Megan
MEGAN’S VERY LONG DAY
July 13
THE HISS OF THE METRO doors opening woke Megan. The doors clamped shut and the train gathered speed. It took her about two seconds to realize where she was—three stops past Union Station.
“Crap!” She should have driven, but she never drove downtown. She’d left her car at the Metro station in Virginia.
The woman across the aisle glared at her; she had broken the somnolent silence of the early morning commuters. At the next station, she jumped off, paused below a long escalator she’d never seen before, and realized she hadn’t transferred at the Pentagon.
It was Saturday morning. It might be twenty minutes before the next train arrived. She dashed up the escalator and emerged about six blocks from the station. “Taxi!” she yelled. “Taxi!”
Right. There were no taxis on this mostly residential street. She could use her phone, but could probably get to the station before a taxi arrived. No zip kiosks in sight.
She launched into an awkward run, handicapped by her low heels, passing boarded-up town houses and a pit bull who raced her from his side of a wrought-iron fence, telling her, in the unmistakable language of barks, growls, lunges, leaps, and snaps, that he would tear her limb from limb as soon as an opportunity presented itself.
Her throat burned by the time she rounded the corner to the station. Inside, she slipped on the marble floor, grabbed a countertop to keep from falling, and scanned the gate announcements. The Magline, an express bullet train that went two hundred miles an hour, was usually at Gate 9. It had left. That would have only taken an hour.
“Last call for New York,” echoed through the station. She’d missed the express, but at least the local Metroliner was leaving right away.
She grabbed the iron handrail next to the train stairs and clanked up the stairs of the last passenger car as the train inched forward. She flung herself into a seat, thankful for the air-conditioning, and wiped her forehead with a crumpled paper napkin from her purse.
“Ticket?” The conductor stood over her, nervously clicking his puncher.
“I’ll have to buy one.” She got out her wallet and bought a ticket to Penn Station, and watched the train yard drift past as the train picked up speed.
A man sat next to her. She was startled and annoyed, because there were only about five people in the car. She managed to smile briefly, just the corners of her mouth, and said, “Do you mind finding another seat? Most of them are empty.” Ordinarily, she would have just moved, herself, but she was not in the mood.
His face was round and pudgy. Long strands of thin, black hair, combed so meticulously that they formed near-parallel lines, surrounded his bald spot. He stared at her with unfriendly blue eyes for a second, and then he smiled himself. With a nod, he got up and moved one seat back, across the aisle. He carried a homburg. What was this, Megan wondered, some kind of homburg revival? Maybe she’d missed a few Style sections. He wasn’t her Walking Man; she could see that in an instant.
When the cart came, she was pleased; she only rode the bullet train and didn’t realize the local train had such good service. She bought a Danish and two cups of drab coffee that would do nothing to improve her malaised state. She needed raise-me-from-the-dead espresso.
Her first trip to Europe, so long ago, when they were trying to find Dad, was when she realized the limitations of American coffee. They’d flown all night and arrived in Frankfurt around five in the morning. After customs, they found themselves out on the street with their backpacks. Jill and Brian wanted to find a hotel. She was agreeable until they stopped at a bakery for breakfast. The strong German coffee and the exquisite pastry ignited a fire in her brain. She dragged them to the train station and they were on the next train to Munich. In fact, when she shook her siblings awake at the Munich station, they didn’t even remember going through customs.
It had turned out to be a melancholy trip. The village of Oberammergau, still picturesque and small, reminded them that their parents were no longer with them. They had visited their parents’ friends, mostly German, and found that Sam had indeed been there on his last known trip. Dr. Schmidt, a historian and one of their mother’s best friends, was quite surprised to see them. She invited them inside and served them thin dark bread, gelbwurst with mustard, and cold beer, exclaiming how much they had grown. Megan still had a very strong feeling that there was something Schmidt held back, but they left with nothing more than an invitation to come back anytime. Brian took them up to the caves and insisted that they winnow their way inside the damp, inky-black plane factory of the Third Reich, but they found nothing that would help them in their quest, although Brian claimed that the fact one of the tracks that had carried the rocket planes decades ago showed signs of more recent use was important. He couldn’t say why, though. They checked old newspaper records to find out if any unsolved deaths had been recorded. And then they went on to Mönchengladbach, where their father had been stationed, in still-enemy territory, at the end of World War II. Nothing there except paved-over metropolis.
Of the three of them, Megan felt that she was the most clearheaded and objective. Jill had the sometimes silly (in Megan’s opinion) temperament of an artist. Brian was much better, but he sometimes formed opinions too soon and could be stubborn about changing them. She always had to go about giving him new information in a careful, sideways fashion so that he didn’t dig in his heels, and let him think that a different point of view was his own idea. The fact that he was older than her, and a boy, clouded his vision sometimes, even though their childhood was long past.
