Hargrove unplugged the projector. “It’s never too late to make a proper plan,” he said with satisfaction.
“Like Preston Swedge?” Joe asked with a faint smile.
Hargrove wound the wire from the laptop to the projector around his hand. Grimacing, he asked, “What is it you’re asking?”
Joe studied Hargrove’s face. The counselor had a strange habit of scrunching his face. Joe couldn’t decide if Hargrove was constipated or hadn’t been laid in years. “Preston began donating money to the Westfield temple in 1960 around the time of the Jewish high holidays. I’m curious to know why.”
Closing the laptop, Hargrove collected his notes. “I was a neophyte in practice when Mr. Swedge walked into my office. I was glad for the work. He paid my fee. I didn’t ask his motivation.”
Joe placed the five-iron under his arm. “Anyone who has lived forty years in town knows Preston’s reputation. It never crossed your mind that his yearly donation ran opposite to his history?”
Hargrove shifted uneasily from foot to foot, fiddling with his pocket watch. “No. Why don’t you ask Barry?”
Martinson caught the tail end of the discussion. “What should I be asked?” He moved around the table to stand next to Joe.
“Why did Preston Swedge make a yearly donation to the temple?” Joe wasn’t smiling.
Martinson ran his hands over Joe’s shoulders then down the sleeves. “The funds were deposited into the rabbi’s discretionary fund. It was between Bernie Balaban and Mr. Swedge. Nothing stays a secret for ever, something to do with Adolf Eichmann and the Holocaust. I didn’t push it. It isn’t everyday that a gentile becomes a major benefactor of a Jewish organization.”
Hargrove strapped his paraphernalia to a small luggage cart. “Thanks for the opportunity Barry. Mr. Henderson, if you would like a consultation for your estate needs, please call.” He handed Joe his business card.
Martinson scrutinized Joe’s sport jacket. “I could swear I sold this jacket to a very sexy lady married to a very wealthy gentleman.”
Joe wanted to smack himself in the head with the five-iron for wearing Alenia’s gift. “I bought this at one of the discount places on the highway. Cost me a hundred bucks.”
“It’s an eight hundred dollar item,” Martinson said. “You’re a lucky guy.”
“In more ways than one,” Joe said. His cell phone chimed.
“Jozef!” Alenia screeched. “Someone tried to break in!”
“Your house?”
“No! Your house. A big man was looking in from door to the deck,” she said with terror in her voice. “The dog scared him off.”
“Did you call the police?”
“You’re the police. Come soon.”
Chapter 26
PRINCETON, NJ OCTOBER 2000
JOE POUNDED PRESTON’S FAKE SECURITY COMPANY monitoring sign into the grass at the base of the front steps. He knew it was meaningless— only a perp on crack with an I.Q. of 35 would fall for it.
Alenia’s description of the would-be intruder matched Ed Stovall’s snooper around the Swedge place on three points—tall, hulking, and gray hair, but didn’t move like an old man. Alenia threw in one tidbit: his eyes. There was something “bad” about them, the way he looked at her gave her the “kureeps.” Joe pointed out that she was lucky, considering a “bad” man was looking at a very well-endowed naked lady in search of her brassiere.
Joe had no doubt the guy was casing the house and the combination of Alenia’s screaming and Roxy’s barking drove him off. There had been a rash of break-ins around town with three in the area just the last week. He wondered what asshole would want to boost a cop’s house, then again, nothing would be a surprise.
Joe slid behind the wheel of the Volvo and tossed directions downloaded from the Web on the passenger seat. The widow of Clark Johnson sounded guarded when Joe asked if she had a few minutes time, that he was an author researching material for a book on the isolationist movement prior to America’s entry into World War Two. He had known Preston Swedge for twenty years and they also shared a mutual friend—James Miller. The mention of Miller’s name was the secret word. “Two o’clock will be fine,” Gloria said. “I hope you like chocolate chip cookies. I made a fresh batch this morning.”
Joe looked at every Japanese white compact car as he wound his way through the center of town and south toward U.S. Highway 1—young women with kids in car seats, grandmas, and a priest, but no gray haired old “bad” man.
