THE TENTH DAY
by
Don Safran
Copyright 2011 by Don Safran
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
THE TENTH DAY
All rights reserved.
Smashwords edition.
Cover art by Getty Images
Cover Design by Joe Porter
ISBN: 978-1-936539-16-1
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.
PROLOGUE
10 p.m. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 1946
NEW YORK CITY
The two women walking west on 59th St. shared a slight resemblance, maybe not as sisters – there was no sign of familial intimacy in their interactions - but there was definitely a physical similarity. A second glance would confirm that one was a bit more stylish than the other. They had moments earlier dined on Irish Stew at Longchamps on Madison Ave., first toasting their upcoming trip by clinking champagne cocktails, and were still feeling the festive mood as they walked. Their bill had come to slightly more than $5, which Lucille Black had paid, since it was at her invitation that Ellen Ferguson had joined her for dinner.
As they walked toward the Plaza Hotel, crossing Fifth Ave. Lucille suggested a brief walk into Central Park for a final breath of fresh air. Ten steps into the park, behind a bush, Ellen Ferguson felt the first sensation of cold steel entering her back. It was the first of five strong plunges of a knife that Lucille had purchased days earlier at a pawn shop in Dallas.
Lucille stripped the dead woman, taking her shoes and jewelry, cramming them into her purse and pockets, leaving the bloody dress, but cutting out the label. She emptied the contents of the dead woman’s large purse into her own, except for a mirror which got tangled in the lining and was left by Lucille. She then tore the label out of the purse before tossing it into a nearby trash can. She covered the body with the recent winter’s scattered leaves.
There had been little religion in Lucille’s life, her mother rousting the church messengers knocking at the door. But Lucille found the Bible at the hospital, nothing much else to read, and while not wholly convinced, found some solace in it. So, she paused to look down at the leaf strewn body and hoped Ellen Ferguson would find her peace.
Dusting herself off, she checked to see if there was any blood on her clothes; there wasn’t. Her gloves were a fright. She slipped them off and dropped them into her purse. She held tightly onto the dead woman’s room key, looked at the room number, now her room number. It was more than a key, more like a membership card, and she wanted to feel its hardness as she walked out of Central Park, into the Plaza Hotel, hurrying through the lobby to ride the elevator to the ninth floor. She found Ellen’s room, the bed that was now hers and collapsed onto it. But only briefly. Standing up, she opened the closet, measured the clothes against her body. The sizing was ideal. The passport was in another purse; she looked at the picture and nodded. Close enough.
She sat on the edge of the bed contemplating the next ten days, snapping out of it to pull open the bedside table drawer. She found the King James Version of the Bible and using a pen to search its pages, finally find what she was searching for and circled it:
Isaiah 13:11: And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked
for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease,
and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.
She tore out the page and slipped it into one of Ellen’s purses. And only then did she undress, shower and get into the bed. By morning she would be Ellen Ferguson, and all traces of Lucille would have vanished.
DAY ONE
APRIL 12, 1946
ONE
8 a.m. FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 1946
PIER 84, NEW YORK CITY
Pier 84 was a circus. In two hours, the Maxwell Gordon USN, was to leave its berth, and until then, the crowds would grow, the Navy Band would play, and confetti would fly.
Marine Corps Major Jim Stanton climbed to the Top Deck, joining the ship’s skipper, Navy Captain Charles Cooper, deciding against conversation, since he didn’t want to hear once again Cooper’s complaints about how Washington couldn’t stop tampering with the details of this sailing.
Stanton remembered a meeting in New York earlier in the month with Navy and Army brass, when the ship’s schedule had been discussed. When Captain Cooper estimated a late afternoon arrival on the tenth day, an Army colonel inquired as to the possibility of slowing the evening speeds down to allow for a picturesque early morning arrival on the 11th day.
The colonel walked right into the cliché – getting into dangerous waters. Cooper bristled, but his cause was taken up by a more political admiral, who patiently explained that the Navy was not operating a Cunard Line schedule. The Navy’s mission was to be as expeditious as possible, and it would proceed full speed ahead in carrying the women to Bremerhaven. If for no other reason, it would make sense that the longer the women remained afloat the more possibilities there would be for problems. As Stanton would eventually find out, an unusually prophetic statement from the old seaman.
However, the Army did have a vested interest Stanton had to concede, since these were all Army wives.
He nodded to Lieutenant Commander Warren Tygrett, the captain’s executive officer, who had walked over to stand beside Cooper. The three men – Stanton, perhaps the tallest of the three - were in dress uniforms, the Naval officers in their dark winter blues, Stanton in his Marine Corps forest green woolen trousers and the long jacket known in the Marines as a blouse, all displaying their combat ribbons. All wearing visored caps.
Stanton could feel the dockside energy, women arriving, cabs leaving, luggage being carried aboard and realized how quickly America was adapting. It was almost eight months since the mushroom clouds had hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending the war along with its daily agonies of War Department telegrams, sending America on to its next adventure.
The country was responding, putting four years of war behind, industry switching overnight from banging out tanks to rolling out cars, airlines creating overseas commercial routes, and less and less uniforms were being seen in bars and on the street. Stanton would be out of his in a month. That’s what he was told when given this last assignment to head up the security detail on a ship with 397 women. An assignment far below his rank – a security detail like this usually drew a lieutenant or, stretching it, a captain, but it was an important run and they wanted him.
He draped his hand on the rail, felt a flutter, knew he couldn’t show it shaking – damn, he was only 34 – reassuring himself that this crossing would be the snap the senior brass said it would be. A smoke might be the thing here, mellow him out some, not that he could light up on duty. Or even off-duty, since he was trying to quit. But one of those Luckys in his cabin would really be fine right now.
