Trusting Viktor (A Cleo Cooper Mystery) (18 page)

I knocked softly and peeped into the break room, calling her name.

“Come on in.” I obeyed. “I remember you,” Lucy exclaimed when she saw me. “You’re the lucky lady with the handsome
young
boyfriend!”

Cringing, but at the same time unable to suppress a laugh, I said, “Guilty as charged.”

“Pull up a seat,” Lucy said. “I was just about to have a little lunch, but I’m not real hungry. Would you like to share my tuna salad? It won’t last until dinner. Gets too soggy.” Without waiting for my answer, she plopped half of an enormous sandwich on a napkin and pushed it across the table.

Realizing I hadn’t even considered lunch and was, in fact, quite hungry, I graciously accepted, pulled up a chair, and dug in. Just like my mom used to make it: no egg, just mayo, diced home-made pickle, and canned tuna. Delicious.

Lucy, dabbing daintily at the corners of her mouth with a napkin, said, “Why do I get the feeling your return visit today is about something more than an interest in shipwrecks?”

“You’re very perceptive,” I told her. “I’m impressed. Actually, curiosity about all those people who either washed ashore dead or were swept out to sea during the height of the U-boat attacks around here brought me in. I was wondering if you ever heard of any German submariners who made it to shore alive?”

She trained a shrewd eye on me. “Like spies, or like survivors hanging onto wreckage?”

“Either,” I shrugged, then qualified that by adding, “but not urban legends, you know, like the stories about sailors who came to watch a movie or buy groceries. I mean, more like—”

“Like German sailors who weren’t Nazis, just people wanting to defect?”

I stared at her. “Well, I hadn’t thought of that, but I guess … do you have a specific incident in mind?”

Narrowing her eyes at me, her demeanor suddenly changed. “You know damn well I do. That’s why you’re here. You’ve somehow heard about me as a child telling the authorities about some men I believed were German spies coming ashore on our beach. You’re here to dig it all up again! You’re a reporter or a writer, aren’t you? And you just want to make fun of me or write a spoof or something insulting … go ahead, admit it!”

Taken aback, I swallowed my last bite of sandwich and protested vehemently. “No! I’m not a reporter, and I’m not here to write a story. I’m just chasing a hunch.”

“What kind of a hunch?”

“Trust me, I’ll tell you later. Right now, though, I want to hear about what you saw. It’s news to me, seriously, and I’m completely fascinated again.”

She cocked her head studying me, then said, “And you’re sure you’re not a journalist or someone like that?”

“Yes, I’m quite sure.” I could hardly believe my luck.

“Then why do you want to know?” she demanded, since my eagerness was so obvious. If I wasn’t a reporter or writer, what was I?

I sought to seem reassuring. “You apparently saw something when you were very young, as you would have been in 1942 when the German wolf packs were hunting off our shores, right?”

She hesitated. “Right.”

“And whatever you saw, you reported it to the proper authorities or your parents and they didn’t believe you, right?”

“It was more than that.” She paused. “I got called emotionally disturbed just because I was … .well, I was a quiet kid. A loner, kind of, and people had always thought I was strange just because I didn’t want to dress up dolls or play house like the other girls my age.”

“What if I told you I might be able to vindicate you, maybe not publicly, but at least you’d know the truth about what you saw. You’d feel better then wouldn’t you?

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and nodded. “Tell me what you’re talking about, dear.”

Now it was I who hesitated. “First, you tell me: who did you report this to back then?”

“The sheriff. Naturally, times being when they were, I assumed the men I saw had come ashore from a German submarine. I told my folks first, and when they didn’t believe me, I walked down to the sheriff’s office and told him myself. I was only eight years old, so that alone was enough to get me in trouble. But you have to understand how things were … It was war! And it wasn’t 1942, it was 1945, when it was almost over. At the time I saw what I saw, the sub attacks had all but stopped on our coast, which was another reason no one believed me. They said I was ‘disturbed’ and ‘craving attention’
.
”

“
When
in 1945?” I asked.

“March twenty-seventh. I remember distinctly because it was daddy’s birthday and I was walking on the beach after cake and ice cream. It was right at twilight.”

