The Enemy at Home

Nora was in the basement, washing Jane’s baby-blue cardigan.

She’d last seen Jane, up in her bedroom, packing for her class trip to Orcas Island tomorrow. Nora was looking forward to a brief break from her daughter’s incessant talk about the murders. Not that she blamed Jane for fixating on the strangulations. It was scary for a young and vulnerable girl—especially with the most recent slaying happening right in her neighborhood, and the victim in the previous murder having been her mother’s friend and a dinner guest in this very house. Small wonder she was slightly traumatized.

An overnight field trip was probably the best thing for Jane right now. She’d gone to bed last night with her father’s hammer under her pillow. And she’d given Nora her whistle. “I think you should have this in your purse for the walk to the bus stop tomorrow,” Jane had told her. “It’s still awfully dark when you leave in the morning, Mom. If somebody tries to attack you, the whistle’s loud as all get out, and it’ll scare them away. Practically everyone within a block will hear it . . .”

Nora had been touched that her typically self-centered teenage daughter was actually concerned about her. And it wasn’t just Jane. Chris had left his Swiss Army knife and a note on the kitchen table this morning:

Dear Mom,

Wake me up so I can walk you to the bus stop! If you decide not to, I’d feel better if you carried this with you tomorrow to & from work. Just to be on the safe side. Be careful with the blade. I sharpened it for you.

As Nora had slipped the note and the knife inside her purse this morning, she asked herself: Would a killer do this?

Everything she felt in her gut clashed with the overwhelming circumstantial evidence. Nora knew her son, and even at his worst, she couldn’t imagine him intentionally hurting anyone. Then again, she’d seen him attack Earl. But hell, that kid deserved to have his nose broken.

She was so stymied about what to do. Confronting Chris again didn’t seem like an option—not unless she was absolutely sure of his guilt. In the meantime, what if another female war worker was murdered? It would be on her conscience. How soon before the police started to suspect him? Chris was seventeen years old. Maybe they’d try him as an adult and give him the electric chair. Or did they hang convicted killers in Washington State? She didn’t know.

At work today, everyone seemed to be talking about the murders. A few of the women called the killer “The Rosie Ripper,” which really didn’t make much sense to Nora, since he was strangling his victims, not slashing them to pieces. Besides that, one victim had been a bucker and another a welder.

Nora wasn’t the only one concealing weapons in her purse. Fran had said that other women were arming themselves with sharp-tipped nail files, knitting needles and scissors. Some of them were pairing up for the trip home this afternoon. Even though the strangler had obviously planned to kill two women in his last attack, the women at the plant seemed to feel there was still safety in numbers. “One good thing to come out of this,” Fran had told her at lunch. “Marty stayed home last night for a change. He’s worried about me . . .”

Earlier, during her break, Nora had spotted Richard, Wendell and the others at their usual table. They hadn’t seemed to notice her, and she’d kept her distance. She wondered if the police had come to the plant and spoken to each of them individually—as Richard had said they would. Had any of them told the police about her keen interest in the case? Would Phil end up informing his fellow police officers about her incessant questions? Phil and Richard had asked her not to repeat anything they’d told her. But she hadn’t asked them for the same kind of discretion. For all Nora knew, she may have already inadvertently alerted the police about her connection to the killings. By now, the cops might even have Chris’s name and description on file. After all, they’d questioned him about the break-in at the Boeing worker’s apartment near his school.

The very thought of it made Nora’s stomach lurch.

“Hey, Mom!” Chris yelled from the top of the basement stairs.

“Yes?” she called back, hovering over the sink.

“I’m going to the store now!” he shouted. “Is it okay if I pick up a carton of Coke, too? We’re running low, and it’s not on your list. It’s only two bits!”

“That’s fine! Don’t forget the ration book!”

“Got it! See you in about an hour!”

She heard the floorboards creaking above, and then the back door slammed.

When Nora had returned from work, she hadn’t been able to relax until Chris had come home. She had to know where he was at all times now. At three thirty, she’d finally heard him outside talking to Joe. When he’d stepped inside, she’d thanked him for the Swiss Army knife and asked him to make the store run sometime before dinner.

A few minutes later, while upstairs, Nora had spotted Chris and Joe from the hallway window. They’d been in the backyard, tossing around the football—obviously not Chris’s idea—but they’d seemed to be getting along well.

