Justine’s ankle twisted under her as she hopped off the streetcar, but she was light enough on her feet to stay upright, and her young ankle was limber enough to bend without breaking. These were good things, because her arms were too loaded with books to break her fall if she went down. Torn apart inside by Gloria’s mental state and shaken by the thought that her parents might have been murdered, Justine had fallen back on the bedrock belief of her family: books hold answers.
She’d never had official library privileges at Tulane. Now that her father was dead and Gloria was apparently unemployed, she couldn’t even ride on the coattails of their library privileges, not officially. However, as long as Miss Hopkinton held court on weekends behind the circulation desk, Justine would have shadow privileges. From the time Justine was in elementary school, Miss Hopkinton had used her own personal library card to let her check out materials. As far back as Justine could remember, Miss Hopkinton had been the fount of all knowledge.
Miss Hopkinton knew Justine, she knew Justine’s parents, and she knew Gloria. She could imagine no world in which Justine did not return the books on time and in an unchanged condition. Librarians are not natural rule-breakers, but Miss Hopkinton had broken them for Justine.
On this most disturbing day, all Justine had needed to say was, “I’m looking for books on carbon chemistry,” and Miss Hopkinton had pointed her to the exact row and shelves where organic chemistry books were kept. She’d also wished for a book on how to heal a wounded mind, but it was too risky to ask for it. Miss Hopkinton knew Gloria, and she might suspect why Justine wanted such a book. It would be a terrible betrayal to reveal Gloria’s illness to her.
But was Gloria ill? Justine had seen her crushingly sad, but she was inclined to think that a person with Gloria’s history would be unbalanced if she weren’t sometimes sad. She had seemed completely in control of her faculties as she applied logic to the mysteries of the Carbon Division. Justine decided to leave open the question of whether someone was listening at Gloria’s windows and bugging her house and depositing unexplained cash into her bank account. Perhaps they really were doing that. It was far more likely, though, that Gloria had been so emotionally crushed by the loss of all three Byrnes that she wasn’t thinking clearly, and Justine bore part of the blame for that.
To unlock the secrets of how to help Gloria, she would need to go to another library, perhaps at a medical school, and it would take her some time to figure out how to wangle her way into one of those. In the meantime, she supposed her godmother was safe at home.
Even if she did find another Miss Hopkinton willing to let her plunder through a medical library where she had no privileges, and even if she found a miraculous book there that solved Gloria’s problems, Justine knew in her heart that there was no book anywhere titled, Why Would Anybody Kill My Parents, And If Not, Why Would Gloria Think Somebody Did? It would take time and courage to face that question, and Justine didn’t have enough of either to spare.
Fortunately, the library had held the books she came for. Justine now trudged down Julia Street with two book bags looped over each arm, hoping that they held answers. The hard part was going to be surviving the last few blocks to The Julia while serving as a book camel.
Justine was strong, so she and her books made it up The Julia’s front steps, through the front door, and into the front parlor where Georgette sat. Her new friend was surrounded by young women playing records and practicing their dance steps. She sat at an old walnut dining table, hunched over a pad of paper as she worked through the algebra exercises Justine had given her.
At her first sight of Justine, Georgette jumped up. “Whoa, Nelly! You think maybe you got enough books there? Let me carry some of them things upstairs for you.”
As soon as they were through the door to Justine’s room, Georgette whispered, “I gotta tell you something, but I didn’t want the girls downstairs to hear.”
“Tell me now. Don’t keep me waiting!”
“You know Shirley? The blond-haired machinist who works the night shift?”
Justine wasn’t sure. “Does she live on the first floor, down the hall from you?”
“That’s the one. You just walked past her in the lobby, showing her roommate how to do a double arm slide. Well, Shirley came home from work this morning with some news that made my jaw drop open. She was telling everybody that would listen.” She lowered her voice even further. “You know all those whatsits we been making?”
“You know I do.”
“Well, somebody—I guess it was the government—sent an airplane to pick ’em up this morning. Them gadgets didn’t leave the Michaud plant on a truck or a barge or a train, no. They went on a plane, and there wasn’t nothing on that plane but Carbon Division products.”
Justine tried to make this make sense. “An airplane? Our little black-and-shiny gadgets just don’t seem worth that kind of expense. Somebody wants them right away and damn the cost.”
Georgette shrugged. “That’s what it sounds like to me. And there’s gotta be important stuff going on, ’cause Shirley told me that when Mr. Higgins hisself comes to speak to the whole plant next Sunday about poor Cora Becker and them other people that got hurt, he’s gonna give another special speech just for the Carbon Division. There’s gotta be a reason why we’re getting so much attention. And an airplane.”
