“Hi.” Mack walked over to where she stood. “Something smells good,” he said, attempting to look around her and into the kitchen.
“Is that a hint?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
“Could be. What’s cookin’?”
“I call it Reuben casserole. Linc had me make it at least every other week.”
“What’s in it?”
“Sauerkraut and corned beef.”
“Sauerkraut.” Mack wrinkled his nose in distaste.
“You don’t like sauerkraut?”
“Not particularly, but if this is Linc’s favorite, then I’d be willing to give it a try.” His gaze held hers, and Mary Jo had the impression that even if she’d baked rocks he would’ve been happy to come for dinner. The thought made her feel light-headed. They’d kissed before, plenty of times. But the night he’d discovered the diary it’d been different, more intense…deeper. It was as though the barriers between them had vanished. Together they’d found a missing piece of the puzzle that intrigued them both. And perhaps a missing part of their puzzle, as well, a connecting piece that brought them together.
“You’re welcome to join us,” Mary Jo said, and had to admit she hoped he would.
“I’ll go clean up and be back in ten minutes,” he said.
Mary Jo watched him walk into his own place and then turned to look at her daughter, who sat in her baby seat, chewing on her tiny fist. Noelle was teething, which made her irritable and a bit feverish. “Mack’s coming for dinner,” she announced giddily. She’d fed Noelle earlier and the baby had fussed, not really interested. Mary Jo didn’t blame her.
The previous Sunday, Mack and Mary Jo had gone to the movies. It’d felt more like a real date than the other times they’d gone places together, perhaps because they were on their own, without Noelle to consider. Their relationship still seemed casual but was quickly gaining momentum. Noelle had stayed with Roy and Corrie; Corrie said she’d loved having her and seemed to mean it.
Mary Jo had set the table and placed the casserole in the middle, together with a green salad and fresh bread, by the time Mack returned.
“Dinner looks great,” he said, eyeing it appreciatively as they sat down.
She dished up the casserole and passed him the salad. “I’ve been reading Joan’s diary whenever I have a chance,” she said. Actually, she’d done little else during her free time since they’d found the book. She’d started with January 1, 1944, getting to know the intimate thoughts of this woman who’d become so important to her.
“Anything interesting so far?”
“It’s all interesting. She refers a lot to how she didn’t get along with her sister. Apparently Elaine wanted her to date Marvin’s brother Earl.”
“And Marvin is?”
“Oh, that’s Elaine’s husband.”
“Was Earl in the service?”
Mary Jo shrugged. “She doesn’t say. It’s sort of hard to follow because each entry is only three or four lines. Joan writes in this shorthand way. ‘Busy today,’ ‘no letter from Jacob,’ that kind of thing.”
“Can I see the diary when we’re finished eating?”
“Oh, sure.” They continued their meal, with Noelle—finally content—in her baby seat. Mack had obviously changed his views on sauerkraut, since he had two helpings. They cleared the table and Mary Jo made coffee, then retrieved the journal from her room. The night before, she’d read until the words had started to blur.
“Did you get to June 6, 1944?” he asked.
“No, just to the first part of May.” Perhaps because she was afraid of what she might learn or because she was so involved in Joan’s day-to-day life, Mary Jo hadn’t skipped ahead.
“I wonder if she mentions D-day,” he said, opening the clasp and flipping through the pages. “‘June 6, 1944. Did my washing. No mail from Jacob. Worked hard all day on troop transports.’”
“Troop transports? What does that mean?” Mary Jo asked.
Mack shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“What about June 7?” she asked, resisting the urge to read over his shoulder.
Mack turned the page. “‘No mail from Jacob. My heart is broken. Had to tack on 3. Got some 200 w lightbulbs. Wrote letters and emb.’” He looked up. “I see what you mean about the shorthand. I wonder why she’s talking about lightbulbs.”
“They were probably being rationed.” Mary Jo had only recently learned about ration books. “Did you know it was because of rations that the recipe for red velvet cake was developed?”
