Jan’s voice was pleading. “Jim!”
“All right,” Reardon said heavily, still staring at Penny. “Let me finish my story—maybe it’ll help your lawyer plan your defense. Then everybody can be happy—except Bob Cooke, of course. You picked up the stones. The ship’s shop is closed in port by law, and you’re free, while Cooke often had to work. But while there was an advantage in being free in port outside of this country, the opposite was true when you got back here. Customs abroad—or even here—seldom bother passengers taking things out of a country. Many ports don’t even have Customs officials posted for people boarding ships. But bringing things into a country is a different story. Passengers and crew that leave the ship when it first docks, go through Customs rather vigorously, particularly in a port such as San Francisco where a campaign is on against smuggling—”
The thought crossed his mind how proud Captain Tower would be to hear he’d paid some attention to the lecture the other night before escaping. He came back to his story.
“So you needed someone who could carry the stones off for you. When Jan and I were watching you through binoculars when you first came into the bay, Jan thought you were slipping something to a deck officer, or else holding hands. We made a big joke out of it. But you probably were slipping him something—the stones. Because he worked later, and by the time he left the ship most of the Customs people had quit work, if not all of them. Ship’s officers, even dressed in civvies, usually walk off a ship without any trouble; the ones who live aboard during a port stay go back and forth without the slightest inconvenience, especially since they have no luggage. So Bob Cooke was your perfect sucker. He’d probably been after you for a date for a long time; with your looks it wouldn’t be very hard to handle him.”
Penny’s eyes broke from his; she stared down at her shoes. Dondero spoke at last, his eyes on her face, pain in his eyes. He was studying her beauty, but addressing his words to Reardon.
“I’ll take her in, Jim. I’ll take your car. You and Jan can use Jan’s. You go ahead with your date.”
“We’ll both take her—” Reardon stopped abruptly. He nodded. “All right, Don. The charges are smuggling and accessory to murder. You can have her held on an open charge until you get a warrant. You know how to handle it as well as I do.”
“Probably better. I’ve probably put the arm on more people in my time.” Dondero came to his feet, taking Penny by the arm gently, helping her to her feet. She rose like an automaton. “Penny?” She looked at him blindly. “Penny, let’s go.”
They left the room without a backward glance. There was silence for a few moments and then the sound of the street door being opened and closed. Reardon studied Jan’s face a minute. He walked over, bending down, picking the gin bottle up. He poured himself a drink. His eyes came up to Jan’s; she shook her head in misery. He started to put the bottle on the table when she spoke.
“Jim—”
He looked at her. She was holding out her glass, her face still unforgiving for his having had Penny arrested. Reardon sighed and poured her a drink. She took it in two quick gulps and looked at him somberly. The empty glass dangled from her fingers.
“Jim—”
“Yes?”
“I—I don’t want to stay here overnight …”
“All right.”
She bit her lip. “And I don’t think I want to eat at the Little Tokyo tonight, either.”
Reardon kept his voice equally grave. “All right. In fact, I know a better place to eat. If we aren’t too late. I’ll have to make a call though—”
He put down his glass and walked into the bedroom, picking up the telephone.
CHAPTER 16
Thursday—10:00 P.M.
“The food was delicious,” Jan said, and set her napkin down beside her plate, smiling at their host.
“I’m glad you liked it.” Harry Thompson beamed. “I told the lieutenant there’s none better anywhere.” He was a tiny man, far different in appearance from the picture Reardon had formed from hearing his deep voice. His face was weather-beaten and crosshatched with tiny wrinkles; his ears stood at right angles from his head, and he had a ready laugh.
Jan glanced about the elegant, but deserted, dining room.
“I can imagine during a cruise, when everyone is in evening dress, and there are flowers on every table, and the lighting is softer, and there is music playing in the background, it must really be beautiful.”
There was an interruption before the chief purser could answer. A tall young uniformed officer came into the dining room, located their table and came over. He bent over the tiny officer, whispering in his ear. Thompson nodded and looked at Reardon.
“Telephone for you, Lieutenant.”
