“I’ll write you a check. Come on down to the kitchen and we’ll take care of it. You probably gathered by now my pappy died a few months back. We’re still trying to get his affairs sorted out. The safe came as a surprise. People ought to leave instructions. What the hell this is and who’s supposed to get that. Anyways, we do appreciate your help.”
“That’s what I’m in business to do.”
The two men departed, leaving Bucky, Babe, and me to contemplate the key. Bucky said, “Now what?”
“I have a friend who knows a lot about locks,” I said. “He might have a suggestion about what kind of lock this might fit.”
“Might as well. Won’t do us any good otherwise.”
Babe took the key and inspected it, frowning. “Maybe Pappy kept it because he liked the way it looked,” she said. “It’s neat. It’s old-timey.” She handed it to Bucky, who passed it back to me.
“Yeah, but why bother to keep it in a fireproof safe? He could have stuck it in a drawer. He could have wore it on a chain around his neck,” he said.
“If you don’t object, I’ll see what my local expert has to say.”
“Fine with me,” Bucky said.
I slipped the key in my jeans pocket without mentioning the fact that my local expert was the burglar who’d also given me the set of key picks I carry in my handbag.
Walking back to my place, I found myself reviewing the entire sequence of events. I have to confess the past twenty-four hours had piqued my curiosity. It wasn’t necessarily Chester’s spy theory, which still seemed farfetched. What bothered me were the vague, unanswered questions surfacing in the old man’s life. I like order and tidiness; no clutter and no dust bunnies hidden under the bed.
As soon as I got home, I sat down at my desk, pulled out a pack of index cards, and started making notes. It was amazing how many details I could actually recall once I began committing them to paper. When I’d exhausted the subject, I pinned the cards up on the corkboard that hangs above my desk. I put my feet up on the desk and leaned back in my swivel chair with my hands locked behind my head and studied the whole collection. Something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. I shifted some cards around and pinned them up in a new configuration. It was something I’d read. Burma. Something about Chennault and the American Volunteer Group. For the moment the truth eluded me, but I knew it was there. I thought about nailing down the unit he’d served in. Was that really the issue here, or was there something else at stake? In scanning Johnny’s books, I’d seen several AVG fighter pilots mentioned by name. One or more of those guys had to be alive today. Couldn’t they provide a way to pinpoint Johnny’s fighter group? It’d be a pain in the ass, and I sure wasn’t going to do it, but I could at least steer Chester in the right direction. I’d have to check back through the books and see if I could find the reference, but what the hell, I wasn’t doing anything else. Besides, once I start worrying a knot, I can’t let go of it.
I put in a call to my burglar friend, whose number had been disconnected. Rats. Later in the morning I’d try the Santa Teresa Police Department. Detective Halpern in Major Crimes would probably know where he was.
5
By ten a.m. I found myself back at Bucky’s. I knocked on the door, but after several minutes went by and nobody answered, I headed down the driveway toward the back. The miscellaneous collection of cardboard boxes had been shoved to one side to make the driveway passable. The garage door on the left was standing open and the Buick was missing. Maybe the three of them had gone out to breakfast. The other half of the two-car garage was piled high with junk, an impenetrable mountain of boxes, old furniture, appliances, and lawn care equipment.
The cardboard box full of World War II books was right on top. I dragged it over to the stairs and made myself comfortable while I sorted through the contents. I finally found what I was looking for at the bottom of the box in a book called Fighter! The Story of Air Combat 1936-45 by Robert Jackson.
On 4 July 1942 the American Volunteer Group officially ceased to be an independent fighting unit and became part of the newly-activated China Air Task Force, under command of the Tenth Air Force. Command of the CATF devolved on Claire Chennault, who exchanged his Chinese uniform for an American one and was given the rank of brigadier-general.
The AVG pilots, who had held the fort in Burma for so long against impossible odds, scattered far and wide. Few of them elected to remain in China. Those who did formed the nucleus of the new 23rd Fighter Group, still flying war-weary P-40s.
A few names followed: Charles Older, “Tex” Hill, Ed Rector, and Gil Bright. What interested me was the fact that the AVG pilots were recruited by the Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company between April and July 1941. All of them were serving U.S. military personnel, bound to CAMCO by a one-year contract. But Bucky had told me Chester remembered his father arriving home after two years overseas in time for his fourth birthday party, August 17, 1944. Because he was so specific, the date had stuck in my mind and I’d jotted it down on an index card. The problem was, the AVG had already been out of business for two years at that point. So where did the truth lie? Had Johnny actually served with the AVG? More important, had he served at all? Chester would see the discrepancy in dates as confirmation of his theory. I could just imagine his response. “Hell, the AVG was just a cover story. I could have told you that.” Chester probably envisioned his father parachuting behind enemy lines, perhaps even feigning capture so he could confer with the Japanese high command.
On the other hand, if he’d never been in the service, then maybe he’d only acquired the books so he could bullshit about the subject. And that might explain why he was unwilling to talk about the war. It was always going to be risky because he might well run into someone who’d been in the very unit he was claiming to have served. By creating the impression of government secrecy, he could account for his reluctance to discuss the details that might give him away.
I scanned the backyard, staring at the Ford Fairlane, sitting up on concrete blocks. Why did I care one way or the other? The old guy was dead. If it comforted his son and his grandson to believe he was a war hero (or, more grandiose yet, a spy whose cover had gone undetected now for more than forty years), what difference did it make to me? I wasn’t being paid to shoot holes in Johnny’s story. I wasn’t being paid to do anything. So why not let it drop?
Because it’s contrary to my nature said she to herself. I’m like a little terrier when it comes to the truth. I have to stick my nose down the hole and dig until I find out what’s in there. Sometimes I get bitten, but that’s the chance I’m usually willing to take. In some ways, I didn’t care so much about the nature of the truth as knowing what it consisted of.
I became aware of the big six-inch key digging into my hip. I stretched my leg out and slid my hand into my jeans pocket. I pulled out the key and held it in my palm, hefting the weight. I rubbed my thumb along the darkened surface. I squinted at the tarnished metal just as Babe had done. The name of the lock company seemed to be faintly stamped on the shaft, but I couldn’t figure out what it said in this light. It didn’t appear to be any of the lock companies I knew: Schlage, Weslock, Weiser, or Yale. The safe had been an Amsec, strictly a combination lock, so I didn’t think the key was in any way connected with that.
I hauled myself to my feet and slid the key back in my pocket. I was restless, trying to figure out what to do until Chester got home. It was always possible his memory was faulty. I’d only heard the story from Bucky, and he might have gotten the dates wrong. Ray Rawson had told me he worked with Johnny in the boatyards just after the war started, which had to be sometime in 1942. It struck me as odd that someone who’d known Johnny in the “olden” days had suddenly shown up on the old man’s doorstep. Despite the offhand explanation, I wondered if there was something else going on.