Read Dead to the World for Free Online

said.
    1934–1935
    Edgar Hutchins hitchhiked three days after Christmas to San Antonio, where he found a Marine recruiter that was more than happy to sign him up. He brought with him the small amount of money he’d saved up since Helen had gone off to college. It had been his hope to spend it on a ring; instead, he used part of it for a good meal in a restaurant and a room for the night in a seedy hotel in a mostly Mexican part of town. The following day he began his journey to Parris Island, South Carolina.
    After World War One, when the boot camp had seen more than thirteen thousand troops training there, the funding for Parris Island had all but dried up due to the severe decrease in the hectic demands of the war. By 1934 when Edgar arrived, there were fewer than three hundred men being trained. But these years before the onset of World War Two saw innovations in training. The new recruits learned how to fire automatic weapons and were among the first military personnel to see a demonstration of a trench mortar out of a combat situation. This should have excited Edgar, like it did most of the recruits then at Parris Island, but it didn’t. He hated the food, hated the uncomfortable cots, hated most of the guys in his barracks, and, most of all, he hated his D.I.
    Gunny Sargent Monroe Lincoln was a career Marine who had served with honors during World War One, and was determined to make sure these peace-time leathernecks were up for anything that would be coming their way. He was fair but hard. Edgar didn’t see the fair, only the hard. He managed to spend the night in the brig twice for infractions and barely made it out of boot camp. But when he did, he was actually pleased to find out that he was being shipped to Shanghai, China.

THREE
    W illis and I went out to dinner alone that evening. Miss Hutchins recommended a nice place in Bourne, so we drove the few miles to the other town. I’d tried to talk Miss Hutchins into not hiring the, excuse the expression, ‘psychic detectives,’ earlier, but she was adamant.
    ‘I love having my little inn,’ she’d told me. ‘And I just can’t stand that Daddy is doing this! And he
did
kill my mother! Leaving me all alone for all those years.’ Tears had formed in her eyes, threatening to spill over.
    ‘I’m not convinced this is your daddy’s doing,’ I told her. ‘It seems more likely that there is a live hand involved here.’
    ‘You’re forgetting, E.J. I saw him twice. It was definitely my daddy!’
    ‘When was the last time you saw your father – before he died, I mean?’
    She thought long and hard. ‘I must have been about six. He enlisted right after Pearl Harbor.’
    ‘So it’s possible you don’t really remember exactly what he looks like?’ I asked, keeping my voice as gentle as possible.
    Her mouth stiffened into a straight line. ‘I have pictures of my father! Would you like to see them?’ she said, not happy.
    ‘Sure,’ I said, and smiled, hoping to take the sting out of what I’d said. It didn’t work. She got up stiffly and walked to a bookcase next to the fireplace. She grabbed two very old photo albums and brought them to the sofa. When I offered to help, she pulled the books away from me.
    ‘I’m fine on my own!’ she said with a little heat. ‘I’ve been basically on my own since I was ten years old, you know!’
    ‘I’m sorry—’ I started, but she interrupted.
    ‘Don’t be. I’m fine.’ She sat down next to me, put one book to her other side and one on her lap. ‘Here we go,’ she said, and opened the book to a wedding picture. The bride, the groom, parents, groomsmen, bridesmaids, flower girls – the whole shebang. Except that none of the men had faces. They had all been scratched out – not just marked out with a pen, but with enough force for it to rip through the paper to the black sheet the pictures had been glued to.
    Miss Hutchins’ intake of breath was audible from where I sat. ‘When was the last time