Rosetti just stood there, his expression blank; finally he let out a sigh that started at his toes.
“Hell with it,” he said. “I been there. Sometimes you can’t even trust your fellow cops. You don’t know who to believe, anymore. Well, neither do I. But you ask me your questions. I’ll do my best to answer ’em.”
“First, are you okay? How is your hand?”
“I’ll be fine. Just the meat of my palm. Like I said, I did it trying to replace the goddamned lube oil strainer. Thing lurched and fell. Edge caught my hand. Looks worse than it is.”
“You said there were four of you in the engine room, right?”
Rosetti nodded. “Blake and Smith, Big Brown, and me.”
“What happened when you got hurt? How did the others react?”
“Blake and Smith were as useless as screen doors on a submarine. Hell, I thought Smith was gonna faint or maybe puke at the sight of blood.”
“And Big Brown?”
“He waded right in. Grabbed a clean engine rag and put pressure on the cut, right away. That lummox take first aid or something?”
“That lummox has a degree from the University of Cincinnati.”
“No shit! Big ape hasn’t said word one since we left port.”
“I know. Keeps to himself, but he’s smarter than just about anybody else on ship, two of us included.”
“Like that’s a ringing endorsement. Anyway, he put pressure on the gash, got the bleeding stopped, for the most part. If those other two worthless white peckerheads had been my only chance, I could’ve bled to death before anybody figured
out what to do.”
“Who else knew you were hurt?”
Rosetti frowned in thought. “I got no idea. Why? What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Just a hell of a coincidence that blood turns up outside your cabin, right after you’ve cut yourself.”
“But I don’t think that was my blood, Pete.”
“If you’re right, somebody tried to frame you.”
“There were three witnesses to me getting cut!”
Pete shrugged. “What if you’d already cut your hand, struggling with Orville, and faked injuring it in the engine room? Or really got hurt and used that as an excuse to leave your post and go deal with the little guy?”
“You can’t believe—”
“No, Vince. I’ve come to my senses. But you’ve got to admit, somebody in the middle of a couple of murders might see you as the perfect patsy.”
“No more Bogart movies for you, Pete,” Rosetti said with a sick smile. But he wasn’t disagreeing.
“I think you were a frame of convenience. That’s why it’s important we figure out how many men knew you cut yourself.”
Rosetti held up the Boy Scout salute. “Just those three guys in the engine room,” he said.
“Didn’t see anybody on your way back to your cabin?”
Rosetti frowned in thought. “Don’t think so.”
“Did the corpsman call anyone on the squawk box after you got there?”
“No,” Rosetti said. “But that’d’ve been too late, anyway, wouldn’t it? Hadn’t you already found the blood?”
“Right, right.” Now Pete was frowning. “And when I came into your cabin, you were there. . . . Did you go straight to your cabin from the engine room?”
“Yeah.”
Pete shrugged. “Then one of your three witnesses has to be the killer.”
Rosetti smirked. “Like I had to be?”
Pete could only wince. “You know, you’re right. I need to go run this thing past Washington.”
“Suuuure,” Rosetti said, “That corpsman’s gonna be thrilled, letting you back in sick bay.”
Rosetti had a point.
Pete said, “Kid said he was going to report me—maybe when he goes up to the bridge to do that, I could sneak back in . . .?”
“He’s probably already reported you over the squawk box.”
“Christ, I hadn’t thought of that. I bet he has.”
“Maybe not.” Rosetti grinned, put his good hand on Pete’s shoulder. “Look, you head back to your cabin, and I’ll run this past Washington, and report back.”
Pete wasn’t wild about that, but had little choice—corpsmen Jensen wasn’t likely to let him back in that sick bay and Washington wouldn’t be leaving it any time soon.
“Okay,” Pete said. “Good of you.”
“What are friends for?” Rosetti asked, and headed back to sick bay.
In his cabin, Pete found the wait interminable and had about made up his mind to storm the corpsman’s bastion when a knock came at the door. His hand went automatically to the gun in his waistband, but he decided to leave it there as he answered.
