Louise's War by Sarah Shaber Read Free Book Online

my skin as I posed, head up and shoulders back, for my class photograph.
    Remembering Rachel’s kindness made me wonder again what had happened to Gerald’s file since Bob Holman’s death. Was it sent upstairs to the Projects Committee before he died? Was it lying on his office floor? Had someone cleaned up and taken it back to the main files? I thought I’d been so clever getting Holman to refer it upstairs, congratulated myself for helping Rachel. Now I had no idea where the file was. I had to find out, I couldn’t let it go. I owed Rachel so much, much more than the loan of a string of pearls.
    I heard Joan’s car horn as I finished tilting a black straw fedora at a fashionable angle and securing it to my hair with a hatpin. I’d called Joan yesterday afternoon. She was just as upset, and all right, I admit it, curious about Holman’s death as I was. We conspired to go to the wake together and pick up as much information about his unfortunate demise as we could.
    Joan Adams was one of General Donovan’s two personal secretaries. She’d graduated from Smith College, so she fit in with the rest of Donovan’s swank circle. We’d met in the security office on our first day at work, sharing a grimy towel after we had our fingerprints taken. We’d sworn the oath of secrecy together, and listened to the security officer’s lecture. ‘Remember,’ he’d said, ‘this town is crawling with spies. Anyone asks, you’re a government file clerk, that’s all. You keep your mouths shut about every single thing that goes on here, no matter how trivial, or people might die.’
    Despite her family’s wealth, Joan had no pretensions. Our first week in Washington she’d invited me up to her apartment in the Mayflower Hotel for cocktails and to listen to records with her crowd. Thanks to my Southern Baptist upbringing, I’d never touched a drop of liquor before, but that afternoon I learned to like Martinis. Not that I drank them often. Too expensive. I splurged often enough to feel worldly and sophisticated.
    The price of Martinis was not a concern for Joan. She got a hundred dollar a month allowance from her parents, in addition to her salary, which is why she picked me up in a green Lincoln Continental cabriolet. I’d only ever driven my parents’ Ford Model A pickup. One of my secret fantasies was to own a car one day.
    The coffin was closed, which surprised me, I must say. I knew the Holmans were Baptists, and Baptists do like to wring their hands over their dead. The widow, a short sturdy woman with salt-and-pepper hair, stood next to the coffin, resting a hand on it, while she received her guests. I didn’t see Holman’s children. Maybe his widow thought they were too young to attend his wake.
    The room was crowded with familiar faces, but I didn’t recognize anyone senior to our branch director, James Baxter Linney, once the President of Williams College. A scattering of army and navy officers wearing a respectable amount of chest hardware represented our agency’s bosses, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And I was sure the two men standing alone near the front door were FBI agents. You could spot G-men anywhere. They wore dark suits, white shirts and ties no matter the occasion or time of day. Hoover forbade his agents to drink coffee or alcohol or to accept meals, so they stuck out like sore thumbs when everyone else in the place held a plate and a glass. One of the agents, the one who seemed to be in charge, did manage to express some individuality. A tiny yellow feather poked out from his hatband.
    I saw Don across the room with Roger Austine and Guy Danielson, who for once seemed to be speaking civilly to each other, and Charles Burns, the head of the Map Division. Don looked very surprised to see me. He nodded at me briefly before turning his attention back to the other three men.
    Joan and I joined the receiving line behind Dora Bertrand, an anthropologist from the Far East Division who was the only woman at