New Kind of Thread Idea: Your Vintage Life

Day 8, Oak Ridge (1 of 2).

Frances woke up at 5:30, before the ‘phone rang with her wakeup. She rubbed her eyes as she sat up in bed, looking around. Dr. Wilcox had been thorough, that was for sure. The closet was open, and she could see at least a week’s worth of clothes she would wear to work, and over on the table across the room there was a shiny electric coffee pot with an envelope leaned up against it. She got out of bed, started the coffee, and opened the envelope.

Frances:

I am sure it’s tomorrow morning when you’re reading this, and going by the Waffle House I would also suppose the coffee pot is already going. You’ll find good clothes in the closet. For the Labs, you’ll want to dress just a little nicer than at your job at home. Think Sunday morning church, but not Easter or Christmas. I’m sure you’ve noticed the complete lack of music you recognize on the radio, and in case you haven’t found them, there are 2 stations that play “hillbilly” music, what we call Bluegrass. WYHM, AM 580, is out of Rockwood and plays some local, some well-known, and some older music. They aren’t clear channel by any stretch, so daylight is about all they have. WDVX, though, is 89.9 FM and the morning program from 6 til 9 weekdays is almost all “hillbilly” music and Freddie the announcer takes requests. He likes Roy Acuff, too. They have a Thursday night and Saturday night program.

You have probably noticed all the “cloak and dagger” stuff, and there’s another one. When somebody comes to the door, say “Praise the Lord!”. If they don’t reply with “And pass the ammunition”, you call 123-4567 and say you have a visitor. Marshal Thibidoux will be there to pick you up at about 6:30 or so, and I will see you here this afternoon.

Sincerely,
Dr. Wallace Wilcox, Ph.D.
Project Manager, National Security Directorate
National Defense Research Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
The light on the coffee pot turned green, and so she poured a cup of this JFG coffee. Wasn’t quite as good as the Waffle House coffee, but not bad. With all the rationing, she had almost forgot what pure coffee had tasted like. Based on Dr. Wilcox’s suggestion, she found this WDVX station, and they were playing a fiddle tune that sounded like it had 2 or 3 fiddles on top of each other, and until Frances listened for a minute, she thought the Andrews Sisters had gone hillbilly. Shortly, Freddie the announcer said it was a song called “Shame On You” by a band called the Kwabie Sisters. She certainly hoped these Kwabie Sisters would play at Yonder Holler, but that would wait. She got ready for the day, and picked out a navy blue skirt and jacket with a white shirt to match, with a black pair of walking shoes. On the table was another one of the playing cards with a picture and the gold square on it. It had her picture, and said “Sarah Jackson, US Department of Energy”. There was a note attached, saying she should keep this in a pocket out in town and not wear it. Just then, there was a knock at her door.

“Praise the Lord!”

“And pass the ammunition,” said Marshal Thibidoux’s deep voice. Presently, they were at the Waffle House and Special Agent Reading joined them. He left pretty quickly, claiming duty called him elsewhere. They left the diner, and moved out into traffic on Illinois Avenue.

“Sleep good?”

“Yeah, about as good as you can in a strange bed. Say, Marshal, you know where this ‘Yonder Holler’ is at?”

“It’s over in Rockwood, not too far from here. If you want to see a show, I think we can make that happen.”

“That’d be good. About all the music you got I can handle is your hillbilly music. Rest of it’s just noise.”

The Marshal half-grinned. “Can’t say I disagree.”

They came up to a guard post that made the sentries at the National Guard armory in town at home look weak. They had pistols, these little bitty Tommy guns, all sorts of pouches all over them, and were wearing sort of green fatigues. They weren’t soldiers, but were about as close to soldiers as Frances had ever seen security guards ever be. They were prepared for an all-out war, and this place reminded her of what little she’d seen of Fort Knox on the newsreels when Mr. Roosevelt put the country’s gold there a few years ago. What kind of lab WAS this?