“That’s a great spin you’ve got on the ball,” she’d overheard Joe call to him. “I don’t know why you said you stink at this. You’re good . . .”

Nora had retreated to her bedroom for a nap. Curling up on the bed, she’d fallen asleep thinking what a far cry Joe’s encouragement was from Earl’s constant goading and criticism. If she’d been uncomfortable seeing Joe and Chris so chummy yesterday afternoon, her feelings had changed. More than anything, right now, her son needed a friend, someone who made him feel normal.

Nora had slept for ninety minutes and then taken a shower. She’d actually felt refreshed when she’d gone down to the basement to handwash Jane’s cardigan.

She made a mental note to lend Joe that photo he’d been asking about, the one of Jane and Ray at the picnic a few years ago. She would bring it to him sometime before dinner. And she’d use the opportunity to ask him—as long as he was up late at night—to keep a lookout for Chris. She had already admitted to Joe that her son sometimes snuck out at night. She wouldn’t be asking him to spy on Chris. But she’d sleep easier knowing that someone might be awake to keep tabs on him—and maybe even stop him from going out.

As she hung Jane’s sweater on the line with clothespins, Nora glanced over at the trap door to the big octopus furnace. She wondered, once again, if Chris had burned Connie’s scarf in an impulsive fit of anger, or if it had been something more calculated. She reminded herself that he’d destroyed his grandmother’s handkerchief and Arlene’s barrette as well.

In fact, he’d become especially angry and defensive when she’d shown him Arlene’s barrette. Of course, Arlene’s death had hit him hard. He’d been so close to the girl and had feelings for her. Nora wondered—once again—if Chris had had anything to do with her “suicide.”

But Arlene’s death was nothing like the recent strangulations. Or was it?

Nora had been so worried about Chris at the time that she’d paid no attention to the details. Apparently, the girl had snuck down to her father’s study late at night, taken a gun out of his desk and shot herself in the head. Now Nora couldn’t help wondering: When they’d found Arlene’s body, how had she been dressed? Had her face been made up in any unusual way? Had any articles of clothing been found hanging on the Drummonds’ front door?

Nora remembered reading about Arlene’s death in The Seattle Star. But she hadn’t been looking for clues back then.

Nora wished she could get her hands on that newspaper again.

Taking off her apron, she hurried up the basement stairs—and then up to the second floor. She poked her head into Jane’s room, where she found her daughter still fussing over a half-packed small brown suitcase on her bed.

“Listen, honey,” Nora said, a bit out of breath. “I need to step out and run an errand. Chris should be back in about forty-five minutes. I may be gone for a while. But I think Joe’s next door. Will you be okay by yourself?”

“I guess,” Jane said, holding a hanger with a blouse on it. “Did you wash my blue sweater?”

Nora nodded. “It’s drying on the line right now. If I’m not back by dinnertime, and you get hungry, in the refrigerator there’s some—”

“I’ll make that Chef Boyardee spaghetti dinner in a box!” Jane interrupted. It was some new, low-ration-points, easy-fix dinner kit Jane had made Nora buy a week ago. Her daughter had been dying to try it. “We’ll save you some . . .”

“Terrific,” Nora said. “Chris is buying some Coke. Tell him I said it’s okay that you each have one—only one.”

Nora ran downstairs and fetched her coat and purse. As she was about to head out the door, she heard Jane call to her from upstairs: “Don’t forget your whistle!”

“I’ve got it! Thanks, sweetie!” Nora called back.

It was a clear, lovely evening—and a twenty-five-minute walk to downtown Seattle. Some of the government and utility buildings were still surrounded by sandbags—in preparation for a possible aerial attack. Nora passed through Victory Square at Fourth and University, where rallies, bond drives and memorial services were held. The speakers’ stand was shaped like Jefferson’s home in Monticello. There wasn’t an event going on now, but the square was crowded with people getting off work, servicemen and servicewomen, and tourists. At the other end of the square was a seventy-five-foot replica of the Washington Monument with the names of the local war dead inscribed on its sides.

Nora continued down Fourth to the central branch of the Seattle Public Library. The old, neoclassical building took up nearly the entire block, and inside, featured tiled floors, polished mahogany tables and woodwork, and big, arched windows. Nora walked up to the periodical section on the second floor. For access to newspapers before April, Nora had to fill out a request form and give it to the stocky, middle-aged librarian. The cheerful woman looked like she would have made a good bucker. She moved fast and carried around huge volumes of bound newspapers with what appeared to be no effort at all.