“Me,” Rosetti said.
Pete let him in and Rosetti rushed in, adrenaline clearly pumping.
“I was getting worried,” Pete said.
“Got back as soon as I could. You might want to avoid that corpsman for the immediate future—he’s scared shitless that you’re Driscoll’s killer, and invaded his sanctuary to kill one and sundry.”
“You straighten him out?”
Grinning, Rosetti sat on Connor’s bunk. “No! I told him that was the best theory I’d heard all day, and would look into it.”
Pete didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Oh, hell. With friends like you—”
“Look who’s talking. Anyway, I told him it’d be best he didn’t report your conduct to the captain till I finished my own investigation.”
“Thank you, I guess.” Pete sat on Connor’s bunk across from Rosetti. “So, what did Washington think?”
“Oh, he thought it was pretty funny. Told me the routine I did with Jensen was better than ‘Who’s on First.’ Ben would be proud.”
“I meant,” Pete said tightly, “about the murders.”
Rosetti, apparently finished taking his revenge (at least for the moment), said, “Sarge agreed that my three witnesses were our best suspects . . . but not the only ones.”
“And?”
“And he said you need to talk to those three, find out what they did after I went off to my cabin—that’ll tell you how, and how fast, word of my slashed hand spread beyond the engine room.”
“Sarge makes sense, as usual.”
Rosetti shifted on the bunk, got a funny expression going, a kind of lopsided grin. “Pete, you mind I ask you something? I mean, don’t take it the wrong way . . . but when you signed up for the Navy, did you ever think you’d be taking orders from a colored guy?”
“Never occurred to me. Anyway, technically I’m in charge of the investigation. But I put Sarge in the lead because he’s the best man.”
“Doesn’t bother you, then.”
“No.”
Rosetti shrugged. “Okay.”
“Who would you put in charge, me or Sarge? You might have a bullet in your head, if Sarge hadn’t taken over. Think about that, Vince.”
Rosetti was doing so as Pete slipped out of the cabin, heading for the engine room, where he interviewed the three witnesses separately. The two white non-coms, Blake and Smith, gave accounts so similar, Pete wondered if they’d rehearsed.
Both said once Rosetti got cut and had gone off to his cabin, they worried about him and decided they better tell somebody; they were short-handed now, after all. So they called the bridge and informed Mr. Connor of the accident. That meant Pete now had to interview everybody who’d been on the bridge, but first he wanted to get Big Brown’s version.
“When Mr. Rosetti cut himself,” Big Brown said, “Blake and Smith both froze. I’ve seen little girls react better to the sight of blood.”
“But it doesn’t bother you?”
Big Brown gave up a rare grin. “Mr. Maxwell, I worked at the Bucket of Blood back in Cleveland, remember? I’ve seen more red stuff than Dracula.”
Pete smiled at that. “So you stepped in and helped Mr. Rosetti?”
“I did.”
“Some
white men might have objected to that, maybe even the one bleeding himself.”
“I know. But he didn’t. Neither did those squeamish white boys.”
“Mr. Rosetti says he might have died if you hadn’t been there.”
Big Brown shrugged. “I doubt that. Sure, it was a bad cut, fairly deep, but nothing you die over. And, anyway, Mr. Rosetti didn’t panic. Keeps his head, Mr. Rosetti. He’d have been fine, either way.”
“After you helped him?”
“He headed back to his cabin.”
“And after he did, what happened down here?”
“The two white sailors got to worrying about what would happen if Mr. Rosetti didn’t get back to his cabin, you know, passed out or some such. I said Mr. Rosetti was fine on his own, but Blake called the bridge and explained what happened.”
“Who did Blake talk to?”
“Mr. Connor.”
This jibed with what Blake and Smith had told Pete earlier. “What then?”
A gentle shrug of massive shoulders. “Then we went back to work on the lube oil strainer.”
“And nothing else happened?”
Big Brown mulled that a moment. “I believe Griffin came in, to see how we were doing. Then he left and we went back to work.”
