Mrs. Roosevelt's Confidante

Mrs. Roosevelt's Confidante
is a work of historical fiction, using well-known historical and public figures. All incidents and dialogue are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Susan Elia

Excerpt from
The Queen's Accomplice
by Susan Elia copyright © 2015 by Susan Elia

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

B
ANTAM
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OOKS
and the H
OUSE
colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

“Southern Negro Speaks” from
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes
by Langston Hughes, edited by Arnold Rampersad with David Roessel, associate editor, copyright © 1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book
The Queen's Accomplice
by Susan Elia MacNeal. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

L
IBRARY OF
C
ONGRESS
C
ATALOGING-IN-
P
UBLICATION
D
ATA

MacNeal, Susan Elia.

Mrs. Roosevelt's confidante: a Maggie Hope mystery/Susan Elia MacNeal.

pages; cm.—(Maggie Hope; 5)

ISBN 978-0-8041-7870-9

eBook ISBN 978-0-8041-7871-6

1. Women spies—Fiction. 2. Cryptographers—Fiction. 3. Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884–1962—Fiction. 4. World War, 1939–1945—United States—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3613.A2774M77 2015

813'.6—dc23 2015023218

eBook ISBN 9780804178716

randomhousebooks.com

Book design by Dana Leigh Blanchette, adapted for eBook

Cover design: Victoria Allen

Cover illustration: Mick Wiggins

Title-page image: © iStockphoto.com

Drawing on
this page
: © Noel MacNeal

v4.1

ep

I reckon they must have

Forgotten about me

When I hear them say they gonna

Save Democracy.

Funny thing about white folks

Wanting to go and fight

Way over in Europe

For freedom and light

When right here in Alabama—

Lord have mercy on me!—

They declare I'm a Fifth Columnist

If I say the word,
Free
.

Jim Crow all around me.

Don't have the right to vote.

Let's leave our neighbor's eye alone

And look after our own mote—

Cause I sure don't understand

What the meaning can be

When folks talk about freedom—

And Jim Crow me?

Langston Hughes, 1941

“Franklin!” Eleanor Roosevelt demanded in high-pitched, warbling tones just short of dulcet, “why didn't you tell me Winston Churchill's coming to the White House?” It was morning and she opened the door of the President's bedroom without knocking. She stood next to the Presidential flag, hands on hips, glaring.

She was a slim, tall, middle-aged woman who seemed constantly in motion—except for rare moments such as this. Her thick gray hair was pulled into a low chignon. She was already dressed for the day, wearing a simple suit and low-heeled shoes. A triple strand of pearls encircled her neck.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, armed with newspapers, mail, and messages, was taking breakfast in his narrow, white hospital bed. The room was furnished with a heavy, dark wardrobe, a mahogany bureau, and an old-fashioned rocking chair. On the walls were watercolor paintings of clipper ships, an oil portrait of Isaac Roosevelt, and a framed certificate of his membership in the New York Marine Society. The ornate Victorian fireplace was carved with vines and grapes and showcased a collection of miniature pigs, as well as silver-framed photographs. A stocking with the name
FALA
embroidered and trimmed with golden bells hung from the mantel.

The President was recovering from a sinus infection and his usually clear eyes were ringed and red. The morning headlines for December 22, 1941, were far from reassuring:
80 JAPANESE TRANSPORTS APPEAR OFF LUZON, U.S. SANK OR DAMAGED 14 U-BOATS IN ATLANTIC,
and
HITLER OUSTS ARMY HEAD—SEIZES FULL CONTROL.
Not to mention the continuing fallout from the attack on Pearl Harbor, fifteen days earlier.

In papers around the nation, there was speculation about a Japanese attack on San Francisco, fears of a Japanese terrorist attack with suicide agents in Washington, D.C., and rumors of Nazi U-boats patrolling the East Coast with an eye on Montauk, Long Island, and Boston. And there was news about citizens of Japan living in the United States arrested under the Enemy Alien Act and sent to “immigration detention centers.”

The true and staggering amount of devastation the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor had wrought on the U.S. Navy was still not being reported to the newspapers—and so was still unknown by the average Joe, who heard only about a “heavy loss” of ships and planes and a death list that remained “incomplete.”

Fala, the Roosevelts' small black Scottish terrier, was also taking breakfast in bed. The curled-up dog accepted the tiny pieces of bacon the President fed to him. Behind Roosevelt and the most famous dog in the land was a shelf with a half-finished model ship, various medicine bottles, nose drops, bits of paper, pencil stubs, a stack of books, an ashtray full of cigarette butts, and three telephones. Outside, fog obscured the dying rose garden.

