Confessions of a Teen Sleuth (4 page)

She moistened her lips thoughtfully. "I don't have to report to work for another day," she exclaimed. "Why don't you bunk
with me and we can go look for your mother together?"

I hesitated. I had always enjoyed solving a mystery with a chum, but Cherry Ames?! She would sell her own twin brother for
a nurse's watch and a pair of white, rubber-soled shoes. Still, I knew that if I were going to find my missing mother I would
need the help of someone who knew the city.

"All right," I agreed.

Cherry lived in a small stucco house in Inglewood with two other girls who worked as night shift nurses at Los Angeles General
Hospital. She had one bedroom, and the other two girls shared the other. The house had nice furniture and bright yellow curtains
on every window. I recall that it smelled vaguely of formaldehyde. Cherry's roommates were asleep, so Cherry and I played
gin rummy and smoked Chesterfields until it was late enough to drift off.

The next morning, Cherry took me on a short tour of the city. We saw the ocean, the oil derricks, the orange groves, muscle
beach in Santa Monica, and Gary Cooper's house. I wanted to see Clark Gable's house in Encino, but Cherry refused. We fought
bitterly. Then it was afternoon and time for the monthly meeting of the Rudolph Valentino Fan Club and Remembrance Society.

The Society met in a Spanish-style villa in the Hollywood Hills. The home was the private residence of the club founder and
president, Mrs. Eugene Boil. An enormous woman with an equally large voice, Mrs. Boil answered the door herself and ushered
us back to the parlor where the group was already gathered. (I had explained my predicament over the phone, and Mrs. Boil
had agreed that I might come to the meeting and ask the members if anyone remembered my missing mother.)

The society had been formed in 1926, shortly after Valentino died of a stomach ulcer at the age of thirty-one. At its height,
there had been 231 members. Now, including Mrs. Boil, there were exactly five. They were all generously built women in their
late fifties with the gossipy demeanor that the happily widowed often possessed in those days. I explained my presence and
passed around the yellowed newspaper clipping of my mother at Valentino's funeral.

"Did this woman ever come to your meetings?" I asked.

The women examined the clipping through their spectacles and pursed their lips thoughtfully in unison.

"Why, she takes evens," one of them declared.

I could feel my stomach tighten. "What does that mean?" I asked.

Mrs. Eugene Boil stepped forward authoritatively. "Part of our club charter stipulates that a bouquet of roses be left on
Rudy's grave every year on his birthday. We partner with another club, the Rudolph Valentino Society of Admiring Friends.
We do odd years. They do evens."

Cherry groaned audibly. I shot her a quieting glare.

"So my mother is part of this other club?" I asked Mrs. Boil. "You've seen her?"

"Well, yes, dear. Now that I see the photo, I recognize her too. She is the founder, president, and only member of the Society
of Admiring Friends."

I swallowed nervously. "Do you have her address?"

"Of course," Mrs. Boil declared defensively. "We have to coordinate florists, don't we? But she doesn't go by Constance Drew
anymore. She uses the name Connie Drawn."

Mrs. Boil walked over to a bookshelf and pulled down a large leather ledger. She opened it, leafed through the pages, and
finally held it out for me to see. There it was, as big as life:

Connie Drawn. 44 Vine Street, Apt. #3

"Thank you," I cried gaily.

We sped directly there in Cherry's convertible. I could barely speak I was so overcome with emotion. This did not stop Cherry
from babbling incoherently about a whole host of subjects that had mostly do to with boys. Finally, we arrived. The building
had been built in the twenties and surrounded a courtyard with a pool that had long ago been drained.

I rushed to apartment 3 and knocked.

A middle-aged gentleman answered the door. He had bristly hair and was casually dressed in brown slacks and a white undershirt.
He looked mildly amused.

"Where's the fire, cupcake?" he asked.

"Fire?" I shouted. "What?!" I had been well trained in fire extinguishing and rued my lack of bucket. I was preparing to sling
the man over my shoulder and carry him to safety when Cherry took me by the shoulders.

"There's no fire," she explained. "The bum's just trying to be cute." She turned to the gentleman and poked him hard in the
chest. "So listen, bub, I'm a nurse, see? This dame's looking for her missing mom. Do you know Connie Drawn, or what?"

The man dismissively waved a hand. "Connie Drawn hasn't lived here in months," he retorted.

"But she did live here?" I asked excitedly.

"Yeah. With a couple of Orientals, Ai and Ko Sato. Then they got hauled away, and I guess she split too, 'cause next thing
I knew, all three of them were history."

"They were arrested?" I asked.

"Naw," explained Cherry. "They were interned, right?"

The man nodded.

"Which camp, do you know?"

"Manzanar."

"They got internships at a company called Manzanar?" I asked, confused.

The man widened his eyes and looked at Cherry. She sighed and shrugged.

"Thanks, bub," she told him, dragging me by the hand to the car.

"We've got to find out more about this internship program," I declared when we got back in the car.

Cherry's jaw tightened. "There's no internship program," she explained slowly. "The government is housing the Japanese at
camps on the West Coast. Manzanar is where a lot of the Japs from L.A. are sent."

"Why, Cherry Ames, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," I chortled. "Why would the government send the Japanese
to camp?"

"They're internment camps," Cherry flashed impatiently, "not summer camps. It's like jail. Prison. The big house. They lock
them up. Get it?"

"But why?"

Cherry's eyes narrowed. "Why, for their own protection, of course."

I was still puzzled by this but had the greatest of faith in the reasoning and actions of the United States government. "We
have to go there," I declared. "We have to go to Manzanar and talk to that Oriental couple who lived with my missing mother."

