The Roswell Swatch

by Scott Powers

  A dog barked deeply and loudly inside the house when Fish rang the doorbell. Hal Gleibicz answered the door, or at least someone Eve, Max, and Fish assumed to be Gleibicz. He was in his eighties and short, perhaps shortened more by age, but with a tough frame and skin that looked like saddle leather. Gleibicz sported a head of neatly trimmed white hair and blue eyes that still looked sharp, though suspicious. He wore a crisp, blue dress shirt and pressed tan slacks.

  He eyed the tall, skinny black man, the tall, skinny, white hippy, and the petite blonde woman with defiance. He was a soldier guarding his castle, and these three didn’t scare him.

  “Who’re you?”he asked, compressing the words into a minimum of sounds.

  Fish took the lead.

  “Good afternoon. Mr. Gleibicz? I’m Jim Fish, the reporter from Dayton. We talked on the phone. This is Eve Mirada, Joe Fynn’sgranddaughter. I mentioned her to you. She’d like to meet you. This is her friend Max.”

  “Told you I don’t want to talk to you.”It came out in deep southeastern Ohio dialect, using as few syllables as necessary.

  Gleibicz started to push the door closed on their faces.

  “Mr. Gleibicz, please,”Fish said.

  Gleibicz stopped. He eyed them with respect, as if there was something proper about listening to just a little bit of their appeal.

  “We’ve come a long way. We wouldn’t have come all the way up here if it wasn’t important to us. It’s important to Miss Mirada. She just wants to ask you some questions about her grandfather.”

  “I don’t remember any Joe Fynn,”Gleibicz said. “Sorry.”

  Across the threshold, Max noticed that behind Gleibicz, the interior looked like a Catholic shrine. Religious art and icons covered everything he could see.

  He crossed himself. That caught the old man’s attention.

  “Sir, I believe Providence has brought us to you,”Max said.“I believe the Lord has created this moment for us all. Maybe. Maybe. I have one question for you before we leave. I think you and I share this. I must ask.”

  “What?”Gleibicz asked.

  “Sir, do you believe in redemption?”

  “Dem’shn?”

  “Yes, sir,”Max said stepping forward, crowding Fish back.“Redemption. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? You do. I can see it. Yes, I can. God’s got a plan for us all. But we’ve got to do our part. Maybe that’s why we’re here. Maybe that’s what this is all about. Maybe this is your chance. We thought we came here because we thought we needed you. But now that I see you, I have this revelation. This…Mother Mary, I can’t explain what I’m feeling right now. I think you need us. I think we were sent here so you could unload your burden.

  “This woman,”Max said, grabbing Eve’s shoulders.“This woman is the granddaughter of Joe Fynn. And I know you know who he was, and I know you know what this means. This is the time. This is the moment.”

  Max crossed himself again.

  Gleibiczstood his ground, but he didn’t close the door any farther. Something inside him, something old and painful and long neglected, was breaking. Max could see it in the old man's eyes. They were softer now. They were showing a soul unwinding.

  “This is it, sir. This might be the moment you were hoping for. All these years, you've been waiting for us, hoping we'd show up to hear you out. Well, we're here.”

  “What d’youknow what I’m hopin’ fer?”

  “Why don’t you tell us?”Max said.“Or at least give this pretty young thing a chance to tell you why she’s come to see you. Please, sir, just a few minutes. You can let us in. Or you can let us go. Your choice. But this might be the last chance.

  “The last chance,” Max repeated in a whisper.

  “Yer Cath’lic?”the old man asked.

  “I was once a priest,”Max replied.

  “What happen’?”

  “It’s a long story. I sort of fell for a girl.”

  “He was weak,”Eve said.

  It worked. Gleibicz took a deep, preparatory breath, stepped back, and let the door swing open.

  A hound dog lying on a carpeted floor eyed them but didn’t get up or make a sound. Eve now saw what Max had seen. Oil paintings, prints, statues, candles, and icons of Jesus, the Lord, the Virgin, and the disciples on every wall, every table, and every shelf.

  Eve hadn’t been to church in over a decade, and hadn’t given it much thought, but she crossed herself too. Carrying her scrapbook, she sat on a white couch. Max sat beside her. Fish lowered himself, painfully, into an armchair.