As the day progressed, it became clear to her that these Brain Trusters weren’t completely sure what had happened to her. They kept asking if she’d got dizzy before, during, or after the wreck, if the radio cut out, if the car died. After a few hours, they broke for lunch, which was shredded beef sandwiches with a tangy sauce.
They called it “bar-b-q” and if was great. Then, Special Agent Reading joined them.

“Frances, we have found Ernest.”

She got introspective. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”

“Yes, I’m sorry.”

“I expected it. He never was in that good of health. What about Maggie?”

“Maggie’s alive, as best we can tell. People born before the War aren’t as easy to find as you might think. Especially when they don’t use computers. We have found no records of her having established a mortgage or rent anywhere since the 1960s, and the State of Maine has no death certificate. Property tax has been paid on a parcel with her listed as the owner, and I am off to Maine here in a few minutes to go find her. May I take a picture to show her?”

“Sure.”

Reading held up a bakelite thing that looked like a shorthand notebook, and Frances heard a shutter click. “Thanks. I better get going. Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

Frances was then joined by Dr. Wilcox.

“There’s a sight for sore eyes. Doc, what IS this place? You called it a ‘lab’, but I ain’t seen nobody yet in lab coats. And all them guards with them little bitty Tommy guns? What gives?”

Dr. Wilcox looked strangely at her, and thought for a second.

“Frances, this is the most secure place in the entire State of Tennessee. As I said, this is where we did a LOT of the research to win the War with Germany and Japan. We created a weapon that harnessed the power of the Sun, and unleashed it on Japan. We only had to use 2 Bombs to get the Japanese Empire to surrender.”

“Geezus!”

“One bomb more or less leveled an entire city. But after the War, we diversified and started finding ways to use technology to improve people’s lives. For example, the fastest computer on the entire planet is on the campus here. We used it to triangulate where you had your accident, even though the center of the singularity was a couple hundred yards East of the bridge you were on. We helped put men on the Moon, have designed nuclear reactors for ships, power plants and done all sorts of things. One of our most secretive projects, though, I will have to tell you about in a cleared room. For now, though, would you like to see Oak Ridge?”

“Sure. Nothing personal, but I’ve had about all I can take of professors.”

“All right then, I’ll check out a car and we’ll go for a drive. Get your things and meet me at the front door.”

"...So now I guess you know why I ain't too keen on talking about Maggie Dellings," concluded Michael Philbrook. Dr. Gordon took a deep breath, and shifted his weight against a radiator housing along the library wall. "She like to killed me that day, I lost six teeth, had a broken nose, a broken jaw, and a skull fracture, and if they hadn't of got me into the hospital in time I probably woulda died."

Gordon was silent for a long moment. "I'm sorry, Mr. Philbrook, I didn't mean to -- bring this all up for you."

"Nahh, it's all been and done," Philbrook replied. "You can't change the past, I mean, right? I don't hold her no malice over it. The girl was messed up, that's all. Her ma run off like she did, nobody ever did find out what happened to her, then her pa died, her gran'ma went 'round the bend like she did, who wouldn't be messed up by all that happenin', an' all before the poor kid was ten years old. My folks took her in, tried to help, but Christ, what can you do for somebody that went thru all that? You store up all that hurt like she had to do, an' it's bound to come out somehow."

"I'm sorry for taking up your time, Mr. Philbrook. You've been very helpful, thank you."

"Listen. I want to tell you somethin' more. The Dellingses was the best friends my folks ever had. They helped us out when things was rough for my dad -- he got laid off, you know, had to go on relief, had to go on the WPA for a while, and Ernie bent over backwards to get him in down to the garage until things picked up again at the machine shop. He never forgot that, an' he felt so damn sorry for that little girl, all alone after what happened. Them Dellingses was good people, just good, decent people. Ernie was like a brother to my dad, just like a brother to him. An' that Frannie, they always said she had kind of a mouth on her, but she'd walk thru a snowstorm to take you a hot meal if you needed one, an' there was times when we did. Everybody did, at one time or another in them days, the way things was, an' everybody all pitched together, you know? Not like today where it's all hooray for me an' the hell with you. You still there?"

"I'm still here, Mr. Philbrook. Go on, please, I want to know more about them, more about the Dellingses."