Her phone buzzed. It was Jim. “Did you make the train?”
“Barely. I missed the bullet train; I’m on a local.”
“Well, Abbie’s still asleep. I’m working. Keeping an eye out for Rover.”
“Rover?”
“Our mystery man. I’m a little nervous after Jill’s break-in.”
“Right. Good.” She hung up thinking, time to get to work; but everything was so topsy-turvy. Carrying the damned board around made her nervous too, and when she opened her briefcase, she felt as if the annoying man behind her was looking at the contents. She looked back: he was.
She quickly removed her conference program, then snapped the briefcase shut and set it on the floor between her feet and the window. Some impulse made her fold the program back on itself so that he wouldn’t see the cover. She wasn’t a presenter at this one, but she wanted to see Dr. Elizabeth Nickolassi, whose work on the biochemistry of intent and will fascinated her.
Damn the man! She really did have work to do. Outside, a summer shower fell for about ten minutes; then steam rose from the streets of Baltimore. She fought off the urge to nap, picked up her briefcase, and headed toward the club car.
Once there, she got a double espresso, got out her Q, and wedged her briefcase between herself and the window. Not that she held the secrets of the universe in it, only the secrets of NIH. Opening the paper she wanted to read, this one about memory storage in sea snails, she gulped the coffee with faint hope.
Her brief spell of concentration ended when the club door slid open and the man she now thought of as her stalker walked in. He hoisted his short self onto a bar stool and ordered a … what? A Rolling Rock? He grabbed the unmistakable squat green bottle and took a gulp.
Maybe he was just a random businessman. She watched him as he got out his phone and spoke for a moment, glanced directly at her, then closed it and slipped it back into his pocket.
The train slowed, then stopped at a small station. The man chugged the rest of his beer, grabbed his sandwich and stuffed it in his pocket, and left the train. He didn’t go into the station, but disappeared past it, heading toward the end of the train. She turned and watched him until he disappeared from view, feeling rather ridiculous. She was risking a strained neck to spy on a stranger she suspected of spying on her. All this mysterious stuff was driving her around the bend.
But she caught her breath when she saw him picking his way across the tracks a moment later. He climbed onto the opposite platform just before a southbound train pulled in.
She saw him take a window seat in the southbound train just as her train began to move.
* * *
Exasperated with herself for the tenth time that morning when she had to pay for a cab to get her to the meeting because she was so late, she missed the talk that she’d wanted to see, but got a Q’d transcript.
Megan stepped into a talk she would not have gone to about objects and memory. It was packed. She found a seat in the back row and watched the video screen.
“Objects are quite clearly nexes of information,” the speaker was saying. “But why? We are visual creatures, and many of us think in images. Images and objects elicit emotion quickly and directly, oftentimes, it seems, more powerfully than if we used words. Not only do we cling to physical objects that are emotionally meaningful to us, but we grieve their loss. Why? Because the object itself is the last real link we have with that past? We are relatively incapable of truly fixing memory and emotion; we want desperately to make it concrete, rather than abstract.
“Many images are universal icons that elicit innumerable emotions. Think of the cross, which can reinforce positive ideas about the nature of God and the Christ for Christians. There! A lot of thoughts flowed through the mind of each and every one of you. What neurons were activated?”
The words “quantum memory” caught her attention. Suddenly, the woman segued into a riff about changing the brains of all humans in such a way that they would value peace, cooperation, aiding the less fortunate, education. Megan had gotten the same message from the numerous papers Hadntz had Q’d her. “I realize that these are just emblems of a liberal point of view. But what if these ideas were truly embedded in action in a widespread manner? What if, for instance, it became apparent not that we all had to pick up weapons and fight other humans for our survival, but that international cooperation was the only way in which we could all survive some specific, looming threat? How would we react?”
What did this have to do with memory? Megan wondered.
“The threats are real. Starvation, subjugation, slave labor, are all real. But they might be abstract to us. What if a ‘memory’ was released worldwide, piggybacked on a virus, putting each individual, briefly and vividly, into that reality? News reports are ephemeral, and lack a mechanism for specific response, except for those innumerable, ridiculous reader comments. No, no”—she held up her hand as a low murmur threatened to become an uproar—“I am not proposing that we actually do this. But I am saying that it may be possible, and that we need to guard against such occurrences. I am trying to alert all of you to the dangers. This is a new paradigm of thought, behavior, and education that we all need to be aware of. We need to think about the possibilities. How, for instance, can we decide empowerment issues? Whose version of what is best will prevail?”
