Looking Down (792 hits)
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Submitted by Jack McCallum (View user info) at 2004-12-16 17:28:03 EST
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I stood beside Mapes in the pouring rain, looking down at the body. Whoever had been beaten and left here beside the river was now unrecognizable. The head was mashed. The body was half-submerged in the soft mud of the riverbank.
Mapes had an umbrella. All I had was my hat and my uniform jacket. I was soaked, but I didn't want to run back to the patrol car for my slicker.
I was squatting in the mud, my boots sinking in past the ankles. The cuffs of my uniform were already dirty, and if the ground kept softening up the way it was I'd be dipping my balls in the mud before long.
I could see blood being washed away from the body by the heavy downpour, a steady rain that had started a few hours ago.
The forecast had called for an early spring shower. My ass. This stuff was hammering down. You'd think in this modern age we would be able to call the weather with a bit more skill. After all, this wasn't the dark ages, it was nineteen forty-one.
I held my flashlight for the Renfrew County Coroner while he literally hummed and hawed and examined the body.
The Chevy's headlights were still on, and the side-mounted spotlight was trained on us, but Mapes still needed the extra hand-held light. Sitting in the back of the car was Chuck Laplante.
Laplante was a big fellow. He was too old to enlist, so he worked in the military kitchens, prepping breakfast for our boys in training. He had left home just after three in the morning, heading for the army base, which was a bike ride away from the township of Petawawa. I guess it was really all the same big spot of land by the river, although some of it was off limits to civvies like me.
There were fences around the base. And there were fences within the fences. They were holding POWs there now, just like they had back in the Great War. Mostly Germans and Italians. Mostly regular joe soldiers, but I heard through the grapevine that some of them were members of the SS, who strutted around their compound like they really were members of a master race and not a misguided bunch who, now that the Yanks had declared war against Germany and Japan, had a mighty ass-kicking coming their way, God willing.
A full bladder had stopped Laplante not two minutes into his trip. He had gotten off his bike on this empty stretch of Beckman Road, stepped into the trees to relieve himself, and in mid-piss he saw a murder take place.
I had been on my way home. I lived about a ten minute drive from Chuck's place. I was off-duty, but a cop never really is off-duty, so when I saw a figure huddled in the road, in the rain, I had stopped the Chevrolet and flicked on my spot.
Chuck had recoiled at first. I'd leaned over him, and he'd looked up at my silhouette and screamed. That's not something I'll ever admit publicly. Chuck is a big strong son of bitch and a fine neighbour. I wouldn't want to hurt him by telling anyone just how much I was thrown by hearing him scream like a woman.
I'd taken off my hat so he could see it was just me, Davy Borthwick, one of many little snots who had been relieved of their lunch money by big Chuck back in grade school. When I put the hat back on I'd be Officer David Borthwick again, one of two Ontario Provincial Policemen contracted by the township to provide protective services to the area. That could wait. Just a moment. Chuck was in bad shape.
"Davy?"
"Yeah buddy. Let's get you out of the rain."
I had hauled Chuck to his feet and asked him what happened. I had been looking up at him as I led him to the car.
"Goin to work," Chuck said. His teeth were chattering enough though it wasn't that cold. "Stopped for a piss." He had pointed off the road. "Just down there."
I'd pulled open the rear door to the car. "Watch your head, big fellow." I got Chuck seated. "You stay here. Dry off and get warm. I'll go take a look."
Chuck had grabbed at me. "Careful," he said.
I had put my hat back on and switched on my flashlight. The night was dark enough, but once you step into the shadows of those big pines on the edge of Algonquin National Park you're lost without a light.
It had only taken me a minute to find the body. It was a real mess. I'd trotted back to the road, regretting that my OPP Chevrolet didn't have a two-way radio. I had read that the Virginia State Police south of the border had radios. There was a brand new radio tower broadcasting to their cars, and they could talk back. I had to drive to the nearest house and make a phone call.
"Going back to your house for a minute, Chuck. Got to use your phone."
"I saw it," Chuck had said, as I made a quick three-point turn.
I'd tried to see his eyes in the rear-view, but his head was down.
"I saw it come after the man. It was big. Bigger than me. I thought it was a negro at first cause it was black as the ace of spades. It grabbed him and just stood there a moment, holding him. Standing over him. Looking down. Then it threw him on the ground and started... to dance."
"Dance?"
Chuck had nodded. "It danced. I pissed, the monster danced... and then it went away."
The big man had started to cry, and I'd decided to keep my eyes on the road at that point.
A few minutes later I had gone into Chuck's house. He'd stayed huddled in the back seat while I went into his kitchen and made a quick call to Mapes. I also called my situation in to the detachment in Pembroke. I couldn't reach Johnny Dietz, the other officer working this small part of the Upper Ottawa Valley area with me. Dietz worked the day shift, and he should have been home. I didn't pass on that info though. Dietz was a good egg. He just had a hard time getting his ass in gear.