"Well, you know, I don't remember all of what happened, I was just a little bit of a kid myself, not much older than Maggie. But I remember the way people talked about it as time went on, you know, as people will do when somethin' happens in a small town. People don't forget, an' the stories, you know, they kinda take on a life of their own. Nobody ever did really know what happened, why she left like she did. There was never any two people in the world loved each other as much as Ernie and Frannie Dellings, that's what my folks said, an' they never believed any of them stories that went around, how she was s'posed to have run off with a sailor an' was livin' in Boston with him or somethin'. My ma went to school with Frannie, grew up with her, an' said she wasn't ever the type to do nothin' with no god dam sailors. Ma use to say *she* just mighta had herself some fun if she'd had the chance, but not Frannie, no sir. It just wasn't her way. Wherever she went an' whyever she done it, it wasn't nothin' like that.

"An' we sure as hell didn't believe Ernie done her in like everybody used to say, you know, that story about the quarry. Jeezuz, that used to make my dad mad when somebody'd bring that up, he'd get all red in the face an' stick right up for him. Got in a fight about it with Swede Lassen down to the pool room one time, mopped up the floor with him. Nobody ever talked dirt about the Dellingses when my old man was there to hear it."

The line went silent for another long moment. "Mr. Philbrook?" asked Gordon.

"I don't know why I said what I did to Maggie that day, honest to Christ I don't. I was just a stupid damn fool kid and she'd got my goat about somethin' an' I wanted to get hers back, that was all. I never meant nothin' by it. An' I've felt sorry for a long time for what happened to her, I really have. I'm an old man now, but I still think about it. Honest to god, I'm sorry. But it's all been and done, all been an' done. You can't change the past."

"Mr. Philbrook, I'm going to ask a really big favor of you, and I'll understand if you say no. I want you to come out with me to see Margaret Dellings. She won't talk to me, but maybe she'll talk to you."

Another long silence.

"When do you want to do it?"

Hmm, could that be Ernie?

Don't cross it on a foggy night.

They take an understandably dim view of pics of Y-12, but I will get some other pics up tonight.

They're wondering why Frannie hasn't been in to work.

http://m.hilton.com/mt/doubletree3....-hotel-oak-ridge-knoxville-ORKDTDT/index.html

The Doubletree.

The Dellings' kitchen. Looks like Gran Elwell is helping out with breakfast.

Before it all happened. You can just see Ernie and Frannie peeking out from behind the man and woman in the center of the shot. Alice Philbrook peeks out from between the two women in the right front row, and the tall man in the cap is Butchie.

Special Agent Reading, Maine.

He never ceased enjoying the perks of being a Special Agent with NSA. Free internet research, travel, making a difference in the world. This Dellings case, though, was different. Morris was an old TV buff, what the people in the office insisted on calling "B-grade TV." Leave It To Beaver, Donna Reed, Father Knows Best. That was his idea of a fun evening at home, and this Dellings woman reminded him for all the world of Mary Bailey from It's A Wonderful Life. As he drove along the Maine backroads, he wondered if Ernest resembled a young Jimmy Stewart.

It had been a long day, a quick breakfast with that Federal Marshal and Mrs. Dellings before the outbrief and travel arrangements. A quick chartered flight and short drive had already taken care of the courtesy calls with local law enforcement, and now the public library. According to the outbrief, there had been a good bit of static about this "singularity", so he was prepared for the ChiComs, Russian Mafia, Mossad, who knows. This had potential to be even bigger than nuclear weapons. But that was somebody else's problem. He parked the rental in the library parking lot and press-checked his issue SiG P226 9mm. You never know. He walked in the library and addressed the reference librarian, fishing out his Special Agent badge.

"Special Agent Reading, National Security Agency. I'm investigating an issue in the area, and need the 1942 City Directory."

The librarian looked at his NSA badge, wide-eyed. "Right around the corner, o-on the shelf. What's this all about?"

"Sorry, I'm not authorized to disclose that. I will remind you that you are to tell no one I have been here, and violation of that is subject to penalty under the National Security Act of 1950."

