Island of Spies, page 16
“The origin of life again?” she guessed. “The mechanics of time?”
“No. You said the PO receipts sat on top of things in the little suitcase. On top of what?”
“Money,” she said. “The little suitcase is full of ten-dollar bills.”
* * *
• • •
“A suitcase full of ten-dollar bills? Why?” Neb said, pacing HQ’s floor.
“Because a wallet couldn’t hold that much cash,” Rain said.
I read the clouds and made my notes. “Quarter inch of precip last night. Winds out of the east,” I muttered.
“Who cares?” he asked. “We could question Julia, but how can we without admitting we broke in?”
Downstairs, the door scraped open. “Hello?” Captain Davis.
“Halt,” I shouted, smoothing my lab jacket. “What’s the password?”
“I’m coming up,” Davis shouted.
“Enter,” Rain shouted back.
“We’ll keep the ocean side of the office,” I whispered. “It’s the best lookout for weather and U-boats.” They nodded as Davis started up at a brisk trot—rookie mistake. He stepped into HQ, panting. He looked around, waiting for his breathing to settle.
“We’re safe from out-of-shape Germans, anyway,” he said. “They’d die halfway up.”
“Welcome to your side of the lighthouse,” I said, pointing to the sound side of our space. He strolled the room, admiring Rain’s art and Papa’s latest postcards. He leaned in to admire Neb’s neckerchief slide. “Nice—”
“Porpoise,” we said in unison.
Captain Davis opened the steel door leading to the rusty balcony. He took a cautious step out, and a quick step back in. “I’ll take the ocean side of the room.”
He’s smarter than he looks, I thought. “The sound side has a better view.”
“And I’m glad for you to have it. Let’s move your things. Then I’ll fetch mine.”
* * *
• • •
An hour later, our half of headquarters was shipshape. “You helped us, now we’ll help you. Turnabout’s fair play,” Neb told him. “Where’s your stuff?”
Davis flashed a smile. “Thanks. I like that about you Dimes.” Recognition feels good, even from a pushy Fed. It took two trips to lug in Davis’s stuff: electrical gadgetry, a swivel office chair with a ripped cushion. A UNC poster, a box of charts, and what turned out to be a shortwave radio when he put it together.
Rain taped his charts up for him. “Those are the ugly airplanes from Neb’s cards,” she said. “We know them by heart—all three of us.”
Davis sprawled in his chair. “The more eyes, the better,” he said, reaching into the last box. He lifted out four warm Pepsis, and an opener. “Thanks for your help,” he said, prying up the lids. He handed a bottle to Rain and one to me, then to Neb. We Dimes clamped our lips over the bottles, to catch the warm fizz. He didn’t.
“You brought four drinks,” I said, covering for Neb as fizz spouted from his nose. “You knew we’d help you move in.”
“I hoped so. You can see quite a bit from here,” he added, looking out over the island. “Seen anything I need to know? What do you know about those Artists?”
What do we know? They have fake passports, I thought. They lie about mailing their work to Canada. They associate with Miss Agnes, whose status remains unknown. And they own a suitcase stuffed with ten-dollar bills. But why would we share our hard-earned information with an unproven roommate?
I smiled at Davis. “They’re from Canada,” I said.
He set binoculars on his desk. “You can use these up here, but never touch the radio.”
“Feel free to use our spyglass,” I countered. “Make sure you don’t track any oil into headquarters, and set the Matchstick Alert when you leave.”
“Matchstick high in the door?” He’s savvy, I thought. “Deal. Dimes, please rise.” He pulled three star-shaped pins from his pocket. “With deep appreciation for your lighthouse maintenance, your love of dime novels, and your willingness to admit a scurvy dog like me, I present these stars of excellence.” He went down the row, pinning them to our collars.
He stepped back and saluted us. We saluted in reply, Rain and me going military, Neb whipping off a Boy Scout salute. “Congratulations, Dimes. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do,” he said, sitting. “Remember: Don’t touch the radio.”
From honorees to evictees, just like that?
