Louise's Lies

by Sarah R. Shaber

  When I finished the waiter whisked my plate away after I declined dessert. After a decent interval the maître d’ appeared at my table with the bill.

  ‘I hope your meal was pleasing, madame,’ he said.

  ‘It was,’ I said, and then craftily laid my trap. ‘My friend Mavis told me about this place. She said your food was wonderful, and she was right.’

  ‘Ah, do you mean Miss Forrester?’

  ‘Yes, Mavis Forrester.’

  ‘She dines with us often.’

  ‘How often?’

  He looked taken aback, but I gave him as charming a smile as I could manage, considering I didn’t practice charming very often.

  ‘Several times a month,’ he said.

  ‘She has quite a circle of gay friends.’

  ‘Yes, she does. Her table is often as many as eight.’

  I began to rummage in my purse for the money to pay my check. Thank goodness I kept a large bill folded up for emergencies or I would have had to spend the afternoon in the kitchen washing dishes.

  ‘She was here on Tuesday night, I think?’ I said.

  The maître d’ touched his forefinger to his chin, thinking. ‘Yes, yes she was,’ he said. ‘But with a smaller party. They were four. They all ordered the lobster thermidor.’

  NINE

  So Mavis had been telling the truth. When I spotted her on my return from Al’s apartment she was on her way to meet some of her friends at the Bistro Français. I was glad I’d checked her story. Mavis was not a person whose word I felt comfortable accepting at face value.

  I strolled across the Taft Bridge. Now that the thrill of my adventure at the restaurant was over I felt my lack of sleep sapping my energy. I couldn’t go home and nap yet, though. I had to contact Sergeant Royal and tell him what I’d learned, or deduced, inside the German embassy. That Al had killed Floyd Stinson for his keys to the embassy, and might still be in the city taking advantage of them to pilfer the building. If he had left town, then someone else must be stealing from it. Someone who was in the embassy with me last night. I hoped whoever it was hadn’t seen me or recognized me. Which was one more good reason to talk to Sergeant Royal as soon as possible. The sooner I shared this information the safer I’d be.

  The afternoon sun warmed the air a bit, so I unwrapped my scarf and lifted my face to the bright blue sky. Turning, I leaned out over the bridge rail and down into the thick growth of Rock Creek Park. The trees stretched upward, but the bridge was so far above the ground none of them reached me. Some were bare-branched, others evergreen. I spotted some kind of utility shed and a narrow trail which connected to the road that followed Rock Creek. The horse van was still pulled up on the shoulder, its gate down. The mounted park ranger must still be patrolling the park.

  An open patch in the foliage attracted my attention. It was smack in the middle of a thick stand of pine trees and seemed unnatural. I leaned forward, as far as I could with the rail just below my shoulders. Stepping on to the bottom rail I leaned further out. I could see that the patch was a hole in the foliage lined by broken branches that marked a clear path to the park floor. As if something heavy had fallen through the trees, leaving a path of destruction behind it. Fallen directly below me, as if from the bridge itself. A sack of garbage, perhaps? Curious, I peered at the spot and saw, tangled in the broken branches, what appeared to be a man’s white shirt.

  I whipped around and ran back to the north end of the bridge, my scarf trailing behind me and my handbag bumping my hip. At the end of the bridge I saw stairs leading down to the park. I collected myself, tucking my scarf under my collar and my handbag strap over my shoulder. I started down the steps as quickly as I could, gripping the handrail. Only the fear of breaking a limb, or my head, kept me from plunging pell-mell to the ground.

  When I reached the bottom of the steps I was so spent I had to lean over, breathing heavily to relieve the pain in my chest. Seeing the mounted patrolman leading his horse toward the van forced me to move before I was ready. When I got to him I grabbed his arm and spoke in gulps.

  ‘Help me,’ I said. ‘Please! I saw something from the bridge. In the park. Over there.’ I gestured behind me.

  ‘Careful, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Don’t spook the horse. Calm down. Now what did you see?’ The patrolman was in his mid-thirties, I guessed, and looked much like a regular policeman in his black-belted blue wool uniform and peaked cap, except that he wore jodhpurs and riding boots. His horse was a well-settled bay, not at all bothered by me. He swished his tail and snorted foggy breath while his officer held his reins close under his bit.

