by Jan Burke
“Lousy thing to do on Christmas,” he said. “Even to a snake.”
* * *
WE WERE A LITTLE late picking Steven up for dinner, given all the hullabaloo which followed my close encounter of the serpentine kind. Frank asked me if I wanted to just stay home, but by then I had gone from scared to angry, and I was determined not to let Thanatos spoil my Christmas the way he had spoiled the snake’s.
At first, the snake was the talk of the dinner gathering. Steven theorized that the warmth from the car heater might have made the reptile restless.
Jack recalled the story of Cassandra—that she and her brother were left in a temple one night, and when her parents looked in on them the next morning, the children were entwined with snakes, which flicked their tongues into the children’s ears. “That’s what enabled Cassandra and her brother to tell the future.”
“A lot of good it did Cassandra,” I said.
“Disgusting!” Mrs. Pastorini made a face, and then waved a hand as if to ward off a bad odor. “Snakes licking children’s ears! It’s not good to talk of such things on Christmas.”
“You’re right,” Guy said. “No more talk of sadness and danger and worry.” Guy nodded slightly toward Steven, who was looking a little pale. Steven didn’t notice the subtle gesture, but the rest of us caught the hint. Throughout the rest of the evening, a concerted effort was made to distract Steven from his grief.
You wouldn’t think that we could stuff ourselves two nights in a row, but we did. It was after ten o’clock when we finally got home. Frank lit a fire and asked me to stay up with him for a while. We sat on the floor, on the big rug in front of the fireplace. I reached behind the couch and pulled out the package with his sweatpants in them; he opened it and thanked me. He moved over closer to me. He put his arms around me, gently pulling me between his thighs, my back against his chest, then handed me a neatly wrapped, small box. I started crying.
“What’s wrong? Aren’t you going to open it?”
“I give you sweatpants, and you give me this?”
“It’s not as big a package, I admit, but . . .”
“Very funny. You know what I mean.”
“Open it. I don’t believe in gift-giving as a competitive sport.”
I didn’t say or do anything.
“Open it.” He said this gently, kissing my neck. Frank has learned that kissing my neck gives him a big advantage in the persuasion department.
I tried to open the package with shaking fingers, fumbling with the wrapping until I gave up and ripped the damned paper to pieces.
Frank laughed and said, “Well, I guess that won’t get pressed into the family Bible.”
I opened the small velvet case. Two sapphires and a diamond twinkled back at me. I shut the case and started crying again.
He put his hands around mine and opened it again, took the ring out of the box, and put it on my left ring finger.
“Have I asked you lately if you’d marry me?”
“We’ll check our files. What was the name again?”
I got a bite on the earlobe for that one.
“Yes, I will marry you. Will you marry me?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
We fell asleep on the rug in front of the fire, moving to the bed after waking up in a cold room with cricks in our backs and necks, but this is a small price to pay for true romance, which is generally harder to come by than square eggs.
18
HOBSON DEVOE CALLED ME at work early Wednesday morning. “My conscience troubled me after we spoke, Miss Kelly.”
Uh oh, I thought. He’s got cold feet. “Troubled you how?”
“I’ve worked for Mercury for many years. Oh my, I’ve worked for Mercury for more years than you’ve been alive, I’d wager. I decided I wasn’t willing to go sneaking around behind Quincy’s back.”
“Quincy?”
“Quincy Anderson. J.D. Anderson’s son. He’s been the president of the company since J.D. retired. Quincy is my boss.”
His habits of speech must have been contagious, because the sound of my hopes sinking was reduced to a simple “Oh.”
“So I called Quincy and I explained what I wanted to do. He was a little perturbed with me at first. But eventually, I persuaded him that it is in the company’s best interest to allow you to investigate this particular group of records. Can you meet me in the museum at nine o’clock?”
“Yes, I can. Mr. Devoe—I have to admit, you had me worried for a moment.”
“Oh, I’m sorry!”
“Which entrance should I use to get to the museum?”
“Well, first I should explain one other matter. Quincy did ask that you meet a few of his conditions.”
My worry button was back in the “on” position. “What kind of conditions?”
“Just three rather simple ones. First, he wants us to cooperate with the police. Quincy doesn’t want to deny the police access to information that might help them catch a serial killer. Will this be a problem?”
“In this case, no. I’ll even bring a homicide detective with me today.” So far, Quincy Anderson had saved me some trouble. “What are the other two?”
“Second, he doesn’t want the names of the workers released to the public, by you or the police.”
“I can’t speak for the police, of course. As for the paper, we already know some of the women’s names, both from our own research and from calls we’ve received from children of war workers. So I can’t promise their names won’t be printed. But my purpose in going through Mercury’s files is not to present confidential information about individual workers to the public. I’m just trying to find out why Thanatos is choosing certain people to be his victims.”
“Oh, my. I should have remembered that you already knew three women’s names when I first spoke with you. Well, I’ll talk to Quincy about that.”
“What’s the third condition?”
“Ahem, that you, ah—mention that Mercury was cooperative.”
“If Mercury is cooperative, I don’t have a problem saying so. Whether that kind of statement stays in the published version of my story is up to my editor.”