I got a chill down my spine. The time period was correct. Erich Koch had personally ordered and directed the dismantling of the Amber Room in early 1945 and fled Germany in April of that same year. It made sense that he would have moved as quickly as he could to get the map he’d had made of its hiding place out of the country before he left.

“What did you see?”

With a determined set to her jaw, Lucy recited to me the story that had gotten her in such hot water as a child. “I saw two men in dark clothes in a rubber raft. They were right outside the breakers. They got out of the raft, popped it, and stayed with it until it sank. Then they came ashore. One was holding a knapsack over his head. Once they got on land, they took off running for the dunes.”

“Where were you?”

“Behind a dune, not ten feet from where they stopped.”

“What did they stop for?”

“They stripped off their wet clothes down to their drawers and dressed in dry clothes from the pack. Nice civilian clothes—lace-up shoes, felt hats, light jackets. At one point, one of them looked right in my direction. It was just about dusk and I was behind a clump of sea oats and grass. I’ll never forget his face, his eyes especially. They looked so sad.”

I nodded my head. I’d bet my favorite pair of Pura Lopez shoes I’d seen those same sad eyes in a photo. I said, “What happened then?”

“They took off for the road and that was the last I saw of them … for a while.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I got tired to trying to convince anyone to believe me! There was nothing to prove what I’d said. No raft, no clothes, they’d carried those with them. No one brought up the subject and I left it that way. Then, years later I
saw
one of them.”

“Where and how many years later?”

“At the college I attended in Raleigh. I was a freshman, so it was about ten years after I’d first seen him. But there was no mistaking him. Those faces were burned in my brain.”

“Good grief, did you say anything to him?”

“Not at first, no. He was my French professor.”

“French? Not art history?”

“Art history?” Lucy repeated. “Why would you think he taught art history? Wouldn’t German be a better guess?”

I was taken aback. I’d been so sure they were the two young Germans from
U-498
, charged with hiding the map to where the Amber Room was hidden. “I don’t know, now,” I answered, shaking my head. “First, tell me the rest of your story. Why’d he speak French if he’d been on a German submarine?”

She nodded. “Well, that threw me too. He didn’t have the guttural accent you’d expect a German to have. He said he was French. His name was Adrien Dubois. He was a wonderful teacher. And by that time in my life, all the feelings of slight and disapproval that I’d felt so deeply as a child didn’t matter. I’d made new friends and moved on. My story was just a bad memory and I didn’t want to dredge it up again, which is why I never asked him any questions.”

The muted laughter of tourists outside the door was the only sound in the room for a while as I contemplated the kink in my theory. It was Lucy’s turn to reassure me.

She said, “I don’t know how my story fits into your hunch, dear, but if it makes you feel any better, I do know this. The two men I saw in the boat that night were the two men who lived together in Raleigh in a brand-new bungalow in a newly developed section not far from the college.”

“Both men? You saw
both
men later?”

“I sure did. I’d often see Professor Dubois walking to class. One time I followed him on impulse, out of curiosity. I watched him go up the drive to a yellow bungalow. At the time, I remember thinking what a charming little house it was. It had tapered columns, painted white with stone bases.” She paused and blinked as though searching for its image in her memory, then continued. “There was another young man out front planting a crepe myrtle. They spoke for a while and went inside. But first, I got a good long look at him and was confident that he was the other man I’d seen come ashore in the life raft that night. It was all very weird.”

“And still you never said a word to the professor?”

“No. For one thing, I just didn’t want to cause a stink. He was very popular with students and faculty alike. But most of all, you have to admit it makes more sense that they weren’t even German sailors after all. They were just two men who, for whatever reason, jumped ship from … oh, I don’t know, a cruise liner or a tanker or maybe a merchant ship. Then they slipped into the country. Maybe they wanted to avoid the normal immigration channels for some reason. Later, after I graduated, I became an English teacher back in Avon, got married, and never thought of them again, until now. My husband passed in 2005, God rest his soul …”

There was a knock on the door. A woman’s face peeked in, “Lucy, the crowds are getting bigger.”

“Oh my! And here I am just chattering away with my new friend. I’ll be right out.” As she stood to leave, she said, “I fear my story has left you with more questions than answers. But you’ll still come see me again, won’t you?”

“I will,” I promised.

