by Leigh Jones
Although the murmur of voices had filtered through the door before Johnson knocked, the room grew silent as he entered. Ten people, mostly women, gathered in the living room, sitting on or gathered around well-worn couches. Out of the corner of his eye, Johnson could see a few more women hovering near the kitchen table, its top already obscured with covered bowls, baskets, and casserole dishes. In the center of the largest couch, the widow hunched, small and fragile. The man sitting next to her, holding her hand, rose as Johnson approached.
“Father Tomás,” the detective said, reaching out to shake his hand.
“Detective Johnson, you come to a house in mourning,” the priest said. “We are at your disposal. We are just as anxious to catch Julian’s killer as you are.”
Johnson nodded and looked down at Muriel, who stared at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap.
“Mrs. Costa, I know this is difficult, but I need to ask you a few questions. Is there somewhere we can go to talk privately?”
Glancing up at the priest with what looked to Johnson like apprehension, the widow slowly stood to her feet. Motioning for him to follow, she led him through the kitchen and out the back door. As they passed through the kitchen, the women in the living room resumed their conversations, the murmur of their chatter blending into a soft hum.
Outside, a rusty metal patio table with a glass top almost completely filled the small, sun-bleached deck that stretched half the width of the house. Muriel Costa sat in the chair farthest from the door. Johnson sat across from her. Although it wasn’t yet noon, the sun already blazed uncomfortably hot and bright. Johnson wished he could put on his sun glasses but didn’t want the widow to think he was trying to hide his expression while he questioned her.
“Mrs. Costa, can you tell me what happened yesterday morning?” Johnson asked gently, hoping to ease her into the interview. “What made you come to that alley?”
Still without looking up, Muriel swallowed and licked her lips. It took her a long time to answer.
“When I woke up, Julian was gone,” she finally said, haltingly. Johnson had to strain to catch her husky words. “He usually only left early like that when they had a ship to unload. Otherwise, he liked to have breakfast with us.”
She paused and looked up at Johnson quickly. In her lap, she twisted her clenched hands. Johnson focused on keeping his breathing steady. A vague uneasiness seeped down his chest and settled heavy on his stomach.
“I thought he might have gone to the store or something, but the car was still here. So, I tried to call him. He didn’t answer.”
At this, her voice cracked and her bottom lip trembled. Johnson waited for her to collect her thoughts again.
“By this time, the kids had started to wake up. The baby was crying. I kept thinking he would come back any minute. When he didn’t, I started to get worried. Then I heard sirens.”
She swallowed again and wrapped one hand around her throat. Nausea gnawed at Johnson’s gut.
“I don’t know why. I just knew something was wrong. So I called my neighbor to come watch the kids and I ran over to see what was going on. I thought maybe he’d had an accident.”
Tears now streamed down her cheeks. Johnson reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded handkerchief. Muriel met his eyes for only the second time as she took it from him. Her glance seemed to hold a question. Was she trying to figure out whether he believed her?
While she wiped her face, Johnson wondered why she assumed something bad had happened to her husband. By all accounts, he wasn’t the kind of man who frequently found trouble.
“You didn’t think he’d just been called in to work?” Johnson asked.
She shook her head no.
“Do you have any idea what he was doing out so early in the morning?”
It took her longer to respond this time. And just like the previous morning, Johnson had a nagging suspicion she was trying to figure out what to say.
“I don’t know. Maybe he went to meet someone. I just don’t know.”
“Surely he wouldn’t have gone to meet a friend at that hour,” Johnson prompted. “Maybe someone from work?”
Muriel hesitated.
“Maybe.”
“But why would he do that if he would see them later that day anyway?” Johnson asked.
She just shook her head and shrugged.
“Do you know why anyone would have wanted to hurt your husband?”
The widow flinched and started to cry again. She shook her head, but Johnson thought it looked like she wanted to say something.
“Mrs. Costa?”
“No!” she said, shaking her head more vigorously this time. “Everybody loved him.”
“What about at work? Was everything ok at the port?”
Muriel looked down at her hands again, clenching and unclenching them in her lap. Johnson’s heart started to beat faster. Was that the missing link?
“He liked it there, and the pay was good. But with the new baby, things have been hard, you know? Diapers are expensive. I think he was picking up some extra shifts, doing extra work to bring in a little more money. He didn’t say what he was doing. I didn’t ask.”
Johnson’s eyes narrowed.
“Do you think he was doing something off the books?”
She met his eyes this time, her liquid brown stare framed with a web of worry lines.
“I don’t know. Julian was a good man. If he was doing anything wrong, he didn’t mean to.”
With this, she started to cry harder, holding the crumpled handkerchief to her face and moaning softly. While she wept, Johnson wondered what she wasn’t telling him. She obviously mourned for her husband. And Johnson suspected she knew more about what he’d been up to than she admitted. If she knew who was responsible for his death, why not say something? Only fear or loyalty would keep her silent. But at least she’d given him enough of a clue about where to look next. He would try to untangle that thread before pressing her any further.
