The Dead Drop (2 page)

“Good luck with your spying,” said the cabdriver, giving her a wink as he pulled her suitcase from the trunk of his cab.

“Thanks,” said Gilda, handing him some wadded dollar bills and almost wishing he would stick around to make conversation, even though he was a complete stranger. “Same to you.”

 

The lobby of Cathedral Towers reminded Gilda of an elegant hotel in an old Hollywood movie. For a moment, she thought she must have gotten the wrong address; she hadn’t expected anything quite so sophisticated compared to her surroundings back home in Ferndale, Michigan. High ceilings with ornate moldings soared above. A silent grand piano sat upon a plush area rug, surrounded by velvet benches and chairs. Large abstract oil paintings in earth tones decorated the walls, and tranquil music piped into the room.

A young woman wearing a pantsuit carried a very official-looking briefcase through the lobby, her high heels clicking across the gleaming floor. She hurriedly pushed through the front doorway without smiling at Gilda or even looking in her direction.

Gilda sensed an aloof emptiness in the building.
This place is impressive, but it kind of gives me the feeling you get when everyone else is at school and you’ve been home sick for a week,
she thought.
It’s kind of a lonely feeling.

“Can I help you?” A pale, fleshy woman peered at Gilda from the reception desk, her mouth stained with peach-colored lipstick and her graying hair slicked back in a severe bun.

“Hi—I’m Gilda Joyce, and I’m moving in today.”

The woman appeared displeased with this piece of information. She grumpily pulled a large book from beneath the desk and flipped through the pages, scanning a list of names and dates with a false fingernail and shaking her head. “There’s no record of a move-in request today.”

“There must be. I’m moving in to share an apartment with Caitlin Merrill, and she was supposed to leave me a key. I just spoke with her yesterday.”

“In that case, Ms. Merrill neglected to log a move-in request for you Miss—”

“The name is Joyce. Gilda Joyce.” Gilda was beginning to feel as if she were a real CIA agent trying to cross the border of a hostile country. For some reason, she suddenly wished she had made up a false name. “And you are?”

The desk attendant pursed her lips, reluctant to give out her own name. “Ms. Potts,” she said coldly.

Gilda had a sudden urge to call her mother for help—an urge she did her best to squelch.
If I’m going to be on my own in a city, I’m going to have to learn to take charge
. “Ms. Potts,” Gilda said, doing her best to sound authoritative, “I must have the key to my apartment, or I shall have to call a building manager.”

Ms. Potts gazed very directly into Gilda’s eyes. “Miss Joyce, you
are
talking to the building manager. And I will welcome you with open arms once your name is properly in the move-in request book.”

“Then, Ms. Potts, let us inscribe the name Gilda Joyce into yon Move-In Request Book herewith.” Gilda wasn’t quite sure why she had begun to speak in such a ridiculously pompous tone, but it seemed to suit Ms. Potts’s own attitude.

“I can’t just write your name here because you
want
me to. The move-in request has to be made at least twenty-four hours in advance of the requested move-in time.”

I know her type,
Gilda thought.
She’s the kind of person who doesn’t want to give you something you want simply
because
she knows you need it.

“Ms. Potts,” said Gilda, attempting a different strategy, “I’m sure this is not the sort of welcome foreign diplomats typically receive to the nation’s capital.” Gilda realized this was a risky fib, but it seemed worth a try.
If I’m going to be a spy, I may as well practice using a cover identity while I’m here,
she thought.

At the mention of “foreign diplomats,” Ms. Potts’s eyes widened slightly, registering the tiniest flash of fear. What if she had made a mistake and offended one of her truly important tenants?
But her name isn’t in the move-in request book
, Ms. Potts reminded herself.
We must follow procedures.

Gilda and Ms. Potts locked eyes like poker players, each trying to determine whether the other was bluffing, whether the other would back down. Gilda had a fleeting memory of her father complaining about “Washington bureaucrats.”