  Before he sat down, Gleibicz picked up a phone.

  “Going to call my son Ken. He’s a lawyer. He’ll be here in jus’few minutes. Please make yerselfcomfortable. I don’wan say nuthin’ ‘till he gets here. Can I get ya somethin’to drink?”

  “Thank you, water would be fine,”Fish said.

  “Water please, thanks,”Eve said.

  “Got any beer?”Max asked.

  Gleibicz disappeared into the kitchen with the phone. He returned with two glasses of iced water and a can of Miller and then took the other armchair. And they sat, silently, except for a few quiet comments between Max and Eve, sharing small talk about the drive out and the house, while pretending to be cool enough about this moment to care about such small talk.

  Ken arrived in about twenty minutes. He was a man in his early- to mid-fifties with similarly trimmed blond hair, peppered with grey, and the body of a dedicated runner tucked in a crisp, charcoal grey suit. Gleibicz got up and followed his son down a hallway. He led him back out a few minutes later. Ken Gleibiczbrought over a chair from the dining set in the next room and placed it next to his father’s armchair.

  He spoke with just a trace of the southeastern Ohio accent that made his father so difficult to understand.

  “My father wants to talk with you. I’m not sure it’s a good idea, but he’s determined. And I know what this has meant to him all these years. But he wants me here to, ah, make sure he doesn’t say anything he doesn’t want to say.”

  “Why?”Fish asked.

  “Why what?”

  “Mr. Gleibicz,”Fish said to the old man.“Why do you want to talk to us?”

  Gleibicz looked him straight in the eyes.

  “Don’know. Guess he's right. I always wan’ talk to some’n. It's been a while. Don’know what I c’say. Or what all I c’member. Why’re you here?”

  Eve finally spoke up.

  “My grandpa died last month. He left me this scrapbook and a story about how he and some men had taken on a mission under your command. In 1955. And what happened afterwards.”

  “Wa’s zat?”

  “Everyone died,”Eve said, leaning forward.“Everyone except him. And you.”

  “Mr. Gleibicz,”Fish said. He pulled a notebook, pen, and the digital recorder from different pockets. He placed the digital recorder on the table and pushed the record button.“I’d like to take some notes. And I’d like to record this talk. Any time you don’t want anything on the record, you just say so. I’ll turn this off and I’ll not take notes, and that’ll just be between us. Is that okay?”

  Ken turned toward his father, but his father kept his eyes on Fish. He nodded.

  “’S'right.”

  “I want to know,”Eve said,“what happened to my grandmother. And what happened to those other men. And my grandpa. And you. That night. And in the weeksthat followed.”

  “Wha’sin the book?”

  “Oh this? This is a scrapbook. It has newspaper articles. From Jim’s newspaper. From 1955. About the men’s deaths. And some other things my grandpa kept.”

  The old man nodded. He gathered himself. They waited.

  “Yaknow, in Korea, I saw stuff I’ll ne’rforget.”

  His voice got stronger, more intense. He was becoming a leader, commanding.

  “Good men. Good men I served with died. But yalearn to‘ceptit. It’s what ya do, yaknow. It’s war. Others, well. Not th’same losin’men in peacetime, ya know
. Yane’er get o’er feelin’helpless.”

  “These men,”Fish clarified, pointing to the scrapbook in Eve’s lap.

  Gleibicz nodded.

  “Were they your men?”Fish asked.

  “Nah, jus’fer th’one night, I knew‘em. It was tough seein’ ‘em die so young. But they, they wasn’tmy men.”

  “But they were for that one night,”Eve said.

  Gleibicz stared at her.

  “Here.”She opened the scrapbook to the group photo and showed it to him.

  He squinted. He produced reading glasses from a wooden swivel box on an end table and put them on. He leaned in closer and studied the picture.

  “Mary, Mothera’ Jesus,”he said slowly, carefully.“Where’d you gitthat, miss?”

  “My grandfather kept it,”she said.

  “Where’d he gitit?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Gleibicz studied the picture some more. He took off the reading glasses and slipped them into his shirt pocket. He looked at his son. He looked at Fish. He looked at Eve. Ken Gleibicz got up and walked over so he could see the photo too.

