Comes the War

by Ed Ruggero

  The sergeant looked disappointed, and Harkins was tempted to say good-bye with an obscene gesture; instead he just followed the civilian.

  “Is it true they found her stabbed to death?” Reed asked.

  “How much do you know already, sir?”

  “Your Major Sinnott went to Helen’s rooms, woke up her roommate, Annie Stowe, who also works here. I guess Sinnott was looking for some clue as to what happened. Anyway, Sinnott told Annie that Helen had been murdered. Stabbed, I think he said.”

  “Is Annie here now?” Harkins asked, scribbling the names in his pocket notebook.

  “No, she’s pretty distraught. I don’t imagine she’ll be around today; maybe tomorrow, either.”

  “You’re Stowe’s boss? And Helen Batcheller’s boss?”

  “Stowe works for someone else. Helen works for me,” Reed said, then, “Worked, I guess.”

  A long hallway on the second floor was lined with office doors. There were no signs indicating what was inside the rooms. Reed pulled a keychain from his pocket and unlocked a door. Inside, six desks were lined up in neat rows. Three men and one woman were at work, bent over papers or typing. Only one of the men looked up.

  Harkins followed Reed into a smaller, adjoining office with one desk, a coat rack, and a worn leather settee. When Reed turned on a desk lamp, Harkins saw that the single window was covered by a wooden case. The office might as well have been in the basement.

  Reed moved a stack of papers from a straight-backed chair and, because his hands were full, kicked it in front of the desk.

  “Have a seat,” he said. “You understand there’ll be things I can’t talk about, right?”

  “Okay,” Harkins said. “Let’s start with some easy stuff. The names I have so far are Helen Batcheller and Annie Stowe. Is that S-T-O-W-E?”

  “Yes.”

  “And your first name?”

  “Drew.”

  “Short for Andrew?”

  “Well, my first name is actually Rutherford. Andrew is my middle name. You can imagine why I use a diminutive.”

  Ivy Leaguers and Rhodes scholars, Harkins thought. I’ll fit right in.

  “So what can you tell me about Batcheller’s work?”

  “Is it essential that you know all that?” Reed asked.

  Harkins sighed. Back when he was a patrolman in Philadelphia, watching detectives work a crime scene, he admired the ones who turned an interrogation into something closer to a friendly conversation. That wasn’t happening here.

  “Well, first blush—she either got murdered because of her work, or because she was an American, or because she was a woman, or was just in the wrong place,” Harkins said. “If I know what she did here, I might be able to rule out some theories, maybe figure who, if anyone, had a reason to hurt her.”

  “I can assure you that no one here would wish her any harm.”

  Harkins watched Reed for a moment, waiting for him to answer the direct question.

  “Did you have daily contact with Batcheller?”

  “Yes, unless I was away from London for something. Helen was one of my workhorses. She arrived in 1942. May, I think. Incredibly talented. Great imagination. She could always come up with a new way to look at a problem, one that no one else thought of.”

  “What was her field?” Harkins asked.

  Reed looked distracted. “Sorry?” he said.

  “Well, she wasn’t a GI, and I doubt the OSS has Donut Dollies. Did she have some special expertise?”

  “Each of us is here because of special expertise, Lieutenant,” Reed said, a little proud of himself.

  Harkins waited, looked at Reed without blinking.

  “Helen was a first-rate economist,” Reed said after Harkins stared at him for a long few seconds. “Doctorate from Stanford University.”

  “So, she worked with, what, budgets and things?”

  “Heavens, no. She wasn’t a bookkeeper.”

  Reed said “bookkeeper” like he might have said “streetwalker.” Harkins felt the urge to work into the conversation that he’d been a “beat cop.”

  “She did high-level analysis of various trends,” Reed said. When Harkins didn’t write anything in his notebook, Reed continued. “She counted things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, I can’t comment on her work in particular, but in general terms—an economist might look at shipping numbers, for instance. It might be an economist who would figure out how many tons of food Britain had to import before the war, and how much those imports fell off once hostilities began. An economist might look at loans between nations or help draft plans for currency stabilization after an Allied invasion. Helen had an expertise in manufacturing. Raw materials, factory output, national productivity, things like that.”

