Archer Mayor - The Marble Mask

“You been collecting long?” I asked.

“Most of my adult life.”

“What made you start?”

There was a pause, suggesting I might have overstepped some boundary.

“Surely, this is not why you asked to see me.”

“Right. Actually, we’re investigating the death of a man found frozen on the mountain.”

“The fifty-year-old corpse,” said the shadowy outline.

I walked up to the desk, trailed by Sammie and the butler. The voice emerged as a thin, pale invalid, sitting in a wheelchair, vaguely reminiscent of Marcel Deschamps. “You heard about that?”

“I subscribe to the local paper, Mr. Gunther.”

Uninvited, I sat in one of the large armchairs facing the desk, enjoying the slight squeak and smell of leather that accompanied the move.

Roger Scott waved a hand at the man behind us. “Go, Robert.”

We all patiently waited until Robert had closed the doors behind him.

“He the only one working here?” I asked.

“I have others. He’s the only one that lives with me. Why do you ask?”

I looked around. “Big house, a lot to run. I just wondered.”

“Because I’m in a wheelchair? The house was built to accommodate that. It’s much more efficient than it looks.”

There was a hint of pride there I decided to exploit a little. “It is amazing, and filled with beautiful things. How long have you lived here?”

“I moved in forty-one years ago, although I’ve added on as my income allowed.”

“But you were in Stowe before then, right?”

The pale face smiled. “I have a feeling you already know the answer to that. I came here right after the war and built a house nearby-on the same acreage, in fact.”

“You’ve done very well for yourself.”

“Meaning, where did I get my money? I inherited it, Mr. Gunther, and then built on it through some fortunate real estate deals. What does any of this have to do with the frozen man?”

“We think you knew his son,” I said. “Antoine Deschamps. You fought together in Italy.”

I wasn’t sure what I’d been anticipating, but I didn’t expect the burst of laughter I received.

“We all fought together-in Montana, in Burlington, in the Aleutians, and in Italy. That was one of the hallmarks of our unit.”

“The First Special Service Force.”

“Yes. Back then, people used to confuse the name with the Special Services branch of the Army-basically the music bands. That was on purpose, to help keep us under wraps. But it wasn’t a mistake anyone made twice.”

“Rough outfit.”

“Energetic, yes. We were a throwaway group-a suicide battalion, if you want to get melodramatic. We felt we had nothing to lose by enjoying ourselves while we were still alive.”

“And your Colonel Frederick encouraged that attitude?”

“Ah, you’ve been doing your homework. Probably rented that movie, The Devil’s Brigade. ”

“No.”

“Just as well. Typical mythology, although it captured our reputation for doing the impossible.”

“How was Antoine Deschamps at that?”

Roger Scott shook his head slowly for a moment. “Not yet. I want to ask you a couple of things first, given the courtesy I’ve just paid you. Why is any of this relevant to the investigation of a man found frozen to death out there, even if his son and I did fight in the same unit?”

“We think Jean Deschamps came to Stowe to meet you. Did he?”

“No. What did he want? Details about his boy’s death?”

“You know about that?”

“Not really. I have to admit, I may have been leading you on a bit. I didn’t actually know Antoine Deschamps-not well, at least. We were in different regiments. I heard he was killed outside of Rome. I didn’t see it, though. I wouldn’t have been of much use to his father.”

“How do you know that’s why he came here?” I asked.

“It’s what a parent would want to know. Did he suffer? Was he a hero? Did he have any last words? I was ignorant of all that. I could have told him his son was an abusive, foul-mouthed, skirt-chasing, self-serving thief and a liar, but then so was I and every other Force-man. It’s what Robert Frederick trained us to be.”

“Actually,” I tried again, “I haven’t been totally candid. Jean Deschamps thought Antoine was murdered in Italy, not killed in combat.”

Scott absorbed that thoughtfully. “Could be. It was known to happen.”

“Was there anyone who springs to mind in that context? Someone who hated Antoine enough to want him dead?”

“Not that I knew of. Passions could run high, of course, and every one of us had been taught to kill a dozen different ways. Rumors were that about half of us had been pulled out of prison to quote-unquote volunteer, although I suspect that’s part of the mythology again. Still, there were some fierce fights, and I always suspected not all our casualties were combat-related.”

I waved my hand at the room around us. “You don’t seem cut from that kind of cloth.”

“I had a wild streak, but you’re right. I wasn’t alone, though. There were a lot of pretty regular people mixed in-teachers, musicians, cowboys, you name it.”

“How ’bout someone named Charlie Webber?” I asked.

Scott’s face hardened. “He was no poet. Why do you mention him?”

“How do you know about him?” I asked instead. “He was in the same regiment as Antoine.”

“Some were better known than others. You have to understand-the Force hovered between fifteen hundred and two thousand men. That’s small by Army standards, but it’s still a large number. And the turnover was impressive.” He paused, thinking back. “After a while, getting to know people proved to be counterproductive.”

“But you knew Webber.”

He refocused on us. “Yes. Charlie Webber. Few people didn’t. He died, too. Should’ve been from a bullet in the back, delivered by one of us, but instead it was from natural causes, as we used to refer to combat deaths back then. The man was a psychopath, in my opinion. Is he the one you think killed Antoine?”

“We heard they’d had a falling out at Anzio but then later became best buddies, glued at the hip.”

Scott shook his head. “I can’t imagine anything worse.”

“What did Webber do to you?” Sammie asked.

There was a long pause. “I hold him responsible for putting me in this chair.”

We didn’t say anything, prompting him to add, “In your research, did you ever hear mention of the Champagne Campaign?”

We both shook our heads, although Dick Kearley had spoken of it. “I thought not. Not a Hollywood-style story. After Italy was all but over-at least after the generals got their pictures taken in Rome-we were reassigned to southern France, first to take the Iles d’Hyères, and then to sweep along the French Riviera to Cannes, Nice, and the rest. The first part was tough, but then it got easy, and people like Webber became bored and restless. He’d been promoted, and the regiments had been mixed up enough that I was now serving under him. In any case, he was so focused on getting laid and drunk by then, he ordered us into a small hilltop village without reconnaissance. We were ambushed and shot up. I caught one in the spine, several others were killed. Useless casualties, all. Webber was supposed to be leading us, but of course, he was sacked out with some girl instead.”

“He didn’t get court-martialed?” Sammie asked, her sense of propriety offended.

“He was about to be, but then he was killed,” came the answer. “I think it was suicide, really. He didn’t want to go back to prison. Life was never going to improve beyond that point, where he could break every rule in the book in the name of patriotism, so he rushed a machine gun nest single-handed and was blown up by his own grenade. A hero’s death for a homicidal maniac. Another of war’s ironies.”