Flowers From Berlin (28 page)

Stephen Fowler turned toward the parish house, which was quiet. Where, he wondered, was Laura?

PART SIX

November 1939

TWENTY-EIGHT

"A Mrs. Laura Fowler found the body," said Chief of Police Bob Higgins of Liberty Circle. "Horrible thing. Just horrible. The poor woman went out for a walk behind her husband's church. About an hour before the Reverend returned from a trip. There's a cemetery behind St. Paul's, then a couple of acres of woods. Well, sir, she's walking and her foot hits something."

Bill Cochrane followed Chief Higgins closely, listening to each word. They walked from the police station only about two blocks to the church. Higgins was not used to having F.B.I. visitors. It was still a nice afternoon.

"She sees what hit her foot and she looks down. Well, sir," said the red-haired, lean Higgins, "sure enough. It's the arm of a dead woman reaching up from a makeshift grave."

Cochrane nodded. They walked quickly. "Thank you for telephoning," he said. He hadn't been off the train from Washington for ten minutes.

"Well, sir," answered Higgins. "I got that F.B.I. circular about that sailor who was murdered. Wasn't that a horrible thing? Well, it stuck with me. Couldn't get the case out of my mind. The boy's body lying out there in the woods. Well, sir. Then we get this one right here in Liberty Circle. Almost the exact same thing. So, well, sir, I made up my mind to call."

The local police officer was correct. It was like Billy Pritchard all over again. Higgins led Cochrane fifty yards through the woods and they came to a black blanket that covered a corpse. The rest of the Liberty Circle Police Department, two deputies, sprung to attention when they saw that Chief Higgins had a visitor.

"This killer you're looking for. . ." Higgins said. "Must be important."

"Why's that?"

"Murder don't bring the F.B.I. in unless it's real important. Well, sir, I'm just a country cop, but I know that much."

"Fact is, Chief," Cochrane said, "there's both kidnapping and bank robbery involved. That's what brings us in."

"Holy heck," he said. "Is that a fact?"

The deputies uncovered the corpse. Cochrane grimaced and looked down. The odor of the corpse was building.

"Strangled," said Higgins helpfully. "Just like the boy in New Jersey."

Cochrane stooped down and looked at the neck. "Looks like a pair of hands did this," he said. He did not volunteer that a chain had been used in Red Bank.

"She's been dead for two days at the most," said Higgins. "I went to a forensics science course in Trenton last year. And, well, I'll tell you something else, Mr. Cochrane, sir, she was here on Wednesday."

Cochrane had already noted the clothing. The undergarments were still wet. "Why's that?" Cochrane asked.

"It hasn't rained since Wednesday," he said, looking to his deputies, who were suitably impressed. "But she was here in the rain. That means she was killed Wednesday afternoon."

Cochrane was looking carefully at the neck now. A pair of very strong hands, he noted. The throat was crushed.

"Very observant," he said, glancing up. "But I thought you didn't touch the body."

"Didn't
move
anything," the chief said with sudden defensiveness. "But we checked the body."

"No one recognizes her?"

"It's a town of four thousand," Higgins said. "I know everyone. I don't know her."

"What about the neighboring towns?"

Higgins suppressed a chuckle. "Well, sir, I had the other police chiefs over here this morning. Wanted to give you as much as I could. None of them could identify her, either, Mr. Cochrane. She's from out of the area."

"No identification?" Cochrane asked.

"No, sir."

"No purse? No wallet?"

"Well, sir, no."

Cochrane wondered if the chief had checked the dead woman for sexual contact, too. But he did not ask.

"Out of the area," the chief repeated. "I'm sure."

"So am I."

"You are?"

Cochrane stood. He nodded to the deputies, who placed the blanket back over the corpse. "Yes."

"How so sure?" Higgins asked.

"Expensive high heels. Black lamé dress. Three gold bracelets, a ruby ring, and silk stockings. How many women dress like that around here on a rainy afternoon, Chief?'"

"Well, sir. Not very many, I got to admit."

