This Fog of Peace (Moon Brothers WWII Adventure Series Book 4) Read online

  “I don’t suppose you followed up on that, did you? Like where they went? Who they were with?”

  Cheatwood’s silence was a resounding no.

  Then Sean asked, “Has there been any investigation at all, Lieutenant?”

  Cheatwood sounded as if he was trying to convince himself as he replied, “That’s ongoing, Sergeant Moon.”

  “Outstanding, Lieutenant. Now, if it’s okay with you, I’d like to talk with the men in question.” He pointed to the charge sheets on Cheatwood’s desk, asking, “Mind if I have a look at those first?”

  With a shrug, the lieutenant nudged the papers toward him.

  There wasn’t much to look at on the forms. They were, for the most part, blank, with just name, rank, and serial numbers of the two PFC prisoners written down, along with the charges of murder, assaulting a superior NCO, and AWOL. There was no inventory of evidence, no statements from witnesses, no photos—not even a diagram of the crime scene. In other words, the ongoing investigation Lieutenant Cheatwood had proclaimed was just an ass-covering lie. With a dismissive flip of his wrist, Sean released the charge sheets and let them flutter back to the desk.

  Then he started down the hall to the detention cells. Cheatwood hurried after him.

  “You’re wasting your time, Sergeant Moon. Those killers will just lie to you like they lied to me.”

  “With all due respect, Lieutenant, that ain’t the way it works. Seems to me nobody knows who’s lying to who yet. And nobody’s guilty until a court-martial says so.”

  Chapter Two

  Lieutenant Cheatwood hadn’t liked it when Sean Moon insisted he interview Meacham and Slattery alone. It had been SOP to interview prisoners with an armed MP present for the interviewer’s protection, but it wasn’t in any regulation. When the lieutenant tried to insist, Sean replied, “I don’t believe I’ll be needing you or anyone else to protect me from an unarmed man, sir.”

  Cheatwood couldn’t argue with that. Tall and strapping, Sergeant Moon could be the poster boy for intimidating. The kind of man you hoped you’d never meet in a dark alley.

  Sean sized up PFC Meacham right away: Your typical Jersey loudmouth who’s all bark and no bite. But the moment he heard the sound of Sean’s voice, Meacham’s face brightened. “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch! You’re from Brooklyn, ain’t you, Sarge?”

  “Damn right I am, Private.”

  “I ain’t seen me no career NCOs from Brooklyn,” Meacham said. Then he pointed to Sean’s campaign ribbons and added, “It looks like you already paid your dues in spades, but you’re still here. I always thought guys from our part of the world had the sense to get while the getting was good.”

  Sean shot him a look that would freeze blood. “I don’t figure you’ve been around long enough to see or know much of anything, Private. Let’s make this easy. I’ll ask the questions, you give the answers. Understood?”

  The flippancy drained from Meacham’s voice. “Sure, Sarge. Anything you say.” He realized there would be no camaraderie with this master sergeant based on the proximity of their hometowns. Or any other reason, for that matter.

  “Let’s start with this,” Sean said. “You understand the MPs think you murdered this Sergeant Pickens, don’t you?”

  “Yeah…and that’s bullshit, Sarge. I didn’t murder nobody. I wasn’t even in the depot after twenty hundred hours. I was playing cards with the grease monkeys at the airfield all night. Got back to the barracks just after sun up, just like I would’ve coming off the night shift...and just in time to get my ass arrested.”

  “Okay, you’ve got the start of an alibi. But that still don’t mean you didn’t kill him before twenty hundred.”

  “I’m telling you, Sarge. I didn’t kill nobody. You talk to Slats yet? What’d he tell you?”

  “Like I said, Private, I’ll ask the questions here.” He slid a paper and pencil across the table to Meacham, adding, “Write down the names, ranks, and outfits of the guys you were playing cards with.”

  “I don’t remember every swinging dick’s name, Sarge. And who the hell knows which Air Force unit is which?”

  “Get it as close as you can. We’ll track them down and get confirmation where you were…and when.”

  Once he was done writing, Sean stuffed the paper into his notebook and called for the MP guard to take the prisoner back to his cell. Meacham looked surprised…and worried. “Hey, Sarge, that’s it? That’s all you’re gonna ask me?”

