SINS of the FATHER Read online

  “So, what are you going to do with the place?” Lilly asked.

  “Get rid of everything and rent or sell the house.”

  “Really? You mean an auction?”

  “That’s what Cindy and I are thinking. There is nothing either of us wants really. Maybe some old pictures but not much else.”

  “Have you looked in the attic yet?”

  “Oh heavens yes. It looks like a pack rat lived up there.”

  “You know your dad. You never know…”

  “When you are going to need something,” Alan finished for her.

  “That was Johnny. Kept everything.”

  “It’s all going to go now.”

  “What about his military trunks? And your grandfather's? Both were very secretive about what was in then. I asked him two or three times what he had in there and the last time I asked he about bit my head off. Told me it was none of my business.”

  “Oh Lilly. I can understand that to some extent. When you go to war you are never quite the same. You don’t really ever tell people what you really did or what it was really like. They simply can’t wrap their minds around it.”

  “You were in the military. You aren’t like that are you?” she asked.

  “Yes. Actually I am. What I’ve seen and what I’ve done is for me and me alone to know about. As a non-combatant you could never understand what a soldier goes through. Nothing is more personal than having someone trying to kill you.”

  “Oh dear. I guess I never thought about it like that.”

  “No one ever does.”

  “Well you should at least look through the trunks and see if there is anything you want to keep.”

  “I won’t auction them off. I will probably go through them and then decide what to do.”

  “Did you know your grandfather was highly decorated?”

  “No. I never heard a thing,” Alan said.

  “Your grandmother told me once and then made me promise to never repeat it. She didn’t want Johnny to get upset.”

  “Huh. You learn something new every day.”

  After everything wound down, Alan drove Cindy home. The lights were off in the house when he pulled in the driveway.

  “Maybe he got lost,” Alan said, chuckling

  “Stop it. It’s not funny. Now I will have to wait up for him thanks to you.”

  “Look, if he gives you any trouble or lays a finger on you I’ll tear his head off and…well you get the picture.”

  “He won’t. He will just pout and not speak to me.”

  “Lucky break for you,” he said as she was getting out of the car.

  “Alan, Alan, you are such a stinker sometimes.”

  “Why thank you sis,” he replied.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A large pile of clothing and other items lay at the bottom of the attic steps where Alan had been throwing them down. It seemed like no matter how much he got rid of, the amount in the attic wasn’t decreasing appreciably. He sat down just looking over the daunting task. The auction house was going to send someone out tomorrow and he needed to have everything down before they showed up.

  Looking down, he realized he was sitting on his father’s old military foot locker. He stood up and opened the top. His dad's shaving brush, straight edge razor and bar of shaving cream were in the top compartment. He found his dad's NCO stripes, dog tags, and a bottle of mosquito repellent. A Zippo lighter that had ‘Mekong Delta – 68-69’ engraved on it and tokens from various bars and clubs were in one compartment. A bunch pictures were tossed in as well. He moved them aside to look at later.

  Lifting the top tray out he found his dad’s dress uniform on top. Five rows of ribbons, three across were on the left breast of the jacket. A Purple Heart with two stars and a Silver Star were just two of the accommodations. There were only a couple he didn’t recognize since he had many of the same ones from his tours in Afghanistan . A dress bayonet for an M-16, a stack of letters, and more pictures were in the bottom of the trunk.

  He decided to go ahead and look in his grandfather’s trunk as well. When he opened it up all that was in there was an Army Dress Uniform. Three rows of medals hung from the breast including the Distinguished Service Cross. He was stunned. This is the second highest awarded and comes just after the Medal of Honor. No one had ever mentioned it when he was growing up. Neither his dad nor his granddad had never said a word about the medal.

  He picked up the uniform coat and just looked at it. It was amazing that he was just now finding out about it. He carefully laid it aside and saw a framed photograph of his grandfather receiving the Distinguished Service Cross as it was being pinned on by no other than General George Patton. Simply unbelievable. Under the picture he found a black book that looked like a Bible but had no writing on the front of it. He picked it up and opened it to the first page.

  It wasn’t the word DIARY that caught his attention but scrawled across it was another word in ink. TRAITOR it said. Alan frowned wondering what this could be about. The thing that bothered him even more was that traitor was written in his father’s distinctive handwriting.

  He had always known that Johnny and his father had never gotten along for as long as he could remember. He never knew the reason why and no one ever discussed it. Alan and Cindy would only see their grandfather two or three times a year at most and their dad seldom stayed during the visit. It was bad blood for sure but he never knew why. Whenever he asked he was told to leave it alone.

  He sat back down and started reading. It was after midnight when he finally put it down and sat there almost as if in a trance. The diary had chronologically traced his unit, the 1st Infantry Division, the Big Red One, from their landing at Omaha Beach in Normandy France during operation Overlord until the final days of the European Campaign.