"Certainly, of course. Let us know what we can do."

"Thank you."

Morris got the musty volume off the shelf, and settled in with his secure iPad to try and locate any neighbors or associates of the Dellingses. Then, he heard a familiar voice: Dr. Gordon from the hospital. It was obvious he, too, was investigating Mrs. Dellings so a ping to Morris' NSA supervisor was in order.

"SUBJ PSYCH INV INCIDENT. REQ GUIDANCE. PRI 1+."

The answer was immediate.

"Tail if prudent. Move with restraint."

Restraint. Hm. He listened, as the small library made it easy. He followed along in the directory and it looked like he was going to visit one of the neighbors, so Reading made a few HD photos of the Directory and inobtrusively went out the back way. Gordon made no effort to lose him, and it appeared he had no idea he was being followed. Shortly, they came to a somewhat run-down house in an older residential area of town. He parked half a block back, and as he got out of the car, he smoothed his jacket, hopefully to hide the bulge the SiG 9mm made.'Picard maneuver,' he absently thought. Carrying the iPad, he made his way to the house he saw Dr. Gordon enter.

http://sofrep.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Oak-Ridges-Y-12-Nuclear-Site.jpg

The front gate at Y-12.

Home.

Nobert said:

I may just wait until the movie comes out.

Click to expand...

I can barely wait for the next written installment.

Michael Philbrook had been a strong man, and some even found him good-looking when he was younger. He'd inherited a thick shock of wavy black hair from his father, and years of hard manual labor on the docks had given him broad, muscular shoulders and arms and a barrel chest. His muscles had almost been enough to distract attention from his lumpy, misshapen nose and the jagged scar that cut across the left side of his forehead, almost to his eyebrow.

The scar had faded with the years, and at first glance you almost might mistake it for a wrinkle. The thick wavy hair was still in evidence, but it had turned snow white, and the muscles had softened into the flab of old age. And decades of inhaling loose tapioca dust in the holds of damp, stinking freighters had sapped Michael Philbrook's endurance, and left him slow and tentative in his movements. But his mind remained sharp, his perception remained clear, and he had only one question on his mind as he slipped into Dr. Gordon's Lexus for the trip to Whitfield.

"I just wanna know one thing here before we get started," he said in his blunt, raspy voice. "What's your angle in all this? What do you have to do with Maggie Dellings?"

Gordon was afraid this would come up, and he'd tried to rehearse a glib answer to deflect any deep probing into the matter. "It's connected with a case of mine, a relative of hers, and I'm afraid I can't go too far into the details without breaching confidentiality," he began. Philbrook scowled at him, and shook his head.

"Listen. If I'm gonna go out there with you, get you in to talk to her, I want to know what it's all about. That girl had enough trouble in her life growin' up without you draggin' her into anything more."

Gordon took a deep breath. He was afraid of this.

"I think there's a lot more goin' on here than you've told me," Philbrook continued. "I ain't no college boy, but I been around long enough to know when somebody's got an angle, and I want to know what it is. And if you don't want to tell me, then we can just forget this whole business right now."

Gordon exhaled. "There are things I just can't tell you because I don't know everything myself, and there's still parts of it I don't fully -- believe. But it's got to do with Frances Dellings, and what happened to her. I might know the answer to that."

"I'm all ears," said Philbrook. "Start the car. You can tell me along the way."

The trip to Whitfield took longer this time, and there were several stops for construction delays, where crews installing a water main along Route 17 had left deep gashes across the pavement. At one of those stops, he glimpsed a dark vehicle with U. S. Government plates, its driver barely visible behind the tinted windshield, but he gave it little notice. With the route extending all the way to the state capital, it wasn't uncommon to see all sorts of government vehicles along the way. He was too engrossed in the story he was telling to Michael Philbrook to pay much attention to anything outside the car.

Philbrook had little to say by the time Gordon finished his tale by describing the tire trails thru the weeds on the Weskeag Bridge. He'd heard some whoppers in his time, he remembered a man he'd worked with down on the docks who used to insist he'd seen Bigfoot in person one year while deer hunting up to Madawaska, but this doctor took the cake.

