They settled on a pair of chairs overlooking the harbor, and Olivia waited for Wheeler to speak, sipping the tea as though this was a relaxed social call, as if there wasn’t a phantom hourglass present, its grains of sand already falling.
Wheeler sat for a few minutes, watching a sailboat pass beyond a pair of marker buoys. As the vessel headed for the open sea, he said, “Ziegler’s boy was the spittin’ image of his daddy. When he came into my place for breakfast, I thought I was seein’ a ghost. A ghost with glasses and better manners, sure enough, but I saw through his mask. That writer thought he was above the rules, that he was better than the rest of us, just like his daddy did. When men like that think no one’s watchin’, their eyes go cold. They both had those ice-cold eyes.”
“What happened the night Ziegler escaped?” Olivia asked. She wasn’t ready to hear about Plumley’s death.
In the tired afternoon light, the harbor seemed lethargic and calm, a contradiction to the turbulence and sorrow that ran through Wheeler’s past like floodwaters.
“You gotta understand somethin’,” Wheeler said. “Ziegler was a Nazi. He was brainwashed through and through, and he looked at the rest of us like we weren’t worth the pot he pissed in. He reckoned we were traitors, workin’ with the Americans the way we did. Watchin’ their movies and learnin’ baseball.”
“Why were you on that U-Boat in the first place?”
Wheeler shrugged. “I wanted to see the world. My folks were farmers and I would’ve done anythin’ to get away from that life. I didn’t wanna get stuck, see? I was so young . . . I thought it was gonna be such a thrill to travel underwater, silent as a shark, and surface to find a white beach filled with beautiful women.” He laughed. “Lots of boys got in that war outta boredom. What fools we were.”
“But Ziegler was a true Nazi,” Olivia stated.
“Would have killed us all if he could, his yellow-bellied countrymen, but what he wanted most was Evelyn.” Wheeler winced, as if the act of speaking her name caused him physical pain. “That devil stole my knife and stabbed a good, hardworkin’ man in the back. Poor guy never saw it comin’. We coulda walked outta there anytime without hurtin’ a soul, but Ziegler wanted blood. He’d wanted it since the war started. Craved it, even. I followed him that night ’cause I saw his eyes at suppertime. There was murder in those icy blues. It was shinin’ out like the ghost lights you see in the fog every now and again.”
Olivia knew about those lights. She’d seen them the night her father had disappeared, while she’d waited, shivering and alone in a small dingy, to be rescued. More than once, she’d spotted a glow and expected the prow of a ship to slice through the curtains of fog, but the luminescence had faded as quickly as it had appeared. Many a fisherman had gone temporarily mad in the deep waters, having gone adrift far off the coast because of a storm or mechanical problems. These grizzled seamen talked of hearing strange noises and seeing an unearthly light, unable to completely believe that the soft twinkles were the product of hallucinations brought on by dehydration.
“After curfew, I heard Ziegler leave his tent. I followed, my knife in my pants,” Wheeler continued. “I figured on rescuin’ someone that night, savin’ some poor sod from him, seein’ as that boy was hell-bent on killin’ a Yank. He’d lusted for blood since the war started, but he’d had lots of schoolin’ and was given a desk job. That made him mad too. He hadn’t been able to take a shot at a single GI.”
It was easy to get caught up in Wheeler’s narrative, to see Ziegler creeping out in the darkness. The guards, who’d never been threatened by one of their prisoners, relaxed at their posts. Perhaps they played cards or dozed off or stared at the moon as they smoked cigarette after cigarette, their hushed voices rising with the smoke into the night air. “Did you fight him?”
Wheeler nodded. “Aye, but I was no good. He sucker punched me in the gut, grabbed my knife, and stuck it in the guard’s back before I could catch my breath. I rolled the man on his side to see if I could help him, and that’s when another pair of guards approached on their rounds. I knew they saw my face and that they’d find my knife. When all was said and done, I was still a Kraut. I was the enemy. Didn’t matter that I loved everythin’ about this country. Didn’t matter how pretty my paintings were. Didn’t matter that she was waitin’ on me, waitin’ for the war to be over . . .”
“You had to run,” Olivia said soothingly.
His face clouding with grief, Wheeler nodded. “I wanted to go straight to Evie, just to tell her I’d be back for her and that I didn’t do what they were gonna say I did, but I didn’t know where she lived.” He stared at the water, the hopelessness of that night replaying across his features. “I had a general idea, but there wasn’t time to roam around the streets lookin’ for her window.”
“Did you know where Ziegler was headed?”
“No. If I’d known, I’d have gone after him, dragged him back by his hair. He was a snake and a coward and all twisted inside.” Wheeler gestured to the west. “I made my way to the mountains. Took clothes hangin’ out to dry and pinched scraps from farms. I hated myself for it too. I’d always been good with my hands and I found work at a mill, fixin’ gears and wheels and such.”
Olivia looked at him. “And you became Wheeler Ames. Wheeler by trade and Ames as a show of respect to the murdered guard?”
He sat back in surprise. “That’s what his buddies called him. See, one of the non-English-speakin’ prisoners couldn’t get the J out, and after that, Ames just stuck. I never wanted to forget the man, so I used that name for my own. By that time, I could pass as a local and I never did talk much anyhow. Folks thought I had gone soft in the head durin’ the war and they were only half wrong. Havin’ to leave Evie . . . havin’ her wake up to hear I was a murderer and a liar . . . a runaway . . .” He trailed off.
“You never tried to contact her?”
Anguish pulled the corners of Wheeler’s mouth down. “I sent her letters in the beginning, but she didn’t answer. I reckoned she’d washed her hands of me, that she thought I was a killer. I even found her house when I thought it was safe to come back, but she and her family were gone.” He shook his head mournfully. “I let her go. Or tried to. I’ve been with other women, but I never loved any woman but her.” His eyes flashed, anger chasing away the regret. “And when I heard Ziegler’s boy talkin’ about her, whisperin’ to that ex-wife of his and her lump of a boyfriend, I knew I was gonna end him. It’s a scary thing, girlie, to realize you’ve got that inside you. And I’m not real sorry either, ’Livia. Only about hurtin’ folks like you. But I don’t have much life left in me anyhow. If folks think bad of me, I won’t hear about it for long and I don’t have to read the papers in jail.”
“You sound almost relieved that you’ll be locked up,” Olivia said gently.
Wheeler reached over and placed a weathered hand over hers. “I’m tired, my girl. I’m old and there are places achin’ inside that I thought were all scarred over. I just wanna sit down for a spell, read a few books, and die in my sleep. Don’t care where that happens. Jail’s as good a place as any other.”
Olivia tried to imagine her aged friend lying quietly on a cot, reading a novel as his cell neighbors adorned themselves with homemade tattoos or wrote entreating letters to a family member or, if they were lucky, to a lover.