The Enemy at Home

There was no answer at the Bellini residence. Maybe they were still asleep.

She’d come to work this morning with the phone numbers of Joe’s two references. She’d also brought along a coin purse full of change for the long-distance call to Joe’s second reference, his “artist’s agent,” Ken Hotopp—if that was even the guy’s real name.

It was her coffee break, and Nora was inside one of the phone booths in the cafeteria. She knew it might be too early to call anyone, but considering these friends of Joe had lied to her, she wasn’t too concerned about waking them up.

With her coins ready and the numbers on a piece of scrap paper in front of her, Nora read the San Francisco phone number to the long-distance operator. She felt wide awake, despite only three hours of sleep. She’d gotten by on less when both kids were babies. Slugging down two cups of coffee this morning had helped.

She followed the operator’s instructions and deposited eighty-five cents. While it rang on the other end, she checked her wristwatch: only a few minutes left of her break.

“Hello?” a woman answered.

“Hello, may I speak to Ken Hotopp, please?” Nora said.

“I’m sorry. He’s left for work. Would you like to leave a message?” The woman on the other end of the line sounded young, maybe in her twenties.

“Well, maybe I should make sure I have the right Ken Hotopp,” Nora said. “Is he an artist’s agent?”

“Yes, that’s right, Masterworks Artists Representation. Would you like the phone number?”

“Yes, please, in just a minute.” Nora started digging into her purse for a pencil. “Listen, while I’m looking for something to jot this down, do you know if your husband represents Joe Strauss?”

The young woman chuckled. “I’m not his wife. I’m his daughter, Greta—Greta Hotopp.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Greta—”

“I know several of my dad’s clients, but that name doesn’t ring a bell.”

“There’s no Joe Strauss on his client list?” Nora pressed. “He was supposed to have illustrated an ad for Baby Ruth candy bars with a child and a kite—”

“You mean Joe Slattery?”

Slattery? Nora thought. She still needed to make sure she had the right guy. “He’s about thirty, handsome, dark hair, and he has a hearing problem in one ear?”

“That’s Joe. My dad has known him for years. He’s a friend of the family. How do you know Joe?”

“I’m sorry,” Nora said. “I never introduced myself. I’m Connie—Connie Phillips. I met Joe last week. I saw the Baby Ruth ad and thought I’d commission him to paint a portrait of my daughter. I wrote down your father’s name and forgot to write down Joe’s last name. So silly of me.”

“Well, speaking of writing things down, did you find a pencil or pen yet?”

“Yes, thanks, go ahead.” Nora had a pen in her hand.

As Ken Hotopp’s daughter read off the phone number for Masterworks Artists Representation, Nora wrote it down—along with Joe’s real last name.

So, it was obvious now: Joe wasn’t a cop. He was an illustrator—just as he’d said. But he’d lied to her about being married and about his last name. Why? And what else had he lied about?

“Got it, thanks,” Nora said, finishing her scribbling. “Joe seems really nice . . .”

“Oh, yes, growing up, I had a big crush on him.”

“He told me about losing his brother. It’s a terrible shame.”

“We’re still hoping Jackson will turn up somewhere,” Greta Hotopp said. “He’s such a sweet guy. No one thinks he intentionally went UA.”

“Jackson? I thought his name was Andy . . .”

“Joe’s the only one who calls him Andy. Jackson’s his real name. Andy Jackson, get it? It’s one of those nicknames between the brothers.”

“You said Joe’s brother went UA? That’s unauthorized absence. . .” Joe had told her Andy had been killed in Guadalcanal.

“Well, unauthorized absence sounds like he took off for a weekend bender. It’s been two weeks, so I guess it’s more like he has completely disappeared.”

“What exactly happened?” Nora asked.

There was a brief silence on the other end.

“Hello?” Nora said. “Greta?”

“You said a minute ago that Joe told you what happened to his brother.”

Nora heard the bell sound, signifying the end of her break. She glanced at her wristwatch. “Um, no, he merely said he’d lost his brother, Andy, who was in the navy, and he used to look after him. I’d assumed his brother was killed in action.”

“No, he was stationed at a base down in San Diego,” the young woman said. “There was an explosion or a fire or something, and when the smoke cleared, they discovered that Jackson had cleaned out his locker and disappeared. I’m sure he had nothing to do with the explosion or whatever it was. He probably panicked and got confused. My theory is that he must have assumed the Japs were bombing us, and his first thought was that he had to go find Joe and make sure he was okay. The two of them were inseparable . . .”

The operator chimed in and asked for eighty-five cents for an additional three minutes. Nora was already late returning from her break. So, she thanked Greta Hotopp for her help and hung up.

She quickly jotted down some more notes on the scrap paper and then studied it for a moment:

Masterworks Artists Representation—San Fran—Klamath-7299

Joe SLATTERY—Jackson!!!

San Diego naval base—Ray?

Nora circled her brother’s name.

She was late getting back to her workstation, and her lead man reprimanded her. Yelling over all the noise on the assembly line, he reminded her that she’d been late returning from a break on Monday, too. “In case you’ve forgotten, there’s a war on,” he told her. “Consider this a warning!”

“Honey, you have to be more careful,” Fran advised her over lunch, two hours later. With a pair of tongs from her lunchbox, she took a hot dog out of her thermos of steaming water. She carefully set it on a bun. “If this is your second time tardy within a week, you’re really pushing your luck. You only get one more. Why were you late?”

“I was on the phone with someone about . . .” she hesitated, “about Ray.”

“Well, you should have told your lead man that. They usually give you a break when it comes to losing someone in the service.” She was about to take a bite out of her hot dog, but then set it back down on her napkin. “You know, he was quite a fella, your brother. I only met him that one time at your dinner party. But before Marty and I left, he pulled me aside and asked for our address. He wanted to keep in touch with Marty and make sure he was getting along all right. ‘One navy man looking out for another,’ he said.”

Nora gave her friend a melancholy smile. Ray was always full of surprises.

“Isn’t that sweet?” Fran said. “I told him that you had our address in your address book.” She glanced down at her lunch. “You know, this hot dog could use some ketchup and relish. I’m going to raid the condiment bar. Can I get you anything while I’m up, hon?”

“No, thanks,” Nora said.

Wrapping her hot dog in a napkin, Fran headed toward one of the lunch counter side tables.

Nora nibbled at her lunch and thought about Ray and her follow-up calls to his base in San Diego. She remembered what the ensign had told her about a seaman who had vanished around the time of the explosion. Then she recalled what Joe had said about people who took advantage of his trusting, sweet kid brother. Had Ray been one of those people? Had he talked Jackson Slattery into helping him with his scheme to avoid combat duty? And when things had gone horribly wrong, maybe the poor, scared kid had run away.

Or maybe it was just how Greta Hotopp had imagined—with Jackson as surprised by the explosion as anyone else. Then, thinking they were under attack, he’d cleared out to go search for his big brother.

And his big brother had found her.

Joe wasn’t a cop. He hadn’t moved into the apartment over her garage to catch a strangler or to keep tabs on Chris. He was there because he thought he knew something about Ray.

Nora was hardly aware of Larry Krull walking toward her—until he was just a few feet away. As he passed by, he smirked at her and then, with his finger, he drew a slash line across his throat.

A chill raced through her. For a second, Nora thought he was threatening her—or maybe even indicating that she might be next in the assembly-line worker murders. She didn’t know why her mind automatically went there.

But then she realized that Larry knew she’d been disciplined for returning late from her break this morning.

It was about her being late—and, maybe, how she deserved to be terminated.