forerunner of the CIA, yes, I know,” Cruz said. He might not know plate from pewter but he wasn’t a total idiot. “So the family came back to the States after the war?”
“Jillian and her mother did. Her father was killed in action over there. His parents invited Mrs. Meade to bring the baby—Jillian, that is—and come live with them. That’s how she ended up out there, although Jillian left after high school. Attended Georgetown University, and then she came to work here.”
“What does she do here? You said she’s a curatorial associate. What does that mean, exactly?”
Twomey shrugged. “She puts together exhibits for our permanent and roving collections. Researches background materials, writes pamphlets and monographs. We have several different departments here, a couple of dozen researchers, but Jillian is really quite the best of the lot. Her specialty is the military and social history of World War II. She’s been working on an oral history for the past four or five years, collecting interviews with people who were involved in various anti-Nazi operations in the European theater. It’s fascinating work, you know. That generation isn’t going to be around forever, and she’s doing invaluable work, collecting their reminiscences. I’ve been encouraging her to develop it into a book or a doctoral thesis.”
“She’s been looking at operations in the European theater?” Cruz said, his interest piqued now.
“Yes. It started with recently declassified OSS files here in Washington that I’d arranged for her to have access to. Jillian began sifting through them and then got permission to follow up with some of the retired operatives. She’s amassed quite an amount of interesting material. As I say, I think she has the makings of a book. Jillian’s published several monographs and co-authored a couple of exhibit-related books under the auspices of our presses here, but I think this is going to be her breakout work.”
“You seem very impressed with her.”
“Absolutely. In the field of history, Agent Cruz, there are good researchers, good interviewers and good writers. Rarely, though, do you find all three in one person. Jillian is that rare exception. Unfortunately, unlike others of far lesser talent, she doesn’t seem to realize her own gifts. I must confess, I despair sometimes of her reaching her full potential. It’s a question of self-confidence, isn’t it? But I’m trying to encourage her in any way I can.”
“So, you’re sort of Henry Higgins to her Eliza Doolittle?”
Twomey arched his brow slightly. “If I can mentor someone with Miss Meade’s talents, Agent Cruz, then I am happy to do that.”
Right, Cruz thought. The guy’s in love with her. If she attracted a prig like this Twomey, he could just imagine the kind of dry, repressed, severe old maid this Jillian Meade was going to turn out to be. But that said, she hardly sounded like someone who’d be out creating mayhem and leaving dead bodies in her wake. “Had she been to Europe lately?”
“Yes. She was over in London and Paris last month. She’s working on a new exhibit we’re pulling together here on American covert support to the French Resistance. We’d been offered access to some materials at the Imperial War Museum in London and the Quai d’Orsay. I sent Jillian over to take a look. She was obviously the best person for the job, but I was encouraging her while she was there to follow up on her own research, as well.”
“What did she tell you about her trip? Anything unusual happen while she was over there?”
“Like what?”
Like, two people were murdered and she was among the last people to see them alive, Cruz was tempted to say. But he was there to get information, not offer it. “Anything unusual,” he repeated, shrugging. “Anyone she met, or anything she might have seen that was out of the ordinary.”
“I haven’t really gotten the full rundown yet on how she made out over there. She just got back a few days before Christmas, and then she was leaving to spend the holidays with her mother. I was off with friends and then attending a symposium at Harvard last week. I’d no sooner gotten back into town than Jillian told me she had to go out to Minnesota and look in on her mother. Ships passing in the night, you see.”
“The girl outside said she was due back Friday?”
“Or Monday,” Twomey replied, nodding.
“Do you happen to have a number for her mother in Minnesota?” Cruz asked. Whatever else was going on, it was stretching credulity to think this Meade woman was going to be a murder suspect. Maybe this was one of those cases he could dispatch with a quick telephone interview, then move on to other, more pressing cases.
Twomey moved behind his desk, rummaging around in loose papers. “Yes, she did leave a number. She’d sent some new brochures off to the printer, and I wanted to be able to get in touch with her if there was any problem with them. Look, what is this about? Why is the FBI, for heaven sake, taking an interest in Jillian Meade?”
Cruz shrugged. “Just a routine inquiry, as I said.”
“Aha, there it is!” Twomey spotted a scrap of paper taped to the corner of his telephone. Withdrawing a fountain pen from a burled walnut holder on his desk, he copied a number on a piece of paper and handed it to Cruz.
“Appreciate the information, Mr. Twomey.”
“It’s Dr. Twomey, actually.”
“Right,” Cruz said. He was already at the door with a hand on the knob, but he paused to examine a row of framed photographs and certificates he hadn’t noticed on the back wall. Most seemed to feature Twomey himself, alone or in a group, standing at lecterns, or shaking hands with assorted dignitaries. “Is Jillian Meade in any of these?”
“I’m not sure. Let’s see…” Twomey moved beside him to scan the collection. “No…no…yes, there she is. This was taken during the Bicentennial two years ago. There was a Smithsonian ball on the Fourth of July, and we all ended up on the roof watching the fireworks. That’s Jillian right there, in the red dress.”
Cruz leaned in to peer at the group Twomey indicated. He was a little surprised to find Jillian Meade not quite as homely as he’d been picturing her. She was one of a dozen men and women of various ages, the men in black tie, the women in gowns, caught by someone’s camera as the fireworks exploded in the air behind them. She appeared to be slim and fairly tall, with long, dark hair tucked behind her ears and a soft fringe of bangs. She wore a simple red dress that rose high on her neck but was sliced away at the shoulders, halter-style. Like several others in the picture, she was holding up a glass of wine in an apparent toast to the nation’s two hundredth birthday. But where other faces were laughing or animated, her expression was relatively sober as she stared, clear-eyed, at the camera, only a hint of a smile—superior? sardonic?—at the edge of her lips. Twomey was in the group, too, Cruz noted, holding his glass up distractedly to the camera, his gaze focused…where?
On Jillian Meade.
CHAPTER 3
Montrose, Minnesota
Wednesday, January 10, 1979
Something clattered, faintly melodic, like wooden wind chimes or a handful of pencils dropped on a floor. The sound pulled her out of the drifting, soundless, seamless place in which she’d been floating. Jillian lay still, her senses on alert, afraid to open her eyes. She wanted to go back to that
