by Ed McBain
“Get out, Jones,” Masters said, “before you really get into trouble.”
Jones snapped to attention, did an abrupt about-face, and headed for the door.
When he was gone, Masters turned to Schaefer and said, “What do you think, boy?”
“About what, sir?”
“This character who was just in here. Was he telling the truth?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir,” Schaefer said slowly.
“Do you remember Claire Cole, Schaefer?”
“Sir?”
“You were at the base hospital, weren’t you?”
“Oh. Oh, yes, sir.”
“Do you remember seeing her?”
“Yes, sir,” Schaefer said. “Yes, I do.”
“Pretty?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Would a man remember her if he’d seen her?”
“I—I suppose so, sir.”
“Then why do you suppose Jones said he never saw her? Dead or alive. He was on Claire Cole’s ward, too.”
Schaefer said nothing.
“Why do you suppose, Schaefer?”
“Perhaps he’s frightened, sir.”
“Are you frightened, Schaefer?”
Schaefer hesitated a long time before answering. Finally he said, “Why should I be, Mr. Masters?”
In the wardroom that evening, after the Old Man had gone up to his cabin, Reynolds and Masters shared a pot of coffee. Reynolds held his steaming white mug in his browned hands, and the vapor framed his face, giving him an evil satanic look. Masters looked at the exec through the rising steam and said, “You look like hell.”
“What?”
“Nothing. A private pun.”
“Did you see the Old Man?” Reynolds asked suddenly.
“I saw.”
“Brother, don’t cross his path, that’s all. He could sear the paint off a gun turret, the way he feels.”
“Tough,” Masters said. “Why the hell doesn’t he leave it all to the FBI, the way he’s supposed to?”
“He is. But he’s still getting chewed out. Homicide on a Navy ship. Hell, it’s like the chain of command in reverse. The dead broad’s family and friends write letters and send wires to their Congressmen. The Congressmen read them and then begin pressuring BuPers. BuPers hops on its white horse and starts riding CinCLant. CinCLant turns the screws on the squadron commander, and that old bastard jumps on the Old Man, wanting to know why and what for. Now the Old Man has a hair across, and if the FBI or somebody doesn’t find out who killed that nurse, this ship is going to resemble nothing in the Atlantic Fleet, brother. I can’t blame the Old Man. They’re acting as if he killed the goddamn broad.”
“Maybe he did,” Masters said.
“Maybe flippant attitude is unbecoming,” Reynolds said.
“Oh, relax, Mike. What the hell are we supposed to do? We’re sailors, not policemen!”
“The nurse was killed on this ship. Everyone is making it the Old Man’s headache.”
“Sure. Except it’s our headache.”
“How’d you make out with Jones?”
“He’s a snotty bastard, you know? As soon as this is over, I’m going to ride him hard.”
“Unless he’s the murderer.”
“If he’s the murderer,” Masters said, “he’s beyond riding.”
“You talk to Daniels or Schaefer yet?”
“I’ll talk to Daniels in the morning. I’m saving Schaefer.”
“Why?”
“First of all, he knows all the questions I’m going to ask. He’s our recorder, remember?”
“And second of all?”
“That’s all. Just first of all.”
Masters found Perry Daniels in the aft sleeping compartment the next morning after sweep-down. The yeoman was sitting on a foot locker, polishing his shoes. A cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth, and the smoke trailed up past the short-cropped hair on his head. Masters stood at the top of the ladder and studied the man for a few moments. Daniels was twenty-six or so, narrow-boned, with tough sinew covering those bones. He worked the brush over his shoes, and the muscles of his arm rippled with the movement. His eyes were squinted against the rising smoke of the cigarette, and his dog tags rattled as he worked.
Masters cleared his throat and started down into the compartment. There was the sweaty odor of cramped living in the compartment, and Masters wondered if it had been a good idea to come here to talk to the man. Well, it was too late now.
“Daniels?” he asked.
The yeoman looked up, still squinting past the smoke from his cigarette. He put down the brush, plucked the cigarette from his lips, and dropped it to the deck. He was barefoot, so he did not step on it.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
He made a motion to rise, and Masters said, “At ease.”
With his hand inside one shoe, Daniels reached down for the glowing butt on the deck, crushing it beneath the heel of the shoe.
“I want to ask you a few questions, Daniels,” Masters said.
“Certainly, sir.” Daniels seemed completely at ease, but Masters wondered if that weren’t just a pose. The yeoman unwrapped a polishing cloth, slipped one shoe onto a bare foot, and proceeded to polish it.
“Were you ever confined to the hospital ashore, Daniels?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you remember a nurse named Claire Cole?”
“Yes, sir. She was the one got killed in the radar shack.”
Masters sat down on the locker opposite Daniels. Daniels spat onto the top of his shoe and began working the cloth in earnest, giving the shoe a high gleam.
“You knew her at the hospital?” Masters asked.
“Yes, sir. To talk to. She was very pleasant. Always a cheerful word. A nice girl.” Daniels slipped the remaining shoe onto his other foot, spat on it, and got to work with the cloth again.
“Did you ever try to date her?”
Daniels’ eyes opened wide. “Me, sir?”