Mack looked up from the diary and stared at her blankly. “Red velvet cake? What’s that?”
“It’s my brother Ned’s favorite. I bake it for his birthday every year with cream-cheese frosting.”
“What makes it red? Strawberries?”
“No.” She took a sip of her coffee. “I’ve been reading about domestic life during the war. You’re not the only one with a library card,” she told him primly. “I checked out a couple of history books, but they weren’t about battles.” She set down her cup. “Like I said, they focused more on the home front and how families coped with their men being away, women working in large numbers, rationing. Stuff like that.” She paused. “Cocoa’s one thing that was rationed.”
“Cocoa,” Mack repeated. “So?”
“So there was a scarcity of cocoa, and women couldn’t make chocolate cakes. Oh, and sugar was rationed, too.”
“Which means…” He gestured with his hand, urging her to continue.
“Which means,” she said, thinking it should be obvious, “that women came up with the idea of substituting red food coloring for chocolate. You mean to say you’ve never had red velvet cake?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“I’ll bake you one.”
“Will I have to share it with your brother?” he teased.
“Probably.”
He smiled and she smiled back, and for a moment they seemed to be lost in each other. Mary Jo looked away first, but her entire body remained aware of the man sitting across from her.
Mack returned to the diary. “June 8, 1944, says, ‘Jacob, oh, Jacob, why don’t you write. I’m losing my mind.’”
A sick feeling assailed Mary Jo’s stomach. “What about June 9?”
Mack turned the page, silently read the entry, then glanced up. “‘I scrubbed the house. No letter from Jacob. I’m so afraid….’”
“Keep reading,” Mary Jo whispered. She had to know, and yet, at the same time, she didn’t think she could bear it if this man had died.
“For June 10 and 11, 1944, all it says is, ‘No letter.’” He flipped over the page.
“What about June 12?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Where does it pick up again?”
Mack started flipping pages again and then set the diary aside. “The rest of the book is blank,” he said.
“She wrote nothing more?” Mary Jo murmured. “He died, then. Jacob must’ve been killed on D-day.”
“We don’t know that for sure. Maybe we can access military records.”
“Maybe. Or what about looking for Elaine Manry?” she suggested. They might not find Joan, but they might be able to locate her sister.
“Did she mention Elaine’s married name?” Mack asked.
Mary Jo exhaled in frustration. “No, but then there wouldn’t be any reason to in her journal, would there?”
She knew she was overreacting, but she couldn’t help it. After reading Jacob’s beautiful love letters and Joan’s diary so full of longing and angst, she’d come to care deeply about these people. They weren’t just names on a page; they were real people who’d lived through a hellish time.
“I…I have to believe Jacob was killed,” she murmured, hardly able to say the words aloud. “It makes sense that if Joan didn’t hear anything after June 6, 1944, something happened to him. Why else would she leave the pages blank?”
“I still don’t think we should make that assump
tion,” Mack said.
“Jacob was a paratrooper,” she went on.
Mack nodded.
“The airborne units suffered tremendous losses.” She’d read about troops who parachuted behind enemy lines. One entire unit was mowed down when they landed in a town swarming with German troops. The thought of Jacob’s death felt like a personal loss.
“True, but—”
“I think I made the right assumption,” she said, close to tears. That was why she hadn’t read ahead in the diary. Because she knew. Deep down, she knew. This must be why Joan had hidden his love letters. It was too painful for her to see them.
“We’re just guessing here,” Mack reminded her.
“But how can we find out?” she asked.
Mack looked perplexed. “I don’t know, but I’ll work on it.”
“Maybe there’s a record of all the men buried in France.” Mary Jo had seen pictures of acre upon acre of white crosses on the rolling hills of Normandy. If Jacob had died in France, there was a good chance he’d been buried there.
“I’ll try to get that information,” Mack said. “We might also discover he’s not there.”
He seemed so optimistic, so eager to believe Jacob had survived the invasion.
“He might’ve been wounded,” Mary Jo said.
