Mrs. Roosevelt's Confidante (19 page)

She rolled her eyes in mock exasperation, then gestured for them to take a seat at a table against a red-painted wall, near the plate-glass window. Outside in the rain, a yellow neon sign spelling
CHOP SUEY
blinked and buzzed. Maggie scanned the street. There was a dark sedan parked opposite the restaurant. At the wheel was the man in the fedora. She frowned.

“He's like that with all the girls,” Mrs. Tao said as she handed Maggie her menu. “Mr. Tom,” the older woman demanded, “are you going to let my husband cook for you today?”

“Mrs. Tao, it would be an honor for your husband to cook for us,” he declared. “Is that all right with you?” he asked Maggie. “He makes some delicious dishes that aren't on the menu.”

“Of course,” Maggie answered. Mrs. Tao gave a satisfied smile and left them.

“I take it you come here often?” Maggie asked. “You certainly have Mrs. Tao charmed.”

“This is the best restaurant in Chinatown. And I should know—I think I've tried them all.”

A young waitress in black with a white lace apron brought them teacups and a silver pot, while Mrs. Tao brought a candle and lit it, with a significant look to Tom.

Maggie poured the steaming tea. It was jasmine—hot and floral. She took a sip; it tasted sublime. Feeling warmer, she looked around the restaurant. There were a few other people at the rickety wooden tables with green tablecloths. “I guess we're not the only people with this idea.”

“Jews,” Tom explained. “Jews eat Chinese food on Christmas Day too, because Chinese are among the only restaurants open. It's kind of a tradition now, I guess.”

“Aha.” Maggie pulled out the file and began to read as Tom sipped his tea. What she read was not luncheon-conversation appropriate, but she didn't care. When she was done, she looked up with wide eyes.

“What?” Tom asked. “Don't keep me in suspense.”

“Blanche Balfour
didn't
commit suicide,” Maggie said. “According to the coroner's report on the condition of her lungs, she was drowned first—and she fought against her attacker—and then, after she was dead, whoever it was slit her wrists to make it look like a suicide.”

“If the girl was
murdered
—”

“Yes,” Maggie said. “According to the coroner's report, Blanche was definitely murdered.”

Tom's expression turned intent. “Well, let's just say that now I
definitely
want to solve this case. A girl whose mother was born in Buffalo…Did you know—her mother grew up in the same neighborhood I did, and her grandparents are still there, in the same house. Her family deserves the truth.
She
deserves the truth. Her memory, at least.”

Maggie raised an eyebrow. “And a sex scandal would be an awfully big story for a cub reporter?”

“No!” Tom's blue eyes flashed. “I mean yes—but that's not why…My goal is to find out who murdered Blanche and bring her killer to justice.
Not
implicate the First Lady.”

“Well, I'm relieved.” Maggie cleared her throat. “May I keep this note? I realize that's asking a lot, but with the potential of a scandal…”

“How do you know Eleanor Roosevelt is innocent?”

“I—I know,” Maggie said. “Really, I know. You'll have to trust me, just like you had to trust me in those tricky Beethoven passages.”
How much to tell Tom?
“The night Blanche Balfour was murdered,” Maggie began, “I'd just arrived at the White House. Mrs. Roosevelt was quite worried that Blanche hadn't come to work and hadn't called in. She couldn't reach her on the telephone. So I”—Maggie decided to omit the fact that the First Lady was with her—“went to Blanche's apartment. I knocked. And when she didn't answer, I—er—let myself in.”

Tom took a sip of tea. “Since I've seen you do that in person, I definitely believe you.”

“I found Blanche dead in the bathtub, with her wrists slit.”

Tom nodded. “And it looked like a suicide.”

“Yes. So I called for an ambulance and left. No one knew I'd been there. And I didn't find any suicide note. And there was nothing in the wastebasket. But there
was
a notepad on her desk. I took it with me and used a pencil lead to see what had last been written on it. Which was a suicide note—very similar to the one you showed me.” She picked it up. “But not the
same
note.”

“What about the handwriting?”

Maggie raised her shoulders then dropped them. “Inconclusive, in my opinion.” She held the note to the small candle and watched as it caught fire, then disintegrated.
One less note,
Maggie thought.
One down, one to go.

Tom looked on in shock and dismay. “You—you just burned my only evidence!”

