An Owl's Whisper (47 page)

“I can savvy that. Guess that’s all for now. You take care of yourself, pardner.”

Jess stroked the stubble of beard on his chin. He snatched the telephone to call Eva then hung it back up. What the hell would he say to her? He opened his whiskey drawer and his eyes fell on what lay there next to the bottle—that blasted slip of pink paper he’d found clutched in Crickette’s icy fingers.

It screamed at him,
It was Eva
.

For the first time in years, Jess locked his desk drawer. Though it was barely 4 p.m. he turned off the office lights and went home.

Wallener

The next afternoon, the winter gale was still pounding the Sand Hills. Jess sat in his office, trying to see the words in Crickette’s notebook as anything but damning. Until he could do that, asking Eva about them seemed like lighting the fuse on a case of dynamite set to blow the lives of everyone around him to smithereens. To break the tension, he turned on the opera broadcast—the Met was doing Bellini’s
Norma
. He might have preferred a Donizetti comedy to this story of a desperate woman with secret guilt, but the beauty of the music was soothing.

Before the third act finished crackling out the wireless, there was a knock on the door and a big stranger swept in with the wind. Hefty in size, but even heftier in presence. A man packing something invisible. Something you feel. Like the air in front of a big storm. You can’t weigh it or slap a tape measure on it, but you sense it. And like a storm from up north, this fellow didn’t smell local. Before he opened his mouth, even covered up as he was in his white Stetson and huge overcoat with the fur collar turned up, Jess knew this man was a long way from home.

His German accent, thick as pine tar, confirmed it. “Mr. Sheriff, I presume? Good day. May I introduce myself?” He waited for Jess’s nod. “I am called Wallener. Professor Wolfgang Wallener.” He bowed slightly. “Of the University of Heidelberg in the Federal Republic of Germany.” He handed Jess his card.

Jess turned down the volume of the radio. “Name’s Garrity, Hooker County sheriff.”

They shook hands. Wallener had a blacksmith’s grip.

“What can I do ya for?” Jess said.

“Mr. Sheriff, I visit on an academic matter. I seek information.”

“Professor, I’d be happy to help however I can. Give me your coat and hat, and we’ll pull you up a chair next to the stove. It’s not just cold out there. It’s damn cold.”

The professor’s coat was wool. And heavy, as if the pockets held bricks. The coat tree groaned as Jess hung it up. His hat was sized for a grizzly. And brand new.

Wallener stood over the stove, rubbing his palms together. “Your wind here is magnificent, Sheriff. In my steps from the train station, I thought it might slice off my skin.”

“Miss Agatha—that’s my mama—she likes to say, ‘Ain’t nothin’ between us and the North Pole but a few strands of barbed wire.’ What’s on your mind, professor?”

Absorbed in scanning the room, Wallener ignored the question. His eyes fixed on the bookcase next to the front window. Bear-like, he ambled over to the display on top of the case: Small Marine Corps flags crossed over Jess’s service citation.

Without looking at Jess, Wallener said, “
Teufel Hund
.” Said it almost as a gasp.

Jess leaned forward. “Pardon?”

Wallener turned to Jess and smiled for the first time. “
Ein Teufel
Hund
. It means
Devil Dog
. It is how we called you at the Belleau Wood in 1918. You see, I was one of those facing you, a gunnery sergeant with a Maxim machine gun platoon of the 461st Imperial Infantry Division. We anticipated to sleep in Paris in those June days, but you
Teufel Hunde
made otherwise.” He strode toward Jess like the Hun had in France, but this time with a right hand, rather than a bayonet, extended. He took Jess’s hand, not to shake it but to pull him close, and whisper in his ear, “War, Mr. Sheriff Garrity—it is black business.”

“Can’t argue with that, professor.” Jess pulled his face back from Wallener’s, but his hand remained trapped in the man’s grip.

“We so admired your riflemen, Sheriff.” Wallener released Jess’s hand. “They could kill a fly—“ He snapped his fingers. “—at two kilometers.”

“Well, we had some good boys, but you fellers were fearless.” Jess was suddenly glad some Kentucky marksman hadn’t killed this particular Hun.

