Page 40

I was working in the kitchen, cleaning equipment with Rachel, when the overnighted packet of papers arrived.

I signed for the thick envelope made out to me.

The sender was a Billy J. Hoyt from Fresno, California.

His handwriting in blue ballpoint pen was precise and indented as if the man put weight behind each letter. “Margaret!”

“What?” she shouted from the basement.

I hefted the envelope, and judging by the weight, it was a heavy stack of papers. “Know a Mr. Hoyt?”

Next came the thumping of her feet up the basement stairs. “Is that from Billy?”

I held out the package to her. “That would be correct. He one of your pals?”

“He’s the one we wrote to about the dog tags.”

“But you texted him last night.”

“He must have really hustled the request through. He’s got so many connections.” She took the package from me and ripped open the back flap. “Billy is retired marines. He spends his golden years locating information on the men and women who served. It’s amazing what he can find.”

I glanced over her shoulder as she scanned a typed note from Billy.

The concise letter detailed what he’d found and ended with a don’t worry about the cost , tell Maggie hi and an I’ll keep digging.

Again, the signature was bold, clear, and direct.

I pictured a man with a gray high-and-tight haircut, white collared shirt, and khakis.

“So, Maggie, does Billy have a crush on you?”

She waggled her eyebrows. “I think he does. If I were thirty years older, I’d date him. He’s such a sweetie. He served three tours in Vietnam and has more medals than I can count. A real stud in my book.”

“Margaret.”

She shuffled through the papers, and the first sheet was a military form that looked as if it had been copied from microfilm. At the top of the form were the words Autopsy Report . “It’s for Walter Jacob.”

That was the name on the dog tags. I braced. “How did he die?”

Margaret’s frown deepened as she read the form. “He was hit by artillery fire. His legs were blown off in the initial explosion. He also lost a hand and sustained head trauma.”

Blowing breath from my lungs, I shoved the image out of my mind and prayed Jenna never received such details. “What’s the other paper?” As she shuffled, I saw the heading at the top of the next form. It read Burial Information .

The clear, simple words came with a one-two punch, sobering all my humor. Margaret read, her gaze as sharp and serious as when she cataloged artifacts. “The form is also for a Walter F. Jacob. He was a sergeant in the marines. Date of birth, June twelfth, 1920. Date of death, July fifteenth, 1944.”

“He lived to be twenty-four. So young.”

A silence settled around us, and the weight bore heavy on me. I pressed my hand to my belly, not able to wonder what it would be like to lose a child barely over twenty.

“It says, ‘The remains of USMC Walter Jacob were first buried on the island of Saipan, plot T, grave 1040.’”

“Saipan?”

“The invasion of the island was called the D-Day of the Pacific. Very strategic bloody battle that lasted several weeks. We won, but the price was very high.”

“So is Walter still on Saipan?” So far from home.

Margaret flipped through more papers, her frown deepening. “There’s a Joey Lawrence listed as next of kin, and ...” She paused for effect. “There’s a letter here to Mrs. Jenna Davis Jacob, Union Street, Alexandria, Virginia.”

Our Jenna. “What does it say?”

She tossed me a look as if to say slow . She read:

As requested, the United States Marine Corps is forwarding to you the following personal property, belonging to Sergeant Walter F. Jacob Jr.

1 carton and contents

1 Bureau check for $89.12

1 medal (by registered mail)

When delivery has been made, I shall appreciate your acknowledging receipt by signing one copy of this letter in the spaces provided below and returning it to this Bureau. For your convenience, there is enclosed an addressed envelope which needs no postage.

I regret the circumstances prompting this letter, and I extend my deepest sympathies on the loss of your husband.

The form letter had all the pertinent information, and had been typed correctly, but it was the misalignment of the last word, husband , robbing all the heartfelt emotion from the letter.

Walter Jacob had become a number. As had Jenna.

Inserting husband had been simply another detail to be handled by a clerk in a nameless office.

Sadness burrowed deep. “The letter sounds so cold and uncaring.”

“But think of how many thousands of remains that office handled, Daisy. So many men died, and keeping track of their remains, their belongings, and their loved ones was no easy task.”