Rain gave him her angel smile. “Is that a U-boat?” she asked, pointing over his shoulder. Davis grabbed his binoculars and swiveled in his government-issue office chair.
We touched his radio and shot down the stairs.
* * *
• • •
That evening, as my family finished supper, Rain strolled in with Neb, who clutched a lumpy pillowcase. She smiled at Mama. “May Neb and I visit with Stick in private? We need all hands on deck now, please.”
What the helium?
Mama laughed. “Stick, you’re excused.”
The three of us tore upstairs to my room. “What’s wrong?”
“Emergency meeting,” Rain said. We sat cross-legged on my bed, our knees practically touching. She looked at Neb. “Show her.”
Neb went sullen. He upended his pillowcase, dumping Julia’s shoes onto my bedspread.
“Tell her,” Rain demanded.
Neb sighed. “I confiscated Julia’s shoes when we went back to get your spyglass.”
I stared at him in horror. “You knew not to take the passports, but you took her shoes?”
“I didn’t think it through,” he said, his voice pleading. “I was there, the shoes were there, they’d made that odd print, I had a bucket.” He sighed. “She’ll suspect we took them. We were there when her shoes walked off without her.”
Rain’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want her to think I’m a thief.”
“I’m sorry, Rain,” Neb said, his voice quivering.
I threw my arm around Rain and we stared at Julia’s brown shoes, at their neat trim, their two-inch heels. Very sophisticated.
Rain turned the left shoe over: normal as baby teeth. Then the right shoe. “The shoe with the crescent heel,” she said. I hopped up, snagged Faye’s comb, and tapped the heel. “It sounds hollow,” she said, and gave it a deft twist. It swung open. A capsule rolled onto my quilt.
“A white capsule with a red band,” Rain whispered. “Identical to the one in Dime Novel #22: Heels of Last Resort.”
“A suicide pill, then. Certain death,” Neb added as Faye flew in.
We froze, Rain holding the open shoe, me holding Faye’s comb, Neb holding the pillowcase. The suicide pill lay between us. Faye took in the scene. “Who said you could use my comb?” she demanded, grabbing it. “Listen, girls, I’d hoped to fix your hair next Saturday, but I’m going to the island’s snazziest club. With Reed. Little place called the Oceanside Club.”
“That’s good,” Rain said. “I already like my hair.”
“Me too,” I said, and Faye snorted.
“Who cares about the Oceanside Club?” asked Neb.
Faye frowned. “Everybody who’s anybody, porcupine head.”
How can Faye be sixteen and insult like a third-grader? I gave her a smile. “Porcupine head. Neb’s hair is quill, get it?”
She didn’t get it. “The Oceanside,” she said, and shot out the door.
I turned back to the suicide pill. “Is there anything else in that heel?”
Rain shook her head. “Spies carry suicide pills,” she said. “And fake passports. And maybe suitcases full of cash. But how could Julia be a spy after Nazis stole her people?”
“What?” Neb said.
“It slipped out one day while we painted together with our hearts wide-open,” Rain said. “She said not to mention it to Dirk. It makes him too sad.”
“Right,” Neb said. “Only how does that all line up?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said, “but by now Julia knows one of us stole these shoes, but not why. We have to put them back or blow our cover.”
“What cover?” Neb said.
“We’re genius spy-catchers, traveling incognito as us,” Rain explained.
I scooped the pill back into the shoe and closed the crescent heel. “Why would a boy swipe a woman’s footwear?” I hurried on before Neb could guess. “He’d do it because he’s in love. Love makes people stupid. Example: Reed’s asking Faye to marry him at the Oceanside.”
Neb whistled. I opened my drawer, snagged paper and pencil, and scrawled a quick note. “Neb, copy this over. Change the wording to reflect your personal style.” Neb has no writing style but I try to be generous. I took out Faye’s shoe polish as he read my note.
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Do it. Do it now. Please,” Rain demanded, and he picked up the pencil.
