Comes the War

by Ed Ruggero

  Stowe sat on a bed while Harkins and Wickman stood in the small space near the window.

  “I’m sorry about Miss Batcheller,” Harkins said. “Helen.”

  “Which of you is the principal on this?” she asked. Wickman pointed at Harkins.

  “Why a lieutenant and not the captain?”

  “I was a cop,” Harkins said. “Before the war. We both were, but I investigated a murder last summer. In Sicily.”

  “Catch your man, did you?” she asked.

  “In a manner of speaking, yeah,” Harkins said.

  Stowe looked at him for a moment. He had not answered her question, and she knew it.

  “That hardly inspires confidence,” she said.

  Annie Stowe looked to be about Harkins’ age—twenty-seven or so—and was quite beautiful, with auburn hair, bright green eyes, and a tiny dimple on her chin. She wore a pearl choker, a navy-blue dress, and a cardigan that a demure teacher might wear to meet the parents of her students. If she was angry with Harkins and Wickman for going through her things, she seemed to be getting over it.

  “Do you have any suspects?” she asked.

  “We’re making some progress,” Harkins said. “Any chance we could go someplace else to talk? It’s a little crowded in here. Close.”

  “Okay,” Stowe said, standing.

  Harkins and Wickman followed her down the stairs and out the front door. Lowell was waiting out front, standing by her staff car.

  “We’ll walk,” Stowe said, buttoning her coat as she moved.

  “Wait here,” Harkins told Lowell.

  Harkins and Wickman followed Stowe. It was dusk now, the streets fading in gray light, but Stowe knew the neighborhood and moved quickly. Harkins was happy he didn’t walk into a sign or post in the blackout. When Stowe ducked into a doorway the two officers followed her into a small pub. Three older men stood at the bar; the few tables were empty.

  “What’ll it be, Annie?” the bartender called to Stowe as she sat and motioned for Harkins and Wickman to join her.

  “Pint for me, Roger,” she said. Wickman held up two fingers; Harkins shook his head.

  Stowe slipped out of her coat, letting it slide onto the back of her chair. She crossed her legs and looked at Harkins, then Wickman, then Harkins again.

  “Go ahead,” she said.

  Harkins produced his notebook. “Do you know of anyone who might want to hurt Helen?”

  Her eyebrows moved closer together. “You mean ‘might want to kill her,’ don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Harkins said.

  The three men standing at the bar looked over, then turned back when Harkins met their gaze.

  “I’m sorry,” Stowe said. She moved her jaw side to side, as if to unclench it. “I guess it’s just sinking in. What happened to her.”

  “Perfectly understandable,” Harkins said.

  “How long have you two shared a room?” Wickman asked.

  “Six, seven months, I guess.”

  “And you were close?”

  “I’d say so, yes. Lived in tight quarters, took a lot of our meals together.”

  “Did Helen get along with her colleagues?” Harkins asked.

  “Not always, and not all of them. But nothing that would warrant this,” she said, her voice catching.

  Harkins waited a moment, let her compose herself. Stowe sat up straighter, shook her head, a tiny movement.

  “Can you give me an example of a falling-out she might have had? Or a disagreement with a colleague?”

  Stowe drew a deep breath. “Helen stood up for herself,” she said. “Not everyone liked that.”

  “Meaning?” Harkins asked.

  “Obviously, we work in a man’s world. More often than you might think, a man will claim credit that doesn’t really belong to him. When someone pulled that stunt with Helen, she called him on it. The trouble is that when a woman speaks up, even if she’s sticking up for herself, she’s a bitch. A man doing the same thing is strong.”

  Harkins made a note to find out how many women were on OSS staff.

  “Did you do that, too? Stick up for yourself and your work?”

  “I’m not as brave as Helen is. Was.”

  “She tussle with anyone in particular?”

  “No,” Stowe said, her face relaxing a bit. “But she’d goddamn one man as quick as the next.”

  “You ever hear her talk about a Major Cushing?” Harkins asked. “A pilot with the Eighth Air Force?”

  “No.”

  Harkins figured Stowe would not tell him about her work, but he wanted to learn what he could.