On her way to the library, Nora had figured out exactly when in October Arlene had died. Halloween had been on a Saturday last year, and Arlene had killed herself in the early hours of Sunday morning the previous weekend. The story had been in that Monday’s Seattle Star.

Nora requested Seattle Star and Seattle Times editions for October 26, 1942. She figured if one newspaper missed a detail, the other might catch it.

Those editions from last year were already bound. Nora got only one book at a time, which was just as well, because The Seattle Times editions for the last half of October were in a huge lime-green volume that weighed about ten pounds. She lugged the book over to one of the long, mahogany reading tables and flipped through it until she found Monday, October 26th. The story was on page three, with the headline:

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT DIES IN APPARENT SUICIDE

There was a photo of Arlene, and it looked as if she was wearing the same barrette Chris had tossed into the furnace. Then again, it was a slightly blurry black-and-white photo, and the rosebuds on the hair clip could have been a different color than the one Chris had destroyed. Still, it was jarring.

The article mentioned that Arlene was dressed in her nightgown when her parents had discovered her in the middle of the night on the floor of her father’s study, his gun nearby. She’d been shot once in the head. While Arlene’s parents insisted it must have been an accident, the Times reported that “police on the scene indicated that the gunshot wound appeared to be self-inflicted.” The newspaper didn’t mention any sign of foul play. Nora figured that the Drummonds would have made doubly sure investigators ruled out the possibility of a homicide—anything to avoid accepting that their daughter had killed herself.

Another thing Nora considered: if Arlene had been expecting company that night—say, Chris—she would have at least put on a robe over her nightgown.

Then there was the barrette. Chris had burned it along with his grandmother’s handkerchief and Connie’s bandana. And just an hour later, he’d admitted that he regretted doing that. He’d been angry and upset. There had been nothing calculated about it. The barrette hadn’t been evidence of anything—except a close friendship with a disturbed girl.

There was nothing really incriminating about Chris having Arlene’s barrette. It wasn’t a souvenir of a killing. Could the same be said about the pink and black polka dot bandana? Was it possible Chris had been completely honest with her about how he’d ended up with Connie’s scarf—and where he’d gone the night she’d been murdered?

Then again, maybe she was grasping at straws, trying to convince herself of Chris’s innocence.

Nora returned the bound Seattle Times to the periodicals desk and picked up the bound editions of The Seattle Star.

The article in the Star didn’t offer any new insights into Arlene’s suicide. There wasn’t even a photo of her. But the news story seemed to confirm for Nora that Arlene’s death was indeed a suicide.

She returned the second bound volume to the cheery woman at the counter and thanked her. Glancing toward the large, arched windows, Nora noticed it was growing dark outside. Her feet hurt after a day at work and the long walk downtown. As she ducked into the restroom, Nora decided she’d catch a bus home.

She was washing the newspaper grime off her hands, when, in the mirror, she noticed a handprinted sign on one of the toilet stalls in back of her. She turned to read it: OUT OF ORDER—SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.

Nora dried her hands on the towel roller and looked at the sign again. Then something dawned on her.

How could you be so stupid? How could you forget something like that?

Chris and Jane weren’t the only ones who could have gone through her dresser and taken her nylons and the lipstick.

The powder room toilet hadn’t been flushing on the night of her dinner party. At different times during the evening, each of her guests had gone upstairs to use the bathroom. Any one of them could have rummaged through her dresser drawers. The coats had been tossed on her bed, too. It would have been simple to smuggle the stockings and lipstick out of the house unnoticed.

Her mind reeling, Nora wandered out of the restroom and then down the stairs and outside. She started walking at a more determined pace as she headed to the bus stop a block from Victory Square. All the while, she considered who had had the opportunity to make off with her stockings and lipstick on the night of the party. Could the police be right about Roger? He’d been in her bedroom that night. And he was still the only suspect in Connie’s murder. Maybe Phil didn’t know everything his police investigator friends had uncovered about the case. Maybe, like her, he’d automatically assumed that Roger was innocent because he’d been Connie’s friend. But who knew what Roger and Connie’s relationship had really been like? Some friendships could be as volatile and destructive as love affairs and marriages.

Nora was so focused on suspects from her dinner party that she almost missed the bus to Broadway. With busses coming up to the stop every minute or two, she didn’t notice the Number 7 until it was almost ready to pull away. Running to the door, Nora climbed aboard, paid her fare and quickly grabbed a seat.

