Scandal in the Secret City

by Diane Fanning

  ‘Let me help,’ I offered, eager to escape Dr Bishop’s gaze.

  ‘Oh no, dear, you’re company, I couldn’t allow that.’

  ‘Of course you can. When I’m in your home, I feel like family – and family always helps out.’

  Mrs Bishop beamed. ‘Well, come along then. I’d love to have your help.’

  At the dinner table, Dr Bishop sliced the roast in nearly paper-thin pieces. The result was mouthfuls of roast beef that seemed to melt on the tongue. I accepted seconds but balked when Mrs Bishop offered me a third serving. ‘Not another bite,’ I said. ‘That was delicious, Mrs Bishop. You prepared that meat to perfection. Thank you. It’s definitely the best meal I’ve had since Thanksgiving.’

  ‘It’s not just what I did, dear. The taste had a lot to do with how Mr Bishop sliced it – he’s a magician with that carving knife. But even more importantly, if it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have had this luscious eye of round to prepare and enjoy. Thank you, Libby.’

  ‘Miss Clark,’ Dr Bishop said, ‘since you feel like family here, I am thinking you would not mind if I asked you a personal question.’

  I forced a smile and said, ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Could you tell me why security came by here to ask about you last night?’

  ‘No sir, I can’t.’

  ‘Have you been discussing your work with anyone?’

  ‘Not anyone outside of my laboratory, sir.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Then why would they have any interest in you?’

  ‘I–I–I think it might have something to do with the roommate I had while I was in the dormitory. She was let go right after Christmas.’

  ‘Was she betraying her country?’

  ‘No sir. No. Not Ruth. She doesn’t even know anything worth telling anyone.’

  ‘Sometimes, Miss Clark, the most innocent comments told out of school can do unimaginable damage.’

  ‘Sir, it had to do with her sister. Her sister, Irene. She was murdered. Ruth made a few unwise comments when she was very emotional about the loss of her sister.’

  ‘I must say, Miss Clark, I am very concerned about security’s interest in you. But more importantly, I am disturbed that the issue has been brought into my home. Can you give me any reason why I shouldn’t be worried about this development?’

  I opened my mouth but words failed me. I closed and opened it again.

  In a high-pitched voice, Mrs Bishop piped in, ‘I made a special dessert for tonight. I broke into my sugar supply and baked a jelly roll.’ She pushed her chair back from the table.

  Ann popped to her feet. ‘Stay seated, Mom. I’ll be right back.’

  ‘But the dessert plates – you’ll need help with those,’ Mrs Bishop said, rising to her feet.

  I lurched up out of the chair, eager to grasp at the opportunity to escape. ‘Sit back down, ma’am. I’ll help Ann.’

  I couldn’t get into the kitchen fast enough. I stepped through the swinging door and leaned against the counter. ‘Phew!’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ Ann said. ‘I couldn’t stand another minute of that. Ssssh! Listen.’

  I barely breathed as she strained to hear the quiet conversation in the other room. I couldn’t pick out any distinct words but the tone was apparent. Mrs Bishop was chastising her husband. He argued back with her. Then he raised his voice, ‘OK, Mildred, OK! You’ve made your point.’

  After a moment of silence, Ann said, ‘Coast is clear. Let’s go.’

  Ann picked up the plate with the jelly roll and I grabbed the dessert plates and forks. I smiled and nodded as Mrs Bishop engaged in nearly non-stop chatter about the weather, her frustrations with bureaucrats and the anticipation of spring.

  My nerves jangled like the bell on a besieged shop door. I could barely wait for enough time to pass before I could excuse myself without appearing rude. When the moment seemed right, I thanked Mrs Bishop again and bid a good night to the family.

  ‘Wait a minute, Libby,’ Mrs Bishop said and turned to her husband. ‘Marc, darling, it is absolutely frigid out tonight. Why don’t you give Libby a ride home?’

  My chest tightened. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t bear to be alone with Dr Bishop. He was bound to begin the interrogation in the car before he even slipped it into gear. ‘Oh no, I couldn’t impose like that on Dr Bishop. I’ll walk. It’s not that far.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Mrs Bishop said. ‘Marc, go warm up the car.’

