Неизвестный - 5. Justice Served

Watts reached into his rumpled tweed jacket and extracted three creased sheets of paper. Wordlessly, he leaned forward and deposited them in the center of Captain Reiser’s desk.

After only an instant’s hesitation, the Port Authority captain

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picked up the pages and scanned each one in turn. Then she read them again. Finally, she placed them back in the same position that Watts had deposited them. “He called on the phone. Said he was working with the Harbor Patrol and that they were trying to track ships suspected of illegally dumping waste after they’d left port. Garbage mostly, sometimes industrial items.” Frowning, she swiveled her chair and stared through the glass partition into the dimly lit, crowded warehouse beyond. “I think he had a list of ships—he wanted their schedules, port-of-origin information, and manifests.”

Rebecca felt a spark of excitement. Hogan had been on to something down here. Almost certainly something involving cargo, since the Harbor Patrol story was completely fabricated. While technically a division of the PPD, the men and women who policed the waterways were much more closely tied to the Port Authority than to the city police. There was very little overlap in assignments.

“Any reason you didn’t report this before?” Watts questioned, his voice rough with irritation.

Reiser met his gaze steadily. “I didn’t make the connection. I remember the call now that you show me the list, because at the time I thought it was an unusual request. Usually the Harbor Patrol is more interested in civilian waterway violations, not commercial.” She frowned. “I recall pulling some of the manifests. But, for some reason, the name Hogan doesn’t ring a bell.” She shook her head. “No—I think I would have put it together when those two cops were gunned down.

So maybe it wasn’t him.”

“Your name’s in those reports, Captain.”

“Yes. I see that.” She still seemed more curious than alarmed.

“What’s this all about?”

Rebecca studied the other woman. Reiser looked to be in her late thirties or early forties, tall and solidly built. Her attitude was one of quiet conÞ dence, and Rebecca didn’t get the sense that she was hiding anything from them or was even particularly concerned about their visit. Rebecca made a decision. “We think something Hogan stumbled onto down here got him killed.”

Immediately, Reiser sat forward, her hands clasped on the desk, her face severely intent. “What kind of thing?”

Rebecca shook her head. “We don’t know. We were hoping that you would.”

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“Maybe the three of us should take a walk.” Without waiting for their answer, she stood and pulled a black wool overcoat from an aluminum coat stand in the corner. Shrugging into it, she eyed Watts’s sport coat and Rebecca’s silk blazer. “You two are going to freeze out there. The wind off the water is going to make it feel like twenty degrees.”

“We’ll be Þ ne,” Rebecca assured her. Watts just grunted.

“Good enough.”

Watts and Rebecca followed Reiser as she led them from the ofÞ ce, through the warehouse, and out the rear to a loading dock. She hadn’t exaggerated. A brisk wind blew off the water, whipping their clothes and penetrating to skin with the ease of a knife blade. A cargo ship blocked their view of the river as it rode low in the water, laden with containers stacked ten high on the deck.

“Three thousand ships load and off-load at the Port of Philadelphia every year.” Reiser shouted to be heard above the wind. “We handle more than one quarter of the entire North Atlantic District’s annual tonnage, making us the fourth-largest port in the U.S. for imported merchandise.”

As she spoke, another container swung out from the deck of the ship on the end of the crane arm toward a waiting truck. Reiser pointed up at the crane.

“That’s a three-hundred-seventy-Þ ve-ton container crane—one of the largest in use anywhere. We handle bulk merchandise, containers, automobiles, perishable goods—a broader range of imports than almost any other U.S. port.” She hunched her shoulders inside her heavy regulation coat. “Four hundred and twenty-Þ ve trucking companies pick up and transport out of here on a regular basis.”

She led them back under the shelter of the warehouse eaves. “Do a few crates fall off the back of a truck now and then? Probably. We have a central computer system with a staff of ten who do nothing but cross-check bills of lading, ports of origin, and destinations against incoming and outgoing manifests. Do we check each barrel, crate, and container?

No. They’ve been cleared by Customs at the point of origin, and U.S.

Customs agents do visual inspections upon arrival.”

“We’re not suggesting any of your people are at fault, Captain,”

Rebecca interjected.

Reiser scanned the area. They were surrounded by dockworkers,

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but no one paid them any attention. “The majority of personnel you see are civilians—longshoremen, teamsters, truckers. They don’t work for or answer to me.”

“Who do they work for?” Watts questioned.

“The unions.” Reiser held Watts’s gaze. “Supposedly.”

“Huh.” Watts looked as if he smelled something unpleasant. “And we know who they answer to.”

Rebecca made no comment, watching Reiser, attempting to decipher just how much the captain really knew of organized crime’s presence on the waterfront. Or how much of what she knew she would share. But she clearly had not wanted to have this conversation in plain sight of the workers in the warehouse. So there’s something she suspects, at least.

“I don’t know what your man found, Lieutenant,” Reiser said empathically, Þ nally turning to Rebecca. “If anything. I’m not saying there’s nothing to Þ nd. What I am saying is if there’s anything big to Þ nd, we would know.”

“So if someone swipes a load of goods bigger than an armload, you’ll know about it,” Watts summarized.

Reiser smiled ß eetingly. “Well, let’s say bigger than a truckload.

Obviously, vehicles are checked upon exiting the compound, but off the record, I wouldn’t swear that a case here or there doesn’t end up in someone’s backseat.”

“I doubt that something like that would have interested Jimmy Hogan,” Rebecca said. “What about drugs?”

“Imports from South America make up a large percentage of the trafÞ c here. Again, the merchandise is checked at the point of origin, and Customs clears it here. Is there a bag of cocaine tucked into a crate of coffee somewhere? Possibly, but large scale? Doubtful.”

“But not impossible,” Watts said.

“No,” Reiser agreed. “Not impossible.”

“Is there anything about the particular information that Hogan requested that raises a ß ag for you?” Rebecca asked.

“Not offhand, but why don’t you leave me copies of those requests, and I’ll look them over again. If something clicks, I’ll call you.”

“Good enough. Appreciate it, Captain.” Rebecca extended her hand, and they shook.

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Five minutes later, Rebecca slowed for the same taciturn guard at the security post, who waved them through with barely a glance.

“You think she’s straight?” Watts asked.

“I do,” Rebecca replied immediately. “What’s your take?”

“She’s careful, but something was bothering her. Because nobody likes to freeze their balls off for no good reason.”

“Yeah, that little trip outside had to be because she didn’t want anyone seeing her cozying up to us.”

“Well, she didn’t tell us much.”

Rebecca was silent for a full minute. “She seemed pretty certain that something big wouldn’t get by her—or her people.”