Blue Madonna (19 page)

“He tripped!” I said, keeping my voice muted but pointing an angry finger at Kaz.

“Show proper respect, Sergeant. Or else you'll end up back in the stockade, remember that.”

“Okay, Lieutenant, sorry,” I said, winking at Switch. “Glad to hear about the radio. Have you contacted London?”

“No, we're waiting for Juliet to finish coding the message. Takes some time to get right. As soon as the Germans leave and she finishes, we'll string up the antenna,” Topper said.

“Does that mean we'll get out of here?” Fawcett asked.

“Sooner or later,” Kaz answered. “They might smuggle you through Spain if we can make contact with another network. Or send in Lysanders, but that would take time. We only have a few nights with sufficient moonlight left until next month.”

“So when we gettin' outta here?” Meyers said, returning with a shearling-lined flight jacket over his arm.

“Don't know yet,” Fawcett said. “That's a good idea—I'm going to grab my flight jacket as well. It'll come in handy if we need to spend the night outdoors.”

“I doubt it will come to that,” Sonya said. “But hurry, and bring Brookes back with you.”

“Where'd Brookie get to?” Meyer said, shoving me as he took back his place on the bench.

“He went after you,” Babcock said. “You didn't see him?”

“Naw,” Meyer grunted, folding his jacket on the table and using it for a pillow. With all the twists, turns, and hidden chambers, it was easy to picture how they could have missed each other.

Fawcett returned with his heavy jacket, giving a shrug when asked if he'd seen his crewmate. It was obvious he didn't care one way or the other.

Ten minutes passed. Twenty. Now it was getting hard to see why Brookes wasn't back.

“Could he be lost?” Topper asked.

“He's not one to explore on his own,” Sonya said.

“And he's always on his own,” Switch said. He, Meyer, and Dogbite all snickered before looking to Fawcett.

“Why?” I asked. “What's the deal with him?”

“That's our concern,” Babcock said. “You Yanks mind your own business.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Didn't mean to offend the Royal Canadian Air Force.” I rolled my eyes in the direction of Meyer and Switch to show I could snicker with the worst of them.

“Maybe you'd like to look for him, Sergeant?” Kaz said in his most imperial tone.

“No, I will go,” Sonya said. “I know the tunnels better than any of you. No one leave; is that clear?” We all agreed. She took a flashlight from the shelf, flicked it on, and removed a small automatic pistol from her jacket pocket.

I followed her to the wide archway leading to the tunnel, which went off in both directions. To my right were our rooms and the armory. Sonya had gone left, in the direction of the other sleeping chambers, where Meyer had headed. I watched the beam of light dance against the stonework as she proceeded along the curving walls, the faint echo of footsteps fading as the light disappeared.

I waited under the arch, listening for the pounding on heavy wooden doors and harsh commands which would signal Zeller's discovery of one of the secret entrances. Or for the hushed tones of Sonya and Brookes, whispering as she led him back to the main room. For five minutes or so, the tunnels were silent.

Then came the steady pad of feet, light shining straight ahead as she made her way back. She brushed past me, stopping to stare at Fawcett, who'd appeared with his jacket slung over his shoulder. Something was not right.

“He's dead.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“Everybody out!” Sonya
said, her hushed voice raspy and raw. With a pistol in one hand and flashlight in the other, she herded us into the tunnel and through the cellar.

“What about Juliet and the others?” I whispered as she secured the door. Shaking her head, Sonya put her finger to her lips. Dogbite signaled for us to follow him, single file, into the woods.

Babcock and Fawcett gathered twigs and leaves, scattering them around the door to hide the evidence of our footsteps. They brought up the rear as everyone in the group ran low, making for a stand of pine trees on a small rise about a hundred yards out.

“What happened?” Babcock said as he hunkered down next to Sonya.

She raised her hand, the palm sticky with blood. “I think he was stabbed,” she said. “I found him near the entrance to the Druid temple. I have no idea what he was doing there.”

“Meyer, you sure you didn't see him?” Babcock said.

“I didn't. Never went that far.” Meyer crawled to the base of a nearby tree, keeping watch on our left flank.

“Fawcett?” Babcock hissed. “What about you?”

“No idea, Lieutenant. Really. Never laid eyes on him after he left.” It was the
really
that bothered me. Why did Fawcett feel the need to say that? Was the problem between him and Brookes so serious he needed to convince his own lieutenant he wasn't lying?

“Later,” Sonya said. “We need to listen for the Germans. If they got into the tunnels, we shall know soon enough.” She was right. Brookes wasn't going anywhere, and if a Kraut had killed him, they'd be spilling out of the stables and château anytime now.