“Oh, and dear?”

I stopped in the doorway. “Yes?”

“I’d like to ask that anything you find out about those two men … well, you won’t involve me, will you? Not unless you really need to.”

“I understand,” I told her. “And I’ll do my best.”

nineteen

Late that Sunday afternoon,
as I bumped Henri’s boat softly against the dock behind my rented house, I admired the way a soft haze had turned the mainland trees a dull pewter and the setting sun, like a giant celestial dipper, had tipped their edges in molten gold.

I’d had time on the return trip to mull over Lucy’s story. My conclusion was a simple one: Germans can change their names and learn to speak French too. Being educated Europeans, they’d probably have known it already. In fact, English might have presented the greater challenge. I just felt certain that the men she’d seen and the ones in the photo I’d found were the same. So why hadn’t I showed her the photo? For one thing, the story Lucy told came as a complete surprise; I didn’t have it with me. For another, she’d convinced herself that the men she’d seen probably weren’t even German after all and was now content in that notion.

As soon as I started across the lawn, I saw Henri’s car in the drive. A sound like a well-hit baseball signaled that Tulip had nosed the screen door open and, also like a well-hit grounder, was racing to meet me. I grabbed her before she could knock my feet out from under me, patting her sides and pulling her silky ears. She whimpered with joy. She might like spending time with Henri and Will, but she
loved
me.

Both my children sauntered up. “Hey guys,” I said. “What brings you here?”

“We were worried about you. Besides, Tulip was starting to get depressed,” Henri said. “We thought a visit with you would help.”

“Probably a good idea except—”

“We would have called,” Will cut in, “but we knew you’d tell us not to, so we just came on.”

“Actually, asking really would have been the better plan. I’m going to drive back to Raleigh as soon as I throw some things in the Jeep. I need to see how the renovations are progressing. Questions have come up about the new refrigerator. The one that was delivered wasn’t exactly the one they ordered, and the contractor’s holding off until I approve it.”

“Bummer,” Henri said.

“I’ll say,” Will agreed. “We were hoping for a nice evening together. How much longer do we have to stay away?”

“Not long. We’ve actually hit our target. It’s just a matter of pulling the string, then running a logging instrument back down to take readings so we’ll know for sure how big our gas deposit is.”

“But how long will that take?”

“A few days. Then we’ll make the big announcement. Hopefully, by that time, Dad and Miss Tobac … uh, Ms. Whitfield will have quashed any new attempts by the state to stop the project. Which doesn’t guarantee, of course, that the demonstrators will go away. Unless my deep background’s on the mark.”

“Your what?” Henri asked.

“From what I’ve heard from my friend Wanda, Global’s office manager at the port, the supposedly local protesters are all imports—mainly union workers brought in to make it look like people around here don’t want the project. But really, nothing could be further from the truth. People were clamoring for work here before the big recession; now they’re desperate for it,” I said, reaching for one of Tulip’s tennis balls in the grass. I threw it for her and she dashed off.

“The unions have wanted to get a foothold in North Carolina for a long time,” I continued, “but it’s a right-to-work state. Most of the jobs available in the oil and gas industry are provided by independent contractors. Once the dream of green jobs manned by unionized government employees becomes highly improbable and hiring picks up in the private sector, the demonstrators will go back where they came from.”

Will shrugged. Henri dug at the thick fescue lawn grass with her toes and said, “Well, we were going to Raleigh tomorrow anyway. I need to check in with a few clients there, and Will’s going to look at apartments. He said he might move back up this way.”

I looked at my son expectantly. “Maybe. I’m thinking about it. I love Miami, but it’d be nice to be back in my old stomping grounds.”

Tulip bounded up and dropped her ball at my feet. I picked it up and said, “Here’s an idea. I’ll take Tulip with me. That way she’ll get a twofer: she can spend time with me
and
slobber on the windows. You two follow. We’ll stop at our favorite barbeque place on the way, eat on those picnic tables out back so she can join us.” They looked somewhat appeased, but not totally happy. “Don’t worry,” I added, “it’s not that long. You guys can move back in just a few more days and we can spend the rest of the summer together. I shouldn’t have to go out to the
Magellan
very much once we’ve locked in our location.”

