Deadlock

by Sara Paretsky

  When I woke up, my head pounded uncomfortably and I felt sick. Bright sunlight was coming in through a window, blinding me. That didn’t make sense-I sleep with heavy drapes pulled across my windows. Someone must have broken in during the night and opened my curtains.

  Holding my head with one hand, I sat up. I was on a couch in a strange room. My shoes, purse, and jacket were lying on a glass-topped coffee table next to me with a note.

  Vic

  I couldn’t get you to wake up long enough to tell me your address, so I brought you back here to the Hancock. I hope you find your proof.

  R.F.

  I staggered across the room and out into a carpeted hallway, looking for a bathroom. I took four aspirin from a bottle in the medicine chest and ran a hot bath in the long yellow tub. I couldn’t find any washcloths on the shelves, so I soaked a heavy hand towel in the water and wrapped it around my head. After about half an hour in the water I started feeling more like me and less like a carpet after spring cleaning. I couldn’t believe I’d gotten that drunk on one bottle of wine. Maybe I’d drunk two.

  I wrapped myself in a dressing gown hanging on the back of the bathroom door and went on down the hallway to find a kitchen, a small but completely equipped room gleaming in white and stainless steel. A clock hung next to the refrigerator. When I saw the time I put my head next to the face to see if it was still running. Twelve-thirty. No wonder Ferrant had left me to go downtown.

  Puttering around, I found an electric coffee maker and some canned coffee and brewed a pot. Drinking it black, I recalled last night’s events-the meeting with Paige and dinner with Ferrant. I dimly remembered trying to call the Great Lakes Naval Training Station. The reason why came back to me. Sober, it still sounded like a good idea.

  Using a white wall phone next to the stove, I tried the Station again. This time a young man answered. I told him I was a detective, which he interpreted as meaning I was with the police. Many people think that and it helps not to disillusion them.

  “Niels Grafalk keeps his private yacht at the Training Station,” I said. “I want to know if he took it out early Sunday morning.”

  The young sailor switched me down to the dock, where I talked to a guard. “Mr. Grafalk handles his boat privately,” the guard told me. “We can call around and try to find out for you.”

  I told him that would be great and I would call again in an hour. I put my clothes back on. They were smelling rather stale by this time. I was short a corduroy pantsuit, jeans, and two shirts as a result of this case. Maybe it was time for new clothes. I left Ferrant’s apartment, rode the elevator down to the ground, and walked across the street to Water Tower Place, where I treated myself to a new pair of jeans and a red cotton shirt with a diagonal yellow stripe at Field’s. Easier than going back to my apartment at this point.

  I went back down to the Loop. I hadn’t been in my office since the morning I talked to Mrs. Kelvin, and the floor inside the door was piled with mail. I looked through it quickly. Bills and advertisements-no solicitations from millionaires to find their missing husbands. I dumped the lot in the trash and phoned the Naval Station again.

  The young sailor had exerted himself to be helpful. “I called over to Admiral Jergensen’s office, but no one there knew anything about the boat. They told me to call Mr. Grafalk’s chauffeur-he usually helps out when Mr. Grafalk wants to sail. Anyway, he wanted to know why we were asking, so I told him the police were interested, and he said the boat hadn’t been out on Saturday night.

  I thanked him weakly for his help and hung up. I simply hadn’t anticipated that. Calling Grafalk. At least they had said police and not given my name, since I’d never told the sailor who I was. But if there was evidence on the boat, they’d be at pains now to get rid of it.

  I debated calling Mallory but I couldn’t see how I could convince him to get a search warrant. I thought about all possible arguments I might use. He still believed Boom Boom and I had been victims of separate accidents. I was never going to be able to convince him Grafalk was a murderer. Not unless I had a sample of Phillips’s blood from Grafalk’s yacht.

  Very well, then. I would get a sample. I went to a safe built into the south wall of my office. I’m not Peter Wimsey and I don’t carry a complete police lab around with me, but I do have some of the rudiments, like chemicals to test for the presence of blood. And some self-sealing plastic pouches to put samples in. I had a Timothy Custom Utility Knife in there, so I took that along. With a three-inch blade, it wasn’t meant as a weapon but a tool, its razor-honed blade ideal for cutting up a piece of deck or carpet or something containing the evidence. My picklocks and a magnifying glass completed my gear.