At fifty-nine, Franklin Roosevelt was a tall, robust man—except for his legs, which were paralyzed by polio. He had a large, oblong face with a jutting jaw and silver pince-nez spectacles balanced on the bridge of his nose. He kept his Camel cigarette in an ivory holder between his teeth. In public, he always held it up at a jaunty angle, but in private, the angle of his cigarette holder gave away his mood, much like Fala's tail gave away his. This morning, the President's cigarette hung loosely in his mouth, pointing to the floor. The President wiped at his nose with a monogrammed linen handkerchief. He'd known the British P.M. was coming ever since the attack on Pearl Harbor, but for security reasons had kept the news to himself.

“Well, one of the first things we must do is remove all the art depicting the War of 1812,” said Mrs. Roosevelt. “Keeping those paintings up would be a horrible gaffe.”

The President reached down to stroke Fala's spiky ears. “Yes, dear.” As the dog wagged his tail, hoping for more bacon, Roosevelt sneezed. “Oh, spinach!” he exclaimed. “I can't shake this lousy cold.”

“Bless you.” The First Lady entered, long arms folded across her chest. “I think we can keep the Revolutionary War paintings. But perhaps take down George Washington.”

“President Washington?” the President echoed, giving a good blow. “Keep him up. Churchill has high respect for the Founding Fathers, so I've read. And even if he doesn't, Washington's still our first President. As the British learned in 1776—and the Axis powers will discover soon—the American spirit is indomitable.”

Franklin looked at Eleanor over the wire rims of his spectacles. “The Prime Minister's a guest, yes—and now our ally—but we're going to be negotiating quite a few things while he's here, including the fate of the British colonies. Might not be a bad idea to remind him who won the Revolutionary War.” He slipped another morsel of bacon to Fala, who wagged his tail in appreciation.

“But why didn't you tell me
earlier,
Franklin? And I can't find Mrs. Nesbitt anywhere. What are we going to serve on such short notice? She's a mediocre enough cook as it is. If only I'd known…”

There was the heavy drumbeat of footsteps, then a knock at the open door. It was the President's chief butler, Alonzo Fields, a dignified colored man, well over six feet tall and nearly three hundred pounds. Roosevelt noticed him waiting at the door and lowered the emotional temperature.

“Now, Eleanor, all that little woman would do even if she were here is to tell Fields what we can tell him ourselves right now.” He looked to his butler. “Fields, have your staff prepare bedrooms for the Prime Minister and his party. And if you see Mrs. Nesbitt, tell her to find Mrs. Roosevelt at once—we'll need dinner for twenty at eight, nine at the latest.”

“Yes, sir.”

Eleanor blinked. “My word, Franklin, I don't think you realize how much work a visit from a foreign dignitary takes! And even with Tommy on Christmas vacation, Blanche didn't show up for work today. She didn't even call—it's not like her.” Malvina “Tommy” Thompson was the secretary who usually took dictation for the First Lady's “My Day” newspaper columns. Blanche Balfour had been brought in to temporarily replace her.

“I'm sure Blanche is fine. And let the staff take care of everything. It's their job.”

Fields had waited. “Anything else, sir? Ma'am?”

“Thank you, that's all,” said the President. Fields left, his tread heavy on the hall floor.

But Eleanor was still fretting. “As First Lady, it all reflects on me, you know. And in addition to my column, I have a press conference today—” She began to pace at the foot of the bed, from one end of the worn Persian rug to the other.

“I know you'll do a bang-up job, Babs.”

His use of her nickname softened her edge a bit. The President kept his eyes on his newspaper, but the First Lady would not be put off. “And Franklin—” She stopped pacing to look at him. Already a statuesque woman, she towered over the man sitting up in bed. “Have you had a chance to read my letter to the Governor of Virginia, regarding the impending execution of Wendell Cotton?”

The President sighed. “If you haven't noticed, dear, we're at
war
. I have more on my plate with the Japs and the Huns than I know what to do with. And now, with Winston coming…”

“A man's life is at stake!” Franklin Delano Roosevelt was President, but Eleanor Roosevelt was the matriarch of the family and a political powerhouse in her own right. Not only was she the President's eyes and ears for places his wheelchair couldn't take him but she exerted a moral influence of her own.

“I know.” Roosevelt looked up at his wife. “But I can't rile up those boys from Dixie right now, just as we're entering this war. We all need to pull
together
to win—North and South. I can't afford to antagonize a nation that only recently wanted to throw me out of office and elect an isolationist.”

“Shouldn't your ‘together' include men like Wendell Cotton? What about the Negroes?” Eleanor perched at the foot of her husband's bed. “This is their war, too, you know. How can we fight for democracy if our own armed forces are segregated?”

“You know what they say about us down South—‘She'll kiss the Negroes, he'll kiss the Jews, and they'll stay in the White House as long as they choose.' I simply can't risk alienating Dixie, especially now that we're in the thick of it.”

The First Lady gave a sad, disapproving look and shook her head. “Unless we make this country worth fighting for by the Negroes, we shall have nothing to offer the world at the end of the war.”