  As fascinating as the first part was, it was the ending of the war that mesmerized Alan. If the last pages were the truth then his grandfather had not only been a traitor but a murderer as well. It simply couldn’t be true. This had to be a sick joke of some kind. But then why was traitor written across the front in his father’s handwriting.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Alan had fretted and brooded all the next day. He had read the entire diary twice to see if he had missed something. This had to be about someone else, not his gramps. He was such a kind and gentle man but according to the diary he had killed seven men in cold blood and had been a traitor to his country. How could the same man who had been awarded the nation’s second highest honor have gone off the deep end like that?

  According to what he had read this had all transpired from May 1, to May 6, 1945. His grandfather had fought with distinction all the way from Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes and the Siegfried Line. It was during the Battle of the Bulge that he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

  A short time later he was involved with Nazi High Command officers who were fleeing and an elaborate scheme to smuggle gold and diamonds out of Germany. How was it possible? Greed? Loss of perspective? Battle fatigue? There had to be an answer.

  Alan went back and forth about telling Cindy about what he had discovered but decided that there was no use having her come to the same realization that he had about his grandfather. He even considered just destroying the diary but just couldn’t bring himself to do it. There had to be something more to this.

  The biggest problem was the passage of time. Sixty-eight years had passed since the end of WWII. That meant that most of the survivors were approaching ninety and just finding someone who actually knew his grandfather was a daunting task. Then again, did it really even matter? Seventy years ago was a long time ago and there was no mention of how it was done. Just some vague allusions to various places in France. He didn’t even know what they really meant. He knew virtually nothing about France other than where it was located.

  He decided the best thing to do was just put the diary in a safe place and think it over for the time being. He had other things to take care of
. The auction was next week and he was meeting with a realtor to determine what they should do with the house. Cindy had decided to take the television after all and that was fine with him. Other than the two footlockers and of course the diary, there was nothing else he wanted.

  Every time he saw his sister he felt like a scum for withholding what he knew. They had few secrets between them and he felt like he was sneaking around.

  “Are you okay?”

  “What? Oh, yeah, sure.”

  “You’re acting really weird. It’s kind of freaking me out.”

  “Sorry. I just have a lot going on. I just want to get this all over with.”

  “Something else is bothering you,” she said turning to look him in the eyes.

  “No, really. Just stuff, you know? Gramps last year and now dad this year. It makes me realize how old I’m getting,” he said trying to sound convincing.

  “Well you are not getting old because if you were that would mean I was getting old too and I am not getting old. Got it buster?”

  “Got it. Listen, let me ask you something about dad and gramps.”

  “You mean the strained relationship?”

  “Exactly. I mean when we were little I remember them fishing and stuff together and then one day gramps was suddenly just gone. Moved out. Hardly ever came over. Dad wouldn’t say two words to him. He would actually get up and leave sometimes. What happened?”

  “I honestly don’t know. It had to have been something big. All I know is one day dad was up in the attic moving things around and when he came down he grabbed gramps and pulled him out of the chair and told him to get out and stay out.”

  “And mom never said anything?” Alan asked.

  “Oh they fought about it but dad wouldn’t budge. That was the end of it.”

  “Don’t you find that strange?”

  “Strange isn’t the half of it. I talked to grandpa about it once but he just said they had a disagreement,” Cindy replied.

  “It had to have been a damn big one to throw your own father out of the house and hardly speak to him again.”

  “You were in Afghanistan when gramps died. Dad insisted on a closed casket. He didn’t say a word at the funeral home or at the grave site.”

  “Cold,” Alan said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  For the next two days Alan hardly slept or ate. He would pick up the diary and just walk around the house holding it. It wasn’t until late at night that he realized something that he hadn’t noticed before. The back cover of the diary was slightly thicker than the front. On a whim, he slipped a knife between the paper and the cover and peeled it back. To his surprise a piece of paper, folded once was hidden inside.

  The paper was brittle and yellowed and he carefully opened it. A line of numbers on the page was all he found. He looked at them but they made so sense to him at all. There was no name, just the numbers: 50542526 – 1494777 . It had to mean something or it wouldn’t have been hidden behind the cover.

  Okay Alan, you’re not stupid. You just needed to think about this a little more. It has to mean something that has to do with the last days of WWII. It's too many numbers to be a combination to a safe and besides where would such a safe even be? It had to be a code but he didn’t know anything about codes.

  It was almost 3:00 a.m. when he finally gave up. He had tried everything he could think of. Attaching the alphabet to the numbers resulted in nothing. Working them backward just gave another bunch of letters. He tried adding them up and then using the alphabet but it was a waste of time. The harder he tried the more frustrated he got and yet it had to mean something.

  He went back to the diary and read the last days one more time. There was no mention of where he had been. Just the references to meeting General VM to help them get the ‘items’ out of Germany before the Russians took Berlin. It was clear that his grandpa had worked a deal with the Germans. He would get a substantial portion of the goods in exchange for getting them through the American lines and to the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer. After that the Germans were on their own and he would go back to his lines.

