It was so small that it fit in the palm of her hand. The breath left her body in a rush. How did Mr. Drake know she loved music boxes? It was drastically different from the plain wooden boxes she had learned to make in Germany. This one was so ornate, she was almost afraid to wind the stem.
When she opened the lid, the mechanism played the haunting melody of the Moonlight Sonata. The tune matched the outside of the box, which was covered in rich cobalt blue enamel and offset by tiny crystals that looked like stars scattered across the night sky. The moon was a disk of shimmering opal circled by a diamond-dust halo. The label on the box said it was from the House of Fabergé.
A card was enclosed.
Dr. Werner,
When I saw this box, I thought it was as pretty as a moonbeam, and it made me think of you.
We both have strong feelings about how to make sure people have clean drinking water, but I shouldn’t have let my temper fly the way I did. I can be a bull in a china shop when I get worked up over something I care about, but I don’t usually go after nice ladies like you. Please accept my apology.
Nick Drake
She cradled the precious music box in her hand, strangely upset by its beauty. It was a thoughtful gesture, but it couldn’t erase the disappointment she felt at her complete failure in making headway with him. It was easy for him to be magnanimous, as he was on the winning side of this battle.
She was still thinking about the music box as she headed toward the laboratory the next morning. Normally on Thursdays she went to the nearby college, where she worked with a team of students learning the chlorination technique, but she felt compelled to go to the laboratory this morning instead. Something was wrong with Dr. Leal, and she needed to get their research back on track. They had only eighty-one days left to prove their case.
She loved the tree-shaded walk to work, which took her past the candy factory a few blocks from the lab. This morning it smelled like they were making toffee, and she breathed deeply as she braced herself for another difficult day with Dr. Leal.
She entered the squat brick building that held the lab and headed down the hall toward their workspace. On the other side of the closed door, she heard laughter. Well, that was good! There weren’t supposed to be any lab assistants today, but at least it sounded like Dr. Leal was emerging from his strange despondency.
She opened the door and walked inside. “Good morning, Dr. Leal.”
The laughter abruptly ceased as two men whirled around at the back laboratory table, looking at her in surprise. One was Dr. Leal, but she’d never seen the plump businessman with round spectacles before. The stranger quickly rolled up some oversized papers and inserted them into a cardboard tube.
Dr. Leal cleared his throat. “Rosalind. I didn’t expect to see you this morning. I thought you were at the college today.”
She wished he would call her Dr. Werner, especially when other people were in the room. Perhaps it was foolish, because they’d been working together for three years and were good friends, but such familiarity could give rise to rumors.
“I thought it would be best to press ahead on the research this morning,” she said.
He didn’t seem to be listening to her. With a flick of his hand, he shuffled a few papers into his top desk drawer. He locked the drawer before stepping forward.
“Well, allow me to introduce George Fuller. Mr. Fuller is a respected sanitary engineer, and he’s agreed to help us with the ongoing water litigation.”
Dr. Leal continued speaking, but she quit listening. She blanched the instant she heard Mr. Fuller’s name, for she knew exactly who he was. George Fuller’s reputation in water purification was extraordinary, and they couldn’t ask for a better man on their team. The question was, did Mr. Fuller know who she was? He had been studying in Berlin during the worst of her scandal. If he made a connection between her and that notorious woman from Heidelberg, it could take a wrecking ball to her reputation all over again. Even worse was what it could do to Gus. . . .
She masked her anxiety from her voice. “Of course I’m familiar with your work,” she said. “Welcome to Jersey City. We are honored to have you aboard.” She studied the older man’s face, searching for any hint of recognition or disdain. There was none.
“Dr. Werner,” he said with a little bow. “You have a nice laboratory here.”
It was Dr. Leal’s lab, but she still managed a slight smile at the compliment. An awkward silence filled the room. She glanced at the table where the two men had been working before she walked in. All the papers had been hastily put away, and the surface of the black slate gleamed in emptiness. They made no move to tell her what had held them so engrossed before she walked in.
“A fine day we’re having,” Dr. Leal said. “Do you think it’s going to rain?”
Now she knew something was wrong. In the three years they’d worked together, Dr. Leal had never once resorted to talking about the weather to fill a void.
“I don’t think so,” she murmured as she headed to the small icebox in the sitting area. Most of the lab was dominated by black slate tables, but a small kitchen and sitting area had been added, for she and Dr. Leal rarely had time to leave for lunch.
As she put her cheese sandwich inside the icebox, a terrible thought seized her.
Was Dr. Leal about to fire her? Was her failure with Nicholas Drake so bad that he had given up on her and was turning to George Fuller as a replacement? It would explain why he’d been so gloomy the past few days.
Her mouth went dry as she walked to the lunch table, fiddling with the vase of daisies she’d brought in a few days ago. As she pinched off a wilting blossom, her gaze tracked to a stray document on the table. It looked like some kind of architectural blueprint.
“What’s this?” she asked.