“I know,” Maggie said. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. And you'll just have to believe me when I tell you it's a matter of national, even international, security.”

Tom looked at Maggie in amazement approaching fear as the waitress brought several dishes—fat dumplings, steaming noodles, and crispy-skinned sliced rare duck and rice.

Maggie first served Tom dumplings, then herself. “I think it's possible that Blanche wrote the first note—but then decided against it.”

“Well, then,” Tom said, still recovering, belatedly reaching for the duck, “why is she dead? If she decided
not
to kill herself and threw the note away—”

“Except she didn't, because it wasn't there.”

“Then who killed her? And why?” Tom persisted, bewildered. “The note implicates the First Lady in her suicide. But she didn't actually kill herself. Then someone made it look like she did. But then the note's not there. It doesn't add up!”

“Also, since I've started working on the Blanche Balfour case, I've been followed,” Maggie said, checking out the window.
Yes, Mr. Fedora's still there.
“The same man was outside the church this morning when we were talking, and he was there the night I went with Andi Martin to a jazz club. I think that's the man who tried to attack us as we left.”

Tom's mouth dropped open. “Why would he attack you? Are you all right?”

“We're both fine.” Maggie sighed. “I believe that someone may have killed Blanche Balfour and taken her suicide note in order to protect the First Lady. I don't think Mrs. Roosevelt knew about it, but it may have been done for her. To protect her. To protect the Roosevelt Administration.”

Tom dropped his chopsticks. “You think someone on Roosevelt's staff
murdered
Blanche Balfour? And you think you're being followed by that same someone?”

“Let's just say I think it's a possibility.” Maggie took a sip of tea.

They ate in silence for a few minutes, each lost in thought, desperate to piece together what they'd learned. “So, what are you doing for Christmas dinner?” Maggie asked finally.

“Going back to my sad little bachelor apartment with leftover noodles…”

“How'd you like to work with me? I'm meeting Miss Martin from the Workers Defense League tonight. We're going to spend the evening with Wendell Cotton and his mother at the Thomas Jefferson Prison in Virginia.”

Tom speared a dumpling with his chopstick. “I'd like spending Christmas with you very much, Maggie. And I'd also appreciate the introduction to Miss Martin. But isn't prison an odd place to spend Christmas?”

“I know it's not exactly conventional, but believe me,” Maggie said, as she maneuvered her chopsticks the way she'd learned to do in Boston's Chinatown, “I've had odder.”

While Mr. Churchill, David, and the rest of the entourage prepared to relish Christmas dinner at the White House, Tom picked Maggie up in his dented coupe. Together, they drove through the gloom to the Thomas Jefferson Prison in Virginia farm country less than an hour from Washington. The air was thick with fog and chill, but at least the rain had stopped.

The prison had a high barbed-wire fence with razor wire looped over it. Four guard towers staffed by men with rifles—one at each corner of the property. In the middle of a field of dead grass rose the prison itself.
It's like approaching the castle of the Wicked Witch of the West,
Maggie thought.

They parked in the muddy lot and then walked, stepping over puddles, to the main entrance. In the distance, a dog howled. One wire gate slid open for them, creaking and clanking, then another. “We're here to see Wendell Cotton,” Maggie told the uniformed guard. “Meeting Miss Andrea Martin.”

As the gates slammed shut behind them with a resounding
clang,
Maggie had a moment of panic, her heart beating fast. They were trapped.

But then the guard opened the next gate. He searched Maggie's handbag and patted them both down, then nodded toward a twisting brick path, overgrown with weeds. “That way.”

A cold wind had picked up.
Follow the yellow brick road,
Maggie thought as she shivered in her coat. When her heel caught on a crumbled brick and she nearly stumbled, Tom grabbed her by the elbow. “Steady there,” he said. He was very close. He smelled like shaving soap and wet wool.

“We're late,” Maggie said, straightening and stepping away. “I mean, thank you. But I don't want to keep Andi waiting.”

At the prison entrance, they were signed in and given badges. Andi sat waiting for them on a wooden bench covered in graffiti. She was wearing wool trousers and a jacket with large shoulder pads. Her hair was pulled back in a glossy roll. “There you are!” she exclaimed. “Merry Christmas!”

She and Maggie embraced. “Merry Christmas,” Maggie said. “Andi, please meet Thomas O'Brian, a friend of mine from college. Tom, this is Miss Andrea Martin.”