“Shirley must know somebody in shipping. How else would she know that nothing else went on that plane unless somebody told her? Does she know where the plane went?”
Georgette shook her head. “Nope. Flew in. Landed right behind the plant. The folks on it got off the plane and drove a truck up to our loading dock. They went inside that walled-up assembly center—you know, where the machinists take their carbon parts and they get joined up with our steel parts—and they hauled out a buncha crates of boxed-up finished goods. Everything we got made so far, I’m thinking. They loaded them crates on the truck, and the truck drove out to the landing strip where them same folks loaded the crates on the plane. Then they got on it and took off as quick as all the loading was done. That’s all I know.”
“So we’re assembling something that the government thinks is worth significant time, money, and trouble. And somebody’s been using a simple little rasp to hack on a few lateral guides, trying to slow us down. You know what I think?”
Georgette said, “You know I don’t. I don’t even know what to do with an x when there’s some parentheses and a plus sign behind it.”
“I think our saboteur is going to have to try harder to stop us Carbonites from building something that the government wants really bad. And that scares me.”
***
As Justine piled the library books on her table, carefully stacking the volumes on carbon science in one pile and the ones on industrial uses of carbon in another, Georgette was reading their titles out loud.
“Electrochemistry of Organic Compounds. Brought home a little light reading, did ya?”
“Oh, there’s nothing light about them,” Justine said, rubbing at the red marks that the book bags had left on her arms.
“The Manufacture of Chemicals by Electro…lye…something. What’s that word?” Georgette tapped her nail on the lettering stamped on the book’s spine.
“Elec-TRAH-luh-sis. Electrolysis. That’s when you pass electricity through a substance to get a chemical change.”
“Okay. Yeah. Whatever you say. Please don’t even try to explain this one—The Cata…lye…tic…”
“CAT-uh-LIT-ick.”
“You could get on a girl’s nerves. You know that? But okay, let’s say it that way. Just because you say so. Here goes—The Catalytic Oxidation of Organic Chemicals in the Vapor Phase. I said all the other words right, I bet.”
“You did.”
“You went to see your marraine this morning, didn’t ya? I thought you went to ask her about the carbon parts we’re making. Only one of these books says ‘carbon.’”
“Organic chemistry is all about carbon. All organic chemicals have carbon in them. And hydrogen.”
“Well, then why don’t they say so?”
Justine couldn’t say.
“What did your marraine think? Did she have any idea ’bout what we’re making?”
Justine felt around inside her head for a way to answer this without having to say her fears for Gloria’s mental state out loud.
“She had some ideas about what we’re not making. To begin with, she doesn’t think we’re making radio parts. She thought that components for RADAR installations would make more sense, but the machined carbon parts seem wrong.”
“But she didn’t have any ideas about what those carbon thingies are?”
Justine shook her head. “She gave me some ideas about where to look, but that’s all she’s going to be able to do. She’s not…she’s not well.”
She looked up at Georgette, who towered a full head taller than she did. Sympathy was written on her friend’s face, and Justine was so close to letting it all spill out. It would have been so easy to tell her about taking a trip into her past just by walking down a few streets lined with family homes. It would have been a relief to say, I’m so afraid for Gloria. I’m afraid she’s losing her mind, but saying it would make it real.
Instead, she faked a bright smile and said, “I’m sure Gloria will be fine. She just needs to rest, so I’m not going to bother her. I’m going to read these books and figure out how to solve my own problems. But first, I’m going to open a can of beans for my dinner. Care to join me?”
“I got some rice and the last of them grapes. And some pecans. Papa came to visit me this afternoon and he brought me some.”
Justine felt selfish. She’d been so upset over Gloria that she’d never even asked Georgette what she’d done with her day off.
“Did you and your papa have a good time?”
“Oh, yeah. We always do the same thing. He just loves to walk to the cathedral and rest in that pretty garden out back. You know, where the statue of Jesus is. After that, we always go inside and light candles to keep my brothers safe. I save my pocket change for that, because he don’t need to put all his money in the donation box after he bought a bus ticket to get here.”
Justine wondered what she’d do with her parents if she could have them back for an afternoon.
“We always leave smiling. The cathedral’s so pretty inside, so quiet and cool, and the light coming through the colored windows ain’t like any other light I ever saw. You been there?”
Justine nodded and said, “Yes. It’s a holy place.” Saint Louis Cathedral seemed to hold the souls of every last person who had ever said a heartfelt prayer there.
There was something about the expression on Georgette’s face that made Justine ask, “Is something wrong at home? Your brother—the one that’s wounded—is he okay?”
“Robbie? Papa says he’s doing good. Up on his feet and perky enough to take care of the chickens. It’s the other four that worry me.”
“Are they still writing letters home? All of them?”
