The order came in early this morning: Captain Ellison wanted Suzy’s place searched.
Philip felt a lump in his throat as he deciphered the encrypted message. What the hell have I done? Once the beast was awakened, no putting it back to sleep until it was fed. No choice but to obey orders, no matter how miserable they made him feel.
So he drove down the coast, passing by Suzy’s cottage to make sure her car was not in the driveway. He found a pullout further down the road where he parked and hoofed it back to the cottage. After trying a few of the windows, he found one unlocked on the spare bedroom. He knew his way around the house from the night she’d invited him to dinner, and felt like a complete shit. Had he suspected Suzy even back then? It was like he had taken notes of where things were kept. Is that what this life of duplicity does to a person? he wondered.
The kitchen came first, then the bath and the medicine chest. He went through the usual hiding places: the water tank on the toilet, the back of the kitchen fridge. There were no false bottoms on kitchen drawers or cabinets. In the tiny sitting room, he’d checked the cushions of the sofa and chair, then turned both pieces of furniture on their backs to check underneath for hidden compartments. He paid special attention to the floorboards; nothing loose or amiss that made him wonder about hiding places under the flooring. He went through the books in her one bookcase.
Suzy was at work and probably would not be coming back before this evening, but there was still a knot in his stomach. He was on edge and feeling the sweat of guilt for going through her things.
If not me, then somebody else, he consoled himself.
He knew what he was looking for: a radio transmitter. But so far, no luck. Or some record of troop movements. No luck there, either. Suzy could be sending coded letters, of course. He examined a writing pad on a small desk in the sitting room, checked for impressions on the remaining pages. No trace of other writing.
In the pigeon holes for mail on the back of the desk was an envelope. He pulled it out: it bore postal markings from Canada. The top was neatly slit open and he took out the slip of paper inside. Opening it, he could see that it was a successor trustee affidavit with an arrow pointing to a bottom line and a penciled message next to it: “Sign here.” He carefully refolded the paper, inserted it in the envelope and then returned the envelope to the pigeon hole in the back of the desk that he had taken it from: top right. Then on second thought, he pocketed the letter. Leave it for the cryptographers to see if it was a coded message.
He left the bedroom for last, dreading it and hating himself for digging through her most personal items. In the back of the lingerie drawer, he finally found something. It was a small, leather-bound notebook. His heart raced as he opened it to where a ribbon place-holder marked the most recent entry:
“He is a sweetheart, really. But so shy. Will he ever work up the courage to plant a real kiss on my lips? I long for that…”
He slammed the notebook shut as if burned by the words.
Maybe I am wrong about Suzy, he thought. He could hardly bring himself to open the diary again, to paw his way through her private thoughts. But this was an order. Not something he wanted to do, but something he had to do.
He flipped through the pages until he came to one that did not have the usual neat paragraphs of writing. Instead, on a page dated March 3, were a list of numbers and times. He could make no sense of them. Taking out his own small notebook, he copied them down:
12:12 AM, 1.90; 05:37AM, 3.67; 12:01 PM, 0.40; 7:01 PM, 4.72; 1:21 AM, 1.42; 6:57 AM, 3.34; 12:50 PM, 0.81; 7:41 PM, 4.89.
Clearly this was a list of times, but the second group of numbers in each pairing eluded him. Numbers of troop carriers, or regiments?
He paged through the rest of the diary and found four more such lists, each for a different date, and copied them all in his notebook. Then he carefully placed the diary back in the drawer just as he had found it and proceeded to check the rest of the house for any further evidence. This took another hour of tedious, meticulous searching.
He left the closet for last. He recognized a couple of the dresses she wore. Shoes neatly lined up on the floor. He tried the carpeting here. It was secured; he could feel no seams underneath in the floorboards. He found the blue carcoat on a hook behind the row of dresses and slacks. In luck, he thought. She must be wearing a raincoat today. Which made him look automatically behind him to the bedroom window. The gray sky was giving way to sunshine now.
