Murder on the Docks

by H. Paul Doucette

  “Okay.”

  I went back to the ramp and looked at the ground. It had rained during the night, so the ground was muddy. A set of dual tire ruts ended at the dock, it was clear they were made in the last eight hours. If I was reading this right, I figured a truck backed down the dirt track to the loading dock where someone loaded cargo into it. Turning around and looking at the blood stain, I guessed someone must have stumbled on them. They killed him then loaded the body into the truck and dumped it in Greenbank. It was all conjecture on my part at this point, but it fit with the evidence...so far.

  Pete came back ten minutes later carrying a handful of papers.

  “How’d it go?” I asked.

  “Cameron gave me copies of the cargo manifests for this section of the shed and the work crew list for the last shift. You find anything?” He passed me the papers.

  “Not much. Go have a look ‘round the area outside the loading dock then come back an’ tell me what you saw.”

  “What am I lookin’ for?”

  “Jus take a look an’ tell me what you reckon.”

  He stepped outside for several minutes before coming back.

  “Looks like a truck was there recently,” he said.

  “Right. I’m thinkin’ that they must’ve killed Slaunwhite here then dumped his body into a truck an’ taken it to Greenbank.”

  “Hmm, yeah, makes sense. Makes a lotta sense,” he agreed. “So, the truck must’ve been here to pick up the stolen goods.”

  “It’s a theory.”

  “A good one. Fits with everything like you say. So, what now?”

  “We wait for the lab boys to show up then back to the station. I want to check out these names Cameron gave us. Maybe we’ll get lucky an’ find some with history. I also want to call Michael Parks over at Intelligence, fill him in, and see if they have anything to contribute.”

  We arrived back at the station about a half hour later. When we stepped inside the station and the duty officer on the desk called us over.

  Chapter Two

  James Coopers stood in the deep shadow of a wooden tool shed set between several rows of rails. He surveyed the rows of rail track for any signs of movement from under a snap-brim fedora pulled low over his eyes. The man stamped his feet and hunched his shoulders inside his dark heavy woolen overcoat.

  James Coopers was a second-generation son of a German immigrant who moved to Canada after the First World War. Shortly after arriving and settling in Halifax, they changed their family name to Coopers from the German, Kueppers. Lucky for him, they at least kept their native language and passed it on to him.

  Coopers first learned of the National Socialist movement in Germany in 1935 while on a visit to his mother’s homeland. He had an opportunity to hear one of Adolf Hitler’s speeches and became enthralled by the man and his views. He officially joined the Nazi Party shortly thereafter. Before returning to Canada. he was recruited by the Abwehr, German Intelligence, as an agent in Halifax. His orders were simple - establish a position in the community and monitor all naval and military activity, reporting same to a contact at the German Consulate in New York.

  His knowledge of the city enabled him to scout out a couple of locations where he could make his observations without drawing attention. One such was a shed set between several rows of track not far from Africville, the slum where the Negroes lived, and the slaughterhouse. It would be suitable for obscuring him and, where he could hide his binoculars under one of its corners. It was also easily accessible from the main road.

  Tonight, as with the last two nights, the area was alive with the noise of shunting of railcars and the ships out in the Basin. After a brief moment, he glanced up at the moon, partially masked by a bank of thin cloud, but still bright enough to silhouette the ships at anchor.

  After one last scan of the area, he stepped to the corner of the shed. Retrieving a pair of powerful binoculars from their hiding place, he raised them to his eyes and focused on the ships anchored in the Basin.

  Bedford Basin was the staging area for the ship convoys destined for England with soldiers, vital war materials and supplies. Fodder for the U-Boat, he thought as a smile twitched his mouth. He began counting, noting in particular the number of tankers.

  Five minutes later he stepped back behind the shed and returned the glasses to their hiding place. He was anxious to get to the radio and relay the information to New York. He stepped away from the shed and turned to cross the tracks again.