  I emptied everything out of my shoulder bag, put my driver’s license and my detective ID in my pocket with some money and stuck the detective equipment in the zippered side compartment. Back to Grant Park for my car, which cost me fifteen dollars to retrieve. I wasn’t sure I was going to remember all my expenses for submitting a bill to Boom Boom’s estate. I needed to be more methodical in recording them.

  It was after four when I reached the Edens Expressway. I kept the speedometer at sixty-five all the way to the tollway. Traffic was heavy with the first wash of northbound executives from the city and I kept pace with the cars in the fast lane, not risking a ticket and the delays that would bring me.

  At five I exited onto route 137 and headed toward the lake. Instead of turning south on Green Bay for Lake Bluff, I went on to Sheridan Road and turned left, following the road up to the Great Lakes Naval Station.

  A guard was on duty at the main entrance to the base. I gave my most vivacious smile, trying hard not to look like a Soviet spy. “I’m Niels Grafalk’s niece. He’s expecting me to join a party down at the Brynulf Nordemark.”

  The guard consulted a list in the booth. “Oh. That’s the private boat the admiral lets the guy keep here. Go on in.”

  “I’m afraid this is my first time up here. Can you give me directions?”

  “Just follow this road down to the docks. Then turn left. You can’t miss it-it’s the only private sailboat down there.” He gave me a permit in case anyone asked me any questions. I wished I was a Soviet spy-this would be an easy place to get into.

  I followed the winding road past rows of stark barracks. Sailors were wandering around in groups of two or three. I passed a few children, too. I hadn’t realized that families lived on the base.

  The road led down to the docks, as the guard had said. Before I reached the water I could see the masts of the ships sticking up. Smaller than the lakes freighters, covered with turrets and radar equipment, the naval ships looked menacing, even in the golden light of a spring evening. Driving past them, I shuddered and concentrated on the road. It was pitted from the heavy vehicles that routinely used it and the Omega bounced from hole to hole past the line of training ships.

  About a hundred yards farther down, in splendid isolation, sat the Brynulf Nordemark. She was a beautiful vessel with two masts; sails furled neatly about them. Painted white, with green trim, she was a sleekly lined boat, floating easily against the ropes that fastened her to the dock, like a swan or some other water bird, natural and graceful.

  I parked the Omega on the boat’s far side and walked out on the little jetty to which the Brynulf was tied. Pulling one of the guys slightly to bring her over to me, I grabbed the wooden railing and swung myself over onto the deck.

  All of the fittings were made of teak, varnished and polished to a reflecting sheen. The tiller was set in a gleaming brass base, and the instrument panel, also teak, contained a collection of the most up-to-date gadgets-gyro compass, wind gauges, depth sounders, and other instruments I couldn’t begin to understand. Grafalk’s grandfather had bought the yacht, I recalled-Grafalk must have updated the equipment.

  Feeling like a caricature of a detective, I pulled the magnifying glass out of my handbag and began to scrutinize the deck-on hands and knees, just like Sherlock Holmes. The tour took
some time and I failed to discover anything remotely like blood on the highly polished surface. I continued the inspection along the sides. Just as I was about to give up on the deck, I spotted two short blond hairs caught in the starboard railing. Grafalk’s hair was white, the chauffeur’s sandy. Phillips had been a blond, and this was a good spot for his head to have banged as they dragged him off the yacht. Grunting with satisfaction, I took a pair of eyebrow tweezers from my purse, plucked out the hairs, and put them in a little plastic bag.

  A small flight of stairs next to the tiller led to the cabin. I paused for a minute, hand on the wheel, to look at the dock before I went down. No one was paying any attention to me. As I started down the stairs my eye was caught by a large warehouse across the road from me. It was a corrugated Quonset hut, dingy like the other buildings on the base. Plastered with red triangles, it had a neatly lettered sign over the entrance: MUNITIONS DEPOT, HIGH EXPLOSIVES. NO SMOKING.

