Killer Smile Page 10

  “Did you enjoy your tour?” she asked, pleasantly. She wore small silver earrings with a long denim dress, and stood behind a glass counter covered with color postcards, a dishwasher safe Fort Missoula mug, and a stack of BITTERROOT MEMORIES jigsaw puzzles.

  “Yes, thanks, but I have a question. I’m doing some research on an internee. He died here, by suicide, and I was curious where he was buried.”

  “Oh, my.” The cashier flushed. “Wouldn’t you know it? You asked me the one question I don’t know.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry,” the cashier replied, and Mary fell in love with her instantly. They could have apology wars. Guess who would win. “I’m sorry to say, I don’t know that. The only cemetery on the grounds is for officers at the fort. But there’s another man who helps out here as a handyman, and he may be able to tell you for sure. He wasn’t a border guard, but he worked in the motor pool at the camp, as a mechanic.”

  “Really?” Mary couldn’t hide her surprise. She didn’t want to say, And he’s still alive? “What do you mean by border guard?”

  “The Immigration Service ran this camp during the war, so the guards were technically border guards. As I say, Mr. Milton was a mechanic, but he might know the answer to your question. Let’s go find him.”

  “Not often we find someone so interested in the camp as you,” Mr. Milton said, smiling shakily as they stood together in the gift shop. His eyelids were hooded, and his jowls soft with perhaps eighty years of smiles. He was tall and lanky in baggy pants and a red flannel shirt that smelled pleasantly of cherry pipe tobacco, and Mary liked his manner immediately. Truth to tell, she was partial to older people. They knew everything.

  “I’m very pleased to meet you,” Mary said. His hand felt cool and papery in hers, but his calloused grip was still strong, and she fought the feeling that she was shaking hands with history. “I’m just doing some research on an Italian internee who was from Philadelphia. There were a few internees from Philly, and the man’s name was Amadeo Brandolini. Does that sound familiar?”

  “No, no. Wait, hold on.” Mr. Milton paused, putting a clubby index finger to dry lips. He shook his head after a minute, and Mary respected him for double-checking. “No, it doesn’t ring a bell. I knew some of the internees, but not many. I kept the Jeeps running and the officers’ cars, that was my job. But the internees I met, they were a nice group of fellas. Played the music, in the little orchestra, the ones from the ship.”

  The cruise ships. One was Il Conte Biancamano, Mary knew from her reading.

  “Got bocce going and soccer, in the field out back. Sang operas, put on shows. They were lively.”

  Mary had seen the photos at the exhibit and in books. The internment camp had sounded like summer camp at times, at least for the Italians. Except for Amadeo, especially after he’d learned Theresa had died. “This internee, Amadeo Brandolini, he committed suicide.”

  “Suicide!” Mr. Milton startled, then nodded. “I do recall that now. Not him, but I do recall that. A suicide. That was big news here.”

  “I would think so.”

  “Yes, and my memory is very good.” Mr. Milton nodded, with a faint hint of pride. “There was only the one suicide here. Everybody knew about it. One of the internees, an Eye-talian, he did himself in.”

  “What did you know about it? About him? I’d like to see his grave, if I could. I’m guessing he’d be in a Catholic cemetery but for the fact he committed suicide.”

  “No, let me think. This isn’t my bailiwick, either. I think the internees who died here are buried at the city cemetery in Missoula.”

  No.

  Mary blinked. Who said that? “Excuse me? Did you say the city cemetery?”

  “Yes.”

  Then who said no? She must have. “There must be a Catholic cemetery in Missoula.”

  “There is,” Mr. Milton answered. “Out on Turner Road. I guess that’s a possibility, too.” He paused. “You know, I remember, about that suicide. How he killed himself, and where. It was big news. Big news.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’ll show you, if you like.”

  “Show me?”

  “I’ll take you there.”

  Mary felt her heart begin to pound. “When can you go?”

  “Anytime. That’s the pleasure of being retired, dear.”

  “How does right now sound?”

  Mr. Milton grinned.