Tygrett said something to the captain, who nodded. Stanton had found Tygrett to be amiable enough, remembering, however, that first impressions of fellow military officers were irrelevant. Stanton looked at the crowd of women waiting to board, and their relatives surrounding them, then briefly down to the slapping of the water against the ship’s hull far below, then back up, glancing behind him into the Bridge and the Wheelhouse with its glistening brass, knobs and dials and polished woods, the telephones to communicate throughout the ship. He caught Captain Cooper looking at him, and snapped out of his reverie, requesting they start boarding as scheduled. Capt. Cooper checked his watch and told him to proceed, turning to Commander Tygrett, ordering him to prepare the crew.
~ ~ ~
Diane Mason sat in the rear of a cab that threaded through the swelling traffic under Manhattan’s West Side Highway, barely hearing the cab driver as he came to a stop outside Pier 84.
“Have a good trip, miss. I just hope your husband is doing to the Germans what they would have done to us.” Diane squashed her cigarette in the ash tray, handed him a $5 bill, got her change - turned her bags over to a sergeant in the Army’s Quartermaster Corps and dashed onto the pier and into a sea of bodies caught in last minute embraces.
She looked at the women lined up in front of the gangway. The first post-war Easter was only nine days away on this morning of April 12, 1946, and it wouldn’t have taken a fashion columnist to gauge its influence on the women leaving - new hats with veils, sweet pea bonnets, white pique berets, broadtail jackets, wool short coats, silver foxes. How ill at ease most of them seemed in their new clothes. In contrast, Diane, in her double-breasted camel hair topcoat, was as much at ease as you might expect in a general’s wife.
The gangway caught Diane’s eye, barely swaying in the light breeze of the spring morning, beckoning like a magic carpet. You stepped onto it in New York and you stepped off 3,583 nautical miles later in Bremerhaven. You left the Happy Days Are Here Again tempo of a post-war victorious America and arrived to the funeral dirge of a defeated, weary Germany.
The recently painted Maxwell Gordon, gently bobbing at the pier, appeared to be straining to get on with it, anxious to carry this first group of Army wives on its ten day voyage across the Atlantic.
~ ~ ~
Stanton walked down to the Lounge Deck of the ship, where he was joined by Master Sergeant Martin Rudd, who wore an MP band on his dress jacket sleeve and a .45 on his hip. Rudd was almost too delicate-looking to be a Marine Corps master sergeant, but, if so, he didn’t seem to be aware of it, handling his troops with the assurance and strength expected of his rank.
Stanton had met Rudd a few weeks earlier when they made their first visit to check out the ship, guided about by Lt. Commander Tygrett, and had returned twice to complete boarding plans and security postings.
Stanton’s men below had moved the ladies into an inner roped-off area, separating them from the crowd here to see them off - there were shouts back and forth, with relatives leaning over for last minute hugs and instructions.
“What do you think, Major?” Rudd asked.
“I want 397 bodies counted and double-counted, names checked and double-checked. No more, no less,” Stanton said. “Easy to stop someone now, but tricky as hell to catch ‘em once they’re aboard. I don’t want to be shooing relatives off this ship. Though, I can’t imagine what damn fool would want to get on this ship if she didn’t have to. Nobody’s writing romantic novels about this version of Europe, or what’s left of it.”
“The men know the procedure, and I’ll be down there with them,” Rudd answered.
Stanton checked his watch. “Okay, let’s see if we can do it without having a crisis. I doubt it, but let’s try.” He and Rudd walked down to the Shelter Deck, down a ramp, across the gangway and onto the pier.
The women filed in - slender ones, heavy ones, some beaming, some wiping away tears. The only children were teenagers. Those with young children would wait for the Army ships that were being retrofitted to accommodate them. The first was scheduled for the following week. The women presented their Army identification, which had been mailed to them along with their instructions. The Navy Band was playing This Is My Country as they marched onto the ship.
Their long term luggage had been picked up at their hotels the day before and was stowed in the Hold Deck. The larger long term luggage, which had been shipped earlier from their home cities directly to an Army warehouse, had been transferred to the ship the previous day. The women carried with them their short term travel luggage, which was secured with Army name tags, and dropped off in an assigned area near the ship. The bags, checked against a master sheet which listed the assigned cabin numbers, were taken to the cabins by the crew, entering the ship on a gangway leading to the Second Deck.
TWO
10 a.m. FRIDAY, APRIL 12
PIER 84, NEW YORK CITY
From above Stanton watched Diane Mason come aboard. He had spent two weeks off and on with two smooth-talking Army captains from Madison Ave. trying to convince Diane to take this trip on the Maxwell Gordon, explaining how seriously the Army needed a spokeswoman for the ladies, the wife of a general. Her husband was the highest ranking officer represented on the ship, Major General Barry Mason, attached to the staff of General Mark Clark, Commanding General of Germany. The problem was Diane had other travel plans – she had wanted to fly on Pan Am’s new route to Europe, rather than spend ten days on a ship with 400 women. She offered the rationale that she wasn’t particularly suited for the role of spokeswoman, since she wasn’t a real Army wife, her husband being a wartime appointee. The captains had persuaded the reluctant Stanton to join the meetings, where he forced himself to push the Army’s position, putting aside his personal feelings of seeing her side.
Finally, it took a colonel from the staff of the Commanding General of the First Army, driving in from Fort Jay on New York’s Governor’s Island, to lend the gravitas and one morning over cheese Danish, she consented, and the Madison Avenue captains went back to their daily routines of lunchtime cocktails and dealing with the press. And Stanton went on to prepare for the trip.
Diane joined the women crowded against the rails, and with no friends or relatives below she waved farewell to the country that had treated her so well these past 32 years.
Lucille stepped onto the gangway, hair trimmed, curled and resting under a dark pill box hat, easily among the smarter-looking women in her tweed suit and heels, carrying her alligator purse and patent leather hat-boxes, as testimonial to the fashion sense of Ellen Ferguson, whose clothes she was wearing and who Lucille had now become. Why shouldn’t she look pretty and rested - she hadn’t done anything the past year, had she?