“Yeah. We wondered about that earlier, remember?”
She nodded. “Communication took a long time, so it could’ve been weeks before Joan learned what had happened to him.”
“Exactly,” Mack said.
She nodded, but the possibility that Jacob had never come back from the war was still very real to her.
Noelle began to cry, and before Mary Jo could reach for her, Mack stood and took her out of the infant seat.
“She’s teething,” Mary Jo said. “That’s why she’s been fussing lately. Plus it’s seven-thirty—time for bed.”
Mack rocked Noelle in his arms and soon the baby girl was smiling, drool dripping off her chin and onto her pink sleeper. “I should get her into her crib,” she said, feeling slightly guilty that she’d ignored her daughter this long, caught up in the drama of World War II.
“I’ll take care of the dishes,” he told her. They’d piled everything in the sink and on the counters.
Getting her brothers to help in the kitchen had always been a struggle, although they paid lip service to the concept of doing their share. Mack’s volunteering was a pleasant surprise.
“You don’t need to do that,” she said.
“Sure I do. My mom said if she cooked, she shouldn’t have to do the dishes. Dad agreed, so Linnette and I had kitchen duty every night.” He grinned wickedly. “Then Linnette and I left home, and Mom pointed out that the dishes had now become my dad’s responsibility.”
“Does he do them?”
“Every night,” Mack said. “In fact, I think he and Mom have fun doing them together. I’ve caught them more than once dancing to old rock ’n’ roll tunes.”
Mary Jo smiled. “Do you want me to put on some music?”
Mack smiled back. “Maybe later.”
By the time she’d finished getting Noelle changed and ready for bed, Mack had cleaned up the kitchen. He turned on the television to the nightly news, keeping the volume low, while she fed Noelle. Then he sat down next to her and, after a moment, put his arm around her shoulders. Mary Jo felt the warmth of his affection and she was convinced Noelle did, as well.
Her daughter fell asleep in her arms and Mary Jo was far too comfortable to move. She rested her head against Mack and sighed deeply. “I so badly want Jacob to have survived the war,” she whispered.
Mack kissed the top of her head. “Me, too.”
They sat there, quietly watching television for the next hour. When he left, Mary Jo settled Noelle carefully in her crib. She almost didn’t hear the gentle tap on her front door ten minutes later. When she opened it, Mack stood on the other side, the look on his face exultant.
“I went online as soon as I got home.”
Mary Jo’s heart leaped. “Jacob Dennison made it?”
“I can’t say for sure, but I do know he didn’t die in France. His name isn’t on the list of Americans buried there.”
“Then maybe he was injured, after all, and sent stateside,” Mary Jo said. That, too, might explain why Joan had ceased writing immediately after the Normandy invasion. Somehow, Mary Jo conjectured, she’d made her way to the hospital where Jacob was sent. She’d left everything behind and didn’t want her sister finding her diary. Then, after Jacob had healed, they’d gotten married and Joan had never gone back to retrieve her diary and the letters.
Mary Jo felt giddy with relief.
“There,” Mack said. “Aren’t you happy?”
“I’m ecstatic!”
“The last time you were this happy it was because I found the diary—and you kissed me.”
Mary Jo laughed at his broad hint, then leaned forward and threw her arms around his neck.
“That’s more like it,” Mack said just before he lowered his mouth to hers.
Thirteen
Roy McAfee glanced up from his computer screen as Corrie let herself into his office, closing the door behind her.
“Leonard Bellamy is here to see you,” she said, frowning.
Roy looked at his desk calendar.
“He doesn’t have an appointment,” Corrie said, confirming Roy’s assumption. “He asked to see you right away.” The last two words were stated with more than a hint of disapproval.
Roy already knew his wife wasn’t impressed with Bellamy. His family, probably the wealthiest in the area, owned half of downtown Bremerton and several large properties on Bainbridge Island. Roy knew they had several holdings in Cedar Cove, as well. He’d done work for the man before, mostly background checks on potential hires.
