The Complete Bragg Thriller Box Set

by Jack Lynch

  He didn’t look like a totally well man. He had difficulty moving one side of his body. He had a thick torso and thin gray tufts of hair sticking out from beneath an old stocking cap. But his voice was solid and he had a gleam of mischief in his eyes.

  “What do you want?” he asked plainly enough.

  “I live up in town. I’ve been thinking for quite a while about moving down onto the water somewhere. I’ve read about the Shores project. Sounds like it should be pretty snazzy when it’s all finished. Wondered if you’d be having any moorage spots opening up.”

  “Maybe. Lots of folks apt to be leaving. But it’s going to cost.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean berth fees are going up. Way up.” When he smiled he looked like a dog baring its fangs.

  “Is that why folks will be leaving?”

  “I reckon. That, and the work they’d have to do to bring things up to code.”

  I looked around me. “How about your place, that need any code work?”

  “If it does, it’ll get done. What’s your name again?”

  “Bragg. Peter Bragg. I’ve heard the county is going to make you put in a pipe and pump network to carry sewage into shore. Who’s going to pay for that?”

  He leaned forward a little and studied me. “You got awfully fresh information.”

  “I try to keep up on things. Will you be financing the sewer network?”

  He snorted. “Not ’less they hold a gun to my head. Where did you get that idea?”

  “Somebody said it was a possibility.”

  “Somebody doesn’t know their ass from six bits. It’s all I can do to keep things together as it is.”

  “Isn’t the Shores project paying you for the use of the land and water rights?”

  “So they tell me. But I won’t be seeing any of it for a while.”

  “That’s odd.” I stared off at the neighboring piers. “See the big fire last night?”

  “Would had to have been dead not to.”

  “What do you think started it?”

  “They tell me it was deliberate.”

  “Who could have done it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I wasn’t getting anywhere. I told him I’d check back with him, then went on back through the boat. Mae Jean had put some clothes on, an old baggy pair of men’s denim pants and a shapeless sweater. She had just tied up a package of garbage in an old newspaper, and stood there reading something that had caught her attention in the newspaper.

  I said good-bye on my way out the door. Mae Jean grunted. I drove back toward town, but turned in at the Clipper Yacht Harbor and drove into the Bradley Boat Repair again, to see if I could find Dewer. I couldn’t. The man I’d talked to a couple of days before said Dewer hadn’t shown up that morning. He’d wondered about it, because the space at the boat yard was costing Dewer money whether he was there working or not.

  I drove back out to Bridgeway and started again in the direction of the Basin, but this time I fell in behind a big concrete truck with its slow-turning drum and followed it into the construction site of the Shores project. It was a busy place. They were still pouring the concrete foundation for what I assumed would be the central meeting hall of the project. Several smaller foundations were already poured and set. Carpenters in hard hats were busily framing the outer walls.

  I went over and parked beside a couple of pickup trucks with Dustin Construction lettered on their sides. They were parked beside a long house trailer being used as an office. I was just getting out of the car when the door in the side of the trailer office banged open. Some sharp words were being exchanged.

  When the man standing in the doorway with his back toward me turned, I hunkered back down beside my car again. It was Paul Anderson, and he was accompanied by one of the men I’d seen two nights earlier in the living room of the Elliott Fitzmorris place in Ross. Anderson was angry. His face was slightly flushed and his lips were drawn in a tight, thin line. His companion looked slightly amused at something. They hiked off in another direction. I waited until they’d climbed into a silver-gray Mercedes and driven back out toward Bridgeway before I stood up and went up the stairs to the trailer office. Nobody had bothered to close the door behind them. I stepped into a narrow passageway with a large bulletin board hung on the wall covered with various permits and notices. There was a vigorous discussion going on in a room to my left. The room had some desks and a couple of slanted drawing boards. The discussion was among three men huddled around one of the drawing boards. A set of blue and white construction plans were spread across it.

  A short, stocky man in shirt sleeves was passing through from the other end of the trailer, and he asked what I wanted. I told him I’d like to see the man in charge. He went in to the others and said something to one of the men at the drawing board. The man he spoke to was an older man in his sixties with a wiry build and a seamed, narrow face with a nose that had been broken in the past. He was dressed in khaki work clothes and wore an old, felt fedora hat. He came out to me.

  “My name’s Sidjakov. I’m the foreman.” He waited for me to say something.

  I took out a business card and handed it to him. “I’m looking into a matter that I think Andrew Dustin could help me with. Any idea where I can find him?”

  “Wish to Christ I did,” he told me, brushing past. “Come along.”

  He led me back in the other direction, around the corner of the narrow passageway and into a small office on the other side of the trailer. He sat at a desk and motioned me into a metal folding chair beside it.

  “Wasn’t that Paul Anderson I just saw leave here?”

  “Yes, it was, along with one of his dummies. He just managed to ruin my day, so I hope you’re not bringing any bad news on top of it.”

  “No, I’m looking for news more than I’m passing it out. What did you mean by one of his dummies?”

