by Sarah Sundin
“No proof?” Kaplan thrust a shaking finger toward the door. “The rat dropped it.”
“I’ll hang on to this and make a note of it, but without any witnesses . . .” The agent shrugged his slim shoulders.
Out of habit, Mary’s fingers itched to take shorthand notes, but Sheffield was hearing the conversation anyway. Still, she wanted it recorded word for word.
Kaplan’s gaze bounced between Sheffield and Hayes, who hadn’t even faced the young man. He breathed hard, his fingers working at his sides. “Search his locker.”
Sheffield shook a cigarette from a pack. “His locker?”
“Bauer’s. He’s hiding something in there, we all know it. A bomb or something. He keeps it locked—no one else does—and he’s sneaky, shields it from view when he opens it, won’t let anyone look inside.”
In silence, Sheffield pulled out his lighter, lit his cigarette, and puffed it.
Mary held her breath. A man acting sneaky wasn’t hard proof, especially when everyone suspected him of a crime, and yet . . . what was Mr. Bauer hiding?
Agent Sheffield shoved back his chair and stood. “Agent Hayes, fetch Mr. Bauer and meet me at the locker room. And Miss Stirling . . .” He paused in front of her and bowed his head. “Would you like to come along as my personal stenographer and record these proceedings?”
She sprang to her feet. “Yes, sir.”
He raised one eyebrow at her. “I figured you’d follow me anyway.”
“Perhaps.” She clutched her empty notebook.
The agents put on their hats and departed. Mr. Kaplan led the way, his long legs setting a brisk pace. Mary had to put an extra skip in her step to keep up, almost like walking with Jim.
Except Jim would laugh and chat as they walked, with an easy swing in his step.
Mary followed a set of railroad tracks and gazed out to where the Atwood was moored. Perhaps Jim would have liberty tomorrow night and come to church on Sunday. Seeing his encouraging face in the congregation bolstered her. If only he could be with her right now. No matter what happened today, she’d certainly have plenty to discuss with him this weekend.
Mr. Kaplan led Agent Sheffield and Mary into Building 42.
Agent Sheffield paused outside the door to the locker room. “Wait here. I’ll make sure no men are inside.”
While Kaplan paced by the door, Mary opened to a clean page in her notebook. Her stomach squirmed. Although she was excited to be part of an official investigation, her role today might make the men wonder about her note-taking on the docks. Without her invisibility, how could she sleuth?
Agent Sheffield opened the door and beckoned them inside. “All clear.”
Kaplan marched in, past several rows of steel lockers with benches in the aisles. He jangled a small padlock. “Here it is. See—the only one with a lock.”
Mary glanced around. Not quite, but very few did have locks.
“Go ahead. Open it.” Kaplan rattled the locker door.
Sheffield sighed, leaned back against the bank of lockers, and puffed on his cigarette. “We won’t have to wait long.”
Sure enough, loud voices rose in the hallway and the door banged open. Agent Hayes led Heinrich Bauer by the elbow, and a dozen men followed, jeering, shouting, arguing with each other.
Frank Fiske strode behind the mob. “Back off, boys. Leave him alone. Let the FBI do their work.”
Mary eased away from the crowd and set her pen in motion. In secretarial school she never imagined using her skills like this.
Bauer’s blue eyes stretched wide, his forehead creased. “What is wrong? I have done nothing.”
Fiske stepped right in front of Agent Sheffield. “What’s going on here? You drag my man away from his job and start a disruption. How can I get any work done? We have a timetable to meet.”
The agent leaned around Fiske and addressed Mr. Bauer. “May I look inside your locker?”
“My . . .” He looked at his locker, at Kaplan, at Sheffield, his face pale. “I have a coat, a lunch. That is all.”
“Good.” Sheffield gestured at the locker.
Bauer moistened his lips. “This is America. I thought it was different here. Do you not need a—what is it named?”
“A search warrant. If you don’t agree to the search, I’ll get a warrant. But if you have nothing to hide, why not open it now and shut these fellows up for good?”
“Yeah, Bauer.” Al Klingman pointed at the locker. “What are you hiding?”
More shouting, more accusations.
