Dante flicked a glance over my ensemble. At the spark in his expression, I smiled, anticipating the compliment I felt certain would follow. He arched an eyebrow, but otherwise let the moment pass.
He extended his hand and I took it. Bully for him! He might be able to pull off a professional façade, but at the familiar touch of his palm I felt a rush of warmth and knew I was pink-faced.
He smiled. “Miss Lewis, I’d like you to meet Lieutenant Grey Simmons. He’s here for the weekly gathering of Army, Navy, and the Bureau. It’s our chance to discuss matters relating to domestic intelligence and coordinate our cases, jointly.”
Coordinate their activities? Work together jointly? Just who did he think he was trying to snooker? Liberty and I had already crossed paths.
I strained to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “Anything out of the ordinary on this week’s agenda?” Dante’s palm felt suddenly clammy. Or was the clamminess mine?
“It’s why you’re here.” He released his grip.
I shook hands with the lieutenant, a slender man with large protruding ears, a wide mouth, and a bland smile. I surveyed the table. “But if this is a joint meeting, where’s G-2?”
The lieutenant and Dante exchanged a private look. “My Army counterpart was tied up, wrestling with something else,” Simmons replied. “He asked me to act on his behalf today.”
“Might be nice if he let us in on the particulars,” Connelly muttered, sauntering over to a stack of documents at one end of the table.
I wasn’t sure what was going on, but the tension between the men in the room was palpable. Meantime, my curiosity was at the boiling point. Had they heard anything about Liberty?
I turned to Dante. “You mentioned a special agenda item concerning me?”
He adjusted the knot of his loosened tie. “Simmons has informed us that a Navy officer’s wife, who is also a member of the Cosmos Club and frequents the beauty shop there, has filed a report claiming that Clara Renner asked her for a map of the Grosse Ile Naval Base.”
I felt my eyes bulge. Dante had it wrong. It was Liberty, not Clara, who had done the soliciting. But if Dante and ONI had it backwards, Liberty and G-2 wanted it that way. My thoughts cut back to my meeting with her and the promise I had made. Why didn’t she want Dante to know about her mission? And why wasn’t G-2 here today?
My focus returned to Dante as he explained that two days had elapsed since Clara approached the woman, actually an admiral’s wife. She had delayed reporting the incident because of her longtime relationship with Clara and because she did not want to believe the worst. Also, her husband was out of town and due back the next day. She’d cooled her heels, filling him in on the situation the moment he returned. The admiral notified intelligence directly.
“I was brought into the case just last evening,” Simmons said, “and we decided to place someone inside the Cosmos Club, undercover. I raised the idea in our opening session this morning, only to discover the Bureau was already a step ahead.” Simmons’ wide mouth resumed its insipid smile.
Dante cleared his throat. “That’s right. We had already positioned you there, Miss Lewis, but our resources were concentrated on her husband. It’s ironic, actually. Connelly and I had planned on discussing our case with the group. Then the surprise news from ONI jumbled everything. We’ve spent the last couple of hours sorting out who knows what and fitting together the pieces.”
And smoothing Simmons’ ruffled feathers, I thought.
“On the bright side, now that all agencies involved are pooling information, we have a wider web in place, which means we can close in on Renner, and possibly his cohorts, that much sooner.” A cigarette was tucked behind Dante’s ear. He adjusted it. “Connelly?”
Connelly looked up from the documents he had been perusing. “Way I see it, ONI and G-2 are riding our coattails on this one. Willow Run is a civilian operation. Military should keep out of it.”
I frowned. Was he kidding?
A muscle along Simmons’ jaw flexed. “Ford has a private contract. The facility is government owned. You were obliged to share the information immediately.”
Connelly had been kidding. He smirked. Too late Simmons caught the expression and realized his mistake.