  “‘Ere, you dere,” a man’s voice called out from behind him. “Hold up.”

  Coopers stopped and twitched his wrist, allowing a five-inch knife blade to slide into his hand and waited.

  “‘Ere, you turn ‘round an’ show us yer face. Whaddya doin’ down ‘ere this time a night anyway then, eh?”

  The man was almost behind him by now, the lantern the yard men carry held high above his head. Coopers spun quickly and thrust the blade with the weight of his body behind it. plunging it all the way into the man’s chest...killing him instantly.

  Coopers pulled the knife out and, wiping it on the dead man’s work coat, before sliding it back into the sheath attached to his forearm. He picked up the lantern, doused the light and set it out of his way. Reaching down he grabbed the man’s shoulders and hoisted the body with some effort onto his shoulder and carefully picked up the extinguished lantern. Stumbling over the loose ground, he headed for the water’s edge. At the top of the embankment, he rolled the body off his shoulder tumbled it into the Basin, tossing the lantern after it.

  “Scheiẞen,” he muttered in German, cursing his bad luck.

  He hurried over the loose ground back up to the main road. A brisk twenty-minute walk would take him to his house on Chebucto Road. Coopers ground his teeth in frustration, being discovered while about his business, and the subsequent murder, would surely bring unwanted attention to the area.

  Safely back at his place, he checked his pocket watch: ten-forty-five. Security people were monitoring telephone calls, especially long-distance ones. A call made at this hour would certainly arouse suspicions. His report would have to wait until tomorrow which was fine since the convoy wasn’t due to sail for another twenty-four hours or more.

  He went to the kitchen and made a cup of tea before settling in an over-stuffed chair in the small living room. Coopers set his mug on the small table by the chair and picked up the notepad and pencil he kept there. His brow furrowed in concentration as he began drafting the coded message for his American contact.

  In the course of his work James had cultivated a number of contacts in Halifax, especially men who worked on the waterfront and in the naval yards. Through them, he gleaned approximate departure dates and times for the convoys. As he recalled the number ships in the harbour, he smiled. This would be the biggest convoy to date, offering good hunting for the U-boats. He checked his watch again. It was nearing midnight. He would send the message at the one-thirty. A system was set up for radioing his messages based on alternating the time he sent them. It was simple enough, he would make contact fifteen minutes later than the previous message, then on the next one, fifteen minutes prior. He calculated if he sent a message at midnight the next one would be at twelve fifteen and the next at eleven forty-five. The precautions were in place to stymie any attempt to triangulate his position.

  Coopers walked quickly down the dimly lit hallway of the old two-story-cold-water tenement building in the Greenbank area. He had a room on the second floor where a powerful radio set was hidden under the floorboards. The room served as his base to send messages and reports to his German controller in New York.

  Pulling the set of keys from his pocket, he selected a skeleton key and inserted it into the lock under the door knob. Once inside, he made his usual inspection of the room to be sure no one had been in it. Satisfied, he went to a small dresser and moved it away from the wall. Kneeling down, he pried up several of the floorboards and extracted a canvas wrapped bundle. roughly eighteen b
y twenty-four inches and six inches high. He set the bulky parcel on the single cot next to the dresser, a puff of dust rising from the thin stuffed mattress. The canvas cover fell back exposing the radio inside along with a small black notebook, a headset, timer and a 9mm pistol.

  He inserted the flexible aerial and attached the three wires to three nails he’d situated on two of the walls. Finished, he returned to the radio to tune it. Opening a small black notebook, he flipped through several pages until he found the correct page.

  Coopers plugged a small flat piece of wood with a Morse code key set on it and plugged it into the radio. The timer was set for three minutes and thirty seconds when he started to key in the message, frequently looking at the timer. He needed to complete the transmission within four minutes, or risk the authorities picking up his signal and triangulating the location. He completed his message with sixty seconds to spare.

  A series of beeps in the headset startled him.