Mary shifted to the side to get a better view through the pulsating crowd.
Agent Sheffield shrugged. “With or without your cooperation, I’m getting inside your locker.”
When Bauer nodded, Agent Hayes dropped the man’s elbow. Bauer wiped his upper lip, slid a key from his pocket, and opened the lock. For a second he stood still, his head bowed, then he slipped off the lock and opened the door.
Dozens of pamphlets fluttered to the ground, stark red and black and white.
Bauer gasped and stepped back. “Was ist—”
“See! Proof!” Kaplan snatched up a pamphlet and waved it before the men. “Nazi propaganda, courtesy of the German-American Bund. I knew it. I knew he was a Nazi.”
“I am not a Nazi.” Bauer’s voice came out high-pitched. “These are not mine.”
Mary could scarcely take her eyes off the drama long enough to take notes. But she had an official job, and she’d do it.
Kaplan flicked a pamphlet in Bauer’s face. “The evidence says otherwise.”
“Yeah.” Morton Anders raised a fist toward the German. “Lying Nazi saboteur.”
Bauer backed against the lockers, his eyes wild. “I am not. I—”
“Remember?” Kaplan faced the men and held the pamphlets high. “Remember when those Bund thugs beat me up a few weeks ago? They threw trash like this on top of me.”
Bauer lunged at Kaplan and grabbed his collar. “You! You did this to me!”
Heart racing, Mary gasped and stepped back.
“Get off me!” Kaplan shoved him away.
As shouts rose, Bauer socked Kaplan in the gut. Pamphlets and fists flew through the air.
Rough hands grabbed Mary’s arms from behind.
She cried out and glanced over her shoulder to see Mr. Fiske. She sighed in relief.
“Get out of here, Miss Stirling.” He guided her back, away. “You’ll get hurt.”
Something fierce and determined stirred within her, and she wriggled out of his grasp. “No! I’m taking notes for Agent Sheffield. He asked me to. I need to stay.”
His deep-set eyes narrowed. He glanced at her notebook, the open page covered with shorthand scrawls, and he frowned.
“Excuse me.” She turned back to the melee and tried to make sense of it.
Bauer pinned Kaplan to the ground. “You did this. Why did you do this to me?”
“’Cause you’re a stinking Nazi.” He spat in Bauer’s face.
Men pulled Bauer back. Kaplan stumbled to his feet, darted forward, but other men grabbed him from behind.
Bauer strained against his captors, his eyes flaming, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. “I am not a Nazi. I left Deutschland to escape the Nazis.”
“Baloney!” Kaplan rammed an elbow into the chest of the man to his right, but he failed to get free.
Mary scrawled down the words she couldn’t believe—Mr. Bauer had left to escape the Nazis? How could that be? What would such an Aryan-looking man have to fear?
Bauer’s shoulders rounded, like a bull ready to charge. “I am not a Nazi,” he growled.
“Sure you are, German pig!” Kaplan struggled, arms flailing. “You hate the Jews, think you’re better than us.”
“My wife is Jewish!” Bauer startled, cried out, then ducked his head, curling his hands before him as if to protect himself.
The room hushed.
Mary’s lips tingled while her fingers took down the words. His wife wa
s Jewish. His wife—no wonder he’d fled.
Bauer shook his head behind his raised fists. “Meine Magda. Meine liebe Magda.” His voice cracked. “Es tut mir leid.”
Mary didn’t speak German, but shorthand was phonetic, so she did her best, though her heart broke for the man.
“Your wife . . . ?” Kaplan’s voice quavered through the silence. “Your wife is Jewish?”
“Ja.” Bauer looked up, his face stricken. “That is why we escaped. She was not safe.”
Kaplan sagged back, his arms hanging loose. “You—you never said anything.”
“She is not safe here either. You should know. Folk hate the Jews. It is wrong.”
Kaplan’s eyes widened, and his hand rose and covered his mouth and nose like a cage. “You—you aren’t the saboteur.”
No, he wasn’t, and Mary almost smiled. No wonder Bauer was so secretive—he feared for the safety of his family. Thank goodness he wasn’t guilty.