Megan perked up, tremendously interested. For instance, she thought, you own a factory and make a certain profit. Then a new safety feature comes along and if you buy it, your employees will be less likely to be injured or disabled. But it will cut down on your profits. You will have to raise your prices to implement it. If only you implement it, you may go out of business, and then your employees will have to work in more dangerous places anyway.
What would most business owners choose?
Of course. They would choose more money. But what if everyone had a visceral memory of painful rehab when a saw sliced one’s hand? Or, if, perhaps, it was required “reading” if one were to open a factory.
Megan thought about the mice, and their memories, or at least their knowledge of how to run a maze, and about how it could be transplanted from one mouse to another. Memory was, indeed, physical.
Well, Megan thought, let’s take this one step further. Let’s sublime the memories of mice and think of an easy, nonpainful way to share their memories. Like a pill. HD-50, perhaps. Move a few molecules around …
Could we then all be made to share one mass, false memory?
Surely, emotions were shared by a lot of people at once. Love for not the specific person, but for one’s country. Or, at least, loyalty to whatever myth of country had arisen over the years or had been planted in the populace’s mind.
She stopped listening to the talk and began mulling this over.
All children were socialized—even in the womb, once they could hear the cadences of what would be their native language. They acted like their parents, and were taught to obey social mores and customs of the society into which they were born. Most societies emphasized in thought, if not in deed, kindness, politeness, generosity, and so on. She recalled that Abbie’s Montessori school did not emphasize sharing, because if children were concentrating on some piece of material they ought not fear that it might be yanked away from them suddenly in the name of being “nice” to someone else. It was theirs until they put it back on the shelf.
Less fortunate children, like those of Ma Barker, had few options.
Symbols and images definitely had the power to cement large groups of people. Hitler’s swastika still evoked something she could only call Evil. Just about every home and certainly every public building in Nazi Germany had had one or more portraits of Hitler. Those images had early on been linked to death, the death of those who disagreed and who said so.
But the memories elicited by objects were usually exclusive to just one family or a small group. Grandma’s quilt, valued by her grandchildren because they had known her and because her hands had made it; valued by others only if it had monetary value.
She began thinking about Jill’s school project. Jill’s interest had spurred her to read more about the situation in central Africa, about child soldiers, civil wars, and wholesale slaughter.
What if soldiers became incapable, mentally, of killing innocents? If she could piggyback some images into this drug … use neurolinguistic programming tools … after all, much of the media, right now, and much gaming, used images of violence, so none of this would be new. It would just be used for a very different end.
The idea that war could stop war was proven nonsense. There had to be new solutions. Maybe this could be part of one, eventually. Of course there was Nobel, and dynamite. There was Gatling, and his gun. But one couldn’t stop hoping, stop trying.
After the talk, Megan tried to get to the front of the auditorium to speak with the presenter. But she was mobbed, and soon hurried offstage.
Jill
JILL GOES TO MARKET
July 13
“JILL, YOU ALWAYS DO THIS.” Brian stood at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in one hand and a plate of fried eggs in the other. Piles of books and magazines covered the table. There was a small clearing at one end of the table, which was where Jill ate. It was about 9:00 A.M., Saturday morning.
“I’m usually alone.” Jill did not say what immediately popped into her head, which was So clear out a place for yourself. Instead, she picked up a stack of books and plunked them on a chair. “How about this?”
“But there’s all this … stuff around me.” Brian set his food down and Jill turned her face away so he would not see her smile. He looked like a gopher; his head just cleared a healthy stack of Washington Posts.
“If there’s not enough to read here, I can fetch something else.” She sat down with her bowl of cereal and grabbed a half-read Atlantic. She had periodicals and books everywhere in the house where she might sit down. She was a firm believer in the power of serendipitous reading. Things had a way of coming together and augmenting one another; things you never would have related to one another before. Scientific articles mingled with literary reviews. She imagined that Cindy ran a tight ship. There wasn’t any reading matter on her kitchen table. Of course, there probably was room for children to eat.
Brian had spelled Cindy so she could get a nap until midnight, then Cindy returned to the hospital. Jill and Brian had sat up as late as Jill could, even with coffee, but Jill wanted to wait until Megan was there to tell the whole tale. Brian did tell her what he had learned about the Hadntz material and the Device, then Jill suggested that they all be there at the same time to avoid the confusion they seemed to generate when only two siblings knew about something. Her actions would always be soul-shattering to her, and she really did not want to go through the confession, and all the questions, twice.
Jill’s phone rang. It was Cindy.
“Jill. I have a big favor to ask.”
“Whatever it is, the answer is yes.”
