The Enemy at Home

Only a mile or so from her regular stop, Nora wasn’t about to wait for another bus. She started for home on foot.

It was dark, and the streetlamps were on—at least until the blackout. She and Joe’s fake wife had stepped off the bus at the edge of the downtown business district. From the stop on Pine Street, Nora headed north along Bellevue Avenue, past small shops and businesses, many of them with the star flag in the windows indicating a family member in the service. Most of them were closed for the night.

Nora barely noticed. She was too dazed and shaken over the revelation about Joe. She’d just started to let down her guard with him, and her children had already come to like him. Was he really a cop, working undercover? Had he moved in over the garage so that he could watch Chris?

And to think, she’d planned on asking Joe to keep an eye on Chris and make sure he didn’t sneak out at night.

Maybe she’d been right with her earlier hunch. Maybe the police had been keeping tabs on Chris since he’d been questioned about the apartment break-in near his high school. And anyone could have spotted Chris following Connie around—right up until the night she’d been murdered. Perhaps the police had somehow figured out who had bought the stockings used to strangle two of the victims.

Yet Nora was almost certain she’d paid for the stockings and her lipstick in cash.

The neighborhood around her became increasingly residential. She passed apartment buildings and houses—with more star flags in the windows. But she encountered fewer and fewer people. Most everyone was already inside, settling down for the night. A gentle breeze rustled the branches and leaves of the trees, casting shadows around Nora as she walked. She was glad to have the whistle and the Swiss Army knife in her purse.

Her mind went back to Joe again. If he was a cop working undercover, then the police must have started suspecting Chris shortly after Connie’s murder. Joe had come to her door the day before Gloria Dunbar had been killed.

Strange, Joe had taken up residence in their garage apartment the same day Gloria had been murdered in her garage apartment several blocks away. Joe had taken off for a couple of hours that day. In fact, Joe had been gone around the time Gloria was strangled.

Somewhere behind her, Nora heard a shuffling noise. Glancing over her shoulder, she didn’t notice anyone following her. The sidewalk and street were empty of people. She spotted a car in the distance—with blue cellophane over the headlights for the blackout—but then the vehicle turned up a side street. Nora stopped and dug Jane’s whistle out of her purse. Clutching it in her fist, she moved on, picking up her pace. She had only a few more blocks to go until she reached the house.

She reminded herself that all of the “Rosies” were murdered in their homes. He’s not going to get you here.

But she was different from the others. This killer seemed to know her. He’d taken her nylons and lipstick. She still held on to the possibility that someone from the dinner party had made off with them. Or could Joe—if that was even his name—have broken in before he showed up inquiring about the apartment and stolen those items from her dresser? Their house was off the beaten path—with very little traffic. How else had he spotted the APARTMENT FOR RENT sign so soon after she’d put it up? He must have already been watching the house.

She wondered if Chris and Jane were safe with him just next door. Though if Joe wanted to hurt them, he’d had plenty of opportunities over the last three days. Besides, the “Rosie” strangler wouldn’t care about anyone but her.

She didn’t know what to think. Whoever “Joe” was, he’d completely bamboozled her. Nora wondered if that whole sob story about his sweet, mildly retarded brother was hogwash. Probably.

Yes, he was probably a cop. A murderer wouldn’t risk hiring some stranger—a potential witness—to portray his wife in a ruse to get close to his next victim. He wouldn’t have friends posing as references over the phone. But an undercover cop might do that.

Nora still desperately clung to the idea that Chris was innocent. But obviously, the police didn’t think so.

Just two blocks from home, Nora realized she hadn’t seen another soul—not even a moving car—for the last few blocks. The trees and hedges bordering the sidewalk created dark nooks where anyone could be hiding. Nora tightened her grip on the whistle.

As much as she wanted to get home right now, it was no longer a safe haven—not with a deceitful stranger living above her garage. She felt like such a fool for being taken in by him—and for having been attracted to him.

“All right, all right,” she whispered to herself, about to turn up her block. “What are you going to do about him?”