  ‘No, really, Mrs Bishop. I want to walk. After all I’ve eaten tonight, I need to walk. If I don’t, I’ll never be able to get to sleep – my stomach is too full.’

  ‘But it is terribly cold out—’ Mrs Bishop began.

  ‘You are being rather foolish, Miss Clark.’ Dr Bishop joined his wife’s entreaties.

  ‘Daddy that’s rude,’ Ann admonished.

  Dr Bishop frowned at his daughter, then at me, and turned to go back into his study. It certainly felt as though I’d been dismissed and I wasn’t sure how welcome I’d be again in the Bishop household. Dr Bishop clearly felt I caused more trouble that I was worth, and right now I wouldn’t have blamed him.

  Mrs Bishop furrowed her brow. ‘Well, if you’re sure …’

  ‘Absolutely! A brisk walk through the cold night is just what the doctor ordered.’ I pulled on gloves as I talked and headed for the front door. ‘Thanks again for a wonderful dinner and a lovely evening.’

  Halfway back to my house, the pain in my nose and the numbness in my toes filled me with regret about my decision. But what choice did I have. At least, now, with no one else out walking on the blustery night, I knew I was not being followed.

  When my home came into view, I picked up my pace but halfway up to the steps, I froze. An envelope was wedged between the side of the door and the jamb, reminding me of the mystery gift of mittens and my suppressed dread. I rushed up to the door, grabbed the envelope, went inside and flipped on a light. It was a Western Union envelope which meant a telegram. I ripped it open.

  ‘Wednesday, January 13. Dinner. Andrew Johnson Hotel.’

  Six days. Six long days. Could I stay calm and not draw any more suspicion till then?

  TWENTY-TWO

  All that week, I kept busy on meaningless work, hoping that the rumors from the manufacturer, Allis Chalmers, were true. Supposedly, the new Calutron units were built and being loaded onto railroad cars for shipping south. Maybe soon we could return to the important work for the war effort that brought us all here. I’d also heard that the scientists and engineers in the mysterious K-25 building were laboring round the clock. I didn’t know what they were doing, but the fact that they were busy made me want to join them.

  I kept my weekend deliberately uneventful, leaving the house only for necessary errands. I avoided talking to anyone about anything. A nod, a smile and a quick escape were all that was on my agenda. I dared not do anything that raised suspicion.

  That Monday, we celebrated in the lab as the rumor became the official announcement. Not only had the new components for the racetrack left Chicago but they actually were sitting in freight cars in the rail yard waiting to be unloaded and moved into Y-12 for assembly.

  Measuring samples at my work station, my scalp prickled as if I was being watched. I tried to shake the feeling – to pass it off as senseless paranoia – but it clung to me like the tendrils of early morning fog that drifted through the nearby mountains. I looked up and discovered it was not all in my imagination.

  A man with black hair and brooding, bottomless brown eyes stood in the doorway, one shoulder resting on the jamb. He stared straight at me from under a pair of heavy eyebrows. His mouth was tight. His jaw twitched. He looked vaguely familiar but I couldn’t place him. I looked quickly away – but it was not quick enough. He’d raised a brow at my stare but he did not flinch.

  I picked up a piece of scrap paper and walked over to the next work station to Gregg Abbott. Laying the
page in front of him, I said, ‘Gregg, would you look at this for me?’

  He picked it up and looked down at the scribble of notes and nonsensical doodles. ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

  ‘Look back down at the paper, please, and pretend like you are interested in it.’

  He lowered his head and pointed a finger at an oblong shape with stripes. ‘What’s going on, Libby?’

  ‘There’s a man in the doorway who has been staring at me,’ I said placing a finger to the left of his.

  ‘Well, you’re not a bad looking girl. You ought to expect a few ogles.’

  ‘He is not ogling me, Gregg. It’s more like he’s giving me the evil eye. Do you know who he is?’

  Gregg looked up and back down. ‘He looks familiar but I can’t place him. And you are right – he certainly doesn’t look like he’s carrying a torch for you.’

  ‘And he’s wearing a wedding band.’

