The Last Heroes (Men at War 1)

She waited until the Plymouth had passed inside the gate, then motioned him through. There was a switch inside the wall. She pressed it, and electric motors closed the double gate.

Then she walked down the brick drive to the garage. She had, Peter Douglass noticed, a graceful carriage, a firm step. She was both attractive and self-assured.

She stopped at the door to an outside stairway to the floor above the garage.

‘‘What about your driver?’’ she asked. ‘‘Can he be trusted to keep his mouth shut?’’

Douglass hadn’t even considered that. He didn’t even know the boatswain’s mate’s name.

‘‘Is there any reason he has to know about the problem?’’ Douglass asked. She nodded. ‘‘In that case, he can be trusted.’’ He was a Regular Navy boatswain’s mate. He would do what he was told.

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nbsp; Cynthia Chenowith nodded again and started up the stairs. Douglass signaled to the boatswain’s mate to come along, and he got out of the Plymouth and adjusted his white hat in the prescribed cocky position over his eyes.

She led them through what was obviously her apartment and opened a door, standing to one side so that Douglass could go inside.

It was her bedroom, obviously. And on the bed was a body under a sheet.

‘‘Mr. Whittaker?’’ Douglass asked.

She nodded.

‘‘I’m sorry,’’ he said.

The boatswain’s mate, muttering, ‘‘Coming through,’’ pushed past Douglass, went to the bed, and pulled the sheet off Chesley Haywood Whittaker’s head and torso. Whittaker was naked.

The boatswain’s mate put his hand on the artery of Whittaker’s neck, then placed his hand flat on his chest.

‘‘He’s been dead maybe an hour,’’ he announced matter-of -factly.

‘‘I think you’d better tell me what happened, Miss Chenowith,’’ Captain Douglass said, turning to look at her.

She flushed, but she met his eyes.

‘‘We were in bed,’’ she said. ‘‘He made a cry, and went limp.’’

The man on the bed was old enough to be the girl’s father. ‘‘A stroke, probably,’’ the boatswain’s mate said professionally. ‘‘If it’s a heart attack, they generally . . . wet the bed. With a stroke, they’re dead right away and nothing works.’’

Douglass looked at him.

‘‘I was a China sailor,’’ the boatswain’s mate said. ‘‘We didn’t have a medic for a while on the Panay, and I had to fill in.’’

‘‘For obvious reasons,’’ Cynthia Chenowith said, ‘‘it must not come out where and how he died.’’

Cynthia Chenowith was having some difficulty maintaining control, but she was far from hysteria.

‘‘Where’d he live?’’ the boatswain’s mate asked.

‘‘New Jersey,’’ Cynthia replied automatically.

‘‘Well, we can’t take him home, can we?’’ the boatswain’s mate said.

‘‘And here,’’ Cynthia said. ‘‘And of course he lives here, too.’’

‘‘Here, or do you mean the house?’’ the boatswain’s mate pursued.

‘‘The house,’’ Cynthia said.