The Memory of Eva Ryker

by Donald Stanwood

  I turned to Jan. She shook her head and I followed suit.

  “No reason why you should, really. Mr. Ryker hasn’t exactly been a headline maker in many years. But he has been and still is vitally involved in American business. Oil, insurance, railroads. Not as solvent now that the IRS has acquired teeth. But … very comfortable. Mr. Ryker is currently retired in Veyrier, near Geneva.”

  I was amused by his mixture of PR lingo and carefully manicured candor. “A beautiful place. I’ve been there.”

  Rogers took his dessert fork and began tracing arabesques on the tablecloth. “Although confined much of his time to an iron lung, at eighty-five he’s still very active. And he has a personal interest in the Titanic.” A solemn frown. “His wife sailed on the ship. She wasn’t among the rescued.”

  Geoffrey patted his lips. “Mrs. Ryker’s bodyguard and maid were lost, too. The only survivor was her daughter, Eva.”

  Jan reached for the last of her Mouton Rothschild. “Really? How old was she?”

  Rogers cast an ambiguous look at Geoffrey. “Nine or ten. I don’t remember exactly.”

  “Is she still alive?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “I’m sure you can understand Mr. Ryker’s strong interest in the Titanic tragedy.”

  It sounded a bit morbid to me. “In what ways does your Mr. Ryker express this hobby of his?”

  Rogers’ face flushed. I had fed him the perfect straight line. “As it happens, he has the resources to indulge this particular hobby. Along with the National Geographic Society and the Navy Department. Have you heard of the bathyscaph Trieste and its exploration of the Marianas Trench off the Philippines?”

  “The deepest spot in the ocean, isn’t it?”

  “Over thirty-five thousand feet. Anyway, the Navy was so pleased with the success of the Trieste that it decided to build two sister ships, the Marianas and Neptune. They’re being loaned to the Geographic Society, which is matching the funds provided by Mr. Ryker. He recently purchased an Italian-built oceanographic research ship, the Savonarola, which will serve as a surface and supply vessel for the two bathyscaphs on their first assignment off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. Twelve thousand feet, which is a milk run really.”

  He spread both hands flat on the table. “You see, the Marianas and Neptune will be searching for the wreckage of the Titanic.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Mr. Ryker seldom makes jokes as expensive as this one,” Rogers primly said. “He wants to salvage any cargo that remains.”

  I felt Geoffrey’s eyes on me, watching my reaction.

  “All right,” I said. “You’ve made your pitch and I am impressed.” I turned to Rogers. “Exactly what does Ryker expect to find?”

  He pulled judiciously at his face. “Well, Mr. Hall, first the wreckage has to be located. But whether the ship is still intact …” He threw up his hands. “We’ll just have to see. The bathyscaphs are both equipped with remote manipulators—the experts call them ‘Waldos’—for working under the extreme pressure with underwater lights, cameras, torches—that sort of thing. They can cut through the hull if necessary so that we can explore the interior. Of course, most anything the Waldos turn up will be of interest to the National Geographic people. And there may be objects of financial value, too. Art objects, jewelry.… The passengers of the Titanic were collectively worth over two hundred fifty million dollars.”

  Jan glanced at me over her wine glass and raised an eyebrow. I nodded.

  Geoffrey intercepted our exchange. “It’s settled then?”

  “Yes,” I said. “She’s got me hooked.”

  “‘She?’”

  “The Titanic. Or does a ship cease to be a ‘she’ after it sinks?”

  Mike Rogers grinned, leaning back in his chair. “An interesting point to ponder. You’ll have to ask Harold Masterson, the man in charge of the salvage operation. He’s in Halifax now, and I’m certain you’ll want to talk to him.” He stretched his hand to me. “Welcome aboard, Mr. Hall. Mr. Ryker will be very pleased.”

  “Now that I’m on your payroll, you can afford to call me Norman.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Geoffrey said. “You’re not Ryker’s employee. Or even mine, strictly speaking. We want you to have a free hand in the story. I know it’ll be good. Just make sure it’s on time.”