  Fifteen

  Mary found an empty space in the congested parking lot and got out of the rented Toyota, looking around in disappointment. They were only a ten-minute drive up Reserve Street from the camp, but the Sapphires and Bitterroots had been replaced by the Staples and the McDonald’s. Cars and trucks drove back and forth, and shoppers laden with plastic bags tugged daisy chains of children to minivans. Mary couldn’t see the connection between this bustling strip mall and Amadeo’s suicide.

  “This is the place,” Mr. Milton said, emerging from the car. At that moment, a stiff breeze whipped across the lot, ruffling his sparse gray hair. He stood up, leaning against the hood on his side. “My, windy today, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Mary said, only because he actually seemed to be waiting for her agreement.

  “This is the old Mullan Road. It was built by Captain John Mullan in 1859, 1860. Went all the way from Fort Benton to Walla Walla. This land here, all around us, used to be sugar beet fields.” Mr. Milton gestured with a sweeping hand, his shirtsleeves flapping like plaid sails. “Sugar beets as far as the eye could see, and then some.”

  “This used to be all beet fields?” Mary looked around, skeptical. Businesses anchored all four corners of the busy intersection of Mullan and Route 93; a Conoco gas station, a SuperWalMart, another strip mall, and a liquor store. On the horizon stood a gray-and-red Costco. “How far? Far as the Costco?”

  “Farther. Sugar beet fields for twenty miles, all the way to Frenchtown.”

  “I’ve seen the pictures, but it’s so different now.”

  “Do you have an imagination?”

  “Yes.”

  “Use it.”

  Ouch. Mary screened out the stores and the traffic, and finally could imagine the scene the way it had been. Acres upon acres of flat crops, row after row of leafy, dark greens. Amadeo had walked here. He dug beets from this ground, and it didn’t matter that it had been paved over. It became real to Mary then. “So this is where they worked, in the beet fields?”

  “Yeah. The war left the sugar companies short-handed, so they used Eye-talians from the camp.” Mr. Milton squinted against the brightness, but he didn’t flip down the green shades over his bifocals. “They worked in the sugar beet fields and in the town. In the forests, too, cutting down trees. They liked the work. The Japanese, they had a tougher time of it. Lots of folks didn’t like when they went to work in town. You couldn’t blame us, really. It was a crazy time.”

  “Sure.” Mary didn’t judge. “People get nuts in wartime. They get scared. That’s only human.”

  “That’s right.” Mr. Milton looked over the car at her and smiled gently. “Not many people understand that.”

  “Hey, it’s only with beets I’m a rookie.”

  Mr. Milton snapped his clubby fingers. “See that? How you’re always makin’ jokes? That’s ’cause you’re Eye-talian. That’s how they all were, the Eye-talians. That’s why everybody loved ’em. Loads of fun.”

  Stereotypes can be good for something. “So this was a beet field. Tell me—”

  “You keep sayin’ beet field. It’s a sugar beet field.”

  “I stand corrected.” Mary was flunking Montana. “Sugar beet.”

  “Ever seen a sugar beet?”

  “Not unless it takes the C bus.”

  Mr. Milton smiled, and they became friends again. “It looks like a big fat carrot, only white.”

  “Does it taste good?”

  “You can’t eat sugar beets, city girl.”

  “Why not? I eat be
ets. They come in cans, from Harvard. They’re geniuses. Genius beets.”

  Mr. Milton didn’t smile. “Now you’re just bein’ silly. Sugar beets make sugar. They plant ’em in early spring and harvest in September through October, depending on frost and freeze.”

  “How do they make sugar?” Mary asked, actually starting to care.

  “They slice ’em, extract ’em, put ’em in a diffuser to get the juice out. Press ’em and you’re good to go.”

  “They grind it fine enough to make sugar?”

  “No, the sugar doesn’t come from the pulp, it comes from the juice.”

  D’oh.

  “Well, anyway. Back in those days, laborers did all the work with the sugar beets. Topped ’em and dug ’em out, put ’em in burlap bags until they ran short on burlap, during the war. That was when they switched to paper. The Eye-talians used to come out here and do it all.” Mr. Milton scanned the parking lot, and Mary could tell he was using his imagination, too. Older people were better at imagining, and she could almost see the bright green rows reflected in his watery eyes. “A border guard would take ’em out in the morning in a deuce an’ a half and bring ’em back at night.”