“Oh, of course. Well, let me talk to Quincy. I’ll call you back in a moment, Miss Kelly.”
* * *
ABOUT AN HOUR later, I was meeting Frank outside the museum doors. It had only taken Hobson Devoe about fifteen minutes to call me back to say we had the go-ahead from Quincy.
Devoe was a skinny twig of a man who looked like a strong breeze would snap him in half. But his eyes had an intelligence in them strong enough to overcome any frailties of his body.
“This museum means a lot to me,” he said, gesturing with a bony hand toward the models of planes and historical photographs along the walls. “It’s important to know where you’ve come from if you ever want to know where you’re going.” He paused and smiled. “Forgive me. You’re not here to see the museum. We have more pressing matters to attend to—and I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful to be included. I am looking forward to helping you. I haven’t had anything this challenging to work on in years!”
We followed him out of the museum, trying to walk as slowly as he did.
If I had seen a big piece of cheese in one corner of the offices which housed Mercury Aircraft’s Human Resources Department, I wouldn’t have been surprised. The place was a maze. Hobson Devoe took a slow but sure path through the cubicles, dividers, and desks, using a key card to open one locked door after another. I suppose it’s easier to find your way around a place after you’ve spent more than half a century there.
We ended up crowding ourselves into a small office with a computer terminal in it. Devoe put on a pair of glasses that magnified his eyes so much I could count his lashes. How the hell had he seen well enough to walk us back here, I wondered? He sat down at the keyboard, then slowly but steadily entered a series of keystrokes. He grinned up at us.
“Oh, ho! Bet you didn’t think I’d know h
ow to use one of these contraptions, did you?”
“Mercury has records from the 1940s on the computer system?” Frank asked.
“Oh, yes. Unusual, isn’t it? Most places don’t even save those records on paper. But every employee record we’ve ever had is on our system. J.D. Anderson was quite fond of doing statistical studies on personnel.”
That statement raised an eyebrow or two, but he looked between us and said, “Oh, oh, all quite legitimate, I assure you.”
He slowly hunted and pecked a few more keys. Good grief, I thought, Thanatos is going to kill off half of Las Piernas while this old geezer learns to type. “There,” he said with satisfaction. “Now, where would you like to start?”
Frank and I had already discussed this. After some further work on the list of people who called the LPPD, our combined list now had fifteen women war workers’ names on it. But there was a much smaller group of war workers who were unmistakably linked to this case. “With the mothers of the three victims,” I said. “Could we look at Josephine Blaylock’s records?”
Devoe tapped in her name, then moved closer to the screen, its light reflecting off his lenses.
“Born January 11, 1916,” he read, as Frank and I took notes. “Hired October 5, 1942. Widowed. There’s a star here, which indicates that she lost her husband in the war. One child—we could ask about that in those days . . . oh goodness, don’t let me get started on that subject.”
“What else does it say about her?” I asked.
“Let’s see. She started out at our Los Angeles plant. We had the two large plants then, one here and one in L.A. We had about seven smaller satellite plants as well, in other parts of Southern California.”
“When did she come to Las Piernas?” I asked.
He moved a little closer to the screen. “Transferred to the Las Piernas plant on November 6, 1944. Worked in plating.”
We outlined Josephine Blaylock’s work history, then asked him to look up Bertha Thayer.
“Born June 3, 1918. Hired August 17, 1942.” She was a little younger than Josephine, but as he read on we learned she was, as Hobson had remembered, a war widow. Thelma was her only child. “Started in the L.A. plant,” he went on, “transferred to the Las Piernas plant on November 6, 1944. Worked in several areas, mainly in de-icer assembly, though.”
“Hold it,” Frank said, looking up from his notes. “She transferred on the same day as Josephine Blaylock?”
“Why, yes,” Hobson said.
“Let’s take a look at Gertrude Havens’ records,” I said.
Devoe was working up some speed now, and it took less time to pull up her file.
“Transferred November 6, 1944. Worked in wiring.” His snow white brows drew together. “I don’t know what to make of that November 6 business. Sometimes we would transfer groups of workers as projects ended in one plant and new ones began in the other. Let me take a closer look at their records.”
He typed a command and, indeed, peered closer at the screen. “Mr. Devoe,” I warned, “that’s probably not safe.” He was close enough to leave smudges on the monitor. That close to the screen, even if radiation wasn’t a problem, he’d get static electricity in his nose hairs.
“O-L-Y,” he said to me, then leaned back. “O-L-Y . . .”
“Beg pardon?”
“O-L-Y. That’s what’s listed as the reason for the transfer.”
“What does it mean?”
“I have no idea,” he said unhappily, clearly outraged that a personnel record could contain something he didn’t understand. “On Leave of . . . no, I can’t imagine what the Y stands for.”
“Could you tell us the names of any other workers who transferred on that same day?” Frank asked.
He scratched his head, and then tapped in another set of commands. It took the computer just a little longer to come up with matching records.
Thirty-eight names. A short list, but longer than our fifteen.
“Oh my,” he said, frowning, “I forgot to specify females. There are some men on this list. Here’s one from our San Diego plant. I’ll redo that search.”