“Sheriff, such terrible days, but I often look back at them with warmth. How can that be?”

“If you find out, let me know.”

“Perhaps it was the men. Each depending on the other. Each ready to spend himself for his fellows. War is the closest men can come to each other. To nobility.”

They were quiet for a moment, like strangers fate brings together to show each other truth.

Wallener’s smile returned. “Sheriff, I cross the sea a pilgrim to honor your countryman, Mr. Hank Williams. This man’s music is my passion, and when he died, I pledged to make a pilgrimage to his grave. After these five years, I keep my pledge.”

Jess looked skeptical.

“
Ja, ja
, it is so. Should it surprise one? More so than the sheriff of a prairie land like the setting of a John Wayne western film who listens to European grand opera? I don’t think so. You and I like musical stories, and both opera and cowboys’ music are just that:
Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl back. Girl dies.
” Wallener shrugged. “Our musics conduct us to alien lands. When you listen to your
Norma
, you close your eyes and sail on the notes to Germania in the time of the Romans. Me, I listen to Hank Williams’ songs, and I shoot over the sea to a land as foreign and fascinating to a Heidelberger as is the moon. To the lonesomeness of a whip-o-will’s call. Or the ache of a tobacconist’s wooden Indian in hopeless love with a statue- maiden on an antique store shelf.” Wallener closed his eyes. “It is magic.”

“But you weren’t raised on cowpoke music back wherever in Germany, I ’spect.”

“I enjoy the opera, but I think I become less patient with age. Mr. Williams does in four minutes what Herr Wagner takes four hours to do.”

Jess chuckled. “One way to look at it. All the same, sure ain’t what you’d expect from a German professor and a flea-bit Hooker County lawman.”

“It reminds ourselves—Beware of anticipations!”

“Speakin’ of anticipatin’, I anticipate you savvy that Hooker County is a long ways from old Hank’s grave. So, what brings you to these parts.”

“
Ja, ja
, sheriff, I know this well, that I am out of my way to Montgomery of Alabama. As you surmise, I make travel to your door with another reason. You see, from 1929 I am professor at my university’s
Staatswissenschaft
department. It means roughly political science. Since the last decade, my specialty is the late National Socialist regime’s hidden mechanisms. Covert agencies, programs, financings, and so on. My research trove is the dusty document stacks of government warehouses.” Wallener held up his meaty index finger, a teacher marking a key point in his lesson. “The Nazis were meticulous documenters. Compulsives. Foolish, considering the dark nature of their work, but they could not help it. Compulsiveness is in the German character.”

“I’m sure it’s interestin’ work, Professor, but I don’t see the tie-up to Hooker County.”

“Allow me to get to that directly, my dear sir. Since two years, I found a thick file with the intriguing title,
Unsichtbarfrühaugen
—
UFA
. It means in English something like
Invisible Early Eyes
. The documents indicate
UFA
was a program to place children, girls to be precise, into Poland, England, France and Belgium to make intelligence gathering long prior to war.”

Jess smirked. “You funnin’ me, professor? Little girls as Nazi spies? That’s tougher to swallow than rusty barbed wire.”

Wallener scowled. “Observe yourself, sheriff: The very suggestion of young girl as spies strikes you as absurd!” He leaned forward and tapped his temple. “Apparent absurdity, the plan’s genius. An effective genius, for the UFA girls were never exposed. It was a bold plan, but boldness was never in short supply in the Reich’s High Command. The documentary evidence is clear. The program began in 1935 when thirty-eight wards of the state, eleven-year-old girls, chosen for high IQ, were put through psychological screening for loyalty and other desirable characteristics. Nine were eventually selected. After indoctrination, they were trained in information collection and in the language and customs of their new homes. In 1937, using invented identities and forged documents, the nine were placed into strategic locations; two went to France, two to England, two to Poland, and three to Belgium.”

Jess crossed his arms. “I reckon every government uses spies, Professor.”