I got back in the car and returned to the scene of the crime. Laplante was still in the back seat. He was messed up bad, and I didn't want to leave him alone.
Soon enough, I was back on the riverbank. Squatting in the rain. Moving the flashlight an inch here, an inch there.
"Hmmm," Mapes said, poking at the remains of the victim's skull, his rubber gloves smeared red. He palpitated the chest. "Hawww..."
Mapes stood up. "I would say our corpse is a German. One of the POW's."
That was one headache I did not need. "You sure, Doc?"
Mapes nodded. "He has a few tattoos. German Navy. And he hasn't been eating well."
"Shit," I said.
Mapes nodded again. "Indeed. Our poor Herr X makes it over the wire and halfway to town, stupid, really, as we're a considerable distance from any coast, before encountering... who? MPs? People from town? Whoever this poor bastard met... was certainly strong. The attacker did not use a weapon."
I looked at the dead man's skull. Parts of it were almost paste.
"Look Doc, give me a baseball bat, a tree branch, a rock, anything. Don't tell me that whoever did this—"
Mapes opened the dead man's shirt. Impressed in the cold flesh of the concave chest was the imprint of a foot. A massive, bare foot.
"David, whoever did this," Mapes said, "Stomped the victim to death."
We walked back to the old ambulance that carried Mapes from place to place. As we passed the patrol car Mapes looked in at Laplante.
"Your man is in shock," the coroner said. "Nothing to be done for it but to get him somewhere warm. Someplace quiet and calm. With family, if possible."
"I think he has a sister in Pembroke," I said. "I'll drive him over there soon as I can. Gotta stop off there at the end of my shift, anyway."
Mapes gave me a funny look, a half smile. "You do a lot of that, don't you? Driving people where they need to be. Checking in on them after a case is done. Watching over them."
I felt a little uncomfortable. "That's my job."
"No, David," he said. "It is your calling."
Sitting behind the wheel was a kid. Mapes offered a chance to get off the street, giving driving and lifting jobs to kids in his neighborhood who were too young to enlist but wanted to do something useful. It was usually a different kid every time. A few days over sixteen, they would take one look at a stiff and that would be that. I knew this kid. Gordy McGuire. His father was my doctor.
Vince McGuire was the one who told me I could never enlist. I tried anyway, and found out he was right.
I had my own dad to thank for a hellish case of varicose veins. I was a cop before the war, and while being declared unfit for service it was suggested I stay on the job. Somebody had to keep the home fires buring. Sure, at the end of the day I was usually in for some aches and pains, but a warm soak in an Epsom salts bath usually set me straight.
"Hey Gordy," I said.
Mapes pulled open the rear door of the ambulance. "Let's go, son. I'll be needing your help with the stretcher."
Gordy whispered, "Is it bad?"
I gave him a quick nod.
Gordy hopped out of the ambulance and helped Mapes with the stretcher. When he saw Mapes toss some folded plastic sheeting on the stretcher the kid turned white.
Mapes always used the sheeting when he had to deal with 'wet ones.'
While the coroner and his assistant removed the body, I finally got my slicker on, and then went back to the scene of the crime.
I found part of a trail the assailant left, heading back toward the town. The prints were very deep and filling with water. Everything was being obscured by the rain. I spotted what looked like the remains of a muddy handprint on a tree trunk. The mud was dark against a background of white lichen. The print was being washed away as I watched. The print was at ye level, and I'm five foot eleven. The thumbprint was angled down, not up, as if someone or something really big had paused there.
When I got back to the car I switched on the overhead light and sat behind the wheel, making a few notes for the report I'd write up later. Chuck sat behind me, breathing fast.
Mapes slammed the rear doors of the ambulance shut and joined Gordy up front. The kid was behind the wheel again. Gordy tooted the horn as they headed back to town.
I flicked my headlights. Then I put the car in gear and headed for Pembroke.
*
When I finally got home the sun was up and the rain had moved on. I was damp, tired, and my legs were aching to beat the band.
I came through the front door of the little house I'd grown up in. I could smell eggs cooking. And bacon, by God. What a treat.
Hannah was wearing her robe and slippers, her eyes a little puffy. She gave me a hug and a kiss, one of her golden curls tickling my nose, and sat me down at the table. She was still half asleep, but that breakfast got an A+ from me. How in hell she always had the eggs ready, perfect sunny-sides-up every time, was a mystery. It was like she heard the Chevrolet a mile off and started cooking.
Her dad was already dressed for the day, sitting at the table, reading a flaking old book and scribbling notes on a lined pad. He looked over his glasses, gave me a nod, and went back to work.
Hannah refilled his coffee. "Papa, we are in Canada now. You should be writing in English."
Her accent was slight, her English almost perfect. For me, her voice was like music.
"This is an academic paper," her father said. "Not a love note. When writing a study of pre-renaissance German religious texts, one should, of course, write that paper in German."