  Harkins wrote some of the terms in his notebook.

  “Look, Mr. Reed,” Harkins said.

  “It’s Professor Reed. Doctor Reed, if you prefer.”

  I’d prefer to be headed to a nap somewhere, Harkins thought.

  “Can you tell me anything else, anything at all about what she was doing?” Harkins said. “Was any of this work controversial? I mean, was she stepping on anybody’s toes by looking at all these numbers, these measurements and things?”

  Reed rested his elbows on the desk, steepled his fingers in front of his chin. Harkins noticed the frayed cuffs were held in place by gold cufflinks.

  “No, no,” Reed said. “I don’t see how the work could have been controversial.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Well, Helen could be a bit prickly at times.”

  “How so?”

  “She had a very high opinion of her own products.”

  Harkins looked up from his notebook, waited for Reed to go on.

  “She was also a woman of strong opinions. Opinions she didn’t hesitate to express.”

  “Opinions about her work?”

  “About anything,” Reed said. “She could debate aspects of her work, or even the work of others. But she could also be very opinionated when it came to political discussions. About American policy vis-a-vis our allies. About postwar policies that are in the planning stages.”

  “She lock horns with anybody in particular?”

  After a pause, Reed said, “No one springs immediately to mind.”

  Harkins held Reed’s gaze, then smiled and said, “Well, perhaps something will come to you. I imagine we’ll be talking again. Professor.”

  Harkins stood, looked at his notebook.

  “What about the roommate, Annie Stowe? Is she an economist, too?”

  “Well, as I said, Annie Stowe doesn’t work for me,” Reed said. “But I happen to know she’s a mathematician.”

  “So she’s probably really good at counting things, too,” Harkins said. He meant it as a joke, but it had sounded better in his head. Reed’s only reaction was to lift one eyebrow.

  “What does Annie Stowe do?” Harkins asked.

  “You’ll have to ask her.”

  “Yes,” Harkins said. “I guess I will.”

  * * *

  Harkins found Lowell, his driver, waiting for him outside OSS headquarters. She’d parked her car a block away in a lot where a bombed building had been cleared, the rubble pushed to the back half of an open space now filling with weeds.

  “Did you get some breakfast?” Harkins asked her.

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” she said. “Did you?”

  “Got something to eat in the world’s biggest mess hall,” he answered.

  “Grosvenor House,” Lowell said. “It was quite the luxury hotel in its time.”

  “Well, leave it to the Americans to turn it into a feed lot,” Harkins said. “Next we’ll change the name to ‘Lefty’s’ or something.”

  Lowell smiled. “What’s next, sir?”

  “Let’s go back to where the body was dumped. See if we can find any witnesses.”

  Fifteen minutes later they parked the staff car at the end of the alley
where Helen Batcheller had been found. There were a few more people out, most heading to work, along with a handful of mothers pushing prams. Harkins and Lowell stopped several passersby, with Harkins quizzing the GIs, Lowell asking questions of the Brits. No one remembered seeing an American woman in the area the previous evening.

  The first pub the greengrocer had identified on the map was still locked up tight, but there were lights on in the second, where a sign above the door showed what looked to Harkins like a fat rabbit. The Resting Hare.

  Harkins tried the door, which was locked, but he could see inside where a man in shirtsleeves was sweeping. Harkins knocked.

  “You here for your mate?” the man asked when he opened the door. He looked somewhere north of sixty, with a thick shock of white hair.

  “What’s that?” Harkins asked.

  “The major. He’s sleeping off his night back in the storeroom. Not his first time, either. I don’t mind, but the owner isn’t thrilled.”

  Harkins stepped inside the pub, which was cheerful in spite of the fact that all but two of the windows were boarded up. Chairs sat upside down on the few tables, and the room smelled like disinfectant and beer.

  “Who are you?” Harkins asked.

