Richard Marsten: Murder in the navy

Masters unlocked the door and swung it wide. The room was in absolute darkness.

“Were there any lights on when you found the body?” Norton asked.

“Only on one of the plotting boards,” Masters said. “The overhead lights were off.”

“Mmmm.” Norton looked around. “Where’s the light switch?”

“On your left, sir.”

Norton fished a handkerchief out of his breast pocket, opened it over his fingers, and turned the lights on. The radar gear was lined up on the bulkhead to his right. The plotting tables were opposite the gear, with a vertical plotting board diagonally in front of the door leading to the sound shack. Norton looked around the room silently.

“This where you found the body?” Dickason asked, indicating the chalked outline on the deck.

“Yes, sir.”

“She was strangled, that right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’ll have to check that, Fred,” Dickason said. “May be prints on her throat.”

“May be,” Norton said pessimistically. “Those cigarettes there when you found her?”

“Yes, sir.”

Norton stooped and picked the cigarettes up with his handkerchief, carefully folding the linen around them. “Anyone touch these?”

“No, sir.”

“Where’s the girl’s body now?”

“At the base hospital, I believe,” Masters said. “They were holding it for you, I think. The girl’s parents—”

“All right, well take a look later,” Norton said. “You can go now, Mr. Masters.”

Masters hesitated, and then said, “I questioned the girl’s roommate. She told me—”

“What’s her name, Mr. Masters?”

“Jean Dvorak.”

“Where can we find her?”

“She’s a nurse here on the base. You can—”

“Thank you. We’ll get to her later.”

“She told me—”

“We’ll get to her later,” Norton said.

Masters nodded blankly. “Well, if you need me...”

“Well ask the Captain for you. Thanks again for your assistance, Mr. Masters.”

Masters nodded again and walked to the door. He hesitated, looked back into the room, and then left.

“An investigation board!” Norton said sourly.

Dickason shrugged. “They may turn up something, Fred. You never can tell.”

“You’re new at this business,” Norton said. “Take it from me, boy, they won’t turn up a damned thing. I’ve had experience with this kind of setup before.”

“A Navy ship, you mean?”

“No, but a similar setup. An American Legion post once. Entertainer killed there. We got in on the act because the girl had come over the state line. The veterans worked up what they called an investigating committee. Goddamnit, I wanted to shoot them all before I finally got off it.”

“Well, these guys—”

“These guys are all laymen. Like that doorknob. We might have got something from it. Now all we’ve got is a record of every slob who entered this room since the nurse got it. Oh, hell.”

“Think we’ll get anything from the cigarettes?”

“I don’t know. We’d better send those to Washington for a real run-through. I think you’d better dust this room to see what else you can pick up.”

“What are you going to do, Fred?”

“I want to take a look at the body. And then I’ll question this nurse. Maybe she knows something.”

“That officer said—”

“Yes, I know. He’s already questioned her. He’s probably confused her so that she’ll be worthless now. Why the hell can’t people leave technical jobs to technicians? Suppose I came in and started screwing around with his radar? Christ, he’d blow his top.”

Dickason began laughing suddenly.

“What’s so funny?” Norton asked.

“The Captain. You really laid down the law with him.”

“I had to. Look at it this way, Matt: He’s captain of this ship, used to bossing around everybody he runs into. All right, if I didn’t let him know where he stood, he’d think we were a couple more of his lackeys. He may be the boss here normally, but during the run of this investigation, we’re in charge. I wanted him to know that from go.”

“You really think the old guy might have killed her?”

Norton shrugged. “He doesn’t look as if he’d touch a fly.” He paused. “Unless it were unzipped.”

“Yok-yok,” Dickason said.

“Go down and get your gear,” Norton said. “You’d better get started here as soon as possible.”

“While you look at the stiff.”

“While I look at the stiff. Want to come along?”

“No, thanks.”

“I figured. They should have grown a beard on you and sent you to Russia, Matt. That’s the work for you. Cloak and dagger.”

“Up yours,” Dickason said.

Norton snorted and stamped out of the radar shack.

“You’re just assuming it was an enlisted man,” the exec said to Masters. “That’s officer prejudice.”

“No, sir, it is not,” Masters said. “It is nothing of the sort. It is sheer calculation, worthy of Sherlock Holmes himself. I’m wasting my time in this goddamned Navy, that’s all.”

“All right, Sherlock, let me hear it.”

“Right. I figured it was an officer at first because I couldn’t think of any way for an enlisted man to meet a nurse socially. They don’t go to dances together, and they usually don’t frequent the same dives. So it had to be an officer. Assuming, of course, that whoever killed Claire Cole knew her.”

“Go on.”

“All right, so this Dvorak girl tells me Claire went on a Wilmington week end with somebody. Two weeks ago. I checked the ship’s list. Three officers went off that week end.”

“And who were they?”

“Carlucci. He went to New York to see his wife. Haverford. He went to Norfolk, and you know what he did there. He came back stinking blind. I know he left the ship with thirty dollars and with no change of clothing. He sure as hell wasn’t preparing for a week end in Wilmington. Besides, I saw him in Norfolk that Sunday.”

“So who was the third officer?”

“You, Mike.”

“I’ll be damned,” Reynolds said.

“So the officer assumption is out. Unless you killed her.”

“Don’t be silly,” Reynolds said, a little miffed.

“I didn’t think you did, Mike. So I started looking over the list of enlisted men who had that week end.”

“There must have been plenty.”

“There were. The entire second-watch section.”

Reynolds pulled a face. “That narrowed it down considerably, didn’t it?”

“Hardly. Something else did, though.”

“What?”

“Claire Cole was killed in the radar shack. On Navy Day, the shack was locked. That meant whoever killed her had a key.”

“We’ve already gone through every man’s locker,” Reynolds said. “If you think—”

“I’m not saying he still has it, Mike. But he had it in order to get into the shack. That’s for sure.”

“All right, go on.”

“I asked myself who among the enlisted men would possess a key to the radar shack.”

“Who indeed?” Reynolds asked.

“A radarman, of course. That was my first thought. You know the radar bunch. They’re always in there making coffee and what the hell, and if one has a key, they all have it. But someone else could get a key, too.”

“Who?”

“A yeoman.”

“I don’t follow.”

“There are keys to every room and compartment on this ship in the yeoman’s office.”

“The key to the radar shack is still there,” Reynolds said.

“Sure, but that doesn’t mean anything. If whoever killed her was planning on having her aboard, he’d also plan on where to take her when she was aboard. He could have had a duplicate key made from the one in the yeoman’s office.”