The Last Government Girl. Ellen Herbert

killer because of his size, his wild gray hair, and deep set eyes, but Jess couldn’t see a government girl going off with him. Still he had to make sure the man had no criminal record, not here in Washington or in West Virginia.

      “Here you go, Mr. Vernon. Use this to clean them.” Alonso gave him the rag and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. “I take a picture of every witness,” Alonso told him and moved around the room turning on all the lamps for brightness.

      “Right,” Jess said. Since there’d been no other witnesses, what Al said was true.

      Vernon perked up and stood. “Haven’t been photographed in years.” He dug a comb from his pocket, strode to the little mirror on the wall, and primped. Jess almost laughed.

      Alonso positioned Vernon closer to the window and snapped his picture, the flashbulb going off like a brilliant dying sun.

      Vernon stood blinking. “Sure would like to see what your camera says I look like.” A wide grin opened his face. “Been told I’m a lovely man.” He gave a pleasured laugh.

      “I’ll make a copy for you,” Alonso said. “Come by Friday evening long about this time, and I’ll give it to you.”

      Great idea. That way they could talk to Vernon again.

      “All right.” Vernon’s grin stayed fixed. “I’ll come through that back gate and knock downstairs.”

      Jess and Alonso followed Vernon into the alley. Past the gate, Jess clapped his hand on Vernon’s shoulder. “Vernon, if you think of anything else, you don’t wait ‘til Friday.” He handed Vernon his card. “Call us.”

      Vernon stuck the card in his shirt pocket, lifted his hand in farewell, and strolled off down the alley. Jess and Alonso watched him.

      “I best go separate Vernon’s truth from his lies,” Alonso said. Once Vernon turned the corner, he slipped away, following the roofer.

      Almost at the end of the alley, little boys were having a shoot-out with their fingers and sticks as guns. One of them yelled at Alonso, “Got the jump on you.” Alonso clutched his heart as if he’d been shot before he rounded the corner.

      13

      Jess turned to go back to their bungalow when he heard the clatter of typewriter keys coming from Ruth’s house. He stepped onto her stoop and knocked. The electric bulb in their back room went off before Ruth opened the door.

      “Hello.” He tried to remove his hat when he realized he had left it in the room over the garage. “Just checking to see if Miss Minnie has finished our laundry?”

      “Come on in, Mr. Jess,” Miss Minnie called from inside the dark room. Ruth looked as if she would prefer him to wait on the stoop.

      Inside he took in the smell of collard greens cooked in fat back drifting from their kitchen. His mouth watered. The aroma made him homesick for Alabama, but he didn’t comment on the food because Miss Minnie often fed Alonso. She was a generous lady, but couldn’t be expected to feed every Southern transplant in the neighborhood.

      A stiff green velvet sofa sat high and proud on glossy wooden legs in the middle of the front room, a yellow wedding ring quilt covering it for protection. How many stacks of laundry and cooked meals for the Trundles had gone into buying it? A shelf filled with books, mostly tattered paperbacks, took up one wall. On the table in the next room beneath the dangling light bulb sat an old Remington typewriter.

      Ruth followed his gaze. “Miss Smith loaned me that typewriter so I could practice.” Her words rushed. For good reasons, coloreds didn’t trust whites. Ruth was afraid he would think she had stolen it.

      In a short time, Miss Smith had gotten to know Ruth, who usually kept herself apart from white folks. How had Miss Smith done what he had not been able to? Ruth still didn’t trust him even though she and Alonso were close.

      “I’m a one-handed typist, so I don’t know your accuracy,” Jess said to Ruth, “but listening to you type, I’d say you’re at least fifty words a minute.”

      She pushed the carriage release, took the paper out, and brought the sheet to him. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aide of their country…

      “Perfect,” he said.

      Miss Minnie, a tiny woman with grizzly white hair around her face and an eyelid that drooped, came in holding two big boxes tied with string. “Here you go, Mr. Jess.”

      “Thank you, Ma’am. You don’t know how much we need these.” He took the box, set it on the floor beside his feet, and handed her a dollar.

      “Got any change, Mr. Jess? You only owe me fifty-five cents.”

      “Keep it, Miss Minnie. I’m grateful to you for doing it. You know how difficult it is to get clothes washed in this city? Your employer, Berman’s, refuses to accept new customers except ones in the military.” Jess glanced at Ruth. “And besides typewriter paper is expensive.”

      A light came into Miss Minnie’s face as she looked at her daughter. “She wants a job typing for the Veteran’s Administration. My Jasper can fight in France, but colored girls aren’t going to become government girls.”