As I came closer, it was clear that this grand building, once the pride of San Diego, had been thoroughly humbled by the needs of wartime. The white paint had cracked and peeled into loose flakes. Blackout curtains framed the panels of stained glass. Wide windows showed the edge-on shadows of partitions. Formerly spacious rooms had been roughly subdivided.
I crossed the street to a corner market and bought a soda.
“Pretty fancy building over there,” I commented to the clerk, an older woman with her gray hair in a tidy bun.
“Just a shame what they’ve done to it since the Lynches died. I know people need places to live, what with the housing shortage and all, but it’s too bad they had to turn that fine old place into a boarding house. Can I open that for you?” she asked, gesturing to the bottle.
“Sure!” I took a sip of the fizzy cold Coke and leaned against a vegetable bin. “So they’ve got a lot of folks living there now?”
“They put up so many partitions to make rooms, they must have twenty people staying there. All girls, they don’t take men. Each girl gets her own personal cracker box. They mostly work at the aircraft factories.”
“Must be a nice bit of extra business for you, with so many girls around.”
“Well, they’re gone all day and they hardly cook, but we make sandwiches to sell for their lunch pails, so we’re doing okay. Sometimes a few girls will get together and buy some stew meat and vegetables to make dinner on the weekend, but the owners are pretty stingy with kitchen privileges. It’s almost like they don’t want them to have a good time when they get a chance.”
I pulled Mary’s picture out of my handbag. “I think a friend of mine might have been staying there—have you seen her?”
The woman peered at the photo. “I couldn’t say. Some of those girls come and go so fast, I just can’t keep track. There’s a group of them that’ve been there for a while, but sometimes I’ll no sooner see one than she’s gone. With all the girls coming to take jobs at the plants, those rooms don’t stay vacant but hardly a day.”
I finished my Coke and put the bottle in the return rack. Another customer came. Her eyes shifted to him, narrowed, and she shook her head slightly at him. I took the opportunity to wave goodbye and head back down the street.
A group of Mexican boys, pachucos, were leaning against the wall of the next building. Their wide-lapeled zoot suits were elegantly draped but frayed at the edges. Their dark eyes gave me the once-over. One let out a piercing wolf whistle, another made a remark in rapid-fire Spanish. They all laughed, with a bit of a nasty edge to it. I sped up my stride and grabbed my purse more tightly with suddenly sweaty hands.
I mentally turned over questions to ask the landlords. In the shadow of the big house’s tower, I mounted the ornate steps and paused before a sign:
What if I did more than just ask questions? Bill always said that it was important to get first-hand information and really understand the scene of a possible crime. And what could be more first hand than living there?
A prickle of worry started in my stomach as I thought about this, followed by excitement. I damped both feelings down as I smoothed my skirt and finished walking up the front steps.
I knocked at the elaborately milled door. Almost immediately a tall, wiry woman opened it. Her black hair parted in the middle and coiled into a smooth knot resting on the nape of her neck. Her hands were large and strong-looking, with a man’s knobby fingers and closely trimmed nails. No polish. I swallowed. “The sign said you have a room for rent?”
She pursed her lips and looked me over with an appraising eye. “We might.” I felt like a cut of meat in a butcher’s window. “We only rent to girls with good jobs—respectable girls, factory jobs.”
I thought fast. “I’m starting tomorrow morning at Consolidated.”
“Doing what?”
Might as well pick up where Mary left off. “I’m working on PBYs. Riveting.”
“Let me get you an application. Come on into the office and you can fill it out. I’m Mrs. Smith. My husband and I own the place, and we live right here, so we don’t allow any funny business. No parties, no men.” She glared significantly at me.
“I’m very quiet.”
“Quiet is good.”
We walked across the wide foyer and through a dining room that smelled of stale coffee. She pushed open a swinging door and led me into a large kitchen. One corner was dominated by a huge rolltop desk. Mrs. Smith pulled a pad of rental applications out of a cubby, peeled one off, and pushed it toward me. “Have a seat. Fill this out.”
She sat in the heavy rolling chair at the desk and crossed her legs. The black crepe of her dress lay obedient over her knobby knees.
I sat on a flimsy dining chair at a small deal table by the side of the desk and started on the form, facts and history all made up. I figured by the time any address or reference checking was done, I’d be long gone.
Done. I handed her the form. She pulled a pair of goldrimmed glasses out of a brown clamshell case and snapped it shut with a clack. She peered over my peerless work of fiction.
“You’re from Iowa?” she asked. “We get a lot of girls from the Midwest—must be nice to get away from that heat.”
I nodded, trying to look both respectable and quiet. Mrs. Smith glanced at the ring on my left hand.
“Married?”
I almost nodded again, but inspiration struck. “My husband was killed at Guadalcanal. I couldn’t take being alone in our house back there, so I came out here to help with the war effort. It’s hard being away from my family and everyone I know, but at least I feel that I’m helping get back at those Japs for killing my Bill.” Thinking of my
