Dorothy Garlock (31 page)

Down at the far end of the room, a key was fitted into the lock of the iron door that led from the cells into the sheriff’s
office beyond. After the door had swung open on well-oiled hinges, one of the sheriff’s deputies, a fat lump of a man named
Terry Lambert, waddled into the room. Holding the door open, he said, “He’s right in here.”

For a moment, Graham feared that the sheriff had gone back on his previous word and informed his father, but the man that
followed the deputy through the door chilled him far worse than Calvin Grier ever would.

Ellis Watts walked into the cell room with the air of a man who had spent too much time in its confines; his nose rose as
if he had smelled a strong, putrefying odor even as a look crossed his face that resembled that of the cat that had eaten
the canary. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a roll of bills, peeled off a couple, and handed them to Terry Lambert.

“Much obliged,” the lawman said.

“I’ll knock on the door when I’m ready to leave,” Ellis told the deputy.

“Don’t take too long, you know that—”

“Quit your worryin’ and get the hell out.”

When Deputy Lambert had left, locking up behind him with an audible click of his key, Ellis turned his attention back to Graham,
striding down the narrow space until he stood before the man’s cell, his boots clicking on the concrete floor.

“What are you doing here?” Graham asked, suddenly concerned.

“I’d reckon that the better question is what are
you
doing here.” Ellis smiled in a manner that carried little friendliness. “It’s a question that I’ve been askin’ myself ever
since Deputy Lambert was kind enough to call and tell me you’d been brought in. So what do you say, Graham? You wanna tell
me just what was goin’ through that so-called head of yours?”

“I made a mistake,” he answered simply.

“Damn right you did,” Ellis snarled. “And here I thought you knew better’n that. What kind of damned fool goes traipsin’ right
back to the place where he committed a crime? It ain’t as if that whore don’t know you was in on it. I told you and Riley
to be careful. My mistake was thinkin’ you was smarter than that. All it’ll take is one bad flap of her gums and the whole
thing will be shot to hell!”

“The only thing that happened was I had too much to drink and made a fool out of myself,” Graham said defensively. “Nothing
more, nothing less. There’s no reason for you to get all worked up.”

“You can imagine that it don’t seem so cut and dried to me.”

As much as Graham had dreaded his father discovering what he had done at the Hellers’ farm, he’d been just as worried about
what Ellis would say. His notorious temper was known to flare as rapidly as a windswept prairie fire, burning everything that
got in its way. From the moment he had first confronted Graham with the knowledge of the mayor’s son’s secret, Ellis had always
appeared to be an errant spark away from burning Graham, his father, the whole damn town right to the ground.

“Was the cripple there?” Ellis asked.

“Yeah, he was,” Graham answered, the shame rising to color his face.

“He do that to your face?”

“I had too much to drink, otherwise—”

“Ain’t no use in makin’ excuses,” Ellis cut him off. “I done told this to Riley and I reckon I should’ve made it plain to
you, but that Ambrose fellow’s a lot tougher than he looks. The biggest mistake you made was in underestimatin’ him. That’s
what put your sorry ass in that cell.”

Anger rose in Graham’s chest. The worst part of being chided was that the man was right; he’d failed to take the crippled
schoolteacher seriously, and it had cost him his pride as well as Sophie Heller’s hand.

“He’s not worth you worrying about,” Graham said.

“Ain’t him that concerns me,” Ellis replied. “More likely to be you.”

“Me? What are you talking about?” Graham asked incredulously. He tried to hold Ellis’s gaze, to give the man some sign beyond
mere words, but the raw harshness of his stare was too much and he looked away.

“You gettin’ thrown in here gives me plenty of reason to worry.”

“I told you I didn’t say anything to the sheriff!”

“And why should I believe you?”

“Ellis,” Graham pleaded. “I’m giving you my word!”

“I suppose you think that’s supposed to have some sort of value to me,” Ellis sneered, his face full of disdain. “You and
yours might spend an awful lot of time thinkin’ you’re better than us common folks, but the truth is that your word ain’t
worth a damn.”

Fear began to creep in at the edges of Graham’s mind. In all of his time with Ellis and Riley, he’d been worried about just
such a moment; somehow he would displease them and then they would no longer have a reason to keep his secret quiet.
If I don’t convince him otherwise…

“I haven’t talked, Ellis,” he said. “I swear.”

