“I don’t know,” she said, and the frustration that colored her voice sounded like my own. “But I think . . . I think he’s trying to figure out what happened too. Just like you. And I’m afraid he’s going to get in trouble for it.”
You’d say anything to protect your family, wouldn’t you? The Morrissey gang, closing ranks. Couldn’t all of this be some elaborate story meant to cover up an uglier truth?
And yet . . . the young woman before me, worry-lined features deceptively fragile in the flickering lamplight, seemed completely sincere in her belief that her father wasn’t a murderer, just another detective.
So which story was true?
“I believe you,” I said, trying to inject my voice with reassurance, and the way she breathed out in relief almost pricked my conscience, “but I need you to promise something: No one, especially not your father, can know who I am.”
A puzzled frown flickered on her face. “I don’t understand.”
Now that I was found out, my only hope rested right here, in this speech. “If word gets out that I’m Jack’s sister, they’ll send me home. And I have to know, Sarah Ruth. I have to know what happened.”
Without realizing she was doing it, Sarah Ruth glanced over toward the phone, the one that ran right to Morrissey’s office. “I’m not sure I can promise that.”
Ugh. Another rule follower. She and Gordon would be perfect for each other.
That’s it.
“Gordon Hooper knows the truth,” I said. “We’ve met before, and he’s helping me. That’s why he asked if I could come here tonight.”
And just like that, her stance softened. “Well, if Gordon thinks it’s all right . . .”
Bingo. Thank goodness some woman still had a soft spot for ol’ Hooper.
“I just need another week, Sarah Ruth. That’s all.” After that, answers or no, Fort Lawton would expect me back. I held out my hand, put on my best pleading look. “Promise me? From one sister to another.”
And after a moment of consideration in the flickering dark of the lookout, she shook it.
CHAPTER 25
Gordon Hooper
January 24, 1945
I lifted my axe and split the log in two, letting some of my stress burn away in the repetitive motion. “Are we sure Jack meant to draw a parachute?”
“What else could it be? The skirt of a silk ball gown?”
“Maybe Jack saw something and only thought it was silk from a distance. A tent or a discarded tarp. Because if that’s to scale”—I pointed toward the crude drawing she’d copied in her notebook—“it’s far too large to be a chute.”
Dorie drilled me with a skeptical look, picking up the split logs and stacking them onto the pile, her breath coming in white puffs from the exertion, and hair all askew. “Gordon, he drew the pine trees as triangles with lines poking out of them. I don’t think technical accuracy was first on his mind.”
It was a fair point. Jack could do arithmetic in his head in seconds and spin a yarn around the campfire, but he was no artist. I set a new log on the chopping block. “Why would someone abandon a parachute? Each one costs over one hundred dollars.”
“Maybe they had to hide before they were seen.”
“And leave behind a giant white sign that says, ‘I was here’?” I sighed and heaved the axe down again, letting two rangers pass on the way to an assignment. They barely gave Dorie more than a nod, used to her presence now, and she waved at them.
“Okay, so pretend it was a parachute.” Even saying it hypothetically felt ridiculous. “Who’s parachuting into an Oregon forest during wartime? And why would the army show up the next day to investigate it?”
“A spy.” She jutted her chin out, as if she knew her words were absurd. “Maybe that’s who you saw in the fire.”
“Dorie, even if the rest of your suspicions are right, why would Morrissey try to cover for a spy? His son died serving in the army. The American one,” I added before she could raise any theories to the contrary. “You don’t get a Gold Star flag for your window and then harbor a Japanese spy.”
“It isn’t in their window.”
The absent-minded comment caught me off guard. “What?”
“The Gold Star. They don’t display one, not anywhere that I could find.”
I tossed my hat down and swiped the sheen of sweat off my forehead, setting the axe aside for a moment. She was right, wasn’t she? “Trust me on this: Not everyone likes talking about their deceased family members.”
Wouldn’t I know that better than most?
