Louise's Lies

by Sarah R. Shaber

  All of which was very intriguing, but not unique. Much of the wealthy class of the United States had been taken with fascism and Hitler. As had the upper classes in Britain. The Duke of Windsor was so well known for his interest in Nazism that the Prime Minister, Churchill, appointed him Governor of the Bahamas to get him out of Europe. He was concerned that the Duke would be kidnapped by the Nazis and used for propaganda purposes.

  It took me just a few more minutes to find out about the Order of the German Eagle. It was the highest Nazi decoration given to prominent foreigners who were sympathetic to Nazism. Other Americans who received it were Thomas J. Watson, chairman of IBM, and James Mooney, General Motors’ director of overseas operations. I understood that the Nazi Party tried to influence important Americans to pressure Roosevelt to stay out of the war. What was so ironic was how much their companies benefited financially from the US entering the war.

  I closed the file and carefully replaced it. I knew from experience the chaos that could emerge from misfiled information. If you couldn’t find it, it just didn’t exist. Which made me think of Sergeant Royal. I was sure he would be interested in what I’d found out about the Maxwell family, and I wondered if it would be OK for me to call him. I’d done this research to satisfy my own curiosity, it wasn’t part of my job, but still I’d used files from the OSS Registry. This was something I’d have to think about.

  Back at OSS I presented ‘Krampus’ to Miss Osborne and Merle. They agreed that he was the perfect symbol for our calling card. What could better illustrate a slogan like ‘the worst is yet to come’ than a hairy black devil with a whip resurrected from the darkest childhood fears of the average German? Within weeks resistance fighters of all nationalities would have a supply of these cards so they could tuck them into the pockets of the corpses of the German soldiers they killed. Krampus’ relationship to Christmas made the symbolism even better, since he was the creature who brought naughty children their lumps of coal.

  ‘This should work very well,’ Miss Osborne said. ‘I think General Donovan will agree. Merle, how soon can you do a mockup of the card?’

  ‘By noon tomorrow,’ he said, ‘no problem. I’ll get started right now.’

  After Merle left Miss Osborne went to the stove, opened the door and shoveled in more coal. While I was gone someone had brought cots to the room and leaned them up against the wall. A box of blankets and pillows sat beside them. We really were going to sleep in the office tonight.

  Miss Osborne noticed my bemused expression and grinned at me. ‘Sort of like summer camp,’ she said.

  ‘If only we had marshmallows,’ I said. ‘We could toast them over the fire.’

  To my surprise Miss Osborne opened a door, pulled out a Do Not Disturb sign and hung it on the doorknob outside the conference room. ‘We need to talk, Louise,’ she said.

  I felt my heart rate quicken. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘Nothing you’ve done,’ she said. ‘Sit down.’ I did, and she sat in the chair beside me. She looked slightly silly, such a serious expression while still wearing that ridiculous hat.

  ‘It’s about the murder victim at the Baron Steuben Inn. I’ve talked to General Donovan, and he’s authorized me to tell you that the dead man was one of ours.’

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. Floyd Stinson was the custodian of the German embassy, one of several American employees. He’d worked there since 1931. The Swiss kept him on because he knew the building so well. We recruited him as soon as the Germans left and the Swiss took possession in December of 1941.’

  ‘To do what?’

  Miss Osborne smiled despite the seriousness of our conversation. ‘To spy on a building,’ she said. ‘We instructed him, basically, to poke around whenever he could get away with it – without the Swiss knowing, of course. To look for documents that might have been left behind. To investigate the third floor – which was locked – if he could, where the communication center was.’

  ‘What about the money?’ I asked.

  ‘What money?’

  ‘I heard the Germans kept several million American dollars in cash in the embassy. To bribe people with. To pay spies.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Miss Osborne said. ‘That’s just a silly rumor. Stinson was searching for intelligence, nothing more. Floyd had to be careful, of course,’ she continued.

