Remembering Dresden (Jack Turner Suspense Series Book 2) (16 page)

He liked the idea. “Yeah. I think that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

The following day, Jack sat in his car in the Culpepper Police Department parking lot, wrestling about whether or not he should go inside. Last night, it was a settled issue. Rachel had agreed this was too big a thing to ignore. As they’d sat together on the couch looking over more photos from old man Wagner’s youth, they’d talked about how different it was seeing these pictures now than it had been just the day before.

The first day, their hearts were full of sympathy for this poor orphan boy, growing up all alone in a dark and dreary communist land. Last night, it was more like watching the formative years of a soon-to-be serial killer unfold. Picking up from where they’d left off, it was apparent that as a young man Wagner had joined some kind of para-military organization. From about the age of fifteen onward, he mostly wore a uniform.

They also remarked at how much his facial expressions had changed as he grew from a child into a young man. Gone were the innocent, almost fearful glances toward the camera; the look of a child longing to be loved and cared for. As a teenager, Wagner’s face looked stern and hard in almost every photograph. Always serious. Rachel pointed out his eyes. She’d even used the word
fierce
when describing them. Jack had instantly remembered Mr. Bass’ words:
Had this fierce look in his eyes
.

As it turned out, Bass had feared old man Wagner with good reason. He wondered what Bass would think when he learned the truth about what had really been going on during that time, and the true nature of the man who’d been living next door all those years.

The truth
.

That’s what this was really all about. And that’s why Jack felt a duty to see Joe Boyd now. Jack had always been a defender of the truth. He didn’t know exactly why. Could be his upbringing. His parents had raised him in the church. He had memorized the Ten Commandments, word for word, by the time he was six years old. Some of his most significant childhood punishments weren’t for doing something wrong, but for lying about it.

Defending the truth was really at the core of the way he’d studied and taught history. He knew the old saying:
History is written by the victors.
And he knew what it meant: since those who’d won the battles got to tell the battle stories, the “historical” version of an event might not always be the truth. Which is why Jack felt it was the nature of a true historian to go beyond the victor’s accounting of things and, like a detective, investigate a matter fully, exploring every side until you uncovered the true history of an event.

That’s what drove him to pursue the Dresden firebombing for his doctoral dissertation. And that was probably why he was sitting there in his car, holding an old scrapbook he’d found under some floorboards in a hidden safe.

He got out of the car with the scrapbook under his arm and headed across the parking lot.

Joe Boyd looked up from his computer screen. Hank Jensen had just walked in. Hank was unofficially Boyd’s partner. Unofficially, because technically Hank was still a patrolman, not a detective. Boyd was trying to get that changed.

“You got a minute, Joe?”

Hank was about the only guy in this building Joe didn’t mind being interrupted by. But Hank had this look on his face. “Sure, Hank. I’m just rereading this report I wrote before I forward it to the DA…for the umpteenth time.” Boyd was a lousy writer, and he knew it. Always had been.

“You’re not gonna believe who’s out in the lobby.”

“Okay, you got me. Who?”

“Jack Turner. You remember the history teacher whose butt you saved last year in that shootout at the college?”

“Jack? Yeah, I remember him. I just bumped into him at that convenience store mess the other day when I was out by the lake checking out cabins.”

“Well, I don’t think this one’s a social visit. He’s wanting to know if he could speak with you…about something important. I asked him what, but he said it’s complicated. The thing is, he’s got that same expression on his face he did last year. Remember when he came in here with that whole conspiracy deal?”

Boyd did. He also remembered totally blowing Jack off, and then everything turned out to be true. “Wonder what in the world it could be? He seemed totally fine when I chatted with him the other day.”

“Well, something must have turned up. He doesn’t look very fine to me.”

“Then sure, send him on back. Let’s hear what he has to say.”

Hank headed down the hall. If it had been anyone else, Boyd would have figured they were probably making something out of nothing. But Hank had decent instincts. Boyd slid his chair over a few inches, centered himself behind the desk. Through the glass in his partition wall, he saw Hank escorting Jack back this way.

Jack looked up, saw Boyd, smiled and nodded. But it was clearly a forced a smile. Boyd could see it in his eyes; something was bothering Jack bigtime.