He took the coat down from the hook, careful to remember how it was situated before moving it. Out of his pocket, he pulled the button his father had found and put it up against a button on the jacket. He let out a sigh.
It was a match.
There was a problem, though. All the buttons on the coat were there. None missing.
Maybe she noticed it was missing, he thought, and sewed on a spare.
He felt on the inside front of the jacket toward the bottom and his guess was verified. There were the remnants of blue threading which had most likely held a spare button. He took no pleasure in this discovery. Instead, he felt empty.
Then came a rattling of a key in the front door and it was as if an electric current ran though his body. He’d been so intent on his searches that he had not heard a car arrive.
Shit. Where to go?
As the front door opened, he dug his way behind the hanging clothes in the closet, folding his arms around him to make himself as small as possible. He could hear footsteps in the living room. They stopped and then came a sigh. It had to be Suzy. Now she was dialing the phone and a moment later she said, “Operator, I would like to place a long-distance call please, to Berkeley.” She rattled off a series of numbers that Philip did his best to copy down on his notepad without making a sound.
A pause, then Suzy spoke: “Maman, when is that successor trustee form due back?” Silence as the other party spoke and then Suzy again. “Je suis désolé, Maman, but I’ve misplaced it. I know it was here on the desk this morning, mais maintenant je ne peux pas le trouver. It just disappeared.”
Philip did not need to speak French to understand what was going on, and he felt his face redden. He had the damned letter in his pocket, and it was pretty clear by the conversation that it was not a coded message. Suzy had no need to prevaricate—she naturally assumed she was alone in her cottage. They continued to speak in a mixture of French and English for a few more minutes, and it became apparent to him that her mother would send Suzy another copy. Finally, they hung up, and then footsteps came toward the bedroom, approaching the closet. Philip’s heart raced; he did not want to be found out like this. He could see Suzy’s hand reaching toward a lightweight jacket that was partly obscuring him and then the phone started ringing.
“What now?” she said to herself, moving off to answer the call. “Hello.” A pause, then, “Oh, Maman, there’s no hurry.”
He let out a sigh of relief and once again the two spoke for a few moments, but this time when she hung up, Suzy went out the front door. He could hear the car door open and close and then the ignition and the crunch of tires as she left. Another slip up on his part. He’d been too immersed in thought to hear those same noises when she’d arrived. Idiot.
He waited, still hidden in the closet, for another minute, and then carefully checked to see that Suzy really was gone. What to do with the trustee affidavit? He placed it under the writing table as if it might have fallen and been overlooked.
He left the cottage at 11:32, going out by the same rear window he’d entered, careful that everything inside was just as he had found it.
Despite the authenticity of the letter, still the notebook in his breast pocket seemed to burn with its copied lists of numbers; the button in his pocket felt like a lead weight.
Yes, she might be fond of me, he told himself. But that did not preclude the fact that Suzy might also be a spy. And a killer.
He drove back into San Ignacio and took up watch at the intersection of San Carlos and Fairweather, three blocks from the Grummond Building. He had a good view of Suzy’s 1935 Chevrolet parked near her office building. If she left, he’d easily be able to follow.
He sat there throughout the afternoon, periodically getting out of the car to stretch his legs but keeping the office building in view.
There was no further traffic in or out of the building until 6:30 when Suzy herself emerged, wearing, as he had earlier guessed, a raincoat. She got into her Chevrolet and headed south along Fairweather.
Philip followed in his Hudson, hanging well back so that she would not spot him in her rearview mirror. She turned left on Montclair and headed for Highway 1 south. He tailed her all the way to the turnoff to her cottage, found a turnout a few hundred yards down the road, parked and waited. It was dark by the time he finally decided to call it a day. He would give her a friendly call when he got back home just to check. But it seemed she was in for the night.
As he drove back to San Ignacio, he went over what he’d learned today.
