No man could deny she was a striking woman—not a raving beauty by any stretch, but nothing close to her brother’s narrow view of her. But then, Jack had noticed how often family members viewed each other through out-of-date glasses.
“Please excuse me for not greeting you when you arrived.” Dorothy held out her hand. “To be perfectly honest, I was in my robe and needed to change.”
Jack had expected a dame like her to show up in a prim dress or skirt. But her long legs were clad in flowing brown slacks, a thin leather belt circling her trim waist. She wore a white silk blouse, and a string of pearls around her slender neck, showed to advantage by upswept hair.
“Miss Kerns.” He lightly took her hand, felt as if he were trying to grasp a sparrow without crushing its delicate bones. “I appreciate your making time for me tonight.”
Jack tried to release the bird, but Miss Kerns held on tight—and with surprising strength. “You must find Vincent for me, Mr. Shepard. Promise me you’ll find him.”
Jack could see the sincerity in her wide-set eyes. They were shining and he realized why—they were wet with unshed tears.
“I’ll try to help,” Jack replied and used his left hand to diplomatically pry loose his right.
Dorothy turned away, recovering herself. She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief she’d pulled from her pants pocket. “Won’t you sit down?”
Jack took a load off again—in the same armchair by the cold fireplace. Miss Kerns sat in the chair opposite, crossed her long limbs. Her young maid brought in a tray with a tea service.
“Tell me honestly, Miss Kerns. What do you think happened to your fiancé?” Jack asked after the maid departed. “Another woman? Or maybe he was the victim of a fast money scam gone wrong? Do you think maybe he lost your investment and was ashamed to face you?”
“I would like to believe it is none of those things, but the alternative is no better. Vincent had a drinking problem, you see.”
“You think he crawled into a bottle?”
“He told me he would never drink again. That was my condition for our engagement. My brother…he doesn’t like Vincent, you know?”
“I got that impression. How did you two meet, anyway?”
“At a big New Year’s Eve party last year. Vincent hadn’t been Stateside long. He’d been stationed in Europe—”
“Army?”
“Yes, he’d been badly wounded after D-Day, during combat in the hedgerow country—”
Jack winced.
“You were there, Mr. Shepard?”
“Not in that action. But I knew about the losses. It was a real meat grinder. I pushed through Carentan to Cherbourg, that’s where the U.S. set up her regional HQ—uh, headquarters.”
Dorothy presented a weak smile. “I know what HQ means, Mr. Shepard. My late fiancé, my first one, had written me for years from the front. He’d lost his life in the same battle where Vincent lost half his left arm.”
She paused and glanced at the dark window, as if looking for a memory.
“When I first met Vincent, at that New Year’s Eve party, and discovered he’d been in the same action that had killed Gabriel, he and I began to talk. But not like people usually talk at social gatherings. We began early in the evening and didn’t stop until after breakfast the next morning. I don’t suppose you know how that can go, Mr. Shepard? Talking all night when you first fall in love?”
Jack shifted uncomfortably, thought of Sally. For a moment, in a dream, he’d seen a future with her, a home and family. But he’d slept too long. And when he finally awoke, Sally Archer was long gone.
“I know something about it, miss. Go on.”
“Well, we did fall in love that first night, and it deepened as the weeks and months went by. He asked me to marry him on my birthday in June. We set a date to be married next year—June 1947—although my brother raised objections.”
“So why didn’t you just take off with Vincent if you loved him and your brother was so disapproving? You’ve got your own money, right?”
“I…only have a little bit left now. I gave Vincent the bulk of my inheritance to invest.”
“Yeah, about that…I understand Vincent could earn a dollar?”
“Yes, that’s right. Before the war, he made a great deal of money by investing in steel. He saw what was coming, you see? And it paid off for him. And I was sure it would again.”
“So, you gave a drunk all your money…to invest?” Jack asked.
“He’s not a drunk. Not anymore. You see, about a month ago, Vincent came upon some information about a lucrative investment in a company that manufactures air conditioners.”
“Air conditioners?” Jack jotted that down. “Do you know the name?”
“Ogden Heating and Cooling Company. They’re located in the South. Vincent says air-conditioning’s going to transform that entire region. He got a tip that Ogden was going to be bought by a much bigger corporation. He believed he could double my money in less than a year.”
“But he disappeared? With no word on your money or what he did with it?”
“I love him, Mr. Shepard. And I trust him. You wouldn’t understand.”
“No, I guess not.”
Miss Kerns leaned forward, her eyes shining, the unshed tears threatening once again to fall. “Find him, please, Mr. Shepard. I miss him so, you see.”
She was suffering so visibly that Jack wished she were right—though he believed in his heart that the woman had been taken, or her fiancé had fallen down a bottle again and something ugly had happened to him.
Jack got more information from Dorothy, standard stuff like where Tattershawe worked, where he lived, any known friends or relatives—all of whom, no surprise, she’d already contacted and gotten bupkus as to the man’s whereabouts.
“One last thing,” Jack said, glancing around the large salon. “Do you have a recent photo?”
Dorothy rose and walked out of the room. When she returned, she handed Jack a photo of Vincent in an oval frame about the size of his palm.
“Take this,” she said. “It’s hard for me to look at now anyway.”
Jack nodded, encouraged by Dorothy’s admission. Baxter Kerns had asked that Vincent’s whereabouts be kept a secret from his sister. Jack wasn’t all that keen on lying to the lady; but if she were angry at her fiancé, then some part of her probably knew she’d been played.
“You mean you can’t stand to look at his face?” Jack pressed. “You’re that steamed?”
“Not at all. I have other photos of Vincent that provide me with much happier memories. This one’s the last gift he gave me. He sent it to me just before he disappeared.”
Jack frowned at that response then studied the picture he’d been given. Like all black-and-white portraits, the subject was a deceptive contrast of shadows and light, a collection of shaded traits. In this incarnation, Tattershawe appeared handsome: a rectangular kisser with a long forehead, solid jawline, dark hair, and dark eyes.
Jack tucked the oval frame in his pocket, wishing someone would invent the camera that could show you whether or not a man had a dark heart.
With no more questions for Dorothy Kerns, Jack bid her goodnight, and stepped into the building’s hallway. As he waited for the elevator, he heard a door opening behind him. It was the service door to Miss Kerns’s luxury apartment. The young Irish maid emerged in a plain overcoat, a hand-knitted hat, and scarf. She nodded politely and waited with Jack for the elevator to arrive.
“Miss Kerns must be difficult to work for,” Jack fished. “I’ll bet she can be very demanding.”