But if it wasn't a German, we had a whole different problem.

The suspect pool was pretty small, most of it gathered around in the pine grove. Plus anyone in the château who knew about the tunnels: Vincent, Count Vasseur, Madame Agard, and Juliet. It was hard to imagine Brookes being a threat to anyone. He was meek, afraid of his own shadow, and eager to please. Maybe the taunting today had pushed him over the edge. Could he have attacked someone he ran into out of fright or rage or frustration?

Speculation was useless. I let my gaze linger on Fawcett and Meyer. No visible bloodstains. It would be revealing to see where Brookes had been stabbed. If there had been a lot of blood spray, they'd be off the hook.

Kaz caught my look and shook his head. He hadn't spotted any blood, either. We turned toward the château, and I knew he was wondering the same thing I was. What would the Germans do if they'd found the tunnels? Shoot everyone? Torture them? The thought of Juliet at their mercy was too much to bear. She'd endured capture before, and it had cost her. And me.

But it didn't feel right. There'd been no shouts, no alarm raised, no boot heels tramping through the stables. I had no sense of how much time had passed since Brookes went off to look for Meyer. Half an hour? Forty-five minutes, maybe. So why weren't the Germans ripping the place apart? Questions buzzed through my mind as we waited, watching and listening.

Almost an hour later, an engine coughed to life, then another. Sonya pointed to the right, where the trees thinned out enough to afford a view of the drive curving away toward the main road. A staff car appeared first, followed by two trucks with their canvas tops rolled up. Each carried a dozen soldiers. Their search was over.

Ours was about to begin.

• • •

I wanted to
hug her, kiss her, call her Diana, but all I did was nod as Juliet opened the root cellar door. It was enough for now to know she was safe.

We filed inside, Sonya bringing up the rear, her pistol still in her hand as she herded us through the entrance. Did she think the killer was about to bolt? Or had she been the one to knife Brookes? The SOE trained all their agents, male and female, in lethal killing. She and Juliet were probably more deadly with a blade than any of us, excluding Topper, who'd never left the room.

“Did you see?” Sonya asked her.

“Yes, on my way back to you. My God, what happened?” Juliet said, her eyes searching out mine. All I could do was shrug.

“Meyer left the room, and Brookes went to find him. Meyer came back, then Fawcett left as well. We never saw Brookes again,” Sonya said as we took our places in the salon, not quite as crowded as it had been a few days ago. The electric lights were on, casting harsh shadows on the floor.

“You left the room as well,” I said. “That's how you found him.”

“Of course,” she said. “You don't think I killed him?”

“Just getting our facts straight.” I smiled. “Four people left the room. One was found dead.”

“It could have been any four of them,” Babcock said. He sounded relieved, as if that took the pressure off his crewman Fawcett. “Or someone from the château. Doors work both ways.”

“Who's gonna be next?” Dogbite asked, taking a seat at the big table. “Why stop at two?”

“We need to understand why Armstrong and Brookes were killed,” I said. “That will tell us if we have to worry about the killer striking again.”

“All I know is, I'm going to be watching my back,” Switch said. “Like now, when I put my pack away.”

“I'll go with you,” Meyer said, grabbing his own gear and jacket. If Switch was nervous about Meyer following him into the tunnels, he didn't show it. But any crook worth his salt had a decent poker face.

“We must attend to the radio. Communicating with London is our priority at the moment,” Juliet said. “Lieutenant Babcock, I am sorry about Brookes. We will try to sort out what happened. But right now I need to finish coding my message.”

“I'll get the radio ready,” Topper said. “I need to string the aerial outdoors; there's sixty feet of it.”

“Sonya, help him set up the wireless in the attic. Show him where the aerial can be strung between the rafters. Lieutenant Kazimierz, will you and Sergeant Boyle see what you can learn from the body? We'll organize a burial after dark. The rest of you, stay here. There will be questions.” Orders issued, Juliet strode out of the room.

“Who does she think she is anyway?” Switch muttered. “It could have been her, sneaking in from the château.”

“In which case, best keep your comments to yourself,” I said, working at not sounding defensive. “You could be next on her list.” I grinned to show it was a joke. No one laughed.

“No dame ever got the drop on me,” Switch said. “No man, either, come to think of it.” We played the hard-stare game for a few seconds, and then I broke off before following Kaz into the tunnels.

“How's your rib?” I asked.

“It only hurts when I laugh. Fortunately, there is not much to laugh about. Are you getting any friendlier with Switch and his companions?”

“Not friendlier,” I said. “I'm cultivating the brotherly bond of crooks. Not much luck so far. Have you picked up anything about them?”