“Of course. Today, each of our two Germanys teems with the other’s spies. But, sir, surely you see the perversity of using children, orphans some of them, as spies? Innocents corrupted! Reprehensible. But hardly surprising, for these same leaders were the cowards who sent untrained and lightly armed children into the teeth of Soviet steel during the last hopeless hours in Berlin. My monstrous generation!” He spat the last words.

“I’ll grant ya that. But I don’t see how it brings you to my door.”

“My good Sheriff, please to listen. And from here I must ask your confidentiality.”

Jess shrugged and nodded.

Wallener continued, “German Intelligence, the Silver Dagger Korps, used bird names for the UFA girls and tree types for their assignment locations. I deduced some locations and names by cross referencing files. For instance, Oak was a village on the Meuse called Lefebvre. A child, born Franka Kirschlager in Munich, was placed there with the code name Owl. I have completed the picture to present times only for the girl sent to Liege. She worked there under a handler, the infamous Silver Dagger agent referred to in Nazi files as Herr Messer, HM for short. It translates to
Mr. Knife
. This specter coordinated the behind-the-lines sabotage that was so effective during the Führer’s December 1944
Wacht am Rhein
offensive. The Allies called it the Battle of the Bulge. HM disappeared at the war’s end.”

Jess sighed. “Professor, I like to be hospitable to a feller’s gone considerable out of his way to talk to me, like you done. But these spyin’ things happened long ago and far away. Unless you got some idea your Mr. Knife is hidin’ out here, workin’ as a cowpoke maybe, I don’t see what good I can do you.”

Wallener knew how to parry impatience. He poured tobacco into the bowl of his pipe and fastidiously tamped it down with a pocketknife tool. He took out a lighter the size of a deck of cards and polished it on his shirtsleeve. He pressed a lever on the side and a metal arm, like a silver matchstick, popped out, spouting an orange flame. With vigorous puffs, Wallener set his tobacco aglow. When he looked up, Jess was drumming his fingers on the chair arm. Wallener smiled. “I come to the point of my call, sheriff. No, HM is not masking himself here. He is today dead. He lived in Argentina under the assumed identity of one Heinrich Klinger.
Klinge
means in German, the knife’s blade.” He relit his pipe. “Last year this man, this Heinrich Klinger, was murdered in his house. Found with a silver dagger in his throat.”

Jess looked at his watch. “Speaking of murders, just so happens I got one on my hands here, professor, an unsolved one, so I can’t spend all day listenin’ to stories of war spyin’ and South American murders. ’Less there’s some angle brings your tale back here to Hooker—”

“Sir, that is the precise reason for my visit. If I may proceed?” Wallener waited for Jess’ nod. “I mentioned a child sent to Liege under HM. She is the reason I travel here. Knitting a variety of documents I determined that a girl born Hille Werter went to Liege to work for HM under the
UFA
program. Code-named Canary, she was given the identity Crickette Gigault.”

The name Crickette caught Jess like a jab to the jaw. “Maybe you heard about a lady here named Crickette, professor, but you’re mistaken if you think she’s a spy. And now ain’t the time to come nosin’ around here with questions like that, anyway.”

“Sheriff, I’ve traced Miss Gigault here, through her marriage to an American Army Sergeant Conroy, her emigration to the United States, and her relocation to this place. An unbroken line exists from the orphan Hille Werter to Mrs. Crickette Conroy of Nebraska. There is no possibility of mistake.”

Jess wanted to yell
Bastard
and lunge for his throat. Make him take back that lie. Or at least make him shut up about a friend of his, recently deceased. Jess stood up, his aching shoulder bawling like a strayed dogie. He walked over to the coat rack and picked up Wallener’s heavy coat. “I think you’d better leave now. I don’t cotton to a foreigner bargin’ in here, claimin’ one of my folks is guilty of bein’ some Nazi spy.”

Wallener stood and held a hand out. “Sheriff, please to listen.” His voice was soft as a stream’s springtime burble. “
You
used the word guilty. My research has forced me to think long and deep about the subject of guilt! It makes me ask,
What is the guilt of children for despicable acts when adults with evil intent trained, duped, forced them to perform those acts?”