“Wait till you hear what it is. Our lease is up next week. It was short term; we thought we’d have the house done by now. So—”
“I hope,” said Jill, speaking quickly before the other part of her brain could pile on the objections, “that you guys will move in here for the time being.”
Brian looked at Jill with a startled expression on his face. “Is that Cindy?”
Cindy said, “I can’t tell you how much that will help us out.”
“Now, you’re sure? Even after the break-in?”
Cindy laughed. “Especially after the break-in! The more people over there, the better. They’re discharging Bitsy later today. She’s doing great. She’s a little pistol, bless her heart. I’ll ask the crew to pick up what we need from the apartment for tonight, and I’ll call Brian and let him know.”
“Well—good.” Jill hung up. “You’re moving in.”
“It wasn’t my idea.”
“It will be great. I appreciate it.”
“You’re okay with it then?”
“Definitely. At first, I wanted to be alone here, but now … it’s fine. But how about you?”
Brian shrugged. “Better than camping out. Seems like a good plan for everyone.”
“But it bothers you.”
“Always has.”
“I’ll try to get that straightened out tomorrow, Brian. I promise.”
He called Cindy. “How’s Bitsy? Oh, honey, that’s great. That’s wonderful. I’m so happy. I’ll come over and— Oh, all right, if that’s what you want. See you guys in a few hours.”
He closed the phone. “She’s bringing Bitsy. Said we didn’t both need to be there. Zoe’s there to help. Cindy ordered—I mean, asked—me to cut the grass.”
“Did you tell her about finding the Game Board?”
“Yes, but I’m not sure it means anything to her. She knows as much as I know about all of it, but you know Cindy. Nothing fazes her.”
“Okay, then. It’s settled. Pizza tomorrow.” She started her vitamin regimen. There were a lot of pills, a few enticing new supplements from the vitamin company that promised eternal life, or something close to that, as usual, and some even-keel pills prescribed by the therapist. “We can bake it in the woodstove outside.” Sam’s Folly Number Four, as their mother had called it, was clearly visible from the window, now that the crew had chainsawed away the kudzu. It was a huge brick structure involving two ovens, two chimneys, a slate countertop, a stone sink, and even a space for a refrigerator.
“Is the water hooked up?”
“It just needs to be turned on.”
“Well, good idea then.”
“I’ll go to the market in a little while. That will be nice. I don’t go that often just for myself.”
“Aren’t you tired?”
Jill considered. “Yeah. But it won’t hit until bedtime tonight.”
“I tried to get that Game Board to do something.”
“So what happened?”
Brian said, “Nothing, that I could see. I mean, it told me nothing. Didn’t you always say that it was full of stories? Not for me. But the damnedest thing happened to me, while I was reading the notebooks—kind of the same thing. It was as if my mind flipped. I would suddenly be with Dad and his pal Wink. But the Game Board pretty much stayed blank for me, just a metal surface with embossed pictures on it. Hey, what’s that you’re taking?”
Jill handed him the jar. “HD-50? Came in the mail. This month’s free stuff.”
“We got it too. I love it.”
“Doesn’t do much for me. So, when you use the board, does it … seem to become three-dimensional, or move around, or change other scenarios? Like it did when we were kids?”
“I kind of remember that. Vaguely. But, no. That still happens to you?”
“Oh, yes!”
“That would definitely bother me, Jill. I can see why you—”
“Went crazy?”
“Yeah. I did have vivid dreams last night. I dreamed about playing the saxophone with Dad in a jazz band. And the great part was that I could actually hold my own.”
Brian’s phone rang. “Jim? What’s up? No, didn’t see Megan this morning. She left you a note saying she’d call me? No. She didn’t. Why?” A moment of silence. “Okay, well, maybe we’ll find out what’s upsetting her when she gets back tonight. Yeah, everyone’s invited to Sunday dinner tomorrow. Hah! Yeah, you’re right, when else would we have Sunday dinner? Okay, just let her know. Come over early, around ten. We have some family issues to talk about first. Sure, you’re welcome to participate, if you can stand it. Cindy plans to hang with the kids. Bitsy is fine, thanks. Coming home today.” He hung up. “Megan was upset about something and left Jim a note saying she’d call me this morning. She didn’t. Did she call you?”
“If she did, I didn’t hear it. All she does is go to meetings.” Memory research meetings. Of course. It was her fault that Megan’s memories were screwed up, that she was even interested in memory. Jill sighed.
Brian said, “What’s wrong now?”
“Besides the break-in, the divorce, and my recent internment in a mental institution? Nothing. I’m happy as a lark.”
“Good.” Brian went back to the Outlook page. Jill went into the study, started a long-running reel-to-reel jazz compilation that Sam had made, and promptly fell asleep on the couch.