“Griffin came in?” Pete asked. Neither Blake nor Smith had mentioned Griffin; this was new information. “You ‘believe’ he did, or he did?”
Big Brown nodded with certainty. “He stopped by. He’s not my favorite white boy on the ship, and I was sure to notice him. But he was only down here a minute or two.”
“Who did he talk to, while he was?”
“Well, he didn’t talk to me.”
“But he did talk to Blake and Smith?”
“Sure. The white guys were standing together, talking. For some reason I wasn’t invited.”
“Did you hear what they were saying?”
“I caught parts.”
“Did they tell Griffin about Rosetti?”
Big Brown nodded. “Of course they did. Hell, there was blood on the deck. Bound to need explaining.”
“How long did that conversation last?”
Another shrug. “Maybe two minutes, like I said . . . then Griffin was gone.”
“Any idea where?”
“Nope. Nor do I care. He’s an unpleasant little man.”
Pete had no argument with that. “Have either Blake or Smith been out of the engine room since Mr. Rosetti left?”
“Nope,” Big Brown said. “And I been here the whole while, too—we about got this busted engine put back together, been workin’ pretty hard to finish up.”
“Good to hear.”
“We get back up to full speed, maybe we can get ourselves to a port and the hell off of this tub, till you and Sarge or the Shore Patrol or whoever-the-goddamn-hell can find this damn murderer.”
“We’ll keep at it,” Pete said. “We’re working pretty hard to finish up, ourselves.”
Then Pete headed back to sick bay to report to his partner; he’d just have to bull past that corpsman somehow. He considered Brown, Blake, and Smith off the suspect list, but taking their place were Griffin and the men on the bridge, Ben Connor included. Added to these names would have to be anyone Griffin might have told.
Dealing with Corpsman Jensen turned out a non-issue—the other corpsman, Jackson, was on duty, and the heavy-set sailor did not seem to have been told Pete was off the visitor’s list.
Pete sat at Washington’s cot and heard his own view confirmed by the bandaged detective. “Still plenty of suspects out there. Remember what I said, when we stood over what was left of your buddy, Driscoll?”
“That we have a smart killer.”
“Don’t never forget that. And he wouldn’t be working up a last-second frame to fit Mr. Rosetti, if he didn’t think . . . if he didn’t know . . . we was closing in.”
“Are we closing in?”
“I believe we are. He’s smart, our killer, but he’s also scared. We can benefit from that, if we don’t get our own selves killed ’cause of it.”
They agreed Pete’s next step should be to interview the men on the bridge. There he found Connor with a helmsman and radarman Louis Frye.
Pete waved Connor over to the doorway of the chart room.
“Make up your mind, Pete—are you Dick Tracy or Hopalong Cassidy?”
“Huh?”
Connor gestured to the .45 in Pete’s waistband.
“Oh,” he said. “Yeah. Well, I’m not much for jokes right now, Ben. We have two men murdered, and one of them’s Dick.”
Connor paled. “Sorry. Bad habit, reverting to comedy. Jesus, we haven’t even had time to pay our respects to Dick. It’s sad and sickening, him in cold storage till this is sorted out. And now this kid Orville?”
“Yeah.”
“At least it’s not just white officers being targeted, small solace though that might be.”
Pete glanced around the bridge. “Ben, has anybody up here left since you got the call from the engine room, about Rosetti?”
Connor frowned. “No. How’d you even know we got that call?”
Pete quietly filled Connor in—from Orville Monroe to the blood-drop trail, even a short version of his screwed-up accusation of Vince.
“Ben, if nobody left the bridge, my suspect list may have just got a whole lot shorter—down to that bigot Dale Griffin, and whoever he might’ve told about Vince getting cut.”
Again, Connor paled—he looked as if he might literally get sick. “Jesus,” he muttered, and glanced about the bridge furtively.
“What?”
Very softly, Connor said, “I might . . . might have one suspect more for that list.”
“Who?”
