The Last Government Girl. Ellen Herbert

bases a bus or train ride away pour into Washington every weekend.”

      “That’s like having 15,000 suspects.”

      MPs, their whistles shrill, ran toward a crowd of sailors fighting with some soldiers.

      Alonso pulled out from the light and steered around a telegram boy pedaling fast on his bicycle. The government sent telegrams to the families of servicemen wounded, missing in action, or killed. This boy would deliver bad news to some family tonight.

      “You suppose if we questioned all 15,000 every weekend, we’d find him?” Jess sighed. “Which reminds me. We’ve got a few cells of servicemen to question after this is done tonight. The officer on duty blamed the heat for the rise in assaults on women.” He heard his own discouragement.

      “Sometime soon we’re going to catch a break.”

      A police siren wailed in the distance.

      “Hope you’re right, Al. Most of these servicemen aren’t stateside long enough to kill anyone. And we both know these kinds of killings are the hardest to solve because the victim doesn’t know her killer.”

      Jess went over his notes in his head. They were overlooking something. “If government girls are so khaki wacky, how come they can’t distinguish one uniform from another?”

      The first victim told her roommates she’d met a Naval officer in Lafayette Park, but the second government girl, whose body was found in Rock Creek Park, wrote in her diary she met a handsome Marine at the USO. Were any of these the man the girls went off with? The man who wrapped his belt around their necks and squeezed the life out of them?

      “I tested Ruth and Miss Minnie with those photographs.” Alonso nodded at the windshield. “They got all the branches of the service right as well as each man’s rank. What do you make of that?”

      Jess considered. “Well, Ruth and her mother have lived in Washington a long time, so they’ve been around the military, and Miss Minnie works in a laundry, cleaning and mending uniforms. Whereas most government girls are new to the city, like these two coming to live at Mrs. Trundle’s tonight. Maybe they’ll allow us to test them.”

      They passed the Lincoln Memorial covered in darkness. Couples walked up its marble steps hand-in-hand. The memorial, kept dark at night as a conservation measure, had become a lovers’ lane. Couples went there to kiss and pet.

      But the killer found even more remote places to leave his victim’s body.

      They drove between the twin statues of muscular men on horseback flanking the Memorial Bridge and crossed the Potomac. Reflected light from the bridge’s equidistant lamps flickered in the dark water.

      “This river is a common thread in all the murders,” Jess said. “Every place a woman’s body has been found is near the Potomac, including the Rock Creek that flows from the Potomac.”

      “So you reckon the killer lives near the river?”

      “It’s a possibility. Maybe he brings the woman to his house, where he kills her then puts her in his car and leaves her close to the Potomac.”

      “That’s a lot of traveling about, “Alonso said. “He’s taking the chance of being seen.”

      Jess agreed. “But he hasn’t been seen yet. We need to find a native Washingtonian, if there is such a person, to ask about the area. Where would the killer live to be able to do all that in secret? Where is the murder scene?” When they found that, they would find the killer.

      The dark hills of Arlington National Cemetery rose in front of them. Lightning splintered the night sky. Once over the bridge, they entered the state of Virginia.

      “This is Park Police territory, right?” Alonso asked.

      “Yep.” Jurisdiction was confusing here. The first two murders took place in Washington City, the third on the C&O Canal, and the fourth at Theodore Roosevelt Island, both under the Park Police.

      They traveled partway around a circle until they turned right, crossed a cobblestone forecourt, and stopped outside large, wrought iron gates. A maroon Oldsmobile and a battered truck were parked to their right.

      Emerging from the motor car, a curly-haired young man in Clark Kent glasses rushed Jess’s side of the Packard. “You’re the Bureau’s man,” he said and held out an identification card. “I’m Thad Graham, Washington Herald. What’s going on up there? Somebody murdered in the cemetery?”

      Jess heard Mississippi in his accent and smiled in spite of himself. Thad was like them, a Southerner a long way from home.

      “Get back, you,” a Park Policeman yelled and chased the reporter away, then came to Jess’s window.

      Jess showed him his Bureau ID. The policeman opened the gates and leaned in. “They’re way up near the Confederate Memorial. Follow the signs. Sorry ‘bout them newsies. They showed up right behind the DC police.”

      Once Alonso put the car in first, another man leaped in front of them and took a photograph through the windshield, his flashbulb blinding them.

      Alonso braked hard, rocking them forward and back. The car stalled. “That’s one photographer who near about got himself run over.”

      Jess blinked, adjusting his eyes. “Hope Thad Graham figures out what’s going on here.” The Bureau insisted on keeping a lid on the murders, so as not to discourage young women from coming to Washington to work. “Whatever you do, don’t talk to the press,” Fred had told them. “That comes from the highest level. Keep these murders quiet.”

      But in other cases, Jess and Alonso had gotten help from the public. Witnesses came forward. Someone might have seen something here in DC—the city was too crowded not to—but nothing had been reported.

      With these murders, they were on their own and worse, government girls like the ones coming to live with Mrs. Trundle were unaware of the danger. These young women believed Washington was safe and that men in uniform were heroes, never suspecting one of their heroes was a killer.

      5

      “Stay close,” Eddie told Rachel.

      Union Station’s covered platform overflowed with people shouting to be heard. Thunder rumbled overhead. Pandemonium reigned.

      With her pulse in her throat, Eddie couldn’t stop looking around. She was finally, finally, finally here.

      “Never been in a city before.” Pearl squeezed Eddie’s forearm. “I’m so scared.”

      Eddie patted Pearl’s hand. “I feel like a country mouse, too.” The city’s vastness loomed around her. Mut, she told herself, courage.

      They stood beside their stacked luggage. Rachel had two suitcases in addition to her compact case and hat box. Eddie’s giant suitcase, so heavy she could barely lift it, contained her typewriter and her beloved German-English dictionary.

      How would they find their way with all their baggage?

      Eddie noticed Pearl carried only a feed sack. Her curiosity pricked, she said, “By the way, Pearl, where are you staying in Washington?”

      Pearl didn’t answer.

      Rachel took hold of Pearl’s shoulders. “Where are you billeted, Pearl?”

      “Same as you two, with Eddie’s aunt.” Pearl’s grip on Eddie tightened. “Don’t leave me, please.”

      “Of course, we won’t,” Rachel told her.

      Eddie didn’t believe Pearl, but it was almost midnight, too late to argue. They had to find Aunt Viola’s house and get ready for tomorrow, their first day working for the government.

      Rachel summoned a porter to help with their suitcases. Rachel had traveled to Washington before, even to New York City with her father on buying trips for their department store. She had seen the world and it showed.

      They