Authors: Michael Murphy
“It’s okay, Jake. For the past few months Mickey worked for the government.”
“Don’t say anything more,” Stoddard whispered as footsteps approached the closed door.
Laura pulled a flask from her purse and took a sip. “Stoddard hired Mickey.” She swallowed again. I stared in disbelief as she sprinkled drops of booze on her gown. “And me.”
Chapter 8
Dorothy and
The Greek Slave
Laura working for the Secret Service?
“We don’t have time to explain.” Stoddard pointed across Dalrymple’s study to a door behind a massive oak desk. “If you don’t want to get shot, hit the door.”
Guards might burst in any minute, but I couldn’t leave until I understood Laura’s involvement in a case that cost Mickey his life.
Her eyes pleaded for understanding. “Go!”
Heavy footsteps sounded from the hallway. Stoddard tugged me toward the desk. As the doorknob turned, we pushed through the door into a huge bedroom. I closed the door behind me as Dalrymple entered the study.
“Laura … what … are you doing here?” Through the door I listened to Dalrymple’s halting, incredulous voice.
With one hand on the dagger handle, I held my breath, prepared to rescue her.
Laura giggled. “Spencer. You caught me having a little drink.” Her laughter turned into sniffles. “I just found out Ethel Merman’s going to star in Cole Porter’s new play. She doesn’t even know him.”
“There, there, darling.”
To my great relief, Laura had once again demonstrated her ability as an actress. I relaxed my grip on the handle and whispered to Stoddard, “Let’s go.”
We hurried across a master bedroom I hoped Laura had never seen. In the hallway I glanced both ways then followed the Secret Service agent to the far stairs away from the study.
Stoddard held up one hand. “We shouldn’t be seen together. Meet me outside.” He casually descended the stairs while I waited on the landing, trying to wrap my mind around Mickey and Laura working with the Secret Service. Did the government think Dalrymple played a role in February’s assassination attempt on Roosevelt?
Sweat slid down the back of my neck as I thought about the danger to Laura. I limped down the stairway. Stoddard left through the front doors as I reached the foot of the stairs. I straightened my tie and tried to act like a normal guest at a cast party. A drink might help, but I ignored the bar and hurried after him.
“There you are.” In her chiffon dress, Dorothy Greenwoody glided through the guests.
Her smile wrapped around me like a silk scarf. She reached for my hand. “You’re not leaving.”
I tried not to show my impatience. “I need some fresh air.”
“Sounds delightful.” Behind her black-framed glasses, Dorothy’s eyes sparkled like a kid eyeing an ice-cream cone. “There’s a beautiful moon out tonight.”
I glimpsed her father watching us. As much as I needed answers, I couldn’t be rude to Dorothy. I needed Oliver Greenwoody’s trust now more than ever. “I don’t think your father would approve of us going off unescorted.”
“I’m a grown woman … in case you haven’t noticed.”
I’d noticed. Her perfume reminded me of fresh-cut orchids as she slipped her arm in mine. She waved to her father. In spite of his look of disapproval, I led Dorothy outside. We passed two uniformed guards and strolled down the circular drive illuminated by ornate gaslights. I didn’t see Stoddard, but I sensed him watching. I needed to return Dorothy to the party as quickly as possible, but how could I pull that off without acting like a cad?
We stopped between two statues illuminated by floodlights. She glanced toward the house then wrapped both arms around my neck and kissed me. Not a total surprise, but disconcerting in my current state of mind.
Her moist lips and supple body pressed against me. I kissed her back, telling myself I needed her cooperation to uncover the details of Mickey’s investigation. Indeed, I was a cad.
After the passionate kiss, Dorothy blushed. She was a beautiful young woman in love with Blackie Doyle, not me.
The kiss made me realize I was still in love with Laura. Even if Stoddard was right and the country’s future was at stake, I wouldn’t take liberties with Dorothy to get information. “I don’t want to mislead you.”
“I’m not usually so forward. I heard someone broke your heart. In your last novel Blackie Doyle told a nurse a first kiss can mend a broken heart.”
Blackie was wrong. “He was trying to seduce a woman.”
“It worked if I remember.” Dorothy took a hankie from her purse and wiped lipstick from my mouth. “I see you’d rather not talk about broken hearts and seduction.” She took my arm again. As we strolled among the statues, she described her trip to Europe a year earlier. She stopped beside the statue of a nude woman. “Are you familiar with Greek nudes?”