Despite the heavy German accent, Professor Moses Steinmann was well-spoken and as proper as ever.
I was mopping up egg yolk with a piece of toast when I heard a faint yowl. Hannah went to the back door to let the cat in.
Steinmann looked over his shoulder. When his daughter was gone he whispered, "You have said nothing of your day, David. It was bad, yes?"
"Oh yeah," I said. "Real bad."
The professor was one of the few people I could talk to about the uglier side of my job. I've seen colleagues go through life trying to hold in the nightmarish things they've seen, and I know that isn't healthy. You have to tell it, no matter how bad it is.
Steinmann had fought in the Great War. He'd seen buddies, schoolmates and comrades blown apart, gassed, killed by infection, and shot for cowardice. He'd been on the wrong side, fighting for the German Army. He'd been in his twenties then, with a wife and a little girl at home. He was in his fifties now.
I often wondered if my dad and the professor had ever traded shots. My dad died the year before the war ended. Mustard gas. I was eight years old.
My mom would survive his loss, and the influenza epidemic that came the year after, but it weakened her. I lost her the year of the great crash. She was mourned by a lot of people in town, since she had been a midwife and had helped usher a lot of babies into the world.
I inherited the house, but had little else. I worked odd jobs around town for the next ten years, getting to know just about everyone who lived there. I joined the OPP in August of thirty-nine. A month later, Hitler started a war that just keeps getting bigger, with no end in sight.
In Canada we had it good. Even with the depression, we had it good. I realized all that later, after hearing the stories Hannah and her dad told me. The country they loved, the country their family had lived in for generations, had turned on them.
Hannah had blue eyes, blonde hair, skin like milk. She was a German princess. She was also a Jew.
She was a teenager when her father realized that things were going to hell in a handcart. Old enough to have seen enough. Old enough to have been punched in the face, on the street, by one of her schoolmates. That explained the cute little crook in her nose, her only flaw.
Professor Steinmann had gotten out of Germany in December of thirty-five. He collected on every favour he could to get to Canada, at a time when the commonwealth as well as the USA were just beginning their curious reluctance to open their borders to Jews fleeing Nazi oppression. Steinmann's wife refused to leave her parents. His son Samuel refused to leave his friends, convinced that things would change. Moses and Hannah left Germany.
The professor had spent his formative years working in his father's shop, repairing shoes. That was the trade he practiced now. He no longer taught history. Now he repaired shoes. War-time rationing in North America wasn't anywhere near as extreme as in Britain, but things were tight and a new pair of shoes was almost a luxury. A cobbler could make a good living in these times.
I met Hannah a few years ago, when I went to Steinmann's shop to pick up a pair of work boots he had resoled. She was working behind the counter that day, and she was a real burn-burner. I was so completely unhinged by her beauty that I walked into the door as I was leaving, cracking one of the glass panes with my forehead.
Her father cussed me out in German, but she couldn't stop giggling.
We started dating. Her father thought I was one step up from being a bum. When I joined the police, and had a guaranteed salary, I asked her to marry me, and asked the professor to move out of the small apartment he was sharing with his daughter and move in with us. I had room to spare. And I had an ulterior motive.
I was working nights, and would keep doing so until I had the seniority to change things. In the meantime, I didn't want Hannah alone. At night. And her dad was a tough old bird.
Hannah rarely spoke of the past, or Germany, preferring to focus on the present, and the future, but once I found a list tucked in a book. It was a list of family and friends they had left behind. A few of the names had addresses written beside them, but most did not. It was a list of the disappeared. Her mother and her brother were on it. Once in a while she would get a card or a short note saying the writer was moving, but there were few details offered. Soon the cards and letters stopped.
How in hell could twenty-three family members and close friends just vanish?
Hannah leaned into the kitchen. "Does anyone have to pee? Papa? David?"
The professor and I shook our heads, and Hannah shut herself in the bathroom.
We went out on the back porch and sipped our coffee, watching moisture drip from the pines. I told the professor what I had seen earlier. I told him the victim was a German POW.
Steinmann sniffed and said, "My heart bleeds."
We set down our cups and walked to the edge of the woods, unbuttoning our trousers. Hannah valued her morning bath, and we knew it. We stood and pissed together and I told the professor about the condition of the body.
When I described the massive imprint of a bare foot on the chest of the dead man the professor suddenly tucked in his works, announced that he was going for a walk, and headed for the road.
I went back inside. I built up a nice fire and turned on the radio, hoping for some news on the war.
When Hannah came out of the bath, scrubbed pink and smelling wonderful, I told her that her father had gone for a walk.
"Just as well," she said, leading me into the bathroom. "It's time for you to soak your poor aching legs, and then get some sleep."
She helped me undress. Not that I was an invalid. Not that I complained.
"Do you want me to rub your poor feet?" She did this often, to get the circulation going. Varicose veins didn't just give you ugly legs. They were a health hazard.
"Sure, sweetie. Thanks."
