Secret Light (3 page)

turned them off for the evening before bed. But something was odd. A few steps took

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him to the driveway, where he realized the fire was actually contained to his garage.

His new car wasn’t in there, or he’d have burst into tears.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Rafe turned toward the voice. He clutched Mooki to him, and for her part, she was

doing a pretty good job of clutching him back. She was licking tiny dog condolences

onto the skin of his neck and offering her fur for him to pet. It was…nice in a way.

Calming.

“Sir? Are you the owner?” A police officer, taller even than Rafe’s own six-foot

frame but Y-shaped, like he could hold up the whole world, put a large hand on his

shoulder. It lay there, solid and reassuring, as he came to the realization that his garage

was fully engulfed in flames.

“
Ja
. Yes. I am. I’m Rafe Colman.” He turned to look behind him again.

“I’m so sorry.”

The young officer’s stillness was inviting. In spite of the chaos erupting all around

them, his was a solid, reassuring presence. Green eyes watched Rafe with interest from

a very nice face. A wholesome face. Thick, expressive eyebrows matched a fuzz of

closely cropped dark hair that peeked from beneath his cap. When he looked at Mooki,

his face lit with the longing of a pet-starved boy.

“My name is Officer Morgan. Can I talk to you about what’s happened?”

“I was asleep, and suddenly, Mooki was going mad.”

“Your dog woke you?”

Rafe nodded, caught by the intense focus of the man’s gaze. “She must have heard

something.”

“Gosh, she’s a sweet thing.” Morgan reached up to let Mooki sniff his hand, then

scratched behind her ear. His fingers brushed Rafe’s chest. Rafe sucked in a breath as a

dizzying sensation passed through his entire body. He lifted his gaze to search

Morgan’s face. Morgan held his eyes a little too long. The young man colored visibly

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then, even in the darkness, and looked away. “It looks like the act of vandals. Maybe it

was a prank that went too far?”

“How can you know that?”

“There are some words on your door. Some…symbols.”

Rafe felt himself go pale. What kind of symbols? Would he
never
be safe?

“Show me.”

Officer Morgan took his arm and led him back to his porch, where he could see that

someone had scrawled
Heil Hitler
, a number of swastikas, and a
Nazi go home
! in black

paint.

His knees buckled, and before he could disgrace himself by falling, Morgan helped

him to sit on the cement steps. Rafe stared at the scrawled words without

understanding. “Who would do such a thing?”

“I don’t know, sir, but we’re all prepared to work hard until we find out.”

“Thank you.” Mooki yipped at him to be let down, but he was afraid of what might

happen if she got loose and underfoot. “May I go inside and get Mooki’s leash? She

doesn’t want me to carry her around while there’s such excitement, but—”

“Sure. I’m sure that’s fine. Mind if I go in too? I could check the locks on the doors

and windows and make sure no one has tampered with anything else.”

Rafe nodded, feeling edgy in the presence of the police. He led Officer Morgan to

the door and opened it, ushering him in. “And of course you must satisfy yourself that I

don’t have a cache of Nazi souvenirs or the führer’s head in a jar in the deep freeze,

waiting to be brought back to life.”

Rafe knew he’d said the wrong thing when Morgan stopped walking. He stood

straight as a soldier—
surely Officer Morgan is too young to have fought in Europe
…?—and

when he spoke again, it was with unnecessary patience. “I understand this must be very

painful for you, but many people lost their lives—their friends, fathers, and brothers—

in that war. It’s not really a joking matter.”

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Rafe regretted his words the minute he’d seen the reaction on Morgan’s face. He

understood. He knew when he saw the pain of loss in someone’s eyes. A sincere

apology was in order. He felt honestly ashamed but wondered if he could even

articulate sincerity anymore.

“I’m so very sorry, Officer Morgan. Forgive me for my thoughtlessness.”

“I lost my oldest brother, Steve, so…”

“I’m very sorry for your loss.” Rafe put Mooki on the floor in the foyer and opened

the closet to get her leash. “So there should be no misunderstanding, my parents were

committed Austrian Nationalists and therefore enemies of the Third Reich. I left Austria

when I was fourteen. My family was supposed to come with me, but my
Mutti
—my

mother—was too ill to travel, and I was sent ahead to church sponsors in the US. They

never made it out.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I arrived in New York an orphan. When I was old enough, I tried to fight for my

new country, but”—he rubbed absently at his chest—“they said my heart was enlarged

due to a childhood disease.” Rafe couldn’t remember the last time he’d told anyone

even this version of the truth. His sanitized life story was very nearly the way it actually

happened. This much honesty was bound to cost him, but it seemed with someone like

Morgan, he was powerless to hide the facts. “I am not, nor have I ever been, a Nazi.”

Morgan said nothing in return, and Rafe finally moved, simply to break the

awkward silence. He opened an end table drawer and put his pictures in there for

safekeeping. The house didn't seem to be threatened, but the firefighters were spraying

water everywhere.

Rafe picked up Mooki’s leash from where he’d left it on the hook by the door and

snapped it on her collar.

“We should start over,” Morgan said finally.

Rafe shrugged. He was having trouble thinking, or he’d never have said as much as

he had. “What would you like to see?”

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“I’d like to look around at the doors and windows and in your backyard when the

fire is out and it’s safe. It seems odd to me that whoever did this only fired the garage.”

Morgan stopped Rafe from heading back outside. “We’ll be needing pictures, but

after… You could find something to clean off the paint. It might not be dry yet, and—”

“Ah. Yes,” Rafe said with some surprise. What had he been thinking? “Of course. I

should clean off the paint.”