“No, he isn’t.” George O’Donnell stepped forward and jabbed Kaplan in the chest. “But now we know who the real saboteur is. You.”
“What?” Kaplan’s face scrunched up. “That doesn’t even make sense. Why would I—”
“Why would you frame Bauer?” Curly Mulligan joined O’Donnell. “Hmm. I don’t know. Maybe to make it look like a German was blowing up our ships. That’d get us in the war right quick, wouldn’t it?”
In tandem, realization and horror dawned on Kaplan’s face. “You think I—I didn’t—I couldn’t.”
Mary’s mouth drooped open. Nothing insincere in his reaction at all. “He didn’t do it either,” she whispered.
Agent Sheffield picked up a handful of pamphlets and displayed them in front of Kaplan. “Be truthful, son. These are the same pamphlets the Bund members threw down on you, aren’t they?”
Kaplan blinked over and over, his chest heaving.
“Wrinkled, soiled.” Sheffield lifted one of the pamphlets. “And look. This one has a blood smear. What do you want to bet it’s your blood type? Easy enough to find out.”
“I—I—” Kaplan’s breath huffed out. “I thought Bauer—I thought he was guilty. I thought he was dangerous, and you said you needed proof, more proof, and—” He cussed and grabbed his head, his knuckles white.
“And what, Mr. Kaplan?” Agent Sheffield said in a calm voice.
He gestured to the locker. “Look, all I did was put the propaganda in his locker, slipped it through the cracks, but I didn’t plant a bomb. You’ve got to believe me. I couldn’t—”
Shouts rang out from the isolationists, while Kaplan’s interventionist friends backed up, disgust carved into their expressions.
Mary shook her head and forced herself to take notes. He admitted to framing Mr. Bauer? But not to the sabotage? If he were guilty of both, wouldn’t he either deny both or confess both?
“Yes, he could.” Mr. Fiske’s voice rang over the shouts and silenced them. He turned to the FBI agent. “He could’ve planted that bomb.”
The agent dipped his head. “Continue.”
Fiske faced Kaplan. “I’m sorry, Ira, but I won’t cover for you. The day we installed that gun mount, I sent you to the handling room when we were done, to clean up.”
“Yes, but—”
“You were there a long time.”
“Five minutes.” Kaplan spread his hands wide, disbelief warping his features. “Five minutes.”
Fiske turned back to Sheffield, his face solemn. “A lot longer than that. Plenty of time to install that lockbox. And he helped me with the final inspection before the Atwood shipped out. I left before he did. That must be when he planted the bomb.”
“What?” Kaplan cried. “This is ridiculous.”
The FBI agent cocked his head toward his partner, who stood in the corner.
Agent Hayes slipped handcuffs out of his pocket. “Ira Kaplan, you’re under arrest.”
“I can’t—I can’t believe this is happening.” He held out his arms and didn’t resist the handcuffs. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.”
Mary couldn’t either, because the devastation on the man’s face proved his innocence.
The FBI agents led Mr. Kaplan out, and the noise in the locker room built again.
“All right, men. Enough.” Mr. Fiske made a patting motion with both hands above the men’s heads. “Simmer down. It’s over. The saboteur’s finally been caught. Now get back to work, all of you.”
After the men filed out, Mary sank to a bench, light-headed. Yes, Kaplan was guilty of framing Bauer, but he wasn’t the saboteur.
The guilty party was still at large.
23
Saturday, September 27, 1941
With creaking of wood and a giant splash, the new Gleaves-class destroyer Knight slid down the ways into Boston Harbor and joined her sister ship, the Cowie, launched earlier that day.
Jim and Arch joined the applause, the band played “Anchors Aweigh,” and pennants flapped in the sunshine. All around the nation, Liberty Fleet Day was being celebrated. Shipyards were launching the first fourteen Liberty Ships, mass-produced cargo ships designed to be sturdy, reliable, and quickly constructed. At the Boston Navy Yard, two new destroyers had been launched and two others laid down.
Up ahead, Mary weaved through the crowd in her red dress.
Something constricted in Jim’s chest. Everything about today—except the weather—reminded him of the day he and Mary had become reacquainted. Had it really been six months? Back in March, he’d barely noticed her, and now he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Back in March, he’d thought starting a romance before shipping out would be stupid, and now his greatest regret was not starting the romance before he shipped out this evening.
