Agent Sheffield pulled up a chair for Mary, then sat across from Mr. Winslow’s desk, thumping his shoes onto the desktop. “Do you know why I’m here?”
Mr. Winslow stared at the agent’s shoes, his lips thinned. “I can’t imagine.”
“Why don’t you tell me how your plans make it into blueprints and end up on the docks?”
Mary opened her notebook and started a new page of notes.
Mr. Winslow straightened the blotter on his desk. “It’s rather straightforward. I draw up preliminary plans with all the specifications. I pass them on to the draftsman assigned to that project. He draws up the final diagram, has the blueprint developed, and delivers it to the leadingman.”
Agent Sheffield lit a cigarette without offering one to Mr. Winslow. “Have you heard about the bolts on the Fiske crew?”
“Yes, I have. I can’t imagine what happened. It’s all rather strange.”
“Here’s the situation.” The agent angled cigarette smoke over the desk. “We had an independent inspector come in. He verified the construction was performed exactly to the specifications on the blueprints.”
“Exactly? That can’t be. Do you—do you think I made a mistake? Even if I did, it hardly seems like the FBI’s jurisdic—wait. You don’t think I did it on purpose?” The edge of the blotter rolled in Winslow’s grasp.
Agent Sheffield shrugged and tipped his wooden chair back. “Tell me—what should I think?”
Mary took notes rapidly, her gaze darting back and forth between her notebook and the men. She didn’t want to miss even one nuanced gesture.
Mr. Winslow’s fingers skittered around as if he were typing on a miniature typewriter. “Why would I do anything to jeopardize our ships or our men? I want to help Britain, and the best way I can help is by getting these destroyers out to sea. Why would I slow production? You ought to look at the men who want to keep us off the seas and out of the war.”
Mary anchored her tongue between her teeth so she wouldn’t mention the theory that Winslow could be framing someone to stir up public sentiment in favor of the war.
Mr. Winslow thumped his fists on the desk. “O’Donnell!”
“O’Donnell?” Agent Sheffield sounded as if he’d never heard the name before, although it appeared in each of Mary’s reports.
“George O’Donnell.” Mr. Winslow ran his hand over his pomaded brown hair. “Of course. He’s the loudest isolationist I know. He’s the draftsman assigned to Fiske’s crew. He draws up the blueprints from my plans. He could alter them. He’s the one. It’s him, I tell—”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” A gruff voice rose from the office entrance.
Mary whipped around.
George O’Donnell filled the doorway. “You’d love to make me look bad. You’re the one who altered the plans, you and Kaplan in cahoots, I bet you. Then you pin it on me. Pin it on the isolationist. That’d get the papers in a fit, drive us right into the war.”
Mr. Winslow rose from his chair, his fingers still working on the desktop. “I could say the same about you. You altered the plans to make me look guilty, make it look as if I were trying to get us into the war.”
O’Donnell entered the office, fists clenched by his side. “You and Kaplan. Yeah, you’d need help, someone willing to get dirt under his nails. I wouldn’t be surprised if that French girl were in on this too, always sticking her nose into things around here.”
“French girl?” Mary said, pen still. “Yvette?”
O’Donnell looked down at her, his heavy salt-and-pepper brows drawn together. “Yeah. Young. Brunette. Long foreign name.”
Mary doodled on the corner of her page to look indifferent. Yvette had mentioned her fascination with drafting, the time she spent in the drafting room.
Agent Hayes stood and grasped the doorknob. “Excuse us, Mr. O’Donnell. This is a private meeting. We’ll speak with you later.”
A twitch in Agent Sheffield’s upper lip told Mary he was perfectly happy listening to the men incriminate each other.
Agent Hayes shut the door behind Mr. O’Donnell and took his seat.
A long stream of cigarette smoke rose from Sheffield’s mouth. “Then there’s the matter of Winslow Shipbuilding Company. Your family.”
“They’re not my family.” Mr. Winslow’s voice went taut, and he fiddled with his fingers. “They may have raised me, but they aren’t my family. My wife and children are. I made my own way in this world, no thanks to them, and I have no share in their lives or in their company.”
Agent Sheffield rested his forearms on the desk and cocked his head. “You’re shaking pretty hard, Mr. Winslow. Perhaps you should see a doctor about that.”
