Her Name is Leona, June 2, 1970

Ed watches through the glass windows as Charlie goes back out into the offices and approaches Lee, who was lounging against a wall near the entrance. He can’t see Charlie’s face, but he watches Lee smile and readjust her bag over her shoulder. She gives him a quick peck on cheek and leaves without a hint of concern.

Before Ed can even ask the question, Charlie answers him as he comes back into Ed’s office and shuts the door. “She’s going to be at AFP to see if she can translate or something. What’s going on?”

Ed leans back in his chair as far as it will let him as Charlie situates himself in the seat across the desk. “Do you remember when you first met Lee that I told you there was something about her that for the life of me I couldn’t remember?”

Charlie leans forward in his seat, studying Ed intently because this was not the conversation that Charlie thought they were about to have. “You said something about her last name. Ed?”

“Yeah, I couldn’t remember it then. Lefavor?” Ed starts comes back from his relaxed position in his chair to open one of the drawers in his desk. “Everything in this folder is not mine to keep. You can stay here as long as you like to read it but I have to return most of those things later.”

“It’s Lefebvre. Lee Lefebvre.” Charlie corrects.

“Right there in is the problem. I didn’t know, well, because I didn’t know. I’ve been here and variations of here since the Kennedys were killed. Haven’t actually set foot in the States in years, let alone made any remote attempt to find a damn job. Which is why now I finally understand why everyone under the age of forty is interested in your girl?” Ed opens the folder and the first thing he pulls out is a picture and hands it over to Charlie.

It’s Lee, he can tell at once, but she is so much younger if that was even possible. She was maybe fifteen at best. Her hair looks a shade darker in the black and white photograph but there’s no mistaking her. Next to her is an older gentleman and by the look on the man’s face, Charlie knows at once that he’s a doting father, that he’s Lee’s father. He hands the photo back to Ed. “I don’t-“

“Her name is Leona Ethel Lefebvre and her father is the owner and head of Atlantis Media Group. L. E. Lefebvre. Lee Lefebvre.” He drops the picture back onto his desk.

Ed can see the wheels in Charlie’s head turning. “Her father owns AMG? One of the New York Times’ biggest competitors and one of the largest publishing houses in the country?”

“It’s a certainty, yes.” Ed says leaning back in his chair. “He’s one of our biggest clients. He doesn’t like sending people out but pays a pretty penny for other reporter’s good stories. Do you want to know how many of your pieces he’s bought for his magazines?”

Charlie swallowed an invisible lump in his throat. “No, suddenly I don’t.”

“He’s a shrewd son of a bitch and comes from old money. He could drop a bank on us and no one would ever know we were ever alive.” Ed fishes a pack of cigarettes out of his chest pocket and finds one, tossing the pack on the desk towards Charlie. He has to lean back to the desk, mentally cursing himself as he fishes for his lighter in a desk drawer and leaves it on the desk for Charlie. “Better have one, it’s about to get better.”

Ed watches Charlie help himself to a cigarette and when satisfied that Charlie actually took a drag from it, continued.

“So Will-EM, not William Lefebvre has total control over his life and fortunes except for two key things: his sister and his daughter. It’s in the folder and I’ll let you read in a few minutes, but I thought I’d give you the highlight reel first. Disowns the sister for running away from home and becoming pregnant by an actor and like Henry the Eighth is angry as hell he has a daughter and not a son to inherit the company.”

Charlie is looking at Ed blankly. “Please tell me that you’re making this up?”

“No,” Ed says after a moment. “This is all terribly true. So she does her best to be a good daughter, goes to Catholic schools, eventually attends and graduates from Columbia University and goes to work for one of her father’s newspapers. Almost got married but left her fiancée at the altar.” He pauses. “Sometime after leaving the guy at the church and now, she got to Cambodia.” Ed smiles as he tells Charlie: “Look at you man, you got yourself a bona fide New York Media Heiress.”

Charlie is at a loss for words. This explains so much and nothing at all at the same time.