Cherry looked over at me, clearly very pleased with herself. "That's the crazy thing," she retorted slyly. "You know my new
assignment, the one I start tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"I'm going to be an internment camp nurse. I'm to report at Manzanar first thing in the morning!"

Manzanar consisted of row upon row of tarpaper-covered wooden barracks of simple frame construction, surrounded by a barbed-wire
fence. It was in the desert, northeast of Los Angeles, at the base of the rugged eastern Sierra, where summer winds billowed
fine sand continuously over the barren landscape. I had never seen anything quite like it, with the exception of a girls'
camp I had been sent to as a child. I had not liked that camp either and had quickly, out of boredom, uncovered a plot to
kidnap one of the counselors. The entire camp was immediately closed down so that local law enforcement could investigate.

Cherry showed her papers and identification to the soldier at the gate.

"Who's the blond?" he asked, jabbing a finger toward me.

"I'm not blond," I politely corrected him. "My hair is titian."

He surveyed me coolly. "Whatever you are, you aren't going inside unless you've got papers saying you've got clearance."

Cherry bit her bottom lip and fluttered her thick black lashes flirtatiously. "Can't she come in just for a minute? To help
me get settled?"

The solider turned a deep scarlet. "All right," he agreed gruffly. "But just for a minute."

Cherry's quarters were in a shed near a barbed-wire fence at the back of the camp. The only furniture was a cot with a brocade
bedspread, a potbelly stove, and a small dressing table. Cherry was to work three double shifts, during which time she would
live at the camp. The rest of the week she planned to live in Los Angeles.

"Wait here," ordered Cherry. "I'll report in at the main office and see if I can find out which barracks the Satos are in."

I sat down on the cot and organized my purse. By the time I was done Cherry had returned with two files.

"Here they are," she exclaimed brightly. "Ai and Ko Sato."

I opened up the files, which contained basic information about each individual along with a black-and-white photograph. My
gaze fell on the photograph of Ai Sato. She wore traditional Japanese garments, and her dark hair was pulled into a bun at
the base of her neck. But I still recognized her.

"That's no Oriental!" I shouted. "That's my missing mother!"

It did not take me long to piece together what had happened. My mother was in love with Ko Sato. When the threat of internment
was raised, she began disguising herself as Ai Sato, so that if he was taken to the camps, she could go with him. And now,
if I confronted her, I would reveal her secret and she would be made to leave her true love. But I had to see her! I decided
that I would just walk through her barracks, in hopes of catching a glimpse of her. Then Dad could follow up with divorce
papers by mail. In a place like this it was probably a real treat to get letters.

A few minutes later, clad in Cherry's gleaming white uniform so as to appear inconspicuous, I glided through the longhouse
in which my mother now lived. Most of the barracks were subdivided into family units. In my mother's barracks, four childless
couples shared one of these areas. There were no plumbing or cooking facilities, just a large, empty, wooden room with a stove
and standard army steel cots around the perimeter. A few dressers, homemade curtains, and a wall calendar did not go very
far to make the space homey. It was the middle of the afternoon so the camp's residents were out and about playing kickball
in the sand and writing sad letters to Roosevelt. One elderly woman sat on a cot.

I stole a look at the cots assigned to the Satos and was surprised to see the bedding stripped and the mattresses rolled up.
A trunk sat between the two beds.

"They're gone," the elderly woman muttered.

"Gone?" I asked.

"They escaped last night. She said you would be coming.

She left that for you."

I fell to my knees in front of the trunk. I had been so close! Now my mother was gone again. Vanished. But this time she had
left me something. Slowly, apprehensively, I opened the trunk. Inside, neatly stacked and well thumbed, were the first nineteen
Nancy Drew Mystery Stories. My mother did love me! She had kept track of me in her own way. She was proud of my sleuthing.
She knew about Ned and Bess and George and Hannah Gruen and all of the other people who had come into my life only to be parodied
by Carolyn Keene's poison pen. On top of the books was a note. It read:

Dear Nancy,

I have enjoyed reading about your adventures. I am in love
with an Oriental. We are heading north. Tell your father to
declare me dead. I still think he should have voted for Woodrow
Wilson. (Follow your heart.)

Love,

Your mother, Ai Sato

I had just finished reading the note and was folding it up to put in my pocket when Cherry Ames burst in, followed by four
camp MPs!

"That's her!" Cherry shouted. "She stole my uniform!"

I was quickly arrested.

What a queer development,
I thought as I sat on a hard bench behind bars.

"Hello, Nancy."

I looked up as Cherry Ames sashayed through the door. She was wearing her spare nurse's uniform and cap, and she looked particularly
rosy cheeked and smug.

"Can you give us a minute?" she asked my guard seductively.

"Uh, sure," the young guard stammered as he quickly exited.

Cherry approached the bars, clutching her woolly white sweater around her shoulders.

"Why?" I asked.

"I have my own series now," she announced icily, black curls bouncing. "Thanks for mentioning it, by the way. I really appreciate
your support." Her eyes went through me like knives. "But who wants to read about an adventuring nurse when she can read about
a teenage detective? There's a nurse shortage right now, you know. It's a war job with a future. If my books can inspire little
girls to go into nursing, then it might help us win this thing. But no! Everyone wants to read about a sixteen-year-old, uptight,
self-centered, control freak daddy's girl. You couldn't earn a cap if your life depended on it! By tomorrow all the papers
will know that Nancy Drew was arrested! Don't you get it? If I can discredit you, your book sales go down, and mine go up."
She flared her nostrils patriotically. "Then maybe the Allies will stand a chance."

The door flew open, and the young guard came back in along with a diminutive, elderly gentleman who turned out to be the camp
director. Cherry's and my jaws dropped. It was the gentleman who had collapsed in the airport!