Rocket Science (9 page)

“No, no, son. You’re off the hook. Common sense tells me that, and I’m confident the County Attorney will agree with me. For one thing, if you were a spy, you wouldn’t have beaten your own father, hidden him in the trunk of your car, then tipped off Deputy Truefield to come pick you up for it.”

“So what is going on?”

“Remember that Captain Markowicz you asked about?” asked Doc Milliken. “I did set his broken arm yesterday. He showed me identification that proved to my satisfaction that he was Captain Markowicz of Army CID He asked me to keep his visit confidential.”

“So it’s confidential.” They were talking, but they weren’t telling much. Who had broken Markowicz’s arm? Dad could have, but I couldn’t see why he would have bothered.

Sheriff Hauptmann stepped away from his dining chair and walked across the room to the mantel. Running his fingers along the carvings, Hauptmann turned to face me. “Captain Abraham Markowicz was found beaten to death in Kansas City, Missouri three days ago. I received a telegram from the Missouri State Police this afternoon advising me to be on the lookout for someone using his identification. His papers were presumed stolen at the occasion of his assault.”

“And the Sheriff happened to mention it to me,” said Doc Milliken. “So I told him I had seen a Captain Markowicz yesterday.”

“So this Captain Markowicz, you think he’s a Nazi?” I asked.

“Quite possibly,” answered Sheriff Hauptmann. “He or a confederate doubtless posed as Deputy Morgan on the telephone to you. Interestingly, the tip that Deputy Truefield got about you came from a man identifying himself as Morgan. The question that we can’t readily answer is what interest they would possibly have in you or your dad. You’ve got some value through your work at Boeing, but with all respect, nobody here thinks you’re a big fish there.”

“I’m not,” I said. “I buy parts. Fasteners, rivets, screws.”
Big deal
, I thought, but someone had to do it.

But I knew perfectly well why the bad guys were interested in me and Dad. It was Dad’s truck that Floyd Bellamy and I had used to haul that special cargo away from the train station this past Thursday. That was the interest right there. The German agents had not yet made the connection to Floyd, maybe because they hadn’t yet managed to look at Odus Milliken’s freight records. Obviously some German agent had seen me driving Dad’s truck with the stolen cargo.

It all came back to my beautiful aircraft. Should I just give Floyd and his stolen German equipment up to the Sheriff now, or should I try to get out there tonight and warn him and his parents?

“Vernon?” prompted Doc Milliken gently.

I lied to two honest men who were trying to help both me and their country. I prayed the ghost of the real Captain Markowicz would forgive me. “No, sir, I can’t imagine what they would want with me or Dad.”

Perhaps the unpleasant Mrs. Sigurdsen in the library was a Nazi agent. That would certainly explain where my envelope went.

I talked with Sheriff Hauptmann and Doc Milliken a while longer, about the weather and football at Kansas State — the things people say to each other when they have run out of purpose but don’t know how to walk away. Every word was a struggle.

Generally, I tried not to lie to people. For one, I wasn’t very good at it. Every time I opened my mouth to those two, the whole story threatened to pop out, about Floyd and the Battle of the Bulge, about the Nazi “Report on the Arctic Expedition for Secret Contact,” and airplanes frozen into the Arctic ice, and the unbelievable machine sitting in Mr. Bellamy’s barn on top of Dad’s old Mack stake bed. The truth strained to escape my grasp and soar upward into the world.

I couldn’t afford to tell them, not yet. I was worried about the Bellamys. Even though Mr. Bellamy didn’t like me very much any more, I still liked him. I’ve always had a soft spot for old people. They’ve tried so hard in life, and for their reward they get ground back into dust. The world owed old people better than most of them ever get.

I owed my father better than I gave him.

I begged out of our conversation after a few minutes.

“Gentlemen,” I finally said, “I need to be getting along. It’s been a terrible day for me.”

“Of course, son,” said Sheriff Hauptmann. “You’re worried sick about your dad, I’m sure.”

“Doc, can I borrow your car?”

“Why?” he asked. “You only live two blocks from here.”

This was a reasonable question. “I want to go out to Dad’s place and check on things,” I said. “It’s dark, and that’s a long walk. The Augusta police are holding my Hudson as evidence in the assault on Dad.” I suspected that Chief Davis had seized the car as minor local protest against Sheriff Hauptmann getting involved in business in town, but either way just as inconvenient for me.