He read the words out as he copied them: “Dear Miss Julia, I polished your shoes,” he muttered as I smeared polish on Julia’s left shoe. “Please marry me. Neb.” He cleared his throat and looked from Rain to me. “I’m over her, but . . . Do you actually think this will work? The age difference might kill Mother.”
Rain put her head in her hands. “It will never work, Neb,” she said. “But it will explain why you took the shoes.”
I stuffed Julia’s shoes in the pillowcase. “Let these dry, buff them to a high sheen, and place them on Julia’s porch with your note,” I told Neb. “Don’t let her see you.”
“Right,” he said, relaxing. “What can go wrong?”
CHAPTER 17
The Creature in Us All
It’s amazing how many things can go wrong in one skinny day.
Take the next day, for example. “Today we find a way inside Miss Agnes’s lair if we have to bust a window to do it,” I said, lugging Mama’s cleaning supplies along. “We need to know who she is, and how she’s connected to the Artists.”
“She could be a Nazi, like Dirk,” Neb said. “Or something confusing, like Julia.”
“She’s no Nazi,” Rain said, smoothing her dress—blue with tiny stars.
A breeze sailed across the sound, wrapping us in the soft, round scent of salt water and the sharp, clean smell of pines. Schooner fell in beside us, his head down. He burped. “Seasick again,” Rain said, rubbing his ears. “He probably walked out on the dock.”
Fact: It’s sad, being a landlubber on an island.
“Look smart,” I continued. “If Miss Agnes mentions Julia’s shoes, we never heard of them. Be charming.” We pushed inside the tiny post office. Miss Agnes stood behind the counter, the Sears and Roebuck catalog open to the men’s suspenders page, the sunlight glinting off her frilly dress’s lacy white collar. She looked up, letting her glasses slide down her nose.
“Felicitations,” I said, smiling. “It smells nice in here. Did you dab vanilla behind your ears? Faye says boys love it. Old men might too.”
Fact: Grand is allergic to vanilla.
“It’s you. Nothing from your papa today,” she said, and my heart fell. “Go away.”
“We can’t,” Rain replied. “We’re being punished.”
Miss Agnes closed her catalog and smiled, and I hung my head. “Mama says I got to ask you if you want us to wash your windows, inside and out. It’s free until we learn our lesson.”
She licked her thin lips. “What did you do this time and how did you get caught?”
“Free child labor,” Rain said. “Take it or leave it, please.”
“I’ll take it. Outside only. Don’t go in my house. Don’t mess with my laundry. And don’t touch the Buick ever, you little pests.”
It would be our last cordial conversation with Miss Agnes for many days.
* * *
• • •
Schooner collapsed beneath Miss Agnes’s scraggly cedar as we set up on the front porch. “Case the joint through the windows,” I whispered, adjusting my stepladder.
Neb poured vinegar in our wash water. “No can do. She has curtains.”
As we washed one salt-misted window and moved to the next, I studied her odd front-porch wash line. “Remember the list of clothes we found behind Miss Agnes’s house?”
“Of course,” Rain said. “Jacket, kimono, lingerie. Alphabetical.”
“Look at her clothesline. What do you see?”
“A man’s hat,” Neb reported. “And—” He gasped and went beet-red.
“Good grief. You have sisters. You’ve seen underwear before,” I told him.
He looked away. “Not such . . . excited, frilly underwear. Nobody should ever see that.”
“A hat, underwear, and two life jackets,” Rain added. “Maybe she rinsed the salt water off the life jackets and hung them up to dry?”
Neb studied the clothesline: “The first letters of the clothes on her list were alphabetical. It could be code. Put the initials of these clothes together, what do you have? Hat, underwear, life jacket, life jacket. H-u-l-l.” His face fell. “Hull?”
Rain scrubbed at a fly speck. “That hat’s a fedora. Her clothesline says FULL.”
Neb beamed. “Exactly!” he said.
“It spells full now,” I said, my blood surging. “But Miss Agnes changed it just after the Artists showed up. What hung on the PO clothesline the day they first arrived, with Sam?”
