SCATCHERD HAD BEEN in the Army during World War II but had never made it onto any of the European or Pacific battlefields. A freak incident late in basic training, as the days before his imminent deployment rapidly dwindled, had kept him stateside until the armistice was signed and fresh troops were no longer needed. Most of the men in his unit scoffed at and derided the so-called accident, a fall from an upper bunk late at night that resulted in a severely shattered ankle, certainly more than Scatcherd had bargained for if the fall had been premeditated. In fact, he had been unofficially pegged by many in his unit as a malingerer long before the fall that ended his military service. Had he been back in England where his ancestors fought with valor all the way back to the Opium and Crimean wars and the Boxer Rebellion, in defense of the British Empire, he would have received the infamous “white feather” in an envelope, challenging his cowardice.
Scatcherd’s ankle never healed properly and for all the years since that shameful day he had hobbled around, dragging his “war injury” behind him, forever bitter and self-conscious, never revealing the truth to a living soul about what happened in the barracks that night. Sure, he had received his honorable discharge but he also understood that he had not earned a scintilla of honor, only scorn and contempt. Scatcherd was the very definition of banal, so ordinary that he wouldn’t be noticed at all except for his pronounced limp. He had always been a loner, a cypher, but now, through a stroke of luck, he would soon have the attention of powerful people.
SCATCHERD WAS IN his habitually foul mood when the supervisor handed him the tattered brown accordion file. It offended him that he was relegated to mere errand boy status, a middle-aged clerk in a sea of young people who showed him no respect. He heard the snickering, and the snide murmurings and, without looking up, felt the humiliating stares of his co-workers as he shuffled out of the clerical area.
As he descended the stairwell and approached the bottom step, he put too much pressure on his weakened ankle and dropped the folder as he clutched the guard rail to brace himself. The string holding the over flap of the folder in place was already loose and some of the contents spilled out. When Scatcherd bent down to gather them up, he was staring at two photographs, one of a young German soldier standing with an attractive girl dressed in an evening gown. They were sipping champagne and appeared to be enjoying themselves at an elegant lawn party. Standing close together, they smiled contentedly and Scatcherd could see that the soldier’s hand had snaked around the young lady’s waist.
The other photograph showed what appeared to be this same woman holding a baby and towering over a dour, stone-faced man in a U.S. Army uniform. Scatcherd immediately recognized the American as then Lt. Augustus Dumont. The patriarch of a prominent local family, he was frequently pictured in the local Alexandria newspaper and had hardly changed in the 30 years since the war. Surely, this was the socialite wife, the formidable Helga Dumont, who Augustus brought home with him from Germany.
A sinister smile creased Scatcherd’s mouth as he crouched on the floor and studied both photographs. In the confident-looking German soldier, he saw a striking resemblance to Barrington Dumont, the son of Helga and Augustus. The younger Dumont was frequently in the news as a member of the state legislature. As he studied the photographs more closely, Scatcherd could even see glimpses of Helga Dumont, although the years had not been overly gentle with her.
Scatcherd heard footsteps on the stairs and, still kneeling, pushed documents back into the folder. He sensed someone hovering over him and heard the first few words of a soft, sympathetic female voice before he sharply interrupted her with “quite okay, thank you.” He never looked up until the lady had walked past him with sharp staccato steps and was out of view.
As he approached Bellows’ office, Scatcherd’s mind was swimming with ideas about the photograph of Helga Dumont and the German officer. He had recently read an exposé on the family in the local paper describing how Lt. Dumont, stationed in Berlin during the occupation, had met her at a party, married her after a brief courtship and brought her back to America as his German bride. Yeah, a real American love story, he sneered.
He had remembered nothing about a baby born in Germany. If this was Helga in the photograph with the German, which now seemed irrefutable to Scatcherd, had Dumont known about her past and ignored it? If so, was that not scandalous or even a violation of military regulations? What if the soldier canoodling with her had been a Nazi officer? And the baby, wouldn’t that have to be Barrington Dumont who today looked so much like the German soldier? If Augustus was ignorant of Helga’s past and it were revealed to him now, how would he react? Of course, such a revelation would be devastating for such a prominent family.
Scatcherd laid the folder on the desk of Miss Viola Finch, secretary to Addison Bellows. As he turned to leave, he was stopped by the shrill, chirping sound of her voice. “Everything must be placed in the inbox, Mr. Scatcherd. Come now. You know that is Mr. Bellows’ particular requirement.” Scatcherd turned, a snarl forming on his lip, hoping that Miss Finch would witness his contempt, but she was typing furiously and never looked up.
Scatcherd was now grinning malevolently but decided to say nothing. He had shown his anger in the past, had, in fact, been reprimanded by Bellows in a condescending tone a year earlier that had so grated on him that he had wanted to strike out. Bellows was a blueblood like the Dumonts and Scatcherd yearned to bring them all down a few pegs. Hell, he might have the means to bring their entire world crashing down and now was no time to let petty grudges stand in his way. Scatcherd was constantly reminding himself to control his vindictive impulses and now he had a worthy cause for doing so.
The clerk had read Nathaniel Hawthorne as a young man and there were frequent, aching moments, physical as well as psychological, when Leonard Scatcherd felt that he too was ignominiously marked with a scarlet letter. Now, in his perverse way, he saw the opportunity to remove that stain.
Back down in the stairwell, before he had proceeded to Bellows’ office, he had scooped up all the documents from the floor and neatly arranged them in the accordion folder. All, that is, except for the two photographs. They were hidden in the pocket of his jacket.
CHAPTER TWO:
Scatcherd Conquers His Fears
THE NEXT DAY, Scatcherd purchased a Polaroid Land camera and took two pictures of the old photographs after laying them side by side. When he had arrived home the previous night, he had studied the photographs with a magnifying glass and reassured himself that it was Helga Dumont in both of them and that the German looked just like young Barrington Dumont. Of course, the image of Augustus Dumont was indisputable. He looked on the back of the lawn party photograph for the first time and noted the initials “SF” and “HB” with the date 1943 in the corner. He would have to find Helga’s maiden name somewhere but that shouldn’t be difficult. As for the German officer, Scatcherd wasn’t one of those fervent war criminal advocates and couldn’t care less if the handsome young soldier had escaped Germany to South America. But if he was a Nazi or even just a Nazi sympathizer, a young lady on friendly terms with him during the war and now living down the road as the wife of the patriarch of an old Virginia family …… well, exposing the entire Dumont clan would be too tantalizing an opportunity to pass up. Scatcherd could not remember when he had felt such exhilaration.