Island of Saints (25 page)

The telephone itself was an eyesore. It was a big, ugly wooden box hanging on the wall with a mouthpiece and a hand crank by which you reached an operator, who would then connect your call. In theory anyway. Mary Nell Brindley, lead operator, seemed most nights to be in the bathroom as much as she was on the switchboard. Sometimes a caller would reach her . . . sometimes not. Even if you did, Margaret noted on more than one occasion, like as not, there was already someone on the line.

Billy had not particularly wanted the telephone, but Ward Snook was a frequent patron of the café and had always been nice to Danny, so Billy had it put in as soon as it had become available. After John Lewis, who owned the Ford dealership in Foley, Billy had been the second businessman to participate in the party line. “Always available in an emergency,” Billy said to someone or another almost every day. After all, many people had never seen a telephone “in person,” and it was an obvious topic of conversation. And always available in an emergency. Always . . . except today.

As soon as Schneider left the café with Helen in tow, Billy ran to the telephone. He didn't even pause to calm Danny, who was frantic—frightened out of his wits and on the brink of hysteria because Helen had been taken. Billy cranked the telephone furiously over and over again, finally almost tearing it off the wall when he hit it with his fist. “Dead as a hammer!” he yelled to no one in particular, but then, to Danny, said, “Come on, Son. We got to go.”

Billy didn't have any idea about what to do except try to hitch a ride to Foley and the sheriff's department. He didn't have his truck, the telephone didn't work, no one else was there . . . Billy and Danny half ran, half walked up Highway 3 in the pouring rain for several minutes, but saw no one, which was not unusual at all for that time of day on that stretch of Highway 3.

Then, early for lunch, also not unusual, Wan appeared, headed south right toward them. Billy and Danny flagged the deputy down and piled into the squad car, telling their tale as fast as they could and urging him to use all the speed he had. Wan dropped them back at the café, but in the two minutes Billy and Danny spent with Wan, they told him everything he needed to know. Only seconds later, Wan was dashing toward the beach, lights flashing, siren wailing.

Helen's cottage first,
Wan thought, mustering all his senses to attention. He had to think this situation through as clearly as he could and, at the same time, avoid wrecking the squad car as the rain pelted his windshield and threatened to spin the speeding vehicle into a ditch.
I don't think they'll be
there, but I can check quickly. If I miss 'em and have to go
back . . .
Wan did not want to consider the consequences
.
Well . . . I just can't miss 'em.

The deputy was trying to remember everything Billy said. The older man was in shock, and Danny appeared well beyond that.
Billy said the guy had some kind of an accent.
Midwest, he thought maybe? Somewhere up north? And he
wanted Josef.
That made no sense.
For what?
Wan threw possibilities around in his mind for a bit, but got no closer to an answer.
You want a poor British guy bad enough to
come in a place waving a gun around? Why? What for?
Not that it really mattered to Wan. The way he saw it, only two things were important about this call. One, the guy obviously had a gun. Two, he had Helen.

Before he made it to the entrance of Helen's driveway, Wan recalled that Billy said they were in a black Ford. “Sedan?” the deputy asked.

“Yes,” Billy answered. That saved him some time, Wan knew. No sedan was
ever
making it down Helen's driveway. Not through that sand. Which meant that if this guy—whoever he was—had Helen at
her
cottage, the car would be visible from the road.

It wasn't. Wan hit the gas and sped on by.

Less than a minute later, he spotted the car, abandoned just off the road.
Alabama plates. Baldwin County,
he noted.
Stolen. Billy'd have known the guy if he was local.

The vehicle looked as if it had been driven off the road and stuck in the sand on purpose.
Not a very good job of
hiding it,
Wan thought as he looked around cautiously.
Some kind of signal? If Helen was driving, yes. Good girl.
You're telling me where you are.

Wan knew the squatter's cabin Josef was living in, though he had never visited the Englishman there. Even before the deputy had helped Josef get a car for his own use, Wan, who occasionally gave Josef a lift, always met him at the road. Nonetheless, Wan had been to the actual cabin several times before Josef ever arrived in the area. They were official visits—sheriff's business—for one reason or another, one family or another. Wan knew his way around in these woods.