  No guard patrolled the depot. Presumably, if you had clearance to be on the base at all, you weren’t likely to rifle the munitions. Grafalk passed the dump every time he went sailing. His chauffeur probably had the tools to get past the lock on the large rolling doors. As a friend of the admiral’s, Grafalk might even have gone in on some legitimate pretext. I wondered if they kept an inventory of their explosives. Would they be able to tell if enough depth charges were gone to blow up a thousand-foot ship?

  I went down the short flight of stairs where a locked door led to the living quarters. It was after six and the sun was starting to set. Not much light made its way into the stairwell and I fumbled with the picklocks for several minutes before getting the door open. A hook on the wall clipped to another hook on the door to hold it open.

  The one thing I’d forgotten was a flashlight. I hunted for a light and finally found a chain connected to an overhead lamp. Pulling it on, I saw I was in a small hallway, carpeted in a green that matched the boat’s trim. A latched door at my right opened into a master bedroom with a king-size bed, mirrored walls, and teak fittings. A sliding wardrobe door opened on a good collection of men’s and women’s clothes. I looked at the women’s outfits doubtfully: Paige and Mrs. Grafalk were both thin and short-the wardrobe could have belonged to either.

  The master bedroom had an attached bathroom with a tub and a sink fitted with gold faucets. It didn’t seem too likely that Grafalk and Phillips would have fought in there.

  I went back out to the hallway and found two other bedrooms, less opulent, each with sleeping for four, on the port side. A dining room with an old mahogany table bolted to the floor and a complete set of Wedgwood in a handsome breakfront was next to them on the port side of the bow. Next, in the very tip of the bow, was a well-equipped galley with a gas stove. Between the master bedroom and the galley on the starboard side was a lounge where the sailors could read or play bridge or drink during inclement weather. A shallow cupboard unlatched to reveal several decanters and a good collection of bottles. The scotch was J & B. I was disappointed-the first sign of bad taste on Grafalk’s part. Maybe Paige selected the whiskey.

  Unless Phillips had been knocked out on deck, my guess was he had been hit in either the lounge or the dining room. I started on the lounge as the more hopeful place. It contained a leather-covered card table and a desk, a number of chairs, a couch, and a small fireplace with an electric fire in it.

  The lounge floor was covered with a thick, figured green carpet. As I surveyed the room, trying to decide where most efficiently to begin my search, I noticed that the pile in front of the little fireplace was brushed back at a different angle than the rest of the rug. That seemed promising. I skirted around the brushed area and began inspecting it with my glass. I found another blond hair. No blood, but a strong smell of cleanser, something like Top Job. The carpet was still faintly damp to my touch, although it had been three days since Phillips’s death. I smelled other sections of the rug, but the odor of cleanser and the damp only came from the section in front of the fireplace.

  I pulled myself to my feet. Now the problem was going to be to get the police up here for a more formal search. Their equipment could detect whether blood stuck to the rug in microscopic quantities. Maybe the thing to do was to cut off a bit of the pile and get them to examine it. If there were blood on it, they’d be more likely to want to see where the rug fragments came from. Using my Timothy Custom Knife, I cut a small section of fibers from the place where I’d found the blond hair.

  As I put the fabric into a clean specimen bag, I heard a thud on the deck. I sat quite still and listened, straining my ears. The cabin was so well paneled, you couldn’t hear much above you. Then another, gentle thud. Two people had boarded the boat. Navy children playing around the docks?

  I stuck the specimen bag in my pocket. Holding the knife firmly, I went to the door and turned out the light. I waited inside the room, listening. Through the hallway I could hear a faint murmur of male voices. These were grown-ups, not children.

  Footsteps moved overhead, toward the bow. At the stern an engine turned over and caught. The boat, which had been floating aimlessly with the water currents, started vibrating and then began moving slowly backward.

  I looked around for a hiding place. There was none. The card table and the couch offered no protection. Through the porthole in the lounge’s starboard wall I watched a destroyer slide by, then the gray concrete of a breakwater, and finally a small white channel market, its light flashing green as it swung around. We were out of the channel into the open lake. Straining my ears near the door, I heard the sharp slapping noise of wind on canvas: they were raising the sails. Then more voices, and finally a footstep on the carpeted stairs.