  “That scares me,”the older Gleibiczsaid.“Who’re you? Who the hell’reyou? What’re you doin’here?”

  “We told you,”Fish said.“Why are you scared?”

  The young Gleibiczstood straight.“Pop, it’s okay. You don’t have to say anything. I can ask these people to leave.”

  But the father waved him away with a gentle movement of his left hand.

  “I wanted tatell this story,”he said.“I always wanted ta. Young man here's right. I bin waitin’fer someone taask me. Might as well.”

  He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. He closed his eyes. Eve realized he was praying. He ended it by crossing himself, and then he looked into her.

  “It was 1955. March, I think. Last snow was still hangin' 'round.”

  Gleibicznormally worked in airfield supply. His commanding officer said he’d gotten a call. Someone at the wing headquarters wanted to talk to him. His CO had no idea why, but sent him on his way. In the headquarters building, he met with a colonel he didn’t know. After he excused his aide from the room, he told him he was selected for a simple but critical detail.

  “I was to oversee a unit haulin’materials to a lab in C’lumbus. I kept thinkin’,‘Why me?’Course, I didn’ask. Order like that comes down, ya just do it. They picked seven men from other units. We met at a hangar at midnight. Scientist from gov'mentmet us there, a tall man with a Russian name. No one else was there.”

  Hal said the scientist at the hangar had credentials as a National Security Council agent, answerable to the White House.

  “He’s in charge. That was clear,”Gleibiczsaid.“Didn’t like him. But we all‘stood that what he want’ was ver’ importan’. And ya know, I was the off’cer. It was my duty to run the detail. Those men, they answered ta me.

  “Thought everythin’ went smooth. Loaded boxes, crates, and large items wrapped in par’chutes. Two trucks. We drove. We unloaded,”he said.“That was it.”

  “But after we got back, that NSC guy took me aside,”Hal said.“He said,‘We got prob’m. Some of yermen stole some materials.’”

  “What’d they take?”Fish asked.

  The old man shook his head slowly.“Never knew,”he said.“Did'n ask.

  “See, he was a national intell’gence guy. From the White House, ferGod's sake. I was a junior officer,”he said.“See, I had no need taknow.”

  Gleibicz figured the guys lifted some things while they rode in the back of one of the trucks. He sat up front with the driver and the NSC agent.

  “An’I didn’really know none o’these guys. Sowho knows? Guy from the NSC said they were all security threats.”

  The old lieutenant got up, feebly. His son stood to help him but Gleibiz waved him off. He walked to one of the shrines that had a plaster statue of the Virgin Mother surrounded by candles. He stood there a long time with his back turned to the others.

  “One by one, they died,”Hal continued his story without turning back.“It was nat’nal s’curity. I’d sworn to defend this country, not them.”

  Eve, Max, and Fish said nothing for a moment.

  Finally, Fish asked,“What? What are you telling us? You killed them?”

  “No! Not me! No I didn’. I. Hell no!”he stammered.

  His son, the lawyer, sat still, as if he knew better than to respond to his professional instincts. He knew he should not stop his father now. Gleibicz fished a pack of smokes from a pocket, lit one, and sucked hard. He turned back to them and started making his way back to his chair.

  “Shit. Shit. It’s what I been tellin’myself for sixty-some damn years,”he said, blowing smoke.“No. Not me. No. Shit.”

  He took a long drag, looking at the ceiling.

  “They couldn’t have done it without me.”

  Fish asked.“What did they do? And who’s they?”

  The son finally whispered to his father, but the old man shook his head.

  “Too long. Too long,”Hal said.“The Russians. The Chinese. K'reans. If someone’s a threat, he's a threat. You don’t un’stand. This country had real en’mies.‘Specially back then.

  “That NSC come to me again. Tol’me ta keep my mouth shut. Near’s anyone knew, them guys didn’know each other. Only one’s knew different were that colonel,‘n him‘n me‘n them. They told me to keep an ear out. Keep an eye out. Let‘em know if I heard or saw anythin'. And I did. I did my duty. I did, by God.”

  "Who's the colonel?" Fish asked.

  "He's dead. Long time ago. I don't recall his name 'xactly. McSumthin'."

  "Why'd this happen?" Fish asked.

