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8
Spa, Belgium
DECEMBER 15, 2:00 A.M.
Shortly after Earl Gra
When he arrived at the hotel, Gra
“What the heck is this, Spam?” asked Carlson, scrutinizing the contents of his sandwich.
“Pâté,” said Gra
Carlson kept staring at it. “Sure looks like Spam.”
“I’m pretty sure they use some of the same parts.”
“Of what?”
“Of whatever goes into Spam. Pig, cow,” said Gra
Eyeing the meat spread suspiciously, Ole took an exploratory sniff.
“It’s not going to bite back, Ole.”
“Smells iffy,” said Carlson.
“You eat Spam, don’t you?”
“Sure. Spam’s great. Breakfast, lunch, and di
“Trust me on this,” said Gra
Ole put the sandwich back together, took a small, cautious bite, and rolled it around in his mouth for a while.
“You’re right, Earl,” said Carlson. “That is a whole lot tastier than Spam.”
They’d only been partnered a few weeks. Carlson had been an insurance investigator and volunteer fireman back home in Sioux Falls. Gra
“Man, I like this French coffee,” said Carlson. “Got some hair on it. Makes you want to stand up and say hello.”
“That’s Belgian coffee,” said Gra
Ole just nodded. He watched two uniformed MPs lead another group of GI suspects through the lobby. “You go
“Many as they’ll let me,” said Gra
“That the kind of thing you do back in New York, Earl?”
“That’s right, Ole.”
“Thieves and murderers and rapists-”
“We didn’t turn anybody away.”
“Man oh man oh man. Life in the big city.” Ole pondered for a moment. “Could I watch you interrogating these fellas?”
“That’s not up to me,” said Gra
“I figure I could pick up a lot from that. About detective work and what have you.”
“Nothing personal, okay? This ain’t night school. Just keep your eyes open and don’t pass up an opportunity to shut the hell up. What you do with it after is your business.”
“Sure, okay,” said Carlson. “I can tell you’re mad, though. Makes me mad, too, these railroad bums. Thinking about what they did.”
“Don’t lose any sleep over it.”
Gra
Gra
A young captain and lieutenant from Army Intelligence showed up at five in the morning, throwing their weight around, while their adjutants ran around for coffee and donuts. When they started bitching about how hard they were going to have to work to keep the whole stinking Railway Battalion story out of the New York Times, Gra
“We just broke the biggest criminal case of the war trying to solve a front-line morale problem, so I don’t give a fuck it’s a public relations headache for some rear-echelon horse’s ass. You got that?”
Gra
At daybreak, over breakfast, the CID prosecutors laid out what they hoped to hear from these suspects before their courts-martial. Gra
“How we going to do that, Earl?” they asked.
“You need confessions,” said Gra
“What we’re hearing so far,” said one of the senior MPs, “is that none of ’em wants to cooperate.”
None of them had a solution. Gra
His superiors had never worked a day in civilian law enforcement. They were career soldiers in the Military Police, straight as their standard-issue neckties. You wanted traffic control in a crowded staging area, a fight in a dockside bar suppressed, or chain of custody maintained on prisoners of war? That played to the MPs’ strengths-logistics, discipline, and security; all beat-cop talents-but they were ill equipped for felony detective work. In less than a week the men trying to run CID realized Gra