  “That’s all, Private. For now.”

  “You are gonna get me off the hook here, ain’t you?”

  “Let me put it this way…if you’re innocent, I sure as hell hope I can.”

  Jerry Meacham found that less than reassuring.

  “But they shoot you for murder, Sarge.”

  “Yeah, so I’ve heard.”

  Alone in the interrogation room as he waited for Brian Slattery to be brought to him, Sean decided that nothing said in the interview just ended had changed his initial impression of Jerry Meacham: The kid’s a wiseass…but he’s no killer.

  It didn’t take long into the next interview to realize that although Slattery wasn’t a wiseass like his fellow prisoner, he was no killer, either. He seemed as earnest and innocent as an altar boy serving his first mass. Sean struggled to maintain his objectivity, even though he wanted to believe everything the lanky young man told him without question.

  But that wasn’t how you got the bulletproof information that would stand up in a court-martial and keep innocent men from prison…or the firing squad.

  Then Slattery told him things that had that bulletproof quality Sean was looking for: “These guys—they weren’t GIs, I can tell you that for sure—they took stuff from the warehouse. A lot of stuff. They must’ve known what they were looking for because it didn’t take them long.”

  “How do you know they weren’t GIs, Private? They drove a deuce-and-a-half, you said, right?”

  “Yes, Sergeant, that’s what they drove. But they sure as hell weren’t speaking English. And I’m pretty sure they weren’t speaking German or French, either.”

  “Could they have been speaking Russian?”

  “I’ve never heard anybody speak Russian, Sergeant.” He paused thoughtfully, and then added, “But maybe last night was my first time.”

  “That’s a real good bet,” Sean replied. “Now this blonde woman you saw…she vanished when the Russians showed up?”

  “As near as I can tell, Sergeant.” He paused again before asking, “You suppose she could’ve been working with them…like a decoy or something?”

  “It’d be pretty unlikely,” Sean replied. “Germans—especially German women—are more terrified of the Russians than anyone else. With real good reason. We ain’t heard of one case of them being in cahoots. And how much help would a gang of Russians need to bust into an unlocked depot, anyway? Or a locked one, for that matter. You’re sure that gate was unlocked?”

  “I’m positive, Sergeant. On a stack of Bibles. It didn’t get locked until I got scared and took off.”

  Sean started to ask why he hadn’t immediately reported what had happened but stopped himself. He already knew the answer. He’d seen too many green troopers come apart at the seams and flee at their first sight of violent death. If there wasn’t a cooler head to corral them right then and there, it might take hours, even days, before they regained their wits and returned to their unit. Slattery seemed to fit that bill. He’d wandered back to his barracks this morning—still disoriented—just as the MPs were arresting Jerry Meacham.

  “Just one more thing,” Sean said. “What time did Sergeant Pickens cut you loose?”

  “Twenty hundred hours,” Slattery replied.

  “And he cut Private Meacham loose at the same time?”

  “Affirmative, Sergeant.”

  Technical Sergeant Ulysses “Huey” Goodpaster was used to waiting; he’d been in the Army a long, long time. This morning, he was waiting at the gate to the Vehicle Parts Dep
ot, barred from the premises by the MPs posted there. Goodpaster was the NCOIC—NCO-in-charge—of the depot, the man who had arrived before dawn to find the place deserted…except for the dead body of Horace Pickens. Within minutes, the MPs responded to his phone call, and since then, he and his small team of day shift warehousemen had been evicted from the crime scene. He’d filled the time patiently explaining the temporary lockout to the GIs who’d arrived to pick up their units’ requisitioned parts. Their trucks were backed up in a stalled line down the street; they, too, would have to wait in the fine Army tradition.

  Goodpaster was relieved when he saw Sean Moon’s familiar face behind the wheel of the jeep that had just pulled up to the gate. “G’morning, Sean,” he said. “I’m guessing you’ve got the duty today. Lucky you. Got any idea what happened in my warehouse? These MPs won’t tell me shit.”

  “That’s because they don’t know shit, as usual, Huey,” Sean replied. “Looks like some Russian bastards robbed you. Killed this Pickens guy, too. We might have ourselves a witness, though.”

