Louise's Blunder

by Sarah R. Shaber

  Royal put his hands flat on the table and pushed hard to relieve the tension in his back and neck.

  ‘If Louise is in danger we’re wasting time! When were she and Leach last seen?’ he asked.

  ‘Leaving a residential hotel near Hughes’ rooming house a couple of hours ago,’ Wicker said. ‘We think the ring kept a safe room there. Louise and Leach arrived together, our man on Leach’s tail. Two of the women arrived separately earlier. And our man saw Gachev enter through a side door a minute after Leach and Louise went in the main entrance. I think this is when the group tried to recruit Louise. Later they all came out separately, except for Louise and Leach. The two of them left together, and our man said Leach was gripping Louise’s arm in an unfriendly way, you might say.’

  ‘So where did they go!’

  ‘Our man lost them. Instead of using Leach’s car the two of them went around the corner and up a couple of blocks to a taxi stand. Our man ran after them and arrived at the taxi stand just as their taxi drove off.’

  ‘License plate?’

  ‘No. And a couple of hours later Leach is murdered.’

  ‘Damn!’ Royal exploded. ‘We’ve got to do something!’

  ‘I’m afraid to hope she might still be alive.’

  ‘We need to assume she is. Do you know these girls who made friends with Louise?’

  ‘Yes, but I can’t tell you their names.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake! You and your goddamn secrecy! Look, find the girls, ask them if they can think of any place that Leach might have taken Louise. Beat it out of them with a chair if you have to!’

  ‘What about you?’ Wicker said, standing up.

  ‘I’m familiar with that taxi cab stand. I’m going to find the driver who picked up Louise and Leach. Take me back to my car; let’s go!’

  ‘How can we keep in touch?’

  ‘Do you have a radio in your car?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’ll give you the police frequency.’

  The tiny sailboat tossed violently, straining its anchor line like a leashed dog trying to chase a squirrel. I’d already tied myself to a rung of the ladder steps to keep from being thrown around the cabin. Now I heaved. My head pounded. Although I’d spent a lot of time around boats, the wood creaking, the grating sound that the anchor rope made in its socket and the cracks of lightning that lit up the square of sky that showed in the portholes terrified me. I tried to calm myself as best I could. I wouldn’t be any safer above deck, would I? I’d have to tie myself to the main mast to keep from being tossed overboard and I’d be sopping wet to boot. That was all well and good, but I was locked below deck. If the ship was damaged I’d have no chance at all of living. I’d go right down with it. Fear took total hold of me for a few minutes. I screamed wildly and I felt urine dribble down my legs. I had such a bad headache from the low barometer I thought my skull would split open.

  One of the port lights went mystifyingly dark. How I regained control of myself I don’t remember. But I untied myself and struggled over to the port light and peered out into the night.

  Clouds cleared, briefly revealing the moon, and in its light I saw the enormous anvil shape of the storm, lightning threading through it, looming over me.

  This was a damn big storm. It could spawn a waterspout.

  I made my way to the head, but not before being thrown up against the stove, so hard it left my left arm almost numb. Inside the head I relieved myself, heaving into the tiny sink at the same time. I felt safer inside the head than out in the cabin, so there I stayed as I took mental inventory of the tiny cabin. For the life of me I could not imagine any possible way I could escape.

  Thunder boomed almost directly overhead, or so it seemed, and I could feel the ship shudder, trying desperately to pull free from its anchor, almost bucking. I opened the door to the head in time to see a glimpse through a port light of a wave rearing up and pouring over the boat, which tilted sharply before righting itself.

  I wished I hadn’t stopped going to church. I wondered if it would count against me. After all, I’d gone to the Baptist church three days a week until moving to Washington, more than even the Catholics in Wilmington. For some reason the Navy hymn came to mind and I began to hum it to myself as loudly as I could. Its staid melody calmed me and helped me to feel hopeful. If God listened to the prayers of ‘those in peril on the sea’, surely I qualified!

  Major Wicker pulled up in front of Rose and Sadie’s apartment house.

  ‘What is this?’ he said to his driver, looking out the window at the raging storm outside. ‘The end of days?’

