The line went dead, and Lucy furrowed her brow. What on earth did this message mean? She stared at the words she’d scribbled on the pad of paper, not certain this could possibly relate to her case. It was normal for telegraphers to shorten words, use acronyms and slang, but she didn’t know what to make of this snippet of text. It sounded . . . well, it sounded criminal.
She opened the connection to Midway. “Roland, what is a dropper?”
“Eyedropper?” he keyed back.
“No. Is it a criminal term?” Not that Roland was a criminal, but as a navy man, he would be familiar with blunt lingo.
“Could mean a hired killer,” Roland replied.
She swallowed hard. Looking at the message she’d jotted down, she swapped Roland’s term into the first line. Hire a killer to bump him off.
Bump who off? Could she actually have just heard a plot to murder someone? She’d suspected her uncle of many things over the years, but even her rich imagination never suspected he could sink to murder. But the message clearly stated that TD wanted someone in Baltimore bumped off once financing could be arranged.
She clasped the seat of her chair and forced her breathing to slow down. It was far more likely she’d overheard meaningless talk about filing some legal briefs. Maybe lawyers had their own slang for legal terms.
Except she’d been eavesdropping on this law office for two years and never heard such strange language before.
Her palms began to tingle and itch, as they always did when she was flooded with uncertainty. If she told anyone about this, she’d have to explain the wire. She had no idea what she’d just heard, but it seemed ominous.
It was Wednesday, and she and Nick always met at the Western Union cafeteria for lunch on Wednesdays, as it was better than the mushy stew served at the hog house. She counted the minutes until noon when she could turn to him for help. She went down to the cafeteria a few minutes early to buy him a cheese sandwich, as they couldn’t talk in the crowded lunchroom.
“What’s going on?” Nick asked when he arrived, and she shoved the sandwich in his hands, then turned him toward the front door.
“I need your advice. We have to step outside for a walk.”
His brows lowered in concern, but he didn’t argue as she led him down the street until they found an unoccupied bench. Lucy passed Nick the message she’d recorded only an hour earlier. He read it three times, rubbing his jaw and shifting on the bench. After a few moments, he passed the note back.
“Well?” she whispered. “Do you agree it sounds like someone in Moreno’s office might actually be planning a murder?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” He unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite, staring gloomily ahead.
“What should we do about it?”
Nick looked taken aback. “What can we do? We don’t know who, when, or where. All we know is that it might happen in Baltimore, so that leaves out you and me as the intended victims. It’s not our problem.”
Her jaw dropped open. “We’re not talking about a problem, we’re talking about murder.”
A man strolling by slowed to stare at her, his brows rising so high they disappeared under his bowler hat. Lucy piped down, and the man continued past, but Nick’s voice was low and annoyed.
“We don’t know that it’s murder. You heard a snippet of conversation, and everyone knows telegraphers are notorious for making up their own shorthand for common words. They could be talking about buying a racehorse for all you know.”
Lucy stared at the note. It mentioned the initials TD, and she’d been eavesdropping long enough to know that her uncle was the only Moreno client with those initials.
“I don’t think I could live with myself if someone gets killed and I didn’t do anything to stop it.”
Nick vaulted off the bench and started pacing on the sidewalk, his hands fisted. “What are we supposed to do? Go to the police? Confess that we’ve got an illegal wire? If anyone finds out about that wire, we’re both headed for jail.”
She wasn’t used to hearing disdain in Nick’s voice, and it hurt. “Nick . . . I’ve felt uneasy about that wire since the day we installed it. I told myself it was okay because Uncle Thomas is so awful and that if we win, a lot of people will have better lives. So I ignored my conscience, shut it down, and turned it off. Now I’m sitting here wondering if I can avert my eyes while someone gets killed.”
“Stop saying that! You have no idea what that note means, and neither do I.”
She flinched at the anger in his voice. He was right. What could the police possibly do with this incomplete bit of information? Revealing it could land them both in jail and everything they’d been fighting for in ashes.
Nick plopped down on the bench beside her, slumping forward and staring at the concrete beneath his feet. “I’m getting tired,” he admitted. “I’m thirty-one years old and have nothing to show for it.”
“Don’t say that—”
“I used to have dreams, Lucy. I used to imagine that I would be remembered for doing something really great someday. I wanted to conquer mountains and invent things and settle down with a nice girl. Have some kids. Now I worry about how to keep my head above water until the next court date. I’m tired. I don’t know how much longer I can keep going.”
“Stop talking like that. We’ll keep going as long as necessary because we are right.”
He held out his hand. “Give me that piece of paper.” It was an order, not a request.
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to destroy it and protect us both.”
She bolted to her feet and took a step back. He followed. “What are you going to do, attack me for it?”
“Don’t do it, Lucy. Don’t tell anyone about that message.” Nick’s breath was ragged, his eyes desperate.
She swallowed hard. All her life, she and Nick had been a team. He taught her how to ride a bicycle and how to fix a leaky faucet. She leaned on him when her fiancé got spooked by Uncle Thomas and broke their engagement. When their father died and Nick had been inconsolable, she got him out of bed, put a wrench in his hand, and made sure he got to the hog house. Nick was the only person in the world she trusted to guard her back or come through for her in a storm.