Cochrane noted that the woman also wore a raincoat. Clear days since Wednesday gave further credence to that day as the time of the murder. Cochrane glanced over his shoulder. If the body had been dragged to this spot and dumped, the trail had been beaten away by eager footsteps. But more likely, the woman had been lured here by someone she knew, someone she liked, or someone who coerced her. But there had been no robbery or, apparently, sexual assault. Her clothes were neat, which argued against coercion.

Cochrane looked back to the police chief and pondered: murder was the crime least frequently committed by professional criminals. Rather, it was the province of jittery amateurs seeking to cover their mistakes. Why was Siegfried jittery? What mistake had he sought to cover?

Then again, in the twilight world of espionage, such statistics could be tossed to the wind. But such questions couldn't be.

"Okay. So what else?" Chief Higgins asked.

"She came from the city," Cochrane said. "She came out here to visit, perhaps. Must have known someone. Maybe the killer."

"You think the killer lives here?"

"I didn't say that. But it happened on Wednesday, Chief, give or take a day. Now maybe you can get a couple of volunteers and go door to door. Find out who saw any strangers on Wednesday of this past week. J. Edgar Hoover would be thankful if you'd help."

"Well, sir, gosh. I'd be happy to help a great policeman like J. Edgar Hoover."

"I'll tell him we can count on you. He’ll probably send you an autographed picture.”

“Really?”

“Count on it. He likes to do things like that.”

Chief Higgins was beaming.

"Now, the state police will be by for photographs," Cochrane said. "They'll also handle the removal of the body. Where do I find this Mrs..?”

"Fowler? The one who discovered the body?"

"Right," Cochrane said.

"Well, sir, just follow me. It'll just take a minute."

*

Chief Higgins led Bill Cochrane to the home of Reverend and Mrs. Fowler. Cochrane and Chief Higgins waited in the Fowlers' living room as Reverend Fowler appeared first.

"She's extremely upset," Reverend Fowler explained in low tones before his wife entered the room. "I hope you won't dwell on too many of the details."

"I'll proceed gently," said Cochrane.

"What are you, by the way?" Fowler asked. "New Jersey State Police?"

"Federal Bureau of Investigation."

Cochrane saw an unwitting flinch in the minister's eyes. He chalked it up to surprise.

"Investigating a homicide?" Reverend Fowler asked, his tone of voice strange.

Cochrane repeated the lie about banking and kidnapping. The minister appeared content with the explanation.

The woman who entered the room a minute late was as beautiful as she was shaken. Laura wore a navy-blue sweater and a gray skirt. Bill Cochrane looked at her and wondered why he always met the truly extraordinary women in the line of duty or after they had married someone else.

Then he reminded himself that a woman in city clothing was dead beyond the churchyard. He exchanged a few pleasantries with the Fowlers, sat down, and turned to business. Chief Higgins remained in the room.

Laura recounted what she had found and how she had found it. She had little more to say. She had, after all, turned and run from the area in horror upon her discovery. And she had not been back to the location since.

Reverend Fowler tried to take some of the attention away from his wife.

"Really, Officer," Fowler said, "I don't know what else my wife can tell you. She only made the discovery."

"Had either of you been up in that area of the woods on previous days?" Cochrane asked.

The Fowlers shook their heads.

"What about suspicious individuals?" Cochrane asked. "Or people you haven't recognized in town recently?"

"I saw the woman's face," Laura said with a shudder. "I can still see her face." She stifled a tremor, and her husband, sitting on a sofa next to her, took her hand.

She raised her eyes back to Bill Cochrane. "I had never seen her before. Ever."

Fowler looked at his wife carefully and shifted his eyes back to Cochrane. It was at that moment that Fowler was unnerved to notice that Cochrane had been watching him as his wife spoke.

"Reverend," Cochrane asked, "do you know anyone in the habit of using that area for any purpose?"

Fowler said he did not.

"But the only access is through the churchyard, isn't it?" Cochrane asked.

Chief Higgins interjected. "Well, sir, no. Not exactly. The woods come out near the train station."

"They do, do they?" asked Cochrane, intrigued.

"They also border upon more than three dozen private homes," Fowler seemed anxious to add. "Really, Officer, there're probably a hundred ways to get to that location. None of them are particularly well watched."