  I shrugged agreement. “One thing. Jan will be doing a lot of background research …”

  “… as well as all-around dirty work,” she said.

  “… so I think she should share the by-line with me.”

  He made a face. “It’s a little unusual …”

  “It’s been a standard arrangement in all our nonfiction.”

  “Okay. ‘Janice Steiner and Norman Hall’ it’ll be.”

  “That’s ‘Norman and Jan.’”

  “Naturally. What else?”

  “Who’s doing the photos?”

  “Burke Sheffield.”

  “Good. But I want to take some myself.”

  “Show me any pictures and we’ll try to work them in.” He glanced brightly at both of us. “Anything else?”

  Jan straightened upright. “Money.”

  He groaned theatrically, as if she’d swiped one of his testicles. “I’ve never understood you, Norman, letting your wife deal in this nasty business.”

  “Women are less sentimental than men concerning money. Just look at the world around you.”

  “Don’t try to divert me with your flaky philosophizing. I’ve heard all this before …”

  He’d heard all this before. So had I. I listened with one ear, nodding to the rhythms of the contract being hammered out. The money would be enough. It was the article I worried about.

  For some reason it reminded me of this morning’s nightmare.

  “Checkmate.”

  Orange flames from the fireplace cast flickering shadows between my king and remaining pawns. I rubbed my chin.

  “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”

  Jan leaned back from the chessboard, her face sympathetic. “You’ve been somewhere else all night.”

  “I know.” Massaging my neck, I sighed. “Maybe I need a drink.”

  “Coming up.” She headed for the liquor chest, returning with a snifter of brandy, gold in the firelight as I took it from her hands. It forged a warm, biting path down my throat.

  Jan sat next to me and waited.

  “Do you know why I took this job?”

  “The subject got to you, I guess.” She studied my face. “That and Mike’s pitch.”

  “Yes, he’s very glib. It’s not often that I enjoy being conned.”

  “Don’t you think he and Geoffrey were being straight?”

  “Mike is as honest as young men on the make usually are. Bullshit oozes from Geoffrey’s every pore, but what else is new?”

  I swigged down more brandy. “No, it’s my motives that bother me. The Titanic means something … personal to me that Geoffrey and Mike couldn’t know.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s not easy to explain. But I had a bad dream about the Kleins last night …”

  “Oh, Norman.” She held my hand. “That’s the first one in months.”

  “Tonight I finally remembered. Martha Klein told me she and her husband were survivors of the Titanic.” I stared into the flames. “Curious, don’t you think?”

  “I think twenty years is a very long time, Norman. The newspapers and police records of the Inquest are rotting with age. Some janitor could throw them away tomorrow.” Her fingertips gently brushed the veins on the back of my hand. “I don’t like to see you worry about something dead and gone.”

  “Isn’t that what this whole story’s about? An old man on his deathbed literally dredging up his past. A sea disaster that’s ancient history in most people’s minds. And two survivors who changed my entire life.”

  “An odd coincidence, I suppose.”

  “Too odd. More like
fate, perhaps?”

  “Rubbish, Norman. ‘Fate’ should be stricken from the dictionaries.”

  “Sorry. I know I make a poor mystic.” I downed the last of the brandy. “In any case, the Kleins belong in the story.”

  “Not if you ask me!”

  “Don’t be a backseat writer. The first thing in the morning, call Mike to set up a meeting with Harold Masterson, the director of the salvage operation. I also want to talk to Old Man Ryker, but be delicate about that.”

  “And where will you be?”

  “London. For a day or two. I’m going to visit Tom Bramel at the Yard. I want to see the FBI and HPD files on the Kleins. Maybe he knows what strings to pull.”

  4

  January 9, 1962

  London was cold and grubby on the morning of the ninth. I stood at the second-story window of Tom Bramel’s office and watched shivering pigeons skidding on the sidewalks as I worked my way through a Reader’s Digest condensation of the meeting with Geoffrey and Mike.

