“All right,” Sally Ann said, “we’ll wait right here. We’ll be your lookout. And we won’t tell anyone. It will just be between us.”
“Promise?”
“Of course, on our Kappa honor. Do you think we would betray a sister?”
Sookie looked up and down the hall. “Oh, all right. But you stand right there and knock if you see someone coming. If I get caught I’m going to kill you.”
Sookie hated spying but she was dying to find out herself. Now at least she had two accomplices. She went over and quietly opened Dena’s top drawer. She felt around for paper. Nothing. She went through all five drawers and came up empty-handed. She looked under the bed, under the pillows; nothing.
Then she remembered: Dena kept some papers in a box on the top shelf of her closet. She pulled a desk chair over, got the box down, and started shuffling through the papers. No letters, just grade transcripts, a couple of Playbills, classroom notes, a newspaper article on Tennessee Williams, a typed letter from the scholarship board. Then, down at the bottom, she found a personal letter and her heart started to pound. It was postmarked just last week; it looked like a man’s handwriting. She opened it carefully, excited and full of guilt.
And was riveted by what she read.
1420 Pine Street
Kansas City, Mo.
Sept. 21, 1963
Dear Dena,
I hope this letter finds you well. They have got me here at the VA Hospital for some therapy. I am staying in an outpatient home run by the VA. I know this has been a bad year for both of us. Baby Girl, I wrote to tell you I do not have good news about your mother, but it is not terrible news either. I have just received the final report from the Pinkerton fellow and he informs me that after two years he can go no further in his investigation but can say with some certainty your mother is alive and still in this country. As long as she remains listed with the Bureau of Missing Persons there is always a chance she will be found.
Don’t ever let yourself get old. Mrs. Watson is a good nurse and puts me on a leash and walks me, so it’s me and all the other old dogs that go round and round the block every afternoon. I miss home, but Aunt Elner keeps me well supplied with news and fig preserves. Do well in your studies. Keep your powder dry. I have enclosed a check for a little dough I have managed to squirrel away.
I remain your loving grandpa,
Lodor Nordstrom, Sr.
Sookie carefully folded it and put it in the box and back up on the top shelf. Sookie was not the brightest of girls, but she knew it was something she should never have seen. She felt like a traitor for having read it. She waited a moment, then went to the door to the waiting girls and reported that she could not find a thing. Sally Ann and Margaret were extremely disappointed and went down the hall. After Christmas, when Dena came back from the holiday break and told her all about the wonderful time she had spent with her mother, Sookie said nothing.
Letter in a Tin Box
Elmwood Springs, Missouri
1963
After Dena’s grandfather died, Macky went through his papers, looking for a burial policy and anything else as executor he needed to know about. He had to pry open a tin box.
Dunbar & Straton
Resource Tracing Inc.
Chicago, Illinois
Re: Marion Chapman
White, female
Born: Dec. 1920
Washington, D.C.
#8674
Dear Mr. Nordstrom,
Using all the information at hand from your daughter-in-law’s marriage certificate, her social security number, and the birth date and place given, we have not found a Marion Chapman born on that date in Washington, D.C., listed in any official records. We have repeatedly checked and rechecked all our national research sources and have found only eleven Marion Chapmans born on or around that date, all of whom have been located and accounted for. According to our files and the census taken, no such person exists. If you have any further information, we will be happy to assist you in the future.
Yours truly,
A. A. Dunbar
Macky talked it over with Norma and they both decided not to tell Dena. As Norma said, “What good would it do for her to know the person she thought was her mother didn’t exist?”