  “Ne’er said why. Ne’er asked. But when them boys started dyin’I knew. I knew,”he said.“I ne’er knew how. I ne’er knew where. I ne’er knew why. But I knew who. And every time one a them boys died, I hated it. It et me up, I tell ya what. You got no idea. I had no one I could tell. You un’erstan’? I had no one I could go to. I had no one. And now, now I still don’know why.”

  Eve could control her anger no longer, as the old man confessed his role in killing her grandmother. Murder. She stood.

  “You did too kill her! You bastard,”she hissed. "You might not have done it yourself, but you were a part of it. You might have chalked it up to duty, but I was in the service too, and I know there are some lines you’ll never cross if you’ve got half a soul. Fuck you.”

  She reached for her purse. Max was afraid she’d grab her gun so he grabbed her wrists. Eve shot Max a look to remind him she could take him if needed and then sat.

  “She’s a little emotional. You can’t blame her,”Max said.

  “No I can’,”Gleibiczsaid.“I’m so sorry, darlin’. I lived w’that rest o’ my life, I have. All m' life.”

  “How? How were they killed? What was your role?”Fish asked.

  Hal looked annoyed.“I tol’ you,”he said.“I didn’do it. The NSC guy would ask me questions‘bout‘em, but hell, I didn’t know‘em. They wasn’tin my unit. I told‘em what I could, but it weren’t much. When that first airman died, drank hi’selft’death, if I recall, I didn’t know what tathink.”

  Then the next guy drowned in a pool. And then Keller died in fire. Gleibiczknew. But he didn’t want to admit it, not even to himself. Once, he saw the colonel from wing headquarters in the officers’ club bar and he thought about asking him. But he didn’t have the courage. He knew he’d be cut down on the spot at any rate.

  After the crash that killed Eve’s grandmother, the NSC guy disappeared. Hal spent the rest of his life waiting, praying, waiting for a chance for redemption.

  “’demshin," he said.

  The magic word that got them in.

  Fish pressed Gleibiczfor details about each man who died in 1955, but he never knew them well. He didn’t even remember all their names. SoFish pushed for more on each death. The old man’s memory faltered on several. In fact, Eve, who’d read the newsp
aper accounts, knew more. He also claimed to know nothing about the items the unit transported that night. He never looked. He never cared. His job was to make a delivery, not look in the box. And he repeated his insistence that he never knew what it was the men stole.

  The NSC guy shot the photo. Gleibicz remembered that happening. He said it was for the files.

  “Guess he used it tatrack‘em. To ID‘em. Never gave us copies tho’. If your grandpappy had one, could be he was in on it. Could be he was helpin’that bastard. Don't know why else he'd have it.”

  Eve was speechless. She felt mortified.

  Max saw it.

  Fish went on questioning Hal about the picture. Who’s this? Who’s that? The old man kept telling them he didn’t know. What, anything, could he recall about the colonel? He didn’t remember. What could he remember about the place they took the materials? Nothing.

  Eve was no longer paying any attention, no longer listening. Max took her hand.

  “Eve and I need to take a break for a moment,”Max said. “Come on, babe, let’s step outside. Excuse us.”

  Hal’s son, Ken, led them through the kitchen to the back porch.

  “My father told me some of this,”Ken said.“Years ago. I’m sorry for your grandparents. It destroyed him, especially what happened to your grandmother, I think. You know, this ended his military career. He said he always dreamed of a long career, but he got out right after this happened. Came back here and worked as an executive in a coal company down the road. Put in forty years, and hated every day of it.”

  “Good,”Eve said.“I’m not here to forgive him.”

  Ken nodded and left them alone on the porch. Max held Eve’s face in his hands and wiped back her hair.

  “Eve, we have to consider the possibility that your grandfather helped,”he said.

  “Bullshit. They tried to kill him too.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe he crashed on purpose because his wife knew what was going on. Or maybe he was just drunk and it was an accident. What you told me about him, you hated him. I don’t know why you can’t see now that maybe that was the right attitude all along.”

  She looked at him with searing eyes.

  “If that was true, then he’d have ratted on Dan Rose, right? Rose knew. He knew Rose knew. If that was the case, they’d have come after him too. He never told about Rose. Right?”