  “Nelson,” the man with the broom said.

  “Any relation to Lord Nelson?” Lowell asked, grinning and making conversation.

  “Not that I know of,” he answered, smiling at the young woman. “Though my brother’s middle name is Horatio. Parents had a sense of humor.”

  “You say there’s an American?” Harkins asked. “Sleeping here?”

  “Right down that hallway,” Nelson said, pointing. “Mind your step. It gets a bit narrow. We used to have a shed out back, but there’s an Anderson shelter out there now. Have to use every square inch indoors for storage.”

  Harkins motioned for Lowell to wait in the main room while he stepped into the hallway, squeezing past stacked crates of empty liquor bottles and a pile of what looked like rolled canvas. A door at the end of the hallway was propped open, showing a small, fenced-in dooryard, the cramped space completely filled by a half-submerged shelter of galvanized steel. Behind him, Harkins heard Lowell laugh at something the old man said.

  A door on his left was marked WC. On his right another door was partly closed. Harkins pushed, and it opened just a little more before bumping into a pair of GI shoes. He leaned around to see inside.

  An American officer sprawled on three seat cushions lined up haphazardly on the floor, his feet hanging off one end, head cradled on his bunched dress coat. On the jacket Harkins could see a major’s gold oak leaves, the silver wings of a pilot, and a stain on one sleeve that reached from the cuff to above the elbow. The room was only a few feet wide, and the sleeping major—who looked to be a big man—was curled in the fetal position. Shelves on either side showed dusty glassware and some cleaning supplies. The space reeked of vomit, body odor, and liquor.

  Harkins had rousted a lot of drunks during his time as a patrolman, and he knew they were unpredictable. Some woke up happy and cooperative; some woke up swinging. He leaned back into the hallway and kicked the bottom of the man’s foot.

  “Hey,” Harkins said. The major did not stir; Harkins looked closely to confirm that he was breathing.

  Lowell came down the hall and peered into the room. “Blimey,” she said.

  Harkins motioned her back into the pub’s main room and followed her. Nelson had finished sweeping and was taking chairs off the tables, putting them back on the floor.

  “Has he been here all night?” Harkins asked.

  “Yes,” Nelson said. “Came in around ten, ten thirty, and was still here when I started closing up around midnight.”

  “Was he by himself?”

  “At the end of the evening, yeah. But he’d been in here earlier with a woman. An American woman.”

  Harkins felt a little jolt of adrenaline. Nelson seemed to come into sharper focus.

  “Can you describe her?”

  Nelson stepped behind the bar, pulled an apron from a hook and tied it around his waist.

  “She was about as tall as your friend here,” Nelson said, indicating Lowell. “Older though. In her thirties, maybe. A bit heavier.”

  “What was she wearing? Do you remember?”

  “Looked like she was dressed for work. Office work, or a bank.”

  Harkins produced his notebook, penciled in the times Nelson had given him, then pulled Batcheller’s identification book from his pocket and showed Nelson the tiny photo stapled inside.

  “This her?”

  “Looks like her,” Nelson said. “Yes.”

  “Were they drinking together?”

  “He was; she wasn’t. Drinking, that is.”

  “So she left earlier than he did?”

  “No,” Nelson said. “I mean, yes. I mean they left together the first time; then he came back by himself. He was drinking faster on the second go-around. Alone, too.”

  “What time did the two of them leave?”

  “I’m not sure. I try not to look at the clock too often. Makes the evening go too slowly if I’m always checking the hour.”

  Harkins looked at the timeline he’d drawn on a notebook page. “So they came in together, the first time? When was that?”

  “Half eight, I’d say.”

  Harkins looked up, and Lowell said, “Eight thirty.”

  “You’re the interpreter, then?” Nelson asked her. Again with the smile. The old guy was flirting with her.

  “And then they left together and he came back alone around ten, ten thirty,” Harkins said.

  “Sounds about right.”

  “Any idea how long he was gone the first time?”

  “Doesn’t seem that long,” Nelson said. “I remember thinking that if he walked her home, she must live close by. Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes.”