An Army bus waiting outside the Plaza Hotel had earlier ferried Lucille and a number of the wives to the pier, and once there she watched as they lined up to show their credentials. She showed them Ellen’s, and the Army officer handed her a packet with a cabin assignment. Among the sheets of information was a diagram of the ship, an explanation as to how the ship would be conforming in time as it passed through the six time zones – upon entering a new zone the change would be effected at midnight, moving one hour ahead in each instance. There was only one bad moment: a Marine near the check-in desk who gave her a cursory glance as he did the other women, then snapped his head back as if he recognized her. But the line was moving on and he resumed his position. What was that? It flitted through her mind quickly and forgotten just as quickly.
Lucille, now on the crowded Lounge Deck, squeezed through to the rail, joining the women waving a final goodbye to the festive crowd below. Who would be down there to wave back at her?
At 10:40 a.m., Stanton joined Captain Cooper on the bridge and told him the group was aboard ship and secured. “Okay, major,” he said, “let’s go sailing.” The band was given the signal and struck up Auld Lang Syne and as the music faded into the breeze, there was a final cheer from the wives aboard ship and the relatives on the pier.
The Maxwell Gordon, with the rumble and vibration of its engines only partially in action, moved slowly out of its slip toward the middle of New York Harbor, the tiny tugboats towing it through the Narrows, the fading peals of the bell being rung by the quartermaster signaling the start of the watch, the air vibrating from the ship’s horns bellowing its farewell.
Stanton had been issued office space near the Navy offices on the Boat Deck, but had declined when first visiting the ship, saying that he wanted to be in the center of things, with more direct access to his men. In truth he wanted separation from the Navy, from the other officers, even to a degree from his own men, whose working security office was located on the Hold Deck, administered by Sgt. Rudd. He found his area of solitude on the Second Deck in two adjoining cabins, bunking in one. In the other he had the bunks removed and converted into his office - a desk, filing cabinet, three wooden chairs facing the desk. A chart detailing the Marine detachment - a platoon of 36 men on board - was tacked to the wall, along with a line diagram of the ship, a roster of the ship’s departmental responsibilities among other of the ship’s notices.
He was waiting to meet with his senior NCOs, nothing that hadn’t been discussed before – there was to be no military bullshit with the wives. But it had to be hammered home. The rules were for the troops, not the wives. He was at his desk looking at Rudd’s duty roster when Rudd arrived with two NCOs. He thought it best not to get into the politics of what had precipitated this trip, the politics, both civilian and military.
When he made it through Officers Candidate Class, soon to be renamed Officers Candidate School, then onto The Basic School, where new Marine lieutenants were indoctrinated in the duties of infantry leaders, he had been assigned to Intelligence – training at the Francis Scott Key Hotel in Frederick, Md., the Navy’s venture into this dark new world. The OSS was just getting started, which was to become the CIA, and the Marines being the Marines he had been sent to a lot of places where bullets were flying; perhaps, the Marines had its own interpretation of Intelligence.
Because he had been privy to Intelligence matters, he had some knowledge of what this trip was about beyond the obvious. While it appeared that the government was doing something noble in sending the wives to the troops, as with most of everything conceived in Washington, politics was leading the way.
The war in Europe had ended May 1945, and Germany had been divided into four zones, American, French, English and Russian. The War Department, soon to be renamed the less confrontational sounding, Defense Department, had its reasons to suspect Russia’s intentions, and wanted Russia to know that America planned to maintain a serious military presence in Germany.
However, it had a problem. The Army had been sending men home at an accelerated rate, stripping itself of the necessary bodies to police the 15 million civilians in Austria and Germany alone. The Army was committed to keep a force of 375,000 in Europe, over a million around the world. Chief of Staff Dwight Eisenhower, concerned that the Army was running out of troops, halted the discharges in Europe until replacements arrived. It was a decision which led to some serious morale problems: in January, 1946, nine months after the end of the war, a mob of American soldiers in Paris marched down the Champs Elysees to the American Embassy, chanting, “Get us home.” Soldiers were demonstrating as well in Frankfurt, Germany.
Desperate for a solution the War Department devised a plan to send Army wives to join their husbands overseas, sort of a Trifecta – a triple win: not only would this calm the boys, but also fire a cannon over Russia’s bow, letting them know the U.S. was in Germany for the long run. And, because there was now a core group of soldiers at ease with remaining in Europe, the Army could resume sending major troop transports back home.
Transporting the wives was going to be a big program, officially to be launched in April, 1946. However, the Army bureaucracy got mired down in the transport details, upgrading the Army ships in deference to the many generals’ wives scheduled for the first sailing. Work was under way for special diet kitchens to allow Army nurses to prepare baby formulas, play pens for older children and a four room section set aside for teenage boys.
The War Department, annoyed and anxious to move forward, sent the Army a message ordering an immediate first run of Army wives to sail on an available Navy ship, the USS Maxwell Gordon. The goading worked, since the Army high command hurriedly rallied its transport arm for a sailing to be led by the wives of Generals Mark Clark and Lucius Clay. However, that was still a week away. Meanwhile, the more or less regulation Navy ship, the USS Maxwell Gordon, silently cut through the Narrows, heading for the Atlantic. Stanton was aboard because with the Navy you get either Navy or Marine security.
Accompanying Rudd were two tech sergeants, thick-chested Eric Ellis, from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Bill Rather, a lean Kentuckian, both of whom struck Stanton as being up to the job, crisp and efficient, and for this trip, no need for anything more.
“Help yourselves,” Stanton said, nodding to the coffee pot. Only Ellis reached for a cup and poured. Rudd stared at the ship’s diagram and then turned back. He shoved his open pack of Lucky Strikes at them. “The lamp is lit, gentlemen.” Ellis and Rather both reached for the pack and lit up. Stanton and Rudd held off.