As Nora walked past a tall hedge, a shadow swept over her so quickly that she didn’t even have time to bring the whistle to her mouth. She froze.

A man in a dark overcoat stepped out from the walkway that cut through the hedge.

Nora gasped.

The older, white-haired man looked just as startled as she was. He stopped for a moment, blinked at her and then tugged the leash on the miniature schnauzer behind him. “C’mon, Buster, don’t dawdle,” he muttered. He nodded at Nora as he walked around her, pulling his dog after him.

Nora stood there for a few moments to catch her breath, then, her heart still racing and her legs a little wobbly, she continued on down the block. She could see her house in the distance.

Nora heard a door slam. Once past a neighbor’s tree that blocked her view, she spotted Chris hurrying down the front walkway toward the street. He had on his gab jacket and carried a small grocery bag. Nora started to wave but realized he didn’t see her.

When he reached the sidewalk, Chris turned and quickly headed down the street toward the other end of the block.

Glancing at her wristwatch, Nora wondered where he was going at this hour.

She couldn’t believe he’d left Jane alone in the house after dark with a killer on the loose. As she watched him move down the street, Nora couldn’t help herself: she wondered if she’d read in tomorrow’s paper about a fourth murder.

Shoving Jane’s whistle back into her purse, she groped around for her keys, found them and ran toward the house. She noticed the lights on in the windows of the garage apartment. Nora reached her front door and unlocked it. Swinging the door open, she immediately called out: “Jane! Jane, where are you?”

She heard footsteps above. Then her daughter came to the top of the stairs. “What is it? Ye gods, Mom. You sound like the house is on fire!”

“Where’s Chris off to?” she asked anxiously. “Did he say where he was going?”

“There’s some emergency at Mrs. Landauer’s. He wasn’t sure when he’d be back.”

“Get your coat. Hurry . . .”

“What?”

“Just do what I say, Jane, please!”

Two minutes later, she and Jane were climbing into the Packard. As she backed out of the driveway, Nora noticed Joe at the garage apartment’s kitchen window. He seemed to be looking out at them.

Once out of the driveway, Nora glanced back toward the garage again. She spotted Joe emerging from the apartment entrance. She shifted the car into drive, stepped on the gas and sped down the block. Taking a curve in the road, she pulled into a neighbor’s driveway and killed the headlights and the motor.

“What in the world is going on, Mom?” Jane asked. She was sitting on the passenger side, gaping at her mother.

Half-turned in the driver’s seat, Nora looked out the rear window at the street behind them. “There was an emergency at Mrs. Landauer’s house, that’s what Chris said?”

Jane nodded. “Yeah, that’s what he told me. Mom—”

“How did he know there was an emergency? Did Mrs. Landauer call him? Did you hear the phone ring?”

“I don’t know. It might have. I was in the bathroom with the water running right before he yelled up to me . . .”

Nora watched Joe’s LaSalle speed by. The headlights were off. But Nora could still see the vehicle through the trees as it turned up a side street—in search of her, no doubt.

“Mom, wasn’t that Joe’s car?” Jane asked.

“Yes,” Nora replied, turning the ignition key again. “Honey, you need to be my lookout. Let me know if you notice him following us, okay?”

“Okay. But won’t you please tell me what’s happening?”

Leaving the headlights off, Nora carefully backed out of the neighbor’s driveway and then slowly drove down the block toward Mrs. Landauer’s mansion. Even at a distance, Nora could see the front gates were open. She pulled over across the street and parked behind a beat-up, older car.

“I just want to check on Chris—and Mrs. Landauer,” Nora explained, eyeing the old lady’s gated estate.

“But why was Joe following us?”

“I’m not sure,” Nora answered honestly. “But I had a feeling he might. Did Chris say anything else to you before he left?”

“He asked if I’d be okay alone and told me if I got scared, I should go next door and stay with Joe until you got home. Hey, we had the Chef Boyardee spaghetti, and it was yummy. We left some for you in the refrigerator . . .”

“That’s good,” Nora answered absent-mindedly. “Thanks.”