But it wasn’t really sleep. It was more like a deep trance, induced by the first direct notes of “Ko-Ko.” Pictures came alive in her mind, but they didn’t seem random. It was more like she was in some kind of plane, cued for takeoff, and then the runway lights flashed past, and her mind was put through some kind of paces, some kind of reasoned argument, some kind of carefully calibrated change.
At first she struggled to wake up. But she could not. And it didn’t really seem like sleep, more as if she were captured in a dream. It seemed more real than most waking moments, more true than any love she’d ever felt. Her mother was flying them all somewhere in a huge plane.…
* * *
When Jill woke, it was a little after one in the afternoon. She sat up, marvelously refreshed, as if she’d been swimming in a clear mountain stream.
The lawn mower droned in the side yard, and the delicious smell of new-cut grass infiltrated the room. Brian passed the window as he turned to cut another row.
The tape recorder had turned itself off. Probably just now. Maybe that’s what woke her up.
Someone knocked on the screen door. “Come in,” she yelled, thinking it was the woman across the street, or one of Whens’ friends.
It was Detective Kandell.
He was wearing shorts, a Bob Marley T-shirt, and Converse sneakers. He stood in a pool of sunlight by the door. “Hello?”
“Oh. Hi. Come in and sit down. Or get yourself a beer from the kitchen if you want.”
“No, thanks.” He hesitated for a moment.
“Well, then, sit down.”
“You’re busy.”
“I’m always busy.”
Daniel chose the battered leather chair in the corner next to the open French door. “Anything happen last night?”
“No. Brian stayed here. His family is moving in. We talked till two, then something woke me up around three, and I couldn’t get back to sleep. But it was nothing.”
“You should have called.”
“For a sound? It was just a branch scraping the roof, something like that. I have to have the trees pruned before one of them falls on the house. I think that oak tree is rotten.”
“Did Brian find anything?”
“I didn’t wake him up. Manfred and I made the rounds.”
“Manfred?” Detective Kandell looked at Manfred, asleep on her side and drooling onto the floor, with some doubt.
“Oh, she’s much more vicious than she appears to be.”
“Right. She did bite the intruder yesterday. Actually, I came to see if you’d gotten that party list together.”
“You do work hard.”
“It’s my neighborhood too. It just seems to me that a party would have given anyone ample time to browse through the library.”
“Definitely. A lot of people did. In fact, Megan said that someone did act suspiciously. I’m not sure who it was, though. I have the party list here.” She went over to her briefcase, which was still where she’d left it before, next to the couch. Opening it, she removed her Q, printed the list, and handed it to Detective Kandell.
“Wow. Addresses, phone numbers, everything.”
“Well, yeah. I guess I don’t look as if I could be very sharp?”
“No, no, that’s not it,” he said with some haste.
She laughed. “Gotcha.”
He studied the paper. “Would you mind telling me who these people are?”
They sat on the couch next to each other with the paper on the coffee table in front of them. Jill had a fine-point marker in her hand.
“‘W’ for World Bank. ‘U’ for University.”
“That’s Georgetown?”
“Right. ‘N’ for neighborhood. ‘F’ for family.”
“Who is this Dr. Koslov?”
“World War II expert. He’s written several books. Um, there, to the right of the fireplace, fifth shelf up, middle. The red, white, and blue dust jackets.”
“Snazzy. He’s Russian?”
Jill nodded.
“Any Germans in the mix?”
“That’s an odd question.”
“Well, they did have something to do with the war.”
“So?”
“I’ve been doing a little research. It seems that your mother was in the OSS, and the CIA.”
Jill’s poker face went on full alert, mainly because she was incensed. “That seems to be information that we mere mortals have no access to. If that’s true, why would that have anything to do with the break-in, anyway?”
“A, the break-in was very strange. You have valuable objects sitting all over the place, like that Chinese painting in the foyer. Not very portable, true, but the little Tang Dynasty jade Buddha sitting underneath it sure is. And on that end table over there are, if I’m not mistaken, a small heap of—let’s see—a gold chain, rather ostentatious diamond earrings, and an emerald ring.”
“I guess I’m kind of careless with jewelry. I wore those at the party.”
“B, the books the man took all have to do with midcentury science, which is something both of your parents were involved in. Your dad, for instance, learned about the top-secret M-9 Fire Director when he trained at Aberdeen.”
“Really.” Jill was now definitely irritated.
“You can’t think your parents’ interests are a secret to anyone who’s even glanced at the contents of this library.” He watched her a moment, his middle-aged face impassive. “Maybe you don’t want this solved.”
