He laughed heartily, his eyes twinkling, just as the bell over the front door tinkled. Candy quickly finished the croissant and wiped her hands on her apron. “The first customer of the day,” she announced as she darted out to the front counter.
A flood of customers, as it turned out, came through the door, one after another, keeping her quite busy for the next few hours, and the morning passed in a rush. At times it reminded her of a feeding frenzy of great white sharks, and she was the chum. The smells coming out of the kitchen were heavenly, spurring on the near-rabid customers, who kept Candy hustling as she filled dozens and dozens of white bakery bags with Herr Georg’s delicacies and rang up sales on the old register. While the customers browsed and sampled the pastries, they sipped tea and coffee and chatted about family, friends, and work. In amongst the talk about the weather, the summer traffic, vacation plans, and the score of the latest Red Sox game, there were worried glances and whispers about Sapphire Vine, Ray Hutchins, and Jock Larson. Murder was still a topic that occupied the minds of many Capers, but few seemed willing to discuss the terrible events of the past week out in the open, preferring to talk in the far corners of the room, in lowered tones, so as not to disturb the more sensitive among Herr Georg’s patrons.
As noon approached, the steady onslaught of customers slowed, and by one o’clock thinned to a trickle. Herr Georg picked up the phone, called Duffy’s, and ordered deli sandwiches and salads for lunch. Then, the morning’s baking done, he wandered out into the front room to check on Candy and the day’s sales.
“We’ve had a busy morning,” she said, showing him the sales register receipts.
“Hmm, yes, that’s very good. It’s all the tourists, you know. They’re always hungry.”
Fifteen minutes later, a delivery boy dropped off their sandwiches and salads. Herr Georg suggested they eat at a small table in the back room.
As they sat, Candy decided that the time to confront him had finally come.
“Herr Georg,” she began, “I have something to talk to you about-something that’s been bothering me.”
“Yes?” He looked at her inquisitively as he took a bite of his smoked turkey and Swiss cheese sandwich, piled high with lettuce and tomato.
Candy hesitated. “Well, it’s about Sapphire Vine.”
That seemed to suck the life right out of him. The energy and optimism he had exhibited all morning disappeared in a flash, and his expression became solemn. He set his sandwich down on its wrapper. He seemed to have suddenly lost his appetite. “What about her?”
Candy took a deep breath, then plunged on, explaining how she had been hired to write a column for the Cape Crier, and that she was given access to Sapphire’s files. She left out the part about breaking into Sapphire’s house the night before, but told him that, much to her regret, she had come across a file that contained damaging information about him. She reached for the manila envelope, opened the flap, and withdrew a handful of yellowed, crinkly documents, which she handed to him. “I found these.”
His face went white. He seemed to know in an instant what they were. He took them from her as if they contained his death warrant, and read over them silently for some time, his lips tight, his eyes dark and hollow. “So,” he said finally, letting out a long breath as he set the documents down on the table, “it is true then. I hoped it was all a bluff.”
“What’s true? What’s going on?” She felt a chill go through her. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Sapphire’s death, does it?”
He looked up at her, horror-stricken. “Oh no, of course not! Nothing like that!”
“Then what?” Candy’s tone was sympathetic. She reached out and put her hand on top of his. She couldn’t help noticing that, despite the warmth of the day, his hand was cold. “I’m not sure what this is about, but if there’s any way I can help…”
He held her gaze for the longest time, as if considering what to tell her. Finally he nodded once, as if he had made a decision. He rose. “Come, we must talk.”
TWENTY-SIX
Leaving their half-eaten sandwiches and the yellowed German documents behind, Herr Georg took her by the hand and walked to the front door. He flipped the OPEN sign that hung in the door window around so it read CLOSED, walked outside with Candy, and locked the door behind them.
“You’re closing in the middle of the day?” she asked him curiously.
“I must be outside, away from here, to talk about these things,” Herr Georg told her with a hesitant shrug. “This is more important than a few extra dollars, and it’s such a nice day. Let’s walk.”
Sensing the import of what he was about to tell her, she let him lead the way. “Okay, let’s walk.”
With an expressionless face, he started off. Saying barely a word to each other, they crossed Main Street and angled toward Ocean Avenue, which was busy with pedestrians window-shopping and scurrying about. It was a warm day with clouds building overhead. The humidity was on the rise, and the air was sharp with the unmistakable tang of salt and the sea. A flock of gulls arced above, cawing in their hunger and unending quest for sustenance.
As he walked, Herr Georg kept his head turned down, his hands clasped firmly behind his back. Candy tagged along as they turned down Ocean Avenue, passed the doorway that led up to the Cape Crier ’s offices and, a little farther on, the glass front of Stone & Milbury’s. They crossed the street in front of the Pruitt Opera House and walked the rest of the way down the avenue, to Town Park.
With the dull roar of the rolling sea in their ears, they strolled past well-kept flower beds and over freshly mown grass, until Herr Georg spotted a bench in the shade of a thick oak tree. He approached it purposefully, sat down, and beckoned Candy to sit beside him.
“Do you know why I came here? Here, to Cape Willington?” he asked after they had settled themselves. When Candy shook her head, he gave her a melancholy smile. “No one knows, of course, except me-and, for a time, Sapphire Vine. But she is gone now. I had hoped that my secret would die with her, but it appears now that it will live on.”
He let out a tired breath. “I have run from that secret all my life. It is time for me to tell the story, to let it out into the world, for good or bad.”
Candy sensed the turmoil going through him. She felt deep regret at having brought the whole subject up in the first place. But, she reminded herself sadly, she had had no choice. She was on a quest to know the truth-and to save Ray. Still…
“Herr Georg, you don’t have to tell me if…”
He held up a hand, silencing her. “You’re right. I don’t have to tell you. But I want to. I have kept it inside for too long. The time has come for the story to be told. And you are the one I must tell it to, Candy. I am compelled to tell it, you understand, with all that has happened this week. You have been a good friend to me. I know I can trust you.”
“Of course you can trust me,” she said, “no matter what it is.”
He patted her hand. “I know, I know. But the story I have to tell is a painful one for me. It eats at my soul. You see,” he said, and his gaze shifted, out to the sea, far off to the east, “I was born on the other side of that ocean, on the distant shore, in Germany, just after the war-in the town of Wittenberg, along the Elbe River, southeast of Hamburg. I don’t remember much of my life there. Oh, small snips and bits here and there, a fleeting memory or two, but most of it is lost to me. My mother fled our home country a few years after the end of the war, taking me with her.”
“World War II?” Candy asked in clarification.
“Yes, yes, of course. I was born in 1946. We left in forty-eight. Not because we had to, but because my mother wanted to take me away from the fatherland-and away from my father.” Herr Georg’s gaze shifted back to her, and he looked hard into Candy’s eyes, unwilling to run anymore from his past. “My father was a war criminal-or so I was told by my mother, in her last breaths, before she passed from this earth. She told me he committed terrible atrocities-awful, terrible things-for which he was arrested and tried after the war. It was a dreadful time in our country’s history. My mother, to shield me from what was happening, to protect me from the repercussions of what might occur because of my father’s acts, took me first to England, then brought me here, to the United States, hoping to start a new life. And together we did just that.”