“Thank you.” Reardon came to his feet, putting his napkin aside. With a wink at the smaller man that was unseen by Jan, he smiled faintly. “And while I’m gone, you might tell Jan some of the interesting things you were telling me about the ship, yesterday. And the quality of the passengers, and things about cruises in general. I’m sure she’d enjoy hearing them.”
“With pleasure,” Thompson said with a broad smile. He came to his feet, holding Jan’s chair back. “We’ll probably be on the promenade deck when you’re through with your call. I’ll show your Jan the ship. Look for us up there.”
“Right,” Reardon said and followed the junior officer from the dining room, even forgiving him the sidelong, admiring glance at Jan. He picked up the telephone on the table outside of the purser’s office, not at all surprised to find Dondero on the line.
“Hello?”
“Jim? This is Don—”
“Just once I’d like to eat in peace. Do you mind?” He grinned.
Dondero disregarded the tone. “I figured you’d end up on the ship after Mr. Noguchi said you weren’t at the Little Tokyo …”
Reardon sighed. “And I figured you had figured it when they told me I had a telephone call. Who else knows how to dial? What’s up?”
Dondero took a deep breath, plunging in.
“It’s Penny. Penny Wilkinson. She told me the whole story on the way downtown. We—” He cleared his throat. “Well, we stopped for a drink, as a matter of fact. And she let her hair down.”
“Oh.”
It wasn’t the standard method of interrogating a prisoner, but if it got results, it accomplished everything Reardon was interested in. And it had been his feeling that the girl would talk to Dondero if they were alone; it was his reason for permitting the sergeant to take her in by herself. He cleared his throat and spoke into the telephone softly.
“I hope you warned her and explained her rights to her.”
“Just like it says on the card,” Dondero said. There was a moment’s hesitation. “But she wanted to talk, and she wanted to talk to me—and, well, I wanted her to talk to me. I let her. And I believe what she says.” This last was said almost defiantly.
“I’m not arguing with you,” Reardon said patiently. “Where are you?”
“Not in a bar. We’re at the Hall of Justice. I’m in my pigpen on the fourth floor; she’s in a cell on the fifth floor.”
He made it sound as if it were Reardon’s fault. Reardon took a deep breath, disregarding the tone. “So what did she say?”
“She says this Crocker was just supposed to pick up the stones, and that’s all. He wasn’t supposed to touch Cooke, let alone kill him. She says the boy had a crush on her. It was only his third trip with her and he said he’d be only too happy to do her a little favor—like taking something off the ship for her. He knew it was a bit of smuggling, but he didn’t know what the contraband was, and he couldn’t have cared less. She told him it was perfume, and she’s sure he believed her.”
“But?”
“But I guess Crocker wasn’t as trusting. Apparently he preferred no witnesses to even one well-meaning witness.”
“Did Cooke and Crocker know each other, did she say?”
“Penny says no. Under his full n
ame—Ralph Crocker Rolf, or rather, Ralph C. Rolf—Crocker used to travel with her quite a bit in the old days, but not since Cooke has been on the ship. He’d buy the stones—with dough from a group on the East Coast, Mafia I guess, though she didn’t say—and she’d take them off. Usually she waited until everyone was off the dock to leave the ship. But this was the biggest haul they’d ever attempted, and they also knew this was one haul they weren’t going to turn in to the wheels in New York. So they figured an infatuated deck officer would have less trouble. And it almost worked.” Dondero paused, thinking. “This guy Crocker figured about everything, I guess,” he added. “Penny says that’s the kind of guy he was. He wasn’t the type to take chances.”
Reardon nodded at the telephone.
“Which is why he didn’t run after he killed Bob Cooke,” he said. “It would have been taking a chance he didn’t feel was necessary. Some kid coming home from a movie might have seen and remembered a big, old Buick in the neighborhood—the kind George Raft drove in the midnight television movie. Or some longshoreman working the Central Basin docks might have lived in the Mission district and hiked home to save dough, and seen the works. And of course he might have broken a headlight or left black paint from the fender on the body. A hundred things could have tripped him up. But he was smart—he called the police.” He smiled humorlessly. “Which is what we try to teach them: Always Call the Police.” He wiped the smile away. “Still, even the smart ones get the wind up. He should have left the Buick in the garage and taken a powder, period. We’d never have given the car a second thought. He might even have picked it up at the city auction six months from now.”