Jill sighed. “I’m sorry. Yes. I mean no, not really, but there is a guy at the Bank, Bill Anderson, who’s a Germany expert, but he’s from Ohio. I have run across supposedly de-Nazified Nazis, in various places over the years. Old men, now. There are a lot of them in academic and scientific circles. They were allowed to come to the U.S. in exchange for information—recruited, actually. Our rocket program is based on their info. So is Russia’s. They got some of them too. Highest bidder—at least those who thought ahead. If not, it depended on where the war caught up with them. We gained a few defectors in later years, and so did the Russians. Now, of course, that’s all over.”
“Is it?”
Jill wondered whether or not to tell Kandell about what Megan overheard at the party, and then wondered why she was even thinking about it at all, considering what a can of worms it would open.
The screen door slammed behind Brian. His T-shirt was soaked with sweat. “Ah, summer in Washington. Cold beer?” Without waiting for an answer, he brought three bottles, three pilsner glasses, and a church key from the kitchen and set them up. “Man, it’s hot.” He glanced at the paper. “Any leads?”
Detective Kandell shrugged. “Maybe. Seems to me that the people who came to the party—”
“Yeah,” said Brian. “That Bill Anderson guy, from the Bank, he was pretty nosy.”
“The Germany guy?” asked Daniel.
“Right. He sometimes is,” said Jill. “I think he likes me. I didn’t know he was asking about me, though.”
Brian handed Kandell a beer. “He more than likes you, Jill. He asked a lot of questions about Mom and Dad. Who they worked for. What they did. Maybe he’s going to ask me for your hand in marriage.”
“If he does, say no.”
Kandell sipped his beer. “Why do you suppose he was asking these questions?”
Brian and Jill looked at each other for a long moment.
“Daniel claims Mom was in the OSS and the CIA.”
“Dad was in fire protection,” said Brian. “He worked for GSA. Mom was kind of eclectic. She was going to school, and had the Montessori school, of course. She never actually went to any job, though, at least not when we were kids.”
Jill could feel a flush rising on her face. She took another gulp of beer, got up, and turned on an old GE floor fan from the forties. It rotated back and forth like an implacable eye.
“What?” Daniel was looking at her.
“Nothing. It’s awful hot.” She picked up the party list and fanned herself. “Why don’t you come to dinner tomorrow afternoon? The whole family will be here. You can ask them questions if you think it’s relevant.”
Brian shot her a look. “Jill—”
“We’ll be done by that time, Brian.”
Brian just raised his eyebrows.
“Thanks,” said Daniel. “Since your father’s books were stolen, I think that would be helpful, but we’re having a family dinner ourselves, Dad, Grandma Arabelle, and my son.”
“Bring all of them. It will be fun.” And maybe muddy the waters, she hoped, not so happy about the direction this investigation was taking. Especially considering that Daniel remembered Bette, remembered the school. That seemed way too personal. But then, she thought, Aren’t you trying to open up? Isn’t that what the therapist says? Isn’t that what your brother and sister want? Sure, let’s just tell the whole world that maybe Mom was a spy, and Dad was in charge of the most dangerous weapon since the atom bomb. Let’s just—
Daniel said, “You say that your sister—”
“Megan,” she said, returning suddenly to the room, Daniel, and Brian.
“Might know something about them.”
“Megan might have a stalker too,” said Brian.
“What? She didn’t tell me,” said Jill.
“Oh. I thought she had. Don’t you two ever talk? Right. None of us do. Anyway—this was before the party—Megan mentioned a guy who constantly walks around her neighborhood.”
“What makes him noticeable?” asked Daniel.
“The fact that he wears plaid shorts and a fedora,” said Brian. “According to Megan. But her husband, Jim, thought he was strange too.”
“She live downtown?”
“No. Springfield.”
Daniel rested his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands, and leaned forward. He stared at the laden bookshelf. Finally he said, “Do either of you have any idea what this is all about?”
Brian opened his mouth. Jill made him shut it with a sharp glare. “No,” he finally said.
“I can’t help if you don’t tell me,” said Daniel.
“I’ve got to go to the market,” said Jill.
“Eastern Market? Can I drive you?”
Jill was slightly taken aback, and she was sure that he noticed. Being a detective, and all. But after an instant’s hesitation, she said, “Okay.”
* * *
Daniel’s ’64 Pontiac was a faded gold. It took corners wide. The right dashboard was heat-cracked with a small crazed line running from the corner of the glove compartment to the window.
“Was this new when you got it?” asked Jill.
“It was my dad’s.”
“Is he still alive?”
“Retired.”
“Policeman?”
Daniel looked at her with amusement. “Contrary to your belief, not all black professional men in Washington work for the police department.”
