A Quarter for a Kiss (15 page)

“What’s a dead drop?” I asked.

“Making an exchange without ever actually having any contact. For instance, they put the money in a bag and leave it beside a trash can. You pick it up there and then drop your papers near a predetermined park bench.”

“I see.”

“It says they would occasionally meet in person. Whenever one of them wanted to call a meeting, they would put an innocuous-seeming ad in the Sunday
Washington Post
classifieds that would specify the date, time, and location.”

“Doesn’t sound very secretive to me. Anybody could read that.”

“It was all done in code,” Tom said. “See here? We have some examples.”

I looked at photocopies of newspaper classified ads. One said “Midnight blue couch for sale. Call 721-0800. Ask for Piper Firve.” Another read “Midnight lace satin gown. Call 903-2300. Ask for Lomus Baer.”

“These look like normal ads,” I said. “I don’t see what’s so secret about them, except maybe those names are a little weird. And they both start with ‘midnight.’”

Tom took the paper from my hand and looked at it for a moment. Then he held it out to me and traced his finger along it.

“If I had to guess,” he said, “I’d be willing to bet this is a request for a meeting on July 21 at eight o’clock in the morning at Pier Five, wherever that is. This one is for September third at eleven
P.M
. at some place called Lou’s Bar.”

I looked at the ads again.

“How did you get all of that?”

“I’d be willing to bet there’s no 721 exchange for the DC area, especially not back then. The 721 is the date, the 0800 is the time. Pier Five comes from removing every third letter of the person’s name. Same with the other one. Lomus Baer becomes Lou’s Bar. It’s an extremely simplistic code, but I guess it served their purposes.”

I stared at it for a moment, finally nodding.

“Which is why you’re a cryptologist and I’m just an investigator,” I said.

He smiled.

“Look at this,” I said, moving on to the next set of papers. It was a heavily censored report on the interrogation of Eli Gold, dated December 1962. I read what I could, trying to understand what I was seeing. The best I could tell, the NSA had finally made their move by bringing in Eli and questioning him exhaustively to see what he knew about Nadine’s ongoing espionage. From the looks of the report, Eli was found to be innocent of any knowledge and absolved of any complicity in the matter. I could only imagine how heartbroken he must’ve been, however, to learn that the woman he loved was a traitor to him and to the country.

That was it for the official documents, except for the autopsy report on Nadine and a December 1962 police report about the facts of her death. That hadn’t been censored at all, and I could only assume Eli hadn’t obtained that particular report from the NSA but from an old police file.

“What’s it say?” Tom asked, handing it to me and rubbing his eyes. After scanning all of these old documents, my eyes were feeling tired and sore as well.

“Looks like Nadine was caught trying to flee the area about an hour after Eli’s interrogation ended. She was shot down by five armed gunmen.”

“Wow.”

I read further and then looked up at Tom.

“Here’s a list of the gunmen,” I said. “One of them was Eli Gold.”

“The shot in the thigh, I’d bet,” he said. “No wonder he recognized the scar.”

I put down the paper and closed my eyes. I could understand Eli feeling betrayed and angry and upset with Nadine. What I couldn’t comprehend was how he could have shot her. Betrayal was one thing. Shooting the woman you loved in cold blood was quite another.

“She was ‘killed’ in December 1962,” Tom said softly. “What do you know of Eli’s life since then?”

I shook my head and opened my eyes.

“I know he moved to Virginia at some point and enrolled in the police academy. He and my dad graduated together, somewhere around sixty-three or sixty-four. Eli stayed with the force until he quit to become a private detective in seventy-five.”

“I wonder if your father knows any of Eli’s secrets.”

As if on cue, the phone started ringing.

“Maybe that’s him calling back,” I said. “We can ask.”

Sure enough, the voice at the other end of the line was my father’s. Once I explained what had happened and where I was, he was understandably angry with me.

“Come on, Callie,” he said. “You shoulda called me the minute you heard. Eli was my partner for almost ten years! Doesn’t that count for something?”

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I said. “At first, I was just concerned about getting here. Then I hit the ground running. I haven’t stopped.”

“Well, just remember you’re not the only detective in the family. Do the police there even know Eli is a former cop? I guarantee you, this situation would get a lot more attention if they did.”

“I don’t know if Stella told them or not. I’ll be sure to mention it to them either way.”

“What have they been doing? Are they keeping you apprised of their investigation?”

“No,” I said, looking out at the beautiful beach and the blue sky beyond. “I’m working the case from a different angle, Dad. There’s a history here the police don’t know anything about. It’s hard to explain.”

“Try me,” he said, and I knew from his tone of voice there was no use arguing. I moved from the table over to the couch and sat down, crossing my legs under me.

“Eli used to work for the NSA,” I said bluntly. “Did you know that?”

“The NSA?”

“The National Security Agency.”

He was quiet for a moment, and then he let out a low whistle.

“No, I did not,” he said. “In the beginning, there was a rumor around the force that he was some kind of former agent—people said CIA or FBI. I asked him straight out and he said no. Never crossed my mind to ask if he worked for the NSA. How do you know?”

“He had a case file going. I’ve got old interoffice documents with his name on them right here.”

I tried my best to explain that apparently Eli had become involved with a female coworker while at the NSA, but that it was discovered that the woman was selling secrets to the Russians. She was shot and killed by a group of agents, including Eli.

“But that would’ve been years ago,” he said. “Why is it relevant now?”

“Because though the woman was shot and killed in 1962,” I replied, “a couple of months ago, Eli saw her.”

“He
saw
her?”

“Alive and well down in the Virgin Islands. He thought it was her, so he started investigating. I guess he just wanted to know how she could still be alive when he knew for a fact she was dead.”

“And what did he find out?”