  The last page was the most disturbing. He never took them as far as Boulogne-sur-Mer. Instead he killed them in Sainte- Mere- Èglise. Why? Why had he even become involved? From reading it over and over it seemed fairly clear cut. He killed them to get it all, whatever ‘it’ was.

  The other part that didn’t make sense was that he was never rich. He never had a lot of money and worked all his life. What happened to the loot? Wasn’t he able to get it out? He couldn’t have been caught or he wouldn’t have a uniform full of medals.

  **

  “Is that okay with you Cindy?” Alan asked.

  “Alan, I really don’t care all that much. If you say it’s a fair price, I’ll go along.”

  “Yeah but I don’t want you to feel cheated later when someone says you could have gotten this or that for all the stuff.”

  “Just sell the damn stuff so we can move on with our lives.”

  “Fine. I’ll tell him that twelve thousand for everything is fine with us.”

  “Good. What next?”

  “The house. We have an offer for ninety-five thousand. The realtor thinks it worth a hundred and ten. He said the neighborhood is coming back strong and new young people are moving in pretty fast.”

  “Sell it.”

  “Sell it?”

  “Yes. Just sell it. It’s not my house. It was dad's. I don’t want it and I know you don’t so let’s just sell it.”

  “Done. I’ll tell him tomorrow. They pay closing cost so all we will owe is the brokerage fee. I’ll have two checks drawn up and drop yours off but only if you’re there. I won’t leave it with Bob. The auction company will mail you a check for your part.”

  Cindy sighed deeply, “I’m just glad we can see the end of the tunnel.”

  “So, when this is over what are you going to do?”

  Cindy frowned, considering what Alan had just asked.

  “I’m not sure what you mean by that,” she said at last.

  “Are you staying with Bob?”

  “This doesn’t change anything.”

  “So you are going to let him blow through this money just like he always does? Sis, I love you but you are dumber than a brick, sticking with that loser.”

  “Alan, knock it off. That is none of your business.”

  “Right. Well, call when he goes out and gets a Corvette and you are broke again.”

  “Stop it.”

  Alan held up his hands and closed his lips tight.

  “What are you going to do? Go buy a Porsche?”

  “Nope. I’m selling my house too. As a matter a fact, I have an offer already.”

  “What?” she exclaimed.

  “I have nothing keeping me here. I’m going to travel some then figure out what I want to do with my life.”

  “That’s crazy. What do you mean, nothing to hold you here? I’m here, damn it.”

  “Cindy you know I can’t stand Bob and that’s putting it mildly. I see you, what? Twice, maybe three times a year? I’m selling and rethinking my life.”

  “This is all nuts. Mom, gramps, and dad all gone over a three year period. Now you are taking off. I don’t even know how to process all of this.”

  “I’m not going away for good. Just sorting things out. I will see you again you know.”

  “When? That’s the real question isn’t it?” she said.

  Alan had no answer for her.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Alan finished putting his few meager possessions in the rented space at the mini-warehouse facility and locked the door. Not much to show for guy going on forty. He had sold just about everything once he closed on his house. His car and a few changes of clothing were about all he had left. That and the diary.

  No job and close to two hundred thousand in the bank was his total net worth. Standing there in front of the storage space he made his decision. He jumped in the car and headed to the airport. He
parked his car in the long term lot and caught the shuttle to the international terminal.

  Once he arrived, he walked to the first place he could find to sit down. This was crazy. He never did things without thinking them through and suddenly he was sitting in the international terminal considering going where exactly? France? Germany? He was considering taking off with no real plan as to where he should go. Why was he even doing this? The longer he sat there the more convinced he was that he was being totally irrational.

  He went back out, got on the shuttle and retrieved his car. The attendant looked at him like he was dumber than a box of rocks. Parking was nine dollars for the day no matter how long the car was there. He could have parked in the short term lot for a buck and a half.

  He drove around just trying to get his thoughts together. Without even thinking he pulled into his sister’s driveway. He saw her car in the garage with door up. Bob’s truck was gone. He went up and rang the doorbell.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey. Listen, I need to talk to you. Bob's gone right?”

  “He said he had to run a few errands.”

  “At the bar huh?”

  “Probably. So what’s up?”

  “Do you have time for a kind of long story?” Alan asked.

  “Sure. I’m off today. What’s up? Is something wrong?” she asked.

  Alan put his palms up to his face and rubbed his eyes before going on.

  “While I was cleaning out the attic I went through the two footlockers. One was dad's the other belonged to gramps. I learned a few things about both of them. They had both served with distinction and were decorated soldiers. In fact gramps earned the Distinguished Service Metal. That is just one step below the Congressional Medal of Honor,” he told her.

  “Wow. I had no idea. Now it makes a little more sense.”

  Alan looked at her strangely, “What makes sense?”

  “Some guy said he knew dad and he wanted to buy the footlockers of both gramps and dad for the VFW display they were building. He wanted to look at some of the items so they could display them in the showcase. I thought it would be really neat. He has been trying to track you down ever since he found out about dad passing. I guess at one time he even talked to dad about it but you know how he was about Vietnam and gramps”