Dante shot me a questioning glance. I arched my eyebrows, conveying that I understood what was behind the interchange. Plant Protection had correctly followed regs by calling in the Bureau after discovering Blount’s body. But then, because the corpse was found on government-owned property, military intelligence should have been notified immediately afterward. They weren’t. Instead, the FBI, with Plant Security in tow, had forged ahead independently.
Simmons went on, this time addressing Dante. “A lot of manure got piled up in the barn because someone on your watch forgot to slide the door open when they should have. You boys have some heavy shoveling to do if you don’t want the brass to get a whiff of this load of crap. It’s up to you.”
Dante and Connelly exchanged uneasy glances while my gaze flitted from one agency representative to the other. It was as though I were an umpire caught between two teams squabbling over whether a player’s foot had touched the base or not. But this was no game. As voiceless teammates drafted by opposing camps, Liberty and I had been placed in competition ourselves. Possibly my friend’s room had been ransacked and she had vanished because of it.
I looked from Dante to the lieutenant again. Should I level with my boss? What about Simmons? Shouldn’t he be told the truth, that the bad seed was actually the admiral’s wife, and not Clara?
I had walked into a hornet’s nest of interagency rivalry. I didn’t fully understand the nuances of the sport. Moreover, it was still possible that G-2 and Roy had private knowledge of Liberty’s whereabouts, and that there was a legitimate reason for keeping their involvement in the case confidential. I took a breath. I had made a commitment to Liberty, my friend. I would keep my promise to her at least until I could verify why G-2 had been absent from the meeting today. But I was still jittery.
Simmons seemed to read my mood. “Let’s table our protocol dispute and get to the other matter involving Miss Lewis now, shall we?” He motioned for us to take seats then nodded, indicating Dante should begin.
He pulled the unlit cigarette from behind his ear and tapped it against the table’s edge. “The new information implicating Mrs. Renner concerns us. It’s one more loose end. We’ve decided to bring Renner in following the black bag job at Willow Run tonight.”
My stomach fluttered. “Tonight?”
Dante nodded and related that they had been doing everything possible to keep the investigation into Blount’s murder discreet, but a source close to Renner indicated he was showing signs of unraveling. Before my arrival they and the other strategists, who were now temporarily out of the room, had concluded that the risk of Renner moving or destroying the evidence in his safe, possibly slipping out of the country, was getting too great. Their intent was to confirm that the plans for the night-bombing device Blount had said were in Renner’s safe were indeed there. Afterwards, what they found would be used to help convince Renner to finger his handler and any other rogue spies.
“The photos you took at Renner’s office will be a great help,” Dante added. “Excellent eye. Congratulations.”
I wanted to jump up on the big table and dance. “They turned out then? Great.”
He removed a set of photographs, fanning them. What a camera! Every shot, including the ones of the sequential numbers on the safe’s dial, had been captured. The lab had blown them up and all three numbers were readable.
We reviewed the pictures more thoroughly while I described the office layout, including the safe’s location. As I talked, I also made a sketch. Finally, since no one had volunteered who had been selected for the team, I asked. The men batted glances back and forth, and I felt the familiar fluttering in my chest. Had Dante changed his mind? Had I made the cut?
My hopes were dashed. Without meeting my eye, he revealed
that six men, two each from the three intelligence arms, had been selected. He rattled off their range of expertise, from safes and locks to cameras and radios. I made a small croaking sound when flaps and seals rolled off his tongue.
Dante would head the team. I was already aware that he held a law degree; now I was surprised to learn he was also proficient in German. His language skills meant that he would perform the role of team evaluator, appraising all documents found in Renner’s safe, deciding what should be photographed.
For a moment I thought Connelly had been left on the bench with me. But before Dante finished, he indicated Connelly had the important responsibilities of building a strategy for Renner’s interrogation, as well as overseeing certain logistical aspects vital to the breakin.
An awkward silence followed. I had not been asked to join the team or even participate in off-site support. I was crushed.