Realizing that Ms. Potts was stubborn enough to stand there all day without budging from her position, Gilda decided she had no choice but to call her new roommate for help. “Excuse me, Ms. Potts. I’ll speak to Caitlin Merrill about this.”

Gilda turned away from the desk and dialed Caitlin’s number.

“National Criminal Justice Association,” a chirpy voice answered. “Caitlin Merrill speaking.”

“Hi, Caitlin; this is your new roommate, Gilda, and I have a little problem here.” Gilda explained her predicament.

“Ms. Potts loves to act as if we live in the FBI building or something. Pass me over to her, okay?”

Gilda handed the phone to Ms. Potts, who flipped through her beloved move-in request book while listening to Caitlin. Gilda thought she saw the ghost of a smile on her peach-stained lips as she listened to Caitlin’s bright, chatty voice. Gilda watched as Ms. Potts scribbled the name Gilda Joyce into the timetable and pulled a key from a hook on the wall. “All right, darlin’,” Ms. Potts said to Caitlin into the phone. “She’s all set.” Ms. Potts handed the cell phone back to Gilda with a gesture of disdain.

Gilda was seriously impressed with her new roommate. “How did you do that?” she whispered into the phone as Ms. Potts turned to find some paperwork in one of her files.

“I bribed her with chocolate. Ms. Potts likes me because I’m the only person in the building who at least pretends to be nice to her.”

I guess I could learn a couple things from my new roommate,
Gilda thought.

“That’s politics in D.C., right? Oh, and I’m really sorry about the mess when you get up to the apartment. I was going to clean, but I’ve been so busy this week.”

“Don’t worry; I like it messy,” said Gilda, whose room at home was notoriously unkempt.

“Not
too
messy, I hope.”

“Not gross-messy, just kind of neat-messy.”

Caitlin laughed. “I should be home pretty soon; I’ve just got to proofread one more brief for this week’s newsletter, and I’m outta here.”

Ms. Potts slid a key across the desk toward Gilda. “Remember,” she warned, “if you ever need to use our freight elevator, you must sign up more than twenty-four hours in advance.”

“I shall never forget that, Ms. Potts.” Gilda headed toward the elevator to make her way up to the fourth floor.

2

The Roommate

Gilda felt instantly happy when she opened the door to her new apartment. It was definitely a girl’s apartment: sunny, comfortable, and also slightly messy, just as Caitlin had promised. Art posters from museums including the Smithsonian and the Corcoran decorated the walls, and quirky mismatched furniture filled the room—an enormous brown couch, an antique armoire, a Tiffany lamp, and chairs of different shapes and colors that Caitlin had acquired as hand-me-downs from relatives or flea market purchases. CDs were scattered across the windowsills amid several wilting potted plants.

Gilda enjoyed testing her profiling skills to see if she could accurately anticipate personalities based on the objects people kept lying around, and Caitlin’s absence gave her a perfect opportunity to get to know a little about her roommate before meeting her in person. Gilda wandered around the living room, noticing that the windowsills displayed an assortment of candid photographs of college-age young people with broad, goofy smiles and arms around one another’s shoulders. Peering at the pictures, Gilda decided that Caitlin must be popular and very social.
She has a lot of friends
, Gilda thought. For a moment, she imagined returning to school and posting pictures in her locker of herself clowning around with Caitlin’s entourage.
I wonder if she’ll introduce me to her friends, or if she’ll think it’s too uncool to hang out with a high school kid
.

Gilda looked at the titles of the books on Caitlin’s shelf and noticed a law school entrance exam workbook and several books with titles like
Turbo Dating
that appeared to be about finding either a boyfriend or a husband. She was particularly intrigued by a book on handwriting analysis and made a mental note to study it later.

Gilda peeked into one of the bedrooms and felt pleased when she found an unmade bed, a pile of law school study guides, and a tornado of shoes, socks, panty hose, suit jackets, and skirts that appeared to have been taken off in a great hurry and abandoned exactly where they fell.
I wish Mom could see this,
Gilda thought.
She’d see I’m not the only person who has a messy bedroom.