Mr. Fuller closed the distance between them in three steps. “It’s nothing,” he said as he pulled the paper toward him, rolling it up and inserting it into the tube he carried. “Just plans for a shed I’d like to build someday.”
He didn’t meet her eyes, and silence took over again. Mr. Fuller looked uncomfortable as he scrambled for something to fill the awkward silence. “I gather you studied at Heidelberg University, yes?” he finally said.
Oh heavens, he did know who she was. She’d been naïve to think her reputation would not eventually catch up with her. “Yes, yes, I did,” she said, but the air in here was stifling, and she needed to get away. “If you’ll excuse me.”
She couldn’t get out of there fast enough. She’d accepted what had happened in Heidelberg years ago, but hadn’t expected to be slapped in the face with it this morning.
It was a cool morning for June, but she still felt overheated as she strode down the avenue, heading toward the candy factory a few blocks away. Maybe there would be a delivery. She liked watching wagons of cocoa, sugar, and fruit preserves arrive at the plant. Stupid, but it would give her something to watch as Dr. Leal and Mr. Fuller continued the conversation she had interrupted but was not welcome to join.
“Rosalind!” Dr. Leal scurried down the street, waving a hand to flag her down.
No matter how badly she wanted to avoid this awkward conversation, it would be foolish to run. She turned and waited for him to catch up with her.
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Leal panted as he reached her. “George and I had some business to discuss, and it isn’t something we’re comfortable sharing with anyone else.”
“I understand,” she said, even though she didn’t. She and Dr. Leal had been working nonstop on water purification for the past three years. How could he have been pursuing other research interests without her knowing about it?
“Does Mr. Fuller know who I am?” she asked.
“Of course.”
She turned and began walking again, trying to release the tension coiled in her body. She and Gus had already paid such a price for her naïveté in Germany, but perhaps she’d never be able to escape her past completely. “And is he going to run to t
he press with news of the fallen woman you have employed in your laboratory?”
Dr. Leal’s bark of laughter was genuine. “My dear, we have far bigger fish to fry.”
It was hardly a comforting thought, but the enthusiasm in his voice caught her attention. “Is he going to help us with the case?”
“Oh yes.” A world of confidence was packed into those two tiny words.
She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to face him. “How?”
Dr. Leal was normally so placid and kind, but indecision warred on his face as he turned away and started walking again. They reached the end of the street, where a picket fence bordered the property of the candy factory. He appeared engrossed as he watched factory workers offload sacks of sugar onto a platform.
“We aren’t sure it’s a good idea to tell you, but I don’t think there’s any way to avoid it. You’ve already seen the blueprint for the treatment facility.”
“That little building? It looked like a simple shed.”
Dr. Leal looked up and down the street. There was no one within earshot, but still he lowered his voice. “That ‘simple shed’ is going to house a chlorine feed system. It will provide a dilution of chloride of lime calibrated for release into the water reservoir west of the city. We’re going to proceed with chlorinating the water supply.”
She tilted her head in confusion. “You mean, after you’ve got the judge’s authorization. At the end of the ninety-day deferment, correct?”
“No. I’m starting now.”
She was aghast. “Just like that? Don’t you need to get permission?”
“There is no law against it.”
“But . . . but . . .” Her mind was so scrambled that she couldn’t even get her mouth to form the words. Maybe there was no law against it, but probably because no one imagined anyone would have the audacity to do such a thing! It didn’t seem right. Or moral. Nick Drake’s impassioned face rose in her mind. You’re not testing it on my daughter, he had growled. At the time, she thought him paranoid, but wasn’t this exactly what Dr. Leal proposed? Releasing chlorine into the water supply without anyone realizing it? She felt hot and light-headed, certain this was a wrong and reckless course of action.
“Rosalind, you know this is going to work. You know that it’s safe. For pity’s sake, it’s safer to drink treated water than to rely on the inadequate filtration system currently in place. Once we activate the chlorine feed, Jersey City will have the safest drinking water anywhere in the world.”
“I still don’t think it’s right. We need to check with the authorities and notify people. We need the city to sanction it. We need to go through the proper channels and—”
“We’ve got less than three months to make our case,” Dr. Leal said as he gently cut her off. “We just went through two years of courtroom litigation, trying to persuade them with teams of experts, and we failed. It’s time to show them.”
Her mouth opened, but she was rendered completely mute as shock set in. She had to find a way to stop this. She admired Dr. Leal and had never met a man so dedicated to the cause of pure, clean water, but he was exposing himself to a terrible risk. She had to protect him.
“When are you planning to put this into action?”
“We break ground on the shed next Monday. It will take a week to build. Then we start the chlorination.”
“Please,” she whispered. “Please don’t do this.”
Dr. Leal’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he gave her a fatherly smile of understanding. “I’ve already gone through all the emotions you’re feeling. The doubt, the panic, and yes, the fear. I’ve wrestled with them, and I’ve won. I know it’s the right thing to do, and I’m willing to take the risk. You don’t need to participate, but let George and I proceed with this. All I ask is that you keep the secret.”