  ‘From the bridge,’ I said, ‘I saw a hole in the vegetation, lined with broken branches, where it looked like something large fell through. Recently. And I think I saw a man’s shirt draped over a branch.’

  ‘How do you know it’s recent?’ he said.

  ‘I walked across the bridge on Tuesday,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t there then.’

  ‘Catch your breath,’ he said. ‘Can you lead me to it?’

  I turned around and faced the bridge. I knew exactly where I’d been standing and where I saw the hole.

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Are you afraid of horses?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Ride behind me, and show me where you saw the hole in the foliage. I’m Officer Weston, by the way.’

  Weston mounted and reached down a hand to me.

  It’s a good thing I’d watched a lot of western movies. I grabbed on to his hand, stepped into his stirrup, which he’d left free for me, and hefted myself on to the horse’s back behind his saddle.

  ‘Hold on to me,’ he said. ‘I need both hands.’

  I wrapped my arms around his waist and he nudged his mount toward the woods across the road. ‘There,’ I said, pointing. We plunged into the woods. If I hadn’t been so fearful of what we were going to find I would have enjoyed myself. Feeling the horse’s motion beneath me, hanging on to a well-muscled young man on a chilly afternoon in the park, were things I wouldn’t mind doing again at another time.

  But I focused on where I was going, looking up at the bridge occasionally to orient myself and pointing Officer Weston in the right direction. He actually spotted the damaged brush first.

  ‘I see it,’ he said, forcing the horse through the thick vegetation. I buried my head behind his shoulders to avoid getting scratched.

  ‘My God,’ I heard him say. ‘It’s a body.’ He pulled the horse to a stop. ‘You need to slide off first.’ He handed me down and I saw the corpse. A suitcase, broken open by its impact with the ground, lay a few feet away. Its contents were scattered all around the immediate area. Weston dismounted. ‘Wait here,’ he said. He didn’t have to tell me that. I had no intention of approaching the body. But I recognized it. It was Al Becker.

  It was much colder in the shade of the park trees than in the afternoon sun on the deck of the Taft Bridge. Weston’s horse nickered and pawed the ground with one hoof. I shivered as I watched the park ranger gingerly turn Al’s body over.

  ‘He’s been here a couple of days, easy.’

  So Al hadn’t been in the embassy with me last night. And he hadn’t left town, either.

  ‘I know who he is,’ I said.

  Weston gave me a sharp look.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes. He lived in the apartment building on the corner. His name is Al Becker.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  I told him as much of my story as he needed to know. ‘You’ll want to call Sergeant Harvey Royal of the DC Metropolitan Police,’ I said. ‘He’s in charge of the case.’

  Officer Weston glanced down at Becker’s body, then at me. ‘How would you feel about keeping watch here while I go call Royal and my boss? Who knows who may have seen us come into the woods here, and I don’t want any sightseers messing with the scene.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, ‘I can do that.’

  Officer Weston gathered up his reins. His horse stomped
and nickered, anticipating his rider mounting. ‘Don’t go near the body,’ he said. ‘A nice girl like you shouldn’t see such things.’

  I nodded, but clenched my fists in my pockets. I might be a girl, but I was a girl who grew up in the fishing business and I’d gutted enough fish on smelly docks slippery with blood not to be bothered by a little gore.

  Weston mounted and headed down the trail we’d made searching for Becker’s corpse. I figured he had a radio in the horse van so I didn’t have much time. I made my way over to the broken suitcase. Its contents were strewn around the hard ground. But they’d collected dew over a couple of mornings, dampening everything, which had then acquired a thin sheen of frost. I glanced upward and saw the white shirt I’d spotted from the bridge stiffly draped over a tree branch. I crouched as far away from the mess as I could while still able to see it all.

