Mark of the Devil (13 page)

Though Park and his son had cleaned up the broken glass and restored much of the larger items to their original shelves and racks by the time Matt and Ashley returned, the counter and cash register were useless and would have to wait until after the weekend before necessary repairs could be made. A pocket calculator, handwritten receipts, and a cash drawer pulled from the register had at least allowed the dive shop to remain open that Saturday. Exhausted, Park sat with Ashley and listened to Matt’s side of the phone conversation with Eduard Richter. Matt roamed the front of the store, the phone against his ear, his voice twice as loud as it needed to be.

Brushing past racks of wetsuits and dive skins on one of his many return routes to the rear of the store, where Ashley and Park sat, he questioned, “Classified secret? C’mon, Eddy, it’s been fifty-six years since the war ended. Surely that kind of stuff oughta be unclassified by now.”

Pulling the phone from his ear, Matt threw out his hands in a display of wonderment. “Yeah, I know, but even if it is a Type Twenty-one class, the U. S. Navy brought one or two back to the States at the end of the war. In fact, I went on the Internet, a Web site called U-boat dot net, and found the picture of…” Matt held the phone out toward Ashley and asked, “What was it?”

“The
Wilhelm Bauer,”
Ashley answered, her voice almost a shout. “Formerly the U-Twenty-five forty ”

“You hear that, Eddy?” There was a momentary pause before, “Right, I forget the actual name of the museum where it’s at, but it’s the German Ship’s Museum or something like that in Bremerhaven.”

Matt slowly shook his head, took a deep breath, and exhaled a long stream of air as he listened. Finally, he said, “Okay, understood.” Checking his watch, he said, “It’s a little before five in the afternoon here, so should be, what? Almost eleven o’clock there. Hey, man, I’m sorry. I didn’t even think what time it was there. I’ll get back to you first thing in the morning. And give Hannah my best.”

Matt ended the conversation and returned the handset to its base as the doorbell
ding-a-linged,
indicating someone had entered the store.

Like a shot, Park was out of his chair and on his way up front. “Afternoon, folks,” he said, followed by a fading “Can I help you?” as he moved away.

Matt flopped down in Park’s vacated chair. A knowing smile crossed Ashley’s face as she asked, “Problem? I ask that accepting the fact that with Matt Berkeley, he’ll be miserable if there’s not a problem to solve.”

Matt said, “I guess from listening to me, you pretty much know what Eddy had to say. Anything and everything concerning the Type Twenty-one U-boats at the end of the war is still
classified.
Most, if not all, of the information is stored in the National Archives in Koblenz.”

“But being such an old chum, he should be able to get it for you, right?” After seeing the look on Matt’s face, though, Ashley added, “Wrong?”

“Unfortunately, wrong, but if I want to come over, he thinks he can get me in to see it.”

“To Germany?” Ashley exploded, halfway out of her chair. “That’s asking a little much, Matt. This is not even a NAARPA project.” The loudness of her voice caught the attention of the young couple sizing wetsuits and swim fins with Park’s help.

Matt held an index finger to his lips. “Shhhh!”

Ashley shifted out of her chair and dropped to her knees in front of Matt. Nearly whispering, she went on. “It’s time you got your aunt’s roof fixed, turned the place over to a realtor, and went back to work on real projects. My God, Matt, you and Steve almost got yourselves killed last night.”

Eyeing the customers with Park as well as several others who had entered and were browsing through the store, Matt stood, took Ashley by the arm, and led her through the rear door and out into the delivery alley. As soon as they were outside, he said, “You’re right, Ashley, but let’s review what’s happened. First, Steve and I find something on the bottom of the ocean. My application to the State of Florida to further investigate disappears, but AFI’s application suddenly shows up in Tallahassee, dated an unbelievable five days before mine. We get ordered off the site at gunpoint by Henry Shoemaker and some government bureaucrat. I then get warned off by this good-ol’-boy state senator and, minutes later, beaten up and told to leave it alone—
it
being what’s out there.” Matt pointed eastward toward the ocean. “And finally, as you say, I was almost killed last night by guess who? AFI, that’s who.”

“But, Matt, this is not a NAARPA project. What you’re telling me is you’re willing to spend our money on airline tickets to Germany, damn it, just to satisfy your curiosity.”

Matt took Ashley by the shoulders and pulled her close. “There is something out there, Ashley. Something more than just a German submarine, and Henry Shoemaker and Antiquity Finders want it. If I don’t do anything about it, they will keep on screwing people blind like they’ve done for years—all in the name of altruism and good archeology. Forget it!”

Ashley pulled loose, her eyes locked on Matt’s. “You’re going, aren’t you? You’ve already made up your mind.”

“I’ve got to.”

“Like hell you do!” Ashley turned her back and leaned, face forward, against the back wall of the store. “You’ve always been like this, and I should’ve known when we got married. Damn you, Matt Berkeley!”

