Louise's Lies Read online

  A Selection of Titles from Sarah R. Shaber

  The Professor Simon Shaw Series

  SIMON SAID

  SNIPE HUNT

  THE FUGITIVE KING

  THE BUG FUNERAL

  SHELL GAME

  The Louise Pearlie Series

  LOUISE’S WAR *

  LOUISE’S GAMBLE *

  LOUISE’S DILEMMA *

  LOUISE’S BLUNDER *

  LOUISE’S CHANCE *

  LOUISE’S LIES *

  * available from Severn House

  LOUISE’S LIES

  Sarah R. Shaber

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain and the USA 2016 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  This eBook edition first published in 2016 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2017 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD

  Copyright © 2016 by Sarah Shaber.

  The right of Sarah Shaber to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8654-5 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-755-5 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-821-6 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  To my husband, Steve, my arm candy and champion,

  thank you for everything. KBO and WOFC, babe!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I owe so much to everyone who has supported my writing it’s difficult to know where to start with my thanks. My family, my husband, Steve, my daughter, Kate, and my son, Sam: you are my best friends and supporters. The late Ruth Cavin was my first editor and taught me the ropes with infinite patience. My current publisher, Severn House, who turn my manuscripts into books with the personal attention and quality that is rapidly fading elsewhere in the industry. I am fortunate to be represented by my agent and friend, Vicky Bijur. Thanks to my writing buddies, Margaret Maron, Diane Chamberlain, Kathy Hogan Trochek (Mary Kay Andrews), Brenda Witchger (Brynn Bonner), Alexandra Sokoloff and Katy Munger. Where would I be without you? And how lucky am I that my home bookstore is Quail Ridge Books here in Raleigh? Bob Adler and Terrie Gale, thanks for showing me around your building, which used to be the Woodward Apartments, and for giving Steve and me a place to sleep in Washington! Mike Pearse, thank you for telling me the anecdote that inspired this book.

  I appreciate my fans more than they can know. They give me the energy to keep writing Louise’s story.

  ONE

  Saturday evening

  December 11, 1943

  Washington, DC

  When we left the theater a powerful gust of frigid air struck us head on. It surprised us with its force, pushing us into the sandwich board that advertised Greer Garson in Madame Curie. As the board collapsed Joe caught it and cursed in Czech, his native language, which I rarely heard him use. The two of us together couldn’t set the board upright so we let it crash to the ground and left it lying on the sidewalk. Above us the already dimmed theater marquee went dark. The nine o’clock show had been canceled.

  ‘Twenty-two degrees,’ I said, reading the temperature off the clock over the bank across the street. ‘It could be worse. It could be snowing. Or pouring freezing rain.’

  ‘I’m not ready to go home yet, are you?’ Joe asked. ‘Let’s get a drink.’

  ‘I’d love a drink, but so many places are closed.’ Most of the citizens of the capital city had stayed home tonight, avoiding either the cold or the flu, which had already confined 80,000 people in DC to their sick beds. We’d started our evening at Joe’s apartment fixing canned tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for supper, but cabin fever finally drove us out looking for something, anything, to do. We’d braved the cold to see Madame Curie. The theater was almost deserted, as we’d expected. The soda jerk swore he’d already had the flu, and so did the usher.

  According to the morning’s Washington Post the victims of this epidemic should hit 100,000 this weekend and then taper off. I hoped so. There weren’t enough healthy nurses in the hospitals to care for the patients.

  The ghastly weather, painful as it was, had been a godsend. Cold didn’t kill germs, like some people thought, but it did keep people inside their homes so they couldn’t come into contact with sick people.

  Another good result of the cold and the flu was that the 78th Congress planned to recess for Christmas earlier than usual and spare us their constant bickering. A crowd of hotheaded Southern Democrats, pressured by Southern railroad companies, was threatening to urge various states to secede over the rules set by the Fair Employment Practice Committee, the rules that guaranteed colored workers the same wages as white employees. What nonsense, when we were in the midst of a worldwide war!

  ‘Look,’ Joe said, pointing down the street. A neon martini glass with an olive suspended in it flickered over a double door. Light poured out the transom and through the large plate glass window with Baron Steuben Inn painted on it. We bent into gusting wind, forcing our way down the street, and pushed through the heavy oak door.

  In the vestibule we stripped off our heavy coats, scarves and gloves under the self-assured gaze of the baron himself, who gazed at us from a cheap print copied from the famous portrait by Charles Willson Peale.

  ‘Who was Baron Steuben? I’m surprised any business in this city has retained a German name,’ Joe said.

  ‘Steuben was a Prussian officer who volunteered to fight with the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War,’ I said. ‘He was General Washington’s chief of staff. He lived here for the rest of his life.’

  ‘Oh,’ Joe said, hanging our coats from two of the hooks that lined a wall of the vestibule. ‘That explains it.’ I shivered. The small space was almost as chilly as it was outside.

  As we had expected the bar had few customers. Some of the tables and chairs had been cleared away and stacked in a corner between a front window and the entrance to the back of the bar. The bar stools had been moved too – so drinkers couldn’t sit at the counter and spread germs, I supposed.