"Of course," said Cochrane. He looked at Laura again. Another man's woman. His attention lagged again and he wondered what such a woman had seen in her husband. Then, of course, he sensed it. Fowler was well-spoken, and handsome. Chief Higgins had already confided that their parish minister was from a moneyed Main Line family.

"I suspect that's all for today,” Cochrane said. “Thank you."

What was it, Cochrane wondered, that he did not like about the minister? Then he realized: Fowler had the type of woman that Cochrane had once upon a time wanted.

"Officer?" Fowler asked, as they all stood and as Cochrane moved toward the door.

"Yes?"

"Tomorrow's Sunday," he said. "If you're here in the morning, St. Paul's would welcome you. We have services at eight and nine-thirty."

Cochrane's response surprised the minister. "That's very kind of you," he answered. "I'll try to be there."

Once again, Bill Cochrane thought he saw something strange in the man's eyes.

"Wonderful," Laura said. "My husband gives an excellent sermon."

"People like it because it's short," laughed Fowler. "They can get home to breakfast at a reasonable hour."

Then Bill Cochrane and Chief Higgins were outside the Fowlers' home again and Chief Higgins was talking as they walked down the lane that passed the church. Higgins was saying how popular the new minister was, how he had just come from seminary at Yale, and how he had eased the transition from the older Reverend Dryer, who was now quite ill.

Cochrane listened with one ear as they walked past the white wooden church. Cochrane looked skyward toward the spire.

Then several thoughts came together. The steeple of St. Paul's was the highest manmade point anywhere in the area. And then he suddenly recalled why the name Liberty Circle had leaped out at him. The town was almost dead center on the radius map drawn by the Bluebirds of radio transmissions. His mind played Satanic games as he thought back to Wilhelm Hunsicker's description of an elusive spy.

Except for one detail:
Siegfried was German.
Wasn't he?

Cochrane was suddenly in his own universe with the implications.

"What's wrong with you, Mr. Cochrane?" Chief Higgins' voice was urgent. “Hey! Snap out of it! Then Higgins’hand was on Cochrane's shoulder, shaking him, jarring him.

". . wrong with you?"
Cochrane heard him say.

Cochrane snapped back to where he was. "Sorry," he said.

"We're strolling along here, sir, and you plain stopped walking. You all right?"

"Yes," Cochrane said, realizing that he had in fact stopped walking when a certain realization was upon him. "I was thinking. That's all."

"Must have been some thought."

"Yes. Frankly, it was. Something personal though. Sorry, I can't share it."

Fact:
no one had ever established that Siegfried was a native German. That had been supposition. Dick Wheeler's, seconded by Hoover.

And, fact:
there was no such thing as coincidence in this line of work.

Bill Cochrane checked into an inn situated in nearby Moorestown. From there he telephoned Dick Wheeler in Washington. He was staying here for a few days, Cochrane explained. Siegfried had been there four or five days earlier and no one had seen a stranger. So perhaps the spy wasn't a stranger.

"Don't get carried away, Bill," Wheeler warned. "Why would Brother Siegfried kill in his own backyard?"

“Because he could? Because he had to?” Cochrane suggested.

Cochrane could almost smell the white pipe smoke seeping through the line. Dick Wheeler cast his own spells.

"I don't know," Cochrane answered. "But it's as warm a lead as we've seen. So I'm staying."

TWENTY-NINE

The turnout for both church services that Sunday morning was larger than usual. The news of a murder within friendly Liberty Circle had spread through town. By Saturday evening everyone knew. By Sunday morning townspeople wanted to see each other and know that the world would safely go on. So they went to church.

St. Paul's had pews of deep burgundy, two side aisles, light oak panels on the floor and the walls, and a pulpit to the center left. An ethereal, benevolent fair-haired Christ appeared on the stained glass behind the altar. Bill Cochrane was only an occasional churchgoer, but even he was moved by the old church --- 1797, said the historical marker outside --- the congregation that filled it, the service, and the pastor.

Stephen Fowler was a man of great seriousness that Sunday morning. The congregation joined the choir in
Holy, Holy, Holy!
—the processional hymn—and after an opening prayer and psalm, those assembled sang
A Mighty Fortress
. "At least one Lutheran hymn a week," Reverend Fowler liked to tell parishioners with a wink.

