Winter in June (29 page)

“Do you think Dotty could've found out you were pregnant?”

“Irene and Ruth were the only ones who knew, and neither of them had any reason to tell him.”

But what about Kay? Did she regret what she'd done enough to want to punish Irene? After all, it might secure her and Dotty's future if Irene were gone once and for all.

“I know what you're thinking,” she said. “But believe me when I say that what I did,
I
did, not Irene. She was my best friend. She was like a sister to me. I never blamed her for being the one he chose. I love Dotty. I always will. But I already tried to force him to love me once. I'm not stupid enough to try to do it again.”

I hoped she was right.

 

I recounted my conversation with Kay to Jayne over a light lunch in the barracks. She and I spent a rainy afternoon playing checkers and trying to figure out our next move.

“Poor, Kay,” said Jayne. “Dotty and she certainly seem cozy now though.”

“If it lasts. She seems to believe she's always going to be a substitute for Irene in his eyes.”

I felt like something had shocked me.

“You okay?” asked Jayne.

“Where's the copy of
Screen Idol
I had at the infirmary?”

Jayne fished it out, and I rapidly flipped through the pages until I landed on the picture of Joan Wright, MGM's “next big thing.” The one the writer had callously described as a “young Gilda DeVane.”

A girl who looked a lot like the photo I'd seen of Irene stared back at me from the page.

“Any idea where Kay is?” I asked Jayne.

“Probably with Dotty. Why?”

I didn't answer her. I grabbed my rain gear, and with Jayne fast on my heels, headed outside. We fought the mud and the downpour and made our way to Dotty's tent. Kay wasn't there. He was alone.

“This is a nice surprise,” he said as we entered. “Next time you might want to wait until the rain dies down first.”

“Thanks for the advice,” I said. “But this couldn't wait.” I thrust the magazine at him. “Turn to page twenty-nine.”

He alternated his gaze between the slick and me. “What's on page twenty-nine?”

“Just look at it.” He licked his fingers and opened the magazine. “Is that Irene?” I asked.

He nodded slowly. “I guess that's where they got the picture from.”

“Who got the what?” asked Jayne. She squeezed the water from her hair and peered over his shoulder.

“Stars & Stripes
. The latest issue arrived this morning.” He fished a newspaper out from a pile on his desk and passed it to Jayne. On the first page was Gilda's obituary, accompanied by the photo Dotty had taken of her standing by the ersatz sink. He gestured for Jayne to turn the page, and she did so until she saw the photo of Joan. Beside it was a brief article.

“I can't believe it took them two weeks to figure out they were the same person,” said Dotty. “I guess that's Hollywood for you. They probably didn't even care she was dead until she failed to show up for a rehearsal.”

“Why'd they make her change her name?” asked Jayne.

“She said they thought it was too similar to Irene Dunn.” He looked at the picture in
Screen Idol
again. “I had no idea they thought she was going to be such a big deal. She always downplayed it, like she was just doing bit parts here and there.”

I took the paper from Jayne and reread the article. Irene wasn't just some random actress with a studio contract: she was being marketed as Gilda's replacement just weeks after Gilda had been fired by MGM, the same studio Violet had been employed by before starting to tour. What had Violet said the first day we met her? That someone at the studio used to call her Baby Gilda?

What if Violet was the one behind all of it? She could've planned on killing them both from the get-go. If Gilda and the woman intended to replace her were dead, the studio might be willing to give Violet another chance, especially after she returned from the very same tour Gilda had died on. All those speeches she made about how much Gilda was missed—it all had to be a calculated attempt to drum up good press for when she went home.

“Rosie?” said Jayne. “What's it all mean?

“I'm not sure yet,” I said. “But I'm going to find out.

After dinner that night, we joined the boys at the swimming hole for a farewell evening of booze and conversation. While the others tried to distract one another from what was going to occur the next day, I watched Violet like a hawk.

There was a problem with my theory. Although Violet was the most logical suspect, she had a rock solid alibi for the night Gilda and Jayne were shot. There was no way she could've been the one to fire the gun. Could her plan have been more subtle than that? Was Kay right that Violet killed Gilda by discouraging her from taking the Atabrine? Malaria seemed like an awfully undependable weapon, but perhaps Violet knew something I didn't. She could've done something to guarantee that Gilda got sick. Of course, if that were the case, how to explain the gunshots? Coincidence?

Spanky sat with Violet glued to one side, Mac to the other. Every time he got up to get a beer or take a leak, I could see the fear in her face that he might never come back. I caught Kay watching her, too, and I could see her anger starting to melt away.

“Did you hear they're going to change the name of Tokyo harbor?” quipped one of the fellows. “They're thinking of calling it Bombay. Get it?”

The comedian was rewarded with more laughter than the joke deserved. Someone pulled out a harmonica and played the tune to “Anchors Aweigh.” Mouths moved to the words, but no one seemed willing to give voice to lyrics that described shipping out the next day.

I leaned back on my elbows and stared up at the cliffs high above the island. A flicker of movement caught my eye. There was a light bouncing around the entrance to one of the caves.