  Upon my conclusion, the assistant commissioner settled back and suckled his Kaywoodie briar. The pipe is part of a tweedy ensemble that includes a wide graying mustache, frayed public school ties, and big-shouldered corduroy coats with elbow patches. To my envy and to his wife’s unending terror, women have found the combination devastating.

  Tom leaned against his desk after a long smoky sigh. “Norman, are you certain all this isn’t the scenario for your latest potboiler?”

  “Hardly. Within a few months you’ll be reading the spread in World, which makes it as close to truth as we mortals can get.”

  “When’s the salvage project due to be announced?”

  “The Savonarola and the bathyscaphs are off Nova Scotia right now, scouring the site. They better turn something up quick. With an operation this size, press leaks are only days away.”

  “Offhand, it sounds like a good way to whittle away a few million pounds.” He patted down a stubborn cowlick. “But I’ve heard of this William Ryker and I suspect he has it to spare.”

  “No doubt. But my article is also going to deal with the Titanic survivors. That’s where you can help me.”

  “I’ll do anything I can, Norman. But I have no special access to information on survivors. Unless any of them had criminal records.”

  I sat facing him and hoped my eyes looked candid. “What I’m looking for are the facts of a certain case. Jan and I came across a couple named Martha and Albert Klein. They were Americans who spent their honeymoon in Europe and returned on the Titanic. Both were later victims of a rather sensational murder that made the headlines back in the States. I’d like to see the police records. Mainly the FBI files.”

  “When was this?”

  “I don’t remember exactly. Late thirties, early forties.”

  “Where?”

  “The murder, you mean? The West Coast, I think.”

  “Did you try back issues of the papers?”

  “That’s where I came across the story. But I want specific information about who knew the Kleins. Names and addresses. The FBI files could give me a lead.”

  Tom took a pipe cleaner from his desk and ran it through his briar. “Well, Norman, I can try.” He tossed the cleaner away and blew through the stem. “I have some friends in Washington. A twenty-year-old murder shouldn’t be too hot. I can’t imagine anyone fretting over me seeing the file.” Patting his pockets for matches, he glanced up at me. “By the way, who did it?”

  “Did what?” I said blankly.

  “This murder of the century you’re so keen on.”

  “Oh! No suspects were ever found. Not that I know of, anyway.”

  “Hm. Pulling the file on an unsolved case might stir up some dust.” His fingers gingerly stuffed tobacco in the bowl. “But I’ll try to keep it unofficial and low-key.”

  “I don’t want to get you in trouble, Tom.”

  “No trouble. A bother, maybe, but no trouble.” He smiled and held up his hand. “Norman, stop looking contrite. I’ll get your file. But it may take a few days. Maybe a week.”

  “Can you mail copies to me, Tom?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Fine.” I stood up. “Thanks very much. I hope you’re free for lunch.”

  “I can be.” He got his secretary on the line. “Helen, Norman and I are off. If you need me, we’ll be at …” His eyes raised to mine.

  “Scott’s,” I said into the microphone.

  Tom let go of the switch. “I hope you have reservations.”

  “One o’clock.”

  “Wonderful.” He grabbed his coat and umbrella and ushered me out the side door. “I love being extravagant on your money.”

  We drove in Tom’s comfortable and ugly black Morris sedan. His grin was slow and amused as he slid the car through the traffic past the Haymarket. “After we order, you must tell me exactly how you ‘came across’ this particular case. I’ve always been a great fan of your fiction.”

  I didn’t respond to his needling, and his smile evaporated.

  “I’m sorry, Norman. I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “It’s all right. You’ve a right to an explanation.” I reached for the door handle as we stopped at the restaurant’s entrance. “And, as soon as you see the file, you’ll get one.”

  Jan met me at Orly bearing both good and bad news.

  “I will make it clean and merciful,” she said, piloting the Rolls away from the airport congestion. “I talked with Mike and got a hold of Harold Masterson in Halifax. He’ll expect you there for an interview in a couple of weeks.”

  “Two weeks? Christ, I’ll be sniffing the footprints of every damn reporter between here and New York.”

  “Mike said he was sorry. Apparently Masterson is spending all his time aboard the Savonarola working with the bathyscaphs.”