Before Deputy Wan Cooper left the squad car, he grabbed up the twelve-gauge Winchester pump. Rarely used, the shotgun's barrel had been shortened a bit and was held in a clamp under the front seat. The gun's magazine had been unplugged and therefore held four shells instead of two. The chamber was empty, which it always was until the gun was needed.

The rain, now whipping through the pines, was a mixed blessing.
I can't hear anything,
Wan thought.
But then, neither
can they.
The deputy knew the sounds of the rain and wind would mask his approach. Still, he decided, it was better to make any noise he had to make before he got too close. Working the action on the short-barreled pump, Wan jacked a shell into the chamber.

He hurried through the brush, having declined to advance down the center of the normal pathway. Wan arrived at the cabin exactly where he had intended—on the side with the window. It was actually just a hole. Burlap kept the mosquitoes out in the summer, but in the winter, except for a make-shift rain gutter that had been tacked over the opening, there was nothing to impede Wan's view.

He heard the voices before he was close enough to see inside, but what he heard confused him. They were speaking loudly . . . but what were they saying? Was the rain distorting what he was able to hear? The deputy flattened his back onto the wall next to the cabin's window.
They are
talking over the noise of the tin roof,
Wan realized.
Two
men's voices?
Who was in the cabin? Wan mentally took roll.
Helen, Josef, the guy that took Helen . . . and some
other guy?

The deputy plainly identified two male voices. It was not that he couldn't
hear
them, he quickly figured. He could not
understand
them. They were speaking in another language . . . and one of them wasn't tinged with the British accent that had become so recognizable to him. As Wan eased to his right and peered into the opening, his heart sank as it all came together at once.

There were three people, as he had originally assumed. The other male voice he'd heard was his British friend. Friend? He didn't sound like the funny guy whom everyone in the area had gotten to know. In fact, he was speaking German. Wan recognized the dialect with its guttural sounds.
What the . . . ? Who?

Wan did not understand whatever the two were saying to each other, but they did not appear to be chums. The one guy . . . he was holding a gun on Josef. Helen, he could see on Josef's left. He wished he could get her attention . . . or understand what they were saying . . . but, he determined, he'd sort it all out later. Now, the deputy knew, was the time to make his presence known and finish this business.

Wan had gotten the shotgun up to his shoulder and was about to yell out, “Freeze!” or “Hold it right there!” or any one of the phrases he had practiced in the mirror at home, when the conversation inside the cabin changed. To English. Wan listened with mounting horror as he put more pieces of the strange puzzle in place. Questions flooded his mind. One thing, however, was becoming abundantly clear: Whoever this man was, he was undeniably nuts. And he was about to kill Josef.

None of the three inside the cabin had any idea that Wan was watching the drama unfold from only ten feet away. The deputy ignored the rainwater cascading down his face and into his eyes while he tried to decide a course of action. The man with the gun was a Nazi. That was apparent.
If he
ain't one, he's doing a great impression,
Wan noted grimly as the long-winded man, who was taunting Josef, continued to jabber away.
And what about Josef?
Wan thought again.
Who in the world is . . . ?
“. . . I will kill her first,” the Nazi said.
What?!

Without warning, the deputy's time of questioning was over, and his options were reduced to one. He saw the man turn the gun on Helen and was aware of Josef diving in front of her, but Wan had already fired.

In the split second one sometimes has to make a decision, Wan Cooper made one regarding his specific target that seemed strange to him in retrospect. He had been aware that the Nazi held his pistol in both hands. It occurred to the deputy that a body blast from his shotgun might cause the object of his ire to involuntarily squeeze the trigger of his pistol, shooting Helen in the process. So Wan shot his hands.