“Thank you, Mrs. Costa,” he said as he stood up. His shirt, soaked with sweat, stuck to his back. “I may have more questions for you later, but that’s enough for now.”
Father Tomás met him when he walked back into the living room. While Violetta went to comfort Muriel, the men walked out the front door.
“This is a sad day, detective,” Father Tomás said, his hands clasped behind his back in that oddly contemplative stance peculiar to priests. “I sincerely hope you find whomever did this. Was Muriel helpful?”
“Somewhat,” Johnson hedged. He wondered whether Julian Costa would have confessed his misdeeds to the priest, if he had been involved in something illegal.
“Well, I’m sure she’ll tell you everything she can. She loved her husband dearly.”
“Everything she can, or everything she knows?” Johnson asked, watching the other man’s face carefully.
The priest smiled and held out his hand.
“Good luck, detective. God’s peace be with you.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The windows of the conference room in the Port of Galveston’s fifth-floor offices looked over the waterfront, its cranes and warehouses stretching toward the island’s East End. Johnson stood inches from the glass, watching an oil rig float slowly up the channel. Sea gulls wheeled across his view every few minutes, their piercing cries joining in a discordant symphony. After talking to Muriel Costa, he’d gone back to the station to type up his notes. The more he thought about it, the less he believed the widow was telling all. Her reticence suggested she knew her husband had been involved in something ill-advised, if not illegal, and suspected he’d been killed because of it.
But Julian Costa was no street thug. Everyone the police had interviewed described him as a loving father, hard worker and good friend. He had no criminal record. Costa’s job at the port offered the only connections Johnson hadn’t fully explored.
When the door behind him opened, Johnson turned. Joe Henry Miles, the port chairman, already had his
hand stretched out as he strode around the conference table.
“Detective! It’s good to see you,” Miles said, clapping Johnson on the back after shaking his hand quickly and turning toward the man who had followed him through the door. “You know Hammer, of course.”
With this, Miles made a barking sound Johnson took for a mirthless laugh. The short, barrel-chested man in front of him grinned and crushed his hand in an unforgiving grasp. Tim Hammond had led the dockworkers’ union for 30 years. People started calling him “Hammer” while he was still schlepping cargo on the dock, working his way up the ranks. Johnson had heard he’d spent more than a few nights in jail when he was younger, mostly for brawling. The police reports listed the cause of the fights as “a woman” or “a disagreement over a card game.” But Hammond was well-known as the enforcer for his bosses at the union. Every one of his clashes with other longshoremen were designed to deliver a message or mete out a punishment. Hammond helped bring order to the waterfront after a period of constant disputes between competing gangs of workers. He earned a reputation as someone not to be crossed, even by the police.
“Detective, we’re happy to help in any way we can,” Miles said as the three men sat down at the table. “As Hammer here will tell you, Julian Costa was a good worker. We’re sorry to have lost him.”
Johnson thought Miles’ choice of words odd. He made it sound as though the dead man had decided to leave the port for a job on the mainland.
“Can you tell me a little more about his work and how he got along with the other men?”
“Costa came to the waterfront right out of high school,” Hammond said. “He kept his nose clean and followed orders. He was quiet but the other men liked him. He never caused any problems.”
“So you don’t know of anyone who might have wanted to kill him?”
Hammond shook his head once, keeping his eyes locked on Johnson’s face.
“I suspect you’re probably looking at a robbery gone bad, or something like that, detective,” Hammond said, waving his hand dismissively, as though he’d just solved the case. “If Julian Costa’s murder wasn’t random, I’m afraid you’ll have to look somewhere other than the port for answers.”
Johnson tapped the tip of his pen on the notepad laying on the table in front of him.
“So, he wasn’t involved in anything off the books, to your knowledge?”
“Detective, nothing happens on the waterfront that I don’t know about,” Hammond said, punctuating his words with a slight pause for emphasis. “If Costa was involved in anything illegal, it had nothing to do with the port.”
“Had he been working extra shifts lately?”
Hammond shook his head no.
“His wife said he was doing something at the port to make a little extra money.”
Hammond’s eyes narrowed and he pressed his lips together so hard they almost disappeared.
“Is that so?” he finally said. “That’s news to me, and like I said, nothing happens out there that I don’t know about.”
Hammond leaned back and folded his stubby arms across his chest, tucking his hands into his armpits.
“Maybe he was doing something he didn’t want his wife to know about, so he told her he was picking up extra shifts,” Miles said, breaking into the discussion for the first time. “There are plenty of ways for a man to make a little extra money, detective.”
“Mmmmm....” Johnson replied, tapping his pen again. “His wife seemed sure whatever he was doing involved the port.”
“Well, maybe that’s what he told her. Maybe she believed him, maybe she didn’t. Maybe she really knows what he was up to but doesn’t want you to find out. You know how secretive women can be.”
Miles barked out another mirthless laugh and smacked his hand on the table.
