Louise's Lies

by Sarah R. Shaber

  The Russian army threw an armed perimeter around the Russian and British embassies because German paratroopers had landed in the vicinity and hadn’t all been captured. Even the janitors in the Russian embassy were armed.

  It was public knowledge that the three leaders had discussed an invasion of Europe. But that was all anyone knew.

  The public didn’t know this yet either, but I’d heard at work that President Roosevelt had left Dakar on the USS Iowa three days ago to head back to Washington. The country would breathe a collective sigh of relief when he was back at the White House.

  Then there was the incident of the corpse in the bar, which sounded like the title of an Agatha Christie novel. My OSS training had kicked in and I’d dealt with it coolly, but now I felt shaky. I just wanted to sign a statement and put it behind me. I wondered if Joe had heard from Sergeant Royal yet today.

  I was alone in the lounge. Henry and Milt had succumbed to cabin fever and gone out for a walk in the freezing cold. Ada and Phoebe were still in bed. Madeleine and Dellaphine were in the kitchen. I could hear the gospel music from Dellaphine’s big Silvertone radio drifting down the hall.

  I could call Joe. I slipped out into the hall and lifted the telephone receiver.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, picking up the phone after two rings. ‘This is a pleasant surprise. Are you alone?’

  ‘Sort of,’ I whispered. ‘There’s no one around. I wondered if you’d heard from Sergeant Royal yet.’

  ‘Not a word. But that makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, we were the last people who arrived at the bar, so he’d interview us last, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘I just want to get it over with,’ I said.

  ‘Me too. And no matter what Sergeant Royal says, I’ll have to tell my bosses at work what happened tomorrow. Can’t have them surprised by seeing my name in a crime news story.’

  ‘I know.’ I would need to tell Miss Osborne too.

  I heard Milt and Henry’s voices as they came up the walkway to the house.

  ‘I’ve got to go now,’ I said.

  ‘Will I see you on the weekend?’ he asked.

  ‘Hope so.’ I cradled the receiver. I had no idea if I’d be available to see Joe on the weekend. My work schedule wasn’t my own. And was confidential to boot. But we were both used to that.

  Milt and Henry brought winter into the house with them. When the door opened a gust of wind blew into the hall and pushed magazines off the hall table on to the floor. Milt had to lean into the door to latch it closed. Bits of ice, condensed from their breath, clung to their scarves. The air was so frigid it was scary. We were rationing coal just like everyone else, but at least we had it and were allowed to turn up the heat if there was sickness in the house. In Britain the people lived from one convoy fuel delivery to the next. They never had more than three months’ supply on hand, and this winter and the flu epidemic was harsher there than here. Honestly, I had no idea how the British people got through their days. I suppose they had no choice.

  Milt slid out of his heavy coat, shaking his head at Henry when he tried to help him. With one hand he got it off and hung it on the coatrack.

  ‘Who was on the phone?’ Henry asked me.

  ‘Wrong number,’ I said.

  FOUR

  Mavis Forrester opened her apartment door after the first knock.

  ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Royal said, as he and Dickenson shed their coats, scarves and gloves.

  ‘Just toss them on the table,’ Mavis said. She was dressed in what Royal thought would be called lounging pajamas in a Hecht’s ad. Black satin trousers matched a floral jacket with the same black satin trim. She wore embroidered slippers and a heavy shawl thrown over it all for warmth.

  ‘Sit,’ Mavis said, gesturing toward an overstuffed loveseat. She sat down on a matching chair and crossed her legs. She had a cup of something hot, coffee or tea, on a table next to her but didn’t offer them anything. The Robe lay open next to her cup.

  Royal saw no signs that the woman had a roommate. ‘You live here alone?’ he asked.

  ‘Not that it’s any of your business,’ she said, ‘but yes.’

  ‘It is our business, ma’am,’ Royal answered. ‘In case we need to verify elements of your story.’

  Mavis shrugged. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I live alone, happily.’

  It was a one-bedroom, too, Royal thought, not a studio, noting the door to the bedroom and another to a small kitchen. Her furniture was quality, and a couple of small paintings hanging on the wall looked like real art. He wondered how much money librarians made and if the DC Housing Authority knew she occupied a two-room apartment by herself.