  Harkins wrote “2130” in his notebook, the best guess so far as to when the major and Batcheller left together.

  “He’s been in here before last night, you said.”

  “Yeah, and he’s slept it off here a few times, too. Bad habit, but a nice fella. Name’s Fred. Don’t know his last name. I do think he’s got a bit of a problem, though. Drinks until he passes out. A lot of the pilots, RAF and American, are hard drinkers.”

  Harkins looked around the room, which might hold forty people if they stood close to one another. He rolled his head on his neck, felt an ache creeping up to the base of his skull, a throbbing from lack of sleep.

  “Any other Americans in here during that time?” Harkins asked.

  “A few, at different times of the evening, I would think,” Nelson said. “The major and his friend didn’t talk to any of them, at least that I saw.”

  Harkins paused, but no other question came to mind immediately.

  “May I?” Lowell asked, looking at Harkins. He motioned with an open palm.

  Lowell turned to Nelson. “Were they friendly with each other? The major and the woman, I mean.”

  “Seemed like they knew one another, like they were on friendly terms,” Nelson said. “But I don’t think they were a couple, if that’s what you mean.”

  Harkins walked back down the narrow hallway. The major—first name Fred—had not stirred. Harkins tried kicking him on the bottom of his foot, then again, a little harder. Nothing.

  “Get me a pitcher of water,” Harkins directed Lowell, who watched from the main room.

  When she returned with a small carafe, Harkins emptied it on the major’s face. The drunk scrambled to get upright, pushing off the floor with both hands and banging his head on one of the storage shelves.

  “Whatcha do that for?” he complained, rubbing the top of his skull. He seemed to have trouble focusing. Harkins saw a flask partially hidden by the major’s rolled-up uniform coat. There was a chance the pilot was still drunk.

  “I need to ask you a few questions,” Harkins said.

  “Who are you?”

 
“Lieutenant Harkins. I’m investigating a crime and I need to ask you a few questions. Come on, get up and come into the other room.”

  Harkins held out his hand; the major reached for it and missed.

  “Jay-sus,” Harkins said. “How much did you have to drink?”

  The major blinked his eyes once, twice, then showed a satisfied smile. “I can’t drink all they make,” he said. “But I got ’em working nights.”

  Behind him, Harkins heard Lowell chuckle.

  Harkins turned, said to his driver, “Give me a hand here, would you?”

  The two of them squeezed in, shoulder-to-shoulder—and each took one of the major’s hands, pulled him to his feet. He wobbled, caught himself on the doorjamb, then took a step forward.

  Harkins had been right; the major was a big man. At least a few inches over six feet, and probably handsome before his night of excess. This morning his hair was matted, his uniform dirty and disheveled, his breath like exhaust from a dying engine.

  Lowell pulled a chair out onto the floor of the main room and the major fell backward into the seat, nearly toppling it.

  “What’s your name, sir?” Harkins asked.

  The man’s head drooped onto his chest and he leaned forward, threatening to fall again. Harkins put one hand on each of the big man’s shoulders and nudged him to the seatback.

  “Your name?” Harkins asked again.

  Lowell came out from the back room with the major’s uniform coat, holding it so Harkins could see the row of ribbons below the pilot’s wings. One of the awards was a Purple Heart; the major had been wounded in combat.

  Harkins took the coat and rifled the inside pockets. There was a folded sheaf of typewritten pages on one side. Harkins flipped it open, hoping to find a clue as to the man’s name, but the top sheet was just a list of what looked like German names with some dates and a few columns of long numbers. There were no headings on the columns, and the other pages—there were ten in all—looked mainly the same. At the bottom, a handwritten note said, “Copy 1 of 2.”

  Harkins rolled the stack like a newspaper and stuck it in his back pocket.

  In the major’s other pocket Harkins found a paybook. He held up the picture stapled inside, then tipped the drunk up by the chin to compare. The man in the photograph looked ten years younger than the wreck in the chair, though the date stamp on the picture said, MAY 1942.