What Now My Love

by Jaye Watson

  * * * *

  Harry had to work the rest of the week and through the weekend. Emaline deliberately did not think about the letters from Bill. Instead she worked in the yard when the weather permitted. During the spring showers, she began getting the kitchen ready for paint, carefully numbering all the cupboard doors before stacking them against a wall in the basement. She'd hated the bland beige color for years, and now she was going to do something about it. The hinges and handles, she discovered, were chrome plated brass, heavy and strong. Perhaps she'd keep them, even though they had an old-fashioned look.

  A late April storm moved in on Saturday, keeping her indoors, and she still hadn't decided what colors she wanted for the kitchen. She puttered for a while, at loose ends but doing her best to forget the box of letters. After a solitary lunch, she gave up the battle and went into her office where she'd hidden them in a desk drawer, out of sight—but despite her efforts, not out of mind.

  Setting the three still-unread letters aside, she leafed through the picture postcards. They were unsigned, but in the same handwriting as the letters, and they had come from all over the country: Panama City, Florida, in 1936: "Wish I was walking on this beach with my best girl." Niagara Falls, in 1937: "Maybe someday we'll come here together." El Paso, again in 1937: "Nothing green here. I miss Portland. And you." Fargo, North Dakota, in 1938: "It's so cold here it hurts to breathe. Wish you were here." I wonder if he was serious, or just not thinking about what he said.

  One postmarked Los Angeles in 1939 showed a picture of a couple kissing. The message was "I'd do this to you if I could." She thought the month was July, but the card had been crumpled and that part of the postmark was blurred.

  The last two postcards were postmarked 1941. The one dated in February, was mailed in Denver: "Am not going to forget you. I got here Sat Night at 10:30 p.m. Am having a dandy time. Would have a better one if the weather was nice. It is snowing today." And the last, from Los Angeles again, was sent in mid-August: "I've been under the weather for more than a month now, and not getting any better. Sure wish you were here to nurse me. "

  Curious now, she set the postcards aside and picked up the last three letters. The first envelope had come from Columbus, Ohio, in October, 1940.

  Dear Tilly,

  You should see this. They're putting up an enormous factory here to build airplanes for the military. AeroSyph has the contract for the ventilation systems and it's a big one. I'll be stuck here through the winter, I reckon. I've got me an apartment, just like a regular stay-at-home fella. Too bad you're not here. I miss your cooking.

  I don't think there's a chance I can get there for Christmas, even though I promise to try. If I can't get there, I'll send you something nice from Ohio.

  Your best boyfriend,

  Bill

  "Good grief, what a jerk." She shoved the letter back into its envelope. Had Aunt Tilly really cared about Bill? Or was she stringing him along like he almost certainly was her? She tapped the next-to-last envelope, almost afraid to see what was inside.

  Los Angeles

  May 4 1941

  Tilly,

  I don't know who this Elise is, but you ought not to listen to her. How could she know me, anyhow? There's probably a thousand guys in LA who look like me. I've never been to the Blue Knight Club, and if I did, I wouldn't be going there with a girl. And what business is it of hers what I do? It's not like you and me are married or anything. I don't like thinking you're checking up on me. Don't you trust me?

  Bill

  "I wonder what Elise saw? And what Tilly replied to this?" She smoothed the paper against the tabletop, as if her touch would bring out more of the story.

  It didn't, and after a while Emaline sighed and reached for the last envelope. Maybe it would tell her how the story had ended.

  Los Angeles

  July 4, 1941

  Dear Tilly,

  I feel like a real jerk. Writing what I did, when all you did was ask if that was me your friend saw. And then you sent me those really good cookies. I'll tell you, they were great. I never had oatmeal cookies with coconut in them before. It made them real crunchy, just the way I like cookies. I ate them all in a couple of days. Anytime you want to send more, I'll be a happy man.

  It looks like I'll be able to get a week off in September. If I do, you can bet I'll be heading your way.

  Love,

  Bill

  So Tilly forgave him. And sent him cookies. I wonder what happened to him, if they really did make up.

