Amerikan Eagle

Her arms folded tight against her chest, she didn’t reply. He went to the door, stopped. “You’re pretty good at thinking you know what drives me and what I do, but in the past few days, I’ve seen things and done things I can’t tell you about, Sarah. Important things that have made more of a difference than you and your friends could ever dream of.”

“So says you,” she said coldly.

“Yeah, so says me,” he said. “And despite what you think now, we can work this out. It’ll take time, but I know we can work it out.”

“I’m not so sure, Sam. I’m really not. It would take a lot.”

“Okay,” he said. “I get the message. It’ll take a lot, and that’s what I’ll do.”

Outside, the damp air from the harbor chilled him.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

The day was cold and windy, and Sam stood by himself on a knoll at the Calvary Cemetery in Portsmouth, near the border of the small town of Greenland. The previous night he had once again slept in Hanson’s office. He drew his coat closer, watching the ceremony finish up. There was a plain wooden casket, and a priest was saying prayers over the mangled body of his brother. Except for two cemetery workers standing by themselves, shovels in hand, this part of the cemetery was empty. The ceremony was supposed to be secret, but somehow the news had gotten out.

On the other side of the iron gates there were newspaper reporters and a couple of newsreel crews, all eager to record the burial of the attempted assassin of Adolf Hitler, but the priest—his parish priest, Father Mullen from St. James Church—had denied them entrance. Sam supposed he should have attempted to tell Sarah about the funeral, but he was going to let that rest for now. Sarah would have to mourn Tony at her own time and pace. And he wasn’t surprised that he was the only mourner present. Being known as an associate of an assassin, someone who almost destroyed the summit that promised so much, was just too dangerous.

The priest finished, made a sign of the cross, and then came over, his vestments flapping in the breeze. Sam shook his hand and said, “Thanks, Father. I appreciate that.”

The priest nodded. “I knew your brother back when he was active in the shipyard, trying to make things better for the workers.”

Sam felt the words stick in his throat, knowing his brother and what he had done. “Excuse me for saying this, Father, but he could be a pain in the ass. But sometimes he was a good man, wasn’t he?”

“We’re all good men, Sam. But these are trying times, and all of us sometimes make compromises, sometimes make decisions… It’s not an easy time.”

Sam watched as the cemetery workers came out and, with a set of straps, lowered his brother’s body into the unmarked grave. He didn’t answer the priest.

* * *

He stood there for a while, then started walking to another gate of the cemetery, where he could avoid the crowd of reporters. He saw a man standing near a solitary pine tree. The man was watching him, and Sam changed direction to join him.

“Hello, Doc,” Sam said. “Sorry I’ve been avoiding you. It’s been a shitty few days.”

Dr. William Saunders, the county medical examiner, nodded in reply. “Yeah, it sure has. Sorry about your brother.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, well, don’t be so smug. I think you did a shitty thing, saving that asshole Long’s life.”

Sam replied evenly, “You and a bunch of others, I’m sure.” The medical examiner kept quiet. Sam said, “Doc, don’t play any goddamn games with me. I’m not in the mood. Why are you here? What’s so important?”

Saunders looked over Sam’s shoulder toward the downtown. “You know, we medical examiners, we sometimes pass along information to one another, little bits of professional knowledge that doesn’t get out to the public. Especially for those of us working in cities that have a large refugee population. You tend to look for odd things you don’t otherwise see in the course of your day-to-day work.”

Sam said, “What did you find? And how did you miss it the first time out?”

Saunders sighed. “I’m old, and I’m tired, and things get missed. I didn’t miss a damn thing on that autopsy. The poor guy’s neck was snapped, he was malnourished, he had that damn tattoo, and oh, by the way, his blood work came back normal. No poisons or toxins in his system. But I did miss something in his clothing…”

He reached into his pocket and took out a metal cylinder, less than an inch wide and perhaps two inches long. Saunders said, “In these troubled times, refugees use these capsules to transport important things. Diamonds, rubies, or a key to a safe deposit box. Women—God bless them, they have two receptacles available to hold such tubes, while we men have to do with just one. Ingenious, isn’t it? And when I was finally sorting through your dead man’s clothing, I found this tucked away in his underwear. When a man—or woman—dies, the sphincter muscles relax, and what’s up there, Inspector, will always come out.”