“I can see him.” Roy was admittedly curious—it wasn’t every day Leonard Bellamy stopped by for a chat.
“He didn’t make an appointment,” Corrie reminded him.
“That’s okay. I’m available,” Roy said. Corrie was well aware that not everyone scheduled appointments with him; he always had a certain number of walk-ins. He wasn’t going to hold that against Bellamy, even if his wife did. Leonard Bellamy paid his bills promptly.
The last case Roy had worked on for Bellamy had concerned an employee who’d filed for workers’ compensation, claiming that due to a serious back injury, he was unable to continue in his current position. Having suffered from back ailments himself, Roy was in full sympathy with the employee—until he caught him training to climb Mount Rainier hefting a fifty-pound knapsack. Leonard had paid Roy a handsome bonus at the end of that investigation.
“He comes in without an appointment and just assumes you’ll see him because he’s the great and mighty Leonard Bellamy,” Corrie muttered. “In my opinion, he’s arrogant and demanding and a jerk.”
“Show him in, Corrie,” Roy said pointedly.
“I will, but I don’t like him taking advantage of you.”
He didn’t bother to defend Bellamy, since Corrie’s dislike of him made her unwilling to listen.
A minute later she escorted Leonard Bellamy into Roy’s office. Roy stood and the two men exchanged perfunctory handshakes.
“Good morning,” Roy said, and waited until the other man had taken the upholstered chair across from him before sitting down again. “What can I do for you?” he asked. He was a busy man and so was Bellamy. They didn’t need to waste time with further chitchat.
“I believe you’ve met my daughter, Lori.”
Roy wasn’t sure he had. “I’m afraid I don’t recall.”
“But you know I have two daughters, correct?”
“Yes.” And a son. Older than the girls. Both Robert and Denise worked with their father.
“You may remember that Lori was engaged to…to that felon Geoff Duncan.”
Roy knew the Duncan case well. Geoff had worked for attorney Allan Harris as his legal assistant.
Harris had been handling Martha Evans’s estate when several pieces of expensive jewelry went missing. All the evidence suggested that Dave Flemming, a local pastor, had been responsible for the theft. Sheriff Troy Davis and Roy had solved the case together. In a systematic search of pawnshops, Roy had come across one where Geoff had left a piece of the jewelry.
Geoff had accepted a plea bargain and was now serving a prison sentence.
“I do remember that Duncan was engaged at the time,” Roy said.
Bellamy sighed loudly. “I swear that girl doesn’t have the sense God gave a duck. You’d think she’d have better judgment, but Geoff managed to convince her that he was madly in love with her and the two of them were meant to be together. I had my suspicions the minute we met. The man was a con artist of the first order. He didn’t love Lori. It was blatantly obvious he was after her money.” He shook his head. “I have to admit he grew on me after a while—that con-artist-charmer type, you know. But I should’ve gone with my gut instinct.”
Roy didn’t respond, although he had his own opinion on the matter. He’d seen Geoff Duncan as an unfortunate case. The young man had gotten in over his head financially, trying to impress the Bellamys, and when his money situation became precarious, he’d stolen the jewelry. Roy didn’t believe Geoff Duncan was a career criminal—just irresponsible and desperate to make a good impression on his fiancée and future in-laws. His plan had backfired, and the man seemed genuinely repentant when confronted with the truth.
“I hate to say this, but my daughter isn’t the brightest girl you could hope to meet.” Bellamy sat back in the chair and crossed his legs. “I’m afraid she’s jumped directly from the frying pan into the fire with this latest stunt of hers.”
Roy had perfected his poker face years ago and was able to conceal his aversion to the way Bellamy spoke about his daughter.
“How do you mean?” he asked in a mild voice.
The question was ignored. “Did I mention she works at a dress shop? My daughter in a dress shop. Three years of college and she drops out because she’s got some fantasy about becoming a designer. This friend of my wife’s owns a dress shop and hired her. If Lori wanted to quit school and find a job, I could’ve given her one. When I offered, you know what she said?”