  “He’s one of two or three birds always tagging along with Anderson these days. They never say a word, but just stand around. I think it’s supposed to seem menacing somehow. The men just laugh at them. Refer to ’em as the dummies.”

  “How long has that been going on?”

  “Ever since we set up shop here last month.”

  “Have you ever asked Anderson about them?”

  “I’ve never asked Anderson about a thing in my life. He’s supposed to be Andy’s headache.”

  “That’s Andy Dustin?”

  “Yes.”

  “You indicated you don’t know where he is.”

  “No, I don’t. I’ve talked on the phone with him a time or two, but he never said where he was calling from. Last time was more than three weeks ago. Told us to go ahead with pouring the foundations.”

  “Is that usually the way he directs a project like this?”

  “Hell, no. He usually spends more time at a project than any of us. And that’s any project, big or small. I don’t know what’s got into him this time. Told me to run things. I feel like quitting.”

  “How long have you been with him?”

  “Twenty-five years. Now why don’t you just quit asking so many questions and tell me what the hell it is that you want. I’ve got enough headaches for one day, and I’ve got to get back to work.”

  I grinned a little sheepishly. “Frankly, Mr. Sidjakov, I don’t know what the hell it is that I want. I’m not really on a job. I used to be a newspaper reporter. I’m nosy. I live here in Sausalito and I met a girl living down in Marinship Basin. Did you hear about the fire down there last night?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Two houseboats and the end of one pier went up. The firefighters later found a lot of empty gas cans floating around. They say it was arson. Several people living in those houseboats just barely escaped with their lives. The fire burned fast and hot. I’ve heard a couple of other rumors about this particular project. They don’t add up right. I have the feeling things aren’t quite the way they should be. This is all pretty thin,
I know, but the other night I paid a visit to the Paul Anderson home on another matter. He has a daughter, twenty years old. We had a pretty good talk. She’s a bright, forthright girl. She has a great dislike for her own family, but she spoke very warmly of Andy Dustin. Said he was the sort of man she wished she had for a father, instead of the one she got. From the way she talked about him, Andy sounded like a pretty square guy. When some of these questions about the Shores project began to come up, I thought Andy Dustin might be the sort of man who could clear them up for me.”

  Sidjakov stared at me for a moment, thinking. He seemed to decide something, and reached into a shirt pocket for a pack of cigarettes. He offered me one but I turned it down. He lit his and leaned back in the chair.

  “Well, you’re right on just about every count, so far as I can tell. There’s some monkey business of one kind or another going on here, but what the hell it is I couldn’t tell you. Andy would tell you if he was here and knew himself. He’s gut-honest, and doesn’t take any crap from anybody. And I don’t think he knows what’s happening, or he’d bust on back here and set things straight again.”

  “Do you have any idea what might be going on, Mr. Sidjakov?”

  “No, I don’t. And call me Joe. All I know is that Paul Anderson, who’s supposed to be the wheeler-dealer front man of the outfit, has started coming in here and changing things, and he has no business doing that. He’s not in the construction business, and he’s supposed to keep his nose out of here. Andy would have tossed him out on his can the first day he showed up if he’d come in throwing his weight around like he did with me. But me—hell, I’m just a construction foreman. I don’t figure I’ve got the horsepower to stand up to him. I just wish to hell the boss would get back.”

  “What could he be doing?”

  “How the hell should I know? I haven’t seen him for two months or more. We were working fourteen-hour days putting this thing together, getting the design and materials and subcontractors lined up. Then he told me to round up the crew by a certain date and have ’em in here, which I did, and I haven’t had but two brief telephone calls from him since. He told me all the hard work was done and that I could handle the rest. Said he had a new lady friend and was taking a little vacation. He could be halfway around the world, for all I know.”

  “What sort of things has Anderson been doing?”

  “Changing things. Ordering me to use certain subcontractors we’ve never used before for certain parts of the job. Then this morning he brought in a whole new set of plans for the main hall. Come on; I’ll show you.”

  I followed him back out into the other section of the trailer. Men were still leaning glumly over the drawing board, looking at the changes Anderson had ordered.

  “What do you make of ’em, Mickey?” Sidjakov asked one of the men. He was a tall, blond, curly-haired fellow in a plaid work shirt. He looked like a lumberjack.

  “I don’t know what he’s doing, Joe. Evidently somebody’s changed their minds about having any sort of meeting hall or exhibit floors. He doesn’t have all the framing plans here, but as near as I can tell from the wiring and plumbing, this whole area is being turned into smaller units, and each of them with individual plumbing.”

  “More rental units, you suppose?” asked another man.

  Mickey shook his head. “I’d say they were still too large for that. You could still have assemblies of people, but much smaller groups.”

  “Maybe it’s a whorehouse,” said one of the men, bringing snickers from the others.

  “Who drew up the plans?” I asked nobody in particular.

  Mickey bent over one corner. “Hayes and Croften. They’re a big design engineers outfit in the city. They’re good, but nobody the boss ever used.”

  I made a note of it.

  “Anybody seen Red around here the past couple of days?” Sidjakov asked. Nobody had.