Matt grabbed her and spun her around. “Listen, Ashley, it’s out there, and somebody’s gotta take responsibility and do the right thing. I’ll only be gone for two, maybe three days. If you’ll stay here, you could help Steve.”

Ashley broke away, started up the alley, then turned back again. “How the hell am I going to help Steve? Sell dive gear?”

“No. You’re a private detective and—”

“Not licensed in Florida, my friend.”

“So you’d be helping Steve. That’s all. He’s already started asking questions through his sources about Henry Shoemaker and Antiquity Finders. You sure as hell know how to ferret out information better than Steve. Especially when every politician in the state of Florida considers Shoemaker God and king, and then some.”

Again, Ashley spun away and walked along the alley. Turning back on one heel, she said, “Where would I stay? I assume you still have a hotel room somewhere.”

Matt chuckled. “Yeah, but after tonight, afraid not.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Ashley shot back.

“Not knowing you were coming down, I was gonna move into Aunt Freddie’s house on Sunday. Tomorrow. Me, one suitcase, and a suit bag. Electricity and water’s supposed to be back on yesterday or this morning. As you know, I didn’t make it there last night or today, but they should be on. No phone, but you’ve got your cell.”

“What about the roof? That’s why you came down here. To have the roof fixed and put the house up for sale.”

“There’s a plastic cover over the whole roof, so no problem if it rains. Roofers are supposed to be on the job sometime next week.”

Ashley rolled her eyes toward the heavens in an obvious plea for help from a higher authority. Finally she asked, “When do you leave?”

“You’ll help Steve?”

“Yes, damn it, I’ll help Steve.”

“I’ll go tomorrow if I can get connecting flights, probably to Newark and into Frankfurt, and lease a car up to Koblenz.”

“And when you get back, what then?”

“Hopefully I’ll know what’s in that submarine that’s so important and put Henry Shoemaker and his cronies where they belong.”

“If they don’t put you there first,” Ashley warned, repeating with emphasis,
“If they don’t put you there first.
You hear me? After what they did last night, that could very well happen.”

A steel-gray Subaru Outback with darkened windows was parked immediately in front of the dive shop. Inside, the man who had paid the middle-of-the-night visit to the store removed a miniature receiver from his ear, placed the parabolic microphone capable of picking up whispers from a half mile away into its case, and closed the lid. He then unhooked the Panasonic tape recorder on the seat next to him from the VOX switch that had picked up Matt’s phone-tapped call to Germany, started the car, and pulled out of the parking lot, uttering a single word: “Interesting.”

Sunday, 21 October 2001

Ashley had endured the little over two hours of ticket counter lines and security checks with Matt at the Jacksonville International Airport, agonizing with him every inch by inch, step by step of the way. She’d stayed until they’d reached the X-ray machine for carry-on luggage, and given him a good-bye kiss before he’d passed through the body magnetometer.

After making sure the big Continental jet took off on time and then getting caught up in slow, Sunday afternoon traffic for an hour, Ashley finally managed to get back to Aunt Freddie’s in Jacksonville Beach. She and Matt had driven by the empty house on their way to the airport but hadn’t gone in. She eased Matt’s Grand Cherokee onto the narrow drive at 617 Fourth Avenue North and into Aunt Freddie’s empty carport.

Switching off the ignition and sitting back, she heaved a deep sigh. “So this is home, sweet home,” she said without enthusiasm.

A single window stared vacantly through the cream-colored cinderblocks that represented the carport’s only floor-to-ceiling wall. The outer walls, approximately four feet high with a six-foot-high opening between wall and ceiling, allowed her to see cars passing on the street, their lights already on, as well as the lights of neighboring homes. “I sure hope they turned on the electricity,” she muttered before opening the door and taking that long step to the carport floor. With her short legs, it was an extra long step compared to what she was used to with her own car back in Charleston. Feeling the height difference, she remembered Matt often teasing, “You’ve gotta be the prettiest little bit of fluff I’ve ever seen.”

The memory of the first time she’d met Matt tumbled into her thoughts as she walked toward the door. After that first meeting, he’d confessed, “Ashley, when you stepped out of that car, all five-foot-four of you, in that blazer, blouse, and slacks just tight enough to show that delicious little body of yours? Aw, man! And when I learned you were a black belt in karate and could beat my ass…I was hooked.” Ashley laughed to herself, shaking her head at the memory. Not the most romantic thing she’d ever heard but, God, how she wished Matt were with her now.

She turned the key in the lock, felt the door give, then turned the knob and entered the house. The interior was even darker than outside, forcing her to immediately search the wall next to the doorframe for a light switch. “Please, electricity, be on,” she whispered, and it was.