“All right, well . . . maybe there’s a twist.” She tapped her pencil against her temple. “Like in a Christie novel. Maybe the question isn’t ‘Who parachuted into the woods?’ but ‘What was parachuted into the woods?’ Something that an American contact like Morrissey could pick up and transport for Axis powers.”
I wasn’t buying it yet, but at least it was the first theory that made a lick of sense. “Such as . . .”
“Sabotage equipment, maybe.” Dorie’s dark curls—more disheveled than the perfect pinned-up style she’d worn when she first arrived—bounced as she shook her head. “I don’t know exactly.”
“What would they sabotage? This isn’t a Boeing factory or a munitions plant. Even our smokejumping planes come from an airfield hours away. The most advanced technology we own here is a crosscut saw.”
Every answer led only to more questions, like a ball of tangled-up yarn with ends poking out in every direction. There was no good way to unknot it all.
Finally I asked what had been bothering me ever since Dorie had told me about Sarah Ruth’s story. “Listen, are you sure Mr. Morrissey is guilty of anything? According to Sarah Ruth, he was only—”
“Oh please,” Dorie said, blowing out a frustrated breath. “Don’t go and let a pretty pair of eyes muddle your mind.”
“I’m not—” Was there a point to defending myself? Dorie’s smug smile told me she’d never believe me. Whatever you do, don’t blush. “All I’m saying is, what evidence do we have against him?”
Dorie flared out her gloved fingers, touching them one by one. “The Japanese symbol in his pocket. The way he keeps dodging anyone’s questions. The army jeeps investigating the night of the fire that he didn’t tell anyone about. Secret photographs he took of the scene. And now this drawing of a parachute that Sarah Ruth flat-out admitted Jack reported to Morrissey the day before the fire.” She faced me with hands on her hips. “We could get a pair of handcuffs custom engraved with his name for all that.”
All circumstantial. “Sarah Ruth said her father didn’t know about the fire.”
“Wouldn’t you say that too, if you knew someone was after your father?”
That, at least, I knew the answer to with certainty. “No, actually. I’d help the police take him away.” Which was a kinder fate than he’d deserved.
But also a kinder fate than he’d gotten.
Dorie ducked her head, suddenly subdued. “I-I’m sorry. I forgot your father . . . passed on.”
The subject of my family had come up that Thanksgiving so long ago, though I’d given her the stock answer with none of the details. There are some things you just don’t tell a girl you admire the first time you meet her. Although, since trading my home in New York for a fresh start at university in Philadelphia, I hadn’t told anyone how my father had died. Some secrets were better off buried. “Don’t be. I don’t miss him anymore.”
Had I ever, really?
I covered my response with the crack of a blow to the next log, unsure she’d heard me.
Sarah Ruth would have noticed and pressed me, narrowing those hazel eyes of hers that took in every detail. But Dorie just began to pace again. “Mark my words, Gordon: Before he died, Jack saw something, knew something, about what Morrissey was up to. And Morrissey made sure to silence him. What else could explain all this?”
I tried to square all of that with the stern, honorable man I thought I’d known. “But he was
accounted for the day of the fire. You have no proof. Just suspicions.”
“Which is why we need to find some. And I know where.” Dorie’s eyes darted to the left and right; then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a ring of keys . . . the same one I’d seen before on Sarah Ruth’s desk.
I fumbled my grip on the axe, hitting the chopping block instead. “You pickpocketed Sarah Ruth at the lookout?”
Her eyes rolled heavenward. “Don’t be silly. I’m staying in her bedroom. They were on her bureau.”
She dangled the keys high, letting them glint in the cold morning light. “Oh five hundred hours tomorrow, Gordon. I’ll be at the ranger station, and you’re welcome to join me.”
An hour before the rising bell rang. Objections swirled through my mind. I drew a breath and tried to pick the most persuasive one in an attempt to dampen that adventurous gleam lighting her eyes. “But—”
She raised a finger, cutting me off. “Just think about it, Gordon.” And with that, she strolled away. “I could sure use a lookout.”