  Gregg sneaked another glance. ‘Yeah, he is. That’s something you want to avoid. He definitely can’t have honorable intentions.’

  ‘Trust me, Gregg. That is not a look of seduction.’

  ‘Wait. I know where I’ve seen him before.’

  ‘Where?’ I asked.

  ‘Remember when G.G. was here and he talked to you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Wasn’t he one of the men in that group around the general?’

  ‘Maybe. That could be why he looks familiar.’

  ‘Maybe he took exception to you figuring out the racetrack problem – maybe that was his responsibility?’

  ‘I guess that’s possible,’ I said, ‘although it seems a scientist doing work this important and timely would want a solution – any solution – even if it came from a Calutron girl. Does he work here in Y-12?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Gregg said shaking his head. ‘You know how those big deal scientists are. They all use phony names. How can they possibly think we’d fall for it? I mean, really, that Eugene Farmer is so obviously foreign with his accent and mannerisms – at least they could have given him a code name that was a bit more realistic. Did they really think that none of us would recognize a prominent scientist like Enrico Fermi at first glance? That’s all wet.’

  A shout rang out in the hall. ‘Hey, Dr Smith!’

  The man in the doorway turned around, stretched out his arm and shook the other man’s hand. Except for the end of one limb, that other man remained out of sight. The two walked off together.

  ‘Ah, horsefeathers! See what I mean. Dr Smith? Please.’

  ‘Well, Smith is a common name,’ I said.

  ‘Libby, you don’t seriously …?’

  ‘No, not really.’ Who was he and why was he intently staring at me? Could he be Irene’s married boyfriend? Her killer? Had he somehow found out about my investigations?

  ‘Are you OK? Your face is as pale as a fish belly.’

  ‘It’s nothing, Gregg. I’d better go sit down. I feel a little woozy.’ I turned away and walked toward my station.

  ‘Can I get you anything? Glass of water? Anything?’

  ‘No. Thank you, Gregg. I’ll be fine.’

  I placed my hands flat on the surface of my work counter, trying to still the tremors that seemed to give my fingers a life of their own. It was only a look. But the fear it transmitted loomed larger than the headline ‘WAR!’ that had blazed on the front of the newspapers more than a year ago.

  How could I figure out who he was? We weren’t supposed to ask questions about secret identities. Should I even try? Two days. Two days and I’d see Aunt Dorothy. My insides felt as if they’d been dipped in liquid nitrogen and were crumbling with every breath I took.

  Not knowing what I was going to do next was the worst part. Talking to Aunt Dorothy would enable me to make a decision. Once I did that, I would have a plan. Perils might abound in whatever course I took but awareness of the path ahead would make it manageable. If I approached the problem as if it was a lab experiment – one careful step at a time, everything moving forward in a linear fashion – ultimately it would lead to a solid conclusion.

  Two days and I’d know the parameters of the experiment that lay ahead.

  The time passed in a fog. I jumped at every unexpected sound, peering around every time I sensed a nearby presence. Always on the look-out for that Dr Smith who stared with such malicious intent. I didn’t see him again that week, but he never left my thoughts.

  I drove the car to work on Wednesday so that I could leave immediately for Knoxville when the day was done. My hands started to tremble as I drove up to the Solway gate. Would they stop me again?

  It was a different guard. He looked at my badge, asked when I expected to return and waved me forward. I crossed the bridge holding my breath, praying he would not have second thoughts. When I reached the other side of the span, I exhaled loudly. I’d made it out. I now focused my thoughts on my memories of the woman who had most shaped my life – Aunt Dorothy.

  TWENTY-THREE

  I’d enjoyed my aunt’s visits to the farm as far back as I could remember. My mother often referred to Dorothy as a ‘modern woman’, using the phrase as an insult. When my father said it, though, it was with pride – his sister’s education and accomplishments were laudable in his mind.

  Dorothy Clark, with her exceptional education and prominent position at Bryn Mawr, was a formidable role model. She always visited at Christmas bearing gifts and every year one of her wrapped packages was a new book or two for me.