More than anything, he wanted to kiss her good-bye at the docks. But not their first kiss. Not in front of everyone. Because he’d tried to be suave instead of bold, he’d have to wait until after they returned. He’d still acted the fool, only a different kind of fool.
“There’s Mary,” Arch said.
“Mm-hmm.” Jim hadn’t told Arch about his changing feelings for Mary. Why should his best friend know before the lady?
Mary caught his eye over the crowd and waved. How good to see her smile again. The previous Sunday, she’d been dismayed by the arrest at the shipyard.
If only he could have comforted her alone. If only he’d had any time alone with her this month, but Arch had accompanied them to church and on Sunday afternoon excursions.
“You’re here.” Mary’s face lit up. “I thought I’d lost the two of you to Bertha and Edith.”
“Never.” Jim tried to make his voice sound deep and meaningful, but it didn’t sound the way he intended. He could never be an actor.
“Done with your responsibilities for the day?” Arch asked her.
“I am.” Mary clasped her hands under her chin. “Oh! Have you seen the Fletchers we laid down this morning?”
“Not yet,” Jim said. “Waiting for you.”
“Listen.” Arch set his hand on Jim’s shoulder. “I’ve had enough festivities for one day. You two go have fun. I’ll make sure everything’s squared away on board.”
“All right.” Jim put on a stiff smile. Finally he had time alone with Mary, but in a crowd. Fat lot of good that did.
“Good-bye, Mary.” Arch shook her hand, then tapped his wristwatch. “Get him back by seventeen hundred or he turns into a pumpkin.”
“Seventeen hundred?”
Jim leaned down to speak into her ear. “We’re shipping out.”
“Oh.”
Her clean scent scrambled his brain, but he straightened up to see her reaction.
Sadness turned down the corners of her eyes, but she smiled. “They need you out there. So many ships being sunk. It’s tragic.”
She cared, but she’d never hold him back.
Jim could have kissed her right there, crowd or no crowd. But a public kiss? For a woman who hated attention more than anything else in
the world? Might as well slap her.
He swallowed the impulse. “They do need us.”
“You’ll do great, I know it.” She tilted her head. “But may you and your guns be completely bored.”
Time for a joke. “Our guns are always bored.”
“Oh, brother.” Arch bowed to Mary. “I apologize for my friend’s bad pun. The bore of a gun . . .”
“I understand.” Mary’s twinkling eyes said she didn’t mind puns. “So, Mr. Avery. You have four more hours on land. How would you like to spend them?”
With her. Every minute. “I want a hot dog, I want to see those Fletchers, and I’d like you to see me off.”
“I’d be honored.”
“Au revoir.” Arch lifted one hand in farewell. “Seventeen hundred.”
Jim offered Mary his arm and threaded his way through the crowd. Sailors and shipyard workers mingled on the wharves for the festivities.
Jim followed his nose to a food stand and bought two hot dogs and two Cokes. He took a big bite and savored the perfect blend of sausage and mustard. The Navy fed them well, but nothing beat a hot dog eaten outdoors.
Mary led him toward the dry dock where the keels for two new Fletcher-class destroyers had been laid down. As much as he wanted to talk about ships, he wanted to hear about Mary more.
Jim swallowed the last of his hot dog and wiped mustard from his lips. “How have things been around here since the arrest?”
“Much quieter. More peaceful.” But she frowned.
“A big uproar in the papers.”
“For a day or two, but now they’re more interested in the World Series coming up. Some people aren’t happy about that. They expected national outrage, and there isn’t any.”
Jim shrugged. “No national outrage when the Robin Moor was sunk, or the Steel Seafarer, or when a U-boat fired on the Greer. I don’t know what it takes.”
Mary sipped her Coke. “The uproar over Mr. Kaplan was muted to begin with. The FBI is being circumspect. I hope it’s because they doubt his guilt. I pray so, because he isn’t the saboteur, and I feel awful that my notes helped put him behind bars.”
He stopped so she’d have to face him. “Why do you say that?”