We had not yet covered my interviews at Willow Run. Determined to maintain a professional demeanor in spite of the rejection, I began reviewing what I had learned from Renner’s secretary, Mrs. K. My observation that she seemed to have a great deal of influence over Renner, so much so that he bent over backwards to please her and to help her daughters, interested the men. They were equally intrigued by the tale of my unexpected encounter with Renner at Willow Run. His mood was cool but on edge, I informed them, before going on to describe the dark side of his personality that had emerged later during his confrontation with his wife at the Club.
Dante and Simmons were impressed with my handling of the unforeseen meeting, citing his abnormal behavior as further evidence that the time was ripe to reel him in. On the opposing end of the pole, Connelly thought I should have found an excuse to leave the moment Renner arrived, suggesting I had needlessly exposed my cover. I shrugged off his comments. Then I brought them up to speed about my meeting with Clara, indicating she had confirmed her husband’s alibi for the night of Blount’s murder and had not revealed any discrepancies suggesting her story differed from his. Her contact with Grace Buchanan-Dineen was limited to only one hair-cutting session, I elaborated, pointing out that the singular event had soured any future relationship between the women, permanently.
I hesitated, then summed up. “I must, in good conscience, add that I’m not entirely convinced Mrs. Renner is part of the ring.”
Connelly countered, “But the admiral’s wife said…”
“I know what the admiral’s wife said. She claims Clara asked her for a map of the base. But how do you know she’s telling the truth? What if she made the story up?”
Connelly asked incredulously, “Why would an admiral’s wife lie?”
“To get attention. To reinforce a need to feel important. To get back at her husband for something he did—or didn’t—do.” Good reasons raised in my conversation with Liberty.
“The admiral’s wife didn’t lie,” Simmons said flatly. “She’s solid. We’ve checked.”
I was a sucker for the underdog. What other reason could I have for stubbornly plowing on as Clara’s advocate? “Okay, so Mrs. Renner asked her for a map. How do you know she was getting it for her husband? How does that prove she’s part of his ring?”
Connelly made a choking noise. “You put two and two together.”
My tone was measured. “I have nothing solid, but my gut tells me she’s not involved. I feel compelled to let you know that.”
Connelly snickered. “Your gut? What are you saying? A bit of girl talk in a beauty parlor and, presto, with a wave of a hand, she’s absolved? How about some facts?”
I glared at him. The stiff waves in his hair still held the lines drawn by the teeth of his comb. The styling was so perfect he might have been wearing a hand-sewn wig. An ill-chosen wig.
I ripped my gaze from him and focused on Romeo. In private, Dante had repeatedly praised my instincts. Now would be a good time for him to put Connelly in his place. Occupied with flipping his unlit cigarette on the table, he passed on the chance.
I cleared my throat and continued, first assuring them that Clara’s connection to the Barclay-Bly sisters was also strictly business, saving the “chair gossip” involving Kiki and Philip for last.
“So Kiki had an affair with her sister’s fiancé,” Dante muttered under his breath. “Well what do you know.”
Simmons had been following our tripartite exchange without comment. He tugged a large ear thoughtfully. “So, if Renner didn’t do it, who’s your murderer?”
“The lieutenant who sent Blount out on the training maneuvers that cost him his hand was dishonorably discharged. Could be him.” Dante frowned. “Or, most likely, Renner’s handler…”
“With help from someone on the inside,” Connelly said. “Someone who knew the layout and was familiar with Blount’s routine. We know Renner was in cahoots with an employee able to help him pass faulty castings through assembly safeguards. Maybe this employee, likely an inspector, discovered Blount was squealing. This inspector would be desperate to save his neck, right?”
I drew a shaky breath. Until this moment I’d dismissed Connelly’s theories as bunk.
“You might have something there,” I began, slowly. “Mrs. K’s daughter, not Wanda, the one I was supposedly assigned to interview, but the other one, Gisela, is an inspector. Works inside the main wings, on the final assembly phase. According to Mrs. K, it was Renner who pushed Gisela in that direction. Could he have drawn her into his web somehow?”
“Has anyone checked out this daughter?” Simmons asked.