CHAPTER 26
Dorie Armitage
January 25, 1945
I gripped my flashlight tightly in the darkness, just to remember that I could have light with a flick of my fingers if I needed it. Lit only by the halo glow provided by the lone light pole embedded past the ranger station, the timber-framed outbuildings threw long shadows, with corners perfect for a hundred lurking gangsters.
Even worse was the forest beyond, no longer Currier-and-Ives charming but full of strange rustling sounds and . . . was that a growl?
No. Those were just stories the COs told to scare you. According to Shorty, smokejumpers were black bears’ favorite prey—“on account of we taste just like a roast that’s been hanging in a smokehouse”—but they’d settle for anyone they could pounce on.
Calm down, Dorie, I scolded myself, gripping the ranger station railing tighter and remembering my fright over Sarah Ruth’s hot water bottle.
I’d taken shelter on the ranger station’s south porch, where twin statues of Lewis and Clark held up the gabled roof, their stern cedar faces declaring that the wilds of Oregon were only for the bold.
There. A flicker of movement caught my eye, someone headed down the path from the bunkhouse. Well, well, well. I convinced Gordon after all.
But wait. I didn’t recognize the thick brown coat, and the walk was all wrong, bobbing to a jauntier rhythm than Gordon’s proper posture. The closer the figure got, the more sure I was. . . .
Lloyd Abernathy. That’s right. Hadn’t Gordon said he went for an early morning walk most days?
Slowly—quick motions could be seen more easily out of the corner of the eye—I eased over a step until I was directly behind the statue of William Clark, letting the pioneer shield me from view. I held my breath and angled myself so I could watch Lloyd, his shadow long as he passed by the lamppost.
This time, though, seeing no jeeps to catch his attention, he didn’t amble closer to the ranger station, just kept going over the frosty grass and into the woods.
I let out a breath of relief. It was an effective reminder that this wasn’t some caper, like sneaking into the USO dance or pulling a prank on Sergeant Bloom. Jack had died. Morrissey was hiding something. And if he caught me breaking into the ranger station, who knew what he was capable of?
A few minutes more, with no one else emerging from the darkness, I faced facts. Gordon’s not coming.
I hadn’t really expected him to. I’m sure, in his mind, the chessboard battle of ethics had been making moves all during my last speech, and I was no grand champion. But something in me was forced to admit: It was nice having an accomplice. Even if mine happened to be an old fuddy-duddy out of one of the films they’d shown us in high school about good manners.
No way forward but alone. With my rucksack set on the ground, I dug in my pocket for Sarah Ruth’s keys until the statue of Meriwether Lewis whispered, “Are we going to get this over with?”
I almost dropped the keys, then jammed on the button and leveled the flashlight beam at Gordon Hooper, who stepped out from behind the statue, squinting in the sudden brightness.
“How in the world did you sneak up on me?” I snapped, trying to get my heart to slow down from the sudden sneak attack.
“I’ve been here for an hour. Couldn’t sleep.” That seemed plausible enough, given his dark-circled eyes and tense, stubbled jaw.
“So you’re with me, then?” I turned off the flashlight, hoping no one had seen the light. “Or are you here to perform a citizen’s arrest?”
He shook his head. “Do you . . . do you really think we’ll find out what happened to Jack?”
“I’m confident of it.”
“You’re confident about everything.”
That wasn’t strictly true, but it was close enough that I didn’t argue.
Sarah Ruth’s keys weren’t labeled, so I jammed the two largest in the lock. Neither fit. “I hope I don’t have to pick this.” I’d tucked several sizes of hairpins into the cavernous recesses of my hurried bun just in case, but it would take longer than I liked to force the lock open.
“You have practice at that?”
I ignored him and attempted the third key. Click. My heart sped up like an engine turning over. “Stay here, somewhere discreet, and if you see someone coming, knock on the door. Hard.”
He nodded. “And then hightail it out of here?”
“Of course not.” Didn’t he have any idea how a heist worked? “Stay and distract whoever it is. Talk to them.”