“He worked the case for a few months,” I said. “Long enough to confirm that it was her and to raise suspicions that she was still involved in some kind of spy work. A few weeks ago, Eli brought all of the evidence to one of his buddies at the NSA, and while he was waiting to hear back from him, he was shot.”

“Do you think she did it? She shot him?”

“It’s a possibility, but I doubt it. She came here to see him before he was shot, to warn him that someone was coming. We just don’t know who the someone was.”

“The NSA? Maybe he was targeted by the NSA.”

I glanced toward the kitchen, where Tom had gone to pour himself a glass of water. I hadn’t mentioned it to him, but the possibility had also crossed my mind.

“I don’t think they do that sort of thing,” I said. “But it’s possible, I suppose.”

“Who else could it be? The Russians?”

“In this day and age? The Cold War’s over, Dad.”

“Maybe somebody had a vendetta,” he said. “Those Russians, they’ve got long memories, you know.”

In my lifetime I had seen the Berlin Wall topple and the Russian’s Soviet empire splinter to pieces. The Russia I knew was a different animal from that of my father’s generation.

“So what’s your next step?” he asked.

“Darned if I know,” I replied. “I’m tempted to go down to St. John and knock on the woman’s door.”

“Don’t do that, Callie. Promise me you won’t do that.”

I smiled at his tone, knowing we could talk like fellow detectives for a little while, but in the end he was primarily my father.

“Okay, Dad,” I said. “I might go down there, but I promise I won’t confront the woman directly.”

“I just don’t know what I think about all of this. If Eli’s poking around ended up getting him shot, it seems like you’re putting yourself in the very same danger by following up on things.”

“I’m very discreet, Dad,” I said, trying to sound reassuring while all the while I knew what he was saying was true. How did I know that Tom and I wouldn’t be next in the crosshairs of a sniper’s gun?

“Anyway, in the meantime I think I’ll make a few calls myself,” he said. “Talk to the officer in charge. Make sure this is getting top priority.”

“Just don’t share any details of what I’ve told you, okay? The last thing I need is to have this file confiscated by the local police force.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep my mouth shut. I just want to know what they’ve accomplished from their angle.”

He promised to get back in touch with me once he knew something. I hung up the phone just as Tom was coming back into the room.

“Well?” he asked.

“Well,” I replied, exhaling slowly. “it looks like it might be time for you and me to take a little trip.”

Sixteen

That night we prepared to go to the Virgin Islands to pick up the investigation right where Eli had left off. Tom insisted on putting everything on his credit card, but he asked if I would please make the arrangements since he needed to spend the next few hours tying up some loose ends with his office. He went back to the neighbor’s apartment to do his work in the quiet there. I stayed at Stella’s, got out my laptop, and went online to find a flight for us.

I had reserved our seats and was looking for hotel accomodations when Jodi came home, seeming exhausted. She grabbed a cold soda from the fridge before joining me at the dining table, sitting crossways on the seat so that her feet dangled off the side.

“What a day,” she said, taking a sip from the can. “Milton’s in town.”

“Milton?”

“My oldest brother. Ugh! To him, I might as well be twelve years old. Did you ever know someone who doesn’t even really look at you? Like they look right through you? That’s Milton. I’m just a blip on his screen. I’m just white noise in the background.”

I smiled at her description. From what I recalled of Eli’s wedding, Milton didn’t seem to notice much besides himself. I felt a surge of gratefulness for my own brother, who was a real sweetheart and one of my best friends.

“How’s Eli?” I asked, and Jodi gave a report of the events of the afternoon. His lung had collapsed and they had to do some sort of procedure to get him breathing again. She said Stella had rallied fairly well. Once Milton showed up and sort of commandeered the waiting room, Jodi had felt a little superfluous.

“Maybe I should go back to Europe,” she said, playing with the metal tab on the top of her soda can. “At least Franco was fun when he wasn’t being a greedy idiot.”

I started to reply, but she held up one hand.

“Kidding,” she said. “Sort of.”

“Speaking of going somewhere, Tom and I are going down to St. John,” I said. “We leave in the morning.”

Her eyes opened wide.

“You’re going off on vacation
now?
”

“It’s not a vacation. We’re investigating Eli’s shooting. The investigation has led us down there.”

She spun her legs around and sat up.

“Oh, let me go with you!” she said. “I haven’t been down to the house in almost a year.”

“I don’t think—”

“Come on!” she urged. “I can help. I can follow people. I can collect evidence. I watch enough detective shows to know how it’s done.”

“What about your mother?”

“She doesn’t need me now that Milton’s here. C’mon. Please?”

My first reaction was to object, but as I thought about it, I realized it might not hurt to have a third person along. I had absolutely no contacts down there, and Jodi was familiar with the island. On the other hand, Stella would have my head if I let anything happen to her daughter.

“The house is gorgeous,” Jodi said. “I don’t know if Mom showed you the pictures, but you’ll love it. We’ve got two cars there too. Oh, and maybe some of the girls are in town. This is perfect! One of the charities I’m considering is located down there, so I can even investigate it. You can help me.”

“The girls?”

“Friends of mine. Like me, their parents have houses there. We used to coordinate so we’d all be down at the same time. Gosh, I haven’t talked to any of them in ages, except Sandy and I e-mail a lot. She’s the one who works with the charity.”

Suddenly, it felt as if Jodi’s accompanying us was a done deal.

“If you go,” I said, “you absolutely cannot tell a soul why we’re there or what we’re doing. This isn’t a group activity, Jodi, it’s an investigation. For me and Tom.”

“Can’t I help?”

“You can show us around and get us oriented,” I said. “Beyond that, I doubt it. Though if I have any spare time, I’ll be happy to give you some guidance with the nonprofit there.”