“Best keep it that way, not unless you’re lookin’ to be ruined.”

“It’s far too late for that.”

“This little scrape you got yourself in don’t amount to nothin’,” Ellis explained, waving a hand around the jail cells as
confidently as a teacher in a classroom. “Why, I wouldn’t expect more than a slap on the wrist in addition to a shitty night’s
sleep. So you got drunk and popped off a bit, so what? The real trouble would be if you opened your mouth and started talkin’
about what you know. That’d get you ruined in a hurry.”

Graham felt no need to correct Ellis’s error. Though he surely wasn’t looking forward to his father’s disappointed reaction
to his spending the night in jail, his ruin had come long before he’d helped in the burning of the Hellers’ barn; the moment
when he had given into Carolyn Glass’s passionate words, when he had lain with her in her bed, he had signed away all that
he held dear. His despair was so great that he couldn’t help but wonder why he continued to fight against it any longer.

Besides, it will only be a matter of months before the future will be there for all to see!

“Do you want the whole damn town to know what you’ve done?” Ellis asked.

“No,” Graham sighed, “I don’t.”

“ ’Bout the only thing worse would be if that Kraut you’re so damn sweet on knew the truth,” Ellis continued. “What do you
reckon she’d say if she knew you done knocked up some other woman?”

“No!” Graham pleaded. “I told you that I’d go along with whatever you wanted so long as you didn’t tell anyone!”

“Then you’d best keep your mouth shut.”

“How many times do I have to tell you that I won’t talk?!”

“All I’m doin’ is remindin’ you of the danger in changin’ your mind,” Ellis replied. Leaning forward, he rested his arms against
the cross section in the cell’s bars; even though he was safely separated from the other man, Graham couldn’t help but feel
uncomfortable with the additional closeness.

Before Graham’s discomfort could grow any worse, the door to the cell room opened and Terry Lambert stuck his head back in;
from where he sat, Graham could see beads of sweat lining the deputy’s forehead, his hat twitching nervously in his hand.

“Ellis,” he said hesitantly, “you just can’t be in there too—”

“I could finish my business a hell of a lot faster if you’d keep your fat ass out of here, you stupid son of a bitch,” Ellis
bellowed. “Now git before I forget our agreement!”

The door banged shut with a loud clang.

“That man’s as worthless as tits on a boar,” Ellis snarled under his breath.

“Why did he let you in here to see me, anyway?” Graham asked, thankful for the deputy’s interruption of their earlier conversation.

“You think you’re the only one in town whose secrets I know?” Ellis laughed. “Hell, you’d be downright amazed at how much
a fella can learn just by keepin’ his ear to the ground and his eyes open. Discoverin’ the secrets of a man like Deputy Lambert
don’t amount to much, although I reckon that it must be somethin’ to him. I can’t say it hasn’t proved useful, but it weren’t
nothin’ like what I found out about you.”

“Aren’t you worried about the sheriff walking through that door?”

“Should I be?”

Graham watched as Ellis measured him; from the first moment that he’d met the man, he’d been discomforted by Ellis’s eyes,
sizing him up, constantly appraising him. “If I were in your shoes, I suppose that it’s something that I’d be concerned about.”

“Other than that goddamn deputy, there ain’t no one gonna keep us from our business.”

“And what business is that?” Graham asked cautiously.

“Huntin’ Krauts.”

At Ellis’s words, Graham’s chest tightened. Worry about Sophie’s safety caused him to rise to his feet; he’d joined in Ellis
Watts’s ridiculous scheme not because of some misguided hatred toward Nazis, but because of a desire to keep the woman that
he loved safe. Now, standing behind bars, he knew that was a task he could no longer perform.

“What are you going to do?” he asked harshly, nearly demanding an answer.

“I’m going to finish it,” Ellis answered matter-of-factly.

Having spent time with both Ellis and Riley Mason, Graham knew exactly what the man was talking about; he meant to rid Victory
of its perceived menace violently.

“You can’t, Ellis,” Graham warned.

“Why the hell not? We’ve done tried everything else, but from the burnin’ of that barn to givin’ that bitch a fright, ain’t
nothin’s worked. The only thing they’re gonna listen to is deeds.”

“You’ll end up right here in this cell beside me.”

