Island of Spies, page 15
My temper went lava. “Otto. That bottom-feeder stole it and he’s blaming you.”
“The important thing is, she believed him,” Rain said. “You two stopped in for water. You could have taken it. Otto brought a pie from his mother, and Scrape and Jersey came in too. They could have taken it. Julia could have suspected anybody. She chose me.”
Neb frowned. “Why would she do that?”
“Why do you think?”
“Oh,” Neb said, his voice soft.
Fact: Some people think the pigment in your skin determines the strength of your character. Grand says they’re ignorant. I do too. Neb laid his cards face-down on the table. “So that’s how she is. I wouldn’t marry her now, even if she begged me.”
Rain pushed three seashells to the center of our table. “I bet three,” she said as Miss Irma swept in, no-nonsense nice and fire-poker thin.
“Nebuchadnezzar,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron, “what are you doing?”
“Learning aircraft with my spotter cards, Mother.”
She scooped up his cards and dropped them like nettles. “To think they ask children . . .” Her voice trailed away. Miss Irma’s high-strung as an acrobat’s wire ever since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on her birthday. December 7. Even Mama’s tonic can’t calm an insult like that, especially with Mr. Mac sicker and sicker, cranking her wire tighter and tighter.
“Keep the volume down. Your father’s resting,” she said, and marched into the kitchen.
“Kiddos, help us move the furniture,” Faye said, glancing at the mirror. She could marry a mirror and be happy.
“You’re not our boss,” I said, but we helped push the furniture to the walls, and rolled up the scatter rugs. Faye stretched a paper pattern across the floor—tan with black footprints printed on it. “Get over here, Neb.”
“I don’t want to dance.”
“Yes you do, you just don’t know it. You can be a boy and we’ll be girls.”
“You don’t have to name me a boy, I am a boy,” Neb said.
“This old dance is the rage again. Hit it, Naomi.”
Naomi dropped the needle on an old Cab Calloway song, “Jumpin’ Jive.” The music strutted across the room and we moved with it. A knock at the door stopped us cold.
“Everybody relax. Nazis don’t knock,” Ruth joked. She flung open the door and put on her smooth company voice. “Well, Captain Davis! What a surprise. Come in.”
Captain Davis? From the civilian defense meeting?
He whisked off his cap and stepped inside. “I . . . I guess you’re not the only one who’s surprised,” he said, gazing around the room. “Ladies. Neb.” His gaze moved from the sofa, to the Victrola, to the old wedding portrait on the wall. “You live here,” he said, sounding dazed.
“Of course we do,” Ruth said. “What can we do for you?”
He looked at Neb. “Neb, is your father here?”
Neb stepped up. “He’s resting. What’s wrong? Have the Germans landed?”
“There you have it,” Faye said. “Three practically grown women and the military guy’s talking to a skinny twelve-year-old just because he’s a boy.”
“Oh,” Davis said, his voice going cool. “Hi, Faye.”
Miss Irma walked in, drying her hands. “Captain Davis?” she said, her voice sharp.
“We told her about you,” Neb said. “We were just studying my cards. You can count on us. All three of us.”
Captain Davis looked at Miss Irma, and then at Ruth and Naomi. “You live here,” he said again like he was shell-shocked. “All of you.”
Miss Irma’s smile didn’t touch her eyes. “Neb, get your father,” she said, and he shot out of the room. “Girls, set the furniture to rights. Naomi, get Captain Davis something to drink.” Naomi flew away before Captain Davis could say no.
“Let me help with the furniture, then,” he said.
* * *
• • •
A little later, Neb’s father eased in wearing his navy-blue lighthouse keeper’s uniform. It hung on him like an old suit on a bent hanger. “Captain Davis,” Mr. Mac said. “I’m Noah Mackenzie, but people call me Mac. Have a seat.”
“Thank you, sir. I’m here to . . .” Captain Davis said, and his voice faded away. He looked from Ruth, who waited steady as moonlight, to Naomi, who fidgeted. He changed tack. “You have a beautiful home, Miss Irma.”
