rebels had managed to lift from Bessette at some point. He had it when they brought him in, but now it's gone. I found this sheet of paper, from a notebook, inside a matchbook on Casselli's body.' I handed the slip of paper with the code on it to Harding.
'Pretty good work so far, Boyle. Let's go check on the inventory and interview Jerome. Lieutenant Kazimierz, if you're up to it, will you work on this?'
'I am, Major,' Kaz said as he took the paper. 'I quite enjoy deciphering codes.' Puzzling out that jumble of letters, Kaz looked happy as we left. I wasn't. I needed sleep, I had a headache, and my eyes felt like they were full of grit. I started out last night climbing rooftops and since then Kaz had almost died, I had been bombed by the Germans, and then I'd been shanghaied for a murder investigation. I was used to long hours, but the army didn't pay overtime.
Chapter Twelve
There's nothing like a corpse to put things into perspective. I was tired, but Jerome was dead. I could tell by the hospital sheet over his head. We had come into the room to find Dr. Dunbar standing next to the bed, making notes on Jerome's chart.
'I just found him a minute ago,' Dunbar said after he gave Harding a salute as an afterthought. 'He must've died very recently.'
'I was in here with him about an hour ago,' I said. 'He was tired and going to sleep.'
'Could have been a complication from his head injury. He had a severe concussion when he came in. Happens sometimes.' He hung the chart back up and walked out. I went up to the bed and pulled back the sheet. A lock of his long dark brown hair hung down over Jerome's forehead. He looked relaxed, and I would have thought he was asleep except for his eyes. They were still open. I tried to avoid looking at them, but couldn't. They seemed to seek me out, as if Jerome had a last message to pass on. All I got was a shiver up my spine as I reached down and closed them. They were hazel green, just like Georgie's, the contracted pupils showing off their full color as if they had blossomed in death. Two brothers dead for what they believed in when they both could have sat it out and played it safe. Like I'd expected I'd be doing back in D.C., where I should have been, in a cushy staff job. Yet I was glad I had gotten into the war, because otherwise I wouldn't have met Diana. But in this hospital room, with a young kid lying dead under a coarse, dingy sheet, I couldn't feel glad about anything.
'Let's go, Boyle,' Harding said, his hand on my shoulder. 'He can't talk to us now.'
If only the dead could speak I had looked into those eyes, and couldn't escape the feeling they were trying to tell me something, something important but just out of my reach. I followed Harding out of the room, then led the way to the Supply Depot. We found Willoughby leaning up against the brickwork wall outside the supply room where Casselli had been killed. He was adding up columns on the inventory sheet on his clipboard. He came to attention and saluted like a soldier when he saw Harding. There were brand new corporal's stripes sewn onto his sleeves. I returned the salute and pointed at the stripes.
'That was fast. From Private First Class to Corporal already,' I said.
'Colonel Walton put me in charge, Lieutenant. I told you I did most of the real work around here anyway. The colonel said I deserved it,' he added as an afterthought.
'Didn't say you don't, Willoughby,' I said, watching his eyes. They darted between Harding and me.
'Tell us what you've got, Corporal,' Harding said.
'Yes sir. I did the best I could, Lieutenant,' he said. He gave a nervous glance back at the major. 'Graves Registration hasn't shown up yet, so I had to work around Joe. I mean, Joe's body.' He shuffled his feet, rubbing his face with one hand. He worked in a hospital in the middle of a war, but this might have been the first dead body he'd ever seen. I gave him an encouraging nod to continue.
'They got the penicillin, two full cases. All that's left in the hospital is less than a case. Plus they got about half our supply of morphine, including all the spare syrettes for the medics. Five cases of sulfa, a box of ten lcc vials of nalorphine, and two bottles of chloral hydrate.'
'What's chloral hydrate, Corporal?' Harding asked. Willoughby shrugged.
'Sleeping pills. Your basic ingredient for a Mickey Finn,' I answered.
'How do you know that?' Harding asked.
'You can buy knockout drops, or chloral hydrate, back in Boston for the right price if you know the right gangster. Drop 'em in a drink and you have a Mickey Finn. Guaranteed to put anyone out, temporary or permanent, depending on how many drops.'
'Now you can buy them in Algiers,' Harding said, 'courtesy of the U.S. Army.' He went into the supply room, shaking his head in disgust.
'If you're all done here, Corporal, go see what's taking Graves Registration so long. It's too hot to keep a dead body lying around,' I told him.
'Yes, sir.' He handed me the inventory report and took off. People are always glad to leave when there are dead bodies around. I went inside. Casselli was starting to smell. He didn't look peaceful, like Jerome. He looked like a corpse with a slit throat decomposing in the'? heat of North Africa.
'Professional job,' Harding said. 'The killer could have been trained by the Commandos. Or me.'
'I was thinking more along the lines of the Mob,' I said.
'Sicilians?'
'There's lots of organized crime out of Marseilles. Maybe there's some connection between them and smuggling here. Or maybe it was! an Arab, using one of those curved knives.'
'It was a sharp knife, I can tell you that much,' Harding said.
'Major,' I asked. 'How would you train somebody to slit a throat?'
'Hopefully you won't need to, Boyle.'
'No, really, show me how you'd do it, sir.'
Harding pulled me away from Casselli's body and stood behind me. With his left hand he grabbed my chin. 'First, you pull up the chin so you can get at the throat.' He pulled his right hand across my bare neck. This must have been the last thing Casselli felt. I thrust my right hand up, protecting my neck.
'Would that work?' I asked. Harding drew his hand across my wrist. We both looked at Casselli's right arm. He had a slice across the cuff, at exactly the same spot.
'It only delayed the inevitable,' Harding said. 'If someone had him from behind, and knew what they were doing, his arm wouldn't protect him for long.'
'Try it again,' I said, giving Harding a pencil. 'Use that as the knife.'
He grabbed my chin and brought his right arm around with the pencil. I grabbed it with my right hand and pushed it away and then to the left, dragging the pencil across his left hand as it held my chin. He broke my grip and went at my neck again. I protected it with my right hand. Harding let go.
'Do you know someone with slash marks on his left arm?' he asked.
'Lieutenant Phillipe Mathenet. A Vichy cop who said he got hit by shrapnel in the left arm. His sleeve was in shreds.'
'You said earlier that you knew Villard had killed Casselli.'
'That was before we worked this out. Mathenet s sleeve bothered me. It seemed too coincidental. But Villard was here at the same time he was, and he had to be in on it.'
'Why?'
'Who else held Casselli's right arm so Mathenet could make a clean cut? One on one, Casselli was holding him off.'
Harding thought for a minute, then lit a cigarette, the blue smoke helping to cover up the coppery smell of dried blood and the fouler odors of the shit and piss Casselli had let go when his lights went out. I looked down at Casselli, the supply sergeant, and wondered at the struggle he had put up. The dead eyes looked up at me, pupils wide in amazement, as if the thought of death had never occurred to him before. Probably hadn't.
We walked outside, leaving the smell of decay and dried blood behind. Harding stood in the sun and drew on his cigarette. My head was spinning. It was way past chow time and I needed some. And some coffee, or sleep. Food and sleep. That sounded great. Then I'd worry about these dead bodies, and getting out of here to find Diana,
