According to Brett the note read:
One less gun against the Reich.
One more pig for the slaughter.
Did you know he was the third?
Tom had asked Brett to check his findings, and Brett said that was as close as he could come with his limited knowledge and the dictionary. The last line bothered Tom most of all. The third? The third what?
For the time being Tom was keeping the contents of the note quiet, only sharing it with his men and Doctor Randolph, who’d suggested based on the final line of the missive that perhaps the killer had struck before. This possibility needled at the sheriff. Harold Ashton wasn’t the only person to disappear from Barnard in the last few months. Dewey Smith’s parents had reported him as a runaway just after the start of the new year, and Karen Perry – Gilbert’s cousin – had also disappeared, though it was highly suspected she’d eloped with a boy she’d met at a church in Austin. The girl had a history of family troubles, so no one was surprised when she didn’t call or write to explain her whereabouts. Still, no word on either of those two kids in months, and those were just the two that immediately sprang to Tom’s mind. People of that age often ran off, whether it was to chase love, escape the family, or seek out their dreams in a bigger city. Except for the families, hardly anyone batted an eye.
It had been hard as hell breaking the news to Harold’s parents, seeing the collapse of Chuck Ashton’s face as his wife fell against his chest, but to have them storm into his office an hour later, infuriated that Tom hadn’t revealed his evidence – the German’s note – had been impossible. He let them scream and accuse, and he had said nothing until they’d worn themselves out. He calmly explained that the note didn’t actually tell them much. The German population of Barnard was enormous: five hundred new residents in the last two years alone, and more than a thousand in the ten years since Hitler had taken power of their homeland. Then there were the second-generation families and third-generation families, many of whom retained a functional knowledge of the language – certainly enough to get through the Lutheran Christmas Mass out to St. David’s. Any other foreign language would have whittled down the suspect list considerably, even Spanish, but a note written in German could have come from any one of two thousand different people.
Chuck Ashton demanded that he be kept informed of every scrap of evidence Tom found. Tom declined politely, apologized a third time for the man’s loss, and then asked Gilbert to see the Ashtons out of the sheriff’s office.
Since their departure, Tom had sat at his desk, reading a short list of names – names of people he knew quite well – and wondered if any of them was capable of the violence he’d seen done to Harold. He didn’t think so, but it was his job to check them out.
Doc Randolph knocked on his office door just after sunset, and Tom asked him in. The doctor was a short and narrow man, reed thin from shoulders to toes. He wore a neatly cropped fringe above his ears, which stood only a few steps off pure white, and a pencil-thin mustache cut a line above his all but imperceptible lips. The doctor sat in the wooden chair across from Tom, his face twisted with questions, but he didn’t say anything for a very long time. Finally, Tom asked, “Something on your mind?”
“Too many things, I’m afraid.”
“I know the feeling,” Tom said. “Want to take them one by one?”
“Where was Harold all that time?” the doctor asked in a burst of frustration. “Gone for weeks but he hasn’t been dead for more than a day, maybe two. Did he leave and get accosted on his way back into town? Was someone holding him prisoner all that time?”
Logical questions, Tom thought. He’d asked himself those very things a number of times, and his conclusion was, “He didn’t run off. If he was going anywhere, then it was to
One less gun against the Reich.
One more pig for the slaughter.
Did you know he was the third?
Tom had asked Brett to check his findings, and Brett said that was as close as he could come with his limited knowledge and the dictionary. The last line bothered Tom most of all. The third? The third what?
For the time being Tom was keeping the contents of the note quiet, only sharing it with his men and Doctor Randolph, who’d suggested based on the final line of the missive that perhaps the killer had struck before. This possibility needled at the sheriff. Harold Ashton wasn’t the only person to disappear from Barnard in the last few months. Dewey Smith’s parents had reported him as a runaway just after the start of the new year, and Karen Perry – Gilbert’s cousin – had also disappeared, though it was highly suspected she’d eloped with a boy she’d met at a church in Austin. The girl had a history of family troubles, so no one was surprised when she didn’t call or write to explain her whereabouts. Still, no word on either of those two kids in months, and those were just the two that immediately sprang to Tom’s mind. People of that age often ran off, whether it was to chase love, escape the family, or seek out their dreams in a bigger city. Except for the families, hardly anyone batted an eye.
It had been hard as hell breaking the news to Harold’s parents, seeing the collapse of Chuck Ashton’s face as his wife fell against his chest, but to have them storm into his office an hour later, infuriated that Tom hadn’t revealed his evidence – the German’s note – had been impossible. He let them scream and accuse, and he had said nothing until they’d worn themselves out. He calmly explained that the note didn’t actually tell them much. The German population of Barnard was enormous: five hundred new residents in the last two years alone, and more than a thousand in the ten years since Hitler had taken power of their homeland. Then there were the second-generation families and third-generation families, many of whom retained a functional knowledge of the language – certainly enough to get through the Lutheran Christmas Mass out to St. David’s. Any other foreign language would have whittled down the suspect list considerably, even Spanish, but a note written in German could have come from any one of two thousand different people.
Chuck Ashton demanded that he be kept informed of every scrap of evidence Tom found. Tom declined politely, apologized a third time for the man’s loss, and then asked Gilbert to see the Ashtons out of the sheriff’s office.
Since their departure, Tom had sat at his desk, reading a short list of names – names of people he knew quite well – and wondered if any of them was capable of the violence he’d seen done to Harold. He didn’t think so, but it was his job to check them out.
Doc Randolph knocked on his office door just after sunset, and Tom asked him in. The doctor was a short and narrow man, reed thin from shoulders to toes. He wore a neatly cropped fringe above his ears, which stood only a few steps off pure white, and a pencil-thin mustache cut a line above his all but imperceptible lips. The doctor sat in the wooden chair across from Tom, his face twisted with questions, but he didn’t say anything for a very long time. Finally, Tom asked, “Something on your mind?”
“Too many things, I’m afraid.”
“I know the feeling,” Tom said. “Want to take them one by one?”
“Where was Harold all that time?” the doctor asked in a burst of frustration. “Gone for weeks but he hasn’t been dead for more than a day, maybe two. Did he leave and get accosted on his way back into town? Was someone holding him prisoner all that time?”
Logical questions, Tom thought. He’d asked himself those very things a number of times, and his conclusion was, “He didn’t run off. If he was going anywhere, then it was to
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