“He couldn’t,” Dondero said softly. “The group in the East didn’t know Cooke had taken the stones off the ship. They never heard of Cooke. All they knew was that Crocker had got himself in a temporary jam with a car accident, and should be free and clear in a few days. But after that, they expected him to catch the first plane to Kennedy and deliver the goods. Of course,” he added, explanatorily, “Penny and he had their tickets and visas for Mexico City and then Brazil. Crocker had to move fast, and he certainly wasn’t going to go without the stones. Not after killing to get them. And he also certainly wasn’t going to make excuses to the boys back East that the stones were in a Police Garage, and how they got there.”
“True,” Reardon conceded and smiled.
Dondero frowned. “What got me was why Penny reported Cooke as a missing person. Why not let him remain on a slab as an Unknown and stay out of it herself?” He didn’t wait for the lieutenant to even hazard a guess. “I asked her, and she said this was Crocker’s idea. Crocker called her from that phone booth on Indiana—probably before he called the police—and paged her at the Fairmont bar after he killed Cooke. He told her what he’d done. She was—well, what’s the word? Shocked? Anyway, she wasn’t happy. She says so and I believe her. Anyway, Crocker told her Cooke had no identification on him. He’d searched him when he took the stones off him—”
“I love that bit about how he was too squeamish to touch the body!” Reardon said with disgust. “Go on.”
“Yeah. Like he stayed off the Freeway because heavy traffic bothered him! Anyway, Crocker thought they might hold him at the Hall pending identification of the Unknown, but where the victim was identified—and had no known connection with him—then he figured to be released like at once.”
“And he was right,” Reardon conceded. “He was smart.”
“Except he’s on a slab in a morgue,” Dondero said. “And except he should have bought a car that didn’t leak oil.” He sighed. “Well, I’m off to home and another cold cheese sandwich, I guess. I don’t feel like a big meal tonight.” A thought occurred to him. “How’s the food on the S.S. Mandarin?”
Reardon took pity on him. The truth would have only been an added irritant to Sergeant Dondero’s evening.
“Pretty bad,” he said untruthfully. “Even worse than the Navy.”
“Well, in that case I’ll be happy with my sandwich.” Dondero tried to sound brave, to take a light tone. “I may even grow to like them.” He seemed reluctant to hang up. “Jim—”
“Yes?”
“You know, I believe Penny when she says she didn’t know anything about the killing. I believe her when she says Crocker was just supposed to pick up the stones from Cooke and let him go his way. Otherwise, why would she have been waiting for him at the bar on top of the Fairmont? If she knew Crocker was going to knock the boy off?”
“It’s a point,” Reardon admitted.
“Jim—”
“I’m still here.”
“Well—what do you think? I mean, what do you really think? If she beats this accessory rap, which is crap for my money, the smuggling thing shouldn’t put her away too long, should it?”
Reardon thought a few moments before answering. He didn’t quite know what to say. “I think it’s up to the courts to believe her story or not, Don. Not to you or me.”
“That’s what I figured.” Dondero’s voice had strengthened as if Jim Reardon had given him encouragement. “I hope they take it easy on her.” There was a brief pause, and then his voice lost its bravado. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you? I mean, for a cop to talk this way.”
Reardon thought of Jan somewhere on one of the decks overhead, leaning on the polished railing, studying the lights of the enchanted city studding the sharp hills of San Francisco and Sausalito and Marin County and Berkeley and Oakland, admiring the wondrous sweep of the cabled bridges spanning the bay now that the fog had swept away, leaving the beauty of clear skies and soft breezes tinting the evening with the ultimate in loveliness. He thought that at this moment, beautiful and epitomizing freedom, she must somehow resemble Penny Wilkinson as she looked on the same deck of the same ship only two days before. And he wondered what he would do if it were Jan in that fifth floor cell at the Hall of Justice, instead of the girl Dondero had chosen.