  “I hope you’re not going to play hide-and-seek with me, Miss Warshawski. I know this boat much better than you do.” It was Grafalk.

  My heart pounded sickeningly. My stomach turned over. I felt short of breath and too weak to speak.

  “I know you’re here-we saw your car on the quay.”

  I took several diaphragm breaths, slowly exhaling on a descending scale, and stepped into the hallway.

  “Good evening, Mr. Grafalk.” Not the world’s greatest line, but the words came out without a tremor. I was pleased with myself.

  “You’re a very smart young woman. Knowledgeable, too. So I won’t point out to you that you’re trespassing on private property. It’s a beautiful night for a sail, but I think we can talk more easily down here. Sandy will be able to manage the boat alone for a while now that the sails are up.”

  He took my arm in a steely grip and moved me back into the lounge with him, turning the light back on with his other hand.

  “Do sit down, Miss Warshawski. You know, you have my heartfelt admiration. You are a very resourceful lady, with good survival instincts. By now you should be dead several times over. And I was impressed with the reconstruction you gave Paige, quite impressed indeed.”

  He was wearing evening clothes, a black suit tailored to his wide shoulders and narrow hips. He looked handsome in them, and there was an expression of suppressed excitement in his face which made him appear younger than he was.

  He let go of my arm and I sat in one of the leather-covered straight-back chairs next to the card table. “Thank you, Mr. Grafalk. I’ll have to remember to ask you for a reference the next time a client inquires.”

  He sat down facing me. “Ah, yes. I fear your clients will be deprived of your services soon, Miss Warshawski. A pity, since you have the brains and the skill to be of help to people. By the way, who are you working for now? Not Martin, I hope.”

  “I’m working for my cousin,” I said levelly.

  “How quixotic of you. Avenging the memory of the dead Boom Boom. Paige says you don’t believe he fell under the Bertha Krupnik by accident.”

  “My parents discouraged a faith in Santa Claus at an early age. Paige never struck me as terribly naive, either-just reluctant to face facts which might upset her comfort.”

  Grafalk smiled a
bit. He opened the latched liquor cupboard and pulled out a decanter. “Some Armagnac, Vic? You don’t mind if I call you that, do you? Warshawski is an awkward name to keep repeating and we have a long conversation in front of us… Don’t blame Paige, my dear Vic. She’s a very special person, but she has these strong needs for material possessions that go back to her early childhood. You know the story of her father?”

  “A heartrending tale,” I said dryly. “It’s amazing that she and her sister were able to go on living at all.”

  He smiled again. “Poverty is all relative. At any rate, Paige doesn’t want to jeopardize her current standard of living by thinking about anything… too dangerous.”

  “How does Mrs. Grafalk feel about the situation?”

  “With Paige, you mean? Claire is an admirable woman. Now that our two children are through school she’s thoroughly absorbed in a variety of charities, all of which benefit profoundly by Grafalk backing. They claim the bulk of her attention and she’s just as pleased to have mine diverted elsewhere. She’s never been very interested in Grafalk Steamship either, unfortunately.”

  “Whereas it has Paige’s breathless attention? That’s a little hard for me to picture, somehow.”

  “You’re sure you don’t want any Armagnac? It’s quite good, really.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” My stomach warned me against putting any more alcohol on top of last night’s St. Émilion.

  He poured himself some more. “Paige is in a position where she has to be interested in what interests me. I don’t mind knowing I’ve got her her attention-it’s quite intense and delightful whether bought or volunteered. And I’m afraid the steamship line is the thing I care most about.”

  “So much that you killed Phillips and Mattingly, got Phillips to push my cousin off the wharf, and blew up the Lucella Wieser to protect it? Oh yes. I forgot Henry Kelvin, the night watchman in Boom Boom’s building.”

  Grafalk stretched his legs out and swirled the brandy in his glass. “Technically, Sandy did most of the damage. Sandy’s my chauffeur and general factotum. He planted the depth charges on the Lucella-quite a diver. He was a frogman in the navy, served on my ship in World War II. When he was discharged I hired him. Anyway, technically, Sandy did the dirty work.”