Hannah eased me into a tub full of steaming water, and then she rubbed my feet, my legs, my neck, and all points between.
*
I had been asleep for about four hours when the telephone rang. I heard Hannah run lightly down the hall to the kitchen and lift the handset. Her voice was a soft murmur. She didn't want to wake me. She looked reluctant and a little guilty when she eased open the bedroom door, but I was already sitting up.
Almost everyone we knew did their best to avoid calling between eight and four, when I got my shut-eye. After four, people could call all they wanted to, while I was shaving, eating dinner, and getting ready for work.
"What's up, baby?"
"I am sorry honey. It is Mr. Dietz. He insists to speak with you. He will only say 'we have another one.' You will speak to him?"
I pulled on my robe and went to the phone.
*
It was just after noon when I pulled over to the curb on Eglinton Street, not far from what passed for downtown in Petawawa. Dietz' patrol car was parked further up the block. Parked closer to the alleyway was a jeep.
Between Fitzgerald's Barbershop and Jablonsky's Diner was a weed-filled alleyway that was more airspace than anything else. It was four feet across and fenced off at the back, a good spot for someone to sleep off one too many. I stopped on the sidewalk and peered into the shadows, seeing the rotund shape that could only be Dietz. He looked over his shoulder and gave me a wave.
Brian Fitzgerald was standing on the sidewalk, holding a comb and looking flabbergasted. I looked toward the diner and saw Jablonsky peering through the big plate glass window.
It was crowded in the alley. Mapes was hunkered down and examining the victim's head, his big doctor's bag open beside him. Two men in rough army wool were searching the body for any identifying marks. They were wearing Provost armbands and shoulder insignia. Canadian Army Military Police. Mapes and the other men were about three yards apart.
Mapes saw me and stood up, leaving the head at his feet.
"We've got somebody cutting off heads now, Davy" Dietz said. "Can you believe this shit?"
One of the Provos stood and stepped over the body. "Identification, please."
I noticed the almost insignificant embroidered crown on his uniform. "Officer David Borthwick," I said, flipping open my badge case. "Can I help you, Major?"
The Major sniffed, as if offended. He was one of those guys who was all wiry muscle. He had eyes the color of stainless steel, and his cheekbones stuck out like he was sucking on a lemon.
"I believe we have jurisdiction here," the Major said. He had a bit of an English accent. Probably educated over there, away from the lowlifes in public school. "If we need your assistance we shall request it, of course."
Dietz started backing away. I started getting pissed off.
"Major, we aren't on base now. We are in town. And this town has contracted the Ontario Provincial Police to handle matters like this. It's you who are stepping on my toes."
I noticed that the major's companion was now standing and facing off against Deitz, both of them giving each other tough-guy glares. Mapes disappered from view, and then his head popped up again.
The major pursed his lips. That's something I've never seen a man do without looking like a complete ass.
"Officer," he said, glancing over my shoulder, "Why don't we yield to a higher authority?"
I turned around, and was face to face with Nathan Shaw.
"David! Always a pleasure!" Shaw's forced jocularity quickly became annoying. His big hand grabbed mine, pumped it twice, and released.
This was turning out to be a hell of a day. "What brings Canada's finest out this way?"
After all these years I was still saddened by the gulf between Shaw and myself. We'd grown up together. He acted like it had never happened.
"Day-viiid," Shaw said, as if chastising me. He was wearing civilian clothes. Expensive clothes. "You must know that the RCMP is the greater authority here—"
"Bullshit. Not in this town."
"And by personally working with our brothers in uniform I can assure you that you and your partner will be free to keep the streets free of litter, the roads free of drunks, and... well, whatever else it is you do."
Shaw smiled. The man seemed to have more teeth than any other creature I've ever encountered.
"The murder of a foreign national on Canadian soil, a German during a time of war, is naturally an intelligence matter which falls under my purview."
A deuce and a half pulled up alongside us, and four soldiers jumped down out of the olive green truck. They unloaded a stretcher and went down the alley.
I was about to protest again when doctor Mapes grabbed me by the arm.
The body was loaded onto the stretcher.
"Let's go, David," the coroner said. He led me around the corner to his ambulance, set down his black bag, and opened the rear door.
"Come on!" he said, grabbing the bag and hopping up into the vehicle. He switched on an overhead light and I noticed that he was still wearing his rubber gloves.
"Hell. They're taking away the evidence, doc."
"Yes, they are," Mapes said, sitting down across from the secured stretcher and opening his bag. "But I've got the best part."
He reached into the bag and withdrew the severed head. I leaped up beside him and slammed the door shut.
"Are you out of your tree?" I was furious.
Mapes actually laughed. "I was appointed to this job by the Lieutenant Governor. He appointed me because I'm good at what and do... and I went to school with him. My ass is covered. Shaw and his counter-intelligence goons can't touch me."
The coroner held the head, turning it this way and that. He turned it over, examining the ragged stump.
