The Paper Detective

by E. Joan Sims

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Then he has transported it out of the office. I would have been shot for doing that.”

  “Are all the letters the same?” asked Mother.

  I scanned quickly through the file and found one that appeared slightly different from the rest. This one had no letterhead. It appeared to be a form letter requesting payment for a shipment.

  Mother and Horatio looked over my shoulder at the information in the files.

  “Maybe our ‘Bob’ is a spy. Did you consider that possibility, dear?”

  “I don’t know, Mother. Somehow I think a spy who’s after secrets concerning pots and pans and pillowcases is not one who would stalk Bert Atkins and try to kill Leonard.”

  “Perhaps you’re right, Paisley,” agreed Mother.

  “What about that love poem?” suggested Horatio. “Cherché la femme.”

  “Ronda? Why do you think she would want to kill Leonard? I only used one line out of the poem in the book. I can’t see why that would set anyone off on a murderous rage.”

  “Ask your young policeman friend, Andy Joiner. Most deadly crimes are crimes of passion,” he countered.

  “How would I go about finding Ronda?”

  “Ask Leonard, dear.”

  “Very funny, Mother. Really, Horatio, how in the blue-eyed world would I find this mysterious woman?”

  “Well, let’s go with obvious. You said Cassandra bought this computer in a pawn shop in Morgantown. See if the pawn broker will part with the name of the gentleman who left the laptop.”

  “Or lady,” I suggested.

  “Or lady. It could even be our delightful Ronda. You have a description of her, don’t forget.”

  “I do?”

  “The poem.”

  “Oh, you’re right, Horatio! Let me pull it up on the screen.”

  Mother looked over my shoulder again.

  “Oh my, Bob is no secretary. He makes too many errors. Unless that’s meant to be ‘Ta Ronda With Love’.”

  “No, I’m sure it’s supposed to be ‘To Ronda’.”

  “It’s rather poisonous isn’t it?” she said.

  “I thought so when I read it the first time,” I agreed. “I certainly wouldn’t want this on a valentine.”

  “‘Blood red lips and heart as black as coal.’ And look, Paisley dear, he says her hair is dark with a ‘tortured forest of curls.’”

  “‘And eyes that ‘are burned dead black with passion’s thunder.’ Talk about your mixed metaphors. But, Horatio, you were right. We have a description. The lady has curly dark hair and black eyes. Now where is she?”

  “Perhaps you should start looking in the Quartermaster’s office at Fort Morgan.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  I mulled over the problem of finding “Ronda” for at least two hours after I went to bed. When I finally dozed off, it was to a fitful and uneasy slumber. Several times during the night I disturbed Aggie with my tossing and turning. She snarled and attacked my toes but refused to leave the warmth of my bed. Someday, I mumbled to myself, I’ll have to remind her that this really is my room.

  To add insult to injury, she woke me up at seven in the morning with her loud and insistent barking. I reluctantly left my cozy nest and stumbled to the library door to let her out. A chilly wind lifted the hem of my nightshirt and brought out goose bumps on my legs. I shivered and begged silently for Aggie to hurry. I knew if I called to her she would ignore me and take her time just out of spite.

  The sun was shining meekly from behind several large intimidating grey clouds. We hadn’t had snow since right before Christmas, and we were due a big one. I wondered if this would be the day for it.

  Aggie came running back inside and hopped up on my bed to eat a souvenir leaf. I looked at her for a moment trying to decide if this was the time for a showdown. She stopped chewing and stared at me, her beady little eyes intent underneath those deceptively innocent and fluffy white brows.

  “Okay, dog. You win one more round. But one of these days, pow! Right in the kisser.”

  I grabbed my clothes and headed to the bathroom for a shower. Aggie finished consuming her leaf, crawled up on my expensive down pillow, and went back to sleep.

  Mother was in a delightful mood. Her Sunday School class was going on a trip. She always looked forward to these outings with such gusto. It made me wonder if I would ever enjoy piling on a tour bus with forty elderly and possibly seriously incontinent women. I wished her “Bon Voyage,” and set off for Morgantown.

  The sun peeked in and out of the clouds as I drove. The wind was cold and raw, at times pushing hard against Watson’s square silhouette. I was glad for the cozy comfort of the big Jeep heater.

  Morgantown had been a small country town like Rowan Springs until World War II. When Fort Morgan was built, the town grew and grew. The incoming troops and their families tripled the population. The old folks complained and fussed about the necessity of building schools and roads to accommodate the newcomers, but the merchants and businessmen saw dollar signs popping up all over town for many years to come. They were right. Morgantown was still thriving. My friend Bubba owned a car dealership in town that had made him a small fortune.

  On the north side of Morgantown away from the military base there were avenues of lovely old homes. I always enjoyed driving through the quiet streets under the big oak trees that arched overhead. The houses were from another time and place when servants cleaned and washed and cooked, and all you had to do all day was sit on your veranda and sip lemonade. Of course, I thought, I would have been so bored from all that sittin’ and sippin’, I would have been putting something else in my lemonade.