“Jim?”
“No,” Reardon said slowly. “I don’t think you’re crazy, Don. No crazier than anyone else, at any rate.” He waited a few moments for Dondero to say something, but the other man remained silent. “I’ll see you in the morning,” Reardon added and hung up.
He stared at the tile floor a few moments, thinking, and started up the stairs toward the upper deck.
Thursday—10:45 P.M.
Two figures could be discerned near the aft rail of the promenade deck, leaning on it facing away from the city, staring at the empty, mesh-covered swimming pool. Reardon put aside his conversation with Sergeant Dondero and walked the length of the planked deck, enjoying the sharp salt tang to the air. It was hard to believe that only a few hours before the bay had been a swirling sea of fog, dangerous to the extent of death, mysterious to the extent of fear.
Jan was waiting to say something as soon as he had come up.
“Jim!”
Reardon pulled his thoughts back from death, from dark waters hiding slowly rising bodies through bobbing wreckage. “Yes?”
“Mr. Thompson has convinced me!”
“Oh, he has?” Reardon got into the spirit of the thing. “Good!”
Jan considered him a bit uncertainly. “You don’t even know what he convinced me of.”
Reardon grinned and put an arm about her shoulders.
“I can imagine. Honey, there are lots better ways to spend a vacation. I was in the Navy and I know.”
“James Reardon, what are you talking about?” Jan stared at him. “Mr. Thompson has convinced me that a cruise is exactly what we need for our vacation! And on the Mandarin! He says if we don’t have time we can take it as far as Hawaii and take one of the sister ships back.” She looked around, adoringly. “Oh, Jim, it’s lovely! You should see the staterooms, and the little movie theater they have, and the cardroom in the lounge, and the library! And they have a little shop where you can buy—”
“I know all about the shop.” Reardon turned to a snidely smiling Mr. Thompson. His voic
e was dangerous. “Helpful Harry, eh? You want a friend at the police, eh? You double-crosser!”
“Maybe I exaggerated a bit to the young lady,” Thompson conceded. He shrugged. “Anyway, with passengers along like you and Jan, I might enjoy a trip for a change. What’s your beef? Do you expect me to fight that idea?” He looked at Reardon with twinkling eyes. “Anyway, what do you have against cruises? You’re not a purser.”
“No, but—”
“And Jan says you were in the Navy; and you’ve got to admit being a passenger on the S.S. Mandarin has to beat that a mile.” He smiled knowingly. “Do me a favor and don’t argue. I know.”
“You know!” Reardon shook his head in disgust. He turned to Jan. “When we were looking at this bucket through the glasses from my window, I thought a trip with you on a ship like this would be lovely, indeed—except for one thing—”
Jan looked up at him, queryingly. Reardon looked at Harry Thompson.
“You know!” he repeated. He put his arm about Jan and smiled at her upturned little face with a touch of embarrassment. “What neither one of you know—is that I get seasick …!”
Turn the page to continue reading from the Lieutentant Reardon Mysteries
CHAPTER 1
Wednesday—8:30 p.m.
Mr. Sessue Noguchi, owner and manager of the Little Tokyo restaurant, was disturbed by the unaccountable silence that had fallen over the corner table; it was occupied by his old friends and longtime customers Lieutenant Reardon of the San Francisco police, his lovely lady, Miss Jan Something-or-other, and their guest Sergeant Something-Dondero. From the vantage point the proprietor maintained next to the cash register—presided over by his eldest daughter—Mr. Noguchi wondered what difference of opinion made all three of his old friends refuse to even face one another, seemingly preferring to stare through the window at the fog curling eerily up from the bay to swirl about the bobbing lights on the crosstrees of boats swaying at cable length from Fisherman’s Wharf. It couldn’t be the food; Mr. Noguchi was certain of that. The tempura and the specialty of the house—Noguchiyaki—had been personally inspected by he, himself, before being permitted to be taken to the table by the waitress—his wife’s sister’s middle daughter—and besides, it had been thoroughly consumed. Quite obviously some disagreement over something undoubtedly minor …
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