"And good for you, by the way, standing up to him. This is your jurisdiction. Unfortunately, the RCMP can cause problems for you. As can the Provos. Their ranks were originally composed mostly of RCMP recruits, you know. I'll return this head momentarily, but I thought I'd help you with this case. That's why I took the specimen. Lord knows the Provos or Shaw won't say anything about what's going on."
Mapes opened the mouth with one thumb. "Hmmm... Another German soldier. I can tell just by the dental work. Shoddy, really. And look at this."
I was looking at the bottom of the head, what was left of the neck.
"See the stretching of the dermis and underlying muscle?" Mapes worked a finger into the neck, revealing a small whitish knob. "Haw! See this displaced yet fully intact vertebra? This head wasn't cut off. It wasn't torn off. It was pulled off. Slowly."
"Jesus," I said. "That sounds more like an industrial accident than—"
Mapes reached up and turned off the light. He took a small flashlight from his bag and shone it on the planes of the skull, at an angle. There was a series of long indentations along both sides of the skull.
"Doc, tell me those are not the impressions of fingers pressed into that guy's head."
Mapes didn't say a thing. He clicked off his flashlight and turned on the overhead light.
A fist hammered on the back door and we both jumped. The door was pulled open. Shaw and the Provo Major looked in at us. The Mountie's face was red and his teeth were bared. He was trying to mask his rage with a smile. He looked like a man with the runs fighting to keep his asshole clenched tight.
"We would like you to return the remains of, uh, the remains," the Major said.
Before Mapes or I could move Shaw shouted, "Now!"
"But of course," Mapes said.
He tossed the head to Shaw, who grabbed it awkwardly. It left a red smear across the front of Shaw's fine coat.
"I'll be contacting your superiors," Shaw said to the coroner. "This is outrageous!"
"If you don't like getting dirty," Mapes said, reaching past me, "Don't come out from behind your desk." He pulled the door shut.
Mapes sighed, and then tapped his flashlight against my service weapon. It was a Smith & Wesson Military and Police .38 calibre revolver.
Dietz carried an identical gun. They were lighter than the Enfield revolvers we used to carry, but they had the same stopping power.
"You might want to consider carrying something bigger," the coroner said. "I don't want to be looking down on you one day, David. You are a young man. I fully expect you to outlive me."
*
At the end of every day, Dietz and I would drive over to Pembroke and drop off our reports. There was a small building there that served as the Eastern Region's Upper Ottawa Valley Detachment, a pile of bricks holding a few desks.
When I went through the door at what was actually the start of my shift I saw a dress uniform and epaulets with a lot of gold on them. It was the Commissioner. The boss of bosses. He took my reports and slapped me on the back and said I was doing a fine job. He called me 'Officer Borden.' He said he hoped my wife was doing well, and then requested that I try to be more cooperative with other agencies in the future, should our paths cross.
"In fact," he said, "Just between you and me, if you find any more bodies and there is the slightest of suspicious circumstances, why not just call Shaw and let him deal with it?"
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "With all due respect, Commissioner, that's horseshit. I will investigate any and all crimes that occur in my town."
The Commissioner's face turned to stone. "If you keep your head down, you'll be guaranteed a pension. Make waves, and I may not be able to protect you."
"We've had a couple of suspicious deaths. I don't see—"
"No," the Commissioner said. He was seething now. "You do not see. There have been seven prisoners of war murdered in your area, on base and off, and I think we should let the Army and the RCMP deal with their mess. As long as no civilians are being threatened, we are in the clear."
With that he turned around, stepped into the Detachment Commander's office and slammed the door in my face.
Seven murders? What the hell was going on here?
*
When I got home Hannah was baking bread. She had a half dozen small loaves cooling, and was taking one more out of the oven.
"I think you should stay home tonight," I said.
For the last few months Hannah had been bringing bread to the POWs. She hated the Germans, and initially said she wished there was a way to give it just to the Italians, but she had gone hungry a few times back home, and she couldn't stand the thought of anyone going through that.
Once a week Hannah would get her bicycle, fill the basket over the rear wheel with fresh bread, and ride over to the base. One of the Provos would take the bread and distribute it for her, as civilians weren't allowed close to the POW compound. She usually did this in the afternoon.
"Hon, it's getting dark out there. Let me drive you, at least."
She put a hand on my chest. "Sweetheart," she said, he accent making the word into something exotic, "It is just now twilight. I will be fine. I'll be there and back in an hour. Don't worry. Besides, papa wants to talk with you."
The professor was standing in the doorway to his room, next to the kitchen. We still used a woodstove in the kitchen, and since there was always a fire going during the cold months Moses had the warmest bedroom in the house.
Hannah and I had the room at the far end of the hall. She made noises when we were intimate, hell, so did I, and the thought of her dad hearing any of that made my skin crawl.
I looked at my watch as Hannah went out the door. "One hour. If you aren't back in one hour I'm going to come looking for you."