From ten feet away, twelve lead balls of double-aught shot have not yet spread into the wide pattern that makes that particular load so effective. In fact, at ten feet, the lethal spheres are arranged in a pattern that has widened to no more than five inches apart—about the size of a man's two hands clasped tightly into a fist.

While the deputy had never been especially proficient with a handgun, he had grown up hunting dove and quail in the fields and along the hedgerows of the south Alabama farms. Shooting a shotgun was all about instinct for Wan. When he shot a flying bird, he did so with both eyes open. Never bothering to squint and aim, the young deputy just pointed and fired. His accuracy, everyone said, was uncanny. He almost always hit what he shot at. And this time was no different.

It was a sight the deputy had never imagined but would never be able to forget. Schneider's hands simply disappeared. One second they were there . . . the next, they existed as red mist on the opposite wall.

After he saw that his target was down, the deputy ran around to the doorway and entered. Having fallen to the floor, Helen had risen to a sitting position. She seemed to be in shock and, though unhurt, did not say anything at first. Josef lay facedown, crying on the wooden floor, certain that Helen was dead. And the Nazi . . . well, Wan never forgot him.

The man was not dead when Wan entered the cabin. With the stumps that had been left at the end of his arms, he was pushing himself up into a sitting position. Wan approached cautiously, the shotgun carried loosely in his arms. The Nazi did not yell or scream or cry out. In fact, what he
did
do seemed bizarre . . . He bared his teeth.

Wan looked at him and blinked. Yes . . . the Nazi was baring his teeth. And there was a low growl coming from the man's throat.
Strange,
Wan thought.
Very strange. He is acting
like a dog.
And so, the deputy shot him again.

Before doing so, he looked over to Helen, who was watching. Wan made a quick twirling motion with his finger that she correctly understood was his instruction for her to look away . . . turn her head. When she had, Wan reached the shotgun toward the dying man with one hand. Fleetingly it occurred to him how many times he had done the same for a dog or a deer that had been hit by a car on the highway. Wan put the tip of the gun barrel on the Nazi's chest and looked into his eyes. A caring person never hesitated to put a hurting animal out of its misery. Wan's daddy had taught him that.
I'm gonna put you out of mine,
Wan thought and pulled the trigger.

PART
THREE

CHAPTER 16

AT A RED LIGHT, I REACHED OVER INTO THE PASSENGER seat and flipped quickly through my calendar. It had been one day more than exactly five weeks, I saw, since I had uncovered the items under the wax myrtle behind my house.

The light turned green. I made a right turn onto Highway 59 and headed to Foley. The whole thing—the unearthed objects, the Internet searches, the conversations—was bothering me more than it should have. In effect, I had stopped trying to write at all, causing my editor and business manager to share in my consternation.

I simply could not concentrate. Not my greatest attribute under the best of circumstances, I now found myself staring at the computer screen only a few seconds before giving in to the Google button that beckoned me from the top of the page. Kriegsmarine, U-boats, Gulf of Mexico—I ran them again and again in every possible combination and read the same material until I knew it by heart.

Driving north, I looked at the businesses and billboards and tried to imagine what the area looked like back then. Would it have been possible, I wondered, for a submariner to come ashore and elude capture? Possible, I decided, but not likely. But what if it
could
have been done? I continued to ask myself.
How
might it have been accomplished? Only with help, I determined.

The week before, I had begun to feel as though there were something unseen just beyond my grasp—something maddening—as if there
were
an answer available, but first I had to articulate a question. Yet I didn't know what to ask. The feeling had crept up on me as I recalled a comment by one of the old people with whom I had spoken. We were finished with our conversation and were walking to the car when his remark had been thrown my way in passing.

At least, I
thought
it had been in passing. Now I was not so sure. In any event, I could no longer think of anything else. I was determined to find the truth. Or insult some very nice people.

“WELL, HELLO, ANDY! COME ON IN.” SHE GLANCED AROUND me. “Is Polly with you?”

She doesn't even know I'm here,
I wanted to say.
And
she wouldn't have let me come if she had known I didn't
call.
“No, ma'am,” I answered. “Not today.”