Amerikan Eagle

“Who are you?” he said. “And where in hell did you come from?”

Then he continued back to his Packard, rubbing his sore cheek.

CHAPTER NINE

Dinner was a bowl of chicken stew and some chunks of homemade bread, and while Toby drew doodles on scrap memo paper from the department, Sarah sat on the other side of the table, silent and looking paler than usual. There was a faint crackle to the air, as though a thunderstorm were approaching.

When she spoke, there was a listlessness to her voice, as if she were preoccupied with something.

“You were out late last night with that dead man, Sam. You shouldn’t have to go out again tonight. The marshal should give you a break. Especially since you got in a fight. Your cheek is really bruising up.”

“It wasn’t much of a fight, and tonight’s a Party meeting,” he told her. “You know how it is.”

She spooned up some of the stew. The radio was playing a repeat sermon of the famed radio priest Father Charles Coughlin, out of Chicago. In his musical accent, Coughlin said, “The system of international finance which has crucified the world to the cross of depression was evolved by Jews for holding the peoples of the world under control…”

Sam frowned. He despised the priest. “Why are you listening to him? I thought you liked the music from that Boston station.”

“It went off the air yesterday. The FCC yanked its license.”

The priest went on. “…from European entanglements, from Nazism, communism, and their future wars, America must stand aloof. Keep America safe for Americans and the Stars and Stripes the defender of God.”

“I’m finished. May I be excused?” Toby asked breathlessly.

Sam looked to Sarah, and she said, “Yes, you may.”

“Thanks!” He pushed his chair back with a screech and ran for his room, and Sarah called out, “And no radio until your homework gets done, got it, buster?”

“Yep!”

With Toby gone, Sarah picked up her spoon. “Sam, are you sure you can’t stay home tonight?”

“Honey, I’ve missed two Party meetings in a row. I can’t afford to miss a third. I start missing meetings, then somebody will start looking in to me. And if that happens, maybe they’ll find out about your little charity work, right?”

“Sam, I know we called it charity work, but it was much more than that,” she said sharply. “It is— was very important to me. It was once important to you, too. You always supported me before. I don’t like that you’ve changed your mind.”

“I haven’t changed my mind. Other things have changed. And if I miss one more meeting, I can get put on a list. And I’m still on probation. You know where that toy sub came from, right, the one for Toby? An unemployed firefighter selling wooden toys on the street because someone ratted him out for reading the wrong newspapers. If there are cutbacks next budget season, I could lose my job. Or end up chopping down trees with my brother if they find out what’s been going on in our basement.”

“You won’t be on any list like that. You know that. Please knock it off. You’re just trying to scare me.”

“Don’t be so sure. And something else you should know. I saw the marshal and your dad separately this morning, and they want the same thing: me to be more active in the Party, so I can be a rat and tell them what the other’s up to. Isn’t that great? The marshal and your dad have such a high opinion of me that they both want me to be a rat.”

Sarah wiped her hands on a napkin. “Maybe you should be more active in the Party. I mean, with the Underground Railroad station closed, my friends and I, well, if you could tell us things ahead of time—”

“Dammit, woman, it’s bad enough my boss and your dad want me to be a rat, you want me to do the same for you and your half-baked revolutionaries and concerned schoolteachers?”

Sarah’s eyes flashed at him. “Don’t insult us by calling us that. It’s people like my friends who can make a difference. And I wish you would stop being so mean about my dad. I don’t like it.”

“I’m sorry you don’t like it, but you know he can be a jerk.”

“Jerk or not, he’s just trying to help his son-in-law, me, and our son. What’s wrong with that? You know how he helped us with the furniture, and he wanted to help with the down payment for our house. I still don’t know why you didn’t let him.”

“Because I don’t want to be under his goddamn thumb, that’s why!”

She glared at him, and noisily clattered the dishes together. “But it’s all right to sleep in a bed that he provided us at cost, isn’t it, Inspector Miller?”

“Look, Sarah—”

His wife made a point of looking up at the kitchen clock. “I don’t want to talk about it any more. You’re going to be late to your precious Party meeting.”

* * *

The meeting was held in American Legion Post #6, off Islington Street, nearly a dozen blocks away from the police station. The air inside was blue-gray with smoke. Most of the men were smoking cigars or cigarettes; the bar was open, and bottles of Narragansett and Pabst Blue Ribbon were held in a lot of fists. Sam went up to a table near the entrance, where he paid his fifty cents and his name was checked off a list. There, he thought, I’m here, dammit, and I won’t be back for another month, no matter what the marshal or the mayor wants.

There was a burst of laughter in the corner, and Sam noted a freckle-faced man holding court. Patrick Fitzgerald, father of his friend Donna. Remembering his chilly dispatch from home, he thought again of Donna and her sweet smile, and… Why hadn’t he asked her out back in school?

Frank Reardon came toward him, giving him a satisfied nod. Unlike the other night by the train tracks, Frank wore civvies and had an American Legion garrison cap tilted on his head, as did a number of others.

“Glad to see you made it, Sam. What the hell happened to your cheek?”

“Walked into a door.”

Frank grinned. “If you say so. Look, anything new about that body? Any ID yet? Or cause of death?”

“Nope,” he said. “Still working it. Should get a report from the medical examiner tomorrow.”

“Sounds good. But I bet you a beer that you find out that dead man’s a hobo who stole those clothes and got clipped by the train some way.”

“Maybe,” Sam agreed, and Frank said, “You watch. One beer.”

Frank wandered off, and Sam decided one beer was a good idea. There was a stir amid the crowd, and two young men came in from the rear of the room, laughing. Blue corduroy pants, leather jackets, and even in the crowd, Sam felt alone and exposed, as if he were in a crowded church and feeling like the pastor was staring right at him when sermonizing about the wages of sin. Long’s Legionnaires, the same creeps from the other night at the Fish Shanty. They dragged chairs over near an empty lectern and sat there, legs stretched out, arms folded. Here to keep an eye on the locals. Sam looked away and went up to the wooden bar, where he managed to get a Narragansett. Then there was an elbow in his side and a voice in his ear: “Inspector, I sure hope you don’t drink like that on duty.”

A short man with red hair stood grinning up at him. Sean Donovan, former ironworker from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and now a clerk at the department, who spent most of his days burrowed in the files in the basement, trying to clean up a backlog of misfiled papers and case reports. Most cops ignored him—what the hell was a guy doing in a broad’s job, anyway?—but Sam liked Donovan’s quick wit and ability to find some obscure bit of paperwork in just a few minutes.

“Didn’t know you were so interested in politics, Sean.”

“I’m interested in keeping my job, my belly full, and a roof over my head. That means decisions, compromises, and the occasional sacrifice that would make your stomach roll. If I was in Berlin, I’m sure I would be a fully paid member of the Nazi Party. If I was in Moscow, my party card would be red. In England, Mr. Mosley