the mane on his Dartmoor pony.
We left the temptations behind, driving to the Three Crowns to meet Tree.
“Interesting that the society doesn’t require plans,” Payne said. “It fits my theory that Razor is funneling his illegal gains into a legitimate business.”
“He probably paid Harrison Joinery a pretty penny for those drawings,” I said.
“Yes. I think I’ll look into who does own that firm. Not that it will help us much, but at least it will make me feel like a policeman with a clue.”
I knew the feeling.
CHAPTER TWENTY
We waited for Tree for an hour at the Three Crowns. We’d eaten our rabbit-meat pasties and finished our pints. We went outside and took a seat on the bench-the same one that Tree, Kaz and I had sat on a few days ago-and let the warmth of the spring sun wash over us. The constable leaned against the automobile and lit a cigarette. It was quiet and peaceful, but I felt something was wrong. It wasn’t like Tree to let anyone down. Not Angry, not me, not his unit.
“He probably couldn’t get away,” Payne said. “New orders or something. It is the army, after all.”
“Maybe. But he said he was scouting sites for maneuvers this morning, and from what we saw today they’re about to start up. He should be done by now.”
“Well, I hope they don’t ruin too many plowed fields,” Payne said. “I know they have to train, but some of your chaps-and ours too-get carried away. Stone walls knocked down, crops ruined, and who gets a call? The police, that’s who, and there’s damn little we can do about it.”
“How about you drop me back at the inn so I can take a ride up to Chilton Foliat?” I said, hardly listening to Payne’s complaints. “I’ll look around and then head to the bivouac if I don’t find Tree there.”
“If you’d like. I’ll be at the station later today if you want to come round,” Payne said. “Perhaps we should have another go with Flowers at the building society.”
I agreed, and thirty minutes later I was negotiating the curves on my way into Chilton Foliat. I parked by the church, and walked through the graveyard where Constable Eastman’s body had been found. I followed the wide path we’d spotted in the woods, figuring I might as well check it out as a potential route for bringing a corpse to the cemetery.
It would do fine. Wide, a bit rough in spots, but obviously a farm track a jeep could easily handle. Or a tractor, maybe a car, or a big strong guy carrying a body. I spotted Quonset huts through the trees, rows of them on a wide lawn sloping down from a large house with columns fronting it. The track merged with a paved lane that curved around a stand of fir trees and continued up to the house. Along the lane stood a row of sheds, a horse barn, and finally a thatched cottage, larger than my house back in Southie, probably originally lodgings for the manager of the estate. Whoever lived there now might have seen something that night, but it was hard to believe they would have stayed silent about it.
Horses neighed from inside the barn as I passed, and I remembered that Constable Tom Eastman’s head had been bashed in. An accident, perhaps? A horse kicking and killing him, a nervous groom looking to hide his involvement? The cemetery was close, so why not leave Eastman on the family plot? Maybe, but maybes were as common as crows.
I left the lane with its centuries-old stone-and-thatch buildings and walked between rows of that ubiquitous invention of the twentieth, the Quonset hut. Curved galvanized steel roofs over ends of plywood, they housed tens of thousands of GIs all over this island. The paths between the huts were covered with wood planks, like the sidewalks in an old western movie. I heard the rumble of boots stomping on wood, and caught a glimpse of men running toward the road that went up to the main house. Agitated shouts came from the road, and I double-timed it to see what was going on.
It was a fight. A circle of GIs five deep were yelling and whooping it up, clapping and waving their fists. It sounded like they were having fun, but I couldn’t tell if it was a fair fight or not. If it was, I’d probably leave the enlisted men to their own devices. If not, I should act the officer and break it up. Then I heard it, loud and clear.
“Give it to the nigger! Give it to ’im, Charlie!” I felt a moment of panic, knowing somehow that it had to be Tree in trouble. I pushed my way through the frenetic crowd, and as guys noticed my captain’s bars some faded away, suddenly needing to be somewhere else. Before I saw Tree, I saw Charlie. Charlie was huge, fists the size of hams and arms thick with muscle. He seemed to tower over Tree, but he had him by only a matter of inches in height. In terms of coiled power and weight, he had him beat six ways to Sunday.
Charlie moved like an ox. Tree danced around him, coming out of his shadow and trying to throw a punch but coming up short. He stumbled but regained his footing quickly, moving to the edge of the crowd. I didn’t dare call his name and distract him, leaving him open to a roundhouse punch from a freight train.
Tree didn’t look like he could last much longer. One eye was swollen shut, he was bleeding from his nose and a cut above the open eye, and he kept his left hand down, probably protecting a cracked rib. Aside from the vacant look in his eyes, which he’d probably been born with, Charlie didn’t have a mark on him. Another GI in the circle had a black eye, and his knuckles were scraped and bleeding. Charlie wasn’t Tree’s first opponent in this rigged fight.
I shoved a corporal standing next to me. I tapped my bars for emphasis.
“Ten-hut!” he shouted, and snapped to attention like a good soldier. Most of the men followed his example, and saluted. I returned the salute, noting that more GIs slithered away from the rear of the crowd. Tree kept silent, swaying in the stillness as blood dripped on the ground in front of him. He turned his good eye toward me, his fists still raised. He spat blood.
“What’s going on here?” I asked.
“Just a fight between friends, Captain,” a sergeant said as he stepped forward. He wore an MP’s white brassard.
“You’re an MP and you let this fight continue?”
“Well, the boys were riled up a bit, and the only way to calm things down, sir, was to let them blow off some steam with a fair fight. This here nigger started it, anyway.” He gestured to Tree with his thumb. I noticed another GI with a bloody nose behind him. I stepped forward and grabbed his hands. He flinched as I squeezed his swollen knuckles.
“You, Private,” I said to Charlie. “Why did you fight this man?”
“I do a lot of fighting, Captain.” Charlie’s voice came out in a low rumble.
“Yeah, but why him, today?”
“I dunno. Sarge just said to put him down, so I stepped in. He’s hard to hit, though.”
“This sergeant?” I said, pointing to the MP.
“Yeah, that’s Sarge.” Charlie probably knew there were other sergeants in the army, but to his dim lightbulb of a brain, there was only one Sarge. His.
“How did this start, Sergeant?” I said, restraining myself from clocking him one.
“Somebody said there was a colored boy drivin’ a jeep, and that it might be one of them who took that white girl. You know, the one that was found in the canal?” He shrugged, as if that was explanation enough for a beating.
“Yes, Sergeant. It was the Negro unit that found her, helping the police with their search.”
“Well, there you go,” he said, as if that confirmed all his prejudices. “So a few of the boys went up to ask him, and I guess he back-talked, which a few of the fellas didn’t take to. He sounded like one of them northern coloreds, you know? Acting better than he ought to. So I come along to be sure nothing got outta hand. Pulled ’em apart and made sure it was just one-on-one.”
“So you’re the ringmaster here, sending in three men to fight one?”
“Not at the same time, Captain. Now you ask that colored boy if he wants to complain about anything at all. Ask him if he didn’t agree to it, too. Go ahead, it’s a free country.”
I looked to Tree. He shook his head, signaling to leave things alone. He was right. If he filed a complaint
