Sara Paretsky - Deadlock

That didn’t sound criminal, just stupid. I said as much and Bledsoe laughed. “You looking for a crime just to drum up business or what?”

“I don’t need to drum up business. I’ve plenty in Chicago to occupy me if I ever get this mess unsnarled.” I got up. Stowing away on the Lucella had been one of my stupider ideas. None of them would tell me anything and I didn’t know how to sort out natural loyalty to the ship and each other from concealing a crime. “But I’ll find out.” I spoke aloud without realizing it.

“Vic, don’t be so angry. No one on this ship tried to kill you. I’m not convinced anyone tried to kill you.” He held up a hand as I started to talk. “I know your car was vandalized. But it was probably done by a couple of punks who never saw you in their life.”

I shook my head, tired. “There are too many coincidences, Martin. I just can’t believe that Boom Boom and the watchman in his building died and I was almost killed through a series of unrelated events. I can’t believe it. And I start wondering why you and the captain want me to believe it so badly.”

He stuck his hands in his pockets and whistled silently. “Why don’t you step me through your logic? I’m not saying I’ll buy it. But give me a chance.”

I drew a breath. If he were responsible, he knew all about it anyway. If he wasn’t, there wasn’t any harm in his knowing. I explained about Boom Boom’s death, the quarrel with Phillips, the search through my cousin’s apartment, Henry Kelvin’s death.

“There’s got to be a reason for it and the reason is at the Port. It has to be. You told me those shipping orders I showed you last week seemed perfectly legitimate. So I don’t know where else to look. If Phillips was deliberately fudging the contracts and running Eudora Grain’s Chicago office at a loss, that’d be a reason. Although I think Argus would have been on his tail for that a long time ago, especially if he’s been doing it for ten years.” I pushed back the tam and rubbed my forehead. “I was hoping it would be those shipping orders, since that’s what Boom Boom was arguing over with Phillips two days before he died.”

Bledsoe looked at me seriously. “If you really want to be certain, you’ll have to look at the invoices. The contracts themselves appear fine, but you want to see what Phillips actually paid for the orders. How much do you know about the way an office like that operates?”

I shook my head. “Not much.”

“Well, Phillips’s main job is to act as the controller. He should leave the sales to his salesmen but doesn’t. He handles all the financial stuff. Now it’s his job, too, to know prices and what the market is doing so that when he pays bills he can check on his reps to make sure they’re getting the best prices. But he’s supposed to stay out of the selling end. He handles the money.”

I narrowed my eyes. A man who handled all the money bore further investigation. Trouble was, everything in this damned case bore further investigation and I wasn’t getting anywhere. I massaged my stiffening shoulder, trying to push my frustration away.

Bledsoe was still speaking; I’d missed some of it.

“You getting off in Sault Ste. Marie? I’ll fly you down to Chicago-my plane is there and I’m planning on going back to the office this week.”

We got up together and started back down the long deck. The sun had set and the sky was turning from purple to gray-black. Overhead, the first stars were coming out, pricks of light in the dusky curtain. I’d have to come back out when it was completely dark. In the city one doesn’t see too many stars.

Bledsoe and I joined the chief engineer in the captain’s dining room, where he was eating roast beef and mashed potatoes. Bemis was still up on the bridge-Bledsoe explained that the captain would stay up there until the ship was out of a tricky channel and well into the middle of Lake Superior. We three were the only ones in the dining room-the other officers ate with the crew. Handwritten menus at our plates offered a choice of two entrees, vegetables, and dessert. Over baked chicken and broccoli I talked to Sheridan about my accident.

The chief agreed that he had cutting torches of different sizes on board, as well as every possible variety of wrench. “But if you’re asking me to tell you if any of them were used last Thursday, I couldn’t. We don’t keep the tools under lock and key-it’d be too time-consuming to get at them.” He buttered a roll and ate a chunk of it. “We have eight people on engine-room duty when the ship’s at sea and all of them need to get at the tools. We’ve never had any problems and as long as we don’t I plan to keep free access to them.”

No liquor was allowed on the ship, so I was drinking coffee with dinner. The coffee was thin and I poured a lot of cream into it to give it some flavor.

“Could someone have come onto the ship, taken some tools, and brought them back without anyone noticing?”

Sheridan thought about it. “I suppose so,” he said reluctantly. “This isn’t like the navy where someone is always on watch. No one has to stay on board when we’re in port, and people come and go without anyone paying attention. Theoretically someone could go to the engine room without being caught, assuming he knew where the tools were. He’d have to be lucky, too, and not have anyone come on him by surprise… At any rate, I’d rather believe that than that one of my own men was involved.”

“Could one of your own men have done it?”

Again, it was possible, but why? I suggested that someone-perhaps Phillips, for example-had hired one of the crew to do his dirty work. Bledsoe and Sheridan discussed that energetically. They were both convinced that they’d gotten rid of their lone bad apple when they fired the man who put water in the holds last month.

Sheridan felt great confidence in the men under him. “I know my judgment could be wrong, but I can’t imagine any one of those guys deliberately sabotaging somebody’s car.”

We went on talking long after one of the junior cooks had cleared away the table and cleaned up the galley. Finally the chief engineer excused himself to go back to the engine room. He said I could question the other engineers and the four boilermen, but he didn’t think it would do me any good.

As he walked through the doorway, I said casually, “Were you in the engine room that night?”

He turned and looked me straight in the eye. “Yes, I was. And Yalmouth-my first engineer-was with me. We were going over the hydraulics preparatory to starting up the engines the next day.”

“Not out of each other’s sight all evening?”

“Not long enough to monkey with a car.”

He went on out the door. Bledsoe said, “Satisfied, Vic? Is Pole Star clean in your eyes?”

I shrugged in irritation. “I suppose so. Short of launching a full-scale investigation into everyone’s movements last Thursday night there’s not much else I can do to check up on you guys.” Something occurred to me. “You had a security force on board that night, didn’t you? Maybe Bemis can give me their names-they’d know if anyone had been climbing around with tools.” My villain might have persuaded a guard that he belonged on board: that probably wouldn’t be too difficult. But a guard would surely remember someone leaving the ship with a blowtorch and a ratchet wrench. Of course, if Bledsoe was behind the whole business, he might have paid off the guards, anyway.

I drank some cold coffee, looking at Bledsoe over the rim of the cup. “The whole thing turns on money, lots of money. It’s in the Eudora Grain contracts, but that’s not the only place.”