I still had no car.

Doc Milliken smiled. “The keys are in the Cadillac. I can drive Ruthie’s Dodge tomorrow if I need to go anywhere. Just get the car back to me by Monday morning. Without any dents, if you please, Vernon.”

“Thank you, sir.”

We all shook hands as if we were friends and neighbors instead of conspirators working at cross-purposes — for certainly that’s what I was. I bid Mrs. Milliken good night and walked outside.

The night air smelled of wood smoke and leaf mold. People joke about Kansas being like an ironing board, but eastern Kansas has rolling hills and lots of hardwood stands. West of Wichita, it’s what the movies show you. Around here, you could be in Missouri or Arkansas. It’s the edge of the Ozarks. Even with the lights in town, I could see plenty of stars in the cold sky, and voices rose and fell as a distant mutter.

Not a lot went on in Augusta, Kansas on a Saturday night. A few people scurried in and out of the Augusta Theatre, and Lehr’s restaurant had late hours for the highway traffic trying to make it on to Wichita. Otherwise people stayed home and listened to the radio. Or whatever it was that normal people did at home on Saturday nights.

I stopped and breathed in the smells and sounds of my town, pleased to be at rest for a moment, back in control of myself after a day of being pushed, pulled and frightened nearly out of my wits. Mom, Dad, the airplane, Floyd — they all receded into the peace of the night.

After a few minutes of communing with nature, I was ready to get on with my evening. For one thing, I was cold, still only in my work shirt and khakis.

The Cadillac was the first car I had ever driven with a radio in it. It was also the nicest car I had ever driven. It was 1941 Series 62 convertible, factory painted blue, from the last production year before the war. Doc Milliken had kept it up like showroom new, even gotten fresh tires somewhere. My poor Hudson still had the wartime civilian-issue bald tires almost everyone else had.

Doc Milliken had left the top on the Cadillac down, and I didn’t bother to put it up even though the night air was chilly. Nothing wrong with the heater, and I really enjoyed convertibles. I could just imagine cruising with a girl — maybe Lois if she decided to talk to me again — top down, the wind in our faces, sitting close to stay warm. A fellow could get a lot of going steady done with a fine ragtop like this.

I drove through quiet streets of Augusta and listened to radio talk about the United Nations — a new League of Nations that was being ratified into existence from the charter signed last summer in San Francisco. Overseas, Italians squabbled over their first post-war elections, while all the sections of occupied Germany were restless.

It was a wartime habit, obsessively listening to news.

As I headed east, towards El Dorado and the Bellamys’ place, I turned the radio back off and pretended that the Cadillac was mine, and Lois and I were driving to California on vacation. The muddy Kansas roads out near the Bellamys’ farm became the parkways of sunny southern California, lined with orange trees and eucalyptus. I had never seen a parkway, but I sure could imagine one, smelling like cough drops and drenched in endless sunlight.

* * *

The Bellamy house was dark as I drove up. The Willys pickup was back at my boarding house, while the Farm-All was parked out front near Mr. Bellamy’s old Ford coupe — which to the best of my knowledge hadn’t moved in years. The barn was closed up.

I parked Doc Milliken’s Cadillac. The night was clouding up and we had a new moon. I found a flashlight in the glove box, so I borrowed it and went into the house.

The old frame farmhouse was quiet. It was about ten in the evening, long after Floyd’s parents normally retired, but I had expected to find Floyd around. Not wanting to wake anyone up by lighting a fire or the oil lamps, I flicked on the flashlight and looked around the living room. I knew the place like I knew my own bed — spent a lot of nights out here over the years — but tonight was different. I don’t know what I thought I was looking for, but I imagined Nazis under every piece of furniture. Here in the quiet dark, the old house creaking in the cool night air, Sheriff Hauptmann’s descriptions of spy rings and the murder of Captain Markowicz made me nervous all over again. The calm I had felt in the car vanished like smoke in the wind.

Despite my newfound case of nerves, the living room seemed normal. I moved on into the dining room. A loose board by the door creaked under my weight and I froze. All I could hear besides the rough hiss of my own tight breathing was the wind rattling in the eaves of the house.

The flashlight deepened the sharp shadows around its bright cone of light. It was hard for me to tell what I was seeing. Mrs. Bellamy’s massive breakfront startled me, looming the darkness like a
kommando
on the prowl. I banged into an unseen side table, barking the shin on my lame leg. I sucked in my breath at the pain, stifling a yelp.