  As I passed through town to the south side, the neighborhoods got seedier and the homes more rundown. You could still see some lovely little “Arts and Crafts” bungalows, but they had been chopped up into duplexes and quadriplexes. Their yards were devoid of grass and instead were littered with cans and bottles and the eternally indestructible pieces of brightly colored plastic toys.

  The streets got cleaner as I approached Fort Morgan. Soldiers dressed in work khakis were policing the grounds. The entrance was surrounded by two huge WWII tanks, one on each side of the guardhouse. Two little boys were posing on one tank while their father took photographs. A guard watched them carefully. From time to time he directed the man’s camera away from a view of the inside of the fort. It made me conscious of the fact that this really was a military installation. These were real soldiers carrying real guns with real live bullets. Maybe “Bob” was a spy, after all.

  As I approached the gate, a tall young military policeman signaled for me to stop.

  “Help you, Ma’am?”

  “The Quartermaster’s office, please,” I asked pleasantly.

  “Yes, Ma’am! And who will you be seeing, Ma’am?

  I thought for a second before I spoke, “Eh, Ronda.”

  “Check in at the visitor’s center. It’s on the right as you enter the gate, Ma’am,” he clipped briskly. “Get your badge and proceed from there, Ma’am.”

  “Thank you very much. I…”

  “Move right along, please, Ma’am,” he ordered as he saluted smartly.

  I drove quickly inside the gate and then proceeded at the proscribed speed limit of five miles an hour until I reached the visitor’s center. There were signs everywhere telling me how to drive, how to park, how long to stay, and where to go. I shuddered. I could never be in the army. I hadn’t been here five minutes, and I was chafing under the silent dictatorship of paint on metal.

  I parked Watson in the proper space and headed in the direction of another sign, one that told me where I could get my temporary pass for the day.

  Soldiers were policing the grounds on all sides of the road. Every candy wrapper and cigarette butt in sight was dutifully picked up and put in a big black plastic bag. I smiled at one of the young men, but he grimly went on about his job of collecting the debris of a messy and uncaring public wit
hout acknowledging me.

  The line inside the visitor’s center stretched all the way to the door. Actually, there were two lines. One was for relatives of men who were lived on the base, and the other was for people who had business there. I decided that I fit into the latter category and sidled over to join the company of about twenty salesmen who had come to ply their wares.

  After a few minutes I realized that the fates had smiled upon me. From listening to their conversations I was able to glean enough information to sound like I knew what I was doing even if I didn’t look like it in my jeans and barn jacket. By the time I reached the cheerless young woman in fatigues and shiny black work boots who was the clerk, I was ready. I simply parroted the phrases of the soft drink salesman who had been in front of me and got a badge which proclaimed “Day Visitor, Vendor” to one and all.

  I gratefully climbed back in Watson and warmed up the heater as fast as I could. The walk across the parking lot had chilled me to the bone. The temperature had dropped about ten degrees since I started my journey. I hugged my jacket around me and only relaxed when the interior of the car was warm and comfortable again.

  While I was waiting for the car to heat up I looked around at Fort Morgan. A playing field with grass that was still green and healthy was just to the left of the entrance. Two soccer goals were pulled off to the sides. They were freshly painted and in good repair, but the field itself looked too perfect and untouched to have been used frequently.

  Off in the distance I could see the olive green rooftops of barracks where the unmarried enlisted men lived. Between them and the visitor’s center were rows and rows of low white buildings that appeared to be offices and classrooms. In the other direction were the modest one-story duplexes for married men and their families. Spaced at intervals of about every tenth house were playgrounds. They were outfitted very sparsely with a basketball hoop and a swing set. I didn’t see any children or even very many soldiers outside. Only the men on litter detail were out and about in the cold.

  The roads that traversed the grounds were black with new asphalt. Whitewashed rocks lined the shoulders. Everything was spic and span, and reminded me of my father’s favorite parental refrain, “A place for everything and everything in it’s place.’”

  I wondered where the business of soldiering took place. If the guard at the gate wanted to prevent people from taking photographs, there must be something to see. I started up Watson’s engine and went to look for it.

  I didn’t get very far. At almost every turn in the road was a barricade that prohibited further travel. At some points there were also two military policemen with rifles who politely turned me back. In less than an hour I had turned around so many times, I was dizzy. I astutely decided that the sightseeing was over. It was time to look for Ronda.

  By now I was so confused I had to stop and ask for directions. A very polite but reserved young soldier pointed out the Quartermaster’s office after I had passed him twice in my aimless search.

  I parked in front of a cavernous warehouse that appeared to be the largest building on the base. Rows and rows of wooden palettes stretched down the length of the building. Most of them were piled high with boxes and cartons, some almost reaching the ceiling. On one side of the warehouse was a long narrow enclosure divided into separate offices by partitions. As I walked around looking for someone who could help me I realized I had come at a bad time. It was exactly twelve o’clock.

  “Damn! Everyone is probably in the wha’cha-ma-call-it having lunch,” I swore to myself, then jumped half a foot when a woman’s voice responded from somewhere behind me.

  “Mess hall,” she laughed. “It’s called a mess hall. Didn’t you ever watch M.A.S.H.?”

