Blood of the Reich (18 page)

“Then you’re a fool.”

“People are happier being ordinary.”

“Nonsense. You’re the kind of man who does everything he can to keep from being ordinary. I’ve seen your type in China a hundred times. Terrified of being bored. Deliberately eccentric to fit the adventure stereotype. Achievement as penance.”

“Penance for what?”

“You tell me.”

“For being envied by people like you.” He looked square at her as he said it.

That stopped her for a moment. Then she nodded. “So tell me, Dr. Benjamin Grayson Hood. What are you
really
doing here? Why go to Lhasa now? Nobody goes to Lhasa.”

“The Nazis have sent an expedition to Tibet.”

“Nazis!”

“SS officers. I’m to find out what they’re up to.”

She looked more puzzled than ever. “Why you?”

“I’ve been to the edge of Tibet twice before, on museum expeditions.”

“So the American, British, and Chinese governments send a curator?” It clearly made no sense to her.

“When we came before, we had an international group. One of the scientists was a German named Kurt Raeder. An able mountain climber, crack shot, and trained zoologist like me. It was a natural partnership.”

“You mean you know German?”

“Yes, but I mean I know Raeder. He’s the leader of this new Nazi group, coming back to a nation we visited before.”

“Ah. So you can approach him, as a friend, to learn what he’s up to.”

Hood gave a humorless smile. “Actually, he’s an enemy.”

This intrigued her. “Really? You had a falling-out? Tug-of-war over a carcass? Argument over the right scientific Latin name?”

She was teasing, but he decided to be honest. The truth was, she
was
risking her life just taking him there. And she was obviously intelligent. “Argument over a woman.”

“Ah.”

“Her name was Keyuri Lin. Her husband hired on as a porter and guide and she came with him to cook and clean. Raeder had his eye on her from the beginning; she’s very pretty. He and the husband were out one day and Mondro fell off a cliff. Or so Raeder said.”

“What do you mean?”

“Perhaps he was pushed. It was the first thing I thought, anyway.”

“That’s quite the accusation.”

“Maybe, but I didn’t like the guy. Too . . . driven.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“Raeder turned his consolation of Keyuri into something else pretty quick. He’s as striking as she is, and perhaps she’d encouraged him, either knowingly or unwittingly. You know how people are.”

“Lusty. Clumsy. Stupid.” Now she stretched out her legs. She had a fine set of them, and knew it.

“They no doubt hoped they could be discreet about the whole thing, but nothing is secret in an expedition camp. There was no evidence of murder, and ordinarily none of it would be my business. But then she began to look frightened.”

“Of what?”

“Raeder. I think there’s some Germanic dark spot on the man’s soul. He didn’t just want to possess her, he wanted to consume her, or hurt her, to make her a kind of slave. I warned him to be careful and he exploded at me, warning me off.”

“Is that so surprising?”

“No . . . but the change in his personality, the switch from dignity to rage, was so complete that I began carrying a loaded pistol even in camp. There’s something dark in him beyond the usual Nazi bravado. I was afraid he’d try something violent. Finally Keyuri crept to me at night and pleaded for rescue. She . . . showed me her body. There were cuts and burns and she feared for her life.”

Calloway gave him a sideways glance.

“I decided to fire him. But he was stirring the others against me, complaining I was trying to steal his woman, this fragile widow, and people began choosing sides. I feared it would rip the camp apart, and possibly result in violence. I . . . was wary of Raeder.”

“Chicken, you mean. And it’s been eating you ever since.”

Hood frowned at the assessment but didn’t dispute it. “So one night I simply took her and fled with some of the animals, leaving a note that my financial support of the expedition was over. Some blamed me for their failure to complete their scientific objectives. Raeder felt humiliated. And it was worse than that.”

Beth was enjoying the tale now, absorbed without pretending sympathy. Two men, one woman? Old story. “Worse how?”

“I fell in love with Keyuri myself. And eventually we
made
love, but we were all mixed up. The expedition had been derailed. She felt guilty about whether she might have played a role in the death of her husband. She was angry at Raeder, but embarrassed at having embarrassed him as well. The victim began to feel like the culprit. So one night she left
me
, too. It took quite a while to get over it.”

“And you
are
over it? This has nothing to do with why we’re flying to Tibet?”

“The last I heard, she’d entered a Buddhist nunnery.”

“So you’re going back to salt the wound.” It was a judgment. “Good move, college boy.”

“I’d just like to set things right.”

“You can’t set things right. That’s the whole point of history.”

“Well, this history is what you’re flying to, which is what you wanted to know. And maybe I can write the future.”

“What does
that
mean?”

“Keyuri is still there, as far as I know. I’m going back so Kurt Raeder doesn’t hurt anyone else, ever again.”

18

Hood’s Cabin, Cascade Mountains, United States

September 4, Present Day

T
he last home of Benjamin Hood was a swaybacked cabin of weathered gray logs, its chinking as gapped as the teeth of a punch-drunk prizefighter and its mossy roof shaggy as a bear. The place listed like the
Titanic
, and Rominy thought its intention was to sink back into the earth. Her new property was not shelter, it was a trauma victim in need of emergency infusions from Home Depot.

Jake once more opened the pickup door from the outside—the need to do so made it seem like they were on some kind of ludicrous date—and then dug a lantern out of the toolbox in the bed of the pickup. While he did that, Rominy burrowed behind the seats to get the first aid kit again to re-dress her knees. A wink of brass caught her eye. It was almost entirely hidden under his camping gear, tucked at the edge of a floor mat. She instinctively reached. It was a small shell casing for a bullet, she saw, empty of powder.

Jake said he didn’t have a gun. A leftover from an earlier owner or outing? She considered asking but he was preoccupied in the toolbox. The casing tickled her memory, but she wasn’t sure why. She pocketed it for later.

