“Regan, please tell me what’s happened?” I begged, pulling at his arm because he had turned to join Evans. “Warren was saying Turtle killed my father! That the bullets match?” I yearned for denial.
Regan gently disengaged my hands.
“According to DeLord, Warren is right. I hate to think so, Carla - “
“It isn’t so. It can’t be so,” I screamed.
Regan jerked his head around at the sound of another volley and indistinguishable shouts. He dashed out the door. Beatty came striding into the kitchen.
“Now whatinhell’s going on here?” he demanded.
I stepped aside, gestured him out the door, too shaken to speak. As soon as he had barged past me, I grabbed up an old coat from the door and followed him out. There were more shots, from just down the road.
I could see distant figures spreading out, advancing purposefully, black against the scintillating snow. I could see the white smoke-blossoms before I heard the crack of rifle fire. Then I caught a glimpse of the running man, crouched low but all too familiar. Sergeant Edward Bailey!
The coastguardsmen opened up from their positions at the edge of the scrub bushes surrounding the house. Horrified I saw the sergeant’s body jerk and spin, lurch with a second jolt, and then sink slowly to the snowy ground.
The rough shakes were icy beneath my hands as I backed against the house for support. I stared at the distant dark form in the snow until tears dimmed the sight.
Numbed and blinded, I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I saw men converge on the sergeant’s body. Saw them take it away in a jeep. Another car picked up the remaining men and started towards the house. Then Beatty came around the corner. I instinctively drew back but he saw me and halted.
“Well, your murdering sergeant got his. Now let’s - “
“One more word, Beatty,
” and Regan left the threat hanging as he thumbed back the safety on the thirty-eight he carried.
Beatty paused only a moment before he backed slowly away from me, standing at a distance. Regan, his hands gentle, led me back into the house and sat me at the kitchen table.
“DeLord’s coming,” he said, his voice heavy and flat.
A jeep motor whined up the snowy slope to the garage. I wasn’t sobbing anymore but my eyes were full of tears that wouldn’t go away so that I couldn’t see, but my other senses became excessively acute. Heavy boots banged against a metal running board. Men were tramping with grating sounds across the garage cement. The door handle rattled and the hinges squeaked as the door was opened. Cold air beat on my shoulders. There was a heavy smell of cordite from recently fired guns, wet wool, and sour sweat. There was the distinct feel of many people pressing in around the room and the air was close.
“I see Beatty got here. I gather he brought the Warrens,” Robert DeLord said as he slid sideways into the chair beside me. “I missed them by a hair at Edwards and then had to help trace Bailey.” He, too, smelled of cordite and cold air and snow. His cold fingers touched my arm lightly and, obediently, I looked up at him. His face was very tired and his green eyes sad. There was no trace of any boyishness right now.
“Bailey’s dead, Miss Carla,” he said gently.
I managed to nod that I understood him.
“He told me he had fired the shot that killed your father.”
“No.” I contradicted him flatly.
DeLord’s hand tightened. “Yes, Miss Carla. But he thought he was shooting Warren. You see, he heard your father ask me to go get Warren just as he was called to check out the ammo and rations. He didn’t hear your father call me back. Instead, Bailey found a good place for an ambush and when your father and I came along the road, he assumed I was driving Warren back, not your father to Warren.
“You see, Colonel Murdock had just had a call from HQ. I found later it was to tell him that the bait, those stamps and one of the Gospels, had not turned up at Division HQ with the other liberated valuables. So your father had proof it was Warren. If only the colonel’d told me then that it was Warren he suspected but I do understand why he felt he couldn’t confide in me until he had definite proof. And he was mighty upset when he called me back and said he’d go with me.”
DeLord leaned forward towards me, his face anxious, his eyes begging me to understand. “Bailey was only trying to protect your dad. He felt that if he killed Warren, your father’d report himself to the base hospital and recover from the wound. But he knew your father would never leave the regiment if Warren were here, the way the men felt about Warren just then. But Bailey’s been faking eyesight tests for years. Your father was the same height and general build as Warren and in the dark .”
“Bailey wouldn’t have killed my dad,” I repeated stupidly, unable to accept the truth.
Regan’s arm came around my shoulders and I realized he had been sitting quietly on the other side of me.
“No, Carla, he wouldn’t have. He was out to kill Warren. By mistake, he killed someone else someone he worshipped. It isn’t far off the truth to say Bailey went into battle shock. He talked himself into believing Warren had actually fired the shot and he nearly talked me into it except I couldn’t see Warren killing like that. But, in a way, Warren really was guilty of your father’s death. If he hadn’t caused so much trouble, Bailey wouldn’t have been driven to killing him.”
Emotionally I could accept that interpretation. Maybe later when it didn’t twist and hurt so much .
“Turtle did shoot Warren?” I asked finally.
“Yes,” DeLord confirmed. “And the attempt at Aachen was not the first one, either, was it, Laird?”
“No,” Regan admitted, “I knocked his hand up once near Julich, and the lieutenant who replaced Garcia in Able Company told me he caught Bailey taking aim on Warren. Told me later he was sorry he’d deflected the sergeant’s arm. We all knew Bailey hated Warren. I felt I knew why but I was only half right.”
“Is it safe to come out now?” a muffled voice quavered into the dead silence that followed.
“God, I forgot her,” Regan muttered, rising. “Yes, come out, Mrs. Warren.”
We heard her slide back the bolt and then she peered cautiously out. When she saw who was grouped in the kitchen, she pulled the door wide and pranced out, her face suddenly as livid with anger as it had been white with fear.
“Well, who are you?” she demanded.
“Robert DeLord, ma’am,” and the lieutenant had risen, the polite Southerner no matter what. “This is Regan Laird.”
“Well?” she demanded, her voice harsh. “Have you captured that maniac? Where’s Constable Beatty? Has he found that locker yet? Where’s Donnie?”
“Yes, where is Colonel Warren?” asked DeLord, exchanging a look over my head with Regan.
“In the living room,” I gasped. “He’s in the living room. He tried to slap me. Merlin’s holding him.”
“That monster? Ah!” screeched Marian Warren, her eyes bulging with terror as she ran, ungainly in the high-heeled galoshes. Regan and DeLord followed, breaking into a run at her hysterical shriek. There was a ring of horror, so unlike Marian’s usual pitch, it snapped me out of the paralysis that held me. I ran to the living room.
“Merlin, heel!” I heard Regan order and then, more softly, “Colonel? Colonel Warren? Answer me, man!”
Marian kept on shrieking.
“What’s happened?” I demanded, pushing past the lieutenant who had halted mid-room. “Merlin hasn’t .”
Merlin hadn’t done anything. That was it, I guess. But Warren’s abject fear of dogs had. The colonel was in a fixed-eye state of shock, his face gray, spittle dripping down the side of his slack mouth as he lay on the floor. Merlin had scared him out of his wits.