A Dish Best Served Cold
New York City
1978
Dena Nordstrom had ruined Sidney Capello’s one chance to be big in network television, but like a rat in a maze he had quickly scurried in another direction. In the tabloid business, where speed does count, Capello had shot to the top like a silver bullet. He had tired of being a freelance. It was too much of a hassle dealing with editors for a good price, so he cut out the middle man and started his own paper. Stripped of the dead weight of ethics, a conscience, or fear of the law, combined with his willingness to do anything to get a story, Capello and his paper were soon way ahead of the pack. Not fussing over facts was an economy. In less than a year his cheaply produced paper outsold everything on the supermarket rack and his readership was growing stronger every day. And he intended to keep it number one despite growing competition.
He had no qualms about stealing mail, tapping phones, and bribing or even placing maids, gardeners, or chauffeurs in the homes of the well known. His appetite for access to private information was boundless, and FBI files read like first-grade primers compared to his. He knew who was sleeping with whom, when, where, and how they did it, and could come up with one or two “witnesses” and, if necessary and for enough money, he could provide the “other person” involved, whether that person had been there or not. He had access to medical records, bank statements, private phone conversations. He knew how almost any half-fact could be blown up into a scandal at a moment’s notice. But the main reason for Sidney’s success was his ability to look to the future, to put away something for a rainy day. He had his “insurance” file chock-full of tidbits, photos, documents he could use when that rainy day came. If it had been a slow news week, he simply pulled something out that had been on hold, added a few factoids, and ran it. One aging movie star lost a lead in a movie when her before-and-after plastic surgery photos showed up in color on the cover of Capello’s sheet, for no reason other than it had been a slow week. He liked being on top and he also had what he called a Hot File, ready to go, his get-them-before-they’re-famous time bombs. He sent his staff out gathering information on anybody he even suspected might become newsworthy one day—kid actors, musicians, public servants, do-gooders. It was expensive, but what was thirty or forty thousand dollars when one story might sell millions of papers? He wanted to have a head start program of his own: as soon as someone hit it big he wanted to be ready. This is how the Dena Nordstrom file had come into being and now sat, ticking away, waiting for the right moment. Capello was usually strictly business, but he took a personal interest in her story. If it had not been for Nordstrom he might be producing television today. He had put his most expensive, tough-digging researcher, Barbara Zofko, to work on this one. It had been worth it. What she had dug up exceeded even his wildest dreams. Now all he had to do was sit back and wait for the right moment, and he was a patient man. It was a dirty business. But it wasn’t blackmail. Ask him and he would tell you it was simply entertainment news, and news as entertainment, and there was much more money in the tabloid business than there ever had been in blackmail. And it was legal. It sort of made you proud to be an American.
If Sidney Capello was the queen bee, Barbara Zofko was the perfect drone. She served him well. A lumpy, misshapen sort of woman with thick, slightly pockmarked, shiny white skin, not ugly, not pretty, she had the kind of face that could walk past a thousand people a day and not one would remember her. This characteristic worked in her favor. In fact, she was perfect for her job: she had no human relations to interfere with her work.
Barbara Zofko did not mind eating alone. She preferred it. She was totally focused on her work and the next meal. Her appetite was insatiable and she could eat a ba
g of cookies, an entire cake, and a dozen doughnuts at one sitting. And, if there was one characteristic that had made her what she had become, it was that hunger. Zofko had come from a small coal-mining town outside of Pittsburgh, one of seven children. The daughter of a taciturn miner and a mother who had been old at thirty, Barbara had never had enough of anything, love, money, or food, and now, no matter how much she ate, she never felt quite full. She was always left feeling just a little bit hungry and that’s why she was Capello’s top bird dog. She had been on this case for several weeks now and so far all she had been able to turn up on Dena Nordstrom was that she had attended schools all over the country and everyone remembered her but few people remembered much about her. It was turning out to be difficult. The hardest target to hit is a moving target and from the age of four, this TV woman had done nothing but move from one place to another. She had not stayed in college long enough to graduate, and when Barbara had gotten a list of the names of her sorority sisters and tracked them down all over the country, it had been a waste. Not one would say anything bad about her and a few said how wonderful she had been. Not only that, the woman in Alabama who had been her roommate in college had almost talked her ear off. She had gone on and on for hours with glowing accounts of what a fabulous girl Dena was. She had a hard time getting the woman off the phone. Zofko figured there must be some kind of conspiracy. She had tracked Dena’s career from one local television station to another and nothing. They all said the same thing. Nice girl. We knew she would do well. Another blind alley.