  ‘OK,’ Royal said. ‘When did you arrive at the bar?’

  ‘About eight,’ she said.

  ‘Why did you even go? In that weather?’

  ‘I wanted a cup of hot coffee, spiked, in the worst way. I was out of whiskey and can’t buy another bottle until tomorrow. And I knew the fire would be blazing. I love a good fire. So I wrapped up and took a book with me to read for a while.’

  ‘So who was there when you arrived?”

  ‘The usuals. Walt, Chippy and Al. On Saturday night they are almost always there. Of course last night Floyd never arrived to play chess with Al.’

  ‘Did he seem surprised?’

  ‘Al? Yes. He kept checking his watch, and once he asked Cal if he’d heard from Floyd that day, or seen him. Cal said no.’

  ‘You must be a regular at the Baron Steuben.’

  Mavis shrugged. ‘Not really. I mean, it’s the closest bar to my apartment. So when I do want a drink, I go there. It’s the fire I like, especially in this weather. If I want a drink I can have one here. As long as I’ve got a bottle of whiskey, that is.’

  ‘You don’t meet friends there?’ Dickenson asked.

  ‘I don’t socialize in bars, Sergeant.’ Mavis said. ‘I go to nice restaurants or the theater with my friends.’

  ‘Who came in next?’

  ‘Maxwell and Scott. The rich couple. Then that other woman and her friend, I’ve forgotten their names.’

  ‘Louise Pearlie and Joe Prager.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Ever seen either couple in the bar before?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘All right,’ Royal said. ‘So tell us what happened, in your own words.’

  ‘Is that really necessary?’ she asked. ‘I thought Mrs Pearlie did a good job telling what happened last night.’

  ‘Yes, it’s necessary.’

  Royal and Dickenson waited patiently for her to light a cigarette. She refused Dickenson’s offer to light it for her. Again she didn’t offer them one, or invite them to smoke their own. When she spoke it was with such diffidence that she could have been talking about a traffic violation. Her account of Walt’s finding Stinson’s corpse and its aftermath didn’t differ one iota from any of the other statements they’d taken.

  ‘Thank you, ma’am,’ Royal said, shutting his notebook. ‘We’ll get this typed up and a policeman will bring it by for you to sign.’

  ‘OK,’ she said. She crushed her cigarette and walked them to her door. As it closed Royal saw her cross to her chair, hand reaching for her book.

  ‘Man,’ Dickinson said as he opened the police car for Royal. ‘That woman is an icicle.’ He crossed around to the driver’s side and slid in, turning on the ignition to warm up the car.

  ‘A real cold fish,’ Royal agreed. ‘I wonder what she’s been through in her life to make her that way.’

  I had my late husband’s battered leather valise open on my bed, trying to decide what to take to the office tomorrow so I could spend the night. I had seen a cot with blankets and a pillow in Miss Osborne’s office the first day I arrived at the Morale Operations branch to take up my new job as her assistant, so I knew overnight stays were likely. So was traveling. In the fall I’d taken my first airplane flight and found myself on the Fort
Meade military base interviewing German prisoners of war. Anything was possible. Which was why I loved my new job.

  I assumed the branch would provide cots, blankets and pillows. Lots of blankets, I hoped, especially in this weather. MO was located in the Que building on the OSS campus, a tempo built so poorly I was surprised it hadn’t blown over in this wind. Those of us who worked there had spent what free time we had chinking the gaps in the exterior walls with whatever we could find. Discarded paper, rags and even used chewing gum spotted the walls of our tiny spaces.

  I decided to wear as many clothes as I could to work tomorrow and fill my valise with extras. I’d start with my grey wool suit, the one with green piping, worn over two sweaters, a white turtleneck and a green cardigan. I’d drape a long shawl that Phoebe had given me over my wool coat. Hat and gloves, of course. Ear muffs. Forget heels and stockings, I’d wear saddle shoes and socks. Into my valise I put my long underwear and a pair of corduroy trousers. As many heavy socks as I could stuff into the corners. Several pairs of fresh undies; I could always wash those out. No pajamas, because of course I would sleep in my clothes. Both because of the weather and because there would be men spending the night too, I expected.