Hannah laughed and said, "I will try to be punctual." She dropped her voice to a sugary whisper and said, "I wouldn't want to incur your wrath and risk a spanking. Then again, maybe I will be late a few minutes on purpose."
She patted her own cute little bottom as she went out the door. I hoped her dad hadn't heard or seen any of that.
"What's doing, professor?"
Steinmann looked around and then beckoned me into his room. He had a spacious suite, bed and dressing area on one side, a writing desk and bookshelves by the window.
I sat on the edge of the bed before he could offer me his chair. The room smelled of pipe smoke. I watched him search one bookshelf filled with old books.
"Yes, here we are." Steinmann was holding a small discolored book.
"What's this?" I asked.
The professor squinted through his spectacles. "A history of Rabbi Chaim Karol of Prague." He sat down in the swivel chair and turned to face me. "These stories were first recorded in the 1490's. This is a reprint, translated into German. It is only two hundred years old."
He opened the book carefully. A few flecks of leather binding pattered on the varnished pine floorboards.
"David, how many Jewish families are in this town?"
"Hell," I said. "Only a few. You and Hannah. The Kurtzes, but they're way out on the highway, almost to Pembroke. The polack is a Jew. Jablonsky, I mean. And there's the Leifitz family. I think you know them."
"Yes," Steinmann said with a curt nod. "And how many German families are there?"
I whistled. "Jeez, this area was settled by Germans and Brits. I bet every fifth family around here is German, and eating shit because of it, now that we're at war. Well, those that haven't changed their names."
Quite a few families of German ancestry had changed their names after the Great War. Schmitts becoming Smiths, and so on. Kitchener, in southern Ontario, was called Berlin until 1916.
Steinmann got up and grabbed his coat. "You must drive me to these places. Jablonsky. Kurtz. Leifitz. Now."
I followed him into the hall. "Moses, what's going on? What do you know?"
Steinmann pulled my coast from the peg by the front door. "If I am wrong, I would like to hold off looking like a fool as long as possible. If I am right, more people are going to die, and all the guns you can gather will not stop the killer."
"And who is the killer, Moses?" I asked, as we headed out the front door.
"Not who," he replied, still clutching the old book. "But what. Something ancient, and very powerful."
*
Jablonsky's house was quiet, but there were a few lights on inside. I knocked on the front door and rang the bell. No answer. His diner served breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but he usually had someone take over after lunch. I went around back and knocked on that door. Nothing.
Steinmann stepped up beside me. "We must go in."
"Can't do that without Jablonsky's say-so," I said. "Maybe he's still at the diner. Let's—"
The professor opened the door and slipped inside.
"Moses!" My voice was a harsh whisper. I was afraid to yell. Jablonsky could be having a nap for all I knew. "Get the hell out of there or I'll have to arrest you!"
The old man went through the kitchen and down the hall.
"Crazy old goat," I said, running after him.
I found him in a small study. There was a broad table stacked with books on one side, and pieces or parchment on the other. Between them was an old pen and an inkwell. Some of the parchment had writing on it.
Moses picked up a piece of parchment and held it under a table lamp. It was covered in the boxy lettering I recognized as Hebrew, having seen some of Hannah's old letters.
"What's it say?" The message couldn't have been very long. It looked like a single word to me.
"Ruach," the professor said. "Hebrew. An archaic word for God. It means wind, or spirit."
I shrugged, wondering what this had to do with the murders.
"It can also mean breath," Steinmann said. "As in... breath of life."
I looked around the room. There was the usual clutter. Books. Newspapers. A few maps. An ashtray holding some butts. A couple of empty Molson Export bottles. The only thing that was out of place was a bucket, full of mud.
I gestured at the bucket. "What do you make of that?"
Steimann's face blanched. "It is Jablonsky," he said. "He is directing this."
We went back out the rear door and returned to the street. I wanted to ask Steinmann what he was thinking, but something looked a little off. I peered up and down the street. All the houses had a few lights on, most of the inhabitants settling down to dinner. Threads of smoke were rising from all the chimneys. Except one.
"Hey professor, have you seen Ed in town lately?"
Ed was a perfect example of what I had been considering earlier, German-Canadians who had changed their names. He had been born Edmund Hauer, but when he tried to beat arithmetic into my head in grade school he was just Ed Howe. He was a widower, who lived with his son's family.
"Not for a few days. Usually when I walk to the library in the afternoon and read the papers I see him."
"Stay here," I said. Steinmann opened his mouth and I just said, "Stay."
The Howe home was dark. The chimney was cold. The letterbox was getting full. The Howe's didn't have a lot of scratch. It's not like they could afford to take a long trip anywhere.
I tried the front door, and it swung wide. If it hadn't been so chilly here on the tail end of winter, the smell would have been a lot worse. Even a hint of human rot is unmistakable, though. I pulled my flashlight off of my belt and switched it on. I went from room to room, making a head count, more than a little spooked.