  Hail pummeled the sidewalk. When Wicker exited his car the wind almost knocked him down. He held on tight to his hat as he ran for the apartment house, icy ping-pong ball sized hail falling from the sky.

  ‘God damn,’ Wicker said to himself, once inside the lobby. ‘This is all we need.’

  He removed his hat and raincoat and headed to the elevator.

  ‘So,’ he said to the Army private who guarded Rose’s door. ‘How are they doing?’

  ‘All I can hear is crying,’ the constable said. ‘And that WAAC girl trying to calm them down.’

  ‘That WAAC’s name is Private Godfrey,’ Wicker said.

  Inside on the sofa Rose and Sadie weren’t crying anymore, but they were scrunched together on the sofa holding on to each other for dear life. The WAAC sat nearby, but stood to attention when Major Wicker came in the door.

  ‘At ease,’ Wicker said to Private Godfrey.

  ‘Have you found Louise?’ Rose asked. ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘What is going to happen to us?’ Sadie asked. ‘We are so sorry! We just didn’t think!’

  ‘We don’t have time for that now.’ He remained standing, a psychological ploy to make the women feel his authority and understand that time was short. ‘We have not found Mrs Pearlie. She could be in terrible danger. We need your help.’

  ‘Anything,’ Rose said. ‘We’ll do anything!’

  ‘When was the last time you saw Mrs Pearlie?’ Wicker asked.

  ‘When she left the safe room with Clark,’ Rose said. ‘After she refused to join our ring.’

  ‘Under what circumstances?’ Wicker asked.

  The two women turned and looked at each other. Wicker saw from their eyes that agreement passed between them.

  ‘Gachev gave Clark twelve hours to convince Louise to join us,’ Rose said.

  ‘It hasn’t been twelve hours!’ Sadie said. ‘So Louise must still be alive!’

  Wicker didn’t mince words. ‘Clark Leach is dead. Murdered by Gachev in the middle of a café a couple of hours ago. Shot right between the eyes. Louise wasn’t with them.’

  Sadie made a wounded noise in her throat, then burst into tears. Rose shook her hard.

  ‘Stop that!’ Rose said. ‘We both need to think straight!’

  Sadie just cried harder, until she was almost shrieking. Wicker ordered Private Godfrey to take her into the bedroom and shut the door.

  ‘Listen to me,’ Wicker said to Rose, who was dry-eyed but trembling. ‘Has Leach ever mentioned some place, other than his apartment, that he has access to, where he might have taken Louise while he dickered with Gachev? Someplace she couldn’t escape from?’

  ‘No,’ Rose said. ‘No. Nothing like that!’

  ‘Think,’ Wicker said. ‘I’m not being dramatic when I say that Louise’s life is at stake.’

  Rose bit her lip and twisted her hands. Then a spark lit up her eyes. ‘Clark told us about a little sailboat he could borrow that belonged to a friend. He said we could picnic there this summer. Sunbathe and listen to the radio.’

  ‘Where?’ Wicker said.

  ‘It’s moored on the Virginia side of the Potomac,’ she said. ‘South of the railroad bridge.’

  God, Wicker thought. In this storm!

  At first I thought I was dreaming. It seemed to me that the storm was abating. The rocking of the boat was less violent. Several times the lin
e to the anchor slacked. Maybe the storm had passed through and I wasn’t going to drown after all. I should have sung the Navy hymn to myself much earlier in this ordeal and included all the verses. Thunder still cracked and lightning flashed, but the thunder wasn’t as loud and the lightning bolts struck further to the south. Perhaps I wasn’t going to drown after all. I glanced at my watch. It was two o’clock in the morning, six hours since Clark had imprisoned me here, another six to go until he returned – if he returned. I was not counting on it.

  I pushed my way out of the head and peered out one of the port lights. I hadn’t been dreaming. It was still storming but the worst of it had passed on by.

  The kerosene lantern had gone out, so I relit it. Its warm glow was so comforting it brought tears to my eyes. I lay down on the bunk and let tension ease out of my body.

  After a few minutes’ rest I got up and climbed the short ladder to the hatch door. I threw my shoulder into the door until it throbbed with pain, then switched to the other shoulder. The door didn’t give even an inch, God damn it! In frustration I kicked the hatch hard, lost my balance and tumbled down the steps. If I lived through this I’d be covered with bruises.