  She gathered the letters and postcards together, put them in chronological order. As she was about to set them back into the box, she saw that something slightly lumpy—an envelope or a sheet of paper—was pressed tightly against the bottom.

  It fit too well to yield to her fingernail, so she carried box and all into the kitchen. The tip of a paring knife worked nicely. Once a corner was free, she pulled gently until she had another envelope in her hands, a fat envelope that crackled softly as she turned it over. Whatever was inside was more bulky than mere paper. The envelope was sealed, but had no address, no stamp. It had never been mailed.

  The glue on the flap was old, and the paring knife pried it open without tearing it. A faint astringent odor, reminiscent of pine, came to her. Inside was a smaller envelope, the source of the crackling. There was a label too, faded and tattered on its edges. She set it aside and opened the inner envelope.

  Its contents were some sort of plant material, slender gray-green sticks. The source of the smell.

  The astringent odor was vaguely familiar, and, while she had no idea where she'd smelled it before, she had a feeling that inhaling it might not be a good idea. Perhaps she'd been a biochemist too long. But people used to think mothballs were perfectly harmless, forgetting that something that would kill insects was probably not real healthy for humans. She'd learned early on that even the most innocent-seeming materials could be dangerous to inhale, handle, or ingest. Deciding to play it safe, she tucked the letters back into the box, took the mysterious envelope into the kitchen, and set the box on the floor just inside the back door. An elderly vinyl tablecloth she'd intended to toss was large enough to fold double and still cover the table adequately. Once she had it spread out, she unloaded the box.

  She set the inner envelope carefully on top of the other one and left the label lying where it was while she washed her hands with soap. Twice. And then a third time, just to be on the safe side. From her office, she retrieved vinyl gloves, safety glasses and a face mask. Old habits die hard, she thought with some amusement. Before she sat at the table, she opened the back door and turned on the overhead vent fan.

  Only then did she pick up the label, hoping it would tell her that she was worrying unnecessarily. A lot of good it did her. The label was mostly written in Chinese characters, or something very similar. A partial line of type, very tiny, was at the very bottom, where the edge was badly tattered. She went back to the office to fetch a hand lens and gooseneck lamp with a high-intensity bulb.

  ...edra sinica stems...age 1 gram...extreme...

  Using the lens, she worked her way up the label. Near the top, just under some large ideographs, were two words in type. Ma huang. And underneath them, 500 mg.

  "Good grief!" Five hundred milligrams was more than a half a pound. "Enough to choke a horse, Grandad would have said." She hefted the envelope. It couldn't weigh more than a hundred grams. So where was the rest?

  What had Aunt Tilly done with it? Or had she used the box without realizing something was stuck in the bottom of it?

  Emaline had a dim memory of reading something about ma huang, but it was elusive. Time for research.

  An hour later, she'd learned way more about ma huang—the Chinese name for Ephedra sinica—than she really needed to know. It was a cardiac stimulant, a vasoconstrictor, and illegal. But until 2004, it had been freely available in the US. And while she was not longer worried about handling the dried stems, she certainly had no intention of munch
ing on one.

  The label was old, possibly eighty years old. Aunt Tilly had sent Bill a box of cookies. Crunchy oatmeal cookies. A little over a month later she'd received his last postcard, saying he'd been under the weather.

  Oatmeal cookies weren't usually crunchy, even with coconut in them.

  She picked up one of the tiny sticks and bent it. It broke with a small snap. Would it soften when mixed with shortening and egg? When baked?

  One egg, a couple of tablespoons of cooking oil, and enough flour to make a stiff dough. Add some sugar, because it could affect the permeability of the stems' epidermis. The pieces of stem were too long, so she used a hammer to break them into small fragments, coconut-shred sized. Added them to the rather greasy-looking dough. Not sure what size Aunt Tilly's cookies had been, she used a teaspoon, a tablespoon, and a quarter-cup measure to divide the dough. I'll have to sterilize everything carefully. Don't want any of this stuff contaminating my food.