  “So you and Batcheller worked together?” Harkins asked.

  “Only in the same way you and I work together, Lieutenant. We’re both OSS.”

  “Of course, of course,” Harkins said. “But you’re an economist, too, right?”

  “I was a mathematician,” she said. “Once upon a time.”

  “Really?” Harkins said. “That’s a field, a job? I mean, you can just do math all the time?”

  Stowe allowed herself a smile, showing perfect teeth. Harkins noticed Wickman staring at her; he thought the other man’s breathing had slowed.

  “Let’s just say Helen and I were both numbers girls.”

  And just like that, Stowe started to cry. Not a big, messy, snotty cry, but a lady-like and delicate sniffle, a bright tear on each cheek.

  “I’m sorry,” Harkins said.

  Stowe forced a smile. “Not your fault. I was just thinking about her family, when they find out. What they’ll be told. She was from California. Family had a big spread out there. Horses, sheep, goats, chickens, just all sorts of animals. A whole tribe of dogs. Her mother used to write about the dogs, especially. Once she even sent Helen a picture of some puppies.”

  “Funny, the things we miss,” Wickman said. “You don’t anticipate it, then it hits you.”

  Harkins thought Wickman was trying too hard to make an impression, but if it got Stowe talking, he’d let it ride.

  “Did Helen have any friends from the Soviet Embassy?” Harkins asked. “Anybody she worked with, maybe?”

  “We met some folks at various social events,” Stowe said. “Cocktail hours, pub crawls. This was back when Maisky was the Soviet ambassador here; he was a big proponent of plain old friendship.”

  “He’s not the ambassador anymore?” Harkins asked.

  “No. He got sent back, maybe called back. Stalin was probably angry that the Allies didn’t open a second front in the west last year. I hear he blamed Maisky.”

  “So Helen knew some of the Soviets?”

  “Well, like I said, socially.”

  She seemed like she wanted to say more. When Wickman started to speak, Harkins silenced him with a glance.

  “I think she had a falling-out with a couple of our colleagues who were, in her opinion, too close to the Soviets. I mean, we’re ostensibly allies, but deep down, Helen didn’t trust them. And she didn’t think the Americans here should become too chummy.”

  “Was it a serious falling-out? Did she complain to your boss or the chain of command in the OSS?”

  “I don’t think so,” Stowe said. “She did get drunk once and gave a few of the guys an earful.”

  “Who was that?” Harkins asked.

  Stowe looked at Harkins, held his eyes.

  “If I give you these names, you know it doesn’t mean that they killed her, right?”

  “Of course,” Harkins said.

  “I’d rather not have it come back to me that I gave the investigators some names over a little tiff.”

  “Was it a tiff?” Harkins asked. “Not a falling-out? Maybe an argument?”

  “See?” Stowe said. “This is why people don’t want to talk to cops. You share one confidence and suddenly they’ve constructed a motive and a crime scene and are lining up the hangman.”

  Harkins leaned back in his chair. It had been going well up to that point, but now Stowe seemed spooked.

&nb
sp; “Are you afraid of repercussions? For talking to me?”

  “Look, Lieutenant,” she said uncrossing her legs and leaning toward him. Wickman, Harkins noticed, admired her legs for a few seconds before looking up again.

  “I know you’re just doing your job here,” she said. “But you’ve got to understand, even the whiff of impropriety in the OSS or the embassy—that could mean the end of someone’s career, get them shipped back home. I’ve seen it happen.”

  Harkins paused for a moment, returning her gaze.

  “Well, I’m glad you appreciate that I have a job to do,” he said.

  After a moment, she said, “Lionel Kerr and Marty Adkin. She thought they were overly sympathetic toward the USSR. Apologetic for some of the stuff Stalin did to his own people.”

  “Did she have any reason to fear that these men would try to punish her? That they were angry with her?”

  “Nah,” Stowe said. “Helen told me she knew where the bodies are buried and didn’t have anything to worry about from these guys.”

  “Do you know what she meant by that? About the bodies, I mean. Did she have incriminating evidence on them?”