“I know we’ve gone over this before,” Stanton said. “Not the usual guard duty. Our position here is that no harm comes to the women – no swabbies out of line, no women in the dangerous areas of the ship. They get into any conflicts among themselves, stay out of it, call one of the Army nurses. With so many women on this ship, it’s going to be easy for the women to forget there are men here. If our troops bump into them walking around in some skimpy thing, they shouldn’t look like they’re enjoying the view.”
“They know this is an assignment that needs special handling,” Rudd said. “They’ve been told.”
“Just stay on top of them - we’re breaking ground here. There’s not much coverage given to temptation in the Marine Corps Manual.” Tired smiles from the three Marines.
“How do we handle the swabbies?” Ellis asked.
“What the crew does in its quarters or with each other is ship’s business, as far as I’m concerned. Let Tygrett and Captain Cooper deal with it. But, I want ‘em distanced from the ladies. There’s a lot of different women out there. Most of ‘em are on target, but I’m sure there’s a few who’d like to misread the intentions of our guys. Don’t give them an opening. Oh, and good work with the check-ins. All here, and accounted for.”
“Sure is a strange way for us to end the war,” said Ellis. “Pulling duty with Army wives.”
Marines liking to bitch. Stanton had gone over this as well with them during the past two weeks, but explained again that the trip had been pulled together in a hurry, and that the Army would be taking over the rest of the runs, starting next week on the Thomas Barry. Army crews and Army security. This trip would be it for the Navy and the Marines. He understood their reaction. He had interviewed each of the senior non-commissioned officers to ensure they were intact psychologically - all had seen action in the South Pacific - they viewed this run with mixed emotions, on one hand, easy duty, and on the other, a little beneath them. He was sure their troops felt the same; he sure as hell did.
There would be problems on the trip – he couldn’t imagine this many civilian women in a confined area with no incidents, but he felt given room they would untangle themselves. He went over the men’s dress regulations – while on duty, the B uniform, which was the forest green slacks, khaki shirt and tie, the jacket optional depending on weather. The garrison cap would not be worn, except when arriving at port. Fatigues were approved in their private and mess areas and if on duty in working areas of the ship. Obviously no smoking while on guard duty, but the lamp was lit in their private and mess areas in line with ship regulations.
“What about the women – regards to smoking?” Ellis asked.
“The information was in the packet of stuff given to them,” Stanton said. “The captain is not crazy about 400 women smoking everywhere – fire concerns, but is giving in a little. Smoking in the mess hall and lounge areas is okay. No smoking in the cabins after 9 p..m . He is scheduling a 12 hour nightly fire watch throughout the ship, 1900 hours to 0700 hours, seven to seven, using Navy personnel.”
Trying to lighten the mood he picked up some reports, waved them, and said, “Out of today’s newspaper. Since most of us were in the jungle a year ago, I thought you’d like to know now that we’re back in civilization they think they’ve come up with a cure for malaria.” As the men groaned, he added, “But, they announce that after every war. On that note, back to work. I have to meet with General Mason’s wife. Anything I should take up with her?”
The men shook their heads, no.
THREE
11 a.m. FRIDAY, APRIL 12
NEW YORK CITY
A park employee, spearing trash with a nail attached to the end of a stick, drifted through the 59th St. side of Central Park, coming across a mound of leaves. He moved them around with his foot. The woman from Minnesota stared up at him, but only briefly, because he ran to nearby Fifth Ave. screamed and waved to a police car, and in minutes New York’s Finest had the area covered.
The police spread out over the crime scene searching for clues, inspecting nearby trash cans, where a young patrolman found something of interest, brought it to the attention of Inspector Larry Carlin, whose precinct included the Central Park area, and was in charge of the investigation. Carlin felt it was a piece of evidence worth pursuing and he brought it with him to his office.
The body was taken to the morgue on First Ave. near Bellevue Hospital, and slipped into one of the lockers.
Carlin tried to make sense of the murder. While he had to wait for the autopsy there appeared to be no sign of physical molestation, so he was guessing it hadn’t been a sex crime. But if it was robbery, why bother to cut her clothing labels? He looked again at what he brought with him from the crime scene and made a few phone calls.
FOUR
2 p.m. FRIDAY, APRIL 12
ABOARD MAXWELL GORDON
While the cabins had been adapted by the Navy to sleep four, with two sets of upper and lower bunks, there were few enough passengers on this crossing to allow for more relaxed arrangements; in almost every instance, there were no more than two to a cabin, except for the few wives with children.
As the ship moved out of New York Harbor, Diane was unpacking her clothes, responding to the luxury of not having a roommate. Not that she had a child. She had made a plea for no special treatment, but in the end the two captains had convinced her that it went with her position, knowing she’d be seduced by the prospect of privacy. She was smoking what she hoped would be the last of her cigarettes. It felt so damned good, but she had made a vow to herself to quit, and hoped the half carton of Chesterfields that she had brought aboard would be left behind when she left.
Diane unscrewed the top of a flask, pouring a martini, mixed pre-boarding, into the polished silver top when Stanton knocked at the door. Drink and cigarette in hand, she waved him in, saying, “I’m afraid you caught me wishing myself bon voyage. I’d offer you a drink…there must be a glass around here somewhere…”
“Thanks, but I’m on duty,” he said. He looked at the suitcase, relieved nothing intimate was showing among the garments.
Sitting down on one of the bunks, she crossed her legs and said, “I guess you got my note - this is really awkward for me. I feel like a union leader with a list of grievances.”
“What’s troubling the ladies?”
Diane set her drink down. There was a grace and precision to her movements that Stanton found hard not to admire. “I hadn’t even started unpacking when there was a delegation outside my door - the bathrooms, not enough water, toilets clogged - look, I know this isn’t travel poster conversation, but…”
The contradictions of the military: a year under enemy fire in the South Pacific, a year helping to set up legal strategy at Naval Intelligence in Washington, two and a half years at Camp LeJeune and Quantico in security and intelligence, and Stanton thought, all to prep him to worry about women’s crappers.