“Yes, you. Why not?”
“Hell, sir, she was a j.g. I mean, you know.”
“What? What do I know?”
“Well, sir, that’s fraternization. That ain’t allowed.”
Daniels’ voice held a combination of awe and solemn respect for authority, and Masters wondered if such naïve innocence weren’t affected. The squawk box on the bulkhead suddenly cleared its throat, and Masters grimaced. He heard the bosun’s whistle, and then a raucous voice announced, “Now hear this. Now hear this. All hands air your bedding. All hands air your bedding.”
Masters cursed silently. That meant there’d be a rush into the compartment. Daniels was standing already, stepping out of the shoes and reaching into his locker for a pair of regulation black socks. He pulled the socks on quickly, laced the shoes, and then put his shine kit back into the locker.
“Forget your bedding,” Masters said to him. “Come on topside before the rest of the men come down.”
“I want to get a spot up there, sir,” Daniels said. “If I don’t take my bedding up now—”
“I’ll find a spot for you, Daniels. Later. Come on.”
“All right, sir,” Daniels said doubtfully.
They climbed the ladder together and Masters walked to the twin five-inch mount forward of the fantail. He leaned against the mount and looked out over the water. Daniels stood beside him, breathing softly.
“You married, Daniels?”
Daniels hesitated a moment. “Sir?”
“Are you married?”
“No, sir. No, I’m not.”
“Got a girl?”
“No, sir,” he said quickly.
“What’d you think of this Cole dame?”
“Sir?”
“Climb off it, Daniels. Man to man, what’d you think of her?”
“Well, sir, I really …”
“Forget my bars, Daniels. What’d you think of Claire Cole?”
Daniels grinned briefly. “I wouldn’t kick her out of bed, sir
.”
“Where’d you go on your week end, Daniels?”
“Norfolk, sir.”
“Why that rat town?”
“I was broke, sir.”
“Did you see anyone in town?”
“Few of the boys, I guess, I don’t really remember.”
“Were you alone, then?”
“Yes, sir.” Daniels paused. “I like to operate alone, sir. A sailor wolf pack don’t get no place.”
“Who were the boys you saw in town?”
“I don’t remember, sir.”
“You didn’t go to Wilmington?”
“Sir?”
“Wilmington. Did you go there on your week end?”
“Where’s that, sir?”
The men were coming topside with their mattresses now, cursing or laughing or joking. Masters watched them as they plopped their bedding down on top of the depth charges, over the rails, on ammo boxes, everywhere. Daniels shifted uneasily.
“I suppose you can go now, Daniels,” Masters said.
“Thank you, sir. It’s just I want to find a spot for my bedding, that’s all.”
“If you have any trouble, look for me, Daniels. I’ll make a spot for you.”
“Yes, sir, thank you, sir.”
“By the way, Daniels. It’s Delaware.”
Daniels blinked his eyes. “What’s Delaware, sir?”
“Never mind,” Masters said.
4
The town was a nice town, quiet and sedate, a small town that somehow managed to escape the temporary look of most small towns. It was a good time of the year for the town, too, the middle of autumn, with leaves shuffling aimlessly underfoot, with winter not yet giving the streets a deserted look and feel.
“This is nice,” Dickason said. He walked with a quick spring in his step, matching his strides to Norton’s. The weather was uncommonly mild, and Dickason felt as if he were back in college again. He found himself watching the skirts and legs of the girls passing by. He felt good. He felt as if he were doing something. This was a hell of a lot better than dusting for prints in a stuffy radar shack. Shack! Why did they call something made of metal a shack? The Navy. Dickason shook his head. “This is real nice,” he said.
“There’s only one thing nice about it, Matt.”
“What?” Dickason asked.
“It’s closer to Washington. It won’t cost me as much to phone my wife.”
“What made you go into the FBI?” Dickason asked suddenly.
“I like to live dangerously.”
“No, seriously.”
“Security, salary. How the hell do I know?”
“I know why I went into it.”
“Why’s that?” Norton asked uninterestedly.
“Days like today. I mean, what we’re doing right now. I find this very exciting.”
“That’s because you’re still wet behind the ears. When you’ve been in the game a while, you’ll begin to hate leg-work.”
“I don’t think I could ever hate something like this.”
Norton said nothing. The two men walked in silence for a few minutes, and then Dickason asked, “Do you think we’ll turn up anything?”
“Maybe,” Norton said. “It doesn’t matter, anyway.”
“Huh?”
“We’ve narrowed it down to three,” Norton said. “All right, we waste today going around with pictures of the dead nurse and the three suspects. Maybe someone will recognize them. Frankly, I doubt it.”
“She was a very pretty girl,” Dickason said, a little wistfully.
“There are pretty girls everywhere you go. Don’t let that fallacy get you, too.”
“What fallacy?”
“That a pretty girl will be remembered more than a plain girl will. The human memory is a funny thing. I once had a case where we were able to identify a suspect because a woman remembered a hairy wart on his nose.”
“You’ve had a lot of cases, haven’t you, Fred?”
Norton stopped walking. “You know, Matt, sometimes you sound plain stupid,” he said.