“How do you do?” Tom said, shaking her hand.

“Please call me Andi. What do you do, Tom?”

“I'm a journalist,” he said.
“Buffalo Evening News.”

“A journalist!” Andi beamed at Maggie. “Brava! You're a natural at this—bringing a journalist along. We can use all the publicity we can get.” She looked to Tom. “Are you interested in writing a story on Wendell? Because anything you need, I'll help you with—”

“Just here as a friend of Maggie's,” Tom interrupted.

“Well, we'll see what you have to say after you meet him,” Andi said, leading the way down the tiled corridor. The air inside the prison stank of bleach.

There were more locked doors to be let through, and then at last they were in the visitors' room. It was small, with paint peeling off the walls and worn black linoleum underfoot. A heavy wire-mesh screen divided the room in two. A metal radiator hissed and spat in the corner, and a rusty ceiling fan squeaked overhead. They sat on folding gray metal chairs at one end of the scarred wooden table on one side of the mesh room divider.

“They ease up on the rules in the final days,” Andi said as they waited, by way of explanation. There was the sound of a bolt being pulled, and then a guard led Wendell Cotton in. He was thin; the black-and-white striped prison uniform hung loosely on his narrow frame, and his hands were cuffed behind him.

“Please take the cuffs off,” Andi instructed the guards, her voice low and strong.

After a glare and a stubborn pause, the guard produced a key. He unlocked the cuffs, and Wendell took the seat across the screen. They all stared at each other through the mesh as the fan continued to whir and clank overhead. “Hi, Wendell,” Andi said. “Merry Christmas. These are my friends, Miss Hope and Mr. O'Brian.”

Wendell ducked his head and attempted to smile. “Hello, Miz Hope, Mr. O'Brian. Thanks for coming, Miz Andi. And merry Christmas to y'all.”

“How do you do,” Maggie said, while Tom nodded.

“Tom's a journalist,” Andi said. “Maybe he'll get some extra press for you.”

“Ah, it's Christmas, Miz Andi!” Wendell chuckled. “Give the poor man a break! And you take one, too. Just for five minutes.”

Andi laughed at this. “I know I can be a bit, well, intense sometimes.”

“And I thanks you for it. I thanks you for comin'. Thank you all for comin'.”

“How's your momma?” Andi asked, unbuttoning her coat.

“She fine,” Cotton answered. “Well, not fine, exactly, but she be strong. She was here earlier, but I tol' her to go on home. She tired.”

Andi nodded, her face grim. “Maggie came to see her and me at our talk the other day at Metropolitan Baptist.”

Maggie nodded. “Your mother seemed…strong.”

“She's a good woman,” Wendell said, his large eyes meeting Maggie's. “I tol' my lawyer that I want them to send me to war,” Wendell explained to her. “I could be like the Jap pilots who sacrifice themselves—what're they called?”

“Kamikaze,” Maggie said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Kamikaze. I could do that. I'd feel a lot better about doing that. Seems a waste to not let me get out and fight. This is America—this is my country, too.”

Dinner was brought in on his side, a thin slice of what looked like fatty ham, collard greens, and a small square of corn bread. “Hope you don't mind me eatin,' ” Wendell said. “I'd share, if I could.” He poked at the meat. “Not that you'd necessarily want this.”

Before he began, he closed his eyes. “Heavenly Father,” he said, “please bless this food, and bless our friends and family. Especially bless those who've come to keep me company on this day, the day your Son was born. Amen.”

“I've thought of Wendell Cotton as a public figure—it's good to be reminded he's a real person.” Maggie walked beside Tom to the entrance of the Mayflower. The damp pavement, now freezing over in the cold night air, glistened in the hotel's lights.

“He seems like a decent young man,” Tom said. “I don't know everything about his case, but I do know that jury looked suspicious. He deserves a retrial.”

She stopped in front of the entrance as a doorman in livery held the door. “Do you want to get a drink?” she asked impulsively. “It's been a long and strange day. And it's still Christmas, after all.”

“I thought you'd never ask.”

Realizing all the Mayflower's bars were closed, Maggie suggested, “I have a bottle of champagne in my room—is that all right?”

“Sounds good,” Tom said, following her into the elevator.

