The War Against Miss Winter (10 page)

She retrieved her gum and straightened her shoulders. “What do I do?”

“Tell him an important claim has been routed back to him that’s too time-sensitive to move beyond his office. And tell him my name is Ruby Priest.”

Five minutes later Edith deposited me with a knowing wink and cup of lukewarm coffee in a claustrophobic office at the end of a long hallway. I nursed the java while I waited for Nussbaum to appear.

The room was government drab. Gray metal file cabinets lined one wall, a matching desk another. From the heavily blinded windows you could see the magnificent Chrysler Building, but the sparse interior decoration made the view seem like something that had been parceled out in a quantity selected because it would neither harm nor inspire. The walls were dotted with a number of framed newspaper articles lauding Nussbaum’s military career prior to his appointment with the OWI. The oldest article, from 1918, relayed how the troops were surviving the harsh French winter. Nussbaum and a man named Alan Detmire were quoted, describing ways to keep the troops’ morale up. Nussbaum was fond of sing-a-longs. Detmire liked skits.

So he was a vet with a penchant for campfire songs. That was good to know.

His desk was covered with stacks of paper. One was nothing but the forms Edith had showed me earlier, filled in with a variety of ridiculous claims. The other stacks were a hodgepodge of unrelated materials: novels, radio schedules, newspapers, museum catalogs, theater programs, letters from Hollywood executives announcing impending projects. Either Nussbaum was getting paid to plan his evenings or something else was afoot.

I rifled through what I could and settled on the newspaper at the
top of the stack. The front page was predicting what the president would say during his address before Congress that day. I flipped past it and skimmed an article on Errol Flynn’s upcoming trial, read a notice that
My Sister Eileen
was finally ending its run after 866 performances, then turned to a brief blurb about Bentley’s play securing new financing and planning to open, on schedule, in the middle of February.

I had half a mind to tear it out and tape it to Ruby’s door.

“Miss Priest?” A man in a gray pin-striped suit coordinated to match the filing cabinets entered the room. “I’m Henry Nussbaum. I’m terribly sorry to keep you waiting.” Nussbaum crossed the room and offered me his hand.

I dropped the paper and returned the handshake. His skin was warm, his nails buffed and manicured. “No need to apologize. I’ve been catching up on the news.”

He removed his jacket with a military precision that suggested he’d been trained to conserve his energy. Charcoal-colored hair emerged from his temples. Fine lines creased his brow and drew fans at the corners of his eyes. He appeared to be in his late forties, but judging from the care he took with the rest of his appearance, he was probably closer to sixty.

“I don’t know what you said to my secretary, but she’s positively beside herself.” He took his place behind the desk and made a tepee of his hands. “What can I do for you?”

I’d been so focused on getting into the office and seeing Nussbaum that I’d forgotten I’d have to say something to him. Outside, the Third Avenue El rumbled past, vibrating the building.

“Miss Priest?”

I sank into my chair. “I lied. I’m not here to report information. I’m here to get some from you.” Rather than responding, he tapped his foot in the way people did to let you know the greater value their time possessed. “I was given your name by someone who claimed you took something of his. This person has lied about other things, but I still felt like I had to follow up on it. Just in case.”

Nothing in his face revealed that he knew what I was talking about,
and yet there was something slightly altered about his puss that made me regret saying anything. What if Fake Fielding had been right and Nussbaum was behind the missing play? Worse, what if I was walking into a trap designed to get rid of me so Fake Fielding wouldn’t have to?

“Who are you?” asked Nussbaum.

My brain scrambled for an answer that would satisfy him without making me sing. “I’m an actress…and a detective.”

“A woman detective?” He said it in a way that made it clear he believed the two terms were mutually exclusive. Strike one against Henry Nussbaum. “Who accused me of this theft?”

I considered my options. Leaving without saying anything more would make this nothing but a trip for biscuits. If I told him part of the truth, I might be able to get a better read on him without fingering myself. “I’m not sure. He claimed he was a man named Raymond Fielding, although it turns out he couldn’t be, since Raymond Fielding is dead.”

His face remained cool and impassive.

“Does that name ring a bell with you?” I asked.

He frowned. “I’m afraid not. So what did this man claim I took?”

Sitting close to him made it difficult to lie. In the pulps the heroine would moderate her breathing and look the suspect, unblinking, in the eye. I could do none of those things, so I stood and made a slow promenade around the room, which served only to emphasize how big and clumsy my feet were. “He wasn’t very clear on that. All I know is they’re papers of some kind.”

