Descendant Read Free

mustard-colored freckles. He had a snub nose and bright blue eyes that looked permanently surprised, although I had never yet known him to be surprised by anything. Even when it was first explained to him whathis duties would be, he did nothing but nod and say, “OK, sure,” as if hunting vampires through the shattered cities of France and Belgium was no more unusual than chasing rabbits through the underbrush. Corporal Little’s family had bred pedigree tracking dogs in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which was why the detachment had enlisted him to help me. If Bloodhoundese had been a language, Corporal Little would have been word-perfect. Frank had only to lift up his head and stare at Corporal Little with those mournful, hung-over eyes, and Corporal Little would know exactly what he wanted. “Cookie, Frank?” Frank had a thing for
speculoos
, those ginger-and-spice cookies they bake in Belgium, preferably dipped into Corporal Little’s coffee to make them soft.
    We climbed into my Jeep and Corporal Little drove us back through the narrow sewage-smelling streets, jolting over the cobbles until I felt that my teeth were going to shatter. We passed a dead horse lying on the sidewalk. A German shell had landed in the square two days ago and torn open a big triangular flap in its stomach, so a passerby had killed it with a hammer.
    Somewhere off to the northwest, from the direction of the Walcheren peninsula, I could hear artillery fire, like somebody banging encyclopedias shut.
    We turned into Keizerstraat and stopped outside De Witte Lelie Hotel. It was a small, old-style building with a sixteenth-century facade. The lobby had oak-paneled walls and a brown marble floor and it was milling with officers from the British 11th Armored Division, as well as an argumentative crowd of Belgian politicians, waving their arms and pushing each other and shouting inFrench. The British officers looked too tired to care. One of them was sleeping in an armchair with his mouth wide open.
    I went to the desk where the deputy manager was trying to rub soup from the front of his shirt with spit.
    “I need to talk to Leo Coopman.”
    He stopped rubbing his shirt and looked at me with bulging brown eyes.
    “It’s important,” I said. “I need to talk to him about Ann De Wouters. Do you think you can get in touch with him?”
    The deputy manager pulled a face that could have meant “yes” or “possibly” or “why on earth are you asking me?”
    “I’ll be in my room until eight,” I told him. I tapped my wristwatch and said, “
Acht uur
, understand?”
    Corporal Little and I went up in the rickety elevator to the fourth floor. Frank sat staring up at us and panting.
    “Ann De Wouter’s children were in the room when they killed her,” I said. “Lucky for the boy he didn’t wake up, but the girl did.” I could see myself in the mirror. I hadn’t realized I looked so haggard. My hair was greasy and flopping over my forehead, and the mottled glass made it appear as if I had some kind of skin disease.
    “She give you any idea what they looked like?”
    “No. Too dark. But she was pretty sure that there were three of them, and she saw that one of them was wearing the wheel.”
    We walked along the long blue-carpeted corridor until we reached 413. Considering there was a war on, my room was surprisingly sumptuous, with a huge four-posterbed covered in a gold-and-cream bedspread, and gilded armchairs upholstered to match. On the walls hung several somber landscapes of Ghent and Louvain, with clouds and canals. A pair of gray riding britches hung from the hook on the back of the door, with dangling suspenders still attached. These had belonged to the German officer who had occupied this room only days before we had arrived. Corporal Little unclipped Frank’s leash and let him trot into the bathroom to lap water out of the toilet.
    I went to the windows and closed them. The maid had opened them every morning since we had arrived here