  I brooded as Jan drove the car off the Autoroute. “What did Mike have to say about Ryker?”

  “No go, Norman. Ryker’s just too sick to see anybody.”

  “Until when?”

  “Mike couldn’t say.”

  My hands tightened on the armrest. “You know I’ll be flapping around with one wing until I can wrangle an interview. I wonder if Geoffrey could cut through all the crap.”

  “He’s back in New York. I talked to him on the phone yesterday. He said he is adopting a laissez-faire policy toward your assignment.”

  “In other words, fish or cut bait.”

  “Something like that. By the way,” she said casually, “I picked up a book or two for background. They should keep you occupied.”

  “Good God.”

  “Impressed, no?”

  I crept behind my desk, afraid to disturb the mound of books, newspaper clippings, maps, charts, and photocopies. “Would you like to give me a guided tour?”

  “You can start with the basics. That’s Walter Lord’s book …”

  “That I’ve read.”

  “… then there’s The Loss of the Titanic, The Truth about the Titanic, and Titanic and Other Ships, which are all by survivors.” Jan dug under the rubble. “Here we have Home From the Sea by Captain Rostron, who was skipper of the Carpathia.”

  “The who?”

  She looked pained. “The rescue ship, Norman. I thought you read A Night to Remember.”

  “Years ago.”

  Gathering up the unbound pages, she separated them into two piles. “On your left,” she pointed, “the Senate report on the sinking. The other is the inquiry by the British Board of Trade. There you have feature stories from the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and the Cedar Rapids Gazette, as well as Liberty and Harper’s magazine. Some of those eyewitness accounts were written ten to twenty years after the sinking. You might spot an idea you could crib.”

  “‘A point of departure,’” my dear. You know I never copy.”

  “Stealing from one may be copying. Stealing from a dozen different men is research.”

  “Maybe so, but I’ll be damned if I can’t do more than reheat s
omeone’s thirty-year-old work.” I gestured at the desk. “What’s the rest of this stuff?”

  “Data on the construction of the ship from Engineering and Scientific American.”

  “Okay. Any maps of the Titantic?”

  She held it up for me. “Courtesy of the Steamship Historical Society of Staten Island.”

  I spread it flat on the floor and examined the maze of corridors and staterooms on my hands and knees. Finally I stood, running my fingers through my hair.

  “Well, I might as well get started. Plan to stay home for the next few days.”

  Jan started to retreat, then spun and faced me, arms akimbo. “You’re welcome, Norman.”

  I lifted my nose from the papers and blinked at her. The set of her jaw told me all I needed to know.

  “I’m sorry, Janice. Thank you. Sometimes I can be slow on the uptake.”

  “Quite all right.” Her mouth curled downward and she ceased looking pugnacious and became very desirable. “You’re going to need a lot of my help. I wouldn’t want you feeling too guilty.” She leaned against the door. “You’ve bitten off quite a mouthful, Norman. Until I started this research, I didn’t realize how big a bite it was.”

  “As long as you’re speaking in culinary metaphors, how about getting me some lunch?”

  “Sure. What do you want?”

  “Nothing much.” I morosely prodded the overflowing stack of papers. “It’ll have to be small to fit in this room.”

  5

  January 12, 1962

  For the next two days I subsisted on coffee, tuna sandwiches, and the Titanic.

  To be honest, I was no more qualified to write about ships than a snake would be to write about shoes. I needed this crash course before I could decide which way to jump.

  I already knew, courtesy of Mike Rogers, that the passengers didn’t go down singing “Nearer My God To Thee.” Nor was the accident an “unforeseeable act of God”; the White Star Line, owner of the Titanic, believed in speed before safety, and Captain Smith obediently steered his ship full-bore into the midst of an ice field.

  I also picked up glimpses of shipboard life that haunted me as no statistics could. Nouveau riche Americans with private railroad cars and caravans of trunks at the Southampton docks. Irish couples traveling steerage to excape the famine. First-class passengers casually strolling the decks, ogling the distress rockets flaring into the night.