I crossed to the window and pulled the blinds far enough apart to look out onto the street. The lower corners of the building jutted out and I was able to see into some of the other offices. In each was a man like Nussbaum, pushing around paperwork while drinking endless cups of coffee.

I turned back to him. “I think it’s safe to say if you don’t know who Fielding is, you probably didn’t take anything from him.”

He leaned back in his chair. “That seems accurate.”

“I do feel foolish coming here and bothering you about this, especially when I had so little information to go on, but you were my only
lead.” I returned to my seat and crossed my legs. “May I ask what it is you do here?”

“We are a division of the U.S. Military that carefully monitors any information being communicated about the war.”

I borrowed Jayne’s wide eyes and high-pitched voice. “How so?”

I must’ve seemed harmless because instead of telling me to scram, he decided to educate me. “The Germans have become very skilled at using what we term propaganda. Our job is to prevent the spread of misinformation at home and abroad.”

“Judging from the posters in the lobby I take it that in addition to telling the Germans to mind their tongues, you also encourage discretion from the rest of us?”

“Everyone needs to do their part during wartime. Unfounded rumors can be extremely dangerous to morale. At the same time, if a democratic government shares its plans with its people, they must encourage their citizenry to keep that information confidential.”

I nodded to show him I was plenty swift. “So you probably don’t care much for people who disagree with you?”

Nussbaum met my eyes. “Everyone has the freedom to express their points of view. But yes, we do promote patriotism.”

“As in
rah, rah, siss boom bah—go Allies
?”

His smile was as thin as a paper cut. “Something like that. It’s important that we promote positive depictions of ourselves and our allies. Conversely, we frown upon stereotyping Axis nations. When a country’s at war, its people go through periods when they question their government’s actions. Some of these people express this discomfort very publicly and, in doing so, encourage more vulnerable individuals to share opinions they may not understand. This can be dangerous, as we saw with the rise of Nazism. If we find something being circulated that may put people or relationships at risk, we take actions to cease the spread of misinformation.”

A tickle moved through my gray matter. What if that’s what Fielding was doing? If some of his past plays had been political in nature, he could’ve written something that not only challenged the government but
put the country at risk. Maybe he even wrote it with no intention of it ever being produced, but someone nicked it and planned to perform it, unleashing potentially dangerous ideas and getting Fielding into a jam in the bargain.

If that were the case, though, who was Fake Fielding and why did he care?

“What actions would you take to stop something you thought was dangerous?” I asked.

Nussbaum laughed in a way that he intended to be disarming but which I took as condescending. “People are entitled to their opinions. We certainly don’t stop them from expressing them. If, however, there are plans to widely circulate something, we contact those involved and let them know the risks they are creating.”

I wondered how those conversations went.

“Do you have any other questions, Miss Priest?”

I licked my lips. There was a problem with my theory. If Fielding was communicating government secrets, that information was time-sensitive. The play was probably written months before Fielding died, and whatever he’d known had come and gone, or at least lost most of its bite. There had to be more to it.

“What would shock you?” I asked.

Nussbaum held my gaze and I wondered if our government was so advanced that it could read intentions off a glimmer of light reflected from a pupil. “I’m paid to never be surprised.”

“I’ll remember not to throw you a party without your knowledge, but I wasn’t asking about surprise. I was asking about shock.” Still his eyes held mine and I had the same odd sensation I got when staring at a mosquito on my arm. As fascinating as the creature might be to witness up close, the boob was still sucking my blood.

He broke the stare and clasped his hands together. “Hardly a quantifiable difference in my opinion. In my line of work, there is no such thing as shocking.”

“Thank you.” I retrieved my pocketbook and walked to the door. “I appreciate your taking the time to see me this morning.”

He rose and offered me his hand. “It was my pleasure, Miss Priest. Can I do anything else for you?”

“Sure,” I told him. “Give your secretary my regards. And let her know her job’s here for as long as she needs it.”

A
FTER
I
LEFT
N
USSBAUM
’
S OFFICE
, I stopped at the A&P for Cat Chow, then took the subway to Fifty-third Street and Seventh Avenue. It had warmed considerably since the day before, turning what should have been an impressive snowstorm into a relentless rain. Despite the foul weather, the sidewalks were littered with people. Men on bicycles wove in and out of the crowds, trying to get home for lunch. A line trailed out of a butcher shop as women, with coupons in hand, waited for their allotment of meat. A crowd gathered around a newsie examining the
A.M.
papers while Joseph Stalin,
Time
magazine’s man of the year, stared into the rain from the slick’s cover. A group of girls patiently stood before a mailbox, each waiting for her turn to drop a handful of V–mail through the slot. A sign mounted on the front of the box asked, “Can you pass a mailbox with a clear conscience?” I couldn’t, so I crossed the street.