“Thank you,” she said, sitting and folding her hands on her lap. Mr. Mac lit his pipe. Mama says he’s reckless, smoking with his breathing like it is. Neb hates it and Rain and me hate it too. Neb needs a father more than any boy we know.
“You’re wondering why we’re here,” Mr. Mac said.
“Yes sir, I am. I thought this compound was shuttered. The U.S. Lighthouse Service would be surprised to learn it has guests.”
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” Faye fired back—a line from a movie. I was pretty sure she didn’t know what it meant, but I backed her up.
“This place would fall apart without Mr. Mac,” I said. “You should thank him.”
Davis unfolded a paper. “The thing is, sir, I have orders to make this my headquarters.”
“This is our home,” Ruth said, rising. “You people abandoned it.”
“But it’s not your house,” he said, calm as a bowl of chowder. “Weren’t you reassigned, sir?”
Mr. Mac exhaled a cloud of blue smoke. “This cough. Some know-nothing in a white coat gave me some X-rays and a bottle of pills, and cut me loose.”
Davis turned his hat in his hands. “And they didn’t restaff the place. Why would they? The light had been moved out. They didn’t need a keeper of a lost light.”
“Captain Davis,” Faye said, “if you think you’re throwing my best friends out—”
“I’m trying to think of a way we can all get what we need,” he interrupted. “How many buildings are still standing, Mr. Mac? The keeper’s house and lighthouse, obviously.”
“The men’s dormitory out back. A smokehouse, a shed,” he said.
“And the only three-seater outhouse on the island,” Neb added. He’s outhouse proud.
Davis tapped his hat against his knee. “Mr. Mac, my orders are to set up here, and establish community ties. I hate to be blunt, but I’ll be shipping bodies to Norfolk as they wash ashore, establishing radio communications, and handling POWs as we pick them up.”
A flashfire of fear shot through me. “Prisoners of war? Here?”
Mr. Mac nodded like POWs were everyday. “How many of you are there?”
“Just me, for now.”
“To do all that?” I said. I figured him the way Grand considers a barter. “As a rule,” I said, “we hate outsiders. But we could like you if we wanted to. We got friends all over the island. In churches, at school, at the store.”
“My father’s lighthouse brought a lot of men home from the sea,” Naomi added. “People don’t forget a thing like that.”
“We could put in a good word for you—if we wanted to,” I said.
Davis grinned. “Message received. Mr. Mac, what’s in that old dorm out back?”
“A few bunks, a couple desks. We’ve handled shipwrecks here forever. We use the dorm for survivors, and to sort washed-ashore items. The old smokehouse becomes our morgue. You’re welcome to build on our system. The island’s ready to help, I imagine.”
Davis nodded. “Thanks. I could set up in the dorm. I’d planned to hire a cook. But if someone invited me to Sunday dinner from time to time—”
“You’re invited every day,” Ruth said, quick as a whip. “Monday’s wash day all over the island. Your things would be no trouble.”
The tension left his shoulders. “And I’d rather hand over my money to you folks than to strangers. That arrangement helps me and you. Until they send more men, anyway.”
“You won’t need more men. We’ve formed a security club,” Faye said.
“Faye’s Brigade,” I said, giving it a name on the spot. “My sister’s a natural leader. Even when she’s backwards, people follow her. They’ll outshoot any man you got. Including you.”
Ruth nodded, very game. Naomi’s mouth fell open.
“I welcome all the help I can get,” he said, and my spirit soared like an osprey. He swatted it down like a mosquito: “I’ll set up in the lighthouse tomorrow morning.”
The lighthouse?
“Sadly, that’s off-limits to you,” I said. “You may have the dorm. The lighthouse is our headquarters.”
Davis’s face went neutral. “I need the lighthouse.”
“I’m sorry, the answer is no.”
He shifted gears. “You kids seem like the kind of people I’d like to have on my team.”
Neb smiled at Captain Davis, his eyes glowing. That’s one vote for Davis, I thought.
“I could make do with half the space upstairs,” Davis added.
“Jesus says to share,” Rain said. Two votes for Davis.
Faye jumped in. “Sharing office space would be an honor for the Dime Novel Kids,” she told me. “Nobody else on the island partners with the military.”
