A Guinness and a sandwich later, as he was heading back out the door, his cell phone rang. When he saw Kevin Cheever’s name on the ID, he accepted the call.
The first minutes of the call rehashed the whole thing with Mike, and Dex figured Kevin needed to just get it off his chest. And not surprisingly, his wife was talking in the background about how she didn’t want him anywhere near the sub anymore.
“Well,” said Dex. “Tell her after tomorrow, she probably won’t have to worry about it.”
Kevin understood the lid had been lifted on their discovery. They couldn’t count on the Coast Guard keeping any secrets. “I hear you. No way to tell who will want to join the party when the news breaks.”
“Anything else we want to know about this boat, I figure, is going to have to happen tomorrow.” Dex turned off the kitchen light as he talked. Headed out to the garage.
“We can handle it.”
“I know we can.”
“Funny, though,” said Kevin. “I have this weird feeling about that boat.”
“You got that, bro.” Dex knew exactly what Kevin was talking about. “Like there’s more to it than we’ve been able to figure so far. And I’m not just talking about the hangar on the aft deck… even though that is very cool.”
“No damage to the hull. Looks like they scuttled it.”
“I agree. So the real question is why?”
“Yeah, and what happened to the crew? And how come nobody has a record of the boat?”
“Somebody does.” said Dex. “We just need to find out who it is.”
“Which reminds me — I already put out a feeler,” said Kevin. “I think I mentioned it. One of my guys at the lab, Sal, he has a pal at the Naval Historical Center in Southeast.”
“The Navy Yard,” said Dex. He knew the place pretty well but he didn’t know much about the Historical Center.
“Sal already called them. They said they’d have to check and get back to him. Official records is what we want. A lot better than the stuff on the web. You never know what’s accurate on half of that crap.”
“Okay, see what you can find out. Meanwhile, I’ll see you on the Dog in the morning. Regular time.”
Dex was in his truck by the time he punched out the call, alone with his thoughts as he pushed his pickup up I-97 just as nightfall settled over it.
A half-hour later he was looking for a parking space in Little Italy. It was an interesting little neighborhood comprised of a grid of short blocks, narrow streets, and century-old brick rowhouses maybe fifteen feet wide and fifty deep. Tommy had inherited one of them on High Street, right up from Da Mimmo’s restaurant. The entire block was always full of cars, and Dex had to park a few blocks away.
But he didn’t really care because he liked walking through the neighborhood. Decades earlier, it had become surrounded by some of the worst slums and benighted government housing projects, but it had survived brilliantly. An island of culture and cleanliness, both physical and spiritual, Little Italy was a safe, vibrant monument to people who understood the value and reward of self-reliance. Suffused with so many restaurants, it was hard to imagine how they all made money. But they did; the sidewalks were always crowded with regulars and tourists. Definitely a place to be in Baltimore.
“Hey, man, c’mon in!” said Tommy only a second or two after Dex knocked on the door. “I’ve been waitin’ for ya.”
Dex eased through the door carrying his laptop bag in one hand, his backpack in the other. “How’s it going, Tommy?”
The young firefighter shrugged, took another pull off the Moretti he was drinking. “I don’t know, Dex. I just can’t believe it, you know. Mike bein’ dead… it’s like so weird. So hard to believe.”
“I know what you’re saying. Now maybe you’ll understand a little better why I went off on you.”
“Say no more, man.” Tommy rubbed his chin with the back of his hand as if to wipe away the embarrassment he obviously still felt.
“Look, we’ve got to push through it, that’s all. Nothing else we can do.” Dex stood in the center of a narrow living room, still crammed with the inherited, old-fashioned furniture from Tommy’s uncle. On the walls, other than some Baltimore City Fire Department commendations in Walmart frames, it didn’t look like Tommy was much of a decorator.
“Ya wanna beer before we get started?” Tommy held up his own as if to remind Dex what they looked like.
“Sounds like a plan.”
Tommy retrieved a bottle from a forty-year-old Frigidaire, then led him down a narrow staircase to a basement — half of which had been finished off in sagging ceiling tiles and ugly linoleum. Tommy used it for storage and it was filled with boxes and junk. Beyond it, running to the back of the house’s foundation, lay the furnace and water heater, plus a big workbench, over which Tommy reached up and flicked on a big fluorescent light.
“Whaddya think of this piece,” said Tommy, patting a professional grade drill press with obvious affection. It shared space with a small lathe covered with the dust of disuse.
Dex dropped his backpack on the bench, retrieved the stainless steel box. “I think it’s exactly what we need.”
Tommy smiled. “Great. You know how to run it?”
“I can be dangerous enough on it.”
“Okay, it’s plugged in. Let’s give it a rip.”
After lining up the lock and latch assembly with the metal-chewing bit, Dex grabbed the press handle and slowly eased the business-end down. The perfect balance and mass of the drill press gently kissed the surface of the lock and almost gently bore into the metal assembly holding the box fast. Within a few minutes, the steel mechanism of the lock had surrendered to the carbide invader. Although it had heated up fast, the box had opened with a minimum of damage. As Dex looked at it, he knew whatever it held would still be unscathed, even though the steel chips curling off the box were still smoking.
“Like butter,” said Tommy.
“Hot butter. Watch it, the friction heats it up quick.”
Grabbing a screwdriver, Dex popped open the box, which had been as dark and silent as a tomb for more than sixty years. Amazingly, the interior was dry and clean; it contained folded envelopes, a leather breast-pocket wallet, and another military medal.
“Hey, looks like Christmas mornin’,” said Tommy. “Whatta we got here?”
The first thing Dex removed was the flat leather wallet, which he unfolded to reveal a sheaf of documents.
“Man, look at that,” said Tommy.
The one on top was a small, gray booklet, emblazoned with the standard, Bauhaus-style Nazi eagle. Under the image a single word: Wehrpas. Dex opened it, and a black-and-white photograph of a young man in civilian clothes (suit jacket, white shirt, and tie) looked back at him. The man had blondish hair, large dark eyes, and a chiseled jaw. If not for the inked traces of various government stamps, his photo could have been a “publicity still” for one of the old Hollywood matinee idols. But this one lacked the posed dreaminess of many of those old shots. This man appeared serious, intelligent, and full of energetic vision. Under the photo was a place for his signature, and his printed name.