“A hanky, red earmuffs, a frilly robe, and an evening gown,” Rain said. “H for hanky, E for earmuffs, R for robe, and E for evening gown. H-e-r-e.”
“A message guiding the Artists in! And with the shack full, it’s now signaling she has no vacancy,” Neb said as we moved our gear to the side of the house.
I grinned. “Fedora. Rain, you’re a genius.”
Neb pressed his hair flat. “And?”
“And you are too,” I told him.
He glowed as he wedged his ladder between the side of the house and an overgrown hedge. “That’s a tough code, and we broke it. The FBI can’t ignore that.” He scaled his ladder, turned, and slapped at the shrub. “This shrub’s a hazard.”
Up we went, Neb high on his ladder, me on Mama’s medium stepladder, Rain on the ground. We heard Julia and Dirk before we saw them.
“We can’t miss this, sister dear. Timing’s everything,” Dirk said, his voice sharp as Papa’s razor.
“I realize that, I just—”
“Stop wasting time on those ridiculous island kids and pay attention to business.”
“What business?” Neb whispered. He leaned, peeping around the privet.
“Use your head,” Dirk said. “Our man’s on a life-and-death schedule.”
“What man?” Neb muttered. He leaned more, sticking his foot out for balance.
“This drop spells success or failure for the entire East Coast,” Dirk continued. “Today we talk Aggie into taking us to the new naval base on Ocracoke Island—to update our info. And we need her Buick for our trip to the Oceanside Club, Saturday night. Here. Take this.”
“Take what?” Neb whispered, leaning even more.
The ladder slipped.
Time slowed.
Neb’s brown eyes went helpless and wild.
His ladder shot out from under him and he fell, swiping at the shrubbery like a cat batting at moths. He crashed at Julia’s feet, sprigs of greenery clenched in his hands and teeth.
Think fast, Genius. I landed flat-footed beside Neb and went into a scientific crouch.
Life Rule #34: Look like you know what you’re doing, especially if you don’t.
“Step back, Artists,” I said as Rain struggled to my side. “Science needs room to breathe.” Rain gently shook a branch from between Neb’s teeth. “Thanks for your willingness to sacrifice your body for science, Neb. Based on my calculations, gravity’s in full force.”
“Hello, Julia,” Neb replied, gazing at her. He looked at Dirk. “Dirk,” he said, very cool.
Julia looked at him the way Faye eyes a pimple. “Thank you for polishing my shoes, Neb, but I must decline your proposal. Excuse us, children.”
She hooked her arm in Dirk’s and sashayed on.
“She called me a child,” Neb said as Rain and I sat him up. “It’s over between us. I’ve moved on, and now she has too.”
* * *
• • •
Neb had regained his color by the time we passed our ladders over Miss Agnes’s wall of thorns and belly-crawled through Edgar’s door into the backyard. Snatches of voices floated to us from the front yard. Julia’s, Dirk’s, Miss Agnes’s. Car doors slammed. The Buick backfired its way down our main street.
“They’re gone,” Neb said. “Did you bring our Door Opening Kit?”
I plucked Faye’s bobby pin from my hair and went to work. The back door squeaked open and we stole inside. “Dang, it’s musty,” Neb whispered, closing the door.
We sniffed the air for sensory clues—a technique featured in Dime Novel #95: The Creature in Us All. We crept across the musty hall, to the office door. “Locked,” I reported.
I jimmied the lock and the door scraped open. I darted to the window and slowly lifted the shade. A dusty light crept across the room—up the side of Miss Agnes’s cluttered oak desk, across a Royal typewriter, over a half sandwich covered in pale mold—possibly Penicillium (Volume P). My hand slipped. The shade flapped itself crazy at the top of the window, and sunlight bolted to shelves beyond the desk.
Three sets of glassy eyes stared at us. A scream pierced the dusty silence.
“Stick! Hush!” Rain cried, strolling to the shelf. “They’re just dolls.” Fact: Many scientists have a fear of dolls.