  I was stuffing cold cream, tooth powder and aspirin into my toilet bag when Phoebe passed by my open bedroom door.

  ‘Hi, there,’ I said to her. ‘You must be feeling better.’

  ‘I am, thanks,’ she said. ‘Much. I’m going downstairs to fix myself some hot chocolate. I don’t want Dellaphine to have to run up and down the stairs again.’ She spied the piles of clothing on my bed.

  ‘What on earth?’ she said. ‘Looks like you’re going on an expedition to the North Pole.’

  ‘Almost,’ I said. ‘My boss told me to come to work prepared to spend the night in the office tomorrow. Maybe more than one night.’

  ‘Oh, Louise,’ she said, leaning up against my doorjamb as if she’d lost all her strength.

  ‘What’s wrong, Phoebe?’ I asked, worried. ‘Maybe you should get back to bed. I’ll go get your hot chocolate.’

  Instead, Phoebe came inside my room and turned and gently closed my door.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘Dearie,’ she said, ‘I am so worried about you.’

  ‘Why? I’m fine.’

  Phoebe pushed aside the piles of clothes I’d stacked on my bed ready to pack and sat down.

  ‘You just can’t do this,’ she said.

  ‘Do what?’ I was mystified. What was Phoebe talking about?

  ‘Go gadding about the way you have recently. It was bad enough when you were gone before. A young lady like yourself spending weeks at a military base! What would your parents think?’

  So that was it. Phoebe was concerned about my reputation. I almost snapped at her. I was thirty years old, a widow, and I had a critically important government job. Besides, I’d been quartered in a WAC dormitory with my female boss and we worked almost constantly. Of course I couldn’t share anything with her about my job. Even the smallest details were confidential. All Phoebe knew for sure was that I took off by myself with a suitcase and said it was on business. Something that in her day would have been unheard of.

  But the tears in her eyes softened my response, and I wanted to reassure her. She wouldn’t be so upset if she weren’t fond of me.

  I sat down next to her on the bed and took her hand. ‘Phoebe, I promise you there’s nothing disreputable about this. It’s just a government office. The flu has caused so many absences, work is piling up, and late at night it’s dangerous to try to get home in this weather. So many of the buses and streetcars aren’t running. It’s safer to sleep at work, really. There will be lots of other people bunking down at the office, too. I’ll be perfectly safe and well chaperoned.’ I winced at that word. As if a woman my age should need a chaperone!

  ‘It’s just that I don’t want you to get a reputation like Ada’s,’ she said. ‘All that partying, drinking, staying out so late. The men who pick her up at those dances she plays at, their intentions are indecent.’ Ada’s intentions weren’t decent, either. She constantly sought distraction from the secret of her marriage to a German Luftwaffe pilot, something only I knew about. She’d married him before the war, of course, before he’d become converted to the Nazi Party. Drinking and partying was her way of avoiding her great fear: that someone, somehow, would find out that she was married to a Nazi.

  ‘I won’t get a reputation like Ada’s from doing my job,’ I said.

  ‘You could get a different job,’ she said. ‘One where you can keep respectable hours.’

  Filing and typing, I thought. I’d had enough of that.

  ‘I just want you to find a nice man,’ Phoebe said, wiping her eyes on the corner of her robe. ‘Someone who can take care of you.’

  ‘I’m not looking for another husband. I can take care of myself.’

  ‘Dearie, after the war is over all these jobs that women are doing now will be gone. What will you do then if you haven’t remarried?’

  I felt my stomach knot. She’d touched a sensitive spot. All of us government girls had been hired ‘for the duration’. What would I do after the war? I could no longer imagine living without my own paycheck.

  I patted Phoebe on the hand. ‘Stop worrying about me,’ I said. ‘I’m fine, really. You’ve got enough to do worrying about Milt and Tom and taking care of the rest of us. I promise my behavior is beyond reproach.’