“You just can’t trust ‘em, detective. You never know what they may be hiding. They’re sneaky creatures, women.”
Johnson grimaced and bit back his disgust. Miles, a native of New Orleans, had a reputation as a womanizer. When he interviewed for the top job at Galveston’s port three years before, Johnson remembered he’d had to explain a few arrests for “domestic” incidents. The Gazette’s Delilah Peters had discovered the candidate’s checkered past, and the newspaper demanded answers. Miles had never been charged in the incidents, but he had to admit he’d spent part of one night in jail after a particularly raucous Mardi Gras party ended with his girlfriend getting a black eye. She later claimed she’d tripped and fallen into a table. In Delilah’s story, Miles described the incident as “a lot of fun that got a little out of hand.”
After he moved to Galveston, the police had been called to Miles’ white-columned Victorian in the historic East End neighborhood several times for loud parties. He always got off with a warning, in part because the mayor was usually there to help smooth out the worst of his friend’s excesses.
“Well, this woman is mourning her husband and trying to figure out how to raise three children by herself,” Johnson said. “I hope she can count on help from the union.”
Hammond leaned forward and put his arms on the table.
“Of course,” he said. “We’ll take care of her. We always take care of our own.”
His words pledged protection and comfort, but his tone sounded more like a threat. Johnson wondered what fresh difficulty lay ahead for Muriel Costa.
“Well, gentlemen, I guess that about covers it, for now,” Johnson said as he pushed his chair back and stood up. “If I have any other questions, I’ll let you know.”
“Keep us posted, detective,” Miles said, leading the way to the door. “Of course, we’ll be following the case with interest. If you find out anything you think we should know, please give me a call.”
As he drove back to the station, Johnson replayed the interview. Again he felt like he had more questions than answers. Hammond claimed Costa was not making extra money at the port, but Johnson felt sure he was lying. That could only mean Hammond was involved in whatever scheme the dead dock worker had been caught up in. Like he said, nothing happened on the waterfront that he didn’t know about. It had been a long time since a dock worker had been killed over a territorial dispute, but Johnson supposed it wasn’t impossible that’s what had happened to Costa. If so, the murderer would be difficult to ferret out, unless Hammond chose to give him up. And Johnson couldn’t think of any reason for the union leader to do that.
“Damn it!” he said suddenly, pounding the heel of his hand against the steering wheel. Another dead body and no obvious suspects. People rarely got murdered for no reason. What was he missing?
Chapter 8
Johnson spent the next few days interviewing Julian Costa’s co-workers, neighbors and friends. No one knew anything about what he was doing in that alley the morning someone crept up behind him and slit his throat. Johnson couldn’t discover any connection between Costa and the island’s known drug dealers. Nothing about the man’s bank account or lifestyle suggested he was bringing in large quantities of extra cash. No one on the waterfront admitted to knowing what might have gotten him killed or who might have wanted him dead. All of Johnson’s training and experience told him the murder wasn’t random, but every trail that started with Costa’s life ended in a dead end.
Four days after the murder, Johnson attended the funeral at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church to see if he could spot anyone who looked suspicious or out of place. Several hundred people packed the old clapboard building. The Costas’ neighbors from Little Mexico filled the pews on the right side. Longshoremen, a few still in overalls and boots, filled the pews on the left. Tim Hammond led a long procession of mourners past the coffin to shake the widow’s hand. Johnson couldn’t see Hammond’s face as he stood in front of Muriel, but he held her attention for a long time, whispering earnestly. He ruffled her oldest son’s wavy hair as he walked away.
Joe Henry Miles paid his respects after the longshoremen. The mayor and his wife were with him. It seemed a lit
tle strange that the mayor would bother to attend a dockworker’s funeral. But like every politician, Matthew Hanes was always campaigning. It couldn’t hurt to be seen honoring a member of Galveston’s working class. Johnson cringed when Hanes stopped next to his pew on his way out of the church.
“It’s been a rough couple of weeks, detective,” Hanes said. “I know you want to solve these murders just as much as the rest of us. It’s not good for Galveston to have killers running around unpunished. If you need extra resources, you just let the chief know. Things are tight, especially with the budget talks and all, but I’m sure we can work something out. We need to make this a priority, don’t you think?”
Johnson could do little more than nod and pretend he hadn’t understood the mayor’s dig. It had only been four days since Costa’s violent death, but his fellow officers obviously weren’t the only ones ready to label it another unsolved case. Johnson balled his hands into tight fists as he thought about his co-workers’ waning confidence in him. They watched him out of the corner of their eyes when he walked past them in the hallway. Groups gathered over coffee in the break room stopped talking when he walked in, offering only anemic greetings. Few made eye contact. No one asked about the case any more.
Johnson had twice daily meetings with Police Chief Sam Lugar to talk about his progress with interviews and theories. The detective felt certain Costa’s death had something to do with his work, but the chief waved off suggestions of anything criminal at the port.