  Next I searched the cabin looking for something, anything, that might help me break through the door. Behind a compartment door I found a rivet gun. It was a heavy tool that looked like a wrench except for an added mechanism in the head that delivered the rivets.

  Back at the hatch door I slammed the head of the rivet gun against the door over to the hasp screws as hard as I could, over and over. I scarred up the door, but that was all. If the padlock had been placed on the cabin side I might have been able to knock it loose, but from this side budging it was impossible. In frustration I flung the rivet gun across the length of the cabin. It bounced off the wall and landed on the propane stove with a clang.

  Perhaps in the morning, when it was light, I would be able to think more clearly. I lay back down on the bunk and tried to rest.

  A sound like a pine log dropping from a crane on to a truck bed woke me out of a thin sleep. I felt the boat tremble. It was an impact, a severe one. Something had struck the sailboat. I felt the cabin begin to list to one side. The ship was taking on water.

  I jumped up and grasped the ring on the hatch to the hold and pulled it up. Holding the lantern over the square hole in the floor, I peered in and saw that without doubt the water was rising. I could hear the sound of water rushing into the hold but couldn’t see the section of the hull where the damage was. My best guess was that the limb of a tree had rammed the ship right at the water line.

  The ship was sinking.

  Sergeant Royal pulled up to the taxi stand a couple of blocks away from the Worth Residential Hotel. He’d already found Leach’s car still parked out in front of the hotel. Since Leach and Louise had left by taxi, Royal figured that Leach must have dropped her off somewhere, then taken another taxi to the Russian café to meet Gachev. Leach died before he could get back to his car.

  The taxi cab stop was unofficial, with just a few cabs out in front of a small diner where the drivers could drink coffee and listen to baseball games on the radio while waiting for a fare. Royal parked out front, behind the row of taxis, and got out, sliding over slick lumps of hail on his way to the diner. He spotted the drivers right away crowded into a booth near the radio mounted on the back wall. He removed his badge from his pocket as he made his way over to the cab drivers. As soon as he got to their table he flashed it.

  ‘DC Metropolitan Police,’ Royal said. ‘And I ain’t got any time to waste.’

  ‘What’s this about, Sergeant?’ one of the drivers asked.

  ‘I’m doing the talking here, not you,’ Royal said. ‘I need to know who picked up a fare here about seven this evening. Middle-aged guy who looked like he might work for the government. Attractive woman in round-rimmed glasses and a raincoat, not young. They did not look like they were having fun.’

  ‘It was me,’ said one of the drivers, a scrawny guy with slicked back hair. ‘The man had a hold of the woman’s arm real tight and she didn’t look pleased about it.’

  ‘Where did you take them?’ Royal asked.

  ‘To the docks on the Washington Channel. Near the Capital Yacht Club. Hell of a drive from here. Nearly to the end of Maine Avenue. One of the best fares I ever got. The guy paid me with a handful of cash as if it was nothing. Two dollars over the fare! And they just walked off.’

  ‘Did you see where they went?’

  ‘Down the wharf opposite the Capital Yacht Club. Damn rainy day to go on a boat ride.’

  Royal drove with one hand on the wheel and the other gripping his radio mike. The radio static was bad because of the storm but he could still hear Wicker on the other end.

  ‘The girls say that Leach had access to a little sailboat on the Potomac,’ Wicker said. ‘He talked about using it for a picnic. It’s moored on the Virginia side below the railroad bridge.’

  ‘That has to be it,’ Royal said. ‘I found the taxi driver who picked them up. He drove them all the way from the Worth Hotel to a wharf on the Washington Channel. Across from the Capital Yacht Club. He said that Leach gave him a handful of cash and took Louise down the wharf.’

  ‘If Leach stowed Louise on that boat while he negotiated with Gachev she must still be there,’ Wicker said.

  ‘I’ll meet you at the wharf,’ Wicker said. ‘We’ve got to find her. This is one hell of a storm to weather in a little sailboat.’