“Yeah. Sometimes. They just ain’t saying much. Papa says that their letters all changed, all at the same time. Now they’re just, ‘Hey, how are you? Not much to report here.’ They may not still be in the South Pacific or even still on ships. I worry.”
With the good news coming in from Europe, Justine knew—and she knew that Georgette knew—that things would have to heat up in the Pacific Theater before the war was over for good. “I’m glad they’re still writing,” she said, “even if they don’t say much.”
She turned to put the library books on her shelf, lining their spines up precisely with the front edge of the shelf, because this allowed for air circulation behind them and because she liked the way neat bookshelves looked. The well-worn volumes smelled like dust. When Justine placed her hands on them, they felt like prayers for her parents and for Georgette’s brothers. And for Gloria.
“Okay,” she said in a tone that sounded brighter than she felt. “We’ll have beans and rice, then we’ll finish those grapes before they spoil. The pecans will keep, though, so hold on to those. I’ll see if I can get a block of cheese to go with them. In the meantime, take a look at this.”
She picked up her purse and pulled out the gifts that Gloria had slipped into it while Justine had been self-importantly sloshing coffee between their cups. Justine had only discovered them when she was on the streetcar, too far down the road to take them back.
Ever the scientist, Gloria had calculated how much she could hide in the purse without increasing its weight enough to make Justine suspicious, and she’d gathered her gifts in the time it had taken two scrambled eggs to set. Justine pulled each small and nearly weightless treat out, one at a time, and listened to Georgette squeal.
Six tea bags.
An envelope full of sugar, sealed and taped shut.
A tiny bag of coffee, also taped shut.
A pocket-sized box of raisins.
A pack of chewing gum.
The pack of gum was still sealed, but Justine was sure that she could smell the spearmint. Her mouth watered at the thought.
“Holy cow,” Georgette whispered. “I’m gonna need some help with them algebra problems, so we might be up late again. Do you think—” She swallowed, and Justine thought Georgette’s mouth was probably watering, too. “D’you think we could make a cup of coffee and split it? Just to keep us awake while you explain to me what it means when there’s a x outside a set of parentheses that’s got a math problem inside it?”
“I do think so,” Justine said. “And we’re going to put a little sugar in it, too.”
***
Justine lay in her hard, narrow bed beneath her acid-green chenille bedspread. She couldn’t sleep, and it wasn’t the coffee’s fault. It had been weak, and hours had passed since she drank it.
She closed her eyes, and it was as if a movie were playing on the inside of her eyelids. Planes were landing behind the Michaud plant, one after another, and people were hustling to load them full of…something. Inside the plant, she, Georgette, and thousands of other people were working feverishly to make more of whatever it was.
Sonny, the plant manager, and everybody up to Andrew Higgins could tell her that she and her friends were making “radio parts,” but they couldn’t make her believe it. That special plane told Justine that she was working on something secret and important. It was so important that the powers that be couldn’t make themselves let the people doing the work know what was going on.
And one of the people inside the Carbon Division was a betrayer. She prayed it was only one of them.
The mysterious plane was proof that the saboteur hadn’t slowed production appreciably. It would take something far more destructive than a few small, broken parts to keep more planes from filling with cargo that must be quite precious. The sabotage would be ramping up any minute now. Maybe it already had.
By Justine’s guess, the saboteur had been testing the waters, preparing for a strike that might wash away everything that she and her colleagues were trying to do. It might wash them all away, too. In their own way, they were soldiers in the most brutal war the world had ever seen. This thought made Justine wonder how many people had been killed because of the work she did for Higgins. How many more deaths would be on her hands before the war dragged to a close? Did she even want to keep doing this job?
Now her eyes were open and she wouldn’t be sleeping soon. Justine loved a good metaphor, but she should never have indulged in the notion of a saboteur testing the waters that might wash away a throng of innocent people. The image put her in mind of tires spinning, powerless to stop their skid as a much-loved driver tried to keep his car on a wet country road.
Maybe Gloria had been wrong about what had happened to her parents. Her thoughts were obviously muddled these days. But what if she’d been right? What if her parents’ deaths were no accident?
Justine knew the answer to this question. If someone had murdered her mother and father, then she had no choice. She would hunt down the culprit and get justice for her parents.
Gerard and Isabel Byrne hadn’t been soldiers or commanders. They hadn’t been factory workers like Justine, manufacturing weapons to win a war. They hadn’t been politicians with the power to make decisions that saved or ended lives. They had been scholars.
They had traded in one thing. Knowledge. If they had been killed by an enemy, it could only have been for what they knew. Her heart froze inside her when she realized that Gloria probably still knew it.
Justine was scared that she might know this deadly thing, too.