“I was told about it,” he said. “It’s okay now. The women stampeded the bathrooms when they got on board. The plumbing wasn’t ready for a crowd run. I don’t think they’ll have any more trouble. At least, that’s what the Navy tells me.”
“I can’t believe we’re sitting here, complete strangers, discussing the bathroom habits of 400 women,” she said. “I think I’ll forget the rest of my list.” She tapped her cigarette ash into the ceramic ash tray she had brought with her.
Leaving, Stanton told her his men knew how to reach him if she needed anything, and walked out to the deck, stopping to admire the mist-covered, distant red sun. The sentimental departure from Pier 84 with the band playing and the crows waving had left him with a comfortable feeling, almost hinting of a trouble-free crossing ahead. It was a brief fantasy, since he remembered that few of his premonitions were ever borne out.
Inside the cabin Diane had returned to sorting through her luggage, pulling out a few jackets and blouses that she wanted to hang up, coming across the post-card sized framed photo of Major General Barry Mason, her husband, looking public relations spiffy. Of course, that’s how he’d look, she thought, spiffy. Did he ever take a photo with the wind blowing through his hair? Oh well. He is who he is.
~ ~ ~
Lucille dropped off her luggage and left her cabin before her room-mate arrived. She needed a moment by herself on the ship before the usual process of sharing details. How would she make conversation? How would she blend into the group? It would come to her, but she needed to prepare. She stepped onto the deck hoping for a moment to think and walked into the staring eyes of a Marine. She was attractive, so, why not? No, this was different - staring at her as if he knew her. Not another one. No, Damn it, this was the same Marine she had seen earlier, when boarding the ship, with that same curious expression on his face.
He approached her as she walked, excusing himself and telling her how familiar she seemed to him, and wondered if he knew her from back home; his name was Danny Conway. Was she from Dallas? Who was this? Defensive instincts smashed into alert – it wasn’t a flirtation. Does he remember her from the horrible newspaper spreads in Dallas? Her photos, day after day, first the incident, then the trial. He’s not making the connection yet. Sooner or later it would come to him.
She told him she was from Minneapolis, and he apologized, but she could see that he was still trying to remember where the connection was. Maybe she was over-reacting. No, it will hit him. We have nine more days. This was not going to work, worrying about him. There were her plans to consider.
How to get rid of him? He was a Marine, stronger than she was, more experienced. But, there were ways, feminine ways. But why - he hadn’t hurt her? And so innocent. She had her knife in her purse, but it was too soon. She looked ahead to the deserted area around the stern. Ahead were two sailors working on a deck cleat. She told him people were always mistaking her for someone, too often some actress that no one had ever heard of. She said she enjoyed talking to him and went inside, knowing that sooner or later it would come to him. That could not happen.
FIVE
4 P.M. FRIDAY, APRIL 12
NEW YORK CITY
New York Police Inspector Larry Carlin played with a paper clip as he held the phone, listening to Captain Craig Ruppert, Chief of U.S. Naval Intelligence, District of New York.
“No…inspector, I don't mind coming uptown to meet with you," Ruppert was saying, "but I would sure like to know why, before I make the trip."
"The problem is, fella…Captain, I don't want to make any judgments until you get here," Carlin said.
"Inspector, just tell me how this affects the Navy. Is there...?"
Carlin cut him off. "I'll make it simple for you, Captain. One of your ladies who was supposed to have left on the Maxwell Gordon may not have made it out of Central Park."
"Christ, where is she now?"
"The morgue."
"One of ours? Can't be. What makes you...?"
"The only thing we're sure of is that she's dead. We only think she may be one of yours. That's why we want you up here to help us out."
Ruppert made two phone calls, one to his wife in Riverdale, where they were living in a rented home far beyond what he could buy on his service salary. He told her that any hope for early dinner was off, he would explain later.
The other call was to Col. Bernard Taylor, of the Army's New York Provost Marshall office. They had worked together in coordinating the inter-service security precautions prior to the sailing. He alerted him as to what he had been told and would keep him informed. Taylor said he would check with his command, but thought this might stay with the Navy. The Army was up to its ass with next week’s trip, which involved the wives of more damned generals than he could imagine, those of Gens. Mark Clark and Lucius Clay, among others.
Ruppert got up from his desk, wandered out to the Navy yeoman in the outer office and told him where he was going and how he could be reached if something urgent came up.
He took notes, nodded and said, "New York Police? I guess they want to go over plans for the parade next month." He waited for a response. Ruppert looked at him and said, "Good guess, but I don't think that's it."
He put on his jacket and walked to the elevator.
The streets were filled with the usual Manhattan late afternoon traffic. Captain Ruppert, USN, sat in the passenger seat of his Navy pool car clawing its way uptown, leaving the navigation to his driver.
The car pulled up in front of the weary-looking building on East 67th Street, a sooty red brick monument built in 1887. Ruppert leaped out, the driver remained. Ruppert entered the police station and found Inspector Carlin's office.
Carlin, mid-40s, balding, stood up to greet Ruppert, his suit jacket draped over the back of his chair. Ruppert was ten years younger, crisp and efficient looking in his Navy officer’s dark blue uniform. He sat down in front of Carlin’s desk.
“So, inspector, what makes you think…”
“First, let me talk, and then you can ask questions," Carlin said. He walked to the window and said, "We found a body, female, no I.D., in Central Park."
"Okay,” said Ruppert, waiting for the connection.
Carlin returned to his desk and shoved a sheet of paper at Ruppert.
It was a schedule of events that began:
Page 2. Wives’ Transport Schedule
Arrival: April 9-10 in Manhattan.