  Was what she was thinking possible? Could her aunt, the sweet, sad old lady she remembered from her youth, have poisoned the man who broke her heart?

  No. Not even a remote possibility. But she had to prove it was impossible.

  The baking cookies had released a nasty smell, sort of a cross between pine and pitch. Once they were out of the oven, Emaline closed the kitchen off from the rest of the house, opened windows and the back door, and went to bed.

  Tomorrow she'd call Harry, invite him to dinner. And let him convince her she was crazy.

  The next morning she examined the cookies. They were...prickly. The ephedra fragments hadn't softened substantially. "Aunt Tilly must have crushed them." She broke one with a sharp snap. The interior looked crunchy, all right, but she wasn't about to sample it.

  She sniffed. The acrid odor that had filled her kitchen while they baked was all but gone. Perhaps if she'd added vanilla or raisins...

  * * * *

  "What do you want me to do?" Harry's tone was on the belligerent side, as it had been all too often lately.

  Emaline finished stacking the dirty dishes, but she didn't pick them up. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe offer to check some records? Express interest, because before you were a covert operative, you were a pretty good homicide cop? Or just stop trying to pick a fight with me." She turned away, fighting tears.

  Not of heartbreak. Angry tears.

  "Oh, hell, Em, I'm sorry." His chair scraped across the hardwood floor.

  "No, you're not. You're mad. At me, at your job, at the world. And I know it's not your fault, but it's still...difficult. I always feel as if I'm walking on thin ice. Or something."

  His arms came around her, hard, strong arms. She felt his breath stir her hair.

  "No thinner than mine. I damn near took a jab at Armbruster this morning. Just because he suggested I think about taking some leave."

  "Could you?"

  "Yeah. I've got maybe a month accumulated. When Matt comes home, I'd planned some time off, but after that." His shrug tightened his arms around her waist. "Speaking of Matt..."

  "You're changing the subject."

  "Yeah, well, it's on purpose. You said he and his girl—her name is Gretchen—could stay here. Is the offer still open?"

  She was about to say yes when a thought occurred to her. "On one condition."

  He released her and stepped back. "What?"

  "Oh, don't sound so suspicious," she said as she turned to face him. "I'd like you to see if you can find out anything about Bill. Who he was, what happened to him after August 1941. You've got the resources to do that, don't you?"

  His frown was more disapproving than angry. "Yes, but it's not an active case. I'd be using Bureau resources for personal—"

  "It's a possible homicide, isn't it?"

  "Well, yes, but not in Portland and not in this century."

  "Well, at least can you check Social Security records? Surely knowing Bill's employer and where he was, you can find his last name. If he was still alive in, say, 1943..." She thought about fluttering her eyelashes, but decided to shrug instead.

  "Anything could have happened between 1941 and 1943. There was a war on, you know."

  "Stop trying to complicate the issue. Will you see if you can find Bill?"

  "Will you stop badgering me if I do?"

  "I promise. And I'll even buy a new mattress for the guest room. The one that's in there is about a hundred years old."

  When he raised a questioning eyebrow, she said, "Well, twenty-something, at least. I bought it when I came home from college. It really needs to be replaced."

  "I'll pay for—"

  "You will not. Now sit down while I get dessert." Picking up the stacked, used dishes, she headed for the kitchen. Once there, she leaned against the counter and closed her eyes in relief. She'd gotten him to agree to help her without making him flare up like he had so often since his return.

  Emaline firmly believed the best thing for Harry was to get away from work for a while, to get away from murder and mayhem and the sleazy side of his job. But she knew it was going to be a gradual thing. The fact that he was willing to consider taking time off when his son was here was a major step.

  If he managed to discover anything about the mysterious Bill, she'd ask him to go to Los Angeles with her. She really didn't care about Aunt Tilly's guilt or innocence, not after so long, but searching for the man she might have murdered would be like a busman's holiday for Harry. And any holiday was better than none at all.

  "You're sure this Bill's surname isn't in any of his letters?"