Time to start on the immediate family. When Barbara made her reservations at the only place in Elmwood Springs to stay, her first thought was “fried clams.” She always liked the little fried clams at Howard Johnson’s, so she was not terribly upset at having to spend some time there. When she checked in that first day, she was disappointed that they did not have room service, but her spirits lifted when she saw the brochure for the International House of Pancakes and learned it was not too far off. She dumped her bags and did what she always did in a strange town. She drove to the nearest supermarket, got a basket and circled the bread and pastry section like a great white shark, and snatched a variety of sweet supplies to get her through the night. The next morning she knocked on Norma Warren’s front door.
“Mrs. Warren?”
“Yes?”
“You don’t know me but I’m here from the governor’s office in Jefferson City and I wondered if I might talk to you about something concerning your cousin … Dena Nordstrom?”
Norma was surprised and caught off guard as Zofko knew she would be. “It’s a confidential matter.”
“Oh … well, of course. Come in.”
They went into the living room.
“Mrs. Warren, this year the state of Missouri is setting up a Missouri Hall of Fame and your cousin has been picked to receive the first Missouri Woman of the Year award.”
Norma drew in her breath. “Ohhh really? You don’t mean it!”
“Yes. But we aren’t announcing it to the press until next month so I have to ask you to keep it under your hat.”
“Yes, of course. I understand. What an honor.”
“We want it to be a surprise.”
Norma whispered, “Even from Dena?”
“Yes. Especially her.”
“I understand. Mum’s the word. Will there be a dinner or anything?”
Zofko was getting her tape recorder and notebook out of her satchel. “Excuse me?”
“Will there be a dinner … or an awards banquet?”
“Oh, yes. Now, what we need from you, Mrs. Warren, is a little background information for the official bio.”
“Will it be formal, do you think?”
“Yes, I believe it will be, and if you have any photographs we could use, school pictures or—”
“Where will it be? Here, or will it be in Jefferson City?”
“In Jefferson City.”
“Oh. Do you think we’ll be able to go? Is the public invited?”
“You’ll be sent invitations.”
“When is it?”
“The date has not been set but we’ll let you know.”
“Oh, I’m so excited I am about to faint. Do you think we could get an extra ticket for Aunt Elner? We’ll be happy to pay for the ticket. She’s her great-aunt, actually, she would just be thrilled to pieces. Will the governor be there?”
“Now, as I understand it, her father was born in Elmwood Springs …”
Norma stood up. “I’m so excited, I haven’t even offered you a thing. Would you like some coffee or anything?”
“No, I’m fine, thank you. Well, I will take a Coke if you have it.”
Two hours later Norma was still talking about what a darling little girl Dena had been. “Her mother was working so I took Baby Girl up to nursery school at Neighbor Dorothy’s house and picked her up every day and she was the sweetest little thing. I remember her fourth birthday party, we had a big birthday cake for her. Her mother had her dressed up like a little doll.”
Zofko responded to the word cake, realized she was starving again, and tried to cut to the chase. “Mrs. Warren, you say her mother was from where?”
“I couldn’t say. I really don’t know.”
Zofko’s ears perked up. “Didn’t she ever say?”
“No. But she was a lovely person.”
“And you say she’s deceased?”
Norma nodded and changed the subject. “And of course, when we actually met Wayne Newton in person, we were beside ourselves. Baby Girl arranged it. She has been so good to us.”
“Mrs. Warren, when did Dena’s mother pass away?”
“Oh, I really couldn’t say for sure.”
“And when did she leave Elmwood Springs?”
“She was about four and a half—I think.”