  A Swiss caretaker lived at the embassy. The United States Army kept two guards with dogs on duty outside the building twenty-four hours a day. When they took possession, the Swiss had inventoried the contents of the massive mansion, both embassy property and the personal possessions of individuals that were left behind. Floyd did deliver to OSS some informative documents, codebooks, personal letters, logs of visitors to the embassy and similar items. They were photographed so he could return them. ‘He was very useful to us,’ Miss Osborne said. ‘And now he’s been murdered.’

  ‘You think his death is related to his work for OSS?’

  ‘We don’t know. And General Donovan, of course, wants to find out. Even more important, we don’t want the FBI to learn we were running an agent inside the country.’

  Counterintelligence was the prerogative of the FBI, not OSS. If Director Hoover knew OSS had an agent inside the German embassy he would use that information against Donovan. The two men waged an incessant war against each other for President Roosevelt’s ear, and this could give Hoover an edge.

  ‘So Sergeant Royal can’t find out that Floyd Stinson worked for OSS.’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘or he’ll be obliged to notify the FBI. We need you to use your friendship with Royal to keep tabs on this murder investigation. Royal will find out soon that Stinson worked at the German embassy.’ When the FBI ran his fingerprints, I thought.

  Finally it made some sense that no one in the bar had known what Stinson did for a living. He would have kept it as quiet as possible. It was a legitimate job, but one that would inevitably provoke questions. I could imagine what Walt and Chippy would have had to say if they’d known that Stinson kept the pipes from freezing at the old German embassy.

  I realized that I could use the information I’d found about the Maxwell family to make contact with Royal. I knew this was my job, but I felt badly about using him.

  ‘I can call Royal tomorrow, invite him for lunch or something,’ I said.

  ‘Good,’ Miss Osborne said. She went to the door and removed the Do Not Disturb sign. ‘Want to eat in the cafeteria tonight? They’re offering two of my favorites, tuna croquettes and Hawaiian chicken.’

  We were a woebegone group at dinner. There were never many people in the OSS cafeteria at dinnertime, but tonight we only filled two tables. The powers that be had decided not to waste heating fuel on such a small crowd, so the food cooled off on the trip from the cafeteria line to our seats.

  I scraped the canned pineapple off my ‘Hawaiian’ chicken before eating it. I should have had the tuna croquettes. The ubiquitous mashed potatoes and carrots accompanied both entrées. It would keep us alive until morning, but that was about all.

  When we returned to the conference room Miss Osborne, Merle and I spent the rest of the evening making a dent in the work that had piled up in the branch during the flu outbreak. I spent the evening in the mailroom, sorting the contents of a couple of pouches of mail, both diplomatic and otherwise, and stuffing it into the correct individual mail slots. Miss Osborne waded through a stack of memos sent to our branch by Donovan’s office. Merle spent the evening drawing Krampus in several disturbing poses so that we could pick out the one we wanted to illustrate our ‘calling card’.

  ‘You realize,’ Miss Osborne said as she dropped into the mailroom to check on me, ‘that we’re missing Burns and Allen tonight.’ Along with the rest of the country, I was a devoted listener to the CBS radio show featuring husband-and-wife team George Burns and Gracie Allen. Burns was the straight man and Gracie played his silly, addle-brained wife.

  ‘If that’s not a sacrifice for o
ur country I don’t know what is,’ I said.

  About eleven Miss Osborne and I brushed our teeth in the girls’ bathroom and tucked ourselves into our cots, fully dressed. A reticent WAC from the Codes and Communications branch who took a handie-talkie to bed with her in case she was needed during the night joined us. It was the size of a loaf of bread with an antenna that jutted a couple of feet past the head of her cot. Merle slept in the artists’ workroom with a half-dozen other men.

  ‘So,’ Sergeant Royal said, ‘to what do I owe the honor of this luncheon invitation? Could it be that you want to pump me about the Stinson murder?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ I said. ‘I’m just doing my civic duty. I found some things out about the Maxwells I thought you might want to know. Nothing related to my job,’ I added. ‘But let’s order first.’

  We studied the café menu until our waitress arrived.

  ‘Are you buying?’ Royal asked me. ‘I understand that you government girls make good money.’

  ‘Of course. I invited you. You can have anything you want. I’m rolling in dough.’