  Emaline set the lemon meringue pie on the table. "It's not there. I went through the letters twice. But we do know where he worked. AeroSyph, Inc."

  "Never heard of them."

  "Neither had I. So I did a search. AeroSyph was integrated into ThermCold Industries in 1952. ThermCold is one of the biggest HVAC companies in the US. I doubt we'll find anything there. But Social Security...?"

  "I'll see what I can do. Now, can we talk about something else?"

  "Of course." She cut the pie and gave him an extra-large slice. "I saw that Portland Center Stage is putting on Three Penny Opera. Have you ever seen it?"

  "I don't think so. Is that the one with 'Mack the Knife'?"

  "It is. I'd love to see it again."

  And so they spent the rest of the evening discussing musical theatre. It was the most pleasant time they'd had since he came home.

  * * * *

  Detective Armbruster called her three days later. "Emaline, I wanted to give you a heads up, but don't worry. Harry's fine."

  She sat down so suddenly her teeth clacked. "What happened? Is he ill?"

  "No, but he's been put on administrative leave. He...ah...got in a fight."

  "Harry? In a fight? With whom?"

  "It doesn't matter. Another cop. Listen, he's in a holding cell right now because he won't calm down. I wondered—"

  "I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Will they release him to me?"

  "I think so. I'll work on it."

  Fortunately a car was just pulling out of a parking space as she rounded the corner onto Fourth Avenue. Emaline used her debit card in the parking machine and hopped from foot to foot as it digested information and printed the receipt. Once it was stuck to her car's window, she sprinted to the Justice Center, where she had to wait for Detective Armbruster to come get her. Again she shifted from foot to foot, and by the time he arrived she was ready to scream, curse, or otherwise demonstrate her impatience.

  She had to wait in a reception area, adding still more strain to her already barely held patience. Finally Armbruster returned with Harry, whose shirt was torn, left hand bandaged, and eye turning interesting shades of purple.

  "Harry, if you're smart, you'll go home with Dr. Banister. The doc wanted to keep you here, but I told him you'd be fine with her. Don't make a liar out of me."

  Harry jerked his shoulder free of Armbruster's light clasp. "Go to hell."

  Before Armbruster could speak, or H
arry dig himself in deeper, Emaline took hold of his arm. "Let's go. I only paid for thirty minutes' parking." A lie, but told in a good cause. As she more or less dragged Harry from the reception area, she looked back over her shoulder and mouthed "Thanks."

  To her surprise, he went with her docilely. Once they were on their way to her place, she said, "The mattress came yesterday. So you can stay in the guest room instead of on that lumpy futon in Grandad's office."

  "I want to go home."

  "Sorry. You can't. It's my place or jail."

  "Bullshit. I'm not charged with—"

  "Harry, Richard Armbruster stuck his neck out for you. I agreed to be responsible for you. Seems to me you owe us both. Now shut up and let me drive."

  They were just pulling off Burnside when he said, "Bill's last name was Fenwick. He died on September 2, 1941. Heart attack."

  She swerved, almost ran up over the curb. "Don't say another word. Let me get us home safely."

  After that he withdrew into himself. Once she had him inside, she said, "Are you hungry?"

  "No."

  "You are a mess, though. Why don't you take a shower?"

  "No clean clothes."

  "Oh, right." She didn't want to suggest they go to his apartment to get clean clothing because once there he was likely to insist on staying. Then she remembered what she'd found in one of the boxes from the attic. "I've got something you can wear. It might be a little big, but it's clean. Be right back."

  The heavy tan coveralls had still borne a price tag when she pulled them from the box in the attic, but she'd washed them anyway, to get rid of the musty smell. They surely dated from her grandfather's youth, for their price had been $5. "Here, these should fit you."

  He took them without comment, and followed her to the master bath. Once she'd laid out towels, soap and shampoo, she left him alone. After a while, she heard water running.

  When he came downstairs, barefoot and carrying his soiled clothing, she had tomato soup hot and cheese sandwiches ready to grill. Silently he sat at the table and waited.