“There was a waitress in Omaha …”
“You are a scoundrel.” Dorothy laughed. “That’s exactly what Blackie Doyle would say.”
While I leaned on my cane, she explained the history of the sculpture, a reproduction of Hiram Powers’s
The Greek Slave
. I tried to listen attentively, but curiosity about why Stoddard hired Laura dogged my mind. When Dorothy finished the lesson, I rubbed my leg.
“Oh dear. Maybe you’ve overdone it with our walk.” She took my arm again. “Let’s go back to the party so you can sit and rest.”
We headed back. Before we reached the front steps, a man leaned against a convertible and lit a cigarette. Stoddard.
I led Dorothy up the steps and glanced toward my rented Model A. “I have aspirin in the car. Will you excuse me a moment?”
She batted her lashes. “Don’t be long.”
The minute she entered the house, I limped down the steps and hurried toward Stoddard. Two uniformed security guards with flashlights clipped to their belts passed us and continued in the opposite direction.
Stoddard and I strode along the curved tree-lined drive until we could no longer see the house. His voice cracked with anger. “You jeopardized a critical investigation and endangered Laura and me!”
“I endangered Laura? You hired an actress to work undercover.”
“I wanted a pro, but Mickey insisted Laura was the right person to discover Dalrymple’s secrets.” Stoddard gestured toward a gravel path through thick woods on the north side of the mansion. “Laura wants to bring you in.”
“I don’t want in. I want Laura out.”
“Can’t do that. The stakes are too high.”
When he took a drag on the cigarette, I studied his face in the glow. Intense dark eyes and a nose a bit crooked from a fight, no doubt. Stoddard earned Mickey’s trust and Laura’s. It might take awhile to earn mine. “It’s time you tell me what’s at stake.”
Stoddard hesitated only a moment. “A conspiracy that threatens the future of the United States.”
“You’re joking.”
“Do I look like a fucking comedian?”
Conspiracies were the stuff of novels, not real life.
I was as concerned as the next guy about the country, but Laura’s safety meant more. I knew only one way to help her. “Okay, I’m in.”
He studied me as we walked. “Because of Laura.”
“My reasons are personal. Let’s leave it at that.”
A warm mist clung to the ground as we made our way deeper into the woods. Stoddard gestured with the cigarette. “What have you learned?”
I told him about the newspaper clippings I discovered in the bus terminal locker. I described the invisible message that revealed the words Golden Legion. Without giving up Belle’s name, I told him I uncovered a witness to the shooting. Maybe she could link the men in
the black sedan to the Golden Legion and Spencer Dalrymple. I explained how I found a phone number for Oliver Greenwoody’s hotel on Mickey’s notepad.
He raised an eyebrow. “Was that Greenwoody’s daughter who planted a kiss on your puss earlier?”
I nodded. “If I’m going to find out why Mickey wrote her father’s name on a notepad, I need to get close to her.”
A slow grin spread across his face. “Mission accomplished.”
Time for Stoddard to spill a few answers. “So the Secret Service—”
“I’m not working for the Secret Service.”
What? “But your badge.”
He took a final puff and crushed the cigarette on the gravel path. “I’m on special assignment under the direction of … of someone outside the government … someone close to the president.”
“What’s his name?”
Stoddard shook his head. “You don’t need to know. Mickey didn’t. Laura doesn’t.”
“You’re not making this easy.”
A branch cracked. I stumbled back into the trees. Stoddard drew a pistol and aimed it at a pine tree. A moment later a raccoon hissed at us and scampered away.
With a sheepish smile, Stoddard stuffed the gun inside his suit. “There might come a time when you need to meet my boss. Not now.”
“You trust him?”
“With my life.”
Laura’s, too. But who was Stoddard’s boss?
From what I’d learned, I developed a theory. “The Secret Service concluded Roosevelt wasn’t the target of an assassination attempt. You think they’re wrong and Dalrymple and the Golden Legion planned the whole thing.”
“There’s more.”
“More?”
A beam of light flickered through the trees. We both froze when we heard voices.
A man’s gravelly voice, “You sure you spotted a man in a tan suit out here?”