And so we set off. After a deliciously messy diner dinner roughly halfway between Morehead City and Raleigh, we parted company again. I kept Tulip with me, planning to drop her off at Henri’s place before returning to Morehead tomorrow. Forty-five minutes later, we pulled into the drive at the house in Raleigh. Tulip was having a fit to get out, so I reached over and opened the passenger door for her. She trotted nervously around the house, checking all the strange smells in her territory. Bleeping the garage door open, I drove in.

Dodging piles of folded painting tarps—removed from the shrubbery for the weekend—paint cans, sawhorses, and a slew of other equipment necessary for remodeling work, I clomped up the steps and stuck my key in the lock to the kitchen door. As soon as I stepped inside, I could tell something more than remodeling was amiss.

The aroma of my spaghetti sauce was unmistakable. Checking the sink, I found a single dirty plate, a fork, and a wine glass in one side and one of my individual baked spaghetti casserole dishes soaking in the other. My enormous powers of deductive reasoning told me only one person had eaten here. Had one of the contractors gotten hungry? Unprofessional maybe, but plausible. If that wasn’t the case, however, I needed to be prepared.

With the stealth of a cat burglar, I lifted Will’s old baseball bat from the umbrella stand by the door where it had lived since he was eight. I crept into the great room.

At first glance, nothing was out of place. Then I heard a low rumble … a growl? I cursed myself for not bringing Tulip in with me. I was just turning to go get her when I heard the growl again, this time accompanied by a snort.

I took a few steps farther into the room, but no one was there. Then I heard a shuffling sound on the couch, which faced away from me. Something was there and in a flash I knew just what it was. An opossum or a raccoon had wandered in an open door while the workmen were here! Holding the bat in front of me at the ready—they can carry rabies, you know—I tiptoed to the back of the couch and looked over it.

Bud gave another snort, this time a horrendous one, eliciting a blood-curdling shriek from me.

Springing to a sitting position, Bud yelped, “What? What?” and cracked his head against the bat I was still stiff-arming in front of me. He gave me an incredulous look, then flopped back among the pillows.

“Oops,” I said.

No response from my victim.

“Bud?” I prodded him weakly with the bat.

He opened his eyes—I swore they were crossed—and gawked at me. “Good God, Cleo, you almost cracked my skull!” He rubbed the top of his head and checked his fingers for blood.

“Good God yourself! You’re lucky I didn’t. What in the hell are you doing here?”

For a second his face was blank, then his features transformed into their let-me-think-of-something-quick expression. I’d had a lot of experience with that face, so I stopped the wheels from grinding. “Bud! Why are you here?” I demanded.

“Uh, I came by to check on your renovation. You know, making sure everything is getting done just like you want it.”

“Nice try,” I said, “except you don’t know how I want things done around here. So tell me why you’re really taking a snooze on my couch instead of being at your own house. Oh wait, let me guess, your little friend is wearing you out and you had to seek refuge somewhere she wouldn’t find you, right?”

Bud swung his feet to the floor, still rubbing his noggin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Anyway, what makes you think
I’m
not the one wearing my little friend out? Hmm?”

Looking straight at his crotch, I said, “I’m sure you are.”

“Oh, very funny, and really mature,” sputtered Bud. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. Besides, you should be extremely grateful that Amanda wants to help me wrap up this project—”

“Oh my lord!” I said, resisting the urge to raise the bat again. “Are you trying to tell me you’re taking one for the team? I’ve heard lots of excuses for male mid-life crisis, but this takes the cake.”

Bud reddened and his ears all but steamed. I was about to remind him about being in those heart attack years when Tulip came to our rescue, barking at the back door.

When I let her in, she took off for the great room, bristling back and neck hairs. As I put the bat away, I heard their rowdy reunion, with Bud cooing to her, “There’s my girl! Least someone’s glad to see me.”

When he found me in the kitchen—cleaning up his mess, by the way—Bud had regained his composure. He crossed his arms and leaned against the counter. I filled Tulip’s water bowl and gave it to her. She lapped up a drink, her tags clinking against the stainless steel.

Bud said, “Maybe we need to talk, babe.”

Calmly, I walked to the back door, opened it again, and stood beside it. “Nope,” I said. “I think we’re done here.”