  Of course there were more clothes, frozen by frost into odd shapes. A clump of frayed boxer shorts. A pair of suspenders coiled like a snake hung over the edge of the suitcase. A Dopp kit that must contain a toothbrush, toothpaste and shaving gear had fallen close to the body. Harvey Royal had told me that Al’s apartment had been stripped of personal items, and it seemed like every one of them was strewn around the forest floor. Also strewn on the grass were the picture of his wife I’d seen on my visit, a few other pictures that must have come from his bedroom, a hairbrush, notebooks and papers, one of which looked like a bank account book. A crossword puzzle dictionary and his copy of The Ox-Bow Incident, still bookmarked with an envelope, lay there too.

  I heard the sounds of a horse’s hooves returning and quickly moved over to Al’s body, again crouching several feet away. There weren’t many bugs – because of the cold weather, I supposed. Al’s face wasn’t marked, but his head was skewed at an odd angle and one arm bent unnaturally at his side and a leg folded up under his body. I was no doctor but I’d have guessed his neck, at least, was broken.

  Al’s death could only be a suicide or a murder. If it was a suicide it made no sense to me that he would have packed all his possessions before offing himself.

  Officer Weston found me leaning up against a tree when he reappeared.

  ‘You OK?’ he asked, dismounting.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve called Sergeant Royal. He’s on his way. And the Park Police Commandant.’ Crime scene experts, photographers and a hearse would follow them, no doubt. As soon as all those vehicles appeared the usual crowd of spectators and crime reporters would show up. I’d been up most of the night, walked for blocks, hadn’t had that nap, and now this. Knowing Al hadn’t skipped town after all and wasn’t the intruder in the embassy last night didn’t help me feel any better.

  ‘You look done in,’ Officer Weston said to me. ‘Sergeant Royal will want to talk to you, so I can’t let you leave. But if you like you could sit in the van and get out of the cold.’

  When Sergeant Royal climbed into the cab of the horse van he found me snoozing, tucked into the corner of the passenger seat covered with an army surplus blanket I’d found folded in the back.

  ‘Louise,’ he said, shaking me gently, ‘wake up!’

  ‘Don’t,’ I said, only half awake.

  ‘Wake up,’ he said again. ‘I need to talk to you. You’ve been asleep here for over an hour.’

  I sat up, remembered where I was and why.

  ‘Oh God, hell and damnation,’ I said, still confused with sleep. ‘Al didn’t skip town; someone killed him. And he’s been dead too long to be the person in the German embassy with me last night.’

  ‘What are you talking about? You’re half asleep. Want some coffee? I’ve got a thermos.’

  Then I remembered that Sergeant Royal knew nothing about my life since I had last talked to him, when he told me that Al Becker had skipped town and made me feel like a fool for believing in his innocence. If I recollected correctly, he had informed me then that since I was a girl my emotions ruled my head. I had half a mind just to keep my mouth shut and not tell him anything at all.

  Royal leaned out the window of the truck cab. ‘Dickenson,’ he called out. ‘Bring over the coffee thermos and a clean mug for Mrs Pearlie. And sugar, if we’ve got any left. And the bag of cookies my landlady gave me this morning.’

  I changed my mind. I could be persuaded by coffee and cookies.

  ‘I hope you’ve got an empty notebook,’ I said to Royal. ‘You’re going to need it.’

  ‘Well,’ Royal said, ‘goodness. You’ve been busy.’ He flexed his fingers, aching after taking pages of notes on my story. I swallowed the last of the hot, sweet coffee Dickenson had brought me. The cookies were spice, not my favorite, but I felt better for eating them.

  Of course I hadn’t told Royal that Floyd Stinson worked for OSS, searching the embassy whenever he could for intelligence that might help us win the war. Royal didn’t need to know any of that. I didn’t lie to him; I just left out stuff and didn’t answer his questions completely.

  ‘You do realize, don’t you,’ he continued, ‘that Al probably committed suicide. He panicked and packed to escape, but realized the futility of it and jumped off the bridge.’

  ‘That would be the most convenient solution,’ I said. ‘Then you could close the case and go home and put up that bad knee and pour a bourbon.’

  ‘That was uncalled for,’ Royal said, bristling. ‘And I gave you the last of my coffee, too.’