He tried to imagine what the highway looked like from the rear seat of Herbert Swedge’s Packard. The entire Route 1 corridor was now condominiums, strip malls and large industrial parks, not the cornfields, vegetable and dairy farms of 1938 that made New Jersey the “Garden State.”
Bumper to bumper traffic lengthened the forty minute trip to an hour and a half. He was running fifteen minutes behind schedule. Joe followed the signs for Princeton, taking the exit onto Harrison Street. Two lanes widened to four. A granite pointed bridge offered panoramic views of the Millstone River where the Princeton University sculling team had four boats practicing. He chuckled at the thought of his father who took him to Princeton basketball games hoping his son would take the academic path and break the family tradition of the N.Y.P.D. When Joe’s S.A.T. scores squeaked above the bowling average of the older Henderson, talk of becoming a Princeton Tiger ceased.
Joe checked the directions—right on Nassau Street, three blocks, left on Cedar. He clicked the turn signal, breaking for a red light at the Nassau intersection. The main drag through the borough was packed with traffic heading from the shopping district. Joe lit a cigarette, second guessing his choice of using an author for his cover story. Bluffing wasn’t his strong suit. His paltry poker winnings at the weekly game he attended before being shot were proof.
The light cycled twice before the clog cleared. Joe maneuvered around a box truck jutting into the lane. A yellow cab turned left onto Cedar Lane, stopping to discharge its fare. A middle age man with a large black hat and black suit got out. Adjusting his yarmulke, he walked with a slouch toward the main entrance of the Jewish Center of Princeton. Joe chuckled to himself—he’d have to ask Gloria Johnson if the building was built before or after her anti-Semitic husband died.
225 Cedar Lane was a stately, white brick, Georgian colonial. Plants of every description provided an ever changing pallet of fall color against a lawn manicured to perfection. Joe parked in the vacant driveway, taking a curved path of crimson pavers to a fieldstone landing.
Tapping a heavy brass knocker mounted on the front door painted the same color as the walk’s pavers produced no immediate response. Slowly, the door opened revealing a lady no taller than Ruth Ritchie dressed in a tight fitting white turtleneck sweater and a pair of black designer jeans. Joe thought of the cheerleader who met Clark Johnson the night Orson Wells scared the bejesus out of the American public with his War of the Worlds radio broadcast. All she was lacking was a pair of pompoms. Her face bore deep creases from sixty years of worshipping the sun. Cornflower-blue eyes and gray flecked blonde hair cut in a pageboy completed the package. “Mrs. Johnson, I’m sorry I’m late.”
“Don’t be silly,” Gloria Johnson said in a smoky voice. “Mr. Henderson, come in.”
Joe leaned heavily on the five-iron crossing the threshold. Driving around Westfield made his leg ache. Ninety minutes of stop and go traffic caused severe calf pain and loss of feeling in his foot. “Are you okay?” Gloria asked.
“Old war injury,” Joe said, taking in the décor. Hand printed wallpaper featuring falling leaves lined the entranceway. Birds of Paradise were arranged in a Kosta Boda glass vase on an heirloom mission red oak console table. An ensemble of family pictures was clustered around the departed Clark. He stole a look at picture of a young boy, five or six, sitting on Clark’s lap. There was no question Clark was the father.
“I hope you don’t mind the kitchen,” Gloria said, leading the way. The aroma of brewed coffee wafted down the ha
llway.
Joe peaked into the formal dining room. Antiques were not his forte, but he recognized money when he saw it. The house was furnished with a taste he hadn’t seen except for when he couldn’t sleep, passing the early morning hours watching the decorating channels on the cable.
Giant mums in a large crystal vase were on the kitchen’s center island. Sea island green granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, and rosewood raised panel cabinets highlighted the updated kitchen. Joe did the math—it was a hundred grand renovation if it cost a nickel. The woman had been a widow for forty years. He wondered where the money flowed from.
“Can I get you some coffee?” Gloria asked, retrieving two large hand-painted mugs, each with the scene of the sun setting on Maui. “It’s fresh.”
“Perfect,” Joe replied, tempted to ask for extra cream and a dose or two of Vicodin. His leg was hurting worse than it had in months. Joe took a seat at an antique country table.
Gloria placed a mug and a tray of the promised chocolate chip cookies and a pitcher of cream before Joe. “Mr. Henderson,” she said. “sugar is in the bowl.”