She watched Mrs. Landauer’s Duesenberg—blue cellophane over its headlights—coming down the long driveway. It was too dark—and Nora was too far away—to see who was behind the wheel. But then the old car moved beyond the open gates, stopped, and Chris jumped out of the driver’s seat. He hurriedly shut the gates and then ducked back inside the vehicle.

“Can you see if anyone else is in the car with Chris?” Nora asked her daughter.

“I can’t see a thing with this jalopy in front of us.”

Nora waited until the Duesenberg started up the road, and then she began to follow it at a distance. Her stomach was on edge. As they headed east on the quiet, residential streets, Nora felt nervous driving with the headlights off.

“Why don’t you blink your headlights or honk so Chris can see you?” Jane asked. “Wait a minute, your lights aren’t even on . . .”

“I don’t want Chris to know we’re following him.” Nora checked the rearview mirror. “Are you keeping a lookout for Joe’s LaSalle?”

Jane turned sideways, her back against the passenger door. “I don’t understand any of this,” she said, staring out the rear window.

Chris turned up another side street, and Nora followed him.

“Listen, honey,” she said, eyes on the road. “When you were alone with Joe on Sunday, did he ask you a lot of questions?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did he seem curious about us—about Chris in particular?”

Jane shrugged. “Not really. When I was showing him photos of Uncle Ray in the family album, Joe asked about him. He asked about Dad, too, I think. But I don’t really remember.”

Obviously, Joe was being very careful. And he was good. He’d completely hoodwinked her and the kids. Nora wondered if he was even an artist—or was that his “cover” for this covert assignment? Was the Baby Ruth ad really his, or had he just claimed it as his own?

Nora tightened her grip on the steering wheel as she watched Chris turn onto another residential street. He headed east, uphill past Arlene’s old neighborhood near Volunteer Park and then past their church.

The three closest hospitals—Seattle General, Virginia Mason and Harborview—were all in another direction. So—if this was really an emergency for Mrs. Landauer, it wasn’t a medical one.

Nora checked the rearview mirror. “Have you noticed anyone following us?”

“Nope,” Jane answered. “It’s all clear.”

“Listen, when you were helping Joe carry his things into the apartment on Sunday, did you see any of his paintings?”

“No, he hadn’t unpacked them yet,” Jane answered. “Why do you want to know so much about Joe all of a sudden?”

“I was merely wondering, that’s all,” Nora replied. She figured Jane didn’t need to be enlightened about Joe right now, not when she was going away on her class field trip. The less she knew, the better.

Nora slowed down as the Duesenberg stopped at an intersection at the bottom of a hill. Chris turned left onto a busier street. Nora had to switch on her headlights.

“Mom, why don’t you want Chris to see us? What’s going on?”

“I-I’m worried about this emergency . . . and whether Chris can handle it on his own,” Nora lied. “Honey, can you see if anyone else is in the car with him? I still can’t tell . . .”

“Neither can I. We’re too far back.”

Up ahead, Chris turned right onto Interlaken Drive East, a downhill winding road through a forest park. If he hadn’t already spotted the family Packard tailing him, he might notice it on this steep, dark, isolated road. Navigating the twisty turns, Nora tried to lag as far behind the Duesenberg as she could without losing it. She didn’t dare switch off the headlights for fear of driving off the narrow road and crashing into a tree.

Chris came to a stop and then turned left onto Lake Washington Boulevard East, along the Washington Park Arboretum. The traffic was light. Nora deliberately let another car come between them. They passed under a pedestrian bridge. Chris was headed north, seemingly toward the University of Washington.

It dawned on Nora that the Boeing plant and the Harbor Island shipyards were in the opposite direction. Workers at either of those plants weren’t likely to live too much farther north than this, not if they could help it. The commute would be too long and time-consuming. Was it too much to hope that this clandestine trip wouldn’t end at the home of a female war worker, another “Rosie”?

With a car between Nora’s Packard and the Duesenberg, it wasn’t always easy to keep tabs on where Chris was headed. But Nora followed Mrs. Landauer’s car across the Montlake Bridge and past the university, where the middle car finally turned onto another street. Nora continued to lag back as Chris merged onto Erickson Road. It led north to the town of Bothell—which eventually became farm and forest country.

