“Whoever the Yanks were, they’ve gone,” he said. “Got to clean up for our lot to move in tomorrow. Can I help you, Lieutenant?”
“No,” I said. “I doubt it.”
I walked along the perimeter until I saw the signpost, lying on the muddy ground. 2nd Battalion, Easy Company. Soon I found the tent where the poker game had been in session. Third Platoon territory. Everything was cleared out, nothing but folded cots and the debris of a departing unit. Empty wine bottles, mostly. Crumpled paper, odds and ends that men had accumulated when in camp but tossed out as unnecessary when they were on the move, back to the sharp end.
Garbage cans had been placed along the wooden walkway, but not enough to handle the last-minute discards. The one in front of the poker tent was overflowing with bottles, broken crates, and other indefinable rubbish. On top was a single tan leather glove, holes worn through the fingertips, the kind the wire crews had been wearing when I first came here.
“This is what he wore,” I said to Kaz. “Leather gloves. A new pair would give enough protection.”
“You mean whoever beat Inzerillo?”
“Yeah. I wanted to check the knuckles to see who’d been using their fists. But leather work gloves would do the trick.” I tossed the glove back on the pile, and wondered if that new pair, complete with bloodstains, might be at the bottom of the can. It would prove the connection I was certain of, so I tipped the can over, glad that the British sergeant and his work crew weren’t in sight.
I moved stuff around with my boot, but didn’t see another glove, bloodstained or not. Out of the corner of my eye, I did catch something red poking out of the mess. It looked familiar, as if I ought to know what it was.
“What is it, Billy?” As soon as Kaz spoke, I knew exactly what it was. A rag doll in a red dress.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I watched as CID agents searched Arnold’s tent, knowing they’d come up empty. I had. The rag doll was in my jacket pocket, and I was keeping quiet about it for now. Without Gates and the others to confirm it was the same doll from the girl in the basement, it didn’t mean much as evidence. Even then, it was only my word that Cole had said he’d seen the doll, in his dreams and while awake. I had thought he meant he saw it in his mind’s eye, but now I knew different. Someone had kept that rag doll from Campozillone, someone who wanted to spook Cole, to terrify him, to push him over the edge. Or was it to control him, keep him dependent?
He was my friend, Cole had said. I see it in his face, see everything all over again.
A friend, a buddy from 3rd Platoon, who kept the memory fresh, the wound open. Manipulating Cole, keeping him under control. For the pearls? Were they wound up in the killings, or was it something less sinister? Looting went on all the time; maybe this was just a higher class of loot. Who wouldn’t scoop up a pearl necklace found hidden behind a wall or in a drawer with a false bottom? It was like the house on Mattapan Square. Original owner long gone, no questions would be asked. But had Cole stumbled on it, or had someone told him where to look? What difference would it make? Maybe a life-and-death difference. I tried to make sense of what I knew for certain.
Cole and Inzerillo, dead. No evidence they knew each other. One a suicide, the other beaten up and then burned. His death could have been a Mafia hit for all I knew.
Landry, Galante, Arnold, dead. Ten, jack, queen. All killed up close, the same calling card left on their corpses. They all knew each other to some extent. Arnold must have processed Cole’s transfer at Galante’s request; I doubted Colonel Schleck would have approved it.
The rag doll bothered me. Or was I reading too much into it? Maybe Cole just couldn’t take it anymore. Maybe seeing his pal, whoever it was, was too much of a reminder. Maybe the pain was too much to bear. Maybe Inzerillo antagonized a mafioso, or didn’t pay a debt. First a warning, then the torch. Maybe Cole found the pearls on his own, by accident, and had no idea of the story behind them. Maybe. But the rag doll was real, in a place where it shouldn’t have been.
If all those maybes held water, then I had less to go on than I thought. Three dead officers, with the king and ace waiting to be dealt. A colonel and a general. Did the killer have them picked out already? Or was it simply a target of opportunity? If the killer was in the 3rd Division, it made sense that he’d have more contact with 3rd Division officers than anyone else.
If, maybe. I didn’t have much to go on. The only good news was that colonels were not as easy to come by as more junior officers.
Arnold’s body was carried out on a stretcher. Luckily rigor mortis wasn’t fully established yet, probably due to the warmth in the closed footlocker.
“We have to find out where Third Division is headed,” I said to Kaz as the stretcher passed us. They loaded it into an ambulance, which drove off at a sedate pace, no sirens, no rush for the late Major Arnold.
“No one knows, or admits to knowing,” Kaz said. “I found several officers packing their gear, and they all claim ignorance.”
“It shouldn’t be hard to find an entire division. The front line is about thirty miles north. If we follow the main road, we should catch their tail soon.”
“But Colonel Schleck said they were staging to Naples. That’s due south.”
“That might mean the coast road north from Naples, or the harbor. They could be shipping out to England for all we know.”
“We should report to Major Kearns,” Kaz said. “He may be able to tell us.”
“Not that we have much to report. I’m sure he’s heard about Arnold by now. I’m sure every colonel and general at the palace has.”
We made a stop in San Felice, figuring it might be worth it to search Arnold’s office desk and files, unless his corporal had packed everything up and shipped out too. We were in luck. There was still a skeleton staff at 3rd Division headquarters, the corporal included. Most of his crates and boxes were gone, but he was still on duty, clacking away on his typewriter.
“You’ve heard about Major Arnold?” I said.
“Yeah, word travels fast. You really find him in a trunk?”
“We did. In his tent. Did he mention meeting anyone there?”
“Nope. But if it was souvenir trading, he wouldn’t have. He made it clear he preferred things on the QT.”
“We found two boxes of souvenirs, ready to be shipped home. Including a Walther P38.”
“Jeez. You ain’t supposed to send Kraut pistols to the States, are you? Where is it now?”
“It’s evidence, sorry.”
“What a waste. The major, I mean.”
“Yeah. It’s important that we find out where the division is going. Do you know, or can you find out?”
“You think the Red Heart Killer is one of us? That’s what they’re calling him, I heard.”
“Yeah, catchy. I asked you a question.”
“Sure. I mean, no, I can’t. They got this thing locked down tight. If we were going back up on the line, we’d all be there by now. But they’re staging everyone on a staggered schedule. Naples is all I know. Maybe we’re going to be garrison troops, that’d be nice.”
“I don’t think that’s in the cards,” I said, disappointed that no one laughed. “Tell me, do you remember paperwork on Sergeant Jim Cole, transferring him to CID?”
“Sure I do. Doc Galante came in, waited until the colonel was gone, and spoke to Major Arnold. He knew Schleck would never go for it.”
“But Major Arnold did?”
“Yeah, no problem. Routine stuff.”
“We’re going to search the major’s desk, okay?”
“Be my guest,” he said, pointing to the far corner. “I ain’t packed it up yet.”
I sat at Arnold’s desk as Kaz wandered about the room, looking through paperwork stacked up on a table, ignoring the corporal’s stares. There were half a dozen personnel files on top of the desk, all new second lieutenants who had just transferred in from stateside. They weren’t suspects, and they were safe, at least from the carddealing murderer. The Germans would probably get half of them within days, most of the rest within weeks. I put the files aside.