Jack stepped through the doorway. Hank turned to leave. “I don’t mind if you stay, Hank.” Jack said, “If it’s okay with Sergeant Boyd.”

“It’s okay with me,” Boyd said.

“Appreciate it,” Hank said, “but I’m working on something that’s kind of urgent. But if you need me here, Joe…”

“No, you go on then. Let me hear what Jack has to say. I’ll call you if I need you.” Hank headed back the way he came. Boyd looked at Jack. “Come on in. Have a seat.” He was holding some kind of ragged-looking notebook under his arm.

“I really appreciate you seeing me like this. I know you’re a busy guy.” Jack sat, then set what looked like a scrapbook on the edge of Boyd’s desk.

“No problem. So what’s going on? Hank said you seemed pretty serious. Have something to do with this?” Boyd pointed to the scrapbook.

“It has everything to do with this.”

“He also said you told him that it’s complicated.”

“It kind of is. What I really meant was, it’s not something I can summarize in a few sentences. And I didn’t really want to talk about this out in the lobby.”

“Okay. Then I guess you better get to it. What’s going on?” Jack leaned forward in his chair and was just about to speak, when Boyd said in a lighthearted manner, “First, tell me this…nobody’s trying to kill you, right?” Last year, that’s what was happening when Jack had come in to see him.

Jack didn’t pick up on Boyd’s attempt at humor. “No, it’s nothing like that.” He didn’t even smile. “And I sure hope it stays that way.”

Boyd couldn’t tell if Jack was serious. Was he really in some kind of trouble again?

Jack opened the scrapbook to the first page and spun it around so that it faced Boyd. “This is why I’m here. And before I get too far into this, thought you should know…I’ve run this whole thing by Rachel, and she totally agrees that there’s really something here. Something potentially pretty serious.”

Boyd pulled the scrapbook closer and glanced down. Some kind of newspaper clipping. The headline spoke of a World War II veteran dying in a fire. “Is this something that just came up? Because you seemed totally fine, even relaxed, when I bumped into you at the convenience store.”

“This is brand new. I didn’t know about this then.”

Boyd turned the page. Two more newspaper articles, one on each page. The headlines both talked about the same thing. World War II veterans dying in some kind of fire. “These look like obituaries.”

“They are,” Jack said. “There’s eight of them in there. All from different newspapers, from several different states. I’ve spent some time digging into this. The men died over a five-year period, between 1993 and ’98.”

“Okay,” Boyd said, “I’m getting curious. But why would you be collecting obituaries from dead World War II pilots? I know you teach military history over at the college. This have something to do with that?”

“No. This isn’t my scrapbook. It’s something I found.”

“Where?”

“The cabin where I’m staying.” Jack looked as if he had more to say but wasn’t sure if he should. “Look, I know this is a strange thing, me coming here like this. I’ve been sitting in the parking lot for almost a half hour arguing with myself about getting you involved. I remember what happened last year and how crazy that all sounded at first.”

“Jack, it’s okay. I gave you a pretty hard time last year when came in with that whole conspiracy thing involving that professor. You gotta admit, it was really out there.”

“But all of it turned out to be true.” Jack was getting a little defensive.

“I agree. That’s my point. I was wrong to blow you off last time. I didn’t take you seriously until the whole thing started spinning out of control. If I recall, though, I apologized to you after it was all over.”

“You did.”

“So I’m saying you don’t need to be on edge here. I know you’re not a whack job or some kind of conspiracy freak. If you’re telling me this situation, whatever it is, is potentially serious, I’m inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt. So take a deep breath, relax, and tell me what this is all about.”

Jack sat back in his chair, his shoulders slumped slightly. His facial expression lightened up, just a tad. “Thanks Sergeant—I mean, Joe. I really appreciate that. I hope you still feel that way after I’m through.” This time, he did smile.

Boyd turned another page. Like Jack said, more obituaries. Similar headlines. “Okay, so you got this at a cabin. Do you know who put these together and why? What am I looking at here?”

“It’s the cabin I told you about the other day. The one I’m renting, the one I might buy if I like it.”