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’ve been thinking.’ Royal rolled his eyes. ‘It’s also possible,’ I said, ‘that Al was murdered for the keys he stole from Stinson. Al was dead before last night, so it must have been someone else inside the embassy with me.’

  ‘You’re sure the silver clown and gold lighter were stolen last night, while you were there?’ I could tell he didn’t doubt me, he was just thinking out loud.

  ‘While I was in the dining room or the library, whoever had left the door unlocked took the objects and slipped away, locking the back door behind him. But it wasn’t Al. So someone else must have murdered Al for the keys he stole from Floyd Stinson. Or we could surmise that someone other than Al killed Floyd for the keys, and then Al committed suicide because he assumed no one would believe he was innocent. Which means the original killer was in the embassy with me last night.’

  Royal looked at me with what could only be pity. ‘Louise,’ he said. ‘Stinson wasn’t murdered for his keys. We found them when we searched his room at his boarding house. After they were photographed and tagged we turned them over to the Swiss legation.’

  I’d been wrong about everything. I was an even worse detective than I was a spy. I was so tired, and so stunned by how misguided I’d been, that I felt tears well up in my eyes.

  Royal patted my arm. I wanted to draw it away, but none of this was his fault and he was trying to be kind.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I need to get back to work. You need sleep. I’ll get Dickenson to drive you home.’

  ‘You must have a theory about all this,’ I said. ‘Care to share it with me?’

  ‘You don’t know when to give up, do you? I think that Al Becker killed Floyd Stinson, that he started to leave town but instead killed himself. What happened in the embassy last night had nothing to do with it. If someone is burgling the place we need to let the Swiss legation know, keeping your name out of it, of course. I hope to God the Swiss don’t call the FBI. That’s all we need.’ Miss Osborne and General Donovan would agree.

  ‘But what was Al’s motive?’

  ‘I don’t know. I expect it had something to do with the years they worked at the embassy together. Maybe Stinson had something on Becker and Becker killed him to shut him up. If we keep pounding the pavement and asking questions we’ll find out. We always do.’

  I was too tired to make small talk on the way home. Dickenson tried to start a conversation but gave up when I answered him in monosyllables.

  All I could think about was Al Becker. How could I have been so wrong about him? Despite what R
oyal said, I wasn’t convinced he killed Stinson. And why would Al have killed himself? He’d packed and was clearly on his way out of town. He had a head start. He could have caught a train at Union Station and gone anywhere in the country.

  Al died the Tuesday night after I’d visited him in his apartment. I reviewed every second of that afternoon in my head. I couldn’t think of anything I’d said that might have spooked him.

  And worst of all, Joe was gone. This crazy night and day started when I tried to drown my thoughts of him in martinis at the Baron Steuben Inn.

  By the time Dickenson parked in front of ‘Two Trees’ I was so shattered it was all I could do to cover the ground between the sidewalk and the front door. Inside someone had left the hall light on for me. Thank goodness Phoebe wasn’t waiting up for me tonight. I couldn’t cope with one of her well-intentioned lectures. Too bad she didn’t know I was already a fallen woman, like Ada; then maybe she would leave me and her worries about my reputation alone.

  I reached to turn out the lamp on the hall table and noticed a letter addressed to me. I didn’t recognize the handwriting and there was no return address. It was postmarked ‘Chicago’. I didn’t know a soul in Chicago. Curious, I sat down on the hall chair and ripped it open.

  It was from Joe.

  I felt my heart skip a beat in my chest.

  ‘Darling,’ the letter said, ‘I can’t tell you where I am. I gave this note to an acquaintance to mail as he passed through Chicago. I couldn’t bear to leave you without saying goodbye. I promise you I am not in a war zone and am as safe as anyone else in this terrible world can be, but I have important work to do that may take some time. I’ll write again if I can. All my love, Joe.’

  Relief washed over me as I slumped into the chair. Joe was not in a war zone. Which didn’t exclude Lisbon or Algiers. But that was more than most mothers, wives and girlfriends could say. I’d have to be happy with that and hope that I’d hear from Joe again soon. I clutched the single sheet of paper to my heart for a few seconds before I crumpled it up and burned it in the glass ashtray on the table.