The German (20 page)
Tom walked closer to him and picked up the scent of rose water, the kind his wife had used on her neck when they were courting. The scent distracted him, reminding him of Glynis, whose memories engulfed and teased and added yet another layer to Tom’s confusion.
“How can I help?” Lang asked.
“I have a few questions. You can sit if you like?”
“Nuh. Questions?”
“Just checking a few things. You’re name is Ernst Lang?”
“Yes.”
“And where do you work, Mr. Lang?”
“I am retired.”
“Kind of young for that, aren’t you?”
“I worked at the factory for a time, but the supervisor was inept. I make chairs now, but it is not a true vocation, merely a hobby.”
Watching the German, Tom quickly got the impression the man had been questioned before. Lang did not seem the least bit shaken. His responses were direct, courteous and thorough.
“And how long have you lived in Barnard?”
“Seven years.”
“But you were born in Germany?”
“Munich, yes.”
“What brought you here?”
“I had reason to believe my homeland was no longer safe.”
“The Nazis, huh?”
“Yes,” Ernst replied. “Some of them.”
Tom noted the oddity of this statement.
Some of them?
“Can you tell me where you were last Saturday night?”
Lang’s eyes changed then – little but a momentary flicker. If Tom hadn’t been observing him so closely he would have missed it completely.
“Mitch’s. It is out on the farm road.”
“I’m familiar with it. Did you speak to anyone there? Anyone who could confirm what you’re telling me?”
“I was only defending myself,” Lang said dryly. “I did not start the fight, if that’s what you think.”
“You were in a fight?”
“I believed that was the reason for your interrogation.”
“Didn’t know a thing about it. When did you arrive at Mitch’s?”
“Eight p.m.”
“Did you drive there?”
“I walked. I always walk to conserve petrol for the war effort.”
“And you walked home?”
“Nuh,” he said. Again, uncertainty flashed in his eyes. “A friend drove me home.”
“And what was this friend’s name?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Excuse me?”
“I would prefer to keep that information to myself.”
“It would be in your best interest to tell me.”
“Yes? Would it? You still haven’t told me why you are here.”
“You know about those boys that were killed?”
“Sad business,” Ernst said. “Is that why you are here? Because of those two boys?”
Tom noticed the man had said
two
boys, not three. The papers had been filled with stories about Little Lenny’s disappearance, yet Lang only accounted for the Ashton and Williams boys in his question. Did that mean he was ignorant of the recent events, or had he just slipped and revealed that his latest victim was still alive?
“The boys are part of it.”
“I know nothing of their deaths.”
“We have some folks who aren’t so sure. There’s talk.”
“People always talk. It’s what makes them people.”
“About you, I mean.”
“And what do they say about Ernst?”
“Have you ever been married?”
“I prefer the company of men.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“But it should, yes? I have no use for women.”
He made no attempt to refute the accusations of moral deviation Burl Jones had leveled against him, and an inexplicable discomfort settled over the sheriff. Lang struck Tom as masculine enough, certainly more masculine than many of the men in Barnard, yet what he confessed spoke against that and left Tom’s mind in a knot.
“We had laws against such behavior in Germany, but it was ignored until the Nazis gained control. Do you have such laws here? Have I broken them?”
“I’m here because of those boys,” he said, keeping the focus on matters he understood.
“And you believe that I am involved.”
“Didn’t you just admit to being a queer?”
“And you equate my deviation with that of a murderer of young men? I have hurt no one that did not try to hurt me first.”
“You said you were in a fight.”
“I have protected myself. Is that also a crime?”
“You don’t look beat up.”
“I know how to fight, Sheriff. It is one thing I am very good at.”
“Is that how you got those?” Tom asked, indicating the German’s face with a wave of his finger.
“I was injured in battle.”
“You were in the war?”
“I was in
a
war. We did not win that war.”
Was he talking about the Great War? He didn’t look old enough, not that Tom knew the man’s age.
“I am not the one who hurt those boys,” Lang said. “You ask at Mitch’s. They will tell you about Ernst.”
“I intend to.”
“Yes. Good. No more talk of it then.” He broke his stiff-backed pose and walked up to the sheriff as if to show him out.
“We aren’t finished here.”
Lang’s face clouded and when he replied his voice rumbled with anger.
“Then you take me to your jail until the next dead boy is found so that you are certain Ernst is not your criminal. I have been falsely accused before and I will not have it again. You arrest me and see. You will see I am no killer of children.”
“Settle down, Mr. Lang. I just have a few more questions for you.”
“Then ask them.”
“Do you support the Nazi party?”
“Nuh,” Lang said. “I was a socialist, many years ago, affiliated with a group that rose in power along with Hitler, though we viewed very different futures. I believed the government should serve its people; he believed the people should carry him to godhood. Ten years ago, he took action against us. Many men died in a few short days, and he was allowed to become the thing he is now.”
“Were you attacked as well?”
“Yes. I was arrested and charged with treason, made a conspirator in a conspiracy that did not exist, all to gather the sheep around their shepherd. I should be dead, now. That is why I fled my country. My face is too well known for me to ever walk a German street in safety. I went to London and then to New York, and from there I traveled to New Orleans, and then here.”
“Why here?” Tom asked.
“Another friend invited me.”