“You mean lie?”
And this was why I regretted asking Gordon along. I put on my patient schoolteacher voice. “Do you have questions for Morrissey?”
“Sure. Lots of them.”
“Then just ask them. And stall long enough so I can climb out a window.” I eased the ranger station door open and pocketed the keys. “And yes, I’ve had practice at that too.”
With my hand pressed against the log frame for balance, I yanked off my shoes and fished my slippers out of the army haversack. “Keep this for me, will you?”
He slung the haversack over his shoulder. “Your footwear’s a little casual if you need to flee, isn’t it?”
“Better than leaving muddy footprints inside.” I could tell from his expression that he hadn’t thought of that, which made me feel, if not a full-out criminal mastermind, at least pleased with my cleverness.
For a moment, surrounded by the total darkness of the ranger station, I breathed in deeply—the smell of dead leaves, firewood, and pine. Time to get to work.
I flicked on the flashlight—revealing a pair of eyes only a few feet from my face.
My beam jerked wildly, but my scream caught in my throat when I realized that underneath the eyes wasn’t a nose but a beak.
Breathe, Dorie. Just one of the stuffed birds, that was all. I shivered, moving the light away from the blank stare and onto the floor, trying not to catch the gleam off of another feathered carcass stationed near the entryway.
Thank goodness for the rigid Forest Service schedule. We had a full fifty minutes until Morrissey rang the rising bell, calling the other COs to troop out of the bunkhouse for morning exercises. Still, that was no excuse for dawdling.
All of the spy novels talked about disturbing as little as possible during a covert search. My slippered feet glided silently across the wood floors, and I pressed the next key into the office door gently, so as not to leave a gouge.
It eased open with a slight squeak of hinges, and I stepped inside. The desk and chair behind it had seen decades of use, but they glowed with a fine polish. Stale cigar smoke lingered in the air, though I didn’t remember ever seeing Morrissey light up. A private smoker, then, and possibly under more stress than usual.
To the east, the window—I’d checked for a screen when planning an escape route—let in a faint blueish light, but for a moment, I thought about turning on the brass banker’s lamp on the desk to aid my se
arch. Quickly, I ruled against it. Don’t get cocky, Dorie.
My flashlight lit up a calendar on top of the large walnut desk, with appointments written in a feminine hand. Sarah Ruth’s work. Nothing to see among the papers in the top drawer, unless I wanted to read up on current logging information or the regional spread of different termite species. Honestly, who knew being a district ranger involved so much paperwork? I’d always pictured them galloping on horses, stopping now and again to hack a fallen tree off a path or to bathe in a waterfall.
Each time I searched a new location, I had to memorize the placement and angle of even the smallest pen nib inside before riffling through, then return the items. When I looked at the clock above the door, I’d already wasted ten minutes, with nothing to show from it.
Where would you hide something you didn’t want anyone to find?
No. That didn’t matter. Where would Morrissey?
I tried to picture him standing here, cigar clenched in his mouth, blinds drawn, like a private eye in a noir movie, poring over secret documents. Then he hears a sound from outside. Startled, he looks up, and . . .
My eyes went to the file cabinet tucked unassumingly next to the small bookshelf in the corner.
No need to imagine. That’s what he’d done when I barged in on him on Sunday. Hadn’t he tucked something away in the bottom drawer?
I crouched on the floor, setting the flashlight down, and examined the label on the cabinet: Ponderosa Pine Conservation and Regrowth Patterns.
Perfect. The most innocuous, dead-boring name in all history, a place you could be sure no one would accidentally stumble into.
The drawer pulled open soundlessly, and I held my breath. This could be it. The truth, finally at my fingertips.
I thumbed through the files gently, keeping them in order and in place, and finding . . .
Maps of Oregon marked with pinpricks of data. Memorandum on sustainable logging numbers per acre. Even one scintillating folder labeled The Life Cycle and Effects of the Western Pine Beetle.
The Lines Between Us Page 21