“All my friends call me Joe, Mrs. Johnson,” he said, pouring a shot of cream into his coffee.
“Mrs. Johnson was my mother in law. I’m Gloria.” she said, removing a sterling monogrammed silver cigarette case from her handbag on the counter. “I’m glad to hear Reverend Miller is on the mend.” She lit a cigarette with a matching silver lighter.
“I saw him two days ago, he looks good for what he’s gone through.” Joe retrieved a Marlboro from the inside pocket of his sport jacket.
Gloria took a seat at the table. “I lost contact with Preston after Millie died.”
“I understand she was a wonderful person,” Joe said, taking a sip of coffee. “He spoke highly of you and told me more than once how much he missed you.”
Gloria didn’t comment on Joe’s fabrication. She looked Joe squarely in the eye, taking a long drag on the cigarette. “Joe, I’m not familiar with your work.”
Not losing her glare, he responded, “I freelance for a handful of magazines. Maybe you saw the piece I did in American Warrior last month.”
“Sounds like Tolstoy,” Gloria jibed. “Tell me the premise of your book.”
“America was deeply divided before World War Two. One camp was itching to join the fray, the other to stay out.”
“Those against going to war were no less patriotic, even though that’s how they were portrayed,” Gloria said, moving a cut-crystal ashtray to the middle of the table.
“Precisely,” Joe said. “Once Pearl Harbor occurred, the United States was in the war and the former isolationists were in the army doing their duty.”
“And dying,” Gloria interjected.
“My book looks at the lives of the men and women who fought to keep the country out of the war then became heroes.” Joe watched Gloria soften. “I spent many hours with Preston talking history. He was a brilliant. I learned much from the man who was there.”
Gloria broke a cookie in half, taking a nibble. “For so many years, people like Charles Lindbergh were dragged through the mud for his stance prior to Pearl Harbor. What Roosevelt did to him was despicable. Not making him a general was so wrong.”
Joe’s cell phone chimed the Three Stooges theme song. “Excuse me,” he said, reading Dan Fredericks’ number on the caller I.D. “Danny, how are you?”
“Are you getting laid?” Fredericks cracked.
“Something like that. What do you have for me?”
“Alice combed the files, not finding any vehicular fatalities concerning a child during the year 1951 or 1952. Likewise, there’s no death certificate for a Rebecca Swedge.” Fredericks paused, “Don’t bother me again with shit about Preston Swedge.”
“Thanks. The book is coming along fine. I’ll talk to you soon,” Joe said, ending the call. “Sorry. My agent likes to make nice. Where were we?”
Gloria exhaled a curl of smoke from the corner of her mouth. “I was talking about how Charles Lindbergh was mistreated by Franklin Roosevelt.”
Joe removed a three by five reporter’s spiral notebook from his jacket and began flipping through the pages. The scrawl was notes taken in his Rutgers’s class. “Preston told me your husband was one heck of a fighter pilot.”
“Clark was one plane short of being an Ace,” she took a final drag on the cigarette, stabbing it out in the ashtray. “Would you like to see his war memorabilia?”
Joe picked a cookie off the tray. “That’s exactly what I’m looking for.”
“Come.” She took her coffee mug.
Joe tagged behind, crossing into the formal dining room. A hand carved walnut table for twelve, polished to a mirror finish, reflected his face. Gloria stood with one hand on a closed pocket door. “I left the den the way it was when Clark passed.” She slid the door open.
The den was a museum. Framed photographs lined the walls chronicling Clark’s air force career from flight school to bases in the Mediterranean and his career at Ford Motor. Joe had to be careful not to hit his head on model airplanes suspended by piano wire from the ceiling. He spun the propeller on a P-51 Mustang fighter.
“I lowered the planes so I could dust them. You don’t find many wooden models anymore,” she said proudly, sitting at a roll-top desk.
Joe scrutinized the picture gallery: Clark standing beside his P-51; Clark holding a bandolier of machine gun bullets; Clark standing bare-chested with a .45 automatic stuck in the waistband of his pants. “Clark looks like he was in fighting shape,” Joe said, pointing to the toned Princeton grad that had to have lost forty pounds. The face in the 1942 Princeton University yearbook belonged to a softie, a momma’s boy. Clark looked like he could have given a good fight.