I hadn’t bothered to bring an umbrella so I sprinted the distance between awnings until I at last arrived at the Ziegfeld, where Jayne’s audition was taking place. I considered waiting outside for her, but the familiar, gnawing feeling of being watched turned my cold disposition to frigid and falling. I took in every heap, window, and wet passerby trying to put a finger on what rankled me, but that failed to do anything but reinforce the limitless number of people who could be a danger. When I couldn’t take the growing anxiety any longer, I escaped into the theater and flattened my nose against the small diamond-shaped windows set in the auditorium doors.

The audition had just ended. The hoofers were gathering their things while a pock-marked stage manager with a voice like Mickey Rooney’s reminded them that casting decisions would be posted in two days. Fat and Smiley gestured Jayne over to his table and the two huddled in con
versation. As soon as it ended, Jayne’s eyes lighted on me and she rushed out of the theater and into the lobby.

“I take it the private powwow was an offer?” I asked.

“Yes, I have just been given my fiftieth chorus part.”

“When you make it to one hundred, do you get a watch?” I took her bag from her so she could button her coat.

“I’d better. How awful is this show?”

“I wouldn’t call it awful. It’s certainly not Lawrence Bentley material, but then not every theater can strive to such heights of mediocrity.” We hustled out the door and onto the street. “On the bright side, you’re in the Ziegfeld. That’s hardly small potatoes.”

“Just once I’d like to get a real part.” She sighed and pulled on a pair of worn woolen mittens. “How’d it go with Nussbaum?”

“Interesting. In addition to listening to claims about who’s spreading pro-German propaganda, the OWI tightly monitors any negative opinions about America’s role in the war. And not just newspapers and radio shows—they scrutinize every single movie, book, song, and play that somebody wants to put out there, and if they don’t like what it has to say, they bury it.”

“Wow,” said Jayne. “So what has this got to do with Fielding?”

“I’m not sure.” A crowd was gathering outside B&K Furniture, where a radio had been positioned near the open doorway. We joined the group huddled beneath the awning as FDR’s 12:30 state-of-the-nation speech began. For forty-seven minutes we listened to the president as he praised our efforts, pleaded for our continued faith, and predicted victory in the coming months. Through the driving downpour he rallied those of us who’d had enough of death and deprivation by reminding us that it wasn’t all for naught. “In this war of survival we must keep before our minds not only the evil things we fight against, but the good things we are fighting for. We fight to retain a great past—and fight to regain a greater future.”

As the speech came to an end, my brain started focusing on victory
on a very different front.

“Rosie?” Jayne waved her hand before my face. “You still there?”

The rest of the crowd dispersed around us, their faces plastered with smiles, their voices light with glee.

“Rosie?”

“What if I hadn’t been sent to Nussbaum’s to get information? What if I’d been sent there to deliver it? Maybe Fake Fielding told me Nussbaum was a suspect so I’d go to his office and get the government on the trail of the play.” That explained why Nussbaum acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about when I mentioned Fielding’s name—he didn’t. I was sent there to put him on the case in the same way Fake Fielding had put me on it.

“Why?” asked Jayne.

“Maybe he thought the more people looking for it, the better.”

Jayne took my arm and we moved back into the rain. “This could be good,” she said. “If these propaganda people get paid to weed things out, they’ll probably find the play much faster than we could, and then we won’t have to worry about it anymore.” She was right, but something wasn’t adding up. I spun on my heel and headed back toward the subway station. “Where are we going anyhow?” I didn’t answer. “We’re going to your old office, aren’t we?”

“Maybe.”

“Rosie, you said you wouldn’t go back there.”

“No,
you
said I shouldn’t go back there. I just didn’t disagree.”

Jayne sighed and tied on her snood. “You’re lucky I’m in a good mood,” she said. “You’ve got five minutes. Any sign of trouble and you’re on your own.”

By the time the train delivered us to Forty-second Street, the rain picked up its rhythm, forcing us to jog the remaining distance to McCain and Son. In the building’s foyer, we wrung out our clothes, slipped off our shoes, and wordlessly advised each other to tiptoe up the stairs in case anyone was waiting for us. The building was blissfully quiet, as though all the other tenants had felt so cheered by FDR’s speech that they’d left to celebrate. Despite the silence, there
was a sense of occupation to the place that made us extra mindful of every dark corner we passed. I had a feeling someone lurked behind each closed door with his ear to the wood listening to our every move.