“Come on, heiress!” He swung the lantern to help beat a path through high weeds and blackberries to the cabin’s sagging porch. When Rominy stepped up, a piece of deck broke through. Something furtive skittered away. Great.

“Another piece of my fabulous inheritance?” she said, pulling her heeled shoe free of the rot. “I should have worn waders.”

“Another piece of the puzzle, I hope. And I’ve got some spare boots in the truck I can loan you.”

“You have my size?”

“Maybe. Old girlfriend left ’em when she dumped me.”

“Now why would a woman do that?”

“That’s what I asked.” He stepped over some animal droppings and went to the plank door. “You never get an answer.”

“But now you’re Prince Charming and I get a hand-me-down glass slipper?”

“I’m on the trail of a story and you might need to walk in the woods.”

“Gosh, she was wrong. You
are
romantic.”

She’d joke with him now.

The key from the safety deposit box was to a padlock on a rusty hasp, and Jake had to twist and jerk to force it open. The door swung with the proverbial creak, or more precisely a squall of protest, and let out an exhalation of must. The cabin was dim inside, lit by greasy multipane windows that hadn’t seen a wash in decades. The thought that Hood had decomposed here, until his discovery months later, gave her the creeps.

The place was also a time capsule. There was a Depression-era iron bed frame but no mattress, an old drop-leaf table with three painted wooden chairs, a counter with porcelain basin and hand pump, and a river-rock stone fireplace. The fur rug was so decayed as to make the species unidentifiable. The joists and rafters were bare, the underside of the shingles stained where rain had leaked through. There was even a bookshelf, and Rominy inspected the volumes. Faded tomes on Tibet, Buddhism, zoology, and flying, time having glued their pages to a pulpy mass that mice had chewed. Droppings dotted shelves and floor. Hanging on a peg on the wall was a calendar with a faded scenic of Mount Baker, turned to September 1945. It was as faint as a ghost negative.

“Is that when he died?”

Jake nodded. “Apparently. Remember, he wasn’t found right away. That calendar page is right after the end of World War II, and they found him the next spring.”

“He sat out the war up here.”

“Yep. And this is the edge of the edge. To the east of us is a hundred miles of mountain wilderness.”

She turned, reluctant to touch anything. “All right, Woodward and Bernstein, what are we supposed to find?”

“The story, Lois Lane. What happened to Great-grandpa? He goes to Tibet on the eve of the war, comes back to play the hermit here, and dies forgotten. Except his descendants meet untimely deaths, and a great-granddaughter who doesn’t even know he exists is almost blown up in her MINI Cooper. So finally we have access to his cabin, and to his safety deposit box, and suddenly you’ve got enough moola to buy several new cars, thanks to me. All you have to do is give me the scoop of the century and I’ll be on my way.”

“Slam, bam, thank you, ma’am.”

“I wouldn’t put it so crudely. We’re partners now, Rominy. If I’m Woodward, then you’re Bernstein.”

“I want to be Woodward.
You
be Bernstein.”

He smiled. “You’re on.”

She glanced around. “The place is a sty.”

“Let’s call it a dusty attic of nostalgia.” He glanced up. There were cobwebs enough to festoon a crypt. Mice and spiders and flies, oh my.

“But someone’s been here.” Rominy was looking at scuff marks in the dust on the floor. “If this place is haunted, the ghosts leave tracks.”

Barrow frowned. “Kids, maybe. Through a window? Or drifters looking for food.”

“Or your skinheads. Shining lights around and acting spooky.”

“I don’t think they’d know enough to look way up here.”

Rominy dragged her finger in some dust. “Yeah, for their sake. I think my neighbor would answer the Hitler salute with buckshot, and they’d probably contract a disease in this dustbin. No self-respecting ghost would take up residence.”

Jake smiled. “We’re safe, then.” He sat on the old bed frame, springs groaning. “Welcome home.”

“I hope you don’t think that’s seductive.” Rominy walked to the kitchen window, looking over the enameled sink basin. Outside there were claustrophobic walls of fir in every direction. It was like being at the bottom of a green well. “It
is
odd that he came here and died here. But just because I’m his descendant doesn’t mean I have any clues.”

“You now have the contents of the safety deposit box.”

“Geez, a fossilized finger? Thank you, Grandpa. Was it the middle one?”

“In that case I think he would have left the entire hand.”

She sighed. “Okay, let’s think about it.” She sat at the painted table, using her forearm to shove off some dust, and emptied the cookie tin of what they’d found at the bank. “A scarf. It’s a memento, I’d guess.” She held it up to the light. “Part of it ripped away, and dirty from someone’s neck. Nice. What else? The Chinese gold pieces are cool. And this is quite a heavy pistol.” She lifted the .45 so it fell back with a thud. “You could use it to drive nails.”

“Army issue from back then.”

“A compass to find our way, if we had a direction to follow. If it’s not just memorabilia, that suggests a destination and even a map, don’t you think? But no map.”

“Maybe the finger means pointing, like Sacajawea with Lewis and Clark,” Barrow hazarded.

“But no Sacajawea to go with it. And this cabin? He dies at the end of the war. Why? He leaves . . . what?” She glanced around. “No pictures, no maps.” Shelves and cupboards held rusty cans and utensils. The books were ruined. “Hidden passageway? Secret compartment?” She fingered the rock on the fireplace and then had to dust off her hands. She paced around the tiny cabin, Barrow watching her think. Or maybe just watching her. Guys did that, she knew. Just not quite the right guy, yet.

So who
was
Jake Barrow? Savior, abductor, stalker, or partner? “So what else do you report on, when you’re not rescuing damsels?” she suddenly asked.