  Goodpaster looked forlorn as he said, “Didn’t Ol’ Georgie Patton say this would happen once we cut off all that free stuff from Lend-Lease? When’s Georgie coming back from that damn war bond tour, anyway? He’s gonna have himself a shit fit when he hears about this. Might even go on the warpath again.”

  “He’ll be back in a couple of days,” Sean said. “Last I heard, his plane leaves Boston oh-six-hundred tomorrow.”

  “Can’t wait,” Goodpaster replied. “Now maybe they’ll do what Georgie said we should’ve done in the first damn place and turn depots like this into strongpoints. To hell with this allied cooperation bullshit. Those Reds ain’t no allies, that’s for damn sure. But I hear-tell they got Pickens’ two boys locked up for killing him. That true?”

  “Afraid so, Huey. That’s what I’m trying to sort out right now.”

  Goodpaster shook his head. “Now ain’t that just ridiculous? Those two lads couldn’t find their asses with both hands, let alone cancel somebody’s ticket all messy like that.”

  “Couldn’t agree more, Huey.”

  “I feel kinda bad, though. I had to give the MPs their names because they were missing.”

  “Sure, Huey. It’s what you had to do.”

  Lieutenant Cheatwood’s jeep screeched to a halt beside Sean’s. While his driver gunned the engine impatiently, the lieutenant called out, “Sergeant Moon, your vehicle is to enter the depot yard behind mine.”

  “I kinda figured that’s how you’d want it, Lieutenant. Sergeant Goodpaster here is going to ride in with me.”

  Eyes bulging, Cheatwood shrieked, “NEGATIVE, SERGEANT! NEGATIVE! NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL AT THE CRIME SCENE!”

  Goodpaster turned away so the lieutenant couldn’t see him stifling a laugh. He figured this lieutenant was one of those officers with a bug so far up his ass it would take a boat hook to pull it out.

  Deadpan, Sean replied, “Begging your pardon, Lieutenant, but Sergeant Goodpaster is the man in charge of this facility. His knowledge of it will be of great help to your investigation.”

  In the back seat of Cheatwood’s jeep was a T-4—a technician, fourth grade—who wore the three stripes of a buck sergeant with a “T” beneath the chevrons. He was trying his best to hide his face, too, because, like Huey Goodpaster, the lieutenant’s little tantrum was cracking him up. Next to him on the seat was a big carrying case which, undoubtedly, held a camera and accessories for photographing the crime scene.

  Still agitated, Lieutenant Cheatwood mumbled something no one could hear. Then he straightened up as if coming to a position of seated attention. “Very well,” he said. “Follow me, men.” He motioned to his driver to move the jeep forward, into the depot yard.

  Sean didn’t crack a smile until the lieutenant’s jeep had pulled away. Then, with Huey Goodpaster in the right seat, he put his own jeep into motion.

  “Looks like our Lieutenant Whizbang reckons ain’t nobody but him got a lick of sense, Sean,” Goodpaster said. “I reckon that boy couldn’t organize a pissing contest in a brewery, though.”

  “No doubt about that, Huey.”

  Goodpaster added, “He might-could fuck himself up a wet dream, too.”

  They would’ve laughed if there had been something funny about it. They’d both seen their share of self-important junior officers, often young and naïve like Cheatwood. But in the unforgiving arena of combat—which made no allowance for your self-worth—most of them had ended up dead. So far, Lieutenant Cheatwood had been one of the lucky exceptions.

  With the jeeps parked next to the building, Cheatwood climbed onto the loading dock, ordering the photographer to follow him.

  “Hang on a minute, Lieutenant,” Sean said. “Let’s get some shots from behind those oil drums over there.”

  Cheatwood replied, “Why on God’s green Earth would we want to do that, Sergeant Moon?”

  As he walked behind the drums, Sean explained, “Because, Lieutenant, we need to record what can be seen from here. It will either help corroborate Private Slattery’s story or blow it to hell. And from where I’m standing, it sure looks like he had a bird’s-eye view of what was going on in there.”

  He let the wisdom of Sean’s request sink in for a moment. Then, Cheatwood turned to the photographer and ordered, “Sergeant Borden, photograph the warehouse and loading dock from behind those barrels.” He made it sound like it was all his idea.