“I remember.”

“That’s not all I found. There was an old handwritten journal with it. Problem is, it’s written in German, which I can’t read. Rachel does. She took it home to translate over the next few days. I also found an old photo album filled with pictures that has an indirect connection to all of this. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ll just cut to the chase and tell you what my research, and my gut instinct is telling me. That…” Jack pointed at the scrapbook. “…is a collection of trophies compiled by a serial killer.”

Whoa. Boyd didn’t see that coming. He tensed up. “You think the owner of your cabin is a serial killer?”

“No. But his father is. I mean…
was
. He’s dead now, for over ten years.”

“That’s a relief. So nobody’s in any danger, right? Not you, not Rachel? We’re talking about a potential cold case situation, correct?”

Jack nodded. “The thing is, the killer got away with it. At least in this life. And these aren’t exactly cold case files, because no one even knows these men were murdered. I stayed up last night and did some checking on the internet. In the weeks and months after each of these men died, there’s nothing in the news that indicated any further investigations were ever conducted. What it says in those obituaries is the last word on each of these cases.”

Boyd wanted to read a few. “How about you go get a cup of coffee and let me check a few of these out? You know where the coffee pot is, right? There’s a stack of foam cups right beside it. Don’t worry about the sign reminding you to put fifty cents in the can. My treat.”

Jack agreed and left the office. Boyd started reading. He’d gone through three of them by the time Jack returned. They all read like standard obituaries, with a few extra paragraphs, given that each of these men had been former World War II pilots. That’s when he picked up on something. He quickly flipped through the other articles, scanning them for the paragraphs about the men’s war records. “Each of these guys flew B-17s.”

Jack sat, put his cup of coffee on the edge of Boyd’s desk. “They did.”

“And it looks like most of them flew in the same bomber squadron,” Boyd said, “and out of the same airfield in England.”

“You got that right, too. Actually, all of them did.”

“That can’t be a coincidence.”

“Nope.”

“And they all died in accidental house fires,” Boyd said.

“Or explosions,” Jack added, “like from a ruptured gas line. In any event, they were all fire-related deaths.”

“And someone paid enough attention to these…
accidents
…to collect each of these obituaries and paste them into this scrapbook.”

“Yep,” Jack said. “But there’s more. Remember that old photo album I mentioned a moment ago? It is full of black-and-white pictures of orphans whose parents were all killed during World War II. One orphan in particular shows up in every photo.”

“Let me guess,” Boyd said, “You think these kids were made orphans by these B-17 bomber pilots.”

“I’m certain that’s the case,” Jack said. “At least with this one orphan. But I haven’t confirmed that fact yet. I think with a few more hours’ research, I can nail that down. But the evidence points solidly in that direction. I’m thinking that these eight bomber pilots all flew on the same mission, and that that mission wound up killing the killer’s family. So, decades later, he killed these pilots in revenge. Made them all die a fiery death, just like his family did.”

Boyd looked down at the obituaries in front of him, specifically looking for the date. Then he remembered, Jack had said the men had died in the mid-90s. “Why do you think he waited so long? If he became an orphan during World War II, he would have been an adult by, say…the late 1950s. Why wait forty years to avenge your family’s death?”

“Because,” Jack said, “the pictures in that old photo album I mentioned confirmed that the killer spent the rest of his childhood in East Germany, behind the Iron Curtain. He wouldn’t have been free to travel to the US until the Soviet Union fell apart and the Berlin wall came down. That happened at the end of 1989, the beginning of 1990. The first B-17 pilot was killed in early 1993. Maybe it took a few years for him to get over here and get set up.”

Darn if this thing wasn’t making some sense. “I hate to say it, but I think you might be onto something here, Jack. I mean, who collects obituaries of dead pilots? Especially ones who all flew the same kind of plane, from the same bomber group and from the same airfield in England?”

“Who all died in fiery deaths ruled as accidental?” Jack said. “And the internet wasn’t what it is now in the mid-90s. How would someone even know where to find these obituaries in the first place? They were spread all over, in different states, several months apart. All printed in local newspapers. None of these incidents made the national news. Who would even know to connect them all together?”