  Aunt Dorothy grew even more important to me when tragedy upended my life. I was only ten years old when my father died in a house fire in a valiant but failed attempt to rescue my brother. The burden of running the farm fell largely on me, as Mother withdrew into the shelter of willing helplessness. I took on responsibility for both of our lives, at times staggering under the oversized load.

  Six months later, Mother made an unfortunate decision, marrying Ernest Floyd. He’d lost his own farm when the impact of the Great Depression hit rural Virginia and he proceeded to run our flourishing homestead into the ground, too. When the finances grew too pinched for comfort, he fired the farmhand and forced me to drop out of school to work full-time caring for livestock and the land. Aunt Dorothy came to the rescue, spiriting me to her home near Philadelphia to continue my education.

  I couldn’t fathom the bleakness of the life I would have led under Ernest’s thumb – uneducated, stifled, devoid of any hope in the future. I shuddered at the thought. I felt a lot of animosity toward Mother for not standing up for me and not protecting me from her second husband. I was grateful for Aunt Dorothy’s intervention. It was a debt I could never repay.

  Pulling up to the Andrew Johnson Hotel on Gay Street, I slipped off my muddy galoshes, replacing them with a pair of black pumps decorated with black-eyed susan bows, tucked a black envelope purse under my arm, and stepped out of the car. I brushed off the wrinkles in my skirt and walked into the lobby of the hotel.

  At the front desk, the clerk called up to Aunt Dorothy’s room and said, ‘Miss Clark will be down in a moment.’ I stood by the elevator waiting for her arrival. Aunt Dorothy stepped out in a pinstriped suit that I didn’t remember. After exchanging a hug, I asked, ‘New suit?’

  ‘Yes, it’s the latest in patriotic fashion,’ Aunt Dorothy said with a chuckle.

  ‘Patriotic?’

  ‘The newest rage, my dear. Plunder the attic for your father’s old suits and turn them over to the seamstress who turns it into a woman’s suit with scraps of fabric left over for making quilts. I bought one of those, too. You won’t believe how warm they are with all those squares of worsted wool. After using it for a few cold nights, I put my name on the waiting list for another one to send down to you.’

  We didn’t say much until after we were seated and had placed our orders. Then, Aunt Dorothy said, ‘I imagine what you want to discuss with me is not fit for a public forum. I thought we could save that for after dinner in my room and just catch up on other
things.’

  ‘I don’t know what I could possibly talk about in my life that doesn’t touch on the big issue. So, please, tell me all the news from back home and how your new graduate school of social work is going.’

  Dorothy talked about my old friends from the neighborhood and school – most were still at home, waiting for boyfriends or husbands to return from the war, but two of them were now nurses working in the Pacific theater. I silently said a quick prayer for the safety of those now in harm’s way. I listened to her description of the progress she’d achieved at the school but had to struggle to focus and prevent my thoughts from drifting to the matter in the forefront of my mind.

  ‘Now, Libby, surely there is something about life in general in your new home that you can tell me about. For example, how are you doing for food?’

  ‘Well, I eat a lot of spam and canned salmon but I am so happy to be able to make my own dinners. The food in the cafeteria was atrocious. Vegetables are cooked to death and loaded up with fatback. And chicken is usually fried to a crisp – all very southern cooking, much like my mother’s. But I’ve gotten so used to Mrs Schmidt’s cooking that it was a real shock to go back to the way I used to eat.’

  ‘Is it difficult to get the food and other things you need?’

  ‘Sometimes. Unlike the women with husbands and children and no jobs, I don’t have whole days to stand in line. I do it when I know it’s something I need but I don’t have the time to join mysterious queues and hope there’s something worthwhile at the end.’

  ‘People do that?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I said and laughed. ‘Remember me writing to you about my friend Ann?’

  ‘Is that the girl who had you over for Thanksgiving dinner?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the one. I was so impressed that her mom was able to pull together everything for a traditional meal that day, I talked to her about how she did it. Mrs Bishop said she’d always keep an eye on her front window. If she saw a group of women heading down toward Towncenter, she’d grab her purse, follow them and get in line. She didn’t know what they were selling but when she got to the front of the line, she’d buy whatever it was. She figured if it was something she didn’t need, she could trade it with someone for something she did want.’