Terror Flower (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 5) (15 page)

“So what does this mean to me?” asked Tench. “You think these people might have killed Captain Bob?”

“These people don’t kill, at least not yet, they don’t. They scare to get results. You might want to get your friend Smote to lay off his accusations because these people might go after him.”

The strange thing was that the African woman was making sense, that she was saying the same thing as Captain Bob. “You have to fight, protect what you got that’s your alone, or they’ll own your soul. You’ll never have anything left, no place you can still call home.”

The thunder started then and the storm crashed across the town and the harbor. Tench saw Smote waiting at the door of the garage.

Smote said, “I went up there just before dawn today and I found something. You got to help me.”

The warnings from his cousin were immediately in his mind, but he disregarded them. He couldn’t let down his friend. “Tell me about it,” Tench said, sitting down at his desk.

Smote said, “I tell you something isn’t right up at Strake’s. I went along the beach in the dark, my boat close to the shore. I heard noises and saw lights not in the big house but coming from that low museum building to the back. A cloud of smoke drifted out over the water coming right by me. It smelled like the burning oil smell of engines revved up. They were working on the cars this early but it sounded like large truck engines.”

“I see the guards on the shore and I stay out of sight in the darkness. Then I poled the Emmy out into the channel before I started the engine.”

“Go on,” said Tench.

“I said to myself I got to find the way Captain Bob went in there. You know how he was. Always nosy. The Pastor even said that.”

“He had a keen eye.”

Smote went on. “I think he must have anchored his boat in along the shore, somewhere near where we found the anchor. Then he took his boots off and waded in. I think he see something and wanted to check it out as quiet as he could be.”

Tench leaned forward. He could visualize the old man, bent over, hunching his way as he waded slowly through the shallows, eventually coming up on the sand.

“I decided to go in there myself and see what I could find. I anchored and swam into shore. No one was around. The guards had all gone back to the main house or at least I didn’t see them and they didn’t see me.”

“I can figure it.”

“The shoreline has a bank but it’s relatively low, not more than four feet most of the places. I said to myself, that Captain Bob would not have gone along that shoreline because he would have been spotted.”

“That makes sense,” said Tench, his face serious as he listened.

“So when I got to the beach I didn’t go directly toward the main house. I went the other way. I think he figured he would be seen otherwise.”

“So what did you find?”

“The shoreline is covered with a lot of brush and fallen trees. You remember where we were when that guy pointed the gun at us?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I went wide of that and further down. By and by I found the going pretty rough. I could find no sign that he had been there, no tracks. The rain and the incoming tides had cleaned up all the traces if anyone had been there. To tell you the truth, Jimmy, I didn’t even know what I was looking for.”

He stared at Tench, his hair unruly from his excitement. His eyes were dark, intent. “I couldn’t see much but I heard a bulldozer starting up. Then behind that, was the original noise. I was closer and it sounded more like a rumbling sound and the ground began to shake. Then it stopped. The bulldozer shut off too. Everything got quiet. I heard the voices of guards coming down along the shoreline. I decided to come home and get you.”

Tench looked at his friend. “You don’t know what that noise was.”

“I know, I feel it, that was what my grandfather checked out and that was what got him killed, whatever it is,” said Smote.

Then Tench stood up. “If anyone might have also heard this, it would be Jones. Over the years he was out working the same grounds as your grandfather, always competing with him for the best catch. We’ll go see Jones again. We’ll ask him if he’s heard it. I think he knew more than he told me the other day.”

Chapter Thirteen

4 PM Friday August 20

The rain had stopped by the time Tench and Smote arrived at Jones’s house. It was a small cottage with a half-acre of land. Jones was in his front yard working on his crab pots. They were square screen devices with funnels to allow the crabs to enter seeking to feed on the enclosed bait but then not allow them to escape.

Hiram kept his head down and his face toward his current crab pot as they approached him. Tench and Smote were quiet as they stood before him.

Hiram spoke, not looking up, “I spent some time at my church after you left the other day. “

Tench nodded.