“The effects were sent to Jenna Jacob, but according to the article in the paper her last name was Davis.” I glanced at the dates and did a quick calculation. “He died about five months before the baby was born, and this letter would have been received about a week before she gave birth.”

“Maybe he listed her as his wife,” Margaret said.

“Maybe he knew about the baby and had every intention of coming back and marrying her,” I said.

“It does say here that his body was interred in the Alexandria Cemetery, plot A222.”

That was the first bit of good news. “Really? We could go see it?”

“Sure.”

I glanced at the work yet to be done and didn’t feel like I could leave.

“An hour won’t make a huge difference,” Margaret said, reading my expression. “This will be here.”

“You’re right.”

The heat of midafternoon had passed, and the air had cooled to a nice temperature. I wanted to get out of the bakery and breathe a little fresh air and walk on the cemetery’s green grass.

We left Rachel scrubbing and grumbling about bad flow and how every pot and pan was in the wrong place. When she said “Not to worry. I’ll figure it out,” we knew she was headed to Martyrville, and it probably was best we did leave.

The walk to the cemetery was a little over a mile, but given I’d been on my feet all day, it made sense to drive.

It was after six when we arrived, and most of the offices had cleared out for the day, so we could find street parking.

The grassy lands of the Alexandria Cemetery rolled like a park, shading the granite and limestone grave markers.

“How do we begin to search?” I asked. “There must be thousands of markers.”

Margaret and I went to the main office, arriving shortly before closing. The woman looked up at us, clearly annoyed by our late arrival.

She had dark hair tied back in a bun and sported wire-rimmed glasses. She wore a white shirt with a United States flag pin on her lapel. “Can I help you?”

Margaret sauntered up as if she were expecting to be recognized. “My sister and I are looking for a grave.”

She glanced at the clock. “A grave.”

“That’s right. Walter F. Jacob Jr. He was interred here in 1945. The plot is listed as A222.”

Some of the strain vanished from her face.

It appeared Margaret had asked an easy question.

She pulled out a map and spread it out on her desk.

“This is where we are, and this is the section where you need to search. I don’t know the exact location on the map, but this will put you in the neighborhood. ”

“Thanks.”

It took us a half hour to find the stone, located at the base of a small rolling hill. The thin granite marker tilted thirty degrees to the left. The deeply etched letters read Walter F. Jacob Jr., US Marines, June 12, 1920–July 15, 1944 .

I knelt by the marker and carefully traced the letters of his name with my fingertips. “Twenty-four years old. So young.”

I touched the granite, wondering if this was the him I was supposed to find. Find him. Jenna, am I on the right track? I waited a beat, hoping for an answer, but not a whisper or even a feeling.

“Hey, look,” Margaret said.

I rose and looked at the marker. It read, Jenna Davis Jacob, June 3, 1923–December 25, 1944 . She’d been twenty-one years old. They’d died within months of each other.

“They were babies,” Margaret said.

“Is there another marker around here? According to the paper, she was survived by an infant son, but it also said he was ailing.”

Margaret and I spent the next minutes moving around the spot, looking for a child that might have died close to his birth.

But we didn’t find a marker. “If he died, he wasn’t buried here.”

“Where is he?”

Find him.

“I don’t know.”

Rachel offered the next link in the growing chain to find him .

She suggested we talk to Sara. At ninety-five, she was one of the oldest customers of the bakery.

She’d come once a week for the last seventy years but had broken her hip two years ago and now lived in a nursing home.

Rachel didn’t know if she’d remember Jenna but suggested if anyone did, it would be her.

Armed with maple cookies, which Rachel had made, I drove to the nursing home, located ten miles away in Arlington.

It took a U-turn and two missed tries before I spotted the low-lying building off Glebe Road. Shady Acres Retirement Home was nondescript, outfitted with tinted windows that didn’t open, an entrance covered with a wide awning, and scattered flower planters next to benches.

Inside, the place looked clean and well run, but the antiseptic smell turned my still-delicate stomach. I found reception and introduced myself. After showing an ID and explaining whom I was here to see, the receptionist directed me to a visitor’s lounge.

The tiled floor sparkled with polish, and on the walls hung pictures of what appeared to be smiling older residents. In the corner stood a card table with cards and poker chips still scattered on it, as if the players would soon return. A large flat screen televised the news.