Schmeling pushed back from the table and crossed his arms. “He refused to say who hid him, even though he was questioned all night.”
Gerrit fought back a grimace. What had that questioning entailed?
“He insisted he hid in the woods and stole food and clothing.” Schmeling released a scoffing sound. “Liar. He was too well fed, too clean, too well healed from his gunshot wound.”
With every bit of effort, Gerrit echoed the scoffing sound. “Someone hid him.” At least Marchenko hadn’t named them yet, but how long until he broke?
“This is our only clue. The swine had it in his pocket. I’m showing it around.” Schmeling pulled a square of paper from inside his jacket, unfolded it, and tossed it on the table.
A pencil sketch of a horse, a bright-eyed horse, trotting, his tail high and pluming.
Ivy Picot hadn’t signed it. She didn’t need to.
Gerrit’s stomach roiled, and he pressed his hand over it.
Schmeling jabbed his finger at the horse. “The Russian says he found it on a kitchen table while stealing food. I don’t believe him. This could tell us where he was hiding.”
And who had treated his gunshot wound.
With quivering fingers, Gerrit picked up the sketch. Ivy was generous with her artwork. If Schmeling showed it around, someone would eventually recognize her hand.
Gerrit moistened his lips. “He—the Russian—he isn’t talking?”
“Wasn’t. The camp commandant hanged him at dawn at the gate to Lager Schepke.”
A punch to Gerrit’s gut. Marchenko ... was dead?
“They made an example of him.” Schmeling’s thin lips twisted into a smile. “Marched all the workers past his body this morning. They’ll march past again this evening.”
That punch jabbed deeper. Gerrit gasped from the pain. “He—they left him there? That violates every rule of human decency.”
Schmeling’s narrow nostrils flared. “He murdered a German. He violated those rules of decency far more.”
Gerrit’s head shook. He backed up, the drawing in hand.
Turned. Bolted out the door.
He’d be disciplined, but what did it matter?
It was too late for Marchenko to receive justice, but not too late to show him respect.
St. Lawrence’s Parish
Ivy pedaled along a lane on her way from St. Helier to Beaumont to see a patient. “‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.’” The verse hiccupped out of her mouth.
Only an hour before, as Reverend Le Marinel had read the Twenty-third Psalm, Thelma Galais had walked through the valley of the shadow of death, fearing no evil, for the Lord was with her. Now Thelma would dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
But Ivy had lost one of her few friends on the island, one of the few lights of goodness.
“‘Why seek ye the living among the dead?’” Thelma had asked Ivy, as the angel had asked the women at the empty tomb.
Ivy cycled past the stump of yet another tree chopped down for fuel. Always she’d seen God’s goodness in the world and its people, but both were easily corrupted.
Why did Ivy seek the goodness of the living God in the corruptible world and its corruptible people?
“‘He is not here, but is risen,’” she whispered. That was the goodness. The cross. The resurrection.
If every person turned to evil and all creation were destroyed, would God still be good?
