go into Mother Mode?
To Nelson Spinner’s credit, he smiled warmly, took my hand, and held it. “Yes. Thank you for the invitation…. Do you have a card?”
“I uh…”
“No,” said Brainert rather pointedly. “She doesn’t.”
Sadie glared. “Of course, she does.”
My aunt came ready to play, all right. She yanked on a drawer in her old desk and handed over one of the store’s new business cards.
“Thanks,” Nelson said, tucking it safely into an inside jacket pocket. Then he pulled out a thin leather wallet and one of his own business cards. It was quite something, gold embossed lettering on an electric blue background—the exact shade of his dress shirt and piercing cobalt eyes.
“I’ll be in touch soon then, Penelope. I know I’ll enjoy talking with you again. Good night.”
CHAPTER 11
Oh, lady dear, hast though no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
—Edgar Allan Poe, “The Sleeper,” 1831
“Excuse me?”
“What!”
I’d been lying in bed, considering Nelson Spinner when Jack rudely broke into my thoughts (not exactly an uncommon occurrence).
“Well,” I replied, “Sadie seems to think he’s hot stuff. She’s never pushed me that hard before.”
“So are you, Jack. Way past.”
I turned over, stared out the dark window. There was no wind tonight and the bare tree limbs looked painted on the glass, a gloomy still life.
“I can’t deny Spinner is a charming professor.” I murmured. “What woman wouldn’t think he was attractive with that mop of golden hair and those incredible eyes…” That’s when it hit me. “Jeez-Louise, why didn’t I see it sooner?”
“Sadie described her memories of Peter Chesley in exactly the same way—when they first met, I mean—a charming professor with golden hair and spectacular blue eyes.”
“I don’t think Sadie pushed so hard tonight just because she wants me to have a second chance.”
“It’s probably natural to want to replay a pattern from your past, try to make things right that went wrong before…”
“What?” I asked through a yawn. “Tell me.”
I yawned again. “Sure.”
New York City
October 21, 1946
Her eyes were brownish-green like a couple of olives left to drown at the bottom of a dry martini. Jack had slipped onto the barstool next to her, watched her down the dregs of gin and vermouth.
When Jack had interviewed Miss Mindy Corbett at her desk this morning, she’d been bright and chipper as the daily funnies, her short, honey-colored curls prim and neat, her features on the young side of thirty. At the end of this very long day, however, not even the dim light of the slick hotel bar could save her eyes from looking bloodshot, her skin from appearing sallow. Even her hair looked tired of curling.
She ignored him until he flagged the bartender, bought her a refill.
“I know you,” she said, a little too loudly. Then she shushed herself, bringing her voice down before Jack had to advise it. “You’re that gumshoe who’s looking for Mr. Tattershawe.”
“That’s right, honey.” Jack tapped a fresh deck of Luckies against two fingers, passed her one. “Remarkable memory you have.”
“What are you, a comedian? You were just in the office earlier today.”
Jack lit her ciggy, then his own. “How about that? Small world, seeing you again.”
The bartender approached with a silver shaker. “Here you go, Miss Corbett.” Into her old glass, he poured a fresh crystal stream. He put a new glass in front of Jack and filled it.
Mindy lifted her drink, admired the shimmer of alcohol in her hand like a jewel in the crown. “Oh, yeah, Bobby,” she told the bartender, “that’s the ticket.”
Jack took a drink of the icy liquid, savored the juniper burn. He wondered how much tonsil paint it would take to pry loose Mindy Corbett’s tongue.
In Jack’s short time investigating Vincent Tattershawe, he found the man’s friends to be supremely aloof. They knew little of Tattershawe’s personal business. His family consisted of one married sister living out west who corresponded with him mainly through letters. She hadn’t heard from him in over a month.
Mindy here was Jack’s best lead. She worked at Carter & Thompson, an investment company on lower Broadway, near the exchanges and the docks. Before Tattershawe disappeared, she’d been assigned as his secretary.
When Jack questioned her this morning, she’d been polite but curt, claiming she worked for someone new at the firm now and didn’t know anything about Mr. Tattershawe’s disappearance. But—
She’d slipped up during questioning.
She’d admitted knowing Tattershawe before the war. She’d worked as his secretary for four years. And after he’d exchanged his business suit for a G.I. uniform, she’d stayed with the firm, working for another boss. Then Tattershawe returned last year from the front with half an arm missing, and she went right back to serving as his secretary again.
That kind of pattern spoke of loyalty, and Jack didn’t believe Mindy had no insights into Vincent’s abrupt disappearance.
“So was Tattershawe a jerk to work for?” Jack asked, hoping to provoke some more leads out of her. “Are you glad he’s gone?”
Mindy put down her new drink, swiveled to face him. “You think I’m stupid?”
“No.”
“I know why you’re here, feeding me juice. Don’t think I don’t.”
“It’s no secret, Miss Corbett. I told you yesterday, I’m looking for Vincent Tattershawe.”
“So go talk to his boss.”
“I did.”
Tattershawe’s supervisor was Ed Thompson. Heavyset, bald, and harried, he’d claimed he knew nothing of Vincent’s unscheduled three-week vacation. After trying to contact him for ten days, he’d written the man off and