“What do you mean? Just because I—”
“Skip it, skip it. Yes, I’ve had a lot of cases. Did I ever tell you about the time I foiled a plot to blow up the Pentagon?”
“Did you really?” Dickason asked.
“Sure. They wanted to fire Hoover after that and give me his job. I wouldn’t take it. I’m a very simple man at heart.”
“Agh, you’re full of crap,” Dickason said.
“I know. Come on, here’s the next rooming house.”
The two men paused before a white clapboard house. The house was small, with twin gables and dormer windows hugging the upper story. Red shutters decorated each window, and a big silver maple in the front yard fought valiantly and fruitlessly to retain its last few browned leaves. Norton opened the gate and walked to the front stoop. He pulled the old-fashioned bellpull, and then waited.
“What do you think this one’ll be?” he asked Dickason.
“I don’t understand.”
“The expression. When we say we’re from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Shock? Fear? Dead faint? Haven’t you ever noticed how the expressions vary?”
“Yes, now that you mention it.”
“She’ll be an old lady this time,” Norton guessed. “When we tell her we’re FBI men, she’ll invite us in and then give us a list of neighbors she suspects of being Communists.”
“I say a young blonde with good legs,” Dickason said, joining in the game. It was times like this that made working with Norton a lot of fun.
“I’ve been doing this for sixteen years now,” Norton said, “and I’ve never had a young blonde with good legs.”
The door opened a crack, and a middle-aged woman looked out. She studied Norton’s face for a moment before she spoke.
“Yes?” she asked.
“Federal Bureau of Investigation, ma’am,” Norton said. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
They both held out their FBI identification cards.
The woman’s hand went involuntarily to her throat. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, yes.”
“May we come in?”
“Yes. Yes, please do. Is anything wrong? Is something the matter?”
“No, ma’am, just a few routine questions.”
“Oh, yes,” the woman said. “Come in. Please.”
She opened the door wide, and Norton and Dickason stepped into a dim, cool foyer.
“You rent rooms, is that right?” Norton asked.
“Yes, sir. But I have a respectable clientele.”
“No question about that, ma’am. We were just wondering if you could identify some photographs for us. If you could tell us whether or not you rented rooms to any of these people.”
“We’ll, I don’t know. I mean …”
“Suppose you try, ma’am,” Norton said. He reached into his jacket pocket for the leather case containing the photographs. He handed the landlady a picture of Claire Cole first. It was a snapshot taken during the summer, with Claire in uniform, a smile on her face, before the nurse’s quarters.
“No,” the landlady said instantly. “I don’t rent to servicewomen.”
“Why not?”
“Woman’s got no business in the service,” she said. “Gallivanting off and fooling around with men. No, I don’t rent to servicewomen.”
“This girl was a nurse,” Norton said.
“Well, I still didn’t rent her a room.”
“Look at her face,” Norton said. “She may have been wearing civilian clothing, so forget the uniform. Did you ever see her before?”
The landlady studied the photograph intently. “No,” she said, “never.”
“She may have taken a room with a man, and they probably registered as man and wife. Do you recognize any of these pictures?’” He handed her photographs of Jones Schaefer, and Daniels.
“Sailors,” the landlady said. “Heavens, no!”
“You don’t rent t
o servicemen, either?” Norton asked.
“Soldiers, yes. But not sailors. Not that drunken lot. Oh, no. I’ve never had a sailor in my home, and I never will have.”
“As I said,” Norton told her, “they may have been in civilian clothing. Would you study their faces again, please?”
The landlady looked at the pictures, examining each one carefully. “No. I’ve never seen any of these people before. Not the girl, and not the men either. Why? They do something?”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Norton said. “Sorry to have troubled you.”
“They do something?” the landlady asked again.
Norton was already outside on the stoop. Dickason turned and waved. “’By,” he said cheerily.
They walked together to the gate, Norton silent.
“She was a bitch, wasn’t she?” Dickason said.
“Not particularly.”
“I mean—”
“Because she’s choosy about who lives under her roof? That’s her prerogative. I don’t much go for sailors, either.”
“Well,” Dickason said.
“This is all going to be a waste of time anyway,” Norton said. “Where the hell’s that damn list again?” He reached into his pocket and came up with a letter on an FBI letterhead. He ran down the list, selected one of the addresses, and penciled it out. “That takes care of that one. About seven more to go. You feel up to it, or you want to stop for some coffee first?”
“I could use some coffee,” Dickason said.
“You’re beginning to catch on,” Norton answered, smiling.
“Why do you think this is going to be a waste of time, Fred?”
“It is,” Norton said.
“But why?”
“Because I don’t think anyone will remember them. Besides, this will all work out fine, anyway. We’ll be in Washington before you know it.”
“How so?”
“Look at it this way, Matt: There’s a murderer somewhere aboard that ship. We figure he’s one of three men, or at least the circumstantial evidence—as slim as it is—points to one of these three men. We couldn’t possibly get a conviction on what we’ve got now, but our murderer doesn’t know that. Unless he’s supersmart.”
“Maybe he is,” Dickason said.
“A supersmart murderer doesn’t kill in his own back yard. So I figure this pigeon isn’t too clever.”