Louise's Dilemma (9 page)

Dellaphine had already simmered a pound of fresh pork in salt water until it was tender. After it cooled she shredded it finely, then put it back in the pot of pork stock. When it began to bubble she slowly added cornmeal to it, stirring it constantly. After the mixture thickened she seasoned it with pepper and sage. Then she poured the mixture into a greased baking dish and put it in the icebox to set. Right before dinner she’d cut the mixture into half-inch slices and brown them in bacon fat. She’d already mashed potatoes and added margarine to a pot of green beans. The dishes rested on the hob. When she put the scrapple in the icebox I saw a cherry Jell-O mold spotted with fruit cocktail, our dessert. When I’d first come to ‘Two Trees’ dessert was always pie or cake, but no more.

Scrapple and Jell-O, Henry would not be happy!

We boarders were fortunate to get the meals we did – breakfast during the week, dinner Monday through Thursday, and Sunday lunch. Most boarding houses in Washington didn’t offer any meals at all. Much of the DC workforce had to fend for themselves in the crowded cafes and cafeterias of the city. Boarders were packed three to a room, sometimes even sleeping in shifts, three people living out of one dresser and one closet! A dozen people might share one bathroom.

Henry, Joe, Ada and I knew how lucky we were, so we helped out as much as we could. Ada and I made our own beds with sheets fresh from Dellaphine’s iron and helped in the kitchen. In the summer I’d tended a Victory Garden and a flock of chickens. Henry and Joe chopped wood for the sitting room fire and took care of Phoebe’s car.

Ada and I each had our own room on the second floor down the hall from Phoebe’s. The three of us shared a big bathroom with two sinks. We lived in fear that someone from the Washington Housing Authority would show up to inspect the house and insist that Phoebe take in two more girls!

‘Baby,’ Dellaphine said to Madeleine, ‘you set the table yet?’

‘I’ll do it now,’ Madeleine said, shrugging.

‘You should ’a done it already.’

I waited for Madeleine to explode, but for once she bit her lip. She did chores grudgingly, as if to put distance between herself and the domestic job she might have had to settle for before the war. Like me, she was saving for college or her own apartment.

‘I’ve done the table already,’ Ada said, coming into the kitchen, dressed in turquoise silk, her platinum hair tucked into a matching snood and her new mink thrown over her shoulder.

‘Where are you going?’ I asked.

‘I’m playing at a tea dance this afternoon,’ Ada said, sitting down at the table with us, the mink thrown over the back of a kitchen chair. Madeleine reached over and stroked the thick fur softly.

‘The Willard’s power must be back on,’ I said.

‘It is, and it’s not going to be as cold tonight, the radio says. The hotel’s sending a cab for me. I’ll leave right after dinner.’

‘As soon as Miss Phoebe gets home we’ll fry up the scrapple and eat,’ Dellaphine said.

I was carrying dirty dishes into the kitchen when the telephone rang. I heard Henry pick up the receiver.

‘Louise! It’s for you!’ he called.

Madeleine took the plates from me, and I wiped my hands on a dishtowel as I went into the hall, where our only telephone sat on a table near the foot of the staircase. The telephone was ancient, but a repairman down the street kept reviving it. Which was good, since to buy a new telephone Phoebe would need to file an application with the government.

‘Hello,’ I said into the speaker. Williams spoke to me from the other end of the line. The one-way conversation went on for several minutes. ‘Of course,’ I answered him.

I poked my head into the sitting room, where Henry, Joe and Phoebe had gathered around the fire for coffee. Ada had already left.

‘I’d like to know how she got that mink,’ Henry said, referring to Ada. ‘She couldn’t afford it herself, could she?’

Phoebe ignored him, shuffling through the
Washington Post
for the funny papers.

‘One of her boyfriends gave it to her, probably,’ Henry said. ‘Phoebe, you should talk to her; her behavior reflects on you, you know.’

‘Ada’s personal life is none of our concern,’ Joe said, in a tone of voice that sent Henry back to the editorials, muttering. Phoebe didn’t raise her eyes from the cartoons.

I tapped gently on the doorframe to get their attention. ‘I’m going to have to spend the rest of the day and the night out,’ I said. ‘Maybe two nights. That was the house doctor from the Mayflower Hotel. My friend Joan is ill, and they need someone to stay the night with her.’

‘Is it serious?’ Phoebe asked, passing a cup of steaming coffee to Joe.