  At that Phoebe smiled at me, and patted my hand in return. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘If you say so. I’ll leave you be and let you finish packing.’

  After I closed the door behind her my stomach cramped so severely it doubled me up for a second. I had to sit on my bed and collect myself.

  The problem was, my behavior wasn’t beyond reproach. I was shacked up with Joe Prager, a man I knew very little about, a Czech refugee who ostensibly taught Slavic languages at George Washington University, but whose real work was undercover at a Jewish charitable organization raising money to rescue Jews from Europe. He’d been Henry’s roommate until Milt returned from the Pacific theater. We’d been attracted to each other from the moment we met, and now spent long weekend afternoons alone together in a single bed in Joe’s apartment.

  Although wartime Washington, DC had become positively worldly, my behavior would still shock most people. Including Phoebe, obviously. No matter how fond she was of me she might very well evict me if she knew Joe and I were more than friends. And the repercussions of my dalliance might lose me my job, too. I had Top Secret clearance, which could be revoked if OSS knew I was intimate with a foreign refugee. I’d be out of work and out of a place to live. Back deep-frying hush puppies at my parents’ fish camp in Wilmington, North Carolina. I’d have to give up martinis, my Woodies charge account and my dream of owning my own car.

  That was why Joe and I were so careful. If we ran into someone I knew from the office I could never pass him off as just a casual date. His accent would take care of that.

  Clearly we needed to be even more careful about being seen in public.

  Then I remembered the adverse possibilities of the incident at the Baron Steuben Inn. If my name, and Joe’s, appeared in the paper it would be publicity OSS and Miss Osborne wouldn’t appreciate, even if it weren’t my doing. I needed to tell her what had happened first thing tomorrow morning.

  The newspapers would undoubtedly sensationalize Stinson’s murder. I could just see the headlines. ‘Body Lies under Bar while Customers Drink Cocktails’ was just one phrase I could imagine. My name would be listed on the police blotter as a witness. The question was, would the reporters bother to mention me by name? I wished Sergeant Royal would come on and interview me and get it over with.

  It was a good thing the police got extra gasoline rations, Royal thought as Dickenson drove him north, on across the Taft Bridge which carried Connecticut Avenue over the Rock Creek Gorge. Of course, Becker worked at the zoo, which was
sited in Rock Creek Park north of the bridge, so it was close to his work. His building, the Woodward Apartments, was a handsome one right across the street from the Wardman Park Hotel, where so many new Washingtonians lived, either in the hotel itself or in the apartments behind it. Dickenson parked and then followed Royal as he made his way up the steps to the building’s double door. Before the war he would have waited for a doorman to answer a doorbell ring, but there weren’t many doormen anymore. He simply pushed the door open and went inside. The small, dark lobby was paved with marble black-and-white squares. A couple of veined black marble columns reached from the floor to the ceiling. No one sat at the desk near the entrance. Dickenson swung the elevator door and cage door open and they went inside the elevator, which was paneled in bright brass. No elevator operator, either. Royal pushed the button for the third floor.

  Al Becker opened the door to his apartment and ushered Royal and Dickenson inside. A davenport covered in mauve velveteen with two matching chairs filled the half of the room near the windows while a small dining area occupied the other half. Two bookshelves crammed with books and fronted by a Philco console radio lined the longest wall. An arch opened into a small but modern kitchen.

  Al moved sections of the Washington Post off the davenport and tossed them on the dining table. ‘Please have a seat,’ he said, and then moved to the radio to turn off the news. ‘Would you like some coffee? I can make a fresh pot.’

  ‘No thanks,’ Royal said, pulling out his notebook. ‘This is a nice apartment, nice building.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Al said. ‘My wife and I moved here after I began working at the zoo. We had a two-bedroom apartment first, but then after my daughter left home and my wife died, well, one bedroom is enough for me. And of course the city needed two-bedrooms for government workers.’

  ‘You are German?’ Royal asked.

  ‘You don’t waste time, Sergeant, asking the obvious question. I’m an American citizen, but yes, I am originally from Germany.’

  ‘When did you say you arrived here?’ Royal asked.