the help.
Jack rang at Dorothy Kerns’s front door, well aware he was a hired man, no better than those going in the back.
A young maid with pinned-up raven hair and peach cheeks received him with a shy smile. Jack tipped his brim to her, then placed his fedora in her small hands, along with his overcoat.
“Would you like anythin’, sir?” Her voice was light and young with traces of an Irish brogue. “Perhaps somethin’ to drink?”
“Scotch and water.” He might have ordered it neat instead, but he’d had a lot to drink already. Pity, he thought, since he doubted Dorothy Kerns would be serving her guests coffin varnish. This well-heeled dame probably stocked the best tonsil paint around.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the young maid said, “but Miss Kerns doesn’t allow alcohol in the apartment. Would you care for a lemonade?”
Jack suppressed a shudder. “No, honey. Just bring me one on the city.”
“Excuse me?”
“Water. I’ll have a glass of water.”
“Yes, sir. This way, please.”
The maid directed him through a pair of French doors into a grand sitting room, where he was left alone for a good ten minutes. Tall casement windows along the far wall looked out on the mannerly street busy with smart looking couples, chauffeurs in black livery, valets in overcoats walking family dogs.
It was a different world in this hemisphere—south of Harlem, north of Bowery. You had no hustlers or grifters in this pocket of wealth near the park, no beggars or booze-hounds. Off-duty cops were singing “Danny Boy” in the Irish pubs downtown, not here. And tanked-up clerks and salesmen, wailing about their war wounds, wouldn’t be falling down on these sidewalks.
It was a good place for picking innocent cherries, Jack thought, if you were an operator like Vincent Tattershawe.
The maid brought him his water and Jack glanced around the large salon. If heaven had a waiting room, he figured this would be it. The walls, furniture, and rugs were all ivory and cream. The fireplace was white marble, carved with tiny cherubs. Although no fire burned in its pristine grate, he took a load off on a cloud-colored armchair nearby.
Figurines of crystal lined mirrored shelves and tasteful paintings graced the walls. French impressionism, if Jack was guessing right, muted, pastel views of reality.
“Mr. Shepard?”
Jack rose, and a tall woman swept toward him.
Dorothy Kerns was a blonde, but not the kind who have more fun. She was the fragile type, like a fairy queen, delicate and untouchable, friable as a frozen bird.
From the “spinster” picture her brother had painted, Jack practically expected a matronly dame with graying hair and grandma shawl, a pair of knitting needles in her arthritic hands. Dorothy wasn’t even close. Yes, her lips were too thin, her skin too pale, and her blue eyes set farther apart than Great Neck and Newark; but she had high cheekbones, intelligence in her gaze, and only the faintest hint of wrinkles at the edges of her mouth.
No man could deny she was a striking woman—not a raving beauty by any stretch, but nothing close to her brother’s narrow view of her. But then, Jack had noticed how often family members viewed each other through out-of-date glasses.
“Please excuse me for not greeting you when you arrived.” Dorothy held out her hand. “To be perfectly honest, I was in my robe and needed to change.”
Jack had expected a dame like her to show up in a prim dress or skirt. But her long legs were clad in flowing brown slacks, a thin leather belt circling her trim waist. She wore a white silk blouse, and a string of pearls around her slender neck, showed to advantage by upswept hair.
“Miss Kerns.” He lightly took her hand, felt as if he were trying to grasp a sparrow without crushing its delicate bones. “I appreciate your making time for me tonight.”
Jack tried to release the bird, but Miss Kerns held on tight—and with surprising strength. “You must find Vincent for me, Mr. Shepard. Promise me you’ll find him.”
Jack could see the sincerity in her wide-set eyes. They were shining and he realized why—they were wet with unshed tears.
“I’ll try to help,” Jack replied and used his left hand to diplomatically pry loose his right.
Dorothy turned away, recovering herself. She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief she’d pulled from her pants pocket. “Won’t you sit down?”
Jack took a load off again—in the same armchair by the cold fireplace. Miss Kerns sat in the chair opposite, crossed her long limbs. Her young maid brought in a tray with a tea service.
“Tell me honestly, Miss Kerns. What do you think happened to your fiance?” Jack asked after the maid departed. “Another woman? Or maybe he was the victim of a fast money scam gone wrong? Do you think maybe he lost your investment and was ashamed to face you?”
“I would like to believe it is none of those things, but the alternative is no better. Vincent had a drinking problem, you see.”
“You think he crawled into a bottle?”
“He told me he would never drink again. That was my condition for our engagement. My brother…he doesn’t like Vincent, you know?”
“I got that impression. How did you two meet, anyway?”
“At a big New Year’s Eve party last year. Vincent hadn’t been Stateside long. He’d been stationed in Europe —”
“Army?”
“Yes, he’d been badly wounded after D-Day, during combat in the hedgerow country—”
Jack winced.
“You were there, Mr. Shepard?”
“Not in that action. But I knew about the losses. It was a real meat grinder. I pushed through Carentan to Cherbourg, that’s where the U.S. set up her regional HQ—uh, headquarters.”
Dorothy presented a weak smile. “I know what HQ means, Mr. Shepard. My late fiance, my first one, had written me for years from the front. He’d lost his life in the same battle where Vincent lost half his left arm.”
She paused and glanced at the dark window, as if looking for a memory.
“When I first met Vincent, at that New Year’s Eve party, and discovered he’d been in the same action that had killed Gabriel, he and I began to talk. But not like people usually talk at social gatherings. We began early in the evening and didn’t stop until after breakfast the next morning. I don’t suppose you know how that can go, Mr. Shepard? Talking all night when you first fall in love?”
Jack shifted uncomfortably, thought of Sally. For a moment, in a dream, he’d seen a future with her, a home and family. But he’d slept too long. And when he finally awoke, Sally Archer was long gone.
“I know something about it, miss. Go on.”
“Well, we did fall in love that first night, and it deepened as the weeks and months went by. He asked me to marry him on my birthday in June. We set a date to be married next year—June 1947—although my brother raised objections.”
“So why didn’t you just take off with Vincent if you loved him and your brother was so disapproving? You’ve got your own money, right?”
“I…only have a little bit left now. I gave Vincent the bulk of my inheritance to invest.”
“Yeah, about that…I understand Vincent could earn a dollar?”
“Yes, that’s right. Before the war, he made a great deal of money by investing in steel. He saw what was coming, you see? And it paid off for him. And I was sure it would again.”
“So, you gave a drunk all your money…to invest?” Jack asked.
“He’s not a drunk. Not anymore. You see, about a month ago, Vincent came upon some information about a lucrative investment in a company that manufactures air conditioners.”
“Air conditioners?” Jack jotted that down. “Do you know the name?”
“Ogden Heating and Cooling Company. They’re located in the South. Vincent says air-conditioning’s going to