  I turned and saw a very attractive young African-American soldier. She was dressed in a smartly pressed khaki blouse and skirt. Her uniform gave her an air of authority, but she couldn’t have been much older than Cassie. Her smile was the first one I had seen that day. I told her so.

  “Everybody’s on pins and needles waiting for our Commander in Chief,” she explained.

  “The President?” I gasped. “He’s coming here?”

  She laughed again. “No, but he’s going to decide some time this week whether or not this base stays open. Almost everyone has put down roots here. They don’t want to move their families. And they don’t want to lose their jobs.”

  “What about you? You don’t seem to be too upset about it?” I blurted out.

  “Not me! Number one, I’m overdue for a change. Number two, I just might like another job. Number three, I definitely might like relocating. And,” she added with a wry little smile, “last but not least, khaki is too close to the color of my complexion to be flattering.”

  We chuckled for a moment, then she asked politely,

  “Can I help you with something? Captain Burke is in charge of procurement, but he’s at lunch. I’ll be glad to…”

  “I’m not really selling anything,” I interrupted. “I’m looking for someone named Ronda.”

  She looked at me a little suspiciously for a moment, then answered slowly as though she were thinking it over.

  “Ronda. We don’t have anyone here with that name. As a matter of fact, I can’t remember anyone on the base with that name. Why do you ask?”

  I had thought only briefly about what my answer would be if anyone asked me this question.

  “I have something she may be interested in,” I answered cryptically.

  The girl looked at me intently and then crooked her finger for me to follow her. We walked past several office doors, our footsteps echoing hollowly in the cavernous building, until we reached her office. Before she opened the door to let me inside, she paused for a moment with her hand on the door knob, as if making a decision. As I brushed past her to enter, I saw the lettering she was trying to cover with her body. The name stenciled in black on the glass was Lieutenant Ta’Ronda Yancey.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Right then and there I should have run like a bunny for the exit. But I was stupid. And I had led a more or less charmed life. With the possible exception of losing my husband in the jungle and escaping a revolution, I had never really known many moments of terror or anxiety. I could have saved myself a bunch of trouble if I had left well enough alone and departed company with Ta’Ronda at that very moment. Instead, I calmly sat down in the wooden chair in front of her desk and crossed my legs.

  “Looks like I’m in the right place,” I said cocking my head at her name on the closed door.

  Ta’Ronda crossed over to the long narrow window that looked out onto the parking lot. She opened the sagging grey aluminum blinds and peered out before she turned back to me.

  “Who are you?” she asked abruptly. “And who sent you?”

  When I didn’t answer right away, she plopped her slim figure down in the swivel chair behind her desk and inspected me contemptuously.

  “You don’t look smart enough to have come here on your own. Who are you working for?”

  I bristled at the intended slight.

  “Leonard Paisley,” I blurted out. “And I don’t work for him. We’re partners.”

  Her dark eyes widened with fear. The sardonic smile that had lifted the pretty curve of her cheek disappeared. In its place was a grim line that showed the pointed ends of her bicuspids. She looks like a cat, I thought, or better still, a panther. But cats have a quickness, a springy life in them that was suddenly absent in Ta’Ronda Yancey. This young woman looked defeated and frightened. Her shoulders slumped forward and her chin sagged. She looked ten years older than she had ten minutes ago. I wondered what in the world Leonard Paisley or I represented to her that had wrought such a change.

  She wiped the brow under her shaggy black curls with a trembling hand and asked in a shaky voice, “Okay, what do you want from me?”

  I didn’t know what to say. This whole thing had taken on a life of its own. I was completely at a loss. Again my silence had a cathartic effect on
her. She spat out in a somewhat stronger voice, “There’s not much left of me. Take your best shot!”

  I marveled at the anger in her young face. It was frightening. I shifted uneasily in the hard wooden chair and stifled my desire to jump up and run for my life. My curiosity was stronger than my fear.

  “Leonard wants to see you,” I finally said, taking a shot in the dark.

  “Why?” she asked in a sad little voice. “I can’t tell him any­more than he already knows. Besides, if they found out I had talked to him I’d be dead before the sun set.”

  Ta’Ronda’s anger had vanished as fast as it appeared. A small tear escaped from the corner of her right eye, slid down her cheek, and fell on the breast pocket of her khaki blouse. I stared at the little dark spot as I tried to figure out what in the hell I had stumbled onto.

  Her dark eyes opened and she saw me staring at her breast. A tremulous smile lifted her full lips.

  “Do you want me, too?” she asked hopefully. “Is that what all this is about? That’s no problem at all. You didn’t have to come here and scare me half to death. All you had to do was ask.”

  Her hope gathered momentum with my silence. She got up from her chair and walked slowly around the desk. I tried desperately to think of something to say as she moistened her lips with the point of her tongue and leaned back against the desk in front of me. She pulled back her shoulders and forced the fabric tight against her chest. The frightened and angry little girl had become a seductress.

  Sweat popped out on my face and around the corduroy collar of my jacket. Even the bottoms of my feet were perspiring in my hiking boots. What in the hell was I going to do now?

  “I should have known when I saw you what you wanted,” Ta’Ronda crooned. “You could have saved us a lot of trouble if you had just spoken up.”