Fala looked up for more bacon, which Roosevelt fed to him before replying. “I'm not President New Deal anymore, Babs, I'm President Win-the-War. Any further domestic progress is going to have to wait until this war is over. If I make any sudden changes to the status quo in regard to the coloreds, certain people will lash out. I need to keep this country together. I'm doing the best I can.” He looked out the window—the milk-glass winter sky was overcast and threatened rain—then back to the headlines.

The First Lady knew when the President had had enough. “I'm going to put Mr. Churchill in the Rose Bedroom. What do you think?”

“Perfecto, my dear.” He didn't look up, but his voice was a few degrees warmer.

Mrs. Roosevelt's gaze went to the cluster of photographs of their children on the mantel. They were now grown and wouldn't be home for the holidays this year. “It's so strange to have Christmas with the country at war. And without the boys and Anna,” she added. Their son James was in the Marines, Elliott was in the Army's Air Force, and both Franklin Jr. and John were in the Navy. Their daughter, Anna, was living in Seattle, while her husband and their son-in-law, John Boettiger, was stationed in England. “And without your mother, too, of course,” Eleanor added. The President's mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, had died that September.

The President nodded. “And your brother.” The First Lady's brother, Gracie Hall Roosevelt, had also died in September. Roosevelt cleared his throat. “Well, I have the feeling the atmosphere will be considerably energized when the Prime gets here.” He signed a few documents with a flourish, then looked up at his wife again, the spark back in his eyes. “You have no idea how much energy he has.”

“Is that what you call him? ‘The Prime'?”

“Indeed.”

“Well, then I'll do everything to get ready for him and his staff.” She rose, smoothing her skirt. “We'll put him and his detective and valet up here, and as many of the others as we can, and the rest can stay at the Mayflower—I'll have Mr. Fields call over. And what do you think he'd like for dinner tonight when he gets in?”

“I'm sure anything you choose will be splendid, my darling. Just make sure to have plenty of wine and scotch on hand. The Prime likes his hooch. And of course I'll make Martinis for Children's Hour.”

Eleanor turned away to hide her grimace. Her father had been an alcoholic; alcoholism had just claimed the life of her brother. She rarely touched spirits herself, indulging in one of her husband's Old-Fashioneds only once in a blue moon. “I'll see what I can do.”

The President tugged once on a frayed needlepoint bellpull to summon his valet. “I'm going to the airport to greet Winston and his crew.”

“You're going yourself?” Eleanor couldn't conceal her concern. “Can't you send someone else and then greet him here? You're just getting over that nasty infection.”

“The Prime and his staff have been on a ship dodging Nazi submarines for the past ten days, and they've only just docked in Boston. I think the least I can do is to show up at the airport.”

Eleanor turned to go but stopped in the doorway. “Well, if you see any of the staff, let them know I'm looking for Blanche—will you please, dear?” Then, “I'm worried about her. She hasn't been herself lately. She seems a bit…off.”

Roosevelt grinned, one of those megawatt grins that routinely made the newspapers' front pages. “Babs, if I see Blanche, I'll be sure to send her your way.”

When the First Lady had left, the smile vanished. The President sneezed, then wiped again at his nose. He checked his datebook. Under the day's date, December 22, 1941, he had written: R S F G H V N R Q U Q R X X M N V F. The code was one he'd developed in his days as an undergraduate at Harvard and had used ever since, occasionally changing the key for security reasons.

He gazed out the window at the gardens veiled in fog and picked up the telephone receiver. His gold signet ring—with a single bloodstone and the Roosevelt crest—on his left pinkie finger glinted in the glow from the bedside lamp. “Tell Frank Cole to come to my office,” he ordered. “Immediately.”

“Come on, Davy! Attaboy! You can beat that big ol' Goliath, I just know you can!”

Wendell Cotton sat on the hard bed of his jail cell and watched his cellmates—a mass of fat, brown, shiny cockroaches—swarm at the bread crumbs he'd put down for them. They'd been his companions since his arrival, although they were uninterested in him until his meager meals arrived. To assuage his boredom and his loneliness, Wendell had organized cockroach races, using bread crumbs as prizes.

Two champions had emerged, and Wendell could tell them apart. The bigger cockroach was Goliath, the other one David. Although Goliath usually won, there were some days—like today—when David gave the big guy a run for his money. Wanting to be fair, Wendell saved crumbs, as consolation prizes, for the also-rans as well.

The roaches were his friends. His only friends. They helped him with his nerves, distracted him for a few moments. But it was impossible to forget he was in his tiny, solitary cell on Death Row at Thomas Jefferson Prison in rural Virginia. The glow that passed through the high, barred window was dim; it didn't so much shine as seep through the filthy glass. What light there was shone down on a narrow bed covered with a gray blanket, a washbasin, and a toilet.