“I’m going to correctly assume you didn’t know.” Ed gets up from his desk and pats Charlie on the shoulder as he leaves the office, closing the door behind him.

It takes a few moments for Charlie to generate the will to make his hands move for the folder on the desk. He looks at what he has before he actually starts to read it. There’s only one more photo and it’s from a newspaper, her engagement announcement. She’s looking away from the camera, still a stunning photo, but she isn’t smiling.

Mr. and Mrs. Willem Lefebvre are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter Leona to Mr. Arthur Lansing, only son of Mr. and Mrs. John Lansing.

The future bride graduated from Columbia University with a Bachelor of Arts degree. She is employed as a fashion reporter for the Atlantis Daily News. The future groom received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brown University. He is employed as an intern at Atlantis Media Group in New York.

A September wedding is planned and the couple will live in New York.

Charlie looks for the date: May 7, 1968. He then thumbs through some of the other papers, a few articles she’s written that he doesn’t bother with. He knows she can write even if she was forced to write about things she didn’t want to like fall fashions. It is a part of the reporting life: writing about things you may not want to. It was a waste of her talents and he knew it.

Well, leaving the man at the alter was a bit of a dramatization on Ed’s part, but he will concede that announcing three days before the wedding was about to happen was pretty brazen. September 11, 1968 was the date of the article.

Lefebvre–Lansing Wedding Delayed. The scheduled nuptials between Leona Lefebvre and Arthur Lansing have been postponed. No reason has been provided, but the Lefebvre family has said that a mass open to the public would be held at the same time at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Saturday, September 14 at 1pm.

The next thing that caught his eye was some sort of typed report. The paper was fairly crisp. This was a new document, Charlie determined, but the typing was… off and not well formatted. It was an interview he realized. Oh, he realized. ER was Ed Ryan, his boss. Ed had typed questions and someone with the initials of CL responded. Yet the typeface was the same. Same kind of typewriter, but more than likely, it was the same typewriter.

ER: How long have you known LL?
CL: Saigon, Julz 1969.
ER: Did she ever talk about how she arrived?
CL: She said that she had sold her engagement ring and traveled to Canada to get here. She’s an American, it’s obvious, but I helped her get her credentials in order to work for AFP.
ER: Did she talk about her family?
CL: No talk about her familz. I can onlz guess at the bozfriend because of the ring.
ER: Did she go out when in Saigon? Meet people?
CL: No. She kept to herself as much as possible. She worked hard to avoid Americans. I think that was part of the reason that she left at the end of November. Not as manz Americans in Phnom Penh.
ER: I’m thinking about hiring her to work for me. Anything I should know?
CL: She maz keep to herself but she’s not afraid. LL, she’s fearless to a point of recklessness.

Charlie put the paper down. As he had already found out on his own, she was an American. This document didn’t give him any new information, just confirming what he already knew about them both: they do not discuss family. The only thing that bothered him was the typing errors on the part of whoever CL was. The letter Z instead of…

French. Whomever it was French and they used a Hermes typewriter like Lee’s. Her typewriter had the Z key were the Y key was on his in addition to all of the buttons for accents. Ed talked to someone most likely that worked for AFP. Someone here or who was here recently. Charlie went to his shoulder bag on the floor and dug out his journal and made a few notes. When he was done he returned his journal to his bag and he decided he was probably done with Ed’s folder. It had gotten strange now and Charlie decided that he really would rather learn this information from Lee herself. He took a quick glance at the rest, more articles, one about her aunt, even one about Lee’s father that he decided to skip. He was about close when he noticed a faded yellow paper.

He pulled it out slowly and read what it said.

Reward of fifty thousand dollars for the safe return of Leona E. Lefebvre to the United States of America. No questions will be asked. W. Lefebvre. 200 Park Avenue, 18th Floor New York, 10166.

Charlie dropped the paper like it burned him. He ground out the cigarette he was smoking on the ashtray on the desk, grabbed his bag and flew out of the UPI offices.

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