Darn it, I’d spent years of my life in this house, now I was stumbling like a burglar.

Covering the flashlight with my hand, I walked to the kitchen door, which was shut. I put my ear against it, listening for any kind of noise. I heard a slow creaking.

What the heck was it? It sounded like a door being opened, only the noise went on and on, as if the door were infinitely large. After a moment I realized that it was the noise of a rope bearing a heavy load.

I looked down at my feet, dimly visible in the glow of the hooded flashlight. There was a dark stain between them. I spread my fingers a little.

Blood.

My skin crawled, and I swear my hair stood up on end. I thought of old Mr. Bellamy and his dead twin Archie, and what the Nazi pretending to be Captain Markowicz had done to my Dad. The rope creaked again, and I realized that I had to go into the kitchen. I reached up a hand to push the door open.

There was a loud clack, the sound of a shotgun being pumped. I felt cold metal right behind my right ear as barrel pressed into my skin.

“Yah!” I spun to the left, favoring my bad leg and swung my flashlight like a club. There was a deafening roar as the shotgun went off, then the back of my head stung like fire. I must have taken some birdshot. My flashlight hit the barrel of the shotgun, knocking it out of Mr. Bellamy’s hands.

“Vidal!” he shouted, “What in the name of God Almighty are you doing sneaking around in my house at night?”

“You could have killed me!” I screamed back. Blood sheeted down my neck from the scalp wound.

“It would have served you right, you idiot delinquent.” Behind him, Floyd ran into the dining room brandishing a baseball bat.

“What’s going on down here? Daddy, you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” grumbled Mr. Bellamy in a more normal tone of voice, rubbing his hand. “Just tried to top off young Victor here, that’s all.” He glared at me, demonic in the light of my dropped flashlight. “Should have finished the job when I got the chance.”

Floyd peered at me. “What’s the matter with you, Vernon? Sneaking into people’s houses like a crook. Daddy could have killed you.”

I remembered the blood on the floor. It didn’t make sense — Nazis hadn’t slaughtered Floyd’s family in their beds like I had feared. What was it doing there? “Where’s Mrs. Bellamy?”

Floyd coughed, looked nervous. “Mama’s at her sister’s tonight. My Aunt Perneta over in Leon.”

“Then whose blood is that?” I asked, pointing at the floor.

Floyd bent down and looked at it, while Mr. Bellamy picked up his shotgun to inspect it for damage. Floyd laughed, his voice thin. “We slaughtered one of the hogs this evening. Cats must have knocked over the drip pan.”

“You slaughter pigs in your kitchen?”

“No, we slaughter ‘em in the yard,” said Mr. Bellamy. He tested the action on his shotgun. “We slaughter burglars in the kitchen.”

“We cut down the joints in there,” Floyd said. He looked at the shattered woodwork of the door and its frame. “And Mama’s gonna slaughter you, Vern, when she finds out about her kitchen door. You’d better fix this in the morning.”

Great
, I thought.
What a day. Dad’s in the hospital in Wichita and I’m down one Hudson, one historic hitching post and a kitchen door. Not a Nazi in sight here at the Bellamys
.

“Virgil,” said Mr. Bellamy, “why don’t you just stay here tonight? It’s late, and you and Floyd will need an early start to fix that door before Mrs. Bellamy gets back from her sister’s.”

“Thanks, sir. I think I will.” I picked up Doc Milliken’s flashlight and shut it off. Mr. Bellamy was already going back upstairs with the shotgun under his arm.

“He knew it was you all along,” said Floyd quietly.

“What do you mean? We surprised each other.”

Floyd laughed. “Daddy can shoot a tomato off the vine from fifty feet and not touch a leaf. There’s no way he missed you unless it was on purpose.”

I realized that I had knocked the shotgun out of Mr. Bellamy’s hands after he fired. “Why would he do such a thing?” I asked, incredulous, as I wiped blood from my collar. I was accumulating far too many bloody shirts.

“He just wanted to scare you,” said Floyd, shaking his head. “Let’s go to bed.”

“What about the pig’s blood?”

“Oh, you can clean that up in the morning when you fix the door. If you’re lucky, I’ll even help you.” Floyd flashed me his million-dollar grin. He had his nerve back, now that the gunfire was over. War will do funny things to a guy.