illuminating the shuttered boxcars and…
And what else?
The paint scheme. The cars in front of him were dark red. The special train from that night was a dark color as well, but there was a difference.
Yellow stripes had been painted on the sides of those special trains.
What the hell did that mean?
Nothing, that’s what, and nothing that was going to solve this murder for him.
He went to his desk, ignored Mrs. Walton, and when she got up to powder her nose, he picked up his phone, got an operator, and made a call to Concord again, this time to the motor vehicle division of the Department of Safety. He quickly found out it would take a week to get him a listing of all yellow Ramblers registered in the state. A week… well, what the hell. Make it thorough. Maybe it was an accident, maybe it was deliberate, but the train slowing down in Portsmouth was a question mark, and he wanted that question answered. Was the train slowed on purpose so the body could be dumped?
After the phone call, he was going through his old case files when a familiar voice spoke up.
“Inspector,” said the man. “You look like you could use some hooch. And since this department is officially dry, how about a cup of joe instead?”
Sam swung about in his chair, saw a smiling Sean Donovan before him, holding two white mugs of coffee. Sean limped over and pulled a chair closer to Sam’s desk. “I understand you’ve had quite the busy day.”
“I have,” Sam said, sipping the coffee. Sean had made it the way he liked it: black, with two sugars.
Sean nodded. “No doubt dealing with the forces of darkness. I’m surprised you didn’t go home and take a bath after spending time with those two G-men.”
“Only one was a G-man,” Sam said. “The other was— Oh, I get it. A joke. FBI guy and Gestapo guy. Both G-men.”
Sean raised his mug to his lips. “So now we both have something in common, having spent time with these G-men.”
Sam swung around in his chair, glad Mrs. Walton wasn’t back yet. “They’ve talked to you, too?”
“I’m not sure if ‘talk’ is the right word,” Sean answered. “This was more like requests made, requests complied with. The FBI man wanted some files, which I happily passed over to him. And he seemed pretty eager to share what he had with his goose-stepping friend.”
Sam said, “What kind of files?”
“Hmmm,” Sean said, sipping. “Anybody else in this building, I would say none of your business. But since you’re more than the average cop, I will tell you this. Personnel files.”
“I thought the FBI would be looking into active cases. Not personnel files.”
Sean laughed. “That’s a good one. Sam, why would the FBI give a shit about criminal cases at the Portsmouth Police Department? Drunk driving? Hookers? Break-ins? Oh, I know they’ve taken away your homicide, but the real crimes the FBI and their German friends are interested in are the new ones: disloyalty, lack of enthusiasm for the new order, thought crimes like that.”
Sam heard footsteps, saw Mrs. Walton ambling her way back. He leaned over to Sean. “So. Whose personnel files were they asking for?”
“You really want to know?”
“Of course.”
Sean smiled. “Yours.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
That night Sam and Sarah went out to the movies. He was eager to slip into a make-believe world for a while, a world without the FBI or Gestapo or the Underground Railroad or rats or the Party. Sarah had tsk-tsked over the slash the knife had made in his coat sleeve, and had promised to mend it later. Still, Jesus, what a day.
Though a small city, Portsmouth boasted three movie theaters, and tonight they went to the Colonial, up on Congress Street. Throughout Sarah’s pre-movie dinner—fish stew—he kept up a steady patter of conversation, playing the good husband, playing the good father (definitely not playing the rat!), though he had hardly any appetite at all. He had a cold feeling about the meeting with the FBI earlier today, about how close he had seemed to losing it all because of Tony. If that wasn’t enough, another Underground Railroad passenger was going to spend the night in their basement. Talk about living dangerously.
And then there was that train, ready to depart Portsmouth, to drop off another load of prisoners, where there was always room in other trains for one more dissident, one more family.
During dinner Sarah had seemed more cheerful, as though determined to gloss over what was going to happen in their home later that night. And when he had mentioned the visit by the FBI and the Gestapo, Sarah paused at that, ladle held in the air. “Gestapo? Here?”
“That’s right,” he had said, buttering a piece of bread. “Assigned to the consulate in Boston. It seems my dead man was from Germany, here illegally. So it’s not my case anymore. The feds took it away.”
Sarah glanced at Toby and dipped the ladle in the stew. “It’s impossible to believe the Gestapo are here in Portsmouth. It’s bad enough to have Long’s Legionnaires here, but the Gestapo…”
“That’s what the papers and newsreels say. But this German didn’t look that evil to me. More like a paper shuffler, a cop like me.”
Sarah shook her head. “No. You’re wrong, Sam. I don’t care what he looks like. The whole bunch of them— Nazis, Gestapo, SS—they’re pure evil. Mrs. Brownstein at the school, some of the stories she’s told us about what they did to her relatives over in Holland…”
Sam had raised his eyebrows, glancing at Toby taking in every word, and Sarah had changed the subject. Then they had left, with their tenant Walter in charge as a babysitter. Toby had that devil look in his eyes. Sam hoped Walter was in a mood to be tested by an eight-year-old.
Now they were sitting in the darkened theater, most of the men nearby smoking, a paper bag of greasy popcorn between them, Sarah cuddled against his shoulder. Tonight was a Judy Garland musical, and though Sam enjoyed being out, he had to work to pay attention. The FBI—and the Gestapo!—were looking at his personnel files. For what? Not much was in there, nothing that the FBI probably already didn’t know, but maybe the Kraut wanted to learn more about Sam and—
He was suddenly poked in his ribs. “What?” he whispered to Sarah. “What’s wrong?”
“I said something, and you’re not listening to me,” she whispered back.
“Oh, sorry. Mind drifted. What did you say?”
“I said I hope Walter does a better job babysitting. Last time he fell asleep on the couch and Toby tied his shoelaces together.”
Sam said, “At least he’s free. You remember what happened with that bobby-soxer Claire. She charged us two dollars, brought her boyfriend over, and Toby got a quick lesson in make-out sessions about five years ahead of schedule.”
“Shhh,” someone in the audience scolded, and then the films began.
There were a couple of previews of coming attractions, and then a Bugs Bunny short, and Sam felt himself unwind as he joined Sarah and the others in laughing at the antics of that wascally wabbit. Then came the familiar trumpet tunes of Movietone, showing the bloody world in its black-and-white glory.
Up on the screen, thick smoke was rising up over a village, and a line of panzer tanks was crossing a field. The narrator said,
As the narration continued, the familiar newsreel shots of tanks on the move, Stuka aircraft dive-bombing,