“This is crazy,” Jane sighed. “Can I stop looking out for Joe’s car now?”

Her eyes on the road, Nora nodded. “Yes, thanks, honey.”

“Well, wake me when he reaches the Canadian border,” Jane muttered, tipping her head back and closing her eyes.

Nora wasn’t sure if Jane was really asleep or playing possum, but her daughter didn’t say anything for a while. The landscape around them became increasingly woodsy, but there were still signs of civilization. Nora passed phone poles, and through the trees, she spotted an occasional pocket of light from a secluded home or cabin. She let the gap between her car and the Duesenberg widen as there were so few vehicles on the road.

Nora checked the gas gauge; they still had half a tank. When she glanced up again, Chris was turning onto a side road.

Switching off her headlights, Nora made a right onto the same road and then followed the Duesenberg at a distance. Its taillights were her guide. But then, after what seemed like half a mile, the lights suddenly disappeared.

Nora went into a panic. Had Chris spotted her and shut off his lights? Without the Duesenberg’s taillights to help her navigate, she was driving in the dark—on another narrow, tree-lined road.

Then she noticed a one-lane gravel road on her left—and those red taillights again. Nora quickly pulled over. Biting her lip, she peered out her window. Down the gravel lane, she could see Mrs. Landauer’s car had come to a stop. Its headlights illuminated a sign on a chain-link gate: PRIVATE PROPERTY—NO TRESPASSING. The whole area appeared to be fenced off.

Chris had already climbed out of the Duesenberg. He unlocked the gate and opened it.

“What’s going on?” Jane asked, stirring in the passenger seat.

“Honey, I haven’t a clue,” Nora admitted.

She watched Chris duck back inside the car, and then he drove down the gravel road. Nora noticed the red taillights bobbing up and down as he hit a few potholes. He’d left the gate open.

Nora took a deep breath and followed him along the road, which wound through some woods. She heard the gravel crunching under her tires until the road became a dirt path. They drove over a few potholes. Once again, the Duesenberg’s taillights in the distance helped her navigate through the trees and the blackness.

“God, this is creepy,” Jane whispered. “Do you know where we are, Mom?”

“Honey, I haven’t a clue,” she repeated.

Up ahead, Mrs. Landauer’s car reached a clearing, and its headlights swept over a single, large cabin. It was illuminated for only a moment. Then the Duesenberg turned to one side and stopped. Nora could see the car’s lights through the trees, but then they went off.

Nora slowed down to a crawl a few yards short of the clearing. With just enough foliage and trees to camouflage the car, she stopped and shut off the engine. She didn’t want Chris to hear the motor. Her timing was perfect. In the silence, she heard the other car’s door open and shut. Then another door opened and closed. Or was Chris getting something out of the trunk? Nora couldn’t tell. Trees and shrubs blocked her view.

But Nora could see the cabin—a log and stone two-story structure with a wraparound porch and a garden. Considering it was in the middle of nowhere, the house and immediate grounds were in pristine condition. Either no one was home, or all the blackout curtains were tightly drawn.

But then, an outside light came on, and the front door opened, letting light from within the cabin spill outside. A young girl stepped out on the front porch. At least to Nora, from a distance, the girl looked young.

From over where the Duesenberg was parked, Chris’s silhouette came into view. He had the small grocery bag with him and was patiently walking an elderly, slightly stooped woman toward the cabin’s front door. Nora recognized Mrs. Landauer, even though it had been months since she’d last set eyes on her. The thin, tall woman was always smartly dressed and sporting some impressive piece of jewelry—whether it was a brooch, a necklace, or a stunning ring. Chris had told Nora that a beautician visited Mrs. Landauer once a week to color and touch up her platinum hair.

The girl hurried toward them. Over the sound of rustling leaves and an owl’s cry, Nora could hear the girl talking to Chris. The words were hard to distinguish, but her tone was unmistakably urgent. She waved Chris toward the cabin. He nodded and ran inside. Then the girl took Mrs. Landauer’s arm and carefully walked her toward the front porch.