1. Report to arrival desk at bus or train station where personnel will have your hotel assignments.
2. Military transport will be available.
The schedule went on to detail the various meetings, information on how to prepare their hand luggage for transfer to the dock area, announcing that a farewell tea would be hosted by the New York Woman's Club, and finally, that the Maxwell Gordon, USN, would depart from Pier 84, April 12, at 10;30 a.m. Wives are expected to check in by 8 a.m., followed by boarding at 9 a.m.
"Your info sheet?" asked Carlin.
Ruppert finally nodded, "It sure as hell looks like our mimeographed sheets. Where'd you find it? You said there was no I.D."
"In a purse, in a trash can about ten feet away from the body. No I.D., no label in the purse, only the mirror, lipstick and comb left. This was folded in quarters, and held to the back of the mirror by a rubber band."
"Not a confirmation," said Ruppert. "The info sheet could have been given to a friend or relative, so that they'd know the schedule."
"True," said Carlin. "But, until we find that out, you might start considering the worst. We can tell from the hair and nails this was a pretty upscale woman. It’s not the usual - not a sex thing. If it was a holdup - take the money and be off - why cut all the store labels out of every damned thing, dress, jacket and purse? If we know where she’s from - and if she’s one of the wives – chances are we might figure out who she was. The killer didn’t want us to know who her victim was. Why? Is she assuming the victim’s identity? That’s a possibility.”
“But why leave the schedule?” Ruppert asked.
“We’re guessing the killer missed it, rubber-banded to the back of the mirror like that. Or, maybe it meant nothing to the killer and this has nothing to do with your trip.”
"Anybody talk to the press about this?" Ruppert asked.
"No, our people are antsy as hell because of the mayor, him deciding to be be America’s host to the women. I don’t think we'll be broadcasting it till we know something."
“The passenger count was in order – I know, I was down there.”
“That could go either way,” Carlin said. “Means everything’s okay, or that some dame has taken our victim’s place on your ship. In that case, you’ve got a woman on your ship who's already killed once - at least, once that we know about – and could again. What kind of security you have on the ship?”
“A Marine detachment. A major in charge, Jim Stanton.”
"Pretty high rank to be running a guard detail - think somebody suspected trouble,” asked Carlin.
"Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. He was detached and had no assignments. This is probably his last run. Being mustered out when he returns.”
“Until we get some I.D. on our lady in the morgue, you might want to alert security aboard ship to keep an eye open.”
“Not without talking to Washington, but I can get Stanton thinking, like asking to double-check the passenger count.”
“What about the morgue – you want to get this out of the way?”
“Has to be later – not till I talk to Washington. Damn, mid-day Friday. Till I track anybody down. Better call my wife.”
SIX
6 P.M. FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 1946
ABOARD MAXWELL GORDON
Lucille Black, ready for her new public role as Ellen Ferguson, of Minneapolis, stood at the rail of the ship and dropped a package into the swirling water below. As it hit, its contents floated out of the paper sack, and, for a second, flashing in the late afternoon haze, was a framed photo of a soldier she had never known, sinking so quickly that even if someone had been standing next to her it would have been impossible to make out the features of First Lieutenant Mark Ferguson.
She had thought briefly of keeping the photo, laying it out there for the cabin mate or others to see. Yes, she was for real. In the end, she couldn’t do it – she killed his wife for no reason, other than it suited her plans. No, she didn’t need any reminders. She was on the edge, and didn’t need anything to jostle her.
She nodded farewell to the photo, and thought how random life was, remembering that morning a few days earlier when she had walked into the lobby of the Plaza Hotel, and asked a bellman to check her bag. The hotel was in a festive mood, with a sign on a brass easel welcoming the Army wives. Lucille began her vigil in the lobby, searching for the right woman. Time passed. Finally, a woman roughly her own age (28), size (painfully slender), and hair coloring (dark brown) walked indecisively out of the elevator toward the Palm Court, the lovely restaurant in the center of the lobby.
The maitre d’ seated her and Lucille moved quickly to approach her. The woman was polite, but on guard, hesitant when Lucille asked if she were one of the Army wives. She was. Lucille said that she, too, was one of the group. Could she could join her for a drink? The woman invited her to sit down.
Lucille led the other woman into talking about herself. She was flattered at Lucille’s interest, and delighted at the invitation to be Lucille’s guest for dinner at Longchamps. The restaurant was one block away, down 59th St. to Madison Ave. Lucille had seen the ad in the New York Times - “Irish Stew at Longchamps, $1.10.” And so it went - dinner, and then Central Park. Yes, mother had been right, never trust a dinner invitation from a stranger.
And with dinner in mind Lucille glanced at the women outside the entrance to the ship’s dining room, or mess hall, getting in their last minute cigarette puffs, since they weren’t certain yet of the smoking areas. As they flipped their cigarettes over the rail and entered the dining room she joined them, walking through the line for the first meal at sea. The sailors behind the counter were filling plates and mentioning to the next in line what was being served. She saw a table with a seat open, and carried her tray there. Nodding to everyone at the table, she suspected that for whatever reason, people usually kept the same place where first seated – whether in the classroom, the movie theater, or back in the hospital’s dining room. So, this most likely should be her seat for the trip.
Lucille listened as the ladies introduced themselves. Martha Lacey, from New Orleans, married to the son of Bert Lacey, whose family owned Lacey’s, the favorite New Orleans restaurant of everyone at the table. Rita Barry of Donora, Pennsylvania and Rita’s cabin-mate, Karen Levenson, a busy beaver. Worked at the Herald Tribune in New York, and now writing news for radio, NBC.
She almost stumbled at her turn, remembering she was now Ellen Ferguson, hoping she didn’t seem too unworldly for a buyer in the children’s section of a Minneapolis department store. She had read the letters to Ellen from her husband that were in Ellen’s suitcase, read the pamphlet about the Dayton Department Store’s relationship with its employees, but for the life of her, couldn’t figure out what were the specific duties of a buyer in the children’s department. She thought buyers would go to New York to make their selections, but based on their brief conversation Ellen seemed to have spent little time there.