“Jesus told me that I have to do more for my old acquaintance, that I should stop and help you in the same way as the destitute man was helped by the neighbor in the Bible, do as the Good Samaritan did.”

Tench glanced at Smote. This was a change in Hiram’s approach, a major change in this old man’s willingness to help.

Looking up suddenly, Jones said, “I’m not a coward and I can be a friend. I knew Captain Bob, can ‘t say I loved him, but he treated me well and that’s more than most of them around here.”

“I understand,” said Tench, wondering where all this was leading.

Hiram went on, “Let me start by saying that about a year ago I heard about an old tunnel in the ground up to the Strake place. It ran all the way from the shoreline up to the old house there. Lots of them old plantation houses had escape tunnels to get away from the rebel raiders during the Revolution. Most of them tunnels are fallen in by now though.

“Anyway, I got to thinking about what the old man had told me. See, he didn’t like Stagmatter.”

“I know that,” said Smote.

Hiram looked at Smote, then continued, “Your grandfather liked to snoop around. I guess you know about that too.”

Smote nodded.

“He said to me he thought the fellow was a Nazi. You know how Captain Bob used to talk about watching for Nazi submarines during World War Two. I don’t know whether he ever did really see one or report it to the Navy but he thought he did.”

“Yessir,” said Tench.

“It made him happy to talk about it and I never heard of anyone who questioned him and his stories. So he got on talking about Stagmatter speaking German and being a bad influence on the people around here. He said good upstanding Americans shouldn’t have to share their home with a Nazi. He told me that Stagmatter’s old man was hunted by the Israelis for a long time until he died down in Argentina.”

“War crimes?” asked Tench.

“Stagmatter’s grandfather was a mechanic and worked for Mercedes Benz making engines. During the war the family lived near a rail yard where the factory was located. This of course was before Stagmatter the kid was even born. He was born in Argentina afterwards.

“Anyway, one of those big American bombers came in and hit the rail yard and blew up the factory. I know about those raids because I had a cousin who was a tail gunner on one of those ships and that’s what they mostly bombed, rail way yards.

“Stagmatter’s grandparents and the first wife of his father were burned to death in the fire bombs that the ships dropped on the buildings. I guess they had a little cottage here or something. Well, the father had a lot of connections and took a job with the German Army stationed with US prisoners of war. Turns out he tortured many of the prisoners who were bomber crews. That didn’t look good for the Red Cross inspectors. So the Nazis sent him to one of the Jew camps figuring I guess that his hatred would come in handy. He used to shoot the prisoners before they even got to the furnaces. Real nasty human being if you could call him human. After the war he took off to Argentina when everything was disorganized and worked down there fixing cars like his father had done. He never got caught but I guess his life was pretty dismal in hiding. He got married again and had Stagmatter. Stagmatter grew up in the business and became a mechanic that way. He was trained by Mercedes using his father’s contacts.

“So I can see how Captain Bob would have hated the guy,” said Tench.

“Yeah, he didn’t have much use for Stagmatter. Always snooping on him. Told me he was getting ready to call the FBI to investigate him.”

He paused, then went on, “So after he turned up out in the Bay that morning, I thought about what he had told me about Stagmatter.”

“You weren’t interested in helping me when I saw you,” said Tench.

“I was still figuring what to do,” the old man said.

Tench said, “You told me that people might come after you. Did you mean Stagmatter?”

Hiram nodded. “He has his way of finding out stuff about local people, don’t you worry.”

Hiram went on, “I went up yesterday after dark to find that tunnel. I figured if Captain Bob found anything about Stagmatter’s doings, it was connected to that tunnel.”

“Why?” asked Smote.

Hiram said, “That was the only way to get into the property without being seen.”

“You went up to the Strake place?” asked Smote.

“Like I say, I sneaked up there just before dawn. That’s the only way you’re going to do it given that they got all them guards.”

“What happened?”

“I went way out in the Bay to get by the farm so they couldn’t see me. I had my running lights off. I poled in the last few hundred yards. I went along the shoreline and then came into land about a mile past the property.”