Gloria laughed. “Believe me, Mr. America didn’t last long after he came home.”
Joe moved down the line. Clark was standing next to a staff car bearing the insignia of a two star general. In the background, a Quonset hut with “325th Fighter Group” painted above the door. “The 325th flew escort on some tough missions,” Joe said, writing the group number in his notebook. “How long was he stationed in Italy?”
Gloria looked at the model planes. “From the middle of 1943 to the end of the war. He came back to the States in October 1945.”
“You wouldn’t by chance have his flight log book?” Joe asked. “Most pilots brought their’s home.”
Reaching into the bottom drawer of the desk, Gloria retrieved a rectangular brown cloth covered book. She handed the artifact to Joe. “Take your time. I’ve got all afternoon.” Joe watched Gloria recede down the hall, not certain where to rank the widow on his “callous scale.” He sat at the desk. Lt. Clark Johnson 325th Fighter Group was printed on the cover in tight grammar school cursive. Joe skimmed through the beige pages glimpsing into the daily life of a twenty-four year old kid playing in a game of machine gun dodge ball at fifteen thousand feet. 11-3-43 A Messerschmitt Bf 109 shot down while escorting a B-17 mission to Berlin. 3-23-44 Focke Wulf 190 downed over Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia supporting partisan operation. 5-08-44 Messerschmitt confirmed twenty miles west of Budapest, Hungary. Joe turned to 8-20-44. The notation— routine escort mission to Manowitz, Poland.
Gloria returned. “Do you have a sense of the man?” she asked in a detached way.
“Brave guy.” Joe handed her the logbook. “Did Clark ever talk about his missions? My father had nightmares till the day he died.” Joe’s father never made it out of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. His destroyer failed its seaworthy tests.
“Never,” Gloria said, putting the book back into the desk drawer. “Clark said he did what he had to do and would have done it again no questions asked.”
“My Vietnam experience wasn’t so patriotic,” Joe said, fishing in his shirt pocket for the Rothstein photo. “Did Clark ever talk about this pilot?” He held the photo at arms length.
“Who is he?” she asked.
“Turn it over.”
&nb
sp; Gloria flipped the photo over, reading the transcription without a flinch. “Clark never mentioned him. Was Paul Rothstein a fighter pilot?”
Joe shook his head. “He was a bomber pilot stationed in Italy.”
“Different bases. Fighters and bombers never mixed.” Gloria handed the photo back. She checked her watch. “I stupidly forgot that I have a dentist appointment. I’ve got to get going.”
“So do I,” Joe said, recognizing a get the hell out of my house, you lying bastard. “Maybe you can help me out with this.” He handed her Rebecca’s picture.
“Who is…she?” Gloria stammered.
“The Swedge’s adopted daughter. Do you know where she lives?”
“You lied to me! You’re not a writer, Detective Henderson,” Gloria spat. “I should have done a web search when you called.”
“Retired detective.” Joe bowed. “I just might write a book when I figure out what happened to Paul Rothstein.”
Gloria pointed to the door, “You have thirty seconds to get out of my house before I call the police.”
Joe picked up the five-iron. “One last question, was the Jewish Center built before or after Clark’s death?”
“It was completed a year after,” she said.
“Beautiful,” Joe said. “I’ll find my way out.
Chapter 27
PRINCETON, NJ OCTOBER 2000
SITTING IN THE VOLVO, Joe was glad that Gloria Johnson didn’t have a gun. He’d seen that look on women who had shot their husbands. Preston’s diary entries cast little light on Clark Johnson’s widow other than she had been a cutie. There was zero doubt in his mind that Gloria knew what happened to Paul Rothstein and Preston’s adopted daughter.
Keeping with his theme of repairing fences, Joe found his way back to Nassau Street, joining the crush of traffic to Princeton’s central district— his destination, The Princeton Gazette where his friend Manny Eisen was publisher and editor. Eisen suffered severe neck injuries the day Joe nearly lost his leg. The two hadn’t talked but once after being released from their hospital room. Dr. Headcase’s explanation of Joe’s avoidance of anyone connected to the incident was consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder. Joe held another opinion— he was just being an ass.
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