Safe Haven (23 page)

“That man is the start of it,” she murmured aloud. “I have to tell both stories.” She put on her coat, grabbed her bag loaded with her notebook and stash of pencils, and started out. “I’m off to meet my friend for supper and then I’ll be at the library,” she told Selma.

“Oh honey, take a night off from work and enjoy being with your friend.”

“I can do both,” Suzanne replied as she hurried out the front door.

Gordon was waiting for her at a small table set for two. He stood and came forward to greet her. She allowed him to kiss her cheek and tried to ignore how wonderful he looked—his chestnut hair combed back in waves, his suit perfectly tailored to his broad shoulders and the tie she had given him for his birthday. As he followed her to the table, he placed his hand lightly on her waist, and she recalled how Theo had done the same thing the day of the open house at the fort. Why was it that Theo’s gesture had felt comforting while Gordon’s felt possessive?

“You look wonderful, Suzanne,” he said as he held her chair for her. He handed her a menu and then took his seat across from her.

“Thank you,” Suzanne replied. She made a study of the menu. Plain fare that Gordon would no doubt disparage. The waiter was filling their water glasses. She handed him her menu, smiled, and said, “I’ll have the meat loaf, please.”

Both the waiter and Gordon looked startled. The waiter recovered first. “And for you, sir?”

Gordon snapped his menu closed and thrust it at the waiter. “The same.” Once the waiter had left, he looked at Suzanne. “Are we in a hurry?”

“I have work to do.” She reached for a roll. “So how has your visit to Oswego been?”

He shrugged. “I arrived late last night, met with the director at the fort this morning along with my colleagues, called you, and here we are.”

“You leave tomorrow for Washington?”

He relaxed slightly and took a swallow of his water, all the time studying her. “You’ve changed.”

She shrugged. “I suppose that’s inevitable when one’s life is turned upside down and inside out. I was blessed that Edwin Bonner gave me a second chance.”

“Look, Suze, things didn’t work out the way I thought they would—for either of us.”

She laughed. “You seem to have landed on your feet—still in Congress.”

“For what that’s worth.” He leaned closer. “But I have a plan—one that will revive both our careers.”

“Don’t do me any favors, Gordon. The last time—”

He dismissed the trashing of her career with a wave of his hand. “This is bigger than that, dollface.”

“Will you please stop calling me that?”

The waiter delivered their salads—iceberg lettuce with tomato slices and some shredded carrots topping the french dressing. Gordon attacked his, carving up the lettuce and tomato slices as if they were a tough steak. “I need your help. Suze—Suzanne, okay?”

“I’m listening.”

He launched into a tale of a high-ranking German officer that he had traced to the Oswego area. “This man knows things—things that could help end the war. If we can turn him.”

“And exactly how do I figure into this?”

“You’re here,” he said as if the rest should be obvious. “And you have connections with the refugees and maybe some of them knew this man back in Germany and …”

The waiter brought their meals and removed the salad plates. In that moment it all became clear to her. Gordon had never meant to cause her harm. He simply hadn’t thought things through. He had this way of grabbing onto an idea that was not yet fully formed and moving forward. “The details can always be worked out,” he had once told her. “It’s the timing that matters, Suze. You have to seize the moment.”

She waited until they were alone again. “Gordon, don’t do this,” she said. “You need to think this through very carefully.”

“I have. If we—you—could get to this guy, get him to trust you …”

She thought of the man in the orchard. Could he be this man?

“I have no way of meeting this man, Gordon, and besides, I have my own project. I’m writing a book to tell the stories of the refugees or at least as many as I can tell.”

“And I have friends in publishing who can get that book in print. Work with me, Suze. Once upon a time we made an incredible team.”

“Once upon a time I believed in fairy tales,” she said softly and folded her napkin. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. Thank you for dinner.”

He half rose from his chair, but she had already started for the exit. She would not permit herself to get caught up in one of Gordon’s schemes—not again.

The library was almost deserted. She passed the librarian’s desk and headed for the area where back issues of magazines and newspapers were stored. She took a stack of recent issues of the local newspaper to one of the tables and started methodically going through them page by page. Her purpose was twofold. One, she was on the lookout for any articles about POWs in the Oswego area, and two, she wanted to get a sense of the style of reporting the paper’s editors preferred. If she did go for an interview, she would be expected to bring along samples of her work, and she wanted to be sure she chose samples that were a good fit. As for the POWs, it had been her intent well before her conversation with Gordon to learn more about them.

She had been at it for about an hour when a man entered the area and took the chair at the opposite end of the table. He was carrying his hat—a worn brown fedora—as well as the current issue of the newspaper—the one the librarian had fixed onto one of the long wooden poles to set into the current periodicals rack. He laid it on the table and pulled the chair closer as he began to read. There was something familiar about him, but she couldn’t place him and decided that she had probably seen him in town.

He was so still that except for the occasional turning of a page Suzanne found it easy to ignore him. But eventually the fact that he continued to read the same paper long past the time when any normal person would have finished made her start to watch him. She kept her gaze lowered, of course, not wanting him to know that she was watching, but gradually the time she spent observing the man far outdistanced the time she was spending studying the papers before her.

She knew she had stepped over the line when he looked up and met her eyes. “I am a slow reader,” he said in perfect English colored by a thick German accent. “Did you want this newspaper? I could perhaps read one of those.” He motioned toward the stack of papers next to her.