  He closed his eyes the better to decipher the code. New York wanted reassurance Coopers hadn’t been compromised because of the killing. His fingers tapped back everything was still okay and signed off.

  In minutes the equipment was packed and returned to its hiding place under the floor. Ten minutes later he stood in the center of the room and made a detailed scan, looking for anything that might give away his secret. Satisfied, he turned and left, locking the door securely behind him.

  * * *

  “Hey, Robie,” the duty officer greeted me from the front desk when Pete and I came through the door.

  “What’s up?” I asked when we reached the front desk.

  “I was jus’ about to radio ya. Looks like we got another body.”

  “Shit! Where?”

  “Down by Africville. Some black kids were scrounging ‘round the tracks and spotted a body in the water. It’s in one of them garbage things, ya know, those piles of crap that get squeezed together by the tide. Usually nothin’ but the junk tossed overboard by the ships up there. Anyway, I called the VG an’ ordered a wagon. They said they’d meet ya there.”

  “Ok, thanks.” I took the sheet of paper with the information. “By the way, who called it in?”

  The duty officer glanced down at the logbook.

  “Beat cop. Name’s Fredericks. He’s waitin’ on ya.”

  “Okay.” Pete and I headed back to the parking lot.

  “Jesus H Christ,” Pete said. “When it rains it fuckin’ pours.” He maneuvered the car north up Barrington Street; the siren wailing as we went.

  I couldn’t think of anything to add so I just sat there.

  Africville was located at the northern tip of the peninsula. The city proper ended on the shore of Bedford Basin. The small black community had been part of the city since it was founded back in the mid-seventeen-hundreds. According to local history, the place was settled by freed slaves and Maroons from the Caribbean.

  The roads between the ramshackle buildings were deep, rutted dirt or mud tracks that could easily crack an axle. Fortunately, we didn’t have to drive in there.

  A small gathering of men stood by the water’s edge, most dressed in railroad work gear. A uniformed cop was off to the side with two young black boys and a heavyset Negro woman. He waved us over.

  Pete steered the car over the wooden ties set across the tracks and stopped ten feet away. I went to speak with the cop while Pete headed for the group of men.

  “Fredericks?” I asked when I reached him.

  “Yes sir.”

  “Okay. Fill me in.”

  “Not much to tell ya. A coupla those men over there talkin’ to Pete ID’d him. Name’s Paul Phillpott. Worked for the railroad as a yardman an’ line security. My best guess is he stumbled onto sumthin’ and got himself done in. Whoever did it musta dumped him in the Basin hopin’ the tide’d take da body away.”

  “Hmm, I see. Who spotted the body?”

  Fredericks looked over his shoulder at the two kids standing on either side of the heavyset woman, who must be their mother. I stepped over to them with Fredericks close behind me.

  “My name is John Robichaud,” I said introducing myself. “I’m a detective with the Halifax police. Can I get your name, please?”

  “Mable Downy. Dese is mine,” she said, indicating the two boys and warily eying me. The boys looked to be between ten and twelve.

  “Dey in trubble?”

  “No. But I need to ask them a few questions ‘bout that man over there.”

  She nodded.

  I knelt down so I was at eye level with them.

  “Tell me how you found him.” I focussed on the older looking boy.

  It took about five minutes to get a general idea of what the boys did. They said they often came down to scavenge the area around the water’s edge for anything that might have been tossed overboard from the ships in the Basin. That’s when they found the body and one of the boys ran to tell someone.

  When I finished interviewing the boys, I headed over to where Pete was still speaking with the railroad men. The ambulance had finally arrived, and the two attendants were just wheeling the gurney up to the bank.

  Pete stepped away from the rail men and met me at the edge of the embankment where I looked down at the body. It had been pulled clear of the water and lay on the side of the bank.

  “Not much to tell,” he said when reached me, notebook in hand. “They say he was a night signalman and patrolled the track area along here from over there to about a quarter mile that way.” He pointed in both directions.