  “Red Dewer?” I asked.

  Sidjakov nodded.

  “What’s he got to do with things?”

  “He’s been curious about things too, same as you, same as all of us. Couldn’t understand his dad taking off the way he did just before the start of something this big.”

  “His dad?”

  “That’s right. Red’s real name is Dustin, but he asked us all to call him Dewer for the present.”

  “Red Dewer is Andy Dustin’s boy? Jimmy?”

  “Yes. Do you know him?”

  “We’ve met, is all. Does he work here?”

  “No, he just got back a bit ago from one of those big Bechtel projects over in the Middle East. But he got here just after his dad took off with his lady friend. Red thinks that’s as strange as the rest of us do. He’s been doing a little nosing around on his own.”

  I thanked Sidjakov for his help and told him I’d check back with him. I had a sudden, uneasy feeling. I drove back down to Marinship Basin and parked, then walked out Six Pier to the Donita Rose.

  I swung aboard the boat and called Dewer’s name. I rapped a few times on the door. It got me nowhere. I walked again around the pilot housing and climbed a narrow ladderway on the other side that led up to the wheelhouse itself. There was another locked door leading into the boat, but there also was a sliding glass window on the forward section of the wheelhouse. It wasn’t locked. I slid it open and called out Dewer’s name again, but the only sound was from the creaking of the lines as the boat bobbed beside the pier.

  It had been a while since the Donita Rose had been used as a working boat. The pilot house had been stripped of a lot of the electronic equipment you find these days in California fishing fleets. I was able to boost myself through the window without too much difficulty. At the rear of the housing was a narrow stairway leading down into the crew’s quarters. I went down the stairs and stuck my head into a cramped area with three bunks built into the sides of the housing, and saw why Red Dewer or Dustin or whatever he wanted to call himself wouldn’t be answering any hails to his boat. Not again. He was sprawled face forward, partly on, partly off one of the lower bunks. Like the man I’d found in Cookie Poole’s house, he’d been shot once in the back of the head by a small-caliber weapon. The only consolation one might feel was that it couldn’t have been a lingering death. From the looks of things it had happened a while earlier, the evening or day before, probably.

  It never thrilled me to be the one to find another man’s body, but I seemed to find more than my share. There wasn’t any sign of a struggle. Red’s quarters weren’t all picked up and neat as a pin, but then neither were mine every day of the year. I turned and studied the cabin door. It had a spring lock on it of the sort that can be set either to lock or open positions. I turned back toward the body and tried to see anything I might have missed the first time my eyes went over it, but it was no good. Maybe too much had happened the day before. A boat like Red’s was small. Living quarters were cramped. You and the body and the smells it was beginning to give off filled the place, and not much else seemed to matter. I climbed back up to the pilot house and went out the same way I’d come in, and without a bit more dignity.

  FOURTEEN

  Shirley was coming up the pier with a sack of groceries under her arm. She saw me and waved. I went down to her boat and took the bag of groceries while she unlocked the door.

  “Great timing,” she told me. “Just finished all my chores. I’m going up on the roof and sunbathe until it’s time to go to work. You want to join me, or just sit around and watch?”

  I followed her inside and handed her the bag. “I wouldn’t mind doing either, but you might change plans yourself. This end of the pier is apt to be a little busy the next couple of hours. I’d like to use your phone to call the sheriff.”

  She put down the bag on the kitchen counter and turned. One shoulder sagged a little. “Oh no. What is it now?”

  “Red Dewer’s been shot.”

  “Is it bad?”

  “Very bad.”

  She shook her head slightly from side to side. I could
imagine the thoughts going through it. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d decided to chuck everything and move away. That seemed to be what people wanted. But when she looked up and tossed the mane of chestnut hair over her shoulder, there was something else on her face. She was remembering something. And I had a vague recollection of my own.

  “Before all the excitement started last night, didn’t you say you’d seen Red up in town?”

  “I sure did, baby, and he was sort of manhandling that wimpy brother of the girl who did the strip number at the Deck.”

  “Duffy Anderson?”

  “That was him.”

  “When was this?”

  “I don’t know the time—about an hour before I got off work. Around eleven, maybe. I was taking a break, having a ciggy out front. Red and the boy were just up the street, arguing about something. There’s a driveway on the other side of Bridgeway leading into a parking area we get to use nights.”

  “I know it.”

  “Well, that’s about all. They were talking loudly, and Red bounced him off the side of the building a couple of times, like he was making a point.”

  “What happened then?”

  “The boy said something and walked on up Bridgeway. Red just stood there staring after him. Then I started talking to one of the parking attendants out front. Didn’t notice where Red went from there. Could that have been a part of the shooting?”

  “I don’t know, but the sheriff’s deputies will certainly want to hear about it.” I crossed to the phone and called. This time I asked for Otto Damstadt. When he came on the line, I told him the bad news and just enough of why I had wanted to talk to Red to explain my getting onto his boat the way I had. As I knew he would, he told me to hang around and say it all again to the investigating officers when they arrived.