She thought about the dinner party again and wondered about Fran’s son, Marty. No doubt, the poor guy was troubled. And according to Fran, he went out practically every night— God knew where—and sometimes didn’t come back until morning. Marty might have come across as sweet and sad, but Nora didn’t really know how his war wounds had affected his mental health.

But she knew her son. And Chris was not a murderer.

The bus came to an abrupt stop, distracting Nora for a few moments. An old lady left by the back door. As the bus started moving again, Nora became aware of a woman’s voice, which sounded oddly familiar.

“I just adore your purse!” the seated passenger was saying to another woman, standing in the aisle. They were about two seats in front of Nora. The woman with the purse, which Nora couldn’t see, nodded politely at the woman on the aisle seat.

“It’s real elegant,” the seated woman went on. Nora couldn’t see what she looked like. “I love elegant things. Do you mind if I ask where you got it? I could use an elegant handbag . . .”

Nora not only recognized the voice. She recognized the maroon hair.

She got to her feet and leaned to one side so she might get a look at Joe’s wife’s face. “Veronica?” she called.

But the woman didn’t turn around. Nor did she seem to hear her.

“Veronica?” Nora repeated. “Mrs. Strauss?”

The woman with the elegant purse—and a few other passengers—looked at her. But the maroon-haired woman didn’t turn her head.

Nora thought it was strange that Joe hadn’t said anything about his wife coming back to town. In fact, just last night he’d said she would be gone another week.

Nora moved up the aisle until she was beside Joe’s wife. “Veronica?” she asked, leaning toward her.

The woman looked up as if baffled. She glanced at the lady seated next to her—and then back at Nora. “Are you talking to me?”

It was the same woman, Nora was sure. She narrowed her eyes at her. “Don’t you know who I am? I’m your new landlady. . .”

Once again, the woman looked at her as if she were crazy. But then a flicker of recognition rearranged her blank stare. She shifted in her seat and quickly shook her head. “I . . . I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.” She looked out the window and then got to her feet. “Do you mind? I’d like to get off. This is my stop.”

“You aren’t married to Joe, are you?” Nora asked. “Do you even know him?”

The bus slowed to a stop. Almost knocking her aside, the woman brushed past Nora and made her way to the back door. It opened, and she hurried off the bus.

Undeterred, Nora followed her. It was still about a mile until her stop, but that didn’t matter right now.

The woman was rushing down the sidewalk to get away from her.

“Miss?” Nora called. “Wait up! I just want to talk to you!”

Joe’s “wife” glanced over her shoulder and hesitated.

Nora hurried to catch up to her.

The woman stopped. “Oh, what the hell,” she said—almost to herself. “I don’t know why I’m trying to cover for the son of a bitch, I never heard from him again.” She heaved a sigh. “So . . . you’ve got me. What do you want?”

“Your name isn’t Veronica, and you’re not married to Joe Strauss,” Nora said.

The woman shook her head.

“And you don’t even know him,” Nora continued.

“He started talking to me outside a drugstore on Broadway on Saturday,” she explained. “I thought he was trying to pick me up. I looked at him and figured I could do a lot worse. He told me he’d give me twenty bucks and take me out for a steak dinner if I was a good sport and pretended to be his wife for a half hour.”

“And you went along with it?”

She nodded. “Yeah, he gave me the money up front. Then we drove together to see you and the apartment. But he never called me, the rat. If you ever see him again, tell that jerk he still owes me a dinner. On second thought, tell him to go to hell.” She started to walk away.

“Wait a minute . . .”

She stopped and frowned at Nora again.

“You never got his name?” Nora asked.

“Joe, like you said earlier. I didn’t get a last name. Did you say it was Strauss?”

Nora nodded.

“Yeah, well, it’s more like Louse.”

“Did he say why he wanted you to pretend to be his wife?”

The woman rolled her eyes. “He gave me some song and dance about being a cop on an undercover assignment, but he never showed me a badge or anything. Did you end up renting that apartment to him? Because if you did, I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. Hell, I can’t believe I gave the so-and-so my number. You tell him for me, I wouldn’t go out to dinner with him now even if he begged me. Lots of luck, honey.” She swiveled around and headed down the sidewalk.

Stunned, Nora watched Joe’s “wife” walk away.