“No. Sorry. It’s just … I mean … you seem to …”

“Are you looking for something specific?”

“Well, yes. I’m a reporter—or I was. Anyway I was looking for recent articles about the …” She stopped, and her hand covered her mouth as she realized who this man was. “You are … You were …”

“My name is Detlef Buch, and I am a prisoner of your country.” He delivered this introduction without embarrassment or bitterness. “And you are the reporter who came to the orchard last fall when we were picking apples for Herr—Mister Walls.”

“That was several months ago. How can you be sure?” She was more than a little wary. Had this man followed her here? And what did he want?

His smile was a mere crooking of his mouth. There was no warmth of joy in it. “It used to be my business to be sure. You are Miss Randolph, are you not?”

He knew her name—a name she did not remember giving as she stood by the fence in the orchard that day. And then she realized that he had also been at Franz’s funeral reception. He was following her. She stood up, prepared to flee or at least signal for help. “What do you want?”

“Please do not be alarmed,
Fräulein
. I have thought about what you said that day in the orchard when you spoke to the guards about the POWs and how their story could be very interesting.”

“Well, yes, but since that time I have decided to go in a different direction.”

He smiled. “And yet you are seeking articles about the prisoners.”

“You are very observant, Mr. Buch.”

“I wish to know if you might be willing to write my story. You see, Miss Randolph, like many of the people you know here in America, I chose a side in this war. Now I see that it was the wrong side. I will not defend myself by saying that I did not know or that I had no choice. I knew.” An expression of utter agony crossed his features. “God help me, I knew.”

“And did nothing,” Suzanne guessed, relaxing slightly. “Why would I want to write your story, Mr. Buch?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps because it would be a story that no one else in your country will have the opportunity to write? Perhaps because selfishly I hope that through telling my story I may lessen the severity of my punishment once the war is ended.”

Suzanne began to gather her notebook and pencils and purse.

“Miss Randolph, please hear me out.”

“Why should I?” She clutched her belongings to her chest, her eyes darting around, seeking the best escape route since he stood between her and the exit.

“Because I will tell you only the facts, and any interpretation or judgment you put on those facts will no doubt be kinder than I deserve.”

She could not deny that she was tempted. Standing across the table from her was a man who could give her the story that might lead to the redemption she sought for the career she loved so much. Yet the similarities between this man’s offer and the one she had accepted from Gordon that had destroyed her career made her suspicious.

Gordon! Could this man possibly be …

“What was your role in the war?” she asked.

He met her gaze without flinching. “I was a member of Hitler’s secret police—the Gestapo.”

Okay, Randolph, go now before you get in too deep
. She took a step and then hesitated.

The German stepped to one side of his chair as if to leave her a clear passage for escape. “You are right to be cautious, Miss Randolph. After all, I am your enemy.”

“Your country and my country are enemies,” she replied.

He lifted his eyebrows in surprise. “Another young woman from America once said that,” he told her. “She and my son …” His voice trailed off and he shook his head as if to banish the thought.

“Is your son also a prisoner of war?”

He looked at her for a long time as if considering his answer. Then very slowly he said, “I do not know what has become of my son. He and that young woman I mentioned stood against the Reich. They married and were sent to a concentration camp but escaped, and the last I heard of either of them they had made it to an island off the coast of Denmark.”

Suzanne was surprised at the sympathy she felt for him. In that moment he was not German or a Nazi. He was a father who grieved for his lost child, and that made him no different than any parent in any country.

“Mr. Buch, you are correct in saying that writing about you would be a very different story than anything being done by my fellow journalists.”

“Yet you do not trust me.”

“These days I cannot afford to trust anyone who promises to tell me his or her story without embellishment. How will I know that what you tell me is true?”

The quirk of his lips that passed for a smile reappeared. “I see your point. But I promise you it is an amazing story. I daresay that young man you dined with earlier—the one from your government—would find it extremely interesting.”

“You have been following me. You came to the funeral and—”

He shook his head. “I came to Herr Professor Schneider’s funeral. I knew him—and his wife—back in Germany. I had thought to pay my respects but then reconsidered.”

She laid down her belongings and pushed the notebook and three of her pencils toward him. “Write down your role in this war or about how you came to be captured and brought here.” That was something that she could check for facts. “I will be here tomorrow at this same time. Bring me the pages. I will read them, and then I will decide.”

“This is a fair offer,” he said as he collected the notebook and pencils and placed them in the patch pocket of his coat. “It has been my pleasure to speak with you, Miss Randolph, whatever the outcome of this conversation may be.”

He closed the newspaper and with a slight bow turned away. He replaced the newspaper on the rack, nodded to the librarians, and left.

Suzanne watched him go, and only when he was through the double doors and she could no longer see him did she realize how her pulse was racing with excitement. He was right. This could be the break she was looking for. Perhaps she was not being led to write about the refugees at all. Perhaps Detlef Buch was the reason she had returned to Oswego.

But then there was Gordon.

Theo had news he could not wait to share with Suzanne. That afternoon Joseph Smart had offered him a position on his staff at the shelter. Theo was to have the responsibility of acting as a liaison between Director Smart and the chair of the congressional committee on immigration affairs in Washington. In truth it was little more than a secretarial position, for his job really was to gather the data and forms the committee requested from time to time, but it was a direct connection to Washington. He would have experience in working with a congressional committee. He would perhaps even have the opportunity to meet members of the House or Senate.