Stoddard glanced down at his suit and lowered his voice. “I’ll brief you at the Carlyle in the morning. Right now you need to go back into the Dalrymple house and act as if the country’s future isn’t at stake.”
As Stoddard loosened his tie and ruffled his hair, I crossed the path and ducked behind a thick tree. I could only speculate about what I’d learn in the morning.
The gravel-voiced security guard shouted, “Over here!”
I peered around the tree as Stoddard made a retching sound and stumbled down the path. Two guards emerged from the other side and grabbed his arms. “Our third drunk of the night. Call another cab.”
I hid behind the tree and thought of Stoddard’s two words: “There’s more.” Whatever else I didn’t know increased the danger to Laura.
Laura. Did Stoddard recruit her after she became engaged to Dalrymple, or before? How could I wait until morning to find out the answer? If he hired her before the engagement … Oh my God! My detective skills had eroded more than Dashiell’s, or was I too close not to see the truth until now? Laura’s engagement to Spencer Dalrymple was just an act!
Desperate to confirm my suspicions about the engagement, I hurried through the woods. Maybe Gino had been right. Perhaps I was overly protective of Laura, but this was different, wasn’t it?
I returned to the driveway and arrived at the massive house without encountering any guards. At the front steps I breathed in the night air, gathered my composure, and went inside.
Scores of festive guests appeared sufficiently liquored up. Karl Friedman, the only Nazi at the party, as far as I knew, stood beside the bar. He raised a stein of dark beer in a silent toast toward the stairway.
Laura and her fiancé made their way down the stairs, looking the part of a couple basking in professional and personal triumph. Her face revealed nothing of our encounter with Stoddard in Dalrymple’s study. The role of dutiful fiancée might be her best acting yet.
Even from a distance, Dalrymple’s arrogant expression resembled the mean-spirited one Laura’s father wore whenever he drank. He presented a greater threat than her old man had. While I tried to imagine how to get her alone, the happy couple made their way through the crowd accepting congratulations on the play and best wishes on their upcoming nuptials.
Dorothy drew admiring glances from half the men as she crossed the room. She brushed pine needles from my shoulder. “You have mud on your cane.”
How had I been so careless? “I was outside looking for my driver.” I wiped mud from the end of the cane with a handkerchief and stuffed the cloth into my pocket.
Dorothy slipped her arm in mine. She pointed toward the music room. “I saw him in there. He shouldn’t drive.” She flashed a flirtatious smile. “Perhaps you and I should take a cab.”
I suspected the destination she had in mind was her bed or mine. Across the room, Oliver Greenwoody met my gaze with the narrow eyes of a protective father. He nodded toward the French doors then excused himself from his wife and went outside to the deck.
As Laura and Dalrymple exchanged pleasantries with Jimmy Walker, the former mayor of New York, her eyes lingered on Dorothy’s arm in mine. Dalrymple slipped a possessive arm around Laura like he had in the hospital.
I realized I wouldn’t get her alone. The truth about her engagement would have to wait until Stoddard briefed me in the morning.
Dorothy’s father wanted to meet with me, and from his look of disapproval, I couldn’t afford to get on his bad side. “Would you excuse me for a few minutes?”
“Are you trying to avoid me, Jake Donovan?”
Yes. “Of course not.”
Smiling, Dorothy let go of my arm and kissed my cheek. “Then hurry back.”
Outside, with his back to me, Oliver Greenwoody gazed down at the topiary garden.
I cleared my throat, hoping I’d misread his disapproval. “Mr. Greenwoody.”
He faced me, looking every bit like an angry general presiding over a court-martial. “What are your intentions regarding my daughter?”
“Entirely honorable, sir. I enjoy your daughter’s company. She’s bright—”
“She’s ten years younger than you. A child really.”
Dorothy was no child. Another man, another time and I might tell him about her wandering foot on the train and the kiss beside the Greek statue. “I’m just here for a few days, then it’s back to Florida.”
“That hardly argues in your favor. Perhaps you led her on.”
Maybe I had, but I couldn’t let him suspect the reason. “If I have, I owe you and your daughter an apology.”
“My wife told me you and Laura Wilson were once an item.”
“That was in the past.” I glanced toward the party. Laura held Dalrymple’s hand. An act, I suspected, but it hurt to see. “I’m still fond of Laura and wish her the best in her upcoming marriage.”