Lucille came to a start with the final introduction, Diane Mason introducing herself. My God, the general’s wife swept through Lucille’s brain. Looking for shadows Lucille realized her random choice of tables may have been a disaster, one sure to be the center of attention. She must watch the others, offer conversation, remember Minneapolis, not Texas, not call attention to herself.
~ ~ ~
Stanton looked into the dining room from behind the men at the serving station. The first meal for the ladies was a suicide menu - T-bone steaks, mashed potatoes, cherry pie and ice cream. They’ll look like tubs by the time they see their husbands. Not my business, he told himself. My last run. Just get through it.
He glanced at Diane’s table to see who had joined her. It didn’t appear that the women knew one another – a sort of reserve among them. Diane was married to Barry Mason, a congressman from New York, whose flair for attracting the press hadn’t failed him when he joined the Army. Nor did his political skills go dormant, entering as a colonel and rapidly moving upward. And no reason it wouldn’t resume upon rejoining the civilian world.
But, Diane had her own power base, formed by her father, colorful, iconoclastic Albert Alvin Newell, whose company, based in Indiana, not only manufactured radios, but also provided its source material, owning the Newell Radio Network, a string of radio stations that ranged through a number of states in America's heartland.
Life had been kind to her - a wealthy father, a strong independent spirit that obviously was inherited from him, a husband with a blessed future. And more than that, still in her early 30s, retaining the dark good looks of youth, finely defined features, a complexion that required only the slightest makeup, dark brown hair that flowed loosely, features that promised to mellow classically over the years. And comfortable in her tailored, understated clothes.
Two teenage boys were trying to break into the line, but they were toying with the wrong crowd, and were quickly dispatched to the rear. The boys played with their trays, but they didn't seem to be any great problem until Stanton noticed that each had slipped a steak knife into his pocket. Let them think they got away with that for a while.
~ ~ ~
Though it was a random happening, the women seated at Diane’s table felt elevated, and were pressing slightly. Karen broke the ice, asking Martha Lacey if she worked with her husband at the restaurant owned by Bart's family. Martha explained that her father was an attorney as was his father before him, and the family wasn’t ready to have a daughter work in a restaurant, even if she did no more than greet people at the door.
"Your father - I guess all our fathers - are going to have to face a lot of changes they may not be prepared for," Rita Barry said. "It's not going to be the same world it was before the war."
The thought of preparing for ten days of small talk and large meals didn't rest easily with Karen Levenson, who had hoped to work with the ship's newspaper, only to be told there was no newspaper. She told Diane that she could put one together with the most meager of equipment - a mimeograph machine, a box of stencils, a typewriter, some paper. Diane said she would take it up with the captain.
It was not easy for Lucille to respond when called Ellen, and was finding it difficult to follow conversation about contemporary life; difficult to engage in the sort of meaningless chatter that was taking place. She had never been particularly alert to the world around her, and during the last year, obviously less so. Hard to keep up with who’s on Radio’s Hit Parade when you’re closed off from the outside world in a hospital in isolated Rusk, Texas, 140 miles from Dallas.
She couldn't allow herself to get tense and lose control, nor fade, that wonderful physical freeze she could fall into at the hospital, when everything turned grey around her. Of all tables, how did she end up at this one? She needed to get away. There was a break in conversation and she excused herself and left the dining room.
Lucille stepped out of the lounge onto the deck and thought about that Marine. She walked to the stern, looked at the wash, and then back to the bulkhead behind her. It was a remote area, no windows and barely visible from the decks above. Why not?
SEVEN
9 p.m. FRIDAY, APRIL 12
ABOARD MAXWELL GORDON
Lucille returned to her cabin. Stress was building. She scrambled through Ellen’s luggage, looking for gym shorts. The briefing notes had mentioned a gym on the ship, so hopefully Ellen had the gym in mind when she packed. She found them and pulled them out, holding them against her waist – they’d fit.
She had to run off steam, not now - in the morning – push herself as she had in the hospital during those periods of stress. It had allowed her to forgo those numbing pills, which she tossed into the toilet, enabling her to remain alert enough to work on plans for this trip. The exercise was needed now to fight off the tension that had been building since she had begun her adventure. That idiotic chatter. The pretending. Who’d believe she could do it? Not the animal keepers at the hospital. Do they even know she’s missing?
She discovered in her exercises at the hospital that her stamina had returned, that she could run with the wind. Her mind was always clear after she ran and she had to keep it that way. She didn’t have to remind herself she was here for a reason.
~ ~ ~
In a supply room on the second deck, Stanton’s first official act was about to take place. He had been walking by the supply room, when he heard an unusual sound inside. He opened the door: two teenage boys were using the steak knives taken from the mess hall, playing with the lock on the door of the small arms locker: weapons traditionally used by infantry personnel - rifles, pistols, revolvers, machine-guns and shotguns – on Navy vessels for shipboard security.
One was about 17, slender and dark-haired; the other was smaller and blond. Their heads jerked around as the door opened and Stanton stood there, reaching into his empty holster where his .45 ordinarily sat. But not on this run, as he’d decreed.
Both boys were stunned, caught.
Stanton, considered the possibilities – ten days with these two, heavy hand or light?
“Well, boys, if the war was still on you’d be in the brig. And if the Navy’s Chief Gunner’s Mate, who’s topside, caught you, you’d probably wish you were in the brig.”
“But, we were only playing with this – nobody’d get past this lock.”
“So what do you suggest I do?”
“Give us a break. We’ll stay in our cabins for the rest of the night. You’ll never see us near this room again.”
"Name?"
"Raymond...Raymond Bender," he said.. "My father's Col. Bender, with Gen. Clay's staff."
"Peter Sorenson," said the blond.
"Next time, boys, confinement to your room the rest of the trip, and I don't think your fathers are going to like hearing about this. Now, beat it."
