He stared at the brown dirt. If there had been any blood spilled here, he thought, it would have been a simple matter for the killer to return the following day and simply cultivate it into the earth. Still, he let his eyes move slowly across the plain, right to the edge of Hut 103.
Then he stopped, his heart quickening.
His eyes fixed upon a faded gray, worn wooden board, just above the ground. There was a small but substantial streak of dark brown clearly marring the wall. Almost maroon colored.
Dry, flaky.
Tommy stood up sharply. He had the presence of mind to spin about, once again checking to see if he was being observed.
His eyes inspected each of the men lingering within his sight line. It was possible, he realized, that none of them, or all of them, were keeping watch over what he was doing.
He calculated in his head rapidly, as he turned back to the small stain he'd noticed. He took a deep breath. If it was what he thought it was, and if he approached it, he knew he would be signaling something to the man who had killed Vincent Bedford, and it was not a signal, he was certain, he wanted anyone to read. There is a fine line, he thought, between defending a man by denial-by attacking the evidence against him and offering different explanations for actions-and the moment that the defense takes a different tack. Shifts its sails and sets off on the more dangerous course, where the finger of accusation is pointed at someone new. Tommy knew there were risks in stepping forward.
He glanced about, once again.
Then, shrugging inwardly, he picked his way amid the ill-tended rows of vegetables to the side of Hut 103. He knelt down, reaching for the wooden wallboard, touching the smear of dark with his fingertips.
His first touch persuaded him that it was dried blood.
Looking down, he ran his fingers through the dirt. Any other signs of death would have been absorbed, but this board had captured some. Not much, but some, nonetheless. He tried to picture the sequence at night. The man with the blade.
Vic's back turned. The swift jab, delivered assassination-style.
He thought: Vic must have jerked about and fallen, slumping in the arms of the man who killed him, bending just slightly, dripping his life away for a moment, unconscious, death hurrying to take possession of his heart.
Shuddering, Tommy turned once again to the wallboard.
He realized that the same angles that had created the darkness in the spot had also prevented the recent rain from washing away the bloodstain. This was, he thought, nastily ironic, and it filled him with a cold, harsh amusement.
For an instant, he was unsure what to do. If he'd had the Irish artist with him, he would tell him to sketch the spot. But he realized that the likelihood of him going and finding Colin Sullivan in the North Compound and then returning through the gate and finding the bloodstain untouched were slim. It was smarter to presume that someone was watching him.
So, instead, he reached down and seized hold of the board, and tugged hard. There was a cracking sound as the flimsy wood gave way.
He rose up, with the broken hunk of wood. The bloodstain was captured in the center of the board. He looked down and saw that the damage done to the wall of Hut 103 was minimal, but noticeable. He turned away, and realized that at least a dozen kriegies had stopped whatever they were doing and were regarding him intently. He hoped the curiosity in their faces was typical kriegie curiosity, driven by a fascination with anything that was even the slightest bit unusual or different, anything that might break the tedious routines of Stalag Luft Thirteen.
He shouldered the board, like a rifle, and wondered whether he had just done something terribly foolhardy and eminently dangerous. Of course, he thought to himself, that was what the war was all about: putting oneself at risk. That was what was easy. The tricky part was surviving all the chances one took.
He marched to the end of the hut and saw that one of the men playing catch with the softball was Captain Walker Townsend. The Virginian nodded at Tommy, took in the section of board slung over Tommy's shoulder, but did not interrupt his game. Instead, he reached up and plucked the softball from the air with a graceful, practiced motion. The ball made a sharp, slapping sound as it stuck in the pocket of the captain's faded leather baseball glove.
He delivered the blood-marked board to Lincoln Scott, who had looked up from his bunk with surprise and some enjoyment when Tommy entered the room.
'Hello, counselor,' he said.
'More excursions?'
'I retraced our steps from last night and I found this,' Tommy replied.
'Can you keep it safe?' he asked. Scott reached out and took the board out of his hands and turned it over, inspecting it.
'I guess so. But what the hell is it?'
'Proof that Trader Vic was killed between Huts 102 and 103, right where we thought. I believe that's dried blood.'
Scott smiled, but shook his head negatively.
'It might be. It might also be mud. Or paint. Or lord knows what. I don't suppose we have any way of testing it?'
'No. But neither does the opposition.'
Scott still regarded the board with skepticism, but at least nodded his head slightly in agreement.
'Even if it is blood, how do we prove it belonged to Bedford?'
Tommy smiled.
'Thinking like a lawyer, lieutenant,' he said.
'Well, I don't know that we have to. We merely suggest it. The idea is to create enough doubt about each aspect of the case against you that the whole of their picture crumbles.
This is an important piece.'
Scott still looked askance.
'I wonder whose garden that is?' Scott asked, as he gingerly fingered the ripped piece of wood, turning it over and over in his hands.
'Might say something.'
'It might,' Tommy acknowledged.
'Though my guess is that I probably should have found that out before drawing attention to the spot. Not a helluva big chance anyone will volunteer that information now, I would think.'
Scott nodded, turned, and placed the board beneath his bunk.
'Yeah,' he said slowly.
'Why should anyone help me?'
The black flier straightened up, and without warning, his jocularity fled. It was as if he'd suddenly been ripped from the abstract of his situation, back to its reality. He quickly spun his eyes around the bunk room, past Tommy, examining each of the stolid wooden walls, his prison within a prison. Tommy could sense that Scott had traveled somewhere within his head, and when he'd returned, he'd also returned to his sullen, angry, the-world-against-him attitude. Tommy did not point out that it seemed that a number of people were already helping the black flier. Instead, he turned toward the door to exit the room, but before he could step in that direction, Scott stopped him with a fierce glance and a bitter question: 'So what's next, counselor?'
Tommy paused before replying.
'Well, drudge-work mostly.
I'm going to interview some of the prosecution witnesses and find out what the hell they're going to say and then go and talk strategy with
Phillip Pryce and Hugh Renaday. Thank God for Phillip. He's the one putting us ahead, I think.