“There was one other person on the bridge when Blake called up from the engine room.”
“Yeah?”
“The skipper.”
Pete frowned.
Connor continued: “Not long after that engine room call, Captain Egan left. Told me to maintain course, said he would be back.”
“Has he been?”
“No, but he’s been on and off the bridge four or five times today. He comes and goes all the time. That’s a captain’s prerogative.”
“Right,” Pete said.
The captain, more than anyone, had the run of the ship, and knew the Liberty Hill so very well, from fo’c’sle to shaft alley (and its escape tunnel), who of all the white officers had frightened skittish Orville Monroe the most. How nervous Orville had seemed around the captain, even on the bridge receiving praise for hitting that Jap Zero. An inherent fear of authority figures, especially white men in power?
Or something else?
Chapter 14
SEPTEMBER 1, 1944
Considering how wrong he’d been about Vince Rosetti, Pete considered seeking Washington’s counsel before taking any further action.
But the Liberty Hill had suffered two murders in a short time, and the officer in charge of the inquiry decided to press on and interrogate his two best suspects, starting with the very man who had given him the assignment: his captain.
Leaving Connor and the rest on the bridge, Pete went directly to Egan’s door, where he knocked with a crisp confidence he did not feel. No answer. He rapped again, got no answer, then tried the knob—locked.
His hand went to the reassuring rough butt of the pistol, which he had returned to the back of his waistband. Then he tried the captain’s office door—also locked. Next door was Driscoll’s cabin, where the murderer had stowed Orville’s body, and perhaps did not yet know of its discovery.
The door remained unlocked and, automatic in hand, Pete pushed it open and stepped into the cabin, lights off, porthole covered, merely a dim slant of illumination coming in from the passageway that highlighted the corpse of Orville Monroe.
Other than the deceased oiler, however, the cabin was empty. Pete checked the other cabins down the port side of the bridge deck—all unlocked, all unpopulated. Drop
ping down to the boat deck, he again went from cabin to cabin, starting with the officers’ mess, moving forward to Rosetti’s cabin, then around to the cabin he shared with Connor.
No Egan or, for that matter, Griffin.
Around the last corner of the boat deck, he checked the final cabin on the boat deck and dropped to the main deck. From the galley, through the enlisted men’s mess, through the bosun’s shack, the sick bay, and around the wheelhouse, he was still unable to find either man.
Finally, all that remained was the engine room. He entered and immediately found himself face to face with Dale Griffin. He fought an urge to pull the pistol, but Griffin was after all only a suspect . . . and after his foul-up with Rosetti, Pete needed to act on reason not impulse.
“Mr. Maxwell,” Griffin said, with what seemed to be a relieved grin on his boyish mug. “Boy, am I glad to see you.”
“Why’s that, Mr. Griffin?”
He gestured vaguely. “We can finally replace the lube oil strainer, but to do it, we’re gonna have to shut down the engine.”
“Understood,” Pete managed.
The Texan Tom Whitford and the light-skinned oiler Lenny Wallace rolled up to listen in.
“That’s all well and good,” Griffin said, “only we can’t find the CO to okay shutting down, and Mr. Connor won’t do it without a say-so from either you or the captain.”
Pete’s mind raced with murder-inquiry questions for Griffin, but in front of him was another dilemma, actually two: the captain had gone missing and somebody had to run the damned ship.
The blond non-com gazed at him with wide-eyed expectancy. “Well, sir?”
“How long to make the repairs?”
Griffin winced in thought. “Now that we’ve got the strainer free and ready to remove . . .” He turned to Whitford, then Wallace. Neither man volunteered a word. Griffin took it upon himself: “ . . . an hour tops?”
Pete let out a breath he’d been holding. “Shut ’em down— just let me call Mr. Connor first, and give him the heads-up.”
“Right!”
“But we need to get more power out of those turbines. We’re goddamn sitting ducks like this. Our Zero wasn’t the only one the Japs have sent into the sky lately.”
Red Sky in Morning A Novel of World War II Page 23