A light in the middle of the ceiling above what she recognized as a living/dining room combination suddenly spread its near yellow, incandescent glow across the room. She switched on a table lamp, illuminating a gold-framed color photograph, long ago faded into pastels. Aunt Freddie and her husband, she knew from Matt’s descriptions, their faces wreathed in youthful smiles, her hand in his. Uncle Hi and Aunt Freddie, or Aunt Dickie-do, as Matt said he and other nephews and nieces had called her. “Dickie-do this” and “Dickie-do that,” but most of all, “Aunt Dickie-do take us to the beach,” which was within walking distance of the house.

Returning to the front door, Ashley pulled her suitcase up the two concrete steps into the room, then closed the door. She was suddenly aware of the mustiness of a house closed up for months, but more than that, of the silence that seemed to shout, “You’re all alone…alone…alone.”

With a rapid shake of her head, Ashley thrust away the mounting anxiety and took a quick look around. The furniture had to be from the 1940s or early ‘50s, colors faded, threadbare in places, but still serviceable with a certain amount of familiarity and warmth about it. To her right, a small kitchen. No door, just an entranceway past serving counters on each side of the passage, making the kitchen open to the entire front of the home. The
hummmmm
of the refrigerator as it kicked on startled her, reminding her of the deathly silence that engulfed the rest of the house. She needed sound, something that at least offered the illusion of company.

“TV?” She saw it. “There you are.” It was an old, 19-inch, black and white with rabbit ears on top. Pushing the
on
button, she said, as Matt would, “Work, baby, work.” A picture gradually filled the screen, and she heard, “Good evening. This is Dan Rather with the
CBS Evening News.
Our top story of the…”

Trailing the suitcase behind her, its wheels forming a faint set of tracks in the carpet, and the sound of Rather’s voice keeping her company, Ashley moved toward the rear of the house, flipping wall switches as she went. A tiny hallway that couldn’t have been more than ten to twelve feet long led to a bedroom at each end. A single bathroom was placed midway between the bedrooms. But where was the back door? Turning on the bathroom light, she saw the door, centered between tub and toilet, a heavy curtain closed across its single window. “Strange place for a back door,” she said with a chuckle. At the same time, she moved into the room to ensure the door was locked. It was; plus, she found a deadbolt and a sliding safety latch, both locked. “Thank God for little favors.”

The bedroom on the right contained an open closet filled with Aunt Freddie’s clothes and a neat arrangement of shoes stacked in pairs on a plastic-coated rack. A mirrored dresser and chest of drawers stood against the walls, the surface of each covered with groupings of family photographs, most aging and faded, most of different children with Aunt Freddie. There was one that she was certain was of Matt, a blonde, tousle-haired boy, and his beloved Aunt Freddie, both proudly displaying a sandcastle on the beach as the tide lapped at its ramparts. Ashley closed her eyes for a moment, again wishing Matt were with her.

At the foot of the afghan-covered bed stood a cedar chest with a large Masonic Bible, the largest she’d ever seen. Lifting the front cover, she studied the first right-hand page displaying a family tree, the entries beautifully written in cursive, the letters flowing from one to the other. Suddenly, Ashley felt like an interloper into the life of another woman. The room reeked of memories gathered over a lifetime and, somehow, she felt she had no right to invade those memories.

Pivoting on one heel and flicking off the light, she moved down the hall to the second bedroom, accompanied by the musical lyrics of a laxative commercial from the living room television. The sheer austerity of the room—full-sized bed with a green cotton spread, dust-laden dresser, chest of drawers, and empty closet—assured her it held little of anyone’s life. What memories it might have once claimed had been lost to the past.

The only irregularity was a large, cloud-shaped water stain on the ceiling, immediately above the bed. Undoubtedly water leakage from damage caused by the hurricane. “Is the bed wet?” she asked, glad to hear her own voice. She patted the spread in several places, pulled it back, and ran her hand across and down the top sheet. She answered her own question with a relieved, “Good.” The word was accompanied by a hungry growl rumbling in her stomach. Its empty plea moved from right to left and back again.

Swinging the suitcase on the bed, Ashley hurried out of the bedroom and through the living room to the front door. Pulling the door open, she stopped. Except for light through the single window that opened on the carport and what light escaped through the open doorway, the carport was dark. She tried the second switch next to the door, but nothing. “Great!” she complained with a short, wouldn’t-you-know-it laugh as she closed the door behind her and felt her way down the two steps to the Grand Cherokee. She could smell the McDonald’s Big Mac and fries through the driver’s side window she’d left open, the fries vegetarians claimed were cooked in oil saturated with beef flavor. That’s why long ago she’d made the decision McDonald’s had the best-tasting fries in the world.