But now that bond was fractured, all because of a note linked to Uncle Thomas. Her breathing came fast and hard. She didn’t know what to do. Nick was probably right—the message she’d overheard probably meant nothing. All she knew for certain was that it was driving a wedge between her and Nick, and if she took the note to the police, they would learn about the wire. She couldn’t ask Colin about it either, for the searing anger of their last meeting in the train station was a pretty good indication that she’d burned that bridge for good.
All that was left for her to do was return to work and see if she could catch another message from her uncle’s law firm. If she could learn more, she’d know what to do.
She slipped the note into her skirt pocket, and Nick’s shoulders sagged. He looked like he had aged ten years in the space of a few seconds. He picked up his uneaten sandwich and tossed it in the trash.
“You need to decide where your loyalties lie,” he said in a voice sapped of energy. “I’m not going to sacrifice the rest of my life to the valve or whatever is going on at that law firm. We can’t save the world. I’m done, Luce. Don’t ask me to keep wrestling with whirlwinds.” He took a few steps toward the hog house before turning back to her. “And don’t you dare reveal that note to anyone.”
He left her standing in the middle of the sidewalk, alone and abandoned, still not knowing what to do.
As soon as she returned to her desk, she reconnected the tiny lightbulb to alert her when a message was sent on the illegal wire. Nick’s coldness left her feeling hollow, but she couldn’t shake the gnawing fear that something very bad was being plotted at the Moreno Law Office. If there were any follow-up messages to that cryptic note, she needed to hear them. In the meantime, she had to get ahold of herself, open
her sounder, and do her job.
She translated a story about the declining cod liver oil harvest in Norway, and another about labor protests from Pittsburgh. It was a full hour before the tiny lightbulb flashed. She carefully wrote down every letter of the incoming message.
TD wants it to happen in August before ICC meets. Cities are Baltimore Akron Charlottesville Rochester Oyster Bay. TD suggests dropping entire ICC. Only way to save NCC. Bomb? Need funds. NCC dying.
Lucy stared at the message, her heart rate kicking up. It was too heavily laden with abbreviations to make sense, but was there any way to put a positive spin on a bomb?
She stood. The AP had a library on the floor below for precisely this sort of thing. Reporters in the field often lacked access to research materials and were prone to misspelling names or getting dates wrong, so the library was an invaluable tool for checking facts. She clocked out and made her way to the spacious library.
Where to begin? The reference shelves contained dictionaries for dozens of languages and directories for every major city in Europe and America. She checked the telephone directories from all the noted cities, looking for any man with the initials NCC, but found nothing. She grabbed the directory for Washington, DC, even though it was not on the list of cities mentioned and began searching. There were two men whose initials were NC, but what did that prove? She thumbed to the listing of government departments and agencies and turned to the N’s.
Nicaragua Canal Commission.
Lucy sat back in her chair. She’d never heard of the Nicaragua Canal Commission, but it was the only thing so far whose initials perfectly matched. On a whim, she flipped back a few pages to see if there was anything that might correspond to the other set of initials, ICC. She quickly spotted one: the Isthmian Canal Commission.
Well, that was interesting. Lucy was well acquainted with the Isthmian Canal Commission, for it was the team of government experts the president had created to get the Panama Canal under way. The project had been stalled for decades, and Roosevelt had bluntly declared that he wanted a special commission of men to cut through the red tape and “make the dirt fly.”
Could this telegram relate to the Panama Canal? It said “NCC dying.” A little digging through the reference books confirmed the statement. In 1899, a group of investors proposed digging the canal through Nicaragua. The route would be longer than going through Panama, but the Nicaraguan option had flatter ground and would be an easier path to dig.
The message was making more sense. The NCC was dying, as Roosevelt pushed ever more aggressively for a canal through Panama instead of Nicaragua. She glanced back at the list of cities, and her heart froze. Oyster Bay was where the president lived when he wasn’t in Washington. Just that morning she had translated a story about President Roosevelt’s plan to deliver a speech at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, and everyone knew he regularly visited Baltimore on business.
This message was tracking the movements of President Roosevelt and the ICC commission. It mentioned assassins and bombs.
Lucy didn’t even bother returning to her desk but ran straight to the police department.
It took Lucy twenty minutes to get to the nearest police precinct. She tried to cut the line of people waiting to file reports by claiming her matter was urgent, but since she refused to explain to the harried clerk the nature of the problem, she was directed to wait her turn on a hard bench. Was she jumping to conclusions? She hoped so, as she took a seat between a dozing prostitute and a man wanting to file a reprimand against his landlord for serving cold porridge when he’d paid for hot.
What kind of porridge did they serve in prison? She might soon learn, for telling the police about this telegram could lead to the discovery of her illegal wire. Would President Roosevelt intervene if he learned she’d been sent to prison while trying to protect him? She wouldn’t have voted for Roosevelt even if women had the privilege, but she wasn’t going to stand aside and let someone plot against the President of the United States.