  “What’s a deuce and a half?”

  “Truck. A two-and-a-half-ton truck. That was Sam. Sam would do the driving mostly. He had a lead foot, Sam did. His truck was in the shop all the damn time. Sam Livingstone, he died five years ago. Heart.”

  Another ghost. On the drive up Reserve, Mr. Milton had told her all the people he knew who had died and what they had died of.

  “There used to be trees over there, way far. Out there.” Mr. Milton pointed past the Costco. “A group of trees there, shade trees. The Eye-talians used to eat under the tree, come lunchtime. There was one tree, an oak, bigger ’en the rest of ’em. That fella you’re askin’ about, what was his name?”

  “Brandolini.”

  “He hung himself on it.”

  No. Mary hadn’t known Amadeo had killed himself that way.

  “Hung himself right here one day, when he was out in the field, working.”

  Mary looked past the Costco, shielding her eyes. From the sun. From her imagination.

  “They say his wife died while he was in the camp.”

  He’d hung himself. Mary imagined a huge oak tree, with branches that stretched like a hand, reaching for the clear blue sky, ripping down that blue cloak and exposing heaven itself.

  “Mary, ready to go?”

  “But how did he hang himself, if the others were around?”

  “There wasn’t, that day. It was a small crew, only him and another ’un, his friend. The friend fell asleep during their lunch break, and when he woke up, your Mr. Brandolini had hung himself.”

  “Who was the friend?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Mary didn’t get it. “But wait, Amadeo climbed a tree and hung himself, and the border guard didn’t stop him? He wasn’t asleep, too, was he?”

  “What border guard? There was no border guard.”

  “Wasn’t anyone here guarding them?”

  “You mean like in the movies, standin’ over ’em with a gun? Like that Paul Newman movie?” Mr. Milton chuckled. “Nothin’ could be further from the truth. No need to have a border guard when the Eye-talians worked. Where was they gonna go? It was all sugar beet fields, and they lived here.”

  “But still, how could they not be guarded? They were enemy aliens, prisoners of war. If they were dangerous enough to arrest and put behind barbed wire, weren’t they dangerous enough to guard?” Mary heard resentment edge her voice, so maybe she did judge after all.

  “We didn’t make the decision to arrest ’em or pen ’em up. We never treated ’em that way in Missoula.” Mr. Milton shrugged bony shoulders. “The Eye-talians worked independent during the daytime. They were trusted, like friends. The ones that worked in town, they came back at night to the camp, like it was home from a job. Hell, some even dated gals in town. And the ones in the sugar beet field, we picked up at the end of the day. Sam did. Passed away five years ago. Cancer.”

  Heart. Mary didn’t correct him. She was thinking about Amadeo.

  “Okay, ready to go?” Mr. Milton patted the Toyota’s roof, and though Mary could tell he was tiring, she couldn’t leave just yet.

  “I don’t understand why Amadeo would come out here to kill himself. Why not do it in the camp?”

  “I guess he’d a been stopped there. Too many people around. The internees slept a hundred to a room. They didn’t have any privacy.”

  “Wonder how he did it, I mean logistically.”

  “Easy. Climb the tree with the rope, tie it around your neck, tie it to the tree, and jump off the branch. It would snap your neck pretty good. Okay, good to go?”

  No.

  Mary blinked. That voice. Did she really hear it, or was it her? Maybe it was the wind. Her hair was blowing in the gusts, whipping around her face and ears. She stared past the Costco. “Where did he get the rope?”

  “Always some rope layin’ around the truck. Tie the hoes together and such.”

  “So when did they discover that he had done this?”

  “Not ’til Sam came to pick ’em up.” Mr. Milton shook his head. “Didn’t have no cell phones then.”

  “So Amadeo lay there all afternoon, dead?” Mary shuddered, trying to picture the tableau. The spotless blue sky, a flat expanse of green crops, a man hanging from a tree. And another, with him. “Who was the other guy?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But he was an Italian internee?”

  “Yes.”

  “A friend?”

  “Yes.”