Then came the sermon. Stephen Fowler met head-on the subject that troubled his parish most. He avoided words "murder" and "homicide," but he talked of the "tragedy" in their midst. He spoke eloquently of death as part of life, touched upon guilt and original sin, and then moved to both forgiveness and trust: trust in God, trust in Christ; trust in the teachings of Christ. Follow me.

"Some follow and some stray," Reverend Fowler concluded. "It is up to each of us to decide which we are. But I promise you this." He held his congregation in rapt attention. "Those who follow are not those who need have fear now. Fear," he said, "is for those who have strayed. Let us pray. . ."

The recessional hymn, appropriately, was
Faith of Our Fathers
, which keyed something within Cochrane and summoned up memories of a Methodist childhood in Virginia. After the service he felt good, as if the service itself had routed the specter of war and murder.

But, of course, it hadn't. Afterward, outside on a sunny cool November morning, he found himself glancing upward at the spire again. Then he saw Reverend Fowler and Laura exchanging greetings with the faithful in the vestibule, so he joined them.

"It was good of you to come," Fowler said to Cochrane, shaking his hand. "I like to see new faces each Sunday."

"It was a lovely service," Cochrane said. "Thanks for skipping
Onward, Christian Soldiers
.”

Reverend Fowler chuckled. "I'll tell you," he said, lowering his voice, "we get requests for that mawkish bombastic piece. Once a year will do us fine on that."

"Anything new?" Laura asked Cochrane, changing the subject.

"On investigation? No,” Cochrane answered. “I suspect I'll be turning it over to the state police this evening."

"Then you're not staying?" she asked.

Cochrane shook his head. "I'm on my way back to Washington," he said. "Federal employees can only get away for so long before it starts to look like a vacation."

"I'm on my way to New York, myself," Fowler said. "Later today. Sorry we're not going in the same direction. We could have had a fine talk."

"Maybe some other time."

"Maybe." Bill Cochrane turned to Laura and looked into the loveliest pair of brown eyes he could ever have imagined. "Thank you for your time, Mrs. Fowler," he said.

"I wish I could have helped more," Laura answered.

For some reason, he was short of words. "I'm sure you did your best," he said lamely. Then he left, feeling their eyes on his back as he walked away.

*

From a slatted window in the church spire, just above the antique clock, and just a few feet from Siegfried's cramped transmission chamber, a man could see the railroad station. Reverend Fowler found it convenient to be in the spire that afternoon when the train to Philadelphia and Washington departed. He focused a pair of binoculars on the depot, scanned the voyagers assembled, and eventually found the snooping F.B.I. agent.

Fowler kept the glasses carefully on Bill Cochrane. There was nothing about the man that he liked. His presence there. His sharp, penetrating mind. His observance of detail. The way he looked at Laura. The way she looked back at him.

The train pulled into the station and Fowler kept the glasses on the troublemaker. Fowler thought of his wife. His wife was his possession, after all. She might have to be taught a lesson sometime soon. After all, he mused further, with Charlotte gone, Laura would have to fulfill other functions. A man needed a wife and a whore sometimes, Fowler mused wistfully. Laura would have to be both.

The train pulled to a halt at Liberty Circle. The first three cars would transfer at Trenton to an engine and train of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Fowler watched Bill Cochrane carefully and was relieved when the F.B.I. agent boarded the second car. Fowler scanned all the exits until the train pulled out of the station.

Cochrane had not disembarked. He was gone. Fowler placed his binoculars back in their case, content with Cochrane's departure. He was further satisfied that he could travel to New York, himself, later that evening.

Fowler paid no attention at all to three other travelers who disembarked at Liberty Circle. One was a tall dark-haired Englishman in a coat and a bowler. The other two men were younger and more heavyset. They were bareheaded and followed their senior partner. But Siegfried, thinking ahead to his own departure that day, had no way of recognizing Peter Whiteside. Nor did he have any way of guessing his business in Liberty Circle. Nor, in his wildest fantasies, would he have imagined that Whiteside would have brought some M.I.6 muscle along with him, just for good measure.