“And what’s his name?”
“I would prefer not to say, and it makes no difference. He is dead.”
“Names would help your defense.”
“I have nothing to defend myself against.”
Tom continued his questions, asking the German where he was on the nights Harold Ashton and David Williams were abducted, and both times the German responded that he was at home alone. No one could confirm the information, but Tom’s suspicions were already fading. Something about the man intimidated Tom, and the sheriff had no doubt that the German was capable of violence, but he did not think Ernst Lang had killed either of the boys or snatched Little Lenny Elliot. It might have been the man’s composure or his honesty in answering the questions about his homosexual illness – Tom didn’t know. The German had integrity, or perhaps a good façade of it.
Still Tom knew better than to trust a suspect at his word. He asked Ernst Lang to sit on the porch while Tom searched the house. The Elliot boy was still missing, and Tom checked every closet, every nook and the attic, but found no sign of a young man or the belongings of a young man. Nor did he find a Stetson or duster of any color, let alone of the gray Mrs. Reeves had described. He found a large ledger, bound in brown leather, and Tom leafed through it, noting the shape of Lang’s penmanship, though unable to read any of the entries as they were written in German. He thought about the notes the killer had left and from memory compared them to the scrawl filling page after page of the journal, but the lettering seemed wholly different from the precise craftsmanship in the killer’s notes. Noticing the chicken coop through the kitchen window, Tom let himself out into the backyard. Inside the wired fence, he kicked aside two hens as he made his way to the long narrow box. Lifting the lid, he felt a moment of dread, certain Little Lenny Elliot’s dead eyes would greet him. Instead Tom saw four neat nests and boards covered in bird shit.
Upon finishing his search of Ernst Lang’s home, he could not say the man was guilty, though he certainly wasn’t ready to absolve him. Instead he called the sheriff’s office from the phone in the German’s kitchen, and asked Muriel to send Rex Burns out to Dodd Street. Tom wanted his deputy to park on the north side of the street near the middle of the block, and he wanted Rex to keep an eye on Lang’s house. If the guy had snatched and hidden Little Lenny away, he could still lead them to the boy.
Then Tom asked the German back inside. He requested that Lang write “One less gun against the Reich,” on a scrap of paper. The suspect did so without hesitation, but Tom had been unclear and Lang wrote the phrase in English. The second draft, this time in German, went into Tom’s pocket. Though he wanted to give Rex ample time to drive across town to Dodd Street, Tom could think of no additional questions to ask of Lang. So he thanked the German and shook the man’s hand, noting the strong dry grip, and said his good evening.
“You come back if you have more questions. I will be glad to help.”
Tom pushed open the screen door and stepped onto the porch. A fly buzzed at his ear and Tom slapped it away. He looked across the field at the lake but it appeared as a pale blue smear, oddly unattractive beneath the scorching sun.
Noticing that the sheriff was not leaving, the German poked his head through the door. “Something else?” he asked.
“Are you really a queer?” Tom asked.
“Yes,” Lang said without hesitation, “I am.”
Western Union
A. N. Williams
President
1944 Aug 9 2 PM
THE SECRETARY OF WAR DESIRES ME TO EXPRESS HIS DEEP REGRET THAT YOUR HUSBAND PRIVATE FIRST CLASS FREDERICK RANDALL HAS BEEN REPORTED MISSING IN ACTION SINCE TWENTY THIRD JULY IN FRANCE IF FURTHER DETAILS OR OTHER INFORMATION ARE RECEIVED YOU WILL BE PROMPTLY NOTIFIED =
R A ULIO THE ADJUNCT GENERAL.
The telegram arrived on Wednesday afternoon. I didn’t hear the uniformed men knock on the door or my mother’s attempt to greet them pleasantly. I’m sure she eyed the envelope the way she might an attacker’s knife. Bum was helping his mother with chores around the Craddick house, so I was alone in my room, reading an old
Captain Marvel
comic when these sad events transpired. The first I knew of the note came when I got thirsty and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. Ma stood with her back to me and the phone against her ear. When she heard me walking behind her, she turned and tried to smile but it just made her look sick, and she let the smile fade, revealing a mask painted the grim shades of misery and loss. She told the caller that she’d call back and hung up the phone.
Though it was clear something terrible had happened, it did not occur to me that this dreadful news would concern my father. Another dead boy? was my first thought.
She asked me to sit at the kitchen table, and I saw the envelope lying beside an empty water glass. Sitting next to me, she turned her chair and put her hands on my shoulders and she ran a palm over my hair. Again, she tried to form that grotesque smile.
“We received a telegram today,” she said.
I knew what that meant – everyone knew what it meant. The Washingtons had received a telegram to inform them of the heroic death of their son Chip. Mavis Clooney, who I’d seen through a cheap tin spyglass crying and laughing at the news from her radio, had received a telegram from the government about her husband. Despite the miserable expression on Ma’s face, I quickly rationalized the news. The arrival of a telegram didn’t mean my father was dead. Telegrams had been around long before the war. They’d been used to announce weddings and the births of children. I didn’t want to know what our telegram said. If she never told me, I could go on believing that some distant cousin had just married a successful rancher in Seguin or Luling. My thoughts tumbled down this hill of optimism, scrabbling for purchase but finding little to hang on to.