I hadn’t seen her in weeks, not even to say “hi” to on the street.
“Hey, Vernon. How are you?” She glanced toward the fire then back at me, her eyes big and soft with determined compassion that melted my heart.
Lois wore one of her Sunday-go-to-church dresses, a green shirtwaist number with a pink sweater over it. She looked gorgeous. I’m a sucker for girls with dark hair in pink sweaters.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I wasn’t here when the fire started or anything, so I was never in any danger.”
“You look pretty upset,” she said. “You should be.”
I wondered what she wanted, but I wasn’t going to turn down the attention.
“It’s not good,” I sighed. I thought about telling her about Dad getting beaten half to death by the Nazis, while the CID chased them, and maybe me, around, but that didn’t seem to be a good idea. The less said about that stuff, the better. “Dad’s missing,” I finally said.
“Missing?” Her eyes were soft, drowning pools of memory. “Oh, Vernon, you know how he is. He’s just sleeping it off somewhere stupid, where nobody can find him.”
“No, I wish that was all there was to it. He was injured yesterday, took a bang on the head.” I edited down the real events — no need to tell Lois how angry I was at Sheriff Hauptmann and his Deputy, any more than talking about Nazis hiding in the Augusta library. “He wandered off when the person taking him to the hospital in Wichita stopped for an errand.”
“A head injury,” she said. “That’s the last thing he needed.”
“I know that, too.” I suddenly wished I had been a lot nicer to him all along. He needed me at least as much as I needed him. His leaving me for a bottle was no excuse for me to run away in turn. The smoke from the fire stung my eyes as I thought about him.
Lois touched my shoulder. “Does it have anything to do with that plate in his head?”
“He got hit right on the plate, actually. Doc Milliken sent him on to Wichita for X-rays. That’s when he disappeared, on that trip.”
“Oh, Vernon, this is so terrible.” Lois hugged me, tight. I could feel her bosoms pressing into my side. She wasn’t a very demonstrative girl, and we’d never been that close, so I must have been very obvious about needing a hug.
Heck, I hadn’t even told her about Doc Milliken’s hitching post and Mrs. Bellamy’s kitchen door.
After a minute Lois leaned over to whisper in my ear. That about made me jump out of the car, startled with a ticklish pleasure. “What are you doing in Doc Milliken’s car?”
“He loaned it to me,” I said. “I had a problem with the Hudson yesterday.”
“Think we could go for a ride?” She ran her hand across my shoulder. “I want to let you know in person how I glad I am that you’re safe and sound. And you had such a rough day yesterday.”
It was just liked I’d imagined. The convertible had an effect on Lois that my ratty, faded-black Hudson sedan had never managed. I looked at the fire. Sheriff Hauptmann was nowhere to be seen. Mr. Bellamy was chopping down a tree near the flames, looking quite spry for a man with a near-fatal chest condition. Amazing what stress could do. Floyd pulled yet another hose from somewhere down the street.
There was nothing for me except to be miserable and worry about Dad. Except go for a ride with Lois.
“Sure thing,” I said, starting the Cadillac. It was early enough in the day that I even if we did a little mugging I might get her back in time for church. Though probably not Sunday School. I drove down Broadway, away from the fire, a smile stealing across my face despite my woes.
A voice spoke in my ear. “Wer ist dort?”
“What?”
“I didn’t say anything,” said Lois, stroking my arm.
The voice spoke again. It was definitely masculine. “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”
Chapter Seven
“I’ve had enough of you damned Germans!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. I slammed on the brakes, bringing the Cadillac to a screeching halt in the middle of Osage Street.
“Vernon, honey, are you okay?” Lois leaned across the big front seat to lay a hand on my shoulder.
There was no way I could answer her right then. My entire body twitched. I turned around and looked in the back. No Germans there, just an axe and a shovel. Mr. Bellamy was using the other axe on the willow tree, I remembered. I opened the door and got out, walking around the car to inspect it, careful as a pre-flight. I knew perfectly well there wasn’t anything to find, but I had to do it. Hidden loudspeakers. Trick wiring. Some bizarre practical joke on the part of Doc Milliken and maybe Sheriff Hauptmann.
Lois trailed behind me, arms folded across her chest and her face set.
With a grunt of frustration, I yanked open the trunk. Nothing there but a spare tire and some blankets. No bodies, thankfully. I stuck my head in anyway, studying the back of the trunk, where it met the rear seat of the car. Just some flecks of seat insulation. Pulling myself out of the trunk, I grabbed the bumper and used it to ease myself down to a kneeling position, weight on my good leg. I bent my head to scan the underside of the car. Nothing under there either.
I hadn’t expected to find anything, but I really wanted to. Standing up, hands on my hips, I looked around the block of Osage where we were stopped. Not a soul in sight — everyone was down the street and around the corner at the fire. I put my hand in my pocket. The twisted thing I’d taken from the f-panzer was just as warm as it had been before. It hadn’t lost the static tingle that it had acquired after I started messing with the buttons.
Such a fool I had been to do that.
My stomach flopped, and my skin crawled, the scabs on the back my head from Mr. Bellamy’s birdshot itching terribly. I tugged the little piece of equipment out and studied it again. It didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen — too small, no power source — but this little doo-dad had to be a radio. The Nazi agents were talking to me over the aircraft’s own equipment. Of course they would know their own frequencies. They were tracing me.
Taunting me.
Threatening.
I was certain that I hadn’t turned on any of the electronic equipment in the f-panzer. I wondered if Floyd had done so, if they had gotten to me through him.
“Vernon?” Lois’ voice interrupted my paranoid line of reasoning as she hit a rising pitch — a bad sign, with women. The loving concern of a few minutes earlier had evaporated. “Vernon Dunham, you are acting like a crazy person.” She grabbed my elbow, yanking me off balance.
“I’m sorry,” I said as I caught myself against the raised trunk lid of the Cadillac. “It’s just that I thought—”
“I don’t care what you thought.” She was all the way into shrill now, shouting, her face flushed under her makeup. “Either you’re too upset to be out driving around, or you are inexcusably rude. Now which is it?” She tapped her foot, the very picture of a Woman Waiting for an Answer.
And this was one of those female questions to which a mere man like me had no correct response.
“Was geschieht?” said the masculine voice in my ear. He was definitely speaking German.
“Shut up!” I yelled.
“Don’t you tell me to shut up, Vernon Dunham.”
Lois had gone from shrill and angry to hard and quiet. I was really in the soup now. I stared at my feet as Lois continued to yell at me.
“I don’t have to take that from you or anybody else. I don’t care what kind of fancy car you swiped.” She kicked the fender of Doc Milliken’s Cadillac.