of the yard to get away from the traffic noises. There’s a lot of traffic now that the city opened the ...”
Why she’s as nervous as I am, prattling on like that. This is going to be easier than I thought, so just stay cool.
It was not until she saw Stavros staring at her that Sophie realized her mistake.
?
What did Sophie do that made Stavros realize she has been here more recently than twenty-four years ago?
Nobody Hides Forever
From the south, a nondescript brown sedan came into view on the two-lane highway and then eased off onto a lightly traveled secondary road forking to the east. Soon the car entered an area of thick forest and turned right again onto a narrow laneway leading up to a squat, gray building made of concrete block. The building was even more nondescript than the sedan, its monotony only slightly relieved by a metal garage door and, above it on a second floor, a window of thick plate glass.
Behind the window, Norm Upshur lowered the binoculars he had been using to follow the progress of the car. He watched intently as a very large man in mechanic’s coveralls got out of the back seat of the sedan on the passenger side. A frail man with tousled white hair got out right after him, followed by another large man in coveralls. The small man wore brown plaid trousers with a brown check. He had on a plaid shirt under a thin, two-tone windbreaker, and cheap running shoes. Old man’s clothes. At the sound of the garage door opening, the three men disappeared into the building, and the car went back down the dirt road into the forest.
Norm set the binoculars on the window ledge. “So that’s Lazlo Bovic?” He stared out at the trees for a few thoughtful seconds before turning behind him to a man sitting on an upturned crate in front of a makeshift desk. “Hard to believe that little old man is the Butcher of Vojvodina. In fact, Harland, now that I’ve seen him, I have to tell you I’m even more unconvinced.”
Harland Stohl had the kind of face on which a smile would look out of place. True to form, he scowled and said, “That’s Bovic. And he’s been living in this country since 1947. According to our data ...”
“Your data, Harland, with all due respect, have gotten us into trouble more than once.”
“Then take a look for yourself.” Stohl was unperturbed. “Start with this photograph. We have others, taken since he came here in ’47, but this one is earlier. From his days in Croatia during the war. The only one we know of. We got it from an old woman in Bosnia.”
“See, Harland, there we are to start with. That old woman who gave you the picture ... she’s actually a Bosnian Serb, isn’t she? That makes her no friend of the Croats, I’ll grant you, but then she’s no friend of ours, either! What does she have to gain by exposing him? The Serbs committed war crimes of their own!”
Stohl carried on with no sign of impatience. “The Balkans,” he said, and shrugged as if that explained everything. When Upshur didn’t respond, he added, “Serbs and Croats have been fighting each other for a thousand years, but every once in a while they let bygones be bygones and get together to gang up on Bosnia. Maybe her motive is some political one we don’t understand yet.”
He shrugged again. “Or maybe it’s religious. The woman is a Catholic like Bovic, but she’s Orthodox; most Serbs are, those that aren’t Muslim. Bovic, like most of the Croats, is Roman Catholic.” He sighed very softly, as though he’d had to slog through this explanation many times before. “Usually, in the Balkans that’s all the reason you need, but in this case I think she’s turned him in because she’s a dyed-in-the-wool communist, an old partisan. Probably has something to do with the war. World War II, I mean. They’re about the same age, her and Bovic.”
Norm bent over slightly, trying to look into the other man’s eyes as if they held the key to sorting out his uncertainty. “And old Bovic downstairs,” he said, “if he really is Bovic, was a leader of the ustashi, poster boys for the Gestapo and the SS. For the ustashi, slaughtering communists – partisans – was almost a religion.”
Harland shrugged a third time. “People on this side of the Atlantic have no idea how bad it was. They know over there, though. And they never forget.”
He turned the photograph around so that Norm Upshur could see it right side up. “Here. Just take a look. Our people say it was taken about 1943.”
Norm Upshur glanced at the tattered photograph for only a second. “He’s shaving, Harland, for heaven sake!”
For once Harland Stohl showed a bit of spirit. “You were expecting a cigarette ad, maybe? Why not shaving? Or eating? Or drinking? Or sitting on the toilet! Think of it. Bovic’s a key player in the ustashi in a country where there are any number of factions all trying to kill one another, where nobody trusts anybody – they still don’t! – so this had to be with a hidden camera. What better time than when he’s shaving?”
“Makes sense, I suppose.” Norm agreed with more than a little reluctance. “This the scar?”
“Precisely in the middle of the forehead. And precisely where there’s one on the old boy downstairs, as you’ll soon see.”
“The medal on that chain around his neck ... Says I-H ... Can’t make out the ...”
Stohl handed Upshur a magnifying glass. “An ‘S.’ Catholics all over the world wear that. Stands for in hoc signo. Means ‘in this sign.’ Refers to the cross where Jesus was crucified.”
Norm handed back the glass and returned to the window, where only a few minutes earlier he had watched the approach of the car. He was still very troubled. “I don’t know, Harland. A forty-year-old photograph and an old commie woman with a grudge … and, wait a minute! Let me see that thing again! Yes! He’s shaving with his right hand!” Norm came around to Harland’s side of the desk. He tapped the photograph with an insistent index finger. “What that means ... what it means is – in a mirror – what it means is he’s left-handed! Now the old guy downstairs ... is he right- or left-handed, because ...?”
“I know what you’re getting at.” Harland Stohl shook his head. “One of the first things we looked at, but it doesn’t apply here. You saw that yourself.”
?
Why does Norm Upshur assume that Bovic is left-handed, and why, as Harland Stohl says, does it not apply here?
The Initiation
Thirty-two years I been at this. Went into narcotics right out of the academy. Undercover. Traffic after that – talk about a switch! Then I did bunko, vice for three years, and before I turned private I was in homicide. Made sergeant. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t bragging. I just want you to know I been