  No. That voice. Mary didn’t know if it was the wind or not. Maybe she just had jet lag. She’d had to travel all day yesterday, with two takeoffs and landings. And she hadn’t slept well last night because the Clark Fork River ran right outside her hotel room, making annoying nature sounds. In fact, she hadn’t heard a single police siren all night and was considering filing a complaint.

  “Are you okay, dear?” Mr. Milton’s eyes narrowed.

  “Sure.”

  “You’re not related to Mr. Brandolini, are you?”

  “No, just the estate’s lawyer.” Mary shook it off. “Who would know who the other internee was?”

  Mr. Milton shook his head. “Nobody left would know that, I would guess. Bert, he’s one a the internees, he might know, but he’s back visitin’ Italy. Maybe the director at the fort would know. He has those archives, upstairs.”

  “Archives?” Mary’s ears pricked up. She should have guessed as much. Museums had archives. Even the Mario Lanza Museum.

  “You gotta ask the director about it. He keeps it. Seen enough?” Mr. Milton asked again, and Mary took pity on him.

  “Yes. May I treat you to a burger, to say thanks?”

  “You sure can, if there’s a vanilla milkshake with it, too.”

  “Done and done, sir!”

  Mr. Milton ducked inside the car, but Mary waited a minute, looking at the place where the hanging tree had been, letting her hair blow. A voice was telling her that she had to know more about how Amadeo had committed suicide, and she didn’t know if the voice was hers or his.

  But she was going to find out.

  Sixteen

  The words ST. MARY’S were chiseled into the stone pillars that flanked the cemetery entrance, but Mary barely noticed the coincidence, having understood long ago that her first name was the most marketable brand in the Catholic Church. She took a right onto a driveway of soft black gravel that ran down the center of the cemetery and was lined on both sides by tall shade trees, so old that their heavy branches made a leafy canopy. The grass covering the graves had been newly mowed, releasing a fresh, green scent, and a few old-fashioned verdigris sprinklers sprayed leaky arcs of water into the sunlight, saturating the air with an uncommon humidity.

  Mary drove slowly up the road and raised the Toyota window to avoid being drenched. She sca
nned the cemetery, which had a small and humble feel, no more than one city block square. Brownish, tasteful tombstones dotted the damp lawn, which told Mary that it wasn’t an Italian Catholic cemetery. It lacked the requisite archangels with six-foot wingspans, chilly marble mausoleums, or fountain-ridden tombs. It’s no accident that Hadrian was Italian.

  She glanced around for a cemetery office but didn’t see one, and there wasn’t a soul in sight, at least not living. The office had to be along the road, so she cruised slowly ahead. The Toyota’s soft tires rumbled as she drove, and when she had passed the sprinkler, she lowered her window, eyeing the tombstones for Amadeo’s. She saw tombstones for SKAHAN, MURRAY, MERRICK, and one granite tombstone that was heartbreakingly smaller than the others, which read ELIZABETH, OUR BABY.

  Mary felt a familiar pang, though she obviously hadn’t known the child. She felt for the parents. Grief connected people, made them part of the same unhappy but thoroughly human club. Suddenly, mourning for Mike blindsided her like a fresh body blow, knocking the wind out of her. The Toyota rolled to an unplanned stop, and Mary sat stalled. Trying to breathe. Watching the drops of water from another sprinkler dot her windshield. She had been so single-minded in her search for Amadeo’s grave, she hadn’t stopped to think that she’d be visiting graves. The sprinkler began its turn her way, like her own personal rain cloud.

  Get it together, girl. You have a purpose.

  She gritted her teeth, pressed the gas, and drove forward, turning on the windshield wiper. She eyed the tombstones, but none was Amadeo’s. She didn’t know why she sensed he was here; he couldn’t be, under church law, but still. Dappled sunshine shifted the shadows on the granite, and she drove around the perimeter of the cemetery, expecting to find an office. But after one circuit and row after row of tombstones, all she could find was a battered white pickup down by an exit gate. She made a beeline for it, parked the Toyota, and climbed out. An older black groundskeeper in baggy jeans was loading a Scott lawn mower onto the bed of the truck, and he smiled in a friendly way when Mary approached.