Ed was on the floor in the family room. His ribcage had been lifted like the hood of a car, and his innards, including his heart, had been scooped out and thrown across the room in one big wad. A dark red smear across one wall obscured a framed photo of King Edward.
Ed's son Michael had been stomped. Below the waist and above the neck he didn't look too bad. His torso was a flat slick.
In the small bedroom, two beds had been overturned. The two little boys had probably tried to hide. Their heads had been crushed like grapes. I couldn't remember their names.
It looked like the killer might have come from the woods. He'd tracked mud through every room.
Michael's wife Liese had been dismembered in the bathroom. She'd been washing her hair. That's were I found her arms and legs, on the bathroom floor, along with a towel and a bottle of shampoo. I found the rest of her in the hall. She'd been trying to crawl to her boys, inching along like a worm, before she bled out.
They were all dead. More dead Germans. I didn't know the Howes well, but I knew no one was missing. When I got back out on the front step I took a minute to suck some fresh air. I hadn't had to do that in a long time.
I stood and headed for the Chevrolet. I was going to shake the shit out of Moses if I had to. I wanted to know what was happening.
The sounds of a siren and a distant alarm filled the air, and I ran for the car. Something was happening at the POW camp.
As I pulled off the quiet street I was nearly side-swiped by Dietz, who was racing down the road to the camp, the red 'Police Stop' light on top of his patrol car flashing away. I hadn't heard him coming. I longed briefly for the day when all our cars would have sirens installed, and then pulled up alongside Dietz as he slowed and rolled down his window.
Steinmann rolled down the window on his side of the car, and I shouted, "What's up?"
"Got a call from a civvie working on base!" Dietz swerved around a big pothole and drew close again. "The Provos are flipping their lids out at the POW camp! They got more dead guys, inside the camp this time!"
*
The camp was bedlam. Spotlights were arcing here and there, jeeps were roaring through the main gate, and we could see armed soldiers double-timing into the woods.
The MPs at the gate wouldn't give us clearance.
A dark sedan pulled up and eased through the gate. I caught a glimpse of Shaw frowning in the back seat.
I gave Dietz a wave. We drove about a mile down the road and then pulled over.
"The whole base is going ape," Dietz said. He nodded when the professor got out of the car. "The guy who called me worked in the motor pool. He heard that the POW camp was a slaughterhouse. Somebody knocked down two rows of chain-link fence and went to town on the Germans in their billet."
I'd had enough of the cryptic answers and wait-and-see-games. "Okay, Moses. Spill it."
The professor looked at the book he was still holding.
"There are old legends in Jewish lore. Creatures brought to life to wreak vengeance. Considering what the Germans are doing to European Jewry these days, it would not surprise me to learn a Jew in town was using very old ways to strike back."
"Wait a minute," Dietz said. His grandfather had come to Canada from Germany, and news of what was going on in the Third Reich always pained him. "Now, I know that Hitler and those Nazi goofballs are crazy, but all these whispers about killing off the Jews are just hogwash, aren't they?"
I didn't know which way to go on this one. I knew for a fact that a lot of Jews had vanished. But weren't most Germans just hard-working people like Dietz?
"What are you saying, Moses? Someone is using old Jewish magic to send a monster after the Germans?"
"That is exactly what I am saying!" Moses was angry as hell, and I was willing to bet he was feeling a little of what Dietz had felt these past few years. Shame. Shame that one of his brothers could do such a thing.
The professor shook the little book at Dietz and me.
"It is a golem! A creature formed of earth or mud. The name of God is inscribed on its forehead, or written on parchment and placed in its mouth. Jablonsky used the word Ruach - the breath of life. Only by destroying that word can this monster be stopped."
I kicked a stone off of the road and watched it skitter across the soft shoulder.
"The golem was probably intended for the German POWs," Steinmann said, "But it has no mind. If ordered to destroy Germans, it would destroy any it found, most likely seeking out the purest blood first."
Steinmann's voice faded. I was no longer feeling the cold night air. For a moment I couldn't breath, and black spots danced in front of my eyes.
Pressed into the soft mud on the shoulder of the road were slender tire tracks. Bicycle tracks. Following and overstepping them were monstrous footprints.
Hannah. I ran for the car.
*
Dietz wanted to follow.
"No, Johnny!" I called, as I put the car in gear. "Stay here! Both of you are of German blood. If this thing is what the professor says it is, it would tear you apart!"
I wanted to slam the pedal to the floor, but I couldn't lose sight of the tracks. Within a mile of my home the bicycle tracks became a squiggle, and then turned into small footprints... soon overlaid by larger ones.
The car bounced on the curb as I drove right across the lawn to the front door. I hit the brakes and leaped out of the car. I damn near smashed through the front door.
Hannah was standing in the hall. Her whole body was shaking, but she couldn't run, hysterical and frozen with fear at the same time. Something was hammering at the back door, and then the door disintegrated into broken wood and shattered glass. Hannah saw me and fell into my arms.