At last she was shown into an office, where a middle-aged sergeant listened to her outline the gist of the intercepted message. Sergeant Palmer studied her with a blank expression as he twirled the tip of his handlebar mustache.
“So you actually think someone is after President Roosevelt?” he asked as she finished her statement. He spoke carefully, but it sounded as if he was trying not to laugh.
“Maybe. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t turn that note over.”
The sergeant straightened. “And how is it you came by it? I’m still not quite clear on that.”
This was it. If he probed, she would take sole responsibility for the wire. There was no need for Nick to be brought into this at all. She didn’t want to go to jail. She really didn’t want to go to jail, but she didn’t want the president to get assassinated either. She cleared her throat and parsed her words carefully.
“It’s not unusual for telegraph operators to listen in on other wires. I overheard a conversation sent from the Moreno Law Office that was directed to a village near Saratoga. They didn’t know I could hear them.”
The sergeant carefully noted her response on the bottom of the page before opening a file and slipping it inside. “All right, Miss Drake. The report will be handled in priority order, and you’ll be notified of the outcome in due time.”
That was it? This man’s desk held a stack of files that looked like they’d been gathering dust since the turn of the century.
“You will turn it over to the proper authorities, right?”
“Yes, ma’am. Right alongside the other six threats on the president’s life we received this month, the accusation that the Vanderbilts are plotting to conquer Canada, and a report that the man in the moon was spying on a widow in Columbus Park.”
Only an idiot would miss the sarcasm in his voice, but she needed to underscore the urgency of the situation. “You did notice that the message referenced August, right? That means the issue must be addressed within the next two months.”
The sergeant gave her a patient smile. “Thank you, Miss Drake. I was exposed to basic counting skills and the order of calendar months in grade school, so I am confident I can handle this.”
She knew a dismissal when she heard one. She stood and spoke calmly.
“The next man waiting to see you is sadly disappointed with the quality of porridge served at his boardinghouse. It will be an easier task than defending the president, but I’m sure you know best how to prioritize your responsibilities.”
She left before she lost her temper any further.
Chapter
Eleven
Colin closed the file on the third performance review he’d written, a mind-numbing task he loathed, but a necessary one if he wanted to maintain his status within Reuters. He’d just reached for the next review on the stack when his butler knocked and entered.
“A woman from the AP, Miss Drake, is here to see you. Shall I send her in?”
Colin clenched his fists. He didn’t want to see Lucy again. Her accusations in the train station had cut too close to home, and besides, there was no place in his future for a woman like her.
“Tell her our association is at an end,” he said in an emotionless voice, but he couldn’t help regretting it a little as Denby nodded and closed the door. Continuing any sort of relationship with Lucy would only be painful to them both. It had been fun while it lasted. A reluctant smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He wished he didn’t miss her so much.
A minute later Denby was back, followed by Lucy herself. She had a lot of gall, shoving her way into his office, and his nascent sentimental feelings instantly evaporated.
“I must see you!” she said as she nudged past Denby. “Please . . . it will only take a few minutes of your time, and I desperately need your help.”
He stood and tilted his chin to look down at her. “But your visit will interfere with my nonstop attempts to seduce American heiresses,” he said in a frost-encr
usted tone.
“Oh, please! I take it back.”
“Sadly, that sort of remark isn’t something that can be called back.” The scar from her accusation still smarted and probably always would. Nothing hurt so much as the truth.
“Shall I escort the . . . lady out?” Denby asked, uncertainty heavy in his voice. Evicting unwelcome visitors was never something Denby had been called on to do at Whitefriars.
And Lucy looked ready to wage a battle. Her hands clenched a piece of paper, and Colin’s natural curiosity got the better of him.
“That won’t be necessary,” he conceded, annoyed by the look of relief on his old butler’s face. “Yes, Lucy, what is it?” he asked the moment Denby left. Courtesy dictated that he offer her a seat, and he gestured to a chair. She sat, but he remained standing. This meeting was not going to take long. He cast a pointed look at her and waited.
“Do you remember the wire I have installed at my desk?”
“Of course.”
“I intercepted a couple of disturbing messages today, and the police aren’t taking me seriously. I hope that I’m simply blowing this out of proportion. The messages contain codes I’m not sure of, but perhaps you’re familiar with them.” She handed him two slips of paper.
He studied both notes carefully, for the abbreviations made them a challenge to understand. He’d read enough detective novels to know that dropper was a slang term for an assassin. When Lucy told him that ICC and NCC were the two commissions investigating competing canals through Central America, his concern deepened.
“When did you receive this message?”
“This morning. The police sergeant I spoke with stuck my report in a file and dismissed me.”
Colin sat down and rubbed his hands together, thinking how best to handle this. It would be disastrous for a Reuters executive to be illegally tapped into an American law firm’s private wire, but Lucy was right to be concerned. What a frustrating, inconvenient, and fascinating mess. A spark of his old reporter’s instincts flared to life, and he sat a little straighter. The note indicated that TD was funding this initiative, which certainly meant Thomas Drake.
A Dangerous Legacy Page 12