“Want to translate?” Connolly said as they went outside.
“Bathtub Row’s for the top brass-they’re the old buildings from the ranch school, which means they were actually built for people. They’re the only housing on the Hill with tubs, not showers, so they’re considered the top of the line. Of course, they don’t get much water either, so big deal.”
“Sundt?”
“Construction company that built a lot of the Hill. The housing units are named for whoever built them, so you’ve got Sundt units and Morgan duplexes and McKee prefabs-those are the flat-tops-and Pascos. Then you’re down to trailers and huts and whatever keeps the cold out.”
“I assume Bruner wasn’t in a Sundt.”
Mills grinned. “No, we’ve got a nice dormitory room for you.”
Later, walking down the dusty road with piles of sheets and towels, Connolly felt more than ever that he’d gone back in time to school. The dormitory was the familiar dull green army clapboard, but the dayroom inside, with its Ping-Pong table and Remington cowboy prints, had an undergraduate look, and the rooms were the same glorified cubicles you’d find on any state campus. The polished wood floor was bare, reflecting light from the uncurtained windows, but a curtain of sorts had been hung along the frame of the indented closet area. Aside from the single bed, there was a small desk, a reading chair, a short bookcase, and a hotel-standard imitation Sheraton chest of drawers with a Bakelite radio on top. The room was almost aggressively neat, as if the slightest rearrangement of the furniture would put it hopelessly out of kilter.
“Well,” Mills said, dumping the linens on the bed, “welcome to Boys’ Town. It ain’t much and it sure ain’t home. I’m just down the hall, so I should know.”
“I thought he said nobody’d touched the room.”
“Nobody has.”
Connolly opened the top drawer to see neatly folded handkerchiefs and pairs of shorts. “Signs of life.”
“Well, I’ll let you get on with it,” Mills said. “Dinner’s in the commissary-that’s just beyond P Building, the big one with the bridge. You won’t have any trouble finding it-just follow the smell of grease. Motor pool’s on the other side, so don’t get confused. Workday begins at oh eight hundred, but that’s up to you, I guess.”
Connolly continued to go through the drawer, carefully moving pieces of clothing as if reluctant to disturb the dead. “What do we do with this stuff?” he asked.
“Beats me. No next of kin, if that’s what you mean. I thought you’d want to go through it before we pack it up. I’ll get you a box tomorrow. I suppose we have to hold it. You know, as evidence.”
It was a question, but Connolly was preoccupied.
“I suppose. What happened to the next of kin?”
“Bruner was a German Jew. His parents are still there-or not-as far as we know. We have to assume not. No other relatives in his file.”
“Speaking of which, I’m going to need-”
But Mills was already pulling a manila folder from under his arm. “Bedtime reading,” he said, handing it over.
Connolly looked at him and smiled. “Why do I get the feeling you’re one step ahead of me?”
“Don’t worry, you’ll catch up. That’s all there is.”
Connolly glanced at the file. “Did you know him?”
“He worked in the section and he lived down the hall, so yes. But no.”
“Did you like him?”
Mills hesitated. “That’s some professional question. He was all right.”
“That’s some answer.”
“He was a hard guy to like.”
“How so?”
“He had an edge. He’d been through a lot and it showed. He couldn’t relax. I suppose he was always waiting for the knock on the door. A lot of the Germans are like that. They can’t feel safe, not after everything. You can’t blame them, but it doesn’t make them the life of the party, either.”
“What happened to him there? Specifically.”
“The Nazis thought he was a Communist and locked him up. He had a rough time.”
“Was he?”
“Not according to him. He was a student who attended a few meetings. It’s all in there,” he said, pointing to the folder. “In the security report. Even the Nazis couldn’t make it stick, so they finally let him out. This was years ago, when they were trying to deport the Jews instead of keeping them in, so they sent him to Russia.”
“They took him in?”
“Uh-huh. And then arrested him as a German spy. They were even worse than the Nazis. They pulled his teeth out, one day at a time. That’s why he had the plate.”
“Jesus.” Connolly imagined the wait every morning, the clang of the bolt in the door, the pliers and the screams and the blood. The spare, clean room suddenly seemed different, as if Bruner had tried to live as unobtrusively as possible, wanting to be passed over, out of pain.