“It’s just that—”
“He’s an architect. Actually, he still takes jobs. Just no museums or anything. He’d love to see your house.”
“Aha. An ulterior motive. Bring him tomorrow. I’d love to know more about the house. Your mom?”
“She died about five years ago.”
“I’m sorry. And your wife? I mean, ex-wife?”
“She moved back to Boston.”
“But your boy is here.”
“Just for a few weeks in the summer. He’s with his cousins today.”
“Bring him too.”
“I, um, gathered that your brother wasn’t too keen about the idea. If you want to change your mind, I won’t feel in the least insulted.”
“Oh, no.” There’d be no talking during dinner, what with all the kids running around. And the Kandells would be gone if they needed to get back down to business later. Jill realized that she rather liked Daniel. He was easygoing, comfortable to be around.
“Okay.” They were silent as he pursued a slow, side-street route to the market. Jill got the feeling that he simply enjoyed driving through different neighborhoods, through the cathedral-like avenues of old trees. She relaxed into the cadence.
“We’re being followed, by the way.”
She unrelaxed immediately.
“Don’t turn around. He’s in a blue recent-model Volkswagen. He’s not there right now; he’s dropped back.”
“Can you see what he looks like?”
“I can only see that he’s wearing a hat. Like he’s on his way to the office forty years ago.”
Jill got her phone out of her pocket and called Brian. “What kind of hat did the man wear?”
“A black homburg.”
“Tell him to keep an eye on things,” said Daniel.
“I heard him,” said Brian. “That’s what I’m here for.” He hung up.
“He said a black homburg.”
“Odd bird, eh?”
Daniel pulled into the market’s wandering old parking lot.
The market had been ongoing for over a hundred years, long enough for the stalls to relax into friendly dilapidation, long enough to become large and complex.
“Is he still—”
“No,” said Daniel. “I lost him with all that fancy high-speed maneuvering.”
“I thought so.”
“He’ll be here. Don’t worry. So what are we looking for?”
“Whatever’s fresh. I’m going to make some pizzas to bake in the wood oven outdoors.” Jill got four canvas bags from the backseat and handed him two.
The instant they got inside she said, “Wow. Look at that flounder!” Fish, shrimp, clams, and oysters lay in attractive rows on ice.
“Flounder pizza?”
“Hey, Dave.”
“Hey, Jill. Flounder, right?” Without her asking, the fishmonger put a fillet on his hand and held it out. She sniffed. “Five pounds on ice. I’ll pick it up on the way out.”
She said to Daniel, “Cornmeal, cast-iron frying pans. There’s plenty of room on the grill. Not everybody likes pizza.”
“That’s news to me.”
Jill headed for the cheese. “Hi, Fred. Can you give me a sample of the Parmesan?”
“She only gets the expensive stuff,” Fred said to Daniel. To Jill he said, “You know what it tastes like.”
“I always like to check. Make sure you’re not slacking on quality. What’s that German cheese?”
“Just got it. Actually, it’s probably more French than German. Right on the border.”
Soon their bags were overflowing with fresh and dried tomatoes, basil, beautiful purple and white striped eggplants that she actually wanted to paint, five red peppers, several cheeses, onions, exotic mushrooms, and assorted cold cuts.
Daniel remarked, “This is going to be quite a party.”
“It’s always bigger than I think it’s going to be.”
“Where’s your pizza sauce?”
Jill pointed to the tomatoes and basil.
“You’re a glutton for punishment.”
“Just a glutton, thank you.” She froze.
“Don’t worry, I’ve been keeping an eye on him. Over there behind the butcher’s stall, right? Can’t be any taller than five five. He’s packing.”
“Why in the world would he follow me here?”
“Jill, you’re going to have to tell me.”
“I haven’t told my brother and sister. Why would I tell you?”
“Haven’t told them what?” He faced her. “Jill. Told them what?”
She looked directly into his eyes. She did not tell him to remove his hand from her shoulder, as she had thought she was going to.
“Look,” she said. “I was committed just a few months ago.”
“I know,” he said gently.
“Damn.” She was silent a moment. “That’s not fair. How do you know?”
“Brian told me.”
Jill glared at the market in general. She did not look at Daniel.
Finally she said, “What other personal information did he volunteer?”
“Oh, he just said that you’re a brilliant workaholic who is also an exceedingly talented artist.”
“Bullshit.”
“He said that you work too much, you paint to relax, you read a lot, you’re getting a divorce, and that he doesn’t like you living in that big house alone. So why do you live in that big house alone?”
“That’s none of your business. Well, I think I’m finished here.”
“Are you sure you have enough food? We may have skipped a booth.”
“Oh, be quiet.”
“We’ll bring dessert. I bake a mean apple pie.”
