Pitt gave her a warm smile. "Your husband is very perceptive. I'm from the National Underwater and Marine Agency and Julia is an agent with the Immigration and Naturalization Service."
She looked at Julia sadly. "I suppose you'll be wanting to deport us because we came into the country illegally."
Pitt and Julia exchanged puzzled glances. "Why no," he said. "We're here on a completely different matter."
Julia walked over and put her arm around the taller woman. "You do not have to worry about the past," she said softly. "That was a long time ago and, according to the records, both you and your husband are solid, taxpaying citizens."
"But we did some shenanigans with the paperwork."
"The less said, the better," Julia laughed. "If you won't tell, neither will I."
Pitt looked at Katie Gallagher curiously. "You talk as if you both entered the United States at the same time."
"We did," she said, nodding at the painting. "On the Princess Dou Wan."
"You were on the ship when she sank?" asked Pitt incredulously.
"It's a strange story."
"We'd love to hear it."
"Please sit down and I'll bring the tea." She smiled at Julia. "I think you'll enjoy the taste. I order it from Shanghai from the same store I used to buy it at sixty years ago."
A few minutes later, as she poured a dark green tea, Katie told the story about how she met Ian "Hong Kong" Gallagher when they both worked for the Canton Lines Shipping Company. She told of visiting her future husband on board the Princess while the ship was being stripped for the voyage to the scrappers and how hundreds of crates were delivered to the dock and loaded aboard in the dead of night.
"One of Chiang Kai-shek's generals, a man by the name of Kung Hui-"
"We're familiar with the name," Pitt interrupted her. "It was he who seized the ship and loaded it with a stolen cargo."
"All done in great secrecy," Katie agreed. "After General Hui commandeered the Princess, he refused to allow me and my little dog, Fritz, to go ashore. I was a virtual prisoner in lan's cabin from then until the ship sank in a violent storm a month later. Ian knew the ship was about to break up and he made me dress in several layers of warm clothes. Then he literally dragged me to the upper boat deck, where he threw me in a life raft. General Hui joined us just before the ship floundered and we floated free."
"General Hui left the ship with you?"
"Yes, but he froze to death a few hours later. The cold was unbearable. The waves tall as houses. It was a miracle we survived."
"You and Ian were picked up?"
"No, we drifted ashore. I was within an inch of death from hypothermia, but he broke into a vacation cabin, started a fire and brought me back to life. Several days later, we made our way across the country to the house of a cousin of lan's who lived in New York. He took us in until we could stand on our own feet. We knew we couldn't go back to China after it had been taken over by the Communists, so we decided to remain in the United States, where we were married. After obtaining the proper documents, I won't say how, Ian went back to sea while I raised our family. Most of those years we lived on Long Island, New York, but we vacationed every summer around the Great Lakes when the children were young and grew to love the west coast of Lake Michigan. When Ian retired, we built this house. It's a good life, and we enjoy boating on the lake."
"You were both very lucky people," said Julia.
Katie looked longingly at a photograph of her with their children and grandchildren taken during their last Christmas reunion. There were other photos. One of a young Ian standing on a dock in the Orient next to a tramp steamer was in a frame next to a beautiful blond Katrina holding a small dachshund under her arm. She wiped a tear that formed in one eye. "You know," she said, "every time I look at that picture I feel sad. Ian and I had to abandon the ship so quickly that I left my little dachshund Fritz behind in the cabin. The poor little thing went down with the ship."
Julia looked at the two little dogs that followed Katie everywhere, tails wagging. "It looks as if Fritz is still with you, at least in spirit."
"Do you mind if I talk to Mr. Gallagher?" asked Pitt.
"Not at all. Just go through the kitchen to the back door. You'll find him down on the boat dock."
Pitt stepped from the kitchen door onto a long porch overlooking the lake. He walked across a lawn that sloped toward the shore and ended at a small pier that jutted out about thirty feet into the lake. He found Ian "Hong Kong" Gallagher sitting on a canvas stool at the end of the pier, a fishing pole propped on a small handrail. An old, weathered slouch hat was pulled down over his eyes, and he appeared to be dozing.
The gentle movement of the pier and the sound of footsteps awakened him to Pitt's approach. "That you, Katie?" he asked in a rumbling voice.
"Afraid not," Pitt answered.
Gallagher turned, peered at the stranger a moment from under the brim of his hat, and then refaced the lake. "I thought you might be my wife." The words came with a soft Irish accent.
"Doing any good?"