My breath caught in my throat. I almost screamed that there were Japanese hiding up there, but something stopped me. I'd seen the light up there before, and nothing bad had followed. Whoever—or whatever—was there, didn't appear to intend any harm.

What if—?

“Got room for two more?” Billy and Peaches approached the swimming hole. Jayne jumped up at the sound of Billy's voice and leaped onto him, wrapping her legs around his waist. He laughed at the overt affection and spun her around as if she was a child.

Peaches came to my side and offered me his hand. “Good evening, Miss Winter,” he said.

“Good evening.”

“My companion insisted we crash the party tonight. I hope you don't mind.”

I let him pull me to my feet. “Of course not, though you guys really have to come up with a way of forewarning us when you're coming here.”

Rain started to fall and the party began to break up. The men bound for New Georgia had a busy day tomorrow. There would be another round of vaccinations, a check of supplies, and one last chance to write home before they found themselves in the thick of battle.

“Want to go for a walk?” asked Peaches.

Violet, Spanky, and Mac were heading off on their own, and Jayne and Billy had already disappeared. I wasn't sure what be
came of Kay, though it was likely she was off with Dotty, relishing the idea that he was safe from whatever may come to pass. “As long as I'm back by curfew,” I said. “I'm on Captain Lambert's list as it is.”

He took my hand again, and we followed the trail down to the beach.

“You seem preoccupied,” he said.

“I guess I am.” I struggled to find something to say to him. “Do you know when you ship out yet?”

“Word is the day after tomorrow, though I wouldn't be surprised if we're delayed.”

“You must be excited.”

His face crinkled. “Not exactly the word I'd use. Anxious maybe. We got a little too comfortable here, but it's always hard going into the unknown. I got used to being on land. And, of course, I've also grown to appreciate other amenities.” He leaned down to kiss me. I didn't pull away, but I didn't exactly respond either. “Don't be sad, Rosie. I'll be fine.”

“I'm not sad.”

“Then what is it?”

I didn't have to tell him. It was probably better if I didn't. But we started our relationship with a lie, and it didn't seem fair to introduce a new one when things were going so well. “I found out Jack didn't go into the water that night.”

He abruptly straightened. “Found out? From who?”

“The guy who made up the story. Jack got away on foot, and his friends decided to cover for him. They found a body in the water half eaten by sharks and claimed it was his.”

His hand tightened around mine. “So where is he?”

“I'm not sure.”

“Did the guy say he was still alive?”

“He didn't know. No one's heard from him since that night.” I lowered my voice. “He could be in the caves, Peaches. If everyone believed he was dead, they wouldn't have searched them.”

He matched my lower volume. “Not that night, sure, but what
about the night Gilda was killed? They tore this island apart looking for Japs.”

He was right. If Jack were still on Tulagi, they would've found him then. Unless the men assigned to search the caves were among those who'd fought to save Jack to begin with.

Peaches squeezed my hand. “Look, I know you want to believe this is true, but you've got to be realistic here. He was injured that night. For him to have survived, he would've needed food, antibiotics, clean water. And not just a little bit but enough to sustain him over two months.”

He was right. It was one thing to buy into the fantasy that he'd survived that night, quite another to believe that he could last living in the jungle. Perfectly healthy men were felled by jungle rot, beriberi, and a score of other infections. A man with two bullet wounds didn't stand a chance.

And yet he'd made it through the hardest part by surviving that night. Was it too much to hope for more?

“I need to be sure,” I told Peaches. “I couldn't live with myself otherwise.”

 

Peaches sat in silence in the sand, trying to assemble what to say to me. He had every right to walk away right then and leave me to deal with this on my own, but that wasn't his nature. “Let me talk to some people. Don't do anything until I've had time to think this through. All right?”

I agreed that I would wait to act on my hunch. We spent a few chaste minutes in each other's company before Peaches announced that it was time to get me back to the barracks. He didn't want me to be late for my curfew. As we walked there my mind was full of questions. If men in Jack's unit had made up the story about what happened to him to protect him, why hadn't Peaches been privy to that tale? And why had he transferred units when he returned to the South Pacific?

“Who's Charlie Harrington?” I asked.

“What?” Around us the rain began to form pockmarks in the sand.

“The fellow who wrote me when Jack went MIA: Corporal Charlie Harrington.”

“I told you: he's the fellow Jack confided in, who the CO claimed committed suicide.”

“But corporal isn't a navy rank.”

Peaches didn't say anything for a while. I hoped he was as puzzled as I was, but I suspected something else was afoot. “Charlie was a marine.”

It couldn't have been more obvious that he was lying if he crossed his fingers and stuck them behind his back.

“Why are you fibbing?” I said. “No one's heard of him, including the guys in Jack's crew. Why is that?”

Peaches stared up at the sky. “Because he didn't exist.”

 

The first letter I received from the imaginary Corporal Harrington had managed to bypass the censor. The second landed on the censor's desk and was taken to the higher-ups once they realized it contained Jack's name.

