“I don’t know if I buy all this,” Harding said. “Seems long on theory and short on facts.”
“Colonel,” Cassidy said. “I observed psychopaths when I was a resident. They’re chilling. Some of their stories of cruelty gave me nightmares. Training and arming a psychopath, and giving him permission to kill, well, that’s the biggest nightmare of all. Because no matter how many people he kills, it’s never enough. He’ll never sicken of it. Nothing can ever fill that black hole he has inside. That’s why I think he’s going to strike again. There’s no alternative for him, no going back.”
Everyone was silent. These men knew how to fight the enemy, but not how to combat this particular terror. “What about Danny?” I said. “Will you transfer him now?”
“Let’s do it another way, Boyle,” Harding said. “Let’s keep this under our hats. Ship Sergeant Stumpf out and let people think we’ve got the killer. That will lull this Red Heart character into thinking he’s pulled one over on us. You go spend time with your brother. Tell him we’re staying a few more days and you’re having a reunion. As long as the Germans don’t attack, the battalion can stay in reserve. That will give you a chance to watch things.”
“What do you have in mind, Colonel?”
“I’m already working on finding a general to use as bait. We’ll offer Red Heart a tempting target. We should have somebody here soon.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Never mind, just get over there. Bring an entrenching tool, they’re digging in deep.”
I wondered if the bait was me and my brother. Generals were hard to come by, and the only one I’d seen around here was deep underground, smoking his corncob pipe. I had Kearns sign a supply requisition, and drove my jeep to the quartermaster’s tent, where I stocked up on what GIs digging in out in the open really needed. Pickaxes, shovels, blankets, a few cans of meat and vegetable stew, tins of coffee, and a carton of smokes. At least I’d be popular with everyone, with the exception of one lunatic, a lunatic I thought I’d had in custody.
I’d been fooled, and by an expert. In the midst of strangling Harding, a German shell sent them both flying. A near miss that could have killed him. Most guys would have been stunned, groggy, disoriented. Not Red Heart. He quickly found a guy to throw suspicion on, and clocked him one. So who was Red Heart?
I could rule out Evans, not that I’d ever thought him a likely suspect. He’d been in the general area of the first murders, but I doubted he could have attacked Harding with shrapnel in his shoulder, and he was tucked away in Hell’s Half Acre when the Kraut paratrooper bought it.
Flint? The last surviving sergeant. But he’d been busy rescuing Evans, under fire, after he brought out Louie’s body. It didn’t seem to be the kind of thing a psychopath would bother with. Father Dare, with blood in his boot? Maybe he’d gone to that church to pray for forgiveness. Charlie Colorado, lost in the smoke, the radioman I’d already overlooked? Phil Einsmann? Maybe he thought he’d get away clean after the first two, only to have his agency send him right back to Italy. Did he have a nose for news, or murder?
Or Bobby K, who I’d just met, or any of the other guys in the platoon, company, or whole damn VI Corps who I hadn’t met yet. Anyone could be Red Heart, but one thing my heart told me was that he was close to Danny. Too close.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The battalion was in reserve in an open field. A pine grove bordered it on the south side, and to the north a paved road cut across it, the roadbed built up about six feet above the soggy ground. GIs were digging in the woods, or along the embankment, carving out caves in the sloped earth. A convoy of trucks carrying replacements and supplies made its way along a dirt track, skirting the customary stone farmhouse in the center of the field. In the midst of these martial preparations, a woman hung her white sheets on a clothesline, domestic chores once again uninterrupted by war.
I saw Charlie Colorado walking along the edge of the embankment, a burlap sack over one shoulder and an M1 over the other. I slowed and asked if he wanted a lift.
“Thanks, Lieutenant,” he said, setting the sack down between his legs, the dull clinks signaling full bottles of something alcoholic.
“Having a party?”
“Toasting the dead,” he said. “I traded C rations for wine at that farmhouse.”
“Hope they like Spam,” I said.
“They seemed nervous,” Charlie said, glancing back at the woman in the yard. “Maybe they thought I was coming to shoot them. The daughter spoke a little English, and said they hated the Fascists and the Germans.”
“Of course.”
“It would be foolish to say otherwise to an American soldier with a rifle and C rations to trade.”
“Good point,” I said, noting that Charlie was pretty sharp. “I heard you were Landry’s radioman.”
“Yes.”
“You went to Bar Raffaele with him?”
“Sometimes. But the owner didn’t like me there. Said I drank too much and caused trouble. He was right.”
“Did you know Ileana?”
“Everyone knew Ileana,” he said, a touch of weariness in his voice.
“Landry fell for her, right?”
“He did. I think she liked him too. She hated working there, most of the girls did. But they had to feed their families, even if it brought them shame.”
“She told you that?”
“I could see it, when they thought no one was looking. But there were worse places to work.”
“I can imagine. Inzerillo said he had his own doctor for the girls.”
“And a priest,” Charlie said. “For their shame.”
“An Italian?”
“No. Someone who wanted to keep watch on his own sinners.”
He clammed up after that, probably thinking he’d said too much. But then again, Charlie Colorado impressed me as a guy who didn’t waste a single word.
Ahead of us, trucks disgorged their passengers and handed down supplies to waiting lines of troops. I scanned the sky for enemy aircraft, not wanting to be caught in a line of vehicles during an air raid. Charlie pointed to a section of embankment and I pulled over.
Entrances to the hillside had been scraped out, with shelter halves strung up over the holes, some reinforced with thin wooden planks from ammo and ration cartons. It had a distinctly hobo look about it.
“Billy,” Danny said, walking up to the jeep. “You’re just in time. Flint’s been made Platoon Sergeant. Charlie went to scrounge some vino for a celebration.” He looked at the sack Charlie held up and whistled. “You did okay!”
I studied my little brother. He’d already lost that permanently startled look that replacements had. He was at ease, feeling part of the platoon if only because so many had died since he’d joined. Being a survivor meant he was a veteran of sorts, which gave him confidence. The fact that the odds were against him living many more days didn’t seem to bother him. For now, he was surrounded by his buddies, toasting their remaining sergeant, celebrating a promotion made necessary by three departed sergeants-two dead, one prisoner.
“Acting Platoon Sergeant,” Flint said. “How you doing, Billy? Is it true what they’re saying about Stump? He’s the Red Heart Killer?”
“Yep. Caught in the act. Denies it, of course, but they all do.”
“What’s going to happen to him?” Danny asked.
“He’s going back to Caserta in irons. Court martial, then firing squad would be my guess.”
“Hard to believe,” Flint said, shaking his head. “Stump always seemed to be a regular guy.”
“Yeah,” I said. “The way the doc explained it, that’s what guys like him are good at. Anyway, I brought you some decent tools and grub, plus some smokes. Thought I’d spend some more time with Danny before I ship out tomorrow.”
“Real shovels,” Danny said, obviously tired of digging with a folding entrenching tool.
“Okay,” Flint said. “Charlie, stow that vino in my dugout. No one touches it until we give these tools a workout and dig in good and proper. Then we eat and drink.”