  ‘Then I’ll have vegetable soup and a grilled cheese sandwich,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll have the same,’ I said, closing my menu and handing it to the waitress.

  Royal began to pull his cigarettes out of his pocket and then paused. ‘You’d prefer me not to smoke, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘If you can bear it,’ I said. ‘It makes my throat sore.’

  ‘You must be the only person in this town who doesn’t smoke.’

  ‘Sometimes I think so,’ I said. ‘And sometimes I really wish I could. People seem to find it so relaxing.’

  Royal grinned at me. ‘There’s always drinking.’

  ‘There is that. I love martinis.’ If only my parents could see me now. They would be stunned. There were worse crutches, like Phoebe’s Nembutal. I borrowed one from her occasionally. And the laudanum she took for her splitting headaches. Although now that Milt was home and she had just one son in combat Phoebe seemed less unnerved. And what was Ada’s excessive partying, if it wasn’t a distraction from her constant worry that someone would find out she was still married to Rein Hermann, a pilot in the Luftwaffe?

  The waitress brought us our drinks, a Coke for me and coffee for Royal.

  ‘So what’s up?’ Royal asked.

  ‘I was doing some work at the Registry,’ I said, lowering my voice. ‘I had a few minutes to spare and decided to satisfy my curiosity about the Maxwell family. So I checked them out.’

  ‘It’s good to have friends in high places. I hope you didn’t do anything you shouldn’t.’

  ‘No, I used nothing confidential, just a clipping file. The Maxwell family were Nazi sympathizers before the war. Gene Maxwell, Leo’s father, was awarded the Order of the German Eagle by the Germans in 1937.’

  ‘That I knew. I saw a photograph of the ceremony when I was getting Leo’s statement. But I don’t know what the medal was for.’

  ‘It was the highest decoration a foreign civilian could receive from Germany,’ I said. ‘Given to prominent Nazi sympathizers all over the world. The Maxwell family made a huge fortune in the Midwest, growing feed for cattle and running feedlots. They sold their business and moved to Washington, DC. Looks like they wanted to be at the center of political power.’

  ‘There’s no telling what Nazi nastiness that man financed,’ Royal said. We paused our conversation while the waitress placed our orders on the table in front of us.

  I tucked into my soup and sandwich. I was hungry after the poor meals I’d been getting in the OSS cafeteria. Breakfast this morning was stale cereal, and I intended to forget last night’s dinner. In between mouthfuls I finished briefing Royal on what I’d found out about the Maxwells.

  ‘That medal Gene Maxwell got – Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh got it too,’ I said.

  ‘I know. Leo said his father regretted it. I bet he does. I doubt he thinks he was wrong, though. Just happened to wind up on the wrong side of history.’

  ‘The clipping file was full of society page stories,’ I said. ‘You should have seen the photos of the Maxwell daughters’ wedding. The old man must have spent a bundle on it. Oh, and it took place at the Lutheran church around the corner from the old German embassy. The reception was at the Mayflower Hotel.’

  ‘I wonder if the Maxwell family still has German connections. It’s odd how this murder seems to revolve around the German embassy.’

  ‘I thought the same thing,’ I said. ‘The Baron Steuben Inn is right across the street. Al Becker told me that it used to stock all the best German beers, so I expect a lot of people from the embassy drank there. The Lutheran church on the corner received donations from Germany, granted before the First World War. The Maxwell daughters married there. And the Maxwells themselves live in a mansion down the street.’

  The waitress arrived to pick up our plates.

  ‘I’m still starving,’ I said to Royal. ‘Do you have time for dessert?’

  ‘You still buying?’

  ‘Sure.’

  The waitress recited the dessert choices. ‘Chocolate war cake, carrot spice cake and pumpkin pie.’

  ‘I’m not sick of pumpkin yet, so I guess I’ll have pie,’ Royal said.

  ‘I’ll take a slice of war cake,’ I said.