  Once inside the warehouse, Goodpaster immediately began an inventory to determine what had been taken.

  “Why the hell are you bothering with that, Sergeant?” Cheatwood asked. “This is a murder investigation, not some trip to market.”

  Goodpaster replied, “Begging your pardon, sir, but this is a murder and a robbery. Theft of government property, you know what I mean?”

  Cheatwood stomped over to the bare-topped wooden desk, preparing to pull the rolling chair out and take a seat. Sean blocked his path.

  “I wouldn’t do that quite yet, Lieutenant.”

  “And why not, Sergeant Moon?”

  Sean pointed to the pile of paperwork and ledgers scattered on the floor next to the desk. “Looks like somebody cleared this desk in a hurry, probably to use it for some other purpose.” Before Cheatwood could get in a rebuttal, he added, “Like sexual relations, perhaps.”

  Then Sean saw it. Draped across the pull of the upper drawer was one long blonde hair, barely visible in the oblique sunlight of morning spilling through the window. Borden didn’t wait for the lieutenant to tell him to interrupt photographing the corpse and come over to the desk.

  While Borden worked the angles, making sure the hair would be readily identifiable in the shots, Sean crouched to get an eyeline down the plane of the desktop. He could see body hairs—some dark, some light—and a small, dried stain near the far edge, distinct against the wood grain.

  “When we call for the meat wagon, we’d better have a medic on board to collect and preserve these samples properly,” Sean said. “We’ve got more hair…and probably body fluids, too.”

  Cheatwood shrugged defiantly, like a spoiled child who’d suddenly lost interest in the task at hand. He walked across the room and picked up the phone. Once out of earshot, Sean asked Borden, “Doesn’t look like any other investigators were here before us. Am I right?”

  “Yep,” the photographer replied. “We’re the first, Sarge.”

  Sean kept his thoughts to himself: In other words, the investigation was “ongoing,” my ass, Lieutenant. You would just as soon take the easy way out and frame two innocent kids than do your damn job.

  Huey Goodpaster took a few clipboards from the wall, placed them on a work table, and began to do some tallying.

  A little surprised, Sean asked him, “You done with your inventory already?”

  “A rough total, yeah. It’s all truck parts they took…clutches, brake drums and shoes mostly…the usual stuff that gets wore out pretty quick and you can’t jury-rig your
way around it.”

  “How the hell could you tell all that in five minutes, Huey?” Sean wasn’t accusing his old friend of slipshod work, and Goodpaster knew it. He was just amazed by the efficiency and wanted to understand it.

  “Well, Master Sergeant Moon, it’s like this…I was running supply rooms when you were still in short pants. And I figured out a long time ago how to organize them so any nitwit could get stuff into the hands of the GIs who needed it lickety-split. How many of your tanks ever went out of action because there weren’t any parts for them?”

  “Not many, Huey. Not many at all.”

  “Damn right there weren’t. You can thank my organizational genius for that, Sergeant Moon.”

  But they both knew that if there was a downside to all this efficiency, it had just bit them in the ass.

  “Them Red bastards must’ve picked up on my system, too,” Goodpaster lamented.

  “You mean they’ve been to this depot before?”

  “Hell, yeah…a couple of times in the last month, back before Ike shut off giving them parts for all the vehicles we lend-leased them.”

  “Shit,” Sean said. “We should’ve seen this one coming a mile away.”

  “Georgie Patton saw it, but Ike overrode him…again. Wouldn’t let him fortify the supply dumps or anything else in this damn city, for that matter. Remember what he said: Our mission now is to oversee the German nation, not pick fights with the Russians? Georgie had himself a hissy-fit over that one.”

  “But there’s just one problem, Huey. Where the hell are we gonna get the GIs to do all that fortifying? Our headcount’s going down like a sinking ship. The Brits’ and Frenchies’, too. Between demobs and guys shipping out to the Pacific, we’re gonna be holding down Europe with a skeleton crew in no time flat. Hell, we’re so short on manpower that I hear Patton’s using Nazis for guards in the detention camps. But I sure as hell don’t see no Russians getting shipped home. They’re still at full strength, if you ask me.”