  “I don’t know,” Stowe said. “You’ll talk to Kerr, I’m sure.”

  “I will. What about the other guy?” Harkins asked, reading his notes. “Adkin?”

  “Oh, he’s gone,” Stowe said.

  “Gone?”

  She raised one hand, flipped her fingers as if brushing away an insect.

  “To the continent, I presume. He spoke French, so that would be my guess.”

  “And Kerr?”

  “Lionel will be around,” she said. “I’m pretty sure he’s allergic to the smell of gunpowder, so he’ll be here in good old London until the end of the party.”

  8

  20 April 1944

  2330 hours

  By the time Harkins and Wickman had deposited Stowe back at her flat, it was approaching midnight.

  “Calling it a day?” Wickman asked as they approached the staff car where Lowell waited, still on duty.

  “Not yet,” Harkins said to Wickman. “I want to go back at Cushing, see if he’s sobered up. Why don’t you have Lowell take you back to your quarters?”

  “Well, I can keep going for a bit longer, but wouldn’t it be better to question him in the morning after he’s had a night’s sleep?”

  “I want to wake him up,” Harkins said. “Keep him off balance.”

  The two men climbed into the back of the staff car.

  “Where to, sir?” Lowell asked. She did not turn around to look at Harkins.

  “Back to the drunk tank,” Harkins said. Then, “You doing okay, Lowell? Need to get back and get some sleep?” It had been seventeen hours since she’d driven Harkins to the crime scene.

  “I’m fine, sir,” she said, pulling away from the curb and sounding not at all fine.

  “’Cause chances are none of us is going to get much sleep while we’re developing this case. If you need me to get another driver for a spell I will.”

  “No,” Lowell said. “I mean, I’d prefer to keep driving. I’m doing well, Lieutenant. Really.”

  Harkins looked over at Wickman, who had jammed himself into the backseat. He couldn’t see Wickman’s face, so he couldn’t tell if Wickman heard the same thing in Lowell’s voice.

  “What’s eating you?” Harkins finally asked her.

  He thought she was looking at him in the mirror. Maybe the phrase didn’t translate. “Pardon, sir?” she said.

  “Seems like something is bothering you.”

  Lowell was silent for a moment, maybe weighing how much to tell him.

  “Vera Brittain,” she said. She held up a folded newspaper from the seat next to her. Harkins couldn’t read it in the dark, but it was the tabloid she’d been reading earlier.

  “Who’s that?” Harkins asked.

  When Lowell didn’t answer immediately, Wickman spoke up. “The pacifist.”

  “Some people are calling her a traitor,” Lowell said.

  When she didn’t offer more, Harkins asked, “Are you going to tell me or should I guess?”

  “Vera Brittain is a well-known author here,” Wickman said. “Wrote a memoir about her time as a nurse in the last war. What was it called, Lowell?”

  “Testament of Youth,” Lowell said. She was driving slowly, following the barely visible glow of the car’s blackout headlights.

  “She lost her brother, her fiancé, and another friend, a young man, in the war,” Wickman said. “Not to mention what she saw in service at the front.”

  Harkins watched the back of Lowell’s head, her tense shoulders. Thought about what he had seen in just a few days at a field hospital in Sicily the previous summer. Mutilated bodies, platoons of corpses. One image that had visited him in dreams: an amputated lower leg, discarded in a metal trash can inside a surgical tent.

  “Sounds like enough to make anyone a pacifist,” Harkins said.

  Wickman shrugged, and Harkins asked Lowell, “Brittain—that’s her real name?”

  “Yes, sir. Brittain, with two tees,” Lowell said.

  She handed Harkins the folded paper she’d been reading.

  “What’s this?”

  “You can read it later, sir. It’s a piece called ‘Massacre by Bombing.’ Supposed to be the facts about the British and American bombing of Germany. Brittain wrote it.”

  “So, what? You think it’s bull?”

  “I don’t know. But she keeps writing these pamphlets and letters to the editor and making speeches about how we shouldn’t bomb German cities. That we’re killing innocent women and children. That it makes us no better than they are, no better than they were during the Blitz.”