Captain Davis’s eyebrows flew up. “The Dime Novel Kids? I love dime novels. Not many people appreciate them.”
A likely trick. “What’s your favorite?”
“Dime Novel #21,” he said, very prompt. “The Widow Wears White.”
“Mercy,” Miss Irma said, her hand fluttering to her throat.
I looked Captain Davis up and down. Not a bad view, really. He was old—probably twenty-eight—but in military-good shape. “We’d need something official,” I said. “Medals would be good.”
“Deal,” he said. “We’ll divide the lighthouse tomorrow morning.”
“Regrets. Tomorrow’s Sunday. And we’re busy Monday morning.”
“Monday afternoon then. That’s the last open spot on my calendar.”
“Deal,” Neb said, holding out his hand. Captain Davis gave it a quick shake. Rain and me held out our hands too—the first island girls to take up the art of the handshake.
CHAPTER 16
Heels of Last Resort
Monday morning, Mama peeped in my room. “Comb your hair and invite Rain and Neb in for breakfast. They’re by the gate, practicing looking casual. Neb’s act needs work.”
She strolled in. My official U.S. Weather Bureau Station folder lay open on my bed. In it, I archive Papa’s old postcards. She picked up a favorite: a photo of the Statue of Liberty. She ran her finger across Papa’s scrawl, kissed the top of my head, and gave me a hug. “I miss him too,” she said.
“I’ll put the folder back in the library when I come down,” I promised, and she smiled and sailed out the door.
Mama likes to run a tight ship.
After breakfast, Mama snapped my dinner pail closed. “Be back by dark. If there’s trouble—”
“I know,” I said, slinging my spyglass over my shoulder. “Run home unless there’s gunfire, and then lay low.” I kissed her good-bye and we pounded out the door.
“What’s our plan?” Rain asked as I hurled a rock at the hawk perched in our apple tree. We hurried into the village, passing the PO at a brisk trot.
“To find out who Julia really is, and figure out who stole her bracelet.”
“Speak of the devil,” Neb muttered.
Julia strolled toward us with a long cardboard tube tucked beneath her arm. She swerved to Rain. “Rain, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. You are the last person who would steal from me. I’m sure I lost that bracelet. I feel like such a . . .”
“Loser?” I suggested, and she glared at me.
Julia went eye-to-eye with Rain. “I’m so sorry, Rain. Can you forgive me?”
Miss Jonah teaches Rain to forgive anybody who apologizes from the heart, but Rain never forgets. Neb and me remember with her.
“Little fish?” Neb asked. Rain shook her head. She’s not letting this one go, I thought. Still, she let Julia take her hand.
“What’s in the tube?” Neb asked, falling into step with Julia.
“Watercolors. We roll our art and mail it home to Canada. Aggie’s swamped at the PO today. Once I mail this, I’m heading to the beach to paint with Dirk. Join us, Rain?”
“Not today,” Rain said.
Neb kicked at a stick. “Seems like Dirk would be tired of painting the lighthouse.”
Julia smiled. “The lighthouse sells. It’s famous all over the world.” She stepped onto the porch, tracking damp footprints—one leaving a crescent-moon print across the heel. Julia quickly wiped her feet, smearing the odd print.
“Leave her be,” Miss Agnes snapped at us from the PO doorway. “And no, the FBI hasn’t written. Neither has your father. Go away.” She slammed the door—and locked it.
“Invisible-ized by a fellow woman,” Rain said as Schooner ambled from beneath a fig tree. “Hey, boy. You’re looking trim now that you’re not eating Otto’s food.”
Neb looked at Rain. “What are you thinking? About Julia, I mean.”
Rain tapped her chin. “I’m thinking Julia didn’t mean to hurt me, but she did. And I’m thinking Julia’s headed for the beach after she finishes here, and Dirk’s already down there, and he always carries a meal. And I’m thinking I’m tired of pussyfooting around with those two. Follow me, please,” she added, and just like that, we were on the prowl.
* * *
• • •
Two blinks later, Rain and Neb formed a human shield as I jiggled our bobby pin in the lock on Julia’s back door. Click. The door swung open. Neb sniffed. “Cabbage and onions and . . . gun powder?” he guessed, as we snuck into the kitchen.