"You don't believe me, do you?" said Gordon, not unaware of the irony of his asking that particular question.

"Well, I tell ya. It sounds like somethin' out of Star Track, you know? But then I got to wonder, how else did you find out about the Dellingses? Why'd you look me up, drag me into it? I don't know, I just don't know. There's things in the world you can explain, and there's things in the world that don't make no sense at all on the surface, and you just got to take them on faith. And you say you got stuff that belonged to Frannie, got it right with you. Well, I can't think of any reason you'd go to all this trouble just to drag me out here on some kind of wild goose chase, and get Maggie Dellings all worked up over nothin'." He paused, and looked Gordon straight in the eye. "Unless you're crazy."

Gordon chuckled uncomfortably. "I think we can rule out that possibility," he replied in an even voice.

"But that still don't tell me what you hope to gain out of this. If you pardon me for sayin' so, you ain't impressed me as the kind of a type of a man who just does somethin' out of the good of his heart. I'll tell ya what I think about this."

The comment stung. "Please do," said Gordon, turning his eyes back to the road. He glanced in the rear view mirror, and noticed the dark Government car again, several lengths behind him.

"Well, I think," continued Philbrook, "that you're takin' this whole thing personal. You don't like that you can't explain what's goin' on here, you don't like that them Government men come in an' took this woman away from you before you could figure her out, an' you're bound and determined to find out who she really was because you ain't gonna get a good night's sleep until you do. Because it's personal for you. Nobody's gonna put one over on Dr. Gordon, no sir. Especially not some hick crazy woman from Maine. And that's the only reason you give a damn about Maggie Dellings. You just want her to prove to you that this woman of yours couldn't have been Frannie Dellings, an' that you was right all along. Ain't that so?"

Gordon exhaled again. "You're a perceptive man, Mr. Philbrook," he finally said. "You'd have made a good psychiatrist."

"I been around," Philbrook responded, with a satisfied tone to his voice. "You get to know people down on the docks. You get to where you can spot certain types of fellas a mile away"

"All right then," said Gordon, glad the conversation was coming to an end. "Her house is right up this dirt road here."

He turned into the narrow spur and out of the corner of his eye -- no, that's ridiculous, he thought.

"What's the matter," asked Philbrook as the Lexus crunched into the driveway next to the little white house with the red deck. The white cat shot a baleful glare toward the visitors.

"I thought I saw -- no, it was nothing. Nothing at all." Gordon shut off the engine, and reached into the back seat for his briefcase. "Let's do this."

Whitfield . . .

LizzieMaine said:

[...] But his mind remained sharp, his perception remained clear, and he had only one question on his mind as he slipped into Dr. Gordon's Lexus for the trip to Whitfield. [...]

[Emphasis Added.]

Click to expand...

"Whitfield" makes me think "nut-house", because down here in Mississippi, Whitfield is the location of the State [Mental] Hospital. Since Doc Gordon's a shrink, it made me think of the connection.

Whitfield is a real town not far from here, minus a vowel. I'm deliberately distorting the geography and some of the place names here because, after all, it's fiction...

I'm not, as Oak Ridge WAS fiction in September of '42. Frances' neighbor could only have been a construction worker for one of the Plants or the Townsite.

Agent Reading, Maine (II)

He slowly walked up the street, warily watching every alley and cross street. The Russian Mafia were well-known for abducting people that might help them with people they were interested in, and Reading figured it was a good shot they might try for Dr. Gordon. Suddenly, Gordon’s Lexus backed out into the street and he BARELY ducked behind a tree to avoid being made. He had a hunch they were headed for the address the State had for Margaret’s property, and so high-tailed it for a construction site about halfway down Route 17. Act with restraint, they said. Go tell Hertz to NOT give me a charcoal Mercury Gran Marquis as a rental, he fumed. The tinted windows were almost gratituitous. He was almost regretting not getting the generic cover card and using the US Government Travel Card before they gave him a car that screamed “COP! FED!” He had only sat there in the construction site a few minutes when the Lexus came by. He used the iPad’s voice-to-text feature to ping his supervisor. “Tailing psych. Acquaintence of subject in car with psych. Believe heading for subject’s dependent address of record. Alert SRT.”

