"Doch habe ich ein Stroh!"
The companies peeled off towards Bamberg.
****
No matter what Dennis said, Dom thought he ought to at least find out who the dumpy man was. At that point, he realized that no matter how many Hardy Boys and Great Detective books you've read, actually detecting something is a different matter. First, he'd need an excuse to go out to St. Elizabeth's again. Well, he could go collect the food. After all, he'd paid Thomas for it and hadn't been able to eat it for fear that it would crunch.
Once he got there, maybe he could just ask someone. "Do you know a dumpy little man who I don't know?"
That didn't seem very precise.
He asked Dennis if he could remember anything more than "dumpy" about the man.
"Down-timer," Dennis said. "Not a miner or a construction worker or a guy who does the kind of work that keeps himself in top shape." He paused. "Wait a minute. You're not planning on doing anything dumb, are you?"
"Uh, uh."
"You're not even planning on doing anything that you maybe think is smart, are you?"
"Uh, uh. I'm not planning on doing anything at all. I'm just curious. We could ask some of the kids who live out that way . . ."
"Who's saying 'we,' white man?"
"Okay, then. I could ask some of the kids who live out that way . . . Just in case, you know."
Dennis shook his head.
****
"They were real people," Dom said that Sunday afternoon of March 4, 1635. "Real people, and now they're dead. Mayor Dreeson and the Reverend Wiley and Buster Beasley. People shot and people axed. There was blood and guts all over the street when we came out of mass."
Father Nick had clustered as many of his CCD kids as he could gather back into St. Mary's church basement to keep them away from the violence outside.
"But none of them were Catholic, were they?" Thilo Scharfenberg asked.
"What difference does that make? We knew them."
"I didn't know them," Aloys Carroll said.
"That's because they weren't Catholic," Thilo said.
Dennis shook his head. "Naw. That's because you're not grown up, so you didn't have any reason to know them. Ask your families, both of you. I'm sure that Watt Carroll knows them all. Well, knew them."
Dom looked at Pete Bartolli. "Your dad, my Uncle Phil, knows them, too. I know that. Buster came into both sporting goods stores a lot." He looked back at Thilo. "He ate at your folks' cafe sometimes, too."
"It's one thing to do business . . ." Thilo protested. "But . . ."
Father Nick started to intervene, but didn't have to.
"Turn it around, Thilo," Jacqueline said. "Think that if, oh, somebody, maybe the Ottomans, came and attacked the Catholics here in town, would you want the other people-the Baptists and the Lutherans and such-not to care because they didn't know us? Or would you want them to help?"
The afternoon wore on and as the riots were brought under control, parents gradually showed up and claimed their children. Charlotte Kovar picked up Dom as well as Dennis very late, saying that Nora was still on duty, pulling a double shift at the hospital.
It made things awfully . . . real . . . that there was a policeman escorting her.
"Okay," Dom said after they were safely in bed with the lights out. "What do we do now?"
"Ain't nothing we can."
"Yeah. There is?"
"Dom, what did you do?"
"I found out who the dumpy man is. He doesn't live here. He's only been here a few weeks, but I guess he had to get ready to make his Easter communion. Caspar knew who I was talking about, once I asked. His name's Weirauch. They call him Endres, and he's Catholic or he wouldn't have been at confession. It was a Catholic who got those people out in front of the synagogue all wound up, Dennis. We can't let him get away with it. We've got to tell someone."
"No matter how much trouble it gets us into ourselves?"
Dom pushed himself up on one elbow and punched his pillow. He nodded and then realized that Dennis couldn't see him in the dark. He sat up and hugged the pillow to his knees. "I think that's where we're at."
"We could go confess it."
"That wouldn't do any good. The priest would have to keep what we said secret."
"I'm not going to the police. They'll tell Mom."
"Anyone we go to is going to tell our moms." Dom lay down again and turned over on his stomach. "I should have just stayed hungry that night to begin with. I ended up having to stay hungry anyhow."
He thought the same thing when he got up the next morning.
"Are they having school?" he asked at breakfast.
"Oh, gosh," his Aunt Charlotte said. "As far as I know, but I didn't think to check." She turned on the radio.
Most of the news was all about the riots, but every five minutes or so, the announcer interrupted to say that the schools were closed.
Dom sighed. No reprieve. For once in his life, he would really have looked forward to going to school.
"Do we have to stay indoors?" Dennis asked.
"Not as long as you stay here in the neighborhood, I think." She stood up. "I wish at least one of your dads was in town. I wish your Uncle Dennis was in town. I'd like some backup on this decision. But no, they're all out saving the republic."
Dennis sighed. For once in his life, he would have sort of appreciated being grounded.
"Uncle Brian's here," he said hopefully. "And Uncle Phil."
"Brian's helping out at the hospital, just like practically everyone else in town who has had so much as a first aid course."
"That leaves Uncle Phil."
Phil Bartolli answered the phone and said that he thought it was okay if the boys went outdoors, as long as they stayed right in the neighborhood.
"Some days," Dennis said to Dom as they sat on the trampoline in the back yard, "a guy just can't win for losing."
"So what are we doing next?"
"I'm not going to the police."
"Father Nick?"
Dennis shook his head.
"Mr. Piazza used to teach CCD," Dom suggested.
"He's the president, now. He's way too busy to talk to a couple of kids."
Dom looked up. A middle aged man, gray with exhaustion, was dragging his footsteps in the general direction of his home. Before Dennis could stop him, he got up and ran. "Mr. Adducci," he called. "Hey, Mr. Adducci."
Eventually, Tony Adducci managed to persuade Dennis that they did have to go to the police after all. But it was better than it might have been, because he went to Press Richards with them.
****
"They're dead, guys," Dennis announced in CCD class. "We saw them when we came out of mass the day it happened, and so did a lot of the rest of you. Dead as splat can be, and now they're buried and in the ground."
"They're in heaven," Ottilia said.
"They can't be," Thilo protested. "They were all heretics. I'm not even sure, from what people said about the memorial service, that the Buster fellow was a Christian at all."
"But they are in heaven," Ottilia protested. "They have to be. Not the attackers. They're in hell. But Mayor Dreeson and the Reverend Wiley and Buster Beasley. They were good people. Mrs. Prickett says so."
"No, they were sinners. All of us are sinners," Blaise pointed out.
"Well, then, for sinners they were good people."
"Mrs. Prickett isn't a Catholic," Thilo proclaimed. "Your foster mother is a heretic, Tillie."