“According to Sonya, Blake seems intelligent, but content to remain quiet. Meyer is not well liked, and the last to offer assistance in any regard. Dogbite is colorful and amusing as well as restless. He has accompanied them on missions and killed Germans with a knife on several occasions.”

“So either Meyer or Dogbite would fit the bill as Switch's partner in crime. Or neither,” I said as we approached the dark tunnel that held the entrance to the Druid temple.

The beam from Kaz's flashlight played over the still form ahead. It looked like a pile of rags in the dank shadows, seeming to meld with the stones on which it lay. The dead never ceased to surprise me, no matter how many bodies I'd seen. Life animated us, made us whole. Death swept all that away, leaving a twisted imitation of the living, instantly recognizable as no more than cooling dead flesh.

Kaz shined the light on Brookes's face. There was nothing it could tell us.

“The hands,” I said, kneeling a foot or so away from Brookes. I hesitated to use his nickname Brookie. Everyone who used it treated it as a curse, as if they spat when they said it. Most guys got a nickname in their unit, but this hadn't been a shared camaraderie.
Brookie
was a diminutive, a verbal lessening of the man. I needed to find out what had brought that on.

But first things first. I held up his right hand, looking for signs of a fight, scratches, anything that might hint at what happened here. Nothing. I took the other, the beam of light showing only dirty fingernails and soft, young skin. No cuts, nothing to show he'd had a chance to fight back or ward off a knife thrust. He was on his left side, so I rolled him onto his back and opened his jacket. A bloodstain darkened the right side of his shirt above the belt. I unbuckled his belt and loosened his trousers.

“Perfect kidney stab,” I said, pointing to the entry wound between the rib cage and pelvis.

“Is that fatal?” Kaz asked. “I mean, so quickly?”

“Yeah, if you know what you're doing. The kidneys are small, but a lot of blood goes through them. Hit one right, twist the knife a bit, and it's lights out. He bled to death internally. There's not much blood on him.”

“It sounds like our killer had some specialized training,” Kaz said. “Or was very lucky.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it,” I said, rolling Brookes's body back as we'd found it. “Shine the light around the body.”

Working the edges, Dad called it when we worked a homicide. Looking for any trace the killer might have left. He always said the best chance for a hands-on killer to leave a clue was at the last moment of contact, when the deed had been done. Before that, the murderer was likely on high alert, conscious of every move, waiting for the moment to strike. Then, with the victim dead or dying, the killer might let down his guard if he was overconfident or relieved. Who knew what a guy who'd just knifed a kid and twisted the blade felt? Or a woman?

“There,” I said, as Kaz passed the beam along Brookes's leg. Blood. Not from the wound, but from the blade. “The killer cleaned the knife on his pants leg. See the line of blood?”

“He was not in a great hurry, then,” Kaz said, kneeling to study the stain.

“Don't say ‘he.' Two of the suspects are female.”

“You can't mean Diana,” Kaz said, then lowered his voice. “Juliet, I should say.”

“We have to treat her as we would anyone else, for appearance's sake. And remember, it could have been someone from the château, male or female.”

“Yes, of course. Very well, what's next?”

“Keep working the light around him,” I said, kneeling closer to the corpse.

“There certainly is not much blood,” Kaz said.

“No, not with this wound. I wouldn't expect to find our killer walking around decorated with bloodstains. Unless he or she got careless. Look!” Three tiny droplets of blood on the stones, a few inches from the wound.

“From the knife, after it was withdrawn,” Kaz said.

“Probably,” I muttered, trying to recreate the scene in my mind. They must have been walking together. Not standing still, since Brookes would have seen it coming. Walking along, talking. About what? Where were they going? Into the temple? Who had a key to that door? Suddenly the killer pulled a knife. Easier if they were right-handed. Dropped back a pace, reached their arm around Brookes's back, and stabbed into that soft midsection. Twisted the blade and lowered the body to the ground. Pulled out their knife, and as they moved to wipe the blade on their victim's trousers, they leave a trail of red drops.

“He—I mean the killer—might have a drop or two on their shoes,” Kaz said.

“If the killer is stupid and we're lucky, yes,” I said. “There's another possibility. It's easy enough to slice yourself, especially if you grabbed ahold of your victim and pulled the blade out hard. There's a chance our murderer has a cut.”

“Or that this person has clean shoes by now and no cut,” Kaz said. “Basically we know nothing.”

“We might not know much,” I said, walking over to the temple door and giving it a try. Locked up tight. “But I think I have an idea.”

“What?” Kaz asked. I didn't answer yet. I wanted to give my own common sense time to talk me out of it.