  After the waitress left Royal cast his eyes around the room to see if there was anyone nearby before speaking. ‘Since you’ve shared information with me, I’ll share mine with you,’ he said. ‘I’d like your take on it. The connection of this murder to the German embassy is stronger than you know. My friend at the FBI hurried through the background checks I requested. Our murder victim, Floyd Stinson, was the longtime custodian of the embassy. He was a fine American fellow, he just happened to get a job there in 1931. Jobs were mighty scarce then. When the Swiss took charge of the embassy in 1941 he stayed on at their request.’ This I knew already from Miss Osborne but I feigned surprise, and kept my mouth shut about the rest of what she’d told me. What would Royal think if he knew Stinson worked for us, and how would that affect his thinking about the murder? It certainly affected mine. I found myself feeling guilty withholding information from Sergeant Royal that might be relevant to his murder investigation, but I had no choice.

  ‘Stinson lived at a boarding house a couple of streets south of the embassy. He’d lived there for years. We searched his room with a fine-tooth comb and found nothing but personal possessions. His landlady said he went home to his family farm in Maryland on summer weekends and holidays. There was a stack of Farm Journal magazines a foot high on his dresser.’

  The waitress brought our desserts. The pie came without whipped cream and the cake without icing, but both tasted fine.

  ‘And there’s something else,’ Royal said. ‘About Al Becker.’

  ‘Al? I liked him.’

  Royal snorted. ‘When he was explaining his background to us he neglected to say that the job he had when he first got to the States was as a bicycle messenger for the German embassy. He was there for years. Until he left to work for the zoo in thirty-three. Which means …’ He looked at me expectantly.

  ‘Oh my God!’ I said. ‘He had to have known Floyd Stinson. If Stinson started working there in thirty-one, and Al left in thirty-three, their service overlapped!’

  ‘Becker told me a blatant lie. That he knew nothing about Stinson’s life. He led me to believe they had become chess partners recently. You do see what that means?’

  ‘I do,’ I said. ‘He wants to hide his background at the German embassy. I can understand that, we’re at war, but he must have known you’d find out eventually. Do you think he’s involved with Stinson’s murder?’

  ‘I don’t know enough to say yet. It certainly makes me suspicious.’

  After I paid our chit Royal and I left and stood for a few minutes together on the sidewalk before parting. It was still cold, but it was midday and the sun was shining brightly, giving us hope that the weather would b
reak soon. Since our conversation at lunch I’d been wondering if I should tell Royal something else. I touched his arm.

  ‘Sergeant,’ I said, ‘I ran into Al Becker at a lunch counter yesterday. He invited me to come by the zoo any time. He said he’d give me a tour.’

  Royal grabbed me by both arms, dropping his cane on to the sidewalk in the process. ‘Louise!’ he said. ‘You’ve got to go. He’ll talk to you more freely than to the police.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know if I can get away from work. We’re understaffed because of the flu.’

  ‘Of course you can. You’re good at this. Please, it could be so useful. Al won’t be on guard with you. Especially if he’s sweet on you.’

  It hadn’t occurred to me that Al’s invitation might have a romantic purpose. Swell. This was just what I needed.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ I said.

  ‘Call me and let me know. Let me give you my home telephone number.’

  I waited while he scribbled on his notepad, then ripped the page out and handed it to me.

  ‘I’m not promising anything,’ I said.

  ‘That’s OK. Just let me know what happens.’ Royal leaned over to pick up his cane but couldn’t bend his knees far enough to reach it, frustration and pain showing in his face. I picked it up and handed it to him.

  Miss Osborne was beside herself, if Miss Osborne could ever be said to be beside herself.

  ‘My goodness, Louise!’ she said to me. Then she got up and closed the conference room door, hanging out the Do Not Disturb sign again. ‘I’ll be glad when the weather breaks and we can get back into our own offices.’ She took her seat again and picked up a pencil and steno pad, peering at me over her glasses. She’d removed her woolly ushanka so she looked less like a myopic sheep.

  ‘Let me see if I understand,’ she said. ‘This Al Becker person, who now works at the National Zoo, was a bicycle messenger at the German embassy from the time he immigrated after World War I until 1933. He must have known our operative, Floyd Stinson, the custodian, who began work at the embassy in 1931. The two men played chess regularly at the Baron Steuben Inn, which was the local pub for many of the Germans before the war because of its beer selection. Am I correct so far?’