  The warmth that greeted us as we walked inside the bar was almost as shocking as the cold. Steam clouded my glasses and I had to clean them with my handkerchief.

  The few patrons who’d braved the frosty weather in search of a drink collected at the remaining tables, spaced well apart from each other. A balding, middle-aged man playing chess with himself occupied the best table, the one nearest the roaring fire. He moved a white rook, then turned the game board around and rested his head in his hand, pondering his next move. A few tables away, under the well-worn dartboard, a blonde woman wearing corduroy trousers and a heavy fisherman’s swe
ater was reading The Robe, Lloyd Douglas’ bestselling book about the crucifixion of Jesus. She was sipping coffee from a steaming mug; I could smell its comforting odor from where I stood. She was at least as old as I was, over thirty, I guessed, but wore her ash-colored hair long, like Veronica Lake. A chocolate-colored mink coat, real mink, not dyed marmot or skunk, was draped over another chair at her table. If I owned a coat like that I’d keep it by my side too. When she reached for her coffee I noticed a square-cut diamond ringed with tiny rubies on her right hand. The rock had to be two carats.

  An elegantly dressed couple holding hands, leaning so close together their heads almost touched, occupied a table directly in front of the fire. Their cocktails sat on the table, ignored. The woman had a lovely coat too, black cashmere with a sable collar, draped over her shoulders. When her date’s hand moved up her arm I saw a thick gold watch peek out from his sleeve. I wondered why they were slumming here.

  At another table near the vestibule’s entrance two workmen quietly sipped their beers. One wore the uniform of a Capital Transit bus driver. The other appeared to be a common laborer. His clothes were shabby and his coat was missing a button. They ate sandwiches from a brown paper bag.

  The barkeep raised his hand to us. He was shockingly thin and barely out of his teens, pale with dark circles under his eyes. A sheen of moisture coated his forehead. He looked as if he’d just risen from a sick bed himself. ‘Holler out your order,’ he said, ‘and I’ll place your drinks on the bar, and when I step back you can come get them.’

  ‘A gin martini,’ Joe called back. ‘Just a little vermouth, no olive.’ Joe knew me well. ‘Do you have any European beers?’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘just Budweiser.’

  ‘Whiskey?’

  ‘Nope. We haven’t got our order in yet.’ Whiskey supplies were running low all over the country and causing a public outcry. There were rumors that the government would allow distillers to decrease their production of war alcohol so they could restock liquor store shelves, but until then buyers were limited to one bottle a week. I was glad to be a Gordon water girl. Gin didn’t need to be aged.

  ‘All right,’ Joe said, disappointed. ‘Whatever you’ve got, I guess.’

  The barkeep placed our drinks on the bar and stepped back so Joe go could retrieve them and pay the chit.

  ‘Ma’am,’ said the man sitting alone with his chess set. ‘I’m well over the flu. My chess partner didn’t show up; would you and your friend like to join me here by the fire? I’d like the company.’

  I glanced at Joe and he nodded, so we went over to his table and sat down. I sipped my martini while Joe swallowed some beer, but not without grimacing first.

  ‘Not exactly pilsner, is it?’ the man said.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ Joe answered. He stretched his hand across the table and shook hands with the man. ‘I am Joe Prager,’ he said. ‘This is my friend Mrs Louise Pearlie.’

  ‘I’m Al Becker,’ he answered, clasping Joe’s hand and nodding in my direction.

  ‘You must have recognized my accent,’ Joe said.

  ‘Of course,’ Al answered. ‘You’re Czech, yes? Where the best pilsner in the world is brewed.’ Al had a slight accent himself. German.

  That put me on guard. There were plenty of innocent German speakers in DC these days, but I worked for the Office of Strategic Services in a covert section and took no chances with strangers.

  ‘Yes,’ Joe answered. ‘But I was living in London when the war broke out and I carry a British passport.’

  ‘I am an American,’ Al said. ‘I immigrated after the last war. I became a citizen when I married an American woman. I can’t completely get rid of my accent, much to my dismay. It marks me wherever I go. It’s not good to have a German accent in America these days.’

  Al picked up his chess pieces and stowed them neatly away in a battered case, folding the chessboard over the top and snapping the case closed. He sipped from his own beer.

  ‘I don’t know why I keep coming here,’ he said. ‘It’s blocks away from my apartment. But years ago I’d meet my friends here because it served all the best German beers. I can’t break the habit.’

  A few feet away the elegant couple broke away from mooning at each other to sip their cocktails. The woman crossed her legs. I could swear she was wearing silk stockings and I wondered where she’d found them. Black market, probably. The man, who had a slicked-back haircut with a wave over his forehead, pulled two cigarettes out of a pack of Camels and put them in his mouth. He lit them both with a silver cigarette lighter and gave one to the woman. They leaned together again and spoke in whispers to each other. This bar didn’t seem that romantic to me, but they were clearly oblivious to their surroundings.