Opening the door and stretching across the seat, she reached the bag and pulled it toward her. Suddenly, from behind, massive hands with fingers the size of large sausages squeezed her upper arms tight, jerking her backwards. Her immediate reaction was to scream and pull away, but then her training took over. A sense of awareness and sensitivity to what was happening swept over her as her body was pulled from the car.

Shifting her left foot between the legs of her attacker—a man, she knew—she placed her body weight momentarily on her right foot. At the same time, she forced her upper torso slightly to the right and, shaping her left arm into an L, she used her right hand as a hammer against her left fist and slammed her elbow into the man’s breastbone. An explosion of air escaped the man’s mouth along with an agonizing groan.

The grip on her shoulders loosened as her attacker tried to catch his breath. Reflexes now on automatic, Ashley pivoted on the balls of her feet and grabbed the man’s huge forearm with her right hand to hold him in place. With her left hand and wrist in the shape of a striking cobra’s head, she plunged her fingers into first one eye, then the other. His cry tore at her ears and echoed along the street as Ashley dropped her left hand. With lightning speed, she brought up the other hand, now in the shape of a fist. With a loud, full-throated karate, “Aaaaahhhhh!” she sprang forward and struck directly into the man’s Adam’s apple, turning his cry into a hoarse, gurgling croak.

It wasn’t until he staggered backwards into the swath of light from the window that she could see narrow streams of blood trickling from beneath hands still covering his eyes. “My God!” she whispered, finally realizing the size of the man. Shoulders as thick as football pads beneath the T-shirt, arms like tree trunks, he was nearly a foot taller than her, heavily whiskered, hair pulled back in a tight shoulderlength braid at the back of his head. Matt’s description of his attacker in Tallahassee flashed across her brain.

It was the man’s voice, however—a harsh, rasping groan of a voice—that sent chills through her body. “It ain’t Berkeley, Peanut,” he barked, still clutching his eyes. “It’s a fuckin’ woman. Kill the bitch, goddamn it!”

For the first time, she saw a second, much smaller man in the shadows. Without thinking, she went into a defensive posture, hands positioned in front of her body, ready for another attack, but Peanut grabbed the larger man by one arm and pulled him backwards. “C’mon, Race, let’s get outta here.”

“No, goddamn it! I want the bitch dead!” Race shouted, his feet moving stubbornly backwards toward the street and a dark colored, oversized pickup truck sitting at the end of the driveway.

“Later, Race. Your eyes are bleedin’, man. You need help.” Peanut grabbed for the pickup’s door handle, yanked open the door, and pleaded, “Goddamn it, Race, get in the friggin’ truck.”

As Race pulled his way into the truck, Peanut sprinted to the driver side, got in, and started the engine. With tires squealing against asphalt, the larger man stuck his head through the open window. He shook his fist in Ashley’s direction and yelled, “I’ll get you, bitch! I see you again, I’ll fucking kill you.”

After the truck’s taillights disappeared around the corner, Ashley allowed herself to lean against the side of the carport and slide to the concrete in a sitting position. On the concrete next to the Jeep lay her cell phone, or rather three separate pieces of the phone. She stared at it for a moment, allowing a loud sigh to escape her lips. Almost in a trance, she didn’t see or hear the police car pull into the driveway, nor did she see the flashing lights on top of the car. It wasn’t until she felt a nudge against her foot and heard a man ask, “Ma’am, you all right?” that she realized where she was.

“Ma’am?”

A second voice was more like a ragged knife cutting at her eardrums. “Okay, lady, what happened here? The neighbors called nine-one-one saying they saw lights on in the house and heard a scream.”

Ashley held out her hand to the man with the softer voice. As he pulled her up, she said, “Two guys tried to attack me when I came out to the Jeep.”

The policeman with the soft voice and dark uniform introduced himself and the other officer. “I’m Patrol Officer Mizener and …” with a nod in the other man’s direction, “he’s Detective Hammersmith, Jacksonville Police, helping out while we’re shorthanded. They hurt you?”

Ashley knew that neither policeman would believe what had happened, so she answered, “Not really. What the neighbors probably heard was me screaming. That must’ve scared off the bad guys. I kept screaming, and they ran and got in a pickup truck parked out on the street. Guess I kind of freaked out until you got here.”

With his toe pointed toward the remains of the cell phone, Hammersmith asked, “That yours?”

Ashley nodded. “Must’ve fallen out of my pocket and got stepped on during the—”

“So who are you and whatta you doin’ here? Neighbors say nobody’s supposed to be here. Say Miz Edwards died a coupla months ago. Nephew tryin’ to get the roof fixed after the hurricane and sell the place.” A frown broke across Hammersmith’s face as though something had suddenly dawned on him.

Ashley smiled, almost broke into a laugh, but held it back, knowing the policemen would think she was going into shock. “The nephew’s my husband. I’m staying here until he gets back from traipsing around the world so somebody will be here when the roofers come. Hopefully, tomorrow.”