surprise into the eyes of Officer Carson. He looked me over, then flipped a few pages in his notebook. “Daria Dembrowski, if I’m not mistaken.” He glanced around expectantly. “Is your brother here—or did he just take off, perhaps?”

  My cheeks flushed. I held up my head and faced Carson. “Pete is at work,” I said, enunciating each word. “He’s a camera operator on a movie filming in town—God and Glory.” I left out the fact that Pete had actually been in the camp, filming the reenactors as they drilled in the field. That was Carson’s problem—let him figure it out. I held my gaze steady. “This has nothing to do with him!”

  “And what does it have to do with you?” Carson held his pen over the paper and waited.

  “I came today to deliver Colonel Windstrom’s uniform—because I’m a seamstress, like I told you yesterday.”

  Carson flipped back a page and nodded. “So what can you tell me about this death?”

  I described heading back to Colonel Windstrom’s tent to fetch my tape
measure and the sight of Chris, bent over the dead body with a bloody bayonet in his hands.

  “How did you know the victim was dead?” Carson demanded.

  “Chris said he was,” I stammered.

  “And did you witness the bayonet thrust? Did you see Porter stab him?” Carson watched my face closely.

  “No. I didn’t say Chris stabbed him. I said he was holding a bayonet. There was blood—blood on the ground, blood on the coat, blood everywhere . . .” I choked and closed my eyes, trying to banish the sight of all that blood.

  Carson asked what Chris had said to me, where he stood in relation to the body, which hand held the bayonet, what I had said to Chris. At some point, I looked up to see Chris filing out of the tent, flanked by two hefty police officers, hands cuffed in front of him. “No!” I cried out, jumping to my feet. “Chris is not a murderer!”

  Carson frowned and pointed to the stump. “That’s what we’re here to find out.” He waited for me to sit back down, then continued with his relentless questions. Did Chris threaten me with the bayonet? Did I hear any noise from Colonel Windstrom? Had I touched the body? I thought it would never end.

  Finally, he was done with me. “Well, Ms. Dembrowski, we know where you live.” He flipped through his notebook again, just to make sure. “You may be hearing from the district attorney’s office once they take over the investigation. If we need anything further from you, we’ll let you know.”

  I stumbled to my feet. Carson caught my arm. “You gonna be okay to drive?” He leaned closer as if he wanted to sniff my breath.

  I pulled my arm away. “I don’t drive,” I said. “I guess I’ll take the bus.”

  Carson frowned. “What do you mean, you don’t drive? Lost your license?”

  I lifted my chin. “I don’t drive, period. It’s personal.” As in, none of your business. I had no intention of going into details. Officer Carson didn’t seem like a man who would understand a phobia if he met it on the street.