~ ~ ~
Diane returned to her cabin after dinner; moments later Stanton was at her door.
"Oh, hello again,” she said, the door half open. “Hopefully, no problems, Major.”
"The problem, apparently, is in Germany," he said, far more annoyed than he felt he had any right to be. "A wire from Army GHQ, Frankfurt,” watching Diane tense slightly, suddenly apprehensive.
He read the wire to her: "Request that the senior security officer of Maxwell Gordon, USN, check with Mrs. Mason to see if her accommodations are satisfactory. Urgent reply requested." He looked up. Was he really playing the concierge in some domestic farce? "End of wire. So, here I am, asking officially if everything is in order."
Diane tried not to be bothered, but she was. Stanton’s tone? Or the fact that he was standing there with a cabin full of combat ribbons being put in this position by her husband’s insensitivity? She tried for a neutral position. "My husband's attempt at humor. You had me worried for a moment."
"A funny wire from Army General Headquarters in Frankfurt?" Even as he was saying it, he realized his reaction was too strong, the heavy sarcasm, but, it was as if he had been witnessing someone else's conversation, helpless to alter it. What the blazes was wrong with him?
She realized her first reading was right. It was his tone. This was not going to be an easy trip. "You made your point. Reply any way you want."
An awkward moment, relieved when - still standing at the door - Rudd drew up alongside Stanton and asked if they could talk privately.
Stanton left Diane with a polite, "Good night."
Walking down the hallway, Rudd explained the interruption: “A call in the duty shack from the captain, asking us to double-check the passenger list, see if our count is at 397 as we first posted. I did, it is. Not sure what it’s about. The captain said it was a Radiogram request from the Admiral’s Office, New York. He thought it was just routine, but I thought you should know about it.”
“Doesn’t sound routine. But, who knows, with the Navy. Thanks Rudd.”
~ ~ ~
Lucille was in her bunk when Sally Barrett returned and had made an immediate run to the bathroom they shared with the adjoining cabin. Lucille lay there hearing Sally throwing up. Sally had been seasick from the moment the ship left port. Was it the fumes from Lucille’s thermos? Could be a problem if Sally were to complain. But when Lucille opened her suitcase she could detect only the odor from her sister’s cologne.
They hadn’t much of a chance to talk, which would have been just fine with Lucille, except that Lucille had hoped to pick up some conversational threads that she could expand on at the dinner table. She did have a copy of the New York Times in her suitcase – maybe she could find something to provide some small talk. Why hadn’t she gone to the library and looked up what was involved in being a buyer of children’s clothing? She’d talk around it if it came up again.
God, there was Sally doing it again. Maybe something she ate – couldn’t be seasickness – hardly been at sea. The New York Times was a good thought, something she would follow up tomorrow. Maybe, try some of it on Sally in the morning. The trip was working out even better than planned.
EIGHT
10 p.m. E.S.T. FRIDAY, APRIL 11
NEW YORK CITY
Ruppert jumped out of a cab in front of the Medical Examiner’s office, adjoining Bellevue Hospital on First Ave. in New York, where Inspector Carlin was waiting. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, closing the cab door. “On the phone with Washington since we spoke.”
Carlin led Ruppert into the building and down a long corridor, through swinging doors, into the chilled area where the bodies were racked away neatly. An attendant, waiting for them, slid a drawer out and the men looked down upon what had once been an attractive woman, the face now pinched and gray.
“What do you think, one of yours?” Carlin asked.
“No way of telling,” said Ruppert. “We had them all ages, all descriptions.”
Carlin reached down and pulled her arm out from under the sheet. The men looked at the pail fingers and red nails, and Ruppert nodded, “But like you said, she’s taken care of herself, hair nicely cut, fingernails well-kept.”
Still holding the hand, Carlin said, “We drew a blank on her fingerprints, but if she’s a solid citizen that’s how it would be.” He placed the hand down and continued, “Best we can tell, no struggle, no marks or bruises other than the knife wounds. And as I guessed, she wasn't molested sexually."
Not sure what this run to the morgue proved, Ruppert thought. A dead woman on a table. The damned passenger count tallied exactly right, every name accounted for. Why am I uneasy? That damned schedule they found.
Carlin slipped the hand back under the sheet and signaled the attendant to file the body away; he led Ruppert out of the room.
"How’s Washington reacting?” Carlin asked.
"Nervous. Word gets out we’re thinking there may be a killer on that ship, prepare for the shit to hit the fan. A fox in the chicken house. If the press gets onto it, relatives from across the country will storm the Army wanting to know the name of the dead woman. Senators, congressmen.”
"The mayor," tossed in Carlin.
“Which is why Washington doesn’t want the FBI near this,” Ruppert said. “They’ll blast it across America, proof or no proof, with us the screw-ups for allowing it to happen. It just doesn't make sense, what would a murderer want on that ship?”
“Will you be in your office tomorrow?”
“What’s tomorrow – Saturday? I’ll be there. I’ll be talking to Washington. A lot over the weekend. They want me to be very vague in what I tell Stanton. What could I tell him, since I really don’t know anything. Anything develops, any tiny piece of info, call - either get me in the office or at home.”
He thought for a moment. “This really has me off my game - for some Goddamn reason, on the overnight I wired Cooper without sending a copy to Stanton. Have to rethink that. I need to send another wire, anyway, something with a little more teeth first thing in the morning. I do need to get his attention on this without saying too much. ”
DAY TWO
APRIL 13, 1946
NINE
6 A.M. SATURDAY, APRIL 13
START OF DAY TWO AT SEA
The morning sun was sneaking through the clouds as the Maxwell Gordon began its second day at sea slipping into the Atlantic shipping lane. The ship, once part of the American Beam Fleet, was launched in 1939 and taken over by the Navy in 1941, one of a number of ships commandeered by the military for transport services. The transports ran to all sizes, from the giant liners, such as the Queen Mary to ships much smaller than the Maxwell Gordon.