He was about to set off a scientific bombshell. Gus always teased her about being a persnickety rule-follower, but this was beyond the pale. Even if she didn’t participate, keeping Dr. Leal’s secret seemed dishonest and immoral.
But he made a good point. They knew their solution was safe. Their chief opposition was not science but ill-informed paranoia from people who did not understand the lethal danger carried by tiny microorganisms.
She nodded. She would keep the secret for now, but she had just over a week to find a way to stop him.
Chapter
Four
Rosalind had to be smart about this. The only way she could stop Dr. Leal from proceeding with a potentially catastrophic decision was by getting the judge to change his mind, and for that, she needed more allies.
She’d figured out her mistake with Nick Drake at their breakfast meeting. The moment she implied he was uneducated, he threw up his defenses and hunkered down behind the barricades. She could do better. Mr. Drake wasn’t ignorant, he was merely ill-informed. She could take him to their laboratory and show him what lived beneath a slide and how quickly it died when exposed to a mild chlorine solution.
Rosalind didn’t know where he lived or worked, but she knew exactly where he would be on Saturday. In last week’s New York Times, she’d read a story about Manhattan’s millionaire plumber. Apparently he was something of a celebrity on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the working-class hero who hadn’t forgotten his roots. He regularly showed up on Saturdays to install plumbing in poor tenement houses and public buildings that otherwise would do without. For the past two months, he’d been installing washrooms and kitchen plumbing in the Hester Street Orphanage.
Interrupting him while he performed charity work was not ideal, but she was running out of time.
On Saturday morning, Rosalind awakened early to make another journey across the river to see Mr. Drake. She had never been to the Lower East Side, but she’d heard plenty of rumors and read Jacob Riis’s groundbreaking book about immigrants crammed into tenements that lacked fresh air and clean water. The pictures of the slums had been appalling, and only a fool wouldn’t be a little frightened.
She clenched the strap on the crowded streetcar as it took her farther down Orchard Street, where the buildings were tightly packed and laundry lines stretched across alleys. And the noise! Peddlers hawked their wares, women on balconies hollered to their children playing below, and horses clopped down the street.
She got off at Hester Street but had no idea where the orphanage was located. She asked a man standing behind a table weighed down with handwoven rugs for directions. She had to ask him twice before he understood.
“Five blocks down that way,” he answered in German.
“Danke vielmals,” she thanked him in his native tongue. She had clearly just wandered into Little Germany, with pushcart vendors selling pastrami and pickled herring. Narrow storefronts faced the street, and the variety was astonishing. Tobacco shops, beer halls, pawn shops, and Jewish delicatessens. The air was filled with a pastiche of English, German, Yiddish, and plenty of other languages she could not identify.
She finally found the orphanage. At least she assumed she was in the right place, for a dozen children loitered on the front steps, most playing jacks or hopscotch, but some simply watching passersby on the street. The building was six stories high, with more children leaning out on the narrow balconies above. She ducked as a boy on a balcony tossed a ball to a youngster a few steps away.
No one complained when she walked through the entrance doors. A woman sat behind the front counter, sorting a stack of freshly delivered laundry.
“I’m looking for Nicholas Drake,” Rosalind said. “Do you know if he’s here today?”
The woman peered at her skeptically. “Are you a reporter?”
Did he really attract that much attention? She wished scientific discoveries warranted as much coverage from the popular press. Maybe people wouldn’t be so violently opposed to chlorination if they understood it better.
“No, I’m not a reporter. Just a friend.” At least, it seemed like they were on the way to becoming friends during breakfast last
week.
“Good. They were here earlier because they heard the washrooms are finally going to be finished today. They wanted a picture of him in the new washroom with the children, and Mr. Drake hates that sort of thing. He’s up on the fourth floor.”
Rosalind climbed three flights in the narrow stairwell, stepping out into the end of a long, dimly lit hallway. The hall ran in only one direction, and a cluster of children gathered near the other end, where an open doorway led to a white-tiled room. The tile wasn’t complete, and a man with a trowel was spreading a thin layer of mortar on the wall while a young boy passed over tiles. Rosalind navigated around the children to get a better view and spotted the legs of a man lying flat on his back beneath a counter with three sinks.
“Now the socket wrench, Karl.” It was Nick Drake’s voice. The adolescent boy kneeling beside him rifled through a toolbox and handed over the wrench.
“And what am I not going to do with this wrench?” Mr. Drake asked.
“Strip the threads off the screw,” Karl answered.
“That’s right. And how might I accidentally strip the threads? Someone else answer besides Karl.”
“If you twist it too tight,” a girl with braids answered.
“Good girl,” Mr. Drake said in a booming voice from beneath the sink.
Rosalind stood in the doorway and watched him work. All she could see of him was his plain canvas trousers and scuffed work boots sticking out from beneath the counter, but occasionally a hand reached out for a tool. A big, strong hand smudged with grease and dirt, but she liked that it was a capable hand. By the end of the day, those hands would give these children the priceless gift of a functioning washroom. There was something wildly attractive about a man who could do that.
A Daring Venture Page 4