  “Hmm,” I said.

  “Apparently, it’s part of the watchman’s duties now whenever there’re ships formin’ up for a convoy. Making sure there are no people eying them or takin’ pictures.”

  “Anybody check the body?”

  “Nope.”

  “Right. Let’s get it up here an’ take a look. Get the ambulance guys over here an’ haul it up,” I said.

  It took the attendants ten minutes to navigate the rough terrain, but they finally managed to get the waterlogged body up the bank.

  I made a quick check of the body. A soggy wallet was still intact and his pocket watch in a vest pocket. The small fob glittered in the pale light — a Saint Christopher medal hung on the end. I passed both articles to Pete. A neat slit in his vest, high up on the left side was visible when I pulled back the coat. Lifting the edge of the vest I noted the tear went through the shirt and on into his chest. There weren’t any blood stains because of the water.

  “Anything?” Pete asked.

  I stood up, signalling the attendants to collect the body. “Get him to the coroner right away,” I snapped. With the aid of the uniform cop they lifted the dead man unto the gurney.

  I was still looking at the body when I turned away. “Look’s like another murder.”

  “Crap,” Pete said.

  On the drive back to the station, I contemplated the killing. It wasn’t a botched robbery, the man’s wallet was still in his pants and his watch, a good one of some value, was still in his vest pocket. So what else could it be? The other possibility was the poor sod caught someone doing something...but what? I didn’t see anything connecting the man’s death to the Slaunwhite business. It made no sense the thieves would try hitting the railcars here, too risky to break into a railcar in plain sight. The only thing that came to mind was the ships in the Basin and I didn’t like what that suggested.

  Pete and I arrived back at the station a half an hour later. At my desk I picked up the phone and dialed Michael Parks’ direct number.

  “Parks,” he said when he picked up.

  “Michael. Robie.”

  “Robie. This doesn’t sound good. What can I do for you?”

  I quickly filled him in on the current situation, including my speculations.

  “Hm. Interesting. You say this Phillpott was stabbed through the heart. From the front. I don’t see...”

  “Means he either knew his killer, or the killer was facing him. I’m gu
essin’ the latter, which means Phillpott musta caught him doin’ somethin’ down there. I could be wrong but...”

  “Yes, quite so. Better to err on the side of caution. Thanks for this. I assume you will keep me posted on any developments.”

  “Absolutely. By the way, I was hopin’ you’d have a few minutes for me.”

  “Of course. What would be a good time?”

  “Anytime, really,” I said.

  “Okay. Let’s say thirty minutes then?”

  “Yeah okay, thanks. See you in a bit.” I hung up the phone.

  * * *

  A stiff wind blew the cold drenching rain down from Bedford Basin compounding the overall misery.

  The ferry chugged its way across the harbor to Dartmouth, dodging and manoeuvring its way through a variety of small boat traffic and anchored ships. The deck was filled with four military lorries and two smaller vehicles; one a military car with an officer sitting in the back reading a file, and a Ford half ton truck with two men inside. Passengers huddled against the wind and salt spray while others filled the two narrow side cabins.

  Once it was moored on the Dartmouth side of the harbor and the ramp cleared for departure, the vehicles started to disembark.

  The Ford pickup, a beat up 1929 model, made its way up Portland Street. When it reached the corner of King Street, it turned left and headed down to the next block where it pulled to the curb about half way down in front of a two-story wooden house. The two men got out of the truck and climbed the steps to the glass panelled door.

  Four men were in the front room to the right of the entry; two sitting at a small table playing a game of cribbage. The other two sat in overstuffed chairs, one of them was reading a paper. The men turned and looked at the new arrivals.

  “Hey Pete, where’s Maurie?” one of the new comers asked the men reading the paper.

  “Kitchen,” the man named Pete said then went back to the paper.

  “You go, Lennie, I’ll wait here.” The man who came in last spoke.