“I mean, I don't usually go around asking men up to my hotel room, but it's Christmas—”

“And everything's closed. It's fine; as the good Jesuit priests of Canisius High used to say, we'll ‘leave room enough between us for the Holy Spirit.' ”

In Maggie's room, she hung up their damp coats, then pulled out the bottle of champagne John had left. The ice in the bucket had melted, but it was still chilled. Maggie popped the cork, then found two glasses. She poured. “Here,” she said, handing Tom a heavy tumbler. “Not as pretty as a coupe, but it will do.”

She sat in the striped wingback chair and he on the footstool. They clinked. “Merry Christmas,” they both said at the same time. Maggie had a moment of sadness thinking of John.
This was supposed to be
our
champagne,
she thought.
I should be drinking it with him.
And then,
But he's not here. And it's Christmas. And Tom's an old friend. And I'm not doing anything wrong.

Tom took a sip and looked around the room. “This is nice,” he said, then laughed. “Do you remember how I locked you out of your room one day, when I was dating Paige?”

“And I had a paper due the next day!” Maggie exclaimed. “I was furious with you! I could have cheerfully wrung your skinny little neck!”

“You were much too serious back then. You studied too much, worried too much. By the way, I never asked—how's old Paige doing these days? Married? Three kids? Summerhouse on the Cape?”

Maggie inhaled sharply. “You mean, you didn't hear?”

“No. Hear what?”

What to say?
“I—I'm sorry to be the one to tell you. She's dead, Tom.”

“Paige?” He blinked, struggling to absorb the shock. “Dead?” He shook his head. “But—but—she's so young…
was
so young…”

Maggie put her hand on his arm. “She was working for Ambassador Kennedy in London when the war broke out.” Maggie couldn't tell him the real story, of course.

“Probably following Joe,” Tom remarked.

“We reconnected when I arrived in London,” Maggie continued. “We were flatmates for a while, actually, in my grandmother's house, the one I'd inherited, the one that brought me to London. But then, the Blitz…”

Tom put down his glass on an end table. “Paige…I just can't…She was so vivacious, so lively…”

“I know. “

“How did she die? If you don't mind my asking.”

Even if she wanted to tell Tom the truth about Paige's death, it was classified. “She died…in the bombing.” Which was the truth, if not the whole truth.

“Paige.” Tom tried to take it in. “I can't believe it.” He looked to Maggie. “It's been hard for you over there—all of you over there—hasn't it?”

Maggie bit her lip. “It's been—” She tried to think of what Mr. Churchill would say. “It's been
challenging.
”

“I'm glad Paige was with friends. When she died.”

Oh, Tom…
“Yes.”

He spoke quickly, changing the subject. “How was your tea with your aunt?”

“However did you know about that?”

“I'm a reporter. I have my sources.” He chuckled. “No, in all seriousness, I was coming into the Willard to have drinks with a friend and saw you.”

“You should have come over and said hello.”

“You had the two uptight Brits with you in addition to your aunt. I didn't want to intrude.”

Only one is uptight.
“Please,” Maggie said. “Any and all distractions would have been welcome. It was rather awkward. She raised me to be the next Marie Curie, and I'm afraid I've let her down terribly.”

“I was raised by a western New York congressman, and then didn't go into politics. Our holiday dinners back in Buffalo aren't exactly a barrel of laughs. Why do you think I'm here for Christmas?”

Maggie raised her glass. “They probably have a lot in common.”

“I'm sure they do.” Tom raised his as well. “To the professor and the politician.”

They clinked. “Cheers.”

“Still, your parents must be proud of you,” she said.

He sipped his drink. “I'm sure they'd rather I'd married a nice Catholic girl right out of school, settled down, and had a bunch of kids by now. Gone to law school. Followed in my old man's footsteps.” A more serious expression crossed his face. “Although, now with the war—”

“All bets are off.” Maggie stifled a yawn. “Sorry. It's been a long day.”

“It has.” He stood. “I should be going. Thank you for the drink.”

Maggie rose, too. “My pleasure.”

At the door, Tom put on his coat and scarf and pulled on his gloves. He leaned in, and his lips brushed her cheek. “Merry Christmas, Maggie Hope.” The kiss was brief and chaste.

“Good night,” Maggie said, watching as he walked down the hall, feeling something similar to disappointment. Then she shook her head, closed the door, and locked and chained it.