‘The doctor thinks she’ll be fine, it’s just a little fever, but he wants to make sure she’s not alone.’

‘Do you want me to drive you there?’ Joe asked. ‘It’s still so cold.’

‘No, it’s not necessary, it’s not far. I can catch a taxi or walk if I need to. I’m going upstairs to change and pack an overnight bag before I leave.’

I waited on the corner of ‘K’ and ‘21st’, just four blocks from the Mayflower Hotel, but that wasn’t where I was headed. I made a mental note to call Joan as soon as possible so she’d be ready to verify my alibi if necessary.

‘We’ll freeze,’ were the first words I said to Agent Williams after he picked me up, this time in a different car, a maroon Ford Coupe with Maryland plates.

‘No, we won’t,’ he said, tossing my overnight bag into the back seat next to a pile of khaki clothing. ‘I’ve brought cold weather gear for both of us. The Army designed it for the Aleutians, so we’ll be warm enough. And I’ve got a thermos of coffee and some sandwiches. Ever been on a stakeout before?’

‘No,’ I said, trying to sound calm and self-confident. ‘But, of course, we learned stakeout strategy at the Farm.’

A stakeout! How thrilling! I would have to be more than just a little cold to miss that experience. I told myself I was padding my personnel file, so as to seem more valuable to OSS, but really I was just plain excited.

Williams pulled out into sparse afternoon traffic and headed east toward the Maryland shore.

‘I’ve reserved two rooms at a guesthouse in St Leonard for a couple of days. Tell me, when you were here with Collins, in the café, did you mention being with any specific government agency?’

‘Yes, the Office of Price Administration.’

‘Good. That works. Our cover is, I’ve replaced Collins. You’re my assistant. That should give us plenty of excuse for snooping.’

‘But what about the Martins? Will they buy that? Collins and I both questioned them about the postcard.’

‘I know,’ Williams said. ‘We aren’t planning to make contact with the Martins, just watch them for a couple of days. I doubt they mentioned the postcard to anyone else. You know how people around here feel about foreigners. Leroy and Anne wouldn’t want their neighbors to know they’re getting mysterious postcards from occupied France.’

The day was fading into dusk when we pulled into a guesthouse parking lot just off St Leonard Road. It was a rambling, shingled old farmhouse with a barn out back. A middle-aged woman with hair the color of fog answered the doorbell. She wore a man’s rubber boots, over heavy trousers, and a thick cable knit sweater. Her cheeks were bright red from the cold. An English springer spaniel followed on her heels, ears flopping with each step.

‘I was outside in the shed feeding the milk cow,’ she said. ‘It’s lucky I heard the doorbell.’

‘We have reservations for two rooms for two nights,’ Williams said. ‘I’m Mr Williams, and this is my assistant, Mrs Pearlie. We’re from the Office of Price Administration.’

‘I’m Lenore Sullivan,’ she said. ‘Welcome to St Leonard.’

Mrs Sullivan sat down at a desk in the hall and drew a ledger from a stack of papers. The dog lay at her feet, her eyes fixed on us, protecting her mistress.

‘Here,’ she said, opening the ledger, ‘sign here. You’ve got rooms one-oh-one and one-oh-two, just upstairs. You’re the only guests. And I don’t do meals in the winter, just the summer season. I’m sorry, the only place you can get dinner tonight would be at the fountain at the Esso station. But tomorrow Bertie’s Café will be open all day.’ She handed us our keys.

‘Thank you,’ Williams said. ‘But we didn’t expect to find a place open on Sunday. We brought sandwiches. And we’ll be working late tonight.’

Mrs Sullivan looked at us quizzically, wondering, I expected, what on earth a couple of Washington bureaucrats would be working on at night in the tiny town of St Leonard, but Williams didn’t offer any explanation. The fewer lies we told the better.

Half an hour later we were back in the car headed to our stakeout. For once Williams had abandoned his FBI agent uniform of suit and fedora and was wearing heavy trousers, boots and a duffel coat. I’d dressed in wool trousers, my wool coat and my rubber snow boots with two pairs of socks. I still shivered with cold until the car heater warmed up.

We drove with the car headlights on low until we got to the dirt track to the Martins, then without them entirely. The moon was waxing, so we weren’t completely blind, despite the ubiquitous clouds and patches of fog that floated through the trees. Williams left the track and maneuvered into the trees, parking in the tiny clearing we’d found earlier near the head of the Martins’ inlet. Between thick branches I saw lights on in the Martins’ cottage.

