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12

Briar

1942

I stood there holding out the ring. “I’m not leaving until you tell me why you’re acting so weird.”

Sandra hurried to the front door and pulled down the shade. When she came back to the counter, her hands shook as she switched on the desk lamp. Her reaction sent chills down my spine but made me feel important for having something so supposedly dangerous in my possession. Had Mr. Schmidt been in some sort of trouble? Maybe his fall down the stairs was no accident after all.

Sandra slipped thin gloves onto her hands. “I’m risking my life telling you this.”

I found that hard to believe, since her histrionic co-workers at Crabby’s had infected her with a taste for melodrama.

“My God,” she said as she took the ring from me and placed it on her velvet display tray.

“Obviously Third Reich,” I said.

She examined it with her jeweler’s loupe. “It’s a Totenkopf ring, aka the SS-Ehrenring— the SS honor ring.” She met my gaze. “It means dead person’s head. It’s an award ring, given only by Himmler himself. To his most trusted and beloved men. Of pure German blood. His master race.”

“Ever seen one before?” I asked.

“No.” She held the loupe to her eye and read the inscription inside the band. “Whoever this Kuno is will be looking for it, and let’s just say they won’t play nice.”

I bent and looked closely at the skull’s gaping eyes and loose mandible. “The Nazis have really embraced the skull.”

“Nothing like scaring the crap out of someone when you arrest them,” Sandra said. “And they see old death staring ’em in the face.”

“No one knows I have it.”

“Are you one hundred percent sure about that? You might be surprised about who’s out here on this island. Trust me, you don’t want some Nazi knocking at your door. But you’d probably never hear them coming.”

I was startled by the sound of a shortwave radio crackling to life in the back room, and Sandra evaded my gaze. What did an antiquities dealer need with one of those?

“I’m not worried,” I said. “We’ve got the Army base just above us.”

She blew a spitty little sound through her lips. “Please. Like that’ll help you. Assassins are stealthy. And that’s where you’ll find your spies. Your double agents. Your traitors. They get off on being so close to the secrets.” Sandra gave me a penetrating look. “Especially that Brit major, Gilbert.”

I stepped back, surprised to hear that name. I’d overheard Cadence and Bess talking about him—that Cadence was actually infatuated with the so-called bane of her existence, who led his troops across our property each morning. “You know him?”

“Came in here with one of his men, all pissed off, since I’d sold the kid a German helmet. Said his men aren’t allowed to purchase ‘spoils of war,’ in that uppity accent of his. How was I supposed to know? Half of my inventory comes from soldiers helping themselves to battlefield spoils. Told him a deal’s a deal, and the two of them swung outta here in a jeep.”

I rolled my eyes, mostly to get Sandra to like me. “Brits.”

“He’s one to keep an eye on. He knew a lot more about German stuff than most. Referred to the helmet liner as a helmfutter. There’s something shifty about him.”

“Noted.”

She weighed the heft of the ring in her palm, suddenly less afraid, perhaps bolstered by the thought of a substantial commission. “I suppose I can take it off your hands. Get you at least two grand.”

“ What? ”

“I’ll sell it on the q.t., with no connection to you. In Boston or New York City.”

It was tempting to just get rid of it. And we could use the money. But how would I tell Gram I’d suddenly found two thousand dollars?

I plucked the ring from her palm. “I don’t think so.”

Why the quick reversal? Could I even trust Sandra? I had a feeling that it wouldn’t take much for her to turn on me. All McManus would have to do is dangle one free shoreman’s fried dinner and she’d spill her guts.

“Jeez. I’d already wrapped my mind around the deal.”

I exhaled. “What about all that assassin stuff?”

“Just an initial reaction. We’ll be fine. It’ll sell quick. I want this outta here as much as you do.”

“And you really won’t squeal to anyone?”

She held up one hand. “God as my witness.”

“Fine.” I handed her the ring, relieved to have it out of my possession.

She opened her black book, wrote a receipt for the ring, and handed it to me. One National Socialist jewelry piece on consignment.

I pocketed the receipt. “I’m counting on you, Sandra.”

“Only my best customers will hear it from me. I want to live to see another day.”

—

There was no one home when I got back to the cottage. I found a note on the kitchen counter from Gram that said Cade and Bess were out and that she was with her church ladies. It was starting to get dark, and it was hard to shake the creeps after all the scary stuff Sandra had been throwing around. Like some bad guy was going to come find me here—clearly an overreaction.

But the ring came from somewhere. Maybe Kuno was Himmler’s pet name for Mr. Schmidt. Maybe they knew each other from the old days? I felt a little sick imagining it. But there was no way Mr. Schmidt had been a Nazi. And it wasn’t like Himmler just sent it here in the mail. Someone had brought it from Germany. I had to go with my gut, not with paranoid Sandra, whose brain was probably scrambled from all that nicotine and fried food. Part of Sandra’s business was drumming up anxiety.

Scout stood by the front door and whined. Was someone here? Maybe walking down on the beach? I listened for the sound of a car engine. Had McManus come by to search the place? No. He would come during the day.

I opened the front door and Scout took off down the path to the beach. With just enough daylight left to find my way, I followed the sound of waves hitting the shore and passed the darkened boathouse. I emerged from the woods onto the beach, and Scout was already running down the shore. She only ran after squirrels, but there were none of those along the beach.

I hurried after Scout as she rounded the bend and found her tearing toward something that had washed up on the beach in the distance. A seal? Dead seals and small whales sometimes washed up along the south coast of the island, which was open to the pounding surf, but rarely here on the quieter North Shore.

I slowed as we came nearer the form, and my stomach dropped.

“Scout,” I called ahead. “Careful.”