“Dena, you mean. Where do you think I could get some more information about her mother?”
“Well, really, all you need to say is that she was not from Missouri.”
Zofko decided to drop it for the moment. She could check that out later.
“Mrs. Warren, I think that’s enough. We’ll get the pictures back to you as soon as we make copies. You’ve been very helpful.”
“I hope so. You know what? I’m sorry but I never got your name.”
“Barbara.” She stood up and shook hands with Norma and said, “Congratulations.”
Norma walked her to the door. “I just wish her daddy was alive to see this day. Tell the governor that we are just thrilled. Oh, and Barbara, you’ll be at the dinner, won’t you?”
“I’m sure I will.”
“I hope you’ll be at our table!”
Norma ran back to the kitchen and called him at work. “Macky,” she said, “I know a secret. But I can’t tell. Just wait till you find out, you are going to be so excited. I can’t talk anymore, I have to go.”
After talking in circles with Dena’s great-aunt, Mrs. Elner Shimfessle, Barbara Zofko left Elmwood Springs without anything more than two jars of fig preserves, a few good fried clam dinners under her belt, and several school pictures. Other than that the trip had been a bust. The family had been dull, typical small-town, church-going, well-liked people. Nothing she could use. The father, Gene, had once gotten in trouble for swimming inside the town’s water tower with a bunch of other boys. Certainly nothing that even Capello could work up a good smear over. The only item where there might be something was the mother. She had noticed that both Mrs. Warren and Mrs. Shimfessle had been extremely sketchy and seemed reluctant to talk much about her. Both had answered the questions about her with the same phrase, “I couldn’t say for sure.”
All she had to go on was that when the mother left she had gone to work in some department store. Somewhere. But Zofko had her resources. She got the mother’s Social Security number and began tracking her from the first job she had down to the last. She tracked down every state employment record on her and was able to get copies of her job da
ta. They were always the same: Name: Marion Chapman Nordstrom. Born: December 9, 1920, Washington, D.C. Parents: Deceased.
Her record of employment was odd. She had first applied for a Social Security number in 1942 and had gone to work in a dress shop in New York City and remained at that job until 1943, when she went to Gumps in San Francisco. From then on she seemed to go from one job to the next, from one town to another. Through store records Zofko managed to find the names of several women who had been employed at a department store still in existence in Chicago, flew to Chicago, and found one still living in the city and still employed. She was a thin, pale woman named Jan, who smoked too much and was happy to talk. “I’ll tell you what I can … but it’s been years now since we worked together … but I always wondered what had happened to Miss Chapman. The last thing I heard she had moved to Boston, but yes, I surely do remember her. Oh, Miss Chapman was the last word.”
Zofko asked what she meant and she laughed. “I mean she was It. Yes, Miss Chapman was a walking fashion plate if there ever was one, impeccably dressed. I tell you the rest of us used to marvel at how she kept herself. Not a hair out of place, makeup perfect. She wasn’t stuck up or anything like that, she was perfectly pleasant, but she, oh, I guess you could say she held herself back—or apart—from us, in a way. Of course, I was young—I don’t think I was even eighteen—but I remember all of us younger girls wanted to be like Miss Chapman, dress like her, walk like her, talk like her. But she was one of a kind. We always wondered why somebody like her had to work. You know, with her looks, her style … If it had been me, I would have hooked me a rich one and quit, put my feet up for the rest of my days.”
Zofko was surprised that she used Nordstrom’s maiden name. “Do you know if she was married or not?”
“No, I never heard if she was. She never talked about it if she was. She wasn’t social. I don’t think she ever went anywhere but to her job and home. Not that she didn’t have offers. Some of those society women, and I mean rich women, were always inviting her to parties, but she never went. She was very polite but she never went. She dressed some of the wealthiest women in Chicago. Yes, Miss Chapman was the last word. If she said a dress looked good on them, they bought it, no questions asked. And you say she has a big check coming from the government?”