If there were any other actors in the area, this would be the PERFECT time for a grab. As he followed the Lexus from a safe distance, he opened the briefcase holding the suppressed M4 and several 30 round magazines. It might get tight before the National Nuclear Security Agency’s Special Response team could deploy. NSPS wasn’t Wackenhut, but Reading did NOT like private armies of any sort. It looked like Dr. Gordon might have made him, so he darted behind a semi. Eased back out and he was still right there. The rest of the drive was fairly routine, and presently the Doctor and his passenger who might have been Mr. Philbrook based just on the address turned onto a dirt road. He parked the car to wait, as if anybody was going to do a grab, they would be a few minutes back. Besides, he wanted to give the Doc time to make his case to Margaret that Frances had not run off and was not dead before he drove up.

After about 15-20 minutes, nobody came, so either they were already there or weren’t coming, so he drove up the dirt path. The iPad had a GPS, so he really didn’t need to tail Gordon. He had entered the property’s GPS coordinates back in Oak Ridge. And here was the Lexus in front of a run-down shack. He eased the M4’s charging handle back, making sure there was a round in the chamber, and closed the briefcase, putting the iPad in a pocket on the outside. Hello Alice, welcome to Wonderland, he thought as he drew himself up on the porch to knock on the door.

Knock, knock, knock.

They had barely gotten out of the car before they heard the door open, and looked up to face the muzzle of Margaret Hutchins' shotgun.

"I threw you off the place once, Mister," she snarled, the weapon leveled at Dr. Gordon's chest. "Now the both of you are gonna get back in that car and get outa here, an' you're not gonna look back unless you want an arse full of buckshot. Now *git!*"

"Please, please, Mrs. Hutchins, put the gun down, just put the gun down," babbled Dr. Gordon. He wasn't a gun person, especially not when one was pointed at him. "This is Michael Philbrook, remember? Michael Philbrook?"

"Maggie," said Philbrook, walking calmly toward the steps. "It's me. Mikey. You can shoot me if you want to, but at least let me say my piece first. Let me say what I come here to say to you."

Maggie's eyes grew wide, and her mouth fell open as Philbrook slowly made his way up the steps and across the deck. The white cat huddled, its eyes closed, oblivious to the drama. Philbrook crossed to where Maggie was standing, and slowly pushed the shotgun barrel down. "I come out here to say I'm sorry."

"Sorry?"

"Sorry. I never got a chance to say it to you after everything -- happened. I shouldn't of said what I said, and I've been sorry about it for sixty-three years. But I never had the chance to tell you so."

He took his hand off the gun barrel, and she made no attempt to raise it again. She stood silent for a long moment. "Well," she finally said, "you said your piece. Now you can go, an' take *him* with you."

"Now that's a hell of a way to talk. You ain't changed a bit, have you?"

"Mrs. Hutchins, please," interjected Gordon, shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot. "I really need to talk to you about something important, about your mother. I may -- have seen her recently."

"You're out of your head, Mister. My mother died seventy years ago. And if she hadn't she'd be a hundred years old now. I don't know what kind of game you come out here to play, but I ain't interested, not by a damn site."

"Maggie, please," said Philbrook, who seemed resigned to acting as the Voice of Reason. "Hear him out. I don't know if I believe anything he told me, he might be just some crazy halfwit, but you ain't got nothin' to lose to listen to him. An' after that, we'll get in the car an' go an' you won't be bothered no more."

Maggie frowned. She preferred to get rid of annoyances quickly and without fuss, and she'd hoped the shotgun -- which she hadn't bothered to load, and didn't even own any shells to load if she'd remembered to do it -- would have been enough to solve the problem. Maybe she should have bought that dog after all.

"All right," she snarled, holding the storm door open. "Come in, set down, and tell me what this is all about."