Ellis shrugged. “The folks of this here town might not appreciate what it is we done, at least not right away. But give ’em
enough time and they’ll come to understand that it was for the better good, for the sake of the country. They’ll know that
we done it to protect ’em and then we’ll get the parade in our honor we done deserve.”

Listening to Ellis Watts speak, Graham knew with certainty that he was insane; no man in charge of his faculties would believe
the Hellers to be Nazi agents, let alone buy into it strongly enough to act on his fears. He had to keep Ellis talking, had
to give himself time to come up with a plan, some way in which he could prevent any blood from being spilled.

“What about Ambrose?” Graham asked. “What if he’s there?”

“Then it’ll go just like I told you before,” Ellis explained, recalling their meeting in his shanty just after the encounter
in the diner. “If he chooses to get in the way, to not do his duty as a true American, he’ll share their fate, if not the
same hole in the ground.”

“That’s murder you’re talking about.”

“No, it ain’t,” Ellis corrected. “It’s defendin’ my country and doin’ what’s right.”

“You can’t… you just can’t…” Graham stammered, as unsure of what to say as if he were still drunk. He knew that he couldn’t
allow Ellis to go ahead with his despicable schemes, but he had been struck mute with indecision.

Think! Sophie will die if you don’t act!

“Don’t go gettin’ any ideas that you’re gonna be able to stop us,” Ellis spat, his words dripping with venom. “Not unless
you want the whole damn town to know who it was you stuck—”

“Stop!” Graham shouted. “Don’t say another word! I won’t talk!”

“Best keep repeatin’ that to yourself,” Ellis said as he pulled a revolver from his waistband. Cocking the hammer, he leveled
the weapon at Graham, the barrel centered squarely on the center of his chest. “Otherwise, you might find yourself on the
receivin’ end of this.”

Pure terror struck Graham as hard as if Ellis had pulled the trigger. Falling to the concrete floor, he scrambled backward
on his heels, desperately trying to escape the range of the gun, but knowing that he could never truly get away. As he waited
for the gun-clap that would signal the end of his life, Graham could only plead to be spared.

“Please, Ellis! I won’t talk! I won’t tell a soul! I promise!”

Ellis stood stoically for a moment, before an amused smirk spread across his features as he returned the gun to its hiding
place. “Don’t forget, Graham,” he said coldly. “You’ve got much more to lose than your reputation.”

Graham was still sniveling when Ellis walked to the door, shouted for the deputy to let him out, and set off to finish the
job he’d started.

Ellis Watts crossed the dark shadows that covered the space between the sheriff’s office and where Riley had parked his car.
The rangy man was sprawled across the beat-up Ford’s hood, his muscular arms laced behind his head. When he saw Ellis approaching,
he swung off the automobile, his boots crunching on the gravel beneath his feet.

“That son of a bitch talk?” he asked.

“Not as far as I can tell,” Ellis answered, pulling a pack of smokes from his breast pocket and offering one to Riley. “Graham
seems a mite too worked up about what his daddy’s gonna think come mornin’ to do much talkin’.” Patting the pistol in his
waistband, he added, “And don’t think I didn’t remind him of all he’s got to lose.”

“We should never have involved him in the first place.”

“You know damn well why we did.”

“Now that he ain’t no good to us no more, what’s the plan?”

Taking a draw on his cigarette, Ellis held the smoke in his lungs until it began to burn before blowing it toward the moon
above. Until recently, his intentions had been to be patient, to keep a close eye on the Nazi saboteurs so that they couldn’t
commit any mischief, but things seemed to be spiraling out of his control.

From the confrontation with Cole Ambrose and the Kraut bitch in the diner, to receiving his draft notice, and now to Graham
being tossed in jail for being god-damn stupid enough to show up drunk on the Nazis’ land, it was as if he were being told
to act, to take care of this threat to his nation and community before it was too late.

And then there was Carolyn…

With her whispering into his ear and playing with what hung between his legs, Ellis felt entranced, prodded into acting so
that he could please her. Being manipulated was infuriating. Hell, if there was anyone who should be the one pulling the strings,
it was him. Still, he found it next to impossible to resist Carolyn Glass; the more excited she got about what he was trying
to do, the more worked up it made him, a vicious cycle that showed no sign of ending until the problem was taken care of.
In the end, he didn’t give a damn whose child she was carrying. Fighting against her charms was something he didn’t want to
do, leaving him with but one option.