“Could you also narrow it to those who came from the L.A. plant and who have ‘O-L-Y’ as the reason for leaving?”
He began typing in the search specifications, saying each aloud as he entered them. “And Oly,” he said as he put in the last, then pressed the command to start the search.
Oly. He said it as a word that time, reminding me of other words in my treasure trove of mythological terms.
“Olympic? Olympiad? Olympus?”
Devoe looked at me as if I had conjured a ghost. “Olympus!” he whispered. “By God, it’s Olympus.”
He stared silently at the screen for a moment, as Frank and I exchanged glances.
“Mount Olympus, home of the gods. Was that the name of a special project?” I asked.
“Perhaps it was,” he said absently, his thoughts obviously drifting for a time. He looked up at me. “Olympus was the name of our child care center.”
The computer beeped and he looked back to the screen. “A list of twenty-five names,” he said, printing them out.
“Why would the child care center be listed as the reason for a transfer?” Frank asked.
He sighed. “That, I’m afraid, is a very sad tale. I had quite forgotten it until Miss Kelly mentioned its name.” He looked between us. “You’re both too young, I suppose. Born in the 1950s?”
We nodded.
“Yes, well, many people your age don’t realize it, but in the years just before and during the war, there were a great many federally funded child care centers.”
“Federally funded child care?” I thought about the defeat of such proposals in the 1970s and since. “They built them for war workers?”
“Yes, but we had some even before that, as a part of the WPA. After the U.S. entered the war, of course, the number of them grew by leaps and bounds, especially in places like Las Piernas and Los Angeles, where there were so many war-related industries.”
“So this Olympus was one of the federally funded centers?”
“No, it was our own.”
“Mercury’s?”
“Yes. The government funded centers usually closed early in the evenings. We were working three shifts, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. We needed child care centers to match. We couldn’t wait for the federal government to decide it could sponsor such centers, so we sponsored our own.”
“In Los Angeles?” Frank asked.
“The Olympus Child Care Center was in Los Angeles. The one in Las Piernas was simply called the Mercury Child Care Center. They were both closed before the end of the war.”
“Why?”
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Old J.D. would spin in his grave if he knew I was dredging all of this up again. But I’m an old coot now, and past scaring.
“Life in Southern California was very different in those days. It was different everywhere. But you cannot imagine how much this area has changed. Los Angeles! Oh, my.” He closed his eyes, as if picturing L.A. and Las Piernas as they were then. “Aircraft companies and the people who ran them were very powerful. Everyone saw their importance to winning the war. No one wanted to stand in the way.” He sighed and opened his eyes. “It was wartime. People your age have never seen anything like it. The World War II homefront was something beyond what your generation can imagine. Everyone had a brother or a husband, a father or a son, in the military. People weren’t just patriotic. The war effort was a personal matter. And this plant and the one in Los Angeles were vital to that effort. Whatever we asked for, we got. It’s impossible for you to understand . . .” He paused. “Oh, forgive me. I’m rambling. You want to know about Olympus.”
He hesitated again, then began speaking in a low, confiding voice, as if he were dishing the dirt on the bride at a wedding reception. “There was a very strange and sad incident at that day care center. A little boy died. I don’t remember all of the details, but
as I recall, one of the workers at the center was blamed for the boy’s death. The center was closed.”
“You don’t remember anything about the person who was blamed?” Frank asked. “Was it a man? A woman?”
“A woman, I believe. Yes. There was a big trial.” His brows drew together again. “I’m sorry, it’s so long ago. I was so busy after they closed that center, I didn’t follow all of that very closely, I’m afraid.”
“What happened to all the children who were being cared for at the Olympus Center?”
“Now, that part I remember. I handled most of that. The company offered to transfer a few of the mothers and their children down here, and to help them get settled in Las Piernas. As I recall, J.D. offered that only to the war widows, not every woman who had a child there. Most of the other women were forced to make other arrangements. But he had a soft spot for the widows. The first women he hired were Pearl Harbor widows. He got great press out of that—but I wouldn’t want to disparage his motives.”
“So these twenty-five came down here, to Las Piernas?”
“Yes. I was in charge of helping them to find housing down here, which wasn’t easy, I can tell you.”
“How did you manage that?” I asked. “I’ve always heard that housing was scarce around here then.”
“Oh, it was. Very much so. But as I said, Mercury Aircraft had a tremendous amount of power in Southern California in those days, and we got it all worked out. J.D. wasn’t above pressuring officials for favors when he needed them. And as I said, he also knew how to milk the publicity value of a good deed, and he made the most of what we were doing for these women.”
We started comparing his list to ours. We had six exact matches to the names of mothers on our list, including the mothers of the three victims:
Josephine Blaylock
Bertha Thayer
Gertrude Havens
Peggy Davis
Amanda Edgerton
Louisa Parker
Most of the others didn’t match in one of two ways. If a woman was on Devoe’s list, and not ours, her child’s (or children’s) current age would not be fifty-four. If she was on ours, but not Devoe’s, a check of the Mercury records revealed that she was not transferred with the Olympus group.