Damned little, except for the strange list of times and numbers. She has no radio transmitter. She spends most or all of her days at her answering service. It seemed she has little time to be doing any sort of consistent observation of activities at Fort Ord. Was she working with someone else, then? Sam Norton had gone in and out of the building today. Of course he could be one of Suzy’s customers picking up his messages or he could even have his own client in the Grummond Building. He would tackle her office later, but thought it unlikely she would keep any incriminating evidence in such a public place.
On the face of it then, not much to go on. But he needed to figure out the list of numbers.
Once at his parents’ home, he placed a call to Suzy. She answered on the second ring and was happy to hear his voice. He made it quick, though, afraid she would hear the suspicion in his voice. He let her know that he’d been busy with his work all day.
“Still scouting the coastal watch stations?” Elizabeth said in a teasing manner after he’d hung up.
He smiled despite himself. “Something like that.”
Elizabeth had kept some dinner warm, and when he finished, he joined them in the living room.
“How about some cards?” Max finally said.
Philip hated card games—never able to count the cards or remember who had played what suit—so he let his parents play two-handed rummy for about five minutes.
Finally, he’d had enough. He needed some help here. He felt confused and dispirited. “You guys mind if I sort of go over things with you?”
Max looked up from his cards in surprise. “Well praise the lord and pass the butter. He’s asking for our help, Lizzy. Miracles do happen.”
“Very funny, Dad. But, yes, I do need some help. I feel torn up inside.”
“About Suzy?” Elizabeth said.
He nodded, pulling out his notebook and turning to the pages of times and numbers he’d copied from Suzy’s diary.
“I found these today.”
“Found?” Max said. “As in copied down from the original?”
Another nod.
“And the original was in Suzy’s house, I imagine,” Elizabeth said. “You broke in and looked at her personal things?”
“I’m working on orders, Mom. I felt awful about it. Captain Ellison ordered the search, and if not me, then somebody else would have been detailed. Can you help me with these?”
Elizabeth looked away in disgust, but Max focused on the numbers.
“Well, times of the day,” he said. “That much is clear. Looks like there’s a progression to the times, too. But the numbers that go with the times. I don’t get those. Could they be numberings for troops, brigades?”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Philip said. “Keep turning the pages. There are several more dates with similar lists.”
“Let me have a look,” Elizabeth finally said, shelving her disgust.
“There’s a different date with each of these lists, right?” she said.
“Right,” Philip said.
She handed the notebook back to Philip. “Helpful if you like to go clamming.”
“Oh, yes.” Max nodded. “Now I see.”
“See what?” Philip said. “What are you guys talking about?”
“They’re tide charts,” Elizabeth explained. “Low and high tide? You go clamming at low tide. Suzy loves to go clamming. She’s supplied us with sacks of Washington and butter clams. Your so-called troop numbers are measurements of the tidal line.”
“Very good,” he said, looking relieved. “You saved me from being an idiot. I was about to send these off to my Captain.”
“So now do you believe me?” Elizabeth said. “Suzy is no spy.”
He pulled the button out of his pocket. “I wish I could agree with you. But this says otherwise.”
He explained how he had found the blue carcoat in her closet, how the buttons exactly matched and that the spare button from the inside hem was missing.
His mother seemed to be struck dumb by this information.
“So, I assume you were also following her movements today,” Max said.
“Yes. She was at the answering service until six-thirty.”
“Never left?”
“No. But I know sometimes she forgets her lunch and needs to go out. Or has an errand to run, like the other day getting her new typewriter.”
“So if you hadn’t found the coat at Suzy’s home,” Max said, “were you prepared to break into the office when she was gone and see if it was there?”
“Yes.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened in shock. “My lord, Philip. Without a warrant even?”
Max ignored this. “That’s a possibility then. Maybe somebody else did what you might have done.”
“What? Break into the office and take a button off her coat? You think someone planted the button on the beach?”
“Stranger things have happened,” Max said.