Jill simmered as they walked through the parking lot. “Can’t you at least arrest that guy?”
“What for?”
“Carrying a concealed weapon. You could interrogate him.”
Daniel unlocked the car and put the flounder in the ice chest.
“He’s stalking me. Maybe he’s the one who broke into the house.”
“I doubt it. He’s too short. I could go over and give him a talking-to, but I prefer to let him play his hand.”
“So you’re not going to do anything, even though he terrifies me?”
“You know, Jill,” Daniel said, as they got into the car and rolled down the windows, “you seem singularly non-terrifiable. Most other women—I mean, people—would be hysterical right about now.”
She sighed. “I guess you’re right. I’m not sure where I get that from. I’m more annoyed than terrified. I don’t feel at all that my life is in danger, I guess. I don’t feel … menaced.”
“You should. I think this is a serious matter.”
“I want to get to the bottom of this. Get it over with. But maybe if you arrested him, another one would just take his place.”
“A vast conspiracy.”
“You think I’m nuts.”
“I happen to think you’re correct.”
“Based on what? You just met me yesterday, right?”
“Yes and no.” He swung out of the parking lot and checked the mirror. “Here he comes. By the book.”
“Yes and no? What do you mean by that? Have you been stalking me?”
“No. I met you when my little brother was in your mother’s school. You were fiery as hell, worked down at the Poor People’s Campaign headquarters, which I frequented, and I was quite astonished to see you, the Jill Who Would March into the Gates of Hell, sitting on the floor and playing with my little brother when I came to pick him up one day. You were wearing blue bell bottoms with big silvery buttons on the bells and a white shirt with Mexican embroidery on the yoke.”
“Do you remember what the embroidery was?”
“Is this a test?”
“Maybe.” Jill cleared her throat, tried to make her voice less shaky, tried to keep her eyes from filling with tears.
“What if I don’t recall such a seemingly trivial detail?”
She said, “Do you?”
“Something to do with bluebirds, I think, and big red flowers.”
And then she was crying, sobbing straight out, her fists clenched on her knees, and he pulled over and put an arm around her while she leaned on his shoulder and cried until she couldn’t cry anymore.
After that, he was the first person she had ever told about everything that had happened. They didn’t get back to the house until much later, when they hurried to stuff everything in the refrigerator.
Daniel said, “Jill, we have more to talk about, but I have to go pick up my son.”
“Thanks,” she said, and gave him a quick hug.
Brian came in from the living room. “Cindy and Bitsy are upstairs napping. Zoe’s in the ballroom. I’m off to pick up more things from the apartment. What was that all about?”
“None of your business.”
* * *
Megan caught the Magline back to Washington and her ride was uneventful, for which she was thankful. At about five thirty, she stood in front of Union Station, her suit jacket over her arm, her shirt pasted to her back by sweat. This summer’s heat was astounding—but each summer’s heat was declared the worst ever by those experiencing it. She looked at her watch. Jim wasn’t expecting her until later that night, but she longed to see Abbie, to pick her up and hug her very, very tightly. But the damned Game Board hung on her shoulder. She’d decided to stash the board at Jill’s and then go home, when a woman rushed toward her.
She was blond and wore a WWII uniform. Before Megan could think, or move out of her way, the woman hugged her, crushed her almost. Then she held Megan’s shoulders, and looked her up and down. She nodded, then stepped back and said, “I’m sorry. This war is going on for much longer than we thought it would.” Then she turned sharply and walked into the vast doors of Union Station.
Megan ran after her, into an older Union Station, filled with soldiers. She stood stock-still for a moment, absolutely astounded. Then she looked for the woman. She’d lost her!—no, there she was, her blond hair pushed up under her hat, walking toward one of the gates.
“Wait!” Megan yelled. Her plea faded into an acoustical painting, echo upon echo. Above her, the sign changed, clicking in rapid snaps, and then cool air hit her.
Cool air-conditioning. Above her, a digital sign silently changed a track number. The soldiers had vanished; the gorgeously renovated station was a great contrast to the shabby World War II station she’d just—what, imagined?—being in.
She walked over to an old bench. It had been kept, as had any salvageable element of the original station had been kept. Sitting down, she carefully looked over the scene in front of her, wondering what had happened.
A memory? No, she hadn’t been alive during World War II. Her ideas about it had been formed by movies, photographs, oral stories. She realized that she hadn’t eaten since her breakfast of stale Danish. Maybe that was it.
Who was that woman?
And then it came to her.
She dug her phone from her purse and pressed a button. Jill answered.
“Can you pick me up at the train station?”
“Sure. Are you okay? You sound kind of funny.”
“I just saw Mom.”