They took chairs at the old Formica table, and Maggie lit a Pall Mall. She blew a defiant wisp of smoke at Dr. Gordon, and settled back in her chair. "All right, you got five minutes," she said. "Talk."

Gordon took a deep breath. Philbrook folded his arms, and looked on impassively. Maggie blew another jet of acrid blue smoke.

"About a month ago, a woman was brought into the hospital where I work," Gordon began. "She'd been in an accident on the old Weskeag Bridge outside of town, a bridge that's been closed for more than thirty years. She was driving a 1937 Plymouth sedan, with 1942 license plates. She was carrying a 1942 Maine drivers' license, a Social Security card, and several other documents identifying her as Frances Winifred Dellings, born April 13th, 1913. She had a photograph in her purse showing her with a man she identified as her husband, Ernest Dellings, and a small girl she identified as her daughter Margaret Anne."

Maggie held the Pall Mall at a defiant angle, but she didn't take a puff.

"I did some research concerning her disappearance, and found that the license plates on the car matched those of the car your mother was reported to be driving when she disappeared. The physical description given in the newspaper accounts after her disappearance matched that of the woman who was brought to the hospital after the accident, right down to the same scars on her arms and back."

"But she'd be a hundred years old," protested Maggie. "You're telling me she's been driving around in the same car for more than seventy years? You're crazy."

"Mrs. Hutchins, there's more. The woman who was brought to the hospital matched your mother's description as she was in 1942. She gave her age as 30, and she appeared to be about thirty years old."

"That's impossible. You really are crazy. And you," she gestured at Philbrook, "are just as crazy for bringing him out here."

"Mrs, Hutchins, please. Several days ago, your mother -- this woman who claimed to be Frances Dellings -- was taken from the hospital by several Federal agents. They also took all of the hospital records pertaining to her case, including several photographs. But thru an -- oversight -- they left a few of her personal posessions with -- uh -- me." He reached for his briefcase. "I'm going to show you these things and I want you to tell me if you recognize any of them."

"I was four years old the last time I saw my mother. What makes you think I'd recognize anything of hers after all this time?"

"I don't know," admitted Gordon. "If you don't, you don't. It doesn't prove anything one way or the other, I suppose. But -- please, take a look and tell me if you recognize any of them."

The first item he laid on the table was the green-handled nail file. Maggie shook her head, her lips pressed tightly together.

He reached into the briefcase and produced the key ring, and slid it across the table for her inspection. She picked it up and examined each key, and then looked at the miniature license-plate tag.

"The number on that tag matched the license number that was published in the newspapers," noted Gordon. "It doesn't prove anything -- but does it look familiar at all?"

"My father used to have tags like this on his keys. They used to come in the mail every year, and he'd send a donation or something," said Maggie, tossing the keys back across the table. "But so didn't a lot of people. My husband Walter used to do the same thing. Don't mean nothing."

"I have one more thing," Gordon said, producing the small Girl Scout knife. "Does this look familiar at all?"

Maggie took the knife and turned it over in her hands. She opened the blade, examined the emblem, and closed the blade. She held it for a long moment, and thought. A summer afternoon, a long time ago, an image flashing thru her mind. A woman in a flour-sack apron and a little girl sitting on a doorstep overlooking a dusty side street. The taste of apples in her mouth.

She looked at the knife again, and handed it back to Gordon.

"Nope, never seen it before. Is that it?"

"I'm sorry to have bothered you, Mrs. Hutchins."

Philbrook got up slowly, bracing himself against the table, and looked at Maggie. "Is there -- anything you need, anything I can do for you?" he asked. "Do you need any help out here? I got two boys, they got a truck..."

"I don't need nothin' from nobody. You better go."

"We're sorry," said Gordon, fumbling with the briefcase. "We're sorry to have..."

Three sharp knocks at the storm door interrupted whatever platitude Gordon intended to offer.

"Christ," grumbled Maggie. "Now what?"

Golly, I get busy with other matters for a few days and this thread explodes! This is great stuff, Lizzie, you've made up my mind to attempt this. In a separate thread for clarity, but still, your story has been great and I need to finish reading it soon.