Gilda carried her suitcase into the second bedroom and discovered a striking contrast with the rest of the apartment: a bed with a white, lacy bedspread; a cream-colored dresser; a small vanity table with a mirror; and off-white walls that were almost completely bare except for a few tranquil watercolor paintings of Washington, D.C., settings—the National Cathedral, the Washington Monument, the Tidal Basin surrounded by cherry blossoms. It was the sort of room that was both pretty and impersonal enough to be a guest room in a bed-and-breakfast.

Caitlin’s usual roommate was gone for the summer; Gilda was renting her room at the suggestion of a Spy Museum employee who volunteered to help Gilda find housing. Gilda snooped around the room, trying to get a sense of the absent roommate’s identity. While Caitlin’s belongings were strewn everywhere, yielding obvious clues, this girl had left scarcely a trace of herself behind. There were no incriminating journals, letters, books, or receipts. Aside from the fact that she was clearly very neat, clean, and feminine, the room conveyed little evidence of her personality and interests.
I wonder if she and Caitlin get along,
Gilda mused.

Gilda noticed that her bedroom window gave her a clear view into the apartment windows on a parallel wing of the building overlooking a small courtyard.
A promising people-watching opportunity!
she thought happily. At the moment, however, she couldn’t see anything interesting: the apartments in view were all concealed by closed blinds or curtains.

Gilda unpacked her suitcase, then carefully placed her manual typewriter on the vanity table. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she noticed that her Jackie Kennedy-style flip hairstyle was drooping after a day of travel and afternoon humidity. She found a comb in her cluttered handbag and energetically backcombed sections of hair, then spritzed the gravity-defying ’do with a cloud of hairspray. “The goal is big hair that doesn’t move in a windstorm,” she had read in an article about “spy chic” of the 1960s. “A minidress, knee-high boots, perfectly molded curls piled high, and dramatically upswept eyeliner and false eyelashes complete your spy look.”

Gilda had just begun to type a journal entry when she heard a key turning in the apartment door. A moment later, Caitlin Merrill appeared in her bedroom doorway, wearing a slim black pantsuit and carrying a backpack over her shoulder. “Hey!” Her face was shiny with perspiration.

Caitlin’s expression tensed as she absorbed the visual impression of her new roommate for the summer: a freckle-nosed teenager with a hairsprayed flip—a girl who wore a pink dress and sat typing at a manual typewriter.

“I’m Gilda.” Gilda stood up and extended a hand to Caitlin in what she hoped was the right gesture to greet her new roommate. “Nice to meet you.”

Caitlin shook Gilda’s hand and stared at her with boldly inquisitive blue eyes, her long brown lashes layered with mascara—the only makeup she wore. She eyed Gilda’s typewriter. “Do you always travel with a typewriter?”

Gilda was so used to keeping her typewriter on hand whenever possible, she sometimes forgot that her choice of writing tools seemed odd to other people. “I’m a writer, so I just like to have it with me in case I get any ideas for new projects.”

“Wouldn’t a laptop be easier to carry when you’re traveling?”

Gilda knew that Caitlin had a point, but her love for her typewriter had nothing to do with convenience; it was simply the way she preferred to write. “It’s kind of a long story,” she said. “The typewriter was a gift from my dad. Something he owned when he was a kid. I guess I just feel better when it’s around.”

“Your dad’s a writer, too?”

“He wanted to be, but it never really worked out for him. He died a few years ago.”

Caitlin shifted her weight, clearly wishing that she hadn’t brought up the subject of the typewriter. “Sorry to hear that.”

“I guess the typewriter just makes me feel more creative or something.” Gilda sensed it was best not to tell her new roommate that her typewriter was almost magical to her: it was a machine, but it was also something akin to an invisible friend to whom she confided all of her problems and dreams—a friend who seemed to help her solve mysteries.