  A peal of laughter broke out from the table with the two workmen, interrupting us. The Capital Transit bus driver, who had a bald head ringed with ginger hair, stomped his foot, laughing, while his friend drained his glass, dribbling beer down his chin.

  ‘We need refills,’ the dribbler said.

  ‘I’m sick of beer,’ the bus driver said. ‘I want a double shot of whiskey.’

  ‘You heard the barkeep,’ his companion said. ‘There’s no whiskey.’

  ‘Maybe not for the likes of us.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ his friend asked.

  The bus driver pushed back his chair with a scraping sound that attracted the notice of the elegant couple, diverting their attention from each other. The woman reading looked up from her book.

  Al and Joe glanced at each other. ‘Are there often fights here?’ Joe asked.

  ‘Not when I’ve been here,’ Al said.

  ‘Maybe we should leave,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ Joe said. ‘The troublemaker is between the door and us. Let’s see if the barkeep can handle it.’

  ‘The boy’s been ill,’ Al said. ‘We might need to step in.’

  The bus driver bellied up to the bar. ‘Pour me a double whiskey. Four Roses, please,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the young barkeep said. ‘We’re out of whiskey. We have plenty of gin.’

  ‘I don’t want cleaning fluid,’ the bus driver said, ‘I want a real drink, a man’s drink.’

  ‘I can’t help you,’ the barkeep said. ‘I just can’t. Please back away from the bar. I’ve just gotten over the flu. I’m not in good health.’

  The bus driver turned and pointed to the elegant couple. ‘What about them?’ he asked. ‘Could they get whiskey if they asked for it? Have you got a bottle back there reserved for your best customers?’

  The elegant man spoke up, raising his glass. ‘This is brandy, sir, not whiskey. Very good brandy indeed. I’d be happy to buy you and your friend a round.’

  ‘I can vouch for the brandy,’ the blonde woman said. ‘I had some in my coffee.’

  ‘Here,’ the barkeep said, pulling a bottle of brandy off the shelf behind him. He held it out to show the bus driver. ‘It’s Hennessy. You’ll like it.’

  The bus driver clenched and unclenched his fists, as if deciding whether to stay combative or settle for a glass of brandy instead.

  The blonde woman at the table under the dartboard finished her spiked coffee and shoved her book into her handbag, ready to leave if the bus driver wasn’t mollified.

  ‘Look, Walt,’ his friend said to him, ‘leave it be. Let’s take this fellow up on his offer. I’d like to taste that brandy myself.’

  Walt stared at his friend for a second. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘But first I want to check behind the bar and see if there’s any whiskey stashed away there.’

  Al spoke up. ‘Surely that’s not necessary. I know Cal. He’s an honest kid. If he says there’s no whiskey, there’s no whiskey.’

  I could feel Joe and Al tense in their seats, ready to rush Walt if he should become violent. The blonde woman wrapped her scarf around her neck. The elegant couple moved too, pulling on their coats. Everyone in the bar was getting ready to leave quickly or to intervene if necess
ary.

  ‘Then he won’t mind if I check behind the bar,’ Walt said, moving toward the open end of the bar.

  ‘Come on, Walt, cut it out,’ his friend said, standing up at his table. ‘We don’t want no trouble tonight.’

  The piled-up tables and chairs in the corner near the entrance to the bar blocked Walt’s path, so he forced himself through them, picking up one chair and throwing it aside, almost breaking the front window. The barkeep, sweating profusely, blocked his way. ‘You can’t come back here,’ he said to Walt. ‘Please. There’s no whiskey. I swear.’

  Joe and Al jumped up, moving quickly toward the bar. Walt’s friend was moving too. ‘You dummy! Stop it!’ he shouted across the room.

  I noticed the elegant couple moving past me in the opposite direction. Headed for the back door. Didn’t want to be involved. The idle rich hated seeing their names in the newspaper.

  Walt forced the barkeep back easily, with just one hand, then bent under the bar to search for the whiskey he seemed sure he’d find there. But he quickly rose, his eyes wide with shock, and staggered backwards into the bottles and glasses that lined the back shelf, knocking some of them off the ledge and on to the floor, where they broke and splintered into pieces.

  ‘Holy Mary,’ Walt said, his face contorted with horror. ‘There’s a dead man on the floor back here.’ He glanced up and repeated himself, as if he didn’t think we’d heard him. ‘A dead man! Soaked in blood!’

  For a few seconds no one moved. Then Al and Joe dashed toward the bar. Al got there first and swung behind the counter, then covered his mouth when he saw the corpse.

  ‘Good God,’ he said. ‘It’s Floyd!’

  ‘Who?’ Joe asked.

  ‘Floyd Stinson, the man I play chess with every week!’ Al sank to his knees beside his friend, with a hand stretched out to touch him, but Joe grabbed his arms to keep him on his feet. ‘Watch out,’ he said to Al, ‘there are shards of glass everywhere. You’ll cut yourself.’

  Walt had recovered his self-control and had pinned Cal’s arms behind him. The young barkeep looked terrified. He even had a couple of tears tracking down his face.