“Not gunpowder. Scorched garlic,” I replied.
Thanks to Mama’s herb and vegetable gardens, I can identify most any plant by taste, look, and smell. Thanks to Faye’s cooking, I know what almost everything smells like burnt.
We crept on, past a tower of plates on the old table.
I peeked into a bedroom. Dirk’s dark suit hung like a long, molted skin on the wall peg. His shiny wingtips sat by the dresser. “Neb, you search Dirk’s room in case of underwear. Rain and me got Julia’s room.”
“Why do boys get the bad jobs? Kill the bug, check the mouse trap, touch the underwear.” He fussed his way into Dirk’s room as we pushed into Julia’s: sagging bed neatly made, chest of drawers, hazy mirror. Clothes on pegs, shoes by a stack of luggage.
I placed my spyglass on the desk. “You check the clothes. I got the luggage.”
“No thank you,” Rain replied. “Touching people’s clothes makes me feel cloudy inside.”
Rain looks like a cherub but she’s stubborn as a bloodstain.
“Roger that,” I said. “You check the luggage. I got the clothes.” I patted down the clothes, and turned to the chest of drawers. My fingers closed around a sketchbook. I thumbed through: “Here’s a sketch of Miss Jonah!”
“Julia’s brilliant,” she said, glancing at it. She laid a burgundy passport and a clutter of receipts on the desk. “A brilliant artist, a brilliant liar. Here are her bona fides. Her fake papers. The suitcases are empty except the little one. These PO receipts sat on top of everything else.” She put the receipts on the desk. “Julia said they mail their art to Canada. These receipts say New York and Miami. She’s even lying about that.”
Neb burst in. “Dirk has fake names: Philipe Barbosa, Ernst Yung, Eddy Spitz. And passports from Brazil, Germany, the United States . . .”
Something clunked on the front porch. “Can’t believe I forgot our food,” Dirk said from the porch.
Fish rot.
Rain scooped the passport and receipts into the little suitcase and hurled it in place. Neb raised the window. We tumbled out like a cup full of monkeys, landing in a heap on the grass. Neb grabbed the window’s crosspiece, and slid the window down.
I peeked over the windowsill. No! My spyglass stared back at me from the desk!
Panic winged through me like a murder of frightened crows. “Grab that mop and bucket,” I said, pointing. “We’re going undercover. Now.”
* * *
• • •
“Clean our floors? Why?” Dirk asked, slouching in the doorway.
Neb lowered his voice. “Man to man? It’s bugs—a boy job, but Rain and Stick can handle it. Please show Julia out. I don’t want her to see this.”
I peeked around Dirk, into the front room. Julia stood there barefoot, a pair of flat-soled shoes dangling from her fingertips. “I think these shoes will be better for the sand,” she said.
Rain scooted around Dirk, into the room. “Thank you for liking my art, Julia,” Rain said. “Where are your palmetto bugs?”
Palmetto bugs. Brilliant.
“Eurycotis floridana,” I said. “Like roaches but bigger. One lays fourteen to sixteen eggs a week. Time is of the essence.” Julia stared at us, her green eyes calculating. She’s not going for it, I thought. “There’s one!” I shouted, pointing behind her. Rain screamed.
Julia bolted, slamming the front door behind her.
“Pull the curtains and stomp,” I whispered. Rain high-stepped around the front room as I sprinted into the bedroom and slipped my spyglass in my bucket. “I’ll get the passports,” I whispered, shoving the bucket at Neb.
“No,” Neb said. “It’s the first thing they’ll look for. Let’s get out of here.”
A flash later, we stepped onto the porch. “Thanks,” I told the Artists as Neb strolled away with the bucket. “In case of insects, come directly to us. The postmistress suffers from entomophobia—an irrational fear of bugs. We hope to keep her from full-blown phobia.”
We’d almost made it to the lighthouse when I took the bucket from Neb. It was heavier than expected. Sadly, I didn’t ask why. Instead, I turned to Rain. “Something’s bothering me.”