Bud did whatever Bud does to make the tendons flex in his jaw, propelled himself from the counter, and left. Still calmly, but also tired—it had been a long day—I finished tidying up the remains of his uninvited drop-in.

Tulip and I spent a pleasant night in our own digs, but bright and early Monday morning, after a lengthy discussion with the contractors, I carried her back to Henri’s house and dropped her off. Although I said I was headed straight back to Morehead, I drove instead to the old Raleigh neighborhood of postwar houses that I thought might be a good place to start looking for the one-time home of one of Southern Women’s College’s most popular French professors. Don’t ask me why I wanted to find it. Maybe I just needed to see that it really existed.

Passing the campus, I drove several more blocks until I came to the neighborhood I was looking for and started a search, driving slowly up and down the streets. I was keeping my eye out for a yellow cottage with a crepe myrtle in front. The fact that Lucy had seen it more than fifty years before somehow wasn’t a deterrent. Or maybe I should say it wasn’t logic that was driving my curiosity.

After cruising the streets closest to the campus, I saw nothing that I thought might fit Lucy’s description of Professor Dubois’s cottage, so I expanded my search a few more blocks. Pulling down a quiet tree-lined street I listened to a classic rock station. Tapping my fingers idly as the Big Bopper sang “Chantilly Lace,” I spotted a young man walk up the drive of a house, not yellow but with one important feature I could see from where I sat—a towering crepe myrtle tree.

The largest of many dotting yards along the street, the tree was a blaze of fuchsia. But then the object of my interest disappeared behind an overgrown hedgerow dividing his yard from the neighbors. From where I was stopped I couldn’t see past it, so I slowly edged forward. What came into view then was worth the wait.

A cream-colored bungalow snuggled under the immense crepe myrtle tree. Additionally, it had tapered wooden columns with stone bases, just as Lucy had described from her memory of the house. The more I studied it, the more convinced I became I’d found the dwelling of the former German French-language professor who’d somehow escaped death during the sinking of
U-498
some 40 miles off the coast of Hatteras.

But was it just wishful thinking? I had no proof, only my hunch. Mystery novels always seemed so full of coincidences, but this was real life.

One possible solution seemed to be plugging the address into one of the many reverse locator websites. If I knew who lived in the house now, perhaps a call would yield information about the former occupants. I could also go to the college to see if they’d help me track the elusive professor. The trouble was, all that would take time, and I needed get back to the
Magellan
.

Talk about being torn. Should I follow the trail to one of the world’s greatest lost art treasures or get back to what I was supposed to be doing, finding one of the world’s most valuable gas deposits? Decisions, decisions. I figured, at the very least, I could check in with Phil Gregson.

“Hey, Cleo. Where are you?” The miracles of modern commu-
nication.

“I’m still in Raleigh,” I said. “ And since I need to attend to a few more things here, I wanted to see how we’re coming with the log.”

“Lithology is starting to change, indicating we’re just about to the bottom of the reservoir, but I’m afraid it’ll probably take a few hours longer than I predicted to get all the readings we need. That is, if we don’t hit any unforeseen problems. The crew’s really pouring it on, though. They’re so hell bent to beat SunCo, it could go quicker than I predict. I’ll keep you informed.”

“Thanks, that’s great.”

“Just a heads up: all the big wheels back in Houston are waiting with bated breath to hear the numbers. As you know, this is make or break for Global. They’re even sending some of the bean counters out here, like somehow their presence could summon up greater gas volumes. Hell, I don’t know. Maybe they just want to be here to make themselves feel like they’re doing all they can too. Lot of careers on the line …”

Since Phil had just given me a few hours reprieve, I headed for the college. Seemed like the best place to start my search for the professor.

The administrative offices of the Southern Women’s College were housed in a beautifully restored antebellum house of enormous proportions. Once the town residence of one of the kings of the cotton industry, it dripped with the grace and opulence of a by-gone era. Judging from the buildings and grounds, the cotton king had also left behind a healthy endowment. Once I’d told the receptionist, a silver-haired woman every bit as elegant as her surroundings, that I was looking for a professor who’d taught here the fifties, she directed me up an ancient stairwell. There she said, I’d find the Personnel Department, where a Mr. Devereaux would help me.