The pile of khaki clothing in the back seat of Williams’ car turned out to be padded Army Mountain and Ski Parkas with fur trimmed hoods and cuffs. The one Williams handed me was large enough for me to wear over my sweater. It hung down to my knees. My torch fit neatly into one of the deep pockets. Williams fished out the thermos of coffee and sandwiches he’d brought. The coffee was lukewarm and the sandwiches were cream cheese and pickle, not my favorite, but I was hungry and thirsty enough not to care.

‘What are we looking for?’ I asked.

Williams didn’t answer me and didn’t look as though he intended to. I repressed my annoyance. Expressing it wouldn’t get me anywhere.

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I’m sure you’d rather be doing this on your own. But I’m your liaison with the OSS, and we brought the FBI into this, whether you like it or not. Do I need to report to my superiors that you didn’t keep me informed?’

Williams opened the car door and dumped the rest of his coffee on the ground. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘We had our agent in Baltimore telephone the local constable here. Asked him what he knew about Martin. It appears the guy can be rough, and he has some tough friends too. He’s been seen driving at night where he has no business being.’

‘The constable hasn’t questioned him?’

Williams shrugged. ‘The man is seventy-some years old. His predecessor was drafted, and he was the only guy available to take the job. Our man got the idea he’s afraid of Martin.’

I was afraid of Martin too. He was big, strong and he had a temper.

‘Did the sheriff say anything about his wife?’ I wondered if she was afraid of Martin, too.

‘Not much,’ he said. ‘I wondered what his hold on her was; she seems classier than him. The sheriff said they don’t socialize much. She cooks meals for shut-ins and keeps the local library open part-time. He drinks at the bar with his friends a couple evenings a week, but doesn’t get drunk. Oh, and he’s a hunter. Bags deer every season.’

That explained the guns in his closet.

‘I’m hoping that tonight, or maybe tomorrow night, he’ll go out on one of his night drives so we can follow him and figure out what he might be up to. That’s about all the time the Bureau is willing to give me.’

‘So how do you think all this figures into the postcard the Martins got from France?’

‘Not one bit, Mrs Pearlie. If you want to know my opinion, what I’m going to report to the Bureau, the postcard is just a coincidence. Whatever Martin is up to, it has nothing to do with France or Nantes or whatever.’

I didn’t respond. I didn’t agree with him, but I could say that when I filed my own report. If Martin was doing something illegal on his nightly forays around the western shore, it could be just a coincidence. The postcard could still be meaningful.

Heavy clouds drifted over the moon, and darkness settled all around us. Almost simultaneously the Martins’ door opened, and Leroy Martin came outside so bundled up that I could hardly see his face. He strode to his truck, climbed into the cab, and started up the engine. Pulling out into the dirt track, his wheels skidded on oyster shells and he changed gears. Williams used the noise to cover the sound of cranking up our car’s engine.

‘There’s a map in my bag in the back,’ Williams said, his eyes not wavering from Martin’s truck as it headed for St Leonard Road. ‘Mark where we’re going, don’t use the torch unless it’s necessary. And keep a look out – I’m going to drive without headlights if I can manage it.’

I simmered with anger – did he think I couldn’t read a map? But as usual I kept my mouth shut.

Williams waited until he saw Martin turn north onto St Leonard Road, then followed him.

It wasn’t easy to keep Martin’s truck in sight since he drove without headlights too. As he knew the roads better than us, only the moonlight that occasionally broke through the clouds allowed us to keep up with him. I wrapped a scarf around my torch to diffuse the beam and followed Martin’s progress on the map.

We headed north for several miles, then turned west on a dirt road.

‘I think this is a driveway or a farm road,’ I said. ‘It’s not marked on the map.’

Sure enough I saw Martin stop ahead at a building. We pulled into a layby sheltered by trees and cut off our engine.

‘Come on,’ Williams said, opening his door. ‘Let’s get as close as we can.’

Which wasn’t close. Maybe 100 yards away from the building was a copse of loblolly pines that sheltered us from view. Williams pulled binoculars out of his jacket pocket and raised them to his eyes. ‘God damn it,’ he said, ‘my night vision is awful. Can you see anything?’ He passed the binoculars to me.

I pushed my glasses onto the top of my head and adjusted the focus. ‘I see Martin,’ I said. ‘And there’s another man with him. He must have come out of the building – it looks like a tobacco barn. The door is ajar, there’s light inside.’