Dante and Connelly exchanged glances.
“Uh, no,” Dante said. “Blount swore that before their night out at the Orange Lantern, Renner had never breathed a word about other insiders. And when he finally spilled the beans, he didn’t volunteer any names.”
“It’s possible that Renner himself didn’t know who the mole on the assembly line was,” Connelly added. “His handler may have deliberately set it up that way so the identities of his spies remained secret from one another. That way if he lost a man to the other side, the defector wouldn’t be able to give anyone else away.”
“The setup would also give the spy master leeway to assign one ring member to spy on another, incognito,” Dante said. “To be sure everyone remains loyal.”
“Hey…” I searched first Dante’s face, then Connelly’s, as a fuzzy thought took shape. “Didn’t one of you say Renner was born in the States?”
Connelly nodded. “Yeah, why?”
“He’s got an accent. It’s hardly noticeable, but it’s there.”
Simmons had been jotting something into a small notebook. He looked up, zeroing in on Dante, but Connelly spoke first.
“We ran a check…”
“Then ONI will run another,” the lieutenant snapped, cutting him short.
We were back to the interagency grudge match. My stomach tightened.
At the head of the table, Dante had been bouncing the pink eraser on his pencil against the table’s waxed surface. The noise stopped. “We haven’t covered your jail visit yet,” he said.
“What’s to cover?” I asked. “You were listening, right?”
“We’ve been here for the better part of the day.” Connelly cast a dark glance at Simmons, suggesting the fault rested with him.
Dante whacked the eraser against the table. Connelly settled back into his seat, methodically cracking his knuckles while his partner continued.
“We had a man positioned at the jail, yes. But you had the advantage of watching the woman’s expressions and body language. What’s your take? Is she being straight about not knowing Renner and Blount?”
I gawked at him. Did he understand the irony in what he was asking? He hadn’t spoken up for me earlier when Connelly had ridiculed me for defending Clara, based on my gut. Now he wanted “my take” on what the Countess had said?
I waited a few beats longer. “Yes, I believe she is leveling with me. With good reason. She had hoped to be exonerated by now. But beyond that, she’d like t
o get on with her life. Thinks I can help by clearing the way for a visit from her fiancé.”
Connelly snickered. “The fiancé. We’ve got that ground covered. Heard he’s considering breaking off the engagement.”
“What are you talking about? He’s devoted to her.”
He didn’t reply, but the sneer on his face said it all.
“Go on,” Dante said, addressing me.
I did, concluding with the terms the Countess had laid out.
Dante’s pencil tapped the table, loudly. “We can’t ignore her. We need to know if the sisters are involved.”
“What about Leo’s progress?” Connelly asked. “Anything?”
“Not yet,” Dante replied.
I pulled my steno pad out of my satchel and flipped pages. “You might want to check out this name and address I found in her cell,” I said, repeating the information on the fence, Tazio Abbado, that I’d found behind the photograph of the Countess’ father.
“I’ve decided I want Pucci on the breakin team,” Dante announced, abruptly. “She’s a pro on flaps and seals. The man we lined up is too green.”
Connelly’s jaw dropped and my heart was jack hammering so loudly I thought everyone in the room could surely hear it.
I smiled at Dante. I glowed. I tingled. I felt so good it was like I was flying.
Connelly’s face was beet red. “What? Take a woman on a clandestine mission? What if there’s trouble and she crumbles? She could compromise the mission. And what if she can’t keep a secret afterwards?”
Dante’s voice was smooth and sure. “Lewis is in. She’s trained, she’s been inside the office premises. I’m confident in her abilities.”
No additional objections followed. Dante was the mission leader. He raised a final item of business. Still convinced that the Barclay-Bly sisters were somehow linked to our case, he asked if I would return to jail for a third session with the Countess. It was a grim task made worse, as I would have to begin the meeting by informing her that her wish to see Mr. Butler had been denied.
Lipstick and Lies Page 21