Officer Morgan exited the front door while Rafe and Mooki headed to the kitchen

for some old rags and a pot of soapy water. “Komm, Hund. We shall erase these

dreadful words, ja?”

The victim’s dog was exactly the kind of pet Ben Morgan had wanted as a kid—

smart, funny, eager to please, and equally determined to protect. He’d envisioned a

collie like Lassie or a German shepherd like Rin Tin Tin, but Colman’s stout little mutt

dog—some kind of terrier—guarded his back, barking a warning if anyone got too

close.

Colman had introduced Ben and Mooki, and of course, at first Ben thought it was

odd that a dog should “speak” only German. While Colman struggled to get the paint

off his door, Ben tried to get the dog to walk with him. Colman—he told Ben to call him

Rafe, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it—did everything he could to get her to

go with him. She didn’t necessarily trust him yet, and he didn’t speak German, but he

took her leash, and after a few minutes, she marched alongside him, ready to take on all

comers, just as she’d done for her master.

Christ, what a mess. Colman’s tools, a bicycle, sports equipment, and a tiny

sailboat. All ashes. The firefighters had the blaze out, but they’d drawn a small crowd of

curious neighbors who stood on the curb across the street and watched. They didn’t

seem friendly with Rafe, and they didn’t offer him any assistance. They stood silent,

watchful, some in hastily donned trousers and work shirts and some still in sleepwear,

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wrapped in dressing gowns and bathrobes. Some were even barefoot, shuffling for a

better angle, a better view of the drama as it unfolded.

Ben felt bad for Colman. It was obvious his accent, fair hair, and blue eyes had

triggered someone’s anti-German sentiment, and they’d taken the opportunity for

payback. He seemed like an ordinary guy too: a little pent up, a little too fastidious and

polite.

But maybe he was a little lonely too, and Ben could certainly understand that.

One of the firefighters on scene cracked wise about him living alone, but Ben had

known more than one person who didn’t fit in so well, starting with himself. He lived

with his mother, for God’s sake. It was hard to believe a guy like Rafe wasn’t batting a

thousand with girls. He could have a family if he wanted one. He was probably too

busy enjoying the chase to give it up for a wife and kids.

A guy with those looks who loves dogs?

Every time Rafe walked that little dog mop of his, the girls must come running after

him like a movie star.

Ben was examining the exterior frame of the bedroom window when he heard his

partner, Jim Calhoun, come up from behind him. Mooki barked and growled at

Calhoun just as she’d done when she’d been with her master.

Calhoun had been nasty since they’d arrived, and he’d made his feelings known

about everything from some Kraut wasting their time on a prank that went a little too

far to why small dogs should all be rounded up and drowned in the ocean. Ben secretly

applauded Mooki’s determination to keep Calhoun away from her master, and he fell

wholeheartedly in love with her when she did the same for him.

“Goddamn dog.” Calhoun leaped back. “We need to get finished up here so we can

fight real crime.”

Ben turned. “This is a real crime. Property damage in the thousands. The garage is a

total loss.”

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“Maybe he deserved it.” Calhoun slid a suspicious glance toward Rafe. “They think

they can come here and just forget everything they did—”

“You don’t know he did anything.”

“You don’t know he didn’t. And another thing, I think this guy’s a faggot. I seen a

lot of that in vice, and I know that type. Let the detectives figure this out. We need to go

keep the peace.”

As always, Ben felt the limitations of his situation. He wanted a detective’s shield.

He was working hard and taking the exams. He loved his job, but he was ready to move

on to investigating major crimes. It was what he’d always wanted.

Sometimes he felt as if he were the one wearing handcuffs.

“Yeah, okay.”

“My money says he did this himself to gain some kind of sympathy on account of

his fancy new car was missing from the garage at the time of the fire. That’s pretty

convenient.”

“I don’t think so. There’s some indication on the side by the driveway that someone

tried to start a fire under the kitchen window and failed.”

“So let’s write this up and get out of here. Master race and his mutt can clean up

their mess. It’s not like we’ll ever find out who did it for sure—especially if he did it

himself. Which he did, because if he didn’t do this, his car and his house both go up in

flames.”

“Maybe something happened to scare them away. At any rate, as you say, the

detectives will figure it out.”

“Bet you a dollar they won’t.”

“Sucker bet. Somebody knows,” Ben said mildly. “Someone saw something. We can

come back and knock on doors in the daytime.”

“Yeah and let the detectives chew us out because it’s not our job.”

“Did you ask the folks in the crowd?”

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“Nobody saw nothing. That’s the usual around here. Buncha gawkers with nothing

to say except the neighbor, next door, guy named Ed, who wouldn’t shut up. But he

didn’t see anything useful.”

“All right. I don’t see anything else around here.” Ben flicked the leash and spoke to

the dog as he’d heard Rafe do. “Komm.”

“Ah geez. You’re a Nazi dog lover now. Wait until I tell the guys.” Calhoun made a

disgusted noise and took off for the squad car.

Mooki trotted along with Ben, back toward the front of the house and her master.

“Excuse me, sir?” Ben waited while Rafe turned to him. He handed Rafe the leash

and Mooki. She looked up at him like she expected him to do something further, but he

didn’t know what. “I think we’ve got everything we need here.”

“All right. Thank you. I’ll have to call my insurance agent, and he’ll probably want

a copy of the police report.”

“It’ll be a few days before we’ll have that ready to go. The arson investigator will

have to inspect the site.”

“I understand.”

“You should also probably take some pictures when it gets light.”