“We tried to hunt out who had written it,” said Peaches. “Eventually we figured out it was one of the men writing on Jack's behalf, filtering news back home just in case his family had been told he was AWOL. The incorrect rank was supposed to be a clue.” Pity Jack didn't realize I knew military ranks about as well as I knew German. “They let the second letter go through after censoring it heavily, but then I was told to make sure there was no further contact. By that point, your letter had arrived with the suggested code, and I couldn't stand the idea that you would just suddenly stop receiving letters from Charlie without any explanation. So I wrote to you and told you Charlie had died.”

“But why come to see me? I don't understand.” And why tell me that Charlie had been murdered? By doing so, he had to know that he'd ignite my desire to find out the truth.

“I felt like you deserved to know what happened to Jack. I wanted you to hear it from someone who was there.”

There was more to the story. I could tell, and I think he knew I
could tell. If he'd been put to the task of cutting off Jack's contact with people back in the States, if he'd transferred ships, it had to be because he'd somehow been responsible for what happened to Jack to begin with. At some point he questioned what he'd done and decided he needed to set things right. He hadn't just come to New York to tell me what had happened to Jack. He'd made a pilgrimage there seeking forgiveness.

 

There was no kiss good-night. I think Peaches knew I was starting to understand his culpability in all of this and didn't want to run the risk of increasing the distance sprouting between us. He walked away and had almost disappeared into the darkness when he stopped and turned back to me.

“I want you to know something. I might've told some lies, but I care about you. That's always been true.”

I didn't respond.

When I entered the barracks, the other girls were already there, preparing themselves for bedtime. I started to do the same when Amelia's voice rang out. “Attention! I want everyone at the end of their cots. Immediately.”

We obliged and stood in bare feet while she walked the line in front of us. Raindrops marched across the roof of the Quonset hut. Fortunately, unlike our prior residence, it didn't appear to have any leaks.

“It seems the alcohol I confiscated from Miss Lancaster has gone missing. Does anyone wish to own up to where it might be?”

My eyes immediately went to Violet. Her own peepers were red, no doubt still emotional from her farewell with Spanky. If she'd taken back her booze, there was no evidence of it.

“Very well. If no one is going to confess to the crime, I shall search your footlockers.” As we stood at attention, she walked the line and opened each trunk. Violet's was clean. So was Kay's. “Ahem.” Captain Lambert stood beside Jayne's trunk. On top of her mess of clothing was a single jar.

“That's not mine,” said Jayne.

“You're right,” said Captain Lambert. “That's why it's called stealing.” She slammed the trunk shut and marched the distance to mine. “Tada!” she said as she lifted the lid. “And here is the remaining contraband.”

Violet's other two jars lay end to end on my clothes. One of them had leaked, recently enough that the liquid was still in a puddle.

“I didn't put that there,” I said.

“Then who did? Fairies?”

“This isn't fair. Somebody framed us. We're innocent until proven guilty.”

Captain Lambert clucked her tongue. “Perhaps that's how it works in the states, Miss Winter, but not in my camp. You and Miss Hamilton are to report to the latrine, where you will be scrubbing the floor until it meets my standards of cleanliness.”

“Is this about Late Nate?” I said.

“On second thought, you will also be scrubbing the toilets.” She reached back into my trunk and pulled out my toothbrush. “And you will use this to do the scrubbing. Is there anything else you'd like to say? I'd be happy to give you more work.”

I kept my lip zipped. Jayne and I grabbed our rain gear and headed toward the latrine.

“Unbelievable,” I said. “He's the one who steps out, and we're the ones who get punished.”

“How long is she going to make us stay out here?” asked Jayne.

“Until morning at least.” I filled a bucket with soap and water and exchanged my toothbrush for a small scrub brush. We worked slowly, neither of us willing to put any effort into the abysmal task. On the wall above us, watching with silent cartoon eyes, was a drawing of a large-nosed man. Graffiti above him told us that Kilroy had been here.

My thoughts alternated between Peaches and Violet. Neither was a particularly pleasant topic. Violet was potentially a murderer, and Peaches was…he was…

What was he? What Violet did she did for her own selfish reasons. Peaches acted as an officer of the navy following orders from
his superiors, not as a man set on destroying another man's life. He must've believed he was doing the right thing. And when he'd come to believe otherwise, he'd try to fix things.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Jayne.

“Violet.” I wasn't ready to tell Jayne about Peaches. Yet. “She's the only suspect who makes sense.”

“Rosie—”

“I know what you're going to say: How could she have fired the gun when she was backstage?”

Jayne frowned. “No, that's easy. She could've gotten Spanky to do it for her.”

I smacked myself on the forehead. How could I have been so dumb? “Of course. And that explains why Mac was in the cliffs. He followed Spanky there.”

“But why would Spanky shoot Mac?” asked Jayne.

“Maybe to throw everyone off his track.”

Jayne shook her head. “I don't buy that. He loves that dog.”

She had a point there. Plus, the dog had been shot with a revolver.

A rustling sounded outside the latrine. We crouched down so that we couldn't be seen through the window.

“What was that?” asked Jayne.

“I think someone's out there.” It was probably Gris and Lefty, moving to a better vantage to spy on us. I slowly raised my head until my eyes passed the windowsill. A figure was moving away from the WAC barracks and heading down the road. It was Candy.

I gestured for Jayne to get a slant, and she confirmed what I saw.