“You were north of it,” said Tench.

“Yes. I came into the shoreline until she hit shallows at about twenty feet from the shore. I put in my anchor and then I waded ashore.”

“What was your plan, Hiram?”

“Well, I figured that the tunnel must be near the old path that runs down the north side of the large front field. Course that road is all covered over now. Hasn’t been used since the old tobacco days when the slaves would roll the hogsheads down to the English ships to send them to London. Captain Bob and I knew that ‘cause pilings where the ships tied up are still there under the water.”

“Yes,” said Tench.

“You betcha. I found the tunnel too. Had a wooden door.” He looked up with a smile.

“Where was it?”

“Right where I expected. Only they was some brush piled up in front of the entry. I expect the old man tried to hide what he found.”

“Did you enter the tunnel?”

“No, I couldn’t get in.”

“Why?’

“New lock and hasp on the door,” said Hiram, putting down the crab pot.

“Who do you think put that on?”

“I don’t know. I saw the old one on the ground, all rusty and bent. The old man must have broke it to get inside.”

“So maybe they capture him and the Africans, they find out about the old tunnel too,” said Smote. He was chewing hard on his gum. Tench had seen him this way just before a big baseball play.

“I guess so.”

“They locked it up again,” said Tench. “That tunnel must be open all the way to the house. Otherwise they wouldn’t bother to secure it.”

“I expect the old man must have told them a lot before they killed him,” said Hiram.

“You think he tell them anything, you wrong,” said Smote.

“He was too old and he liked to talk. I expect he let Stagmatter have it with a lot of Nazi remarks. Then he had Captain Bob murdered. They figured the secret of the old tunnel died with him.” said Tench.

“They’s a lot of bad people up there,” said Hiram.

“You think Strake is one too?” asked Tench.

“I just don’t know. He didn’t seem like the right kind. I think Stagmatter is your man because he’s just plain mean inside.”

“You started back to your boat?”

“Yessir. Nobody saw me neither.” He looked at Tench. “They’s one more thing.”

“What?”

“I looked up to the house just before I left. Light was just coming up. Some of them were out on the back porch just sitting, even that early in the morning before sunup.”

“Stagmatter?”

“Yes.” Hiram seemed hesitant.

“Strake?”

“No, he was nowhere in sight. That African woman was out there though and Marengo, the jungle man.”

“Who else?”

“The daughter, Julie. They used to say around town that she liked you, Jimmy.”

“What about Julie?” asked Tench, afraid of what the old man would say.

“She was there with the others on the porch.”

“You sure, Mister Jones?” asked Smote.

“I still got my good eyes. They were holding her. Two of them African mechanics. I watched them one on each side holding her elbows. She didn’t look too happy. ‘Course I couldn’t see her face, but just judging by the way she was standing, she weren’t too happy, nossir.”

“They were hurting her?” asked Tench.

“She sure didn’t seem to want to be there.”

As they drove back to River Sunday, Tench’s mind went back to a time when he and Julie were sitting on the dock at the bottom of the farm, looking out at the Chesapeake , the afternoon sun hot on their bodies. She didn’t have her hat that day, one of the few times she was without it, and her hair was long and free over her shoulders. Both of them were well tanned, lying in their swimsuits on the bare weathered wood of the pier. She had stood up and walked to a nearby piling where a line was attached around the post, extending down into the water. She picked up a long handled net and held it close to the water surface as she pulled the line slowly to the surface.

He sat there, looking at her perfect figure, her breasts pushing against the cloth of the small two piece, her waist barely covered with the bottom. She would look back at him for time to time as she worked on the line, inching it upward as she held the net.

He crawled lazily toward where she worked, the boards coarse against the skin of his legs.

“I want you to stay with me,” he had said.

She turned to him, holding the line still and resting the net on the wood. She said, “I have to go back to Texas. I have to go to school.”

“We belong together here,” he said, feeling his power, his authority, exercising his manhood over this woman of his dreams.