My plan was to pinch the file of programs from Jim’s office. Now that I had more information about what I was looking for, I thought there was a chance I’d missed something in the file the first time around.

When we arrived on the top floor, my feet were cramping from the effort to remain quiet. Jayne and I paused in the stairwell and listened for a sign that someone was inside the office. Once we were certain there was no noise aside from our own breathing, I turned the knob and found the door unlocked.

I prepared myself for an unwelcome visitor who stood with his back flush against the wall, his rod raised and ready to strike. Instead of being told to grab air, we entered an empty office. Someone had made a clean sneak; all of the furniture and, more to the point, all of the files were gone. Only the phone remained.

“Who would do this?” I asked.

“Maybe Agnes put them away somewhere.” Jayne prowled the outer office and searched the cupboards.

“Does that sound like Agnes to you?” I went into Jim’s office and found it equally bare. Even the trash bin I’d dropped his gun into was gone. I paced the length of the room, snapping my fingers to try to force my brain to work at a faster rate. Why would somebody sneak the files now, when there was plenty of time to take them before? If the killer had wanted them, he could’ve taken them the night Jim died, unless he was afraid someone would notice their absence and didn’t want to raise any questions as to whether Jim had really committed suicide.

“What about the thugs?” asked Jayne. “Didn’t you say you overheard them at the funeral talking about their plan to clean the office?”

“Of course, it had to be them.” Although I sounded confident, I didn’t feel it. The goon I’d dubbed Frank was a professional and I found it hard to believe he or his crew would take everything, including the furniture, to erase the few clues linking them with Jim.

“Can we go?” asked Jayne. “This place is giving me the heebies.”

We put on our shoes and gathered our things. As we headed out the door, the phone began to jangle.

“What do I do?” I asked.

“Don’t answer it,” said Jayne. “It could be a trap. Maybe whoever took the files is watching us.”

We hadn’t turned the lights on in the office—there was enough daylight to see by—and it would’ve been impossible to spy us from the street. Of course that didn’t mean someone didn’t see us go into the building. “But what if it’s somebody who knows something?” I asked. “What if it’s Fake Fielding?”

Jayne bit her lip and the two of us watched as the phone shook with effort.

“I’m answering it,” I said. Jayne’s fingers plucked the air, but I lifted the receiver before she could stop me. “McCain and Son.”

“It’s about time,” said Eloise McCain. “I’ve been trying to reach you all morning.”

I mouthed her name to Jayne and sat on the floor beside the phone. “I’m terribly sorry, Eloise, but I do have a life aside from this office. What can I do for you?”

“Are the files packed?”

“Yes,” I said, because they were. Somewhere.

“And did you find anything unusual in them?”

“No,” I said. “But I was working quickly.”

“Thank you for trying.” Her voice held as much gratitude as bears had table manners. “If it’s all right with you, I’ll send you a check.”

I gave her the Shaw House address and listened as she ordered someone to fetch her a pen and piece of paper. The items were swiftly delivered and a voice murmured a question to which Eloise responded that that was all she needed for the time being and the silver polish could be found with the other cleaning supplies.

“New maid?” I asked.

“How on earth could you tell?”

“Different accent, faster reflexes. I bet she also answers to a different name.”

Eloise sighed. “If you are done castigating me for the ways in which I discern my help, I need to be going. Do you have anything else to tell me?”

I swallowed the truth until my voice was shiny and happy. “No. I think that’s everything.”

“I do thank you for your assistance, Rosie.”

This was the point where we were supposed to offer each other help in the future. Instead, there was an awkward pause in the conversation that I ended by saying, “You’re welcome. Good-bye.”

Jayne tapped her foot as I hung up the horn. “You didn’t tell her the files were missing.”

“She didn’t ask. And odds are she won’t. She’ll send people over to retrieve the crates, and they’ll get hell when they tell her the files aren’t here. Let someone else take the rap. I’m washing my hands of the whole thing.” I rose to my feet and brushed off my skirt.

“So that’s it, right? You’re not going to look for the play anymore?” asked Jayne.

“I don’t think we have to. If it’s out there and whoever has it intends for it to be seen, I’m sure we’ll know about it soon enough.”

“And in the meantime?” she asked.

“We wait.”