Apparently, it really was an emergency—of what kind Nora, again, didn’t have a clue.

“Stay here,” she said to Jane, reaching for the car door handle.

“What? Are you kidding me?” Jane protested. “You’re not leaving me alone in these—”

Nora shushed her. “I’ll just be a minute. I want a closer look. Please, do me a favor and stay put.”

“Fine,” Jane said, folding her arms. She shifted nervously in the passenger seat.

Nora opened the car door, climbed outside and quietly shut the door behind her.

The girl stopped on the front porch, turned and looked out in the direction of the Packard.

Nora quickly ducked behind a large evergreen. With the light from the cabin shining on the girl’s face, Nora thought she recognized her. She was almost certain that the girl was Ruth, the young daughter of Mrs. Landauer’s former Japanese-American housekeeper and nurse, Sono Nakai. Ruth was about Jane’s age, petite and pretty with long black hair.

In early February of last year, before the government started rounding up Japanese-Americans and relocating them to internment camps, Mrs. Landauer had supposedly let Sono go. The last Nora had heard, Sono and her daughter had moved east someplace.

The girl motioned for Mrs. Landauer to step inside the cabin. Then she lingered on the front porch for another minute, staring out toward the Packard.

Still hiding behind the evergreen, Nora wondered if Sono’s daughter could see the car from where she stood.

At last, the girl retreated inside the cabin and closed the door.

Nora waited a few moments and then turned and gave Jane a little wave—encouraging her to stay put just a little longer. She stepped out from her hiding place and crept toward the cabin.

Suddenly the cabin door opened again, and Chris rushed out onto the porch. He had an old hunting rifle in his hands. “Who’s out there?” he yelled. His voice was so intense and threatening, Nora almost didn’t recognize it.

She froze. Her hands were half raised.

Chris’s eyes met hers. She saw the stunned look on his face.

Nora tried to catch her breath. “Honey, I followed you here—” she managed to get out. She heard the car door open and shut, and turned in time to see Jane tentatively moving toward them.

Still looking dazed, Chris shook his head at Nora. “Mom?”

“Chris, what’s going on?”

“I . . . I need your help in here,” he said. “Please . . . I don’t know what to do . . .”

Baffled, Nora quickly signaled Jane to join her, and together they hurried toward the cabin.

Chris waited for them to reach the porch and then led the way inside. Nora found herself in a big room with a stone fireplace and rustic furnishings. She was immediately hit with the stench of vomit. Jane had gotten only as far as the front door before staggering back onto the front porch because of the smell.

Ruth stood by the sofa, sobbing. Old Mrs. Landauer didn’t seem to know what to do. With a hand over her heart, she hovered over the sofa, where Sono lay under a blanket, shivering violently. She was a petite woman in her midforties with gray streaks in her black hair. Beside her was a wastebasket, the inside splattered with vomit.

“We need to do something,” Ruth whimpered, wringing her hands. “She’s been sick all night. I think she’s going to die . . .”

Nora turned to look at Chris.

“I brought Dad’s medical book,” he said, handing it to Nora. “But I don’t know, Mom. Sono’s afraid it’s her appendix. Should we get her to a hospital?”

“No, you cannot do that!” Mrs. Landauer cried out in her German accent. “They will arrest her! They will take her and Ruth away to one of those camps. No one will ever see them again . . .”

Nora hurried over toward the sofa, where the stench was even stronger. Setting the medical book on the coffee table, she led the old woman over to a chair and sat her down. “It’s going to be all right,” she said—even though she had no idea if that was true or not.

Then Nora returned to the couch, where Sono was still shuddering and moaning. The frail woman grabbed Nora’s coat. “I’m a nurse,” she murmured, her voice raspy. “It’s like he said, I’m almost certain it’s my appendix. I’ve never felt this sick before. My stomach’s swollen. I have a fever. If you don’t take me to a hospital soon, I’m going to die . . .”