I saw the shape coming down the hall and drew my pistol. I ordered it to stop, still hoping that it was human, even though I could see that its head was nearly touching nine-foot ceiling.
It kept coming. I let go of Hannah and used both hands to aim my weapon. I had the shakes and one hand wouldn't cut it. I put three shots into the head and three in the chest. The rounds passed right through, thudding into the walls and ceiling behind the thing. It kept coming, massive feet slopping and thudding down the hall.
We backed into the kitchen. When the thing bent to step through the doorway and paused, looking down at us, I could see that Professor Steinmann's golem was real.
The thing was walking earth. It was shaped like a man, some of it solid, some of it runny. It seemed to have a skin of slick mud, and under that stones and chunks of wood churned and spun, coming to the surface and then falling back out of sight. The golem's head was an eyeless mound with no features except a wide, lipless mouth.
I ran forward and had to leap to throw a punch at what passed for the golem's face. As my fist was closing in I could see a flat rock rise up and break the surface of the skin of rippling mud. It was like punching a fire hydrant. The golem gave me a shove and I flew across the kitchen, hitting the wood stove and feeling a few ribs snap like Popsicle sticks.
The golem placed one gigantic hand on each of Hannah's shoulders and paused, looking down.
I launched myself at it again, letting out a cry like a red Indian in a John Wayne picture. The golem trapped me with one arm, squeezing me against its broad chest. I couldn't get any leverage to free myself. My left arm was pinned against my body. I looked down and saw that the golem's free hand had engulfed Hannah's face. It was suffocating her.
My left arm broke with a loud crack. The pain was incredible, and I screamed, pawing at the golem's head with my free hand. My fingers slipped into its cold, slick mouth, and I felt something like wet paper in there.
The parchment. The word of God. The golem's life force. The breath of life.
I pulled the small parchment out of the creature's mouth, and then Hannah and I were falling onto the floor.
The golem stood over us, looking down. It looked at Hannah, and then it looked at me. It took one step forward and raised a massive foot over my head.
I rolled over and began to crawl. Fast. The foot slammed down between my legs and a heard the floorboards splinter behind me.
I crawled for the woodstove. Reached out and grabbed the spring handle, swinging open the cast iron door. Crushed the parchment into a ball. And tossed it into the flames.
A hundred pounds of mud slammed into my back and splashed onto the floor. Just like that, the golem was gone.
I couldn't breathe. I saw feet moving around, and then Dietz was rolling me over, asking if I was okay. I caught my breath and nodded, sitting up.
Steinmann was sitting on the floor a few feet away, cradling Hannah in his lap. He was saying something in Hebrew, almost singing, and brushing the hair away from her face.
I realized that he was probably saying a prayer for the dead, and I was more afraid than I had been when the golem had been squeezing the life out of me.
"No," I said.
I took Hannah from her father, shoving him away. I laid her flat on the filthy floor, and tried to remember something my mother had taught me.
It would be another decade before mouth-to-mouth resuscitation became widely accepted and taught as a life-saving technique, but it had been used by midwives for hundreds of years.
Hannah was so pale now. I hoped I wasn't too late. I tilted her head, pinched her nose, and closed my mouth over hers. The breath of life.
It seemed that I breathed into my wife forever. Dietz told me later that it lasted less than a minute. Hannah coughed and started breathing on her own, her color slowly returning.
It was over.
*
Dietz, the professor, and I were all questioned by the RCMP, with some Army brass hovering on the sidelines. Shaw didn't lead any of the sessions, but he was always around, coming and going as usual.
The murders were eventually attributed to a 'seditious maniac,' still at large.
It would be months before I was back on duty. Dietz visited often, stopping by to chat and bring me up to speed on what was happening in town. I caught him looking at me with awed eyes a few times and told him to knock it the hell off.
In May, Hannah drove me into town because I was itching to get out of the house. We went in our beat-to-hell DeSoto Airflow, not the patrol car. The diner had shut down when Jablonsky failed to open up the morning after the big night. The joint was reopening under a new owner, and Hannah figured a treat of burgers and shakes would give me a lift.
When we pulled up in front of the diner we saw that the name on the big plate glass window had changed from Jablonsky to Gendre.
The door opened and Shaw stepped out of the diner with a brown paper bag in one hand. He saw us and stepped over to my side of the car. Funny how he was always passing through this insignificant little town, even though he had an office in Ottawa.
"Hannah," he said, with a tight smile, tipping his fedora.
"Good day, Nathan," she replied.
They didn't really look at each other. They had a history of some kind, but I had never asked Hannah about it. It wasn't a big deal to me.
Shaw turned to me. "David."
I nodded, and then I looked at the diner. "Any idea what happened to the old owner? Jablonsky?"
Shaw stood on the curb a moment, looking down. Then he grinned and said, "Loose lips sink ships," and walked away.
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