  “Well, so far I’m with Brittain on this,” Harkins said. “I’m no fan of the Germans, and I’d be happy if we pulverized every Kraut wearing a coal-bucket helmet. But these big bombing raids? Hell, even with the smaller bombing missions on Italian cities and towns we killed a bunch of people who had nothing to do with starting the war. We’re probably doing the same thing in Germany, just on a bigger scale.”

  Even in the darkness Harkins could see Lowell glancing at him in the rearview mirror. Her grip on the wheel tightened.

  “I take it you don’t feel that way,” Harkins said to the driver.

  Wickman switched his gaze from Harkins to Lowell, his face unreadable in the dark.

  “I don’t know anymore, sir,” Lowell said. “Mister Churchill says that we must wipe out their factories, all their capacity to make military supplies. And that they must pay for what they did to us during the Blitz.”

  “And what do you think of that line of reasoning?” Harkins asked.

  “Well, it may be true that next time some madman wants to seize power, the people won’t be such sheep. Maybe they’ll speak up. Do something to prevent it.”

  “I don’t know,” Harkins said. “Seems to me your Mister Chamberlain was pretty sheepy at Munich. Handed over Czechoslovakia to the Nazis.”

  “He was not my Mister Chamberlain, sir,” Lowell said. “I wasn’t old enough to vote. I’m still not.”

  “That’s kind of my point,” Harkins said, not wanting to badger the kid but unwilling to swallow the sloppy logic of the politicians. “You had no more control over what Chamberlain did than some twenty-year-old German woman had over what Hitler did during the Blitz.”

  “A lot of people say we need to make them pay,” Lowell said. “Punish them.”

  “Eye for an eye, right?”

  Lowell didn’t answer.

  “My mother used to say that ‘an eye for an eye’ sounds great until everybody’s blind,” Harkins said.

  Lowell was silent, but then she took one hand off the wheel and wiped the back of it across her face. She might have been crying. Harkins leaned forward, put his hands on the back of the driver’s seat, an apology forming in his head. Here he was, getting all philosophical, when his homeland hadn’t been bombed, his sisters didn
’t spend their sixteenth birthdays pulling bodies from the rubble.

  “Look,” he said to Lowell. “I don’t know what I’m talking about, okay? You should just ignore me.”

  Before she could answer, the sirens began, drowning out everything else.

  There must have been an air raid alarm on a pole right next to the car, because the sound felt like a physical assault, as if it might push the sedan off the road. Lowell yanked the car to the curb and jumped out with a torch—a flashlight—in her hand. There were people walking briskly along sidewalks that had been empty just a moment before.

  The siren again. So loud Harkins could feel it in his chest.

  “This way!” Lowell shouted over the din.

  She led the men into a wide alley and behind an abandoned house. In an overgrown garden she found what she was looking for, an Anderson shelter, a half tube of corrugated steel about half the size of a small garage with an unprotected opening. The top was covered in dirt, the front a piece of sheet metal with a rectangular entrance cut through.

  “In there,” Lowell said, pointing with her light. Somehow she had taken charge of their little patrol.

  Wickman went first, banged his head on the door. “Shit!” The big man stumbled inside; Harkins could hear splashing.

  “It’s flooded in here,” Wickman yelled. Harkins plunged in next, tripping over a coaming and landing in the fetid water, his hands and knees sinking into mud. Lowell was behind him, her torch throwing crazy angled light.

  “God, it stinks,” Wickman said.

  Lowell crouched in the low doorway and swept the small space with her light. There were no chairs or bunks or supplies, but Harkins saw a metal ring of some sort sticking just above the water.

  “Well,” Lowell said. “The good news is that the slop bucket is still upright, so maybe we haven’t dived into a cesspool.”

  Harkins lifted his eyes to Lowell and the entrance, deliberately avoiding a few objects floating in the water. “I don’t hear any bombs,” he said. “Or ack-ack.”

  “Could be a false alert,” Lowell said. “It happens.”

  Harkins heard voices nearby, maybe behind the house next door, others looking for shelter.

  “Over here,” Lowell called, backing out of the doorway and stepping into the darkness, dousing her light.