The Last of the Stanfields(41)

“You know, I’m just so sick and tired of secrets, and things ‘better left unsaid’! I just want to know who my father is, once and for all.”

“If he wanted to meet you, GH, don’t you think he would have come? After all these years . . .”

“It’s not that simple. I went to see Mom.”

“Ah, yikes. As bad as ever, I take it?”

“She comes and goes, it never gets any easier. But she told me something—confessed something—that I can’t stop thinking about.”

I let Pierre in on what my mother had said back at the home.

“And she was in her right mind when she said that?”

“Certainly seemed to be.”

Pierre looked at me for a moment, then took a deep breath. “Well, I know your mom would rap my knuckles and then some for doing this, but there’s something I’ve got to tell you, kid. Something that’s been weighing on me for a long time now. Now, you’ve got to remember, your mother already had a bun in the oven when she first arrived in Magog. That bun, of course, was you. As you can imagine, it was tough for her to fit in. She wasn’t from around here, and back then when a woman had a baby without a father . . . Well, let’s just say it didn’t happen as often as it does nowadays. She was a knockout, and folks sometimes thought she was gallivanting around, you know, looking for trouble. Most of all, it was the women that didn’t exactly take a shine to her, out of jealousy. But she had some grit to her, and she was so friendly that people appreciated her more month by month.

“You helped a lot in that regard. People saw the way she was bringing you up, and you were always such a polite little fella, which sure as hell isn’t the case for every kid running around with skinned knees. You must have been, I don’t know, about one year old, when this tall man came rolling into town, just poking around, asking for your mother. He seemed nice enough, especially with the big old goofy ears he had on him. Eventually, someone pointed him in the right direction, and he headed for your place. When I found out what was happening, I rushed over to make sure he didn’t mean you two any harm. My wife warned me not to meddle where I wasn’t wanted, but of course I didn’t listen. When I got to your place, I got a little peek in through the window, enough to see that your mother was deep in conversation with him. Everything seemed cordial enough, but I hung around for a bit to make sure. As for him? He didn’t leave until the next morning. The guy hit the road, never came back. Hard to imagine someone coming that far for one night, then taking off quicker than you can say ‘goofy ears.’

“It didn’t make sense; he must have had a serious reason to come all that way. There was nothing of value at your place, just some random furniture I sold to your mother, some cheap dishes, and a crappy second-rate painting hanging on the wall. I may not be a genius, but you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out what he came all that way for. It was your mother. And you. So, I’m telling you this now because, as you can imagine, I’d always wondered if he hadn’t come there . . . to find you.”

“How did you know he came from far away?”

“The license plate on his car. Of course, I can’t remember it now after all this time. I did jot it down in my cash book, which maybe I could dig up. But I remember this much: it was from the state of Maryland. I wish I had more to tell you, but that’s all I know.”

“What was he like, this guy?”

“A big fellow. Nice-looking face. That’s all I could really make out through the window. But he certainly was pining for your mother, that’s for sure. Even from that far, I could see his eyes were fixed on her. At one point, he seemed to want to go upstairs, and your mother actually blocked his path. But he had manners. He gave up on it and plopped down in a chair in your living room. From that point on, I could only make out his shoulders and shoes.”

“Do you really think you could dig it up? The license plate number?”

“I certainly can try, but finding one scrap of paper from more than thirty years ago is a long shot. Anyway, I’m not so sure it would make a whole lot of difference. But, hey, you never know.”

I paid for the meal, treating Pierre, and we left the restaurant. He apologized for not having told me everything sooner. My only regret was not learning about it back when Mom was still all there. I promised to return his book as soon as I had figured out those sleigh diagrams. It was as good a way as any of letting him know there were no hard feelings.

As it turned out, I didn’t have time to dwell on any of it. When I got back, I found a second letter there waiting for me in my mailbox. Same handwriting on the envelope, with nothing but a sheet of lined paper inside listing a time and place.

October 22, 7 p.m. Sailor’s Hideaway, Baltimore.

October 22? That was less than two days from now.





18

ROBERT STANFIELD

April 1944, outside Montauban

Robert had been waiting and waiting for the chance to be introduced to the local head of the Resistance. Every day, the villagers gave him a new excuse. Current mission preparation was limiting the brigade’s operational vicinity. Enemy activity made any unnecessary movement too risky. The local leader was busy with other liaison officers in need of his attention . . .

Robert had already witnessed firsthand the lack of coordination between French and English forces. At times, he would receive orders from one side that flatly contradicted the other. Decoding the complex and tangled chain of command from the other side of the Channel was no small feat, and Robert found it no less complicated now that he was on the ground. One night, he was driven up a bumpy trail through the woods to check out a case of Sten submachine guns. Another night, he met a trio of local farmers-turned-partisans with only two guns between the three of them. It was a far cry from the type of intel and tallies his superiors were seeking, and Robert was beginning to wonder what the hell he was doing there. In the two weeks since the crash, he had only managed to mark down three pitiful little Xs on his map, and only one of them actually constituted a real weapons cache—the very hunting lodge Robert had occupied since his first night. The remote outpost had arms and munitions stashed in a tunnel that had been dug into the bottom of the cellar.