  The coastguard captain of the port stood at the end of the wharf with Royal and Wicker. He’d lent the two men rubber raincoats and sou’westers. The storm had diminished but a heavy rain still fell steadily. Looking off the end of the wharf the men could see nothing but the shadows of boats moored a few feet from the end of the docks.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the coastguard captain, whose name was Meacham. ‘I just can’t institute a search tonight. Visibility is terrible. The electric current is out on the Virginia side so there’s no loom to help us. No moon most of the time, either. And most of my cutters are guarding the entrance to the Potomac. The submarine net gates were left open because of the storm.’

  ‘The woman we are searching for may be locked aboard a small sailboat,’ Wicker said. ‘It might have been damaged during the storm.’

  ‘I can’t risk my own men in these conditions,’ Meacham said. ‘I swear that as soon as daybreak comes I’ll institute a full search. I’ll call out the auxiliary too. We’ll find her.’

  ‘I hope it’s not too late,’ Royal said. If Louise was dead this would be the biggest failure of Royal’s career. He’d retire with her death on his mind for the rest of his life.

  Wicker knew that he’d made a terrible mistake by not briefing Louise on the true nature of Leach’s ring, so that she could be on guard. He’d known from her personnel file that she was trustworthy and smart. He’d thought that she would react more naturally to events if she didn’t know that she was being courted by a spy ring. He’d believed that Leach wasn’t physically dangerous. It was only recently that OSS Security had identified Gachev. If Louise was dead he’d be the one who’d write her parents. What would he say? ‘I’m responsible for the death of your daughter. So sorry.’

  ‘It’ll be a few hours until dawn,’ Royal said. He needed a drink.

  ‘We can wait at my HQ,’ Meacham said. ‘There’s always a pot of coffee on. Or I’ve got something stronger in my desk.’

  ‘Something stronger,’ Wicker said.

  So ironic. The storm was passing by, but I was still going to drown. And maybe never be found! Spending years lying on the bottom of the Potomac River hosting barnacles. Someday perhaps a fisherman would hook one of my bones and feel sorry for me after he reeled it in.

  Growing up on the coast I knew lots of people who’d drowned. The Atlantic off North Carolina boasted nasty rip tides and powerful hurricanes. Then there were the folks who drank and surfed, or drank and sailed. And the occasional fisherman who got tan
gled up in his nets. Or the weekend sailor who was knocked overboard by his boom. But I’d never heard of anyone who drowned locked in the cabin of a sinking boat.

  I sat on the bunk trying to quell the physical signs of my panic. Tears filled my eyes so I could barely see, my heart pumped so hard it resonated in my head, and my bladder and intestines contracted. I had no more ideas on how I could escape. Or fantasies, either. Only if Captain America showed up was I going to survive. If I only had a hand grenade!

  A hand grenade! That was it!

  Before I knew it I was at the galley rummaging in the cabinet under the stove looking for the propane bottle. I found it and unscrewed it from the line that fed the burners, quickly closing the shut-off valve. It was a small canister, about the size of a quart of milk. I hoped it had enough gas in it to do the trick. Not that this wild idea of mine was going to work, but I had to try it.

  Opening a drawer I discovered a small miracle – duct tape! Duct tape was an adhesive tape that could hold absolutely anything together. It had been invented for military use but civilians could buy it now in hardware stores. It was just what I needed.

  By now the boat listed to starboard at a significant angle. I almost had to crawl on the sloping floor to get to the hatch. With my arms wrapped around one of the side rails of the ladder to keep from falling, I taped the propane tank to the door. It wasn’t easy to balance myself on the ladder, hang on to the propane tank, tear off sections of the duct tape, then tape the tank to the door, as near as possible to the screws that secured the hinged metal plate of the hasp to the door. On the other side of the door the heavy padlock held the loops of the hasp together. Would the blast be powerful enough to destroy the padlock without killing me too?

  I gathered all my energy. I needed to accomplish a lot in the next few seconds. I twisted the valve on the propane canister and heard the hissing of gas escaping. Then I bolted toward the back of the cabin, grabbing the thin mattress from the bunk with one hand and lifting the kerosene lantern from its hook with the other. I backed up against the head.

  Damn it! I forgot! I dropped the mattress and went back for the life ring. How could I hang on to all this stuff? How much propane had hissed away while I went back for the ring?