Dead in the Water (4 page)
Authors: Ted Wood
She sniffed and picked up the institution-style mugs from behind the counter. "Sure do, Reid. You lookin' for Ross the boss?"
I walked through the little lift-up flap at the end of the counter, motioning the girl to follow. "In a manner of speaking. Mind if we sit out back?"
"Help yourself." She jerked her head backward toward the doorway of the kitchen and drew a couple of coffees, slopping some in both saucers.
I led the way out back. It was warm, an unhealthy indoor warmth filled with steamy chili smells and the hot metallic aroma of the big wood stove they had never replaced.
Sissie brought the coffee, carefully not getting any ash in it. I took them both, handing one to the girl, who took it as if she was expecting me to hand her a prize for good behavior. "Seen Ross today?" I asked Sissie.
She crossed her arms and gave her brassiere a quick boost before blowing the ash off her cigarette and answering. "Nary sign of the old bastard."
"When'd you start?"
"Eight o'clock, on the nail." There was a touch of pride in the way she said it. I guessed that she and her husband had gone their usual bout with John Barleycorn the night before, but it hadn't, by God, stopped her from climbing out of bed and making it to her job on time.
"Is he generally in when you get here?"
She nodded. "Never known him missing. Not in fourteen years." She laid the number on our heads like a prayer.
I sipped my coffee and set it down. Angela Masters was still holding hers as if waiting for one of us to explain how to use it. "He was seen last night at the marina, around ten, with a couple of other fellers."
She shook her head, disbelieving. "Don't sound like Ross. That ain't where he spends his Fridays."
"This lady saw him there," I said.
She shook her head again, dislodging more flakes of gray tobacco ash from her butt. "Must've been somebody else. Ten o'clock, Ross is in the beverage room. And you wouldn't see him with two other guys unless his girl had a couple o' sisters."
The girl set down her coffee and crossed her hands in front her, the way a man does when he's been punched in the gut. "Are you telling me that this Mr. Winslow is a womanizer?" she asked icily.
I said nothing. Sissie did it for me. She dropped her butt on the floor and tramped it with a size nine. "He don't give me no trouble," she said. Nor would he unless she lost sixty pounds and got herself a full set of teeth, I thought. To the girl I said, "Ross is kind of a local character. That's what makes it odd at he'd be that the marina on a Friday night. It makes the whole thing unusual."
She was angry. Her voice was low but there were white pinch marks on either side of her nose. She looked through me for close to a minute and when I didn't drop my eyes said, "You know more about this than you're saying, don't you?"
"Not a lot," I said honestly. "I have a boat, could have belonged to Ross Winslow. Two kids found it floating, abandoned, last night. Now you say two other people are missing. I wonder what's happening."
She stood up from her wooden chair, trembling with anger. "You mean that boat was found last night and you're just now getting around to investigating it?" She paced up and down, a few strides each way like a sentry, banging her fists against her sides. I thought that she must have seen a lot of plays in her time. I waited for the next line. It was predictable. "What's your number? I'm going to report you to your superiors."
Sissie laughed. "Save your breath, kid. Reid here's the whole damn department, him 'n that dog of his."
The girl did not back off. She hissed at me with rage. "Well, why aren't you doing something constructive, instead of sitting here drinking coffee?"
I sipped and said, "Sometimes the best way to save time is to use a little. Like now I know there were three men in the boat, not just one. It isn't likely they all three fell overboard. So it seems to me that they're up at the place this Mr. Pardoe came here to visit. Right this minute they're probably finishing the bacon and eggs, laughing and scratching and thinking of heading back home."
She said nothing. She was smart enough to know I was right, on the facts she had given me. She wanted more from me, but was not going to pay for it with more information. I prodded anyway.
"So why don't you tell me who they were calling on. Then I'll go on up there and we'll sort this thing out." She shook her head. I watched her do it, then set down my coffee cup. "Thanks for the java, Sis. I'm heading back to the office. If anybody comes in with some news about Ross, give me a call."
This shook the girl. She grabbed my arm. Suddenly I wasn't a bum. I was wearing a white hat and I had a splendid white charger under me. I was going to save her. "Don't go back to your office," she begged. Her irises were the color of bottle glass and her perfume was fresh and sweet. "Please, if you know this area, come and look for them, in the boat. They must be stranded somewhere."
I didn't answer at once. I wanted her to give me a hint, but didn't want her along with me. Not if I was liable to be pulling in a puffy gray corpse with water running out of the nose and mouth.
Sissie Lowrie came in on my side. "I don't think you should go," she said with sudden maternal softness. "It'll be… It'll be cold in that boat."
"Cold?" the girl almost shrieked. "Cold? Today?"
"Just tell me where they were going?" I asked.
She hesitated, forcing herself to stop and consider. For a moment the penny in her mind was teetering on its rim. Then it clanged down. "I can't do that," she said, but without real firmness. I could see Sissie Lowrie's interest growing. This was the most exciting thing that had happened to her since her husband's gas station caught fire in 1946. She was opening her mouth to speak and at the same moment the phone rang, the sound seeming almost to fall out of her mouth.
She turned away and picked up the phone. "Ferry Beach," her voice yodeled upward. She was almost a teenager again in her involvement. She turned and looked at me, her eyes widening. "Yes, he's here…" She handed me the phone like a bowling trophy. "Murphy, for you."
I took it. "Yeah, Murph."
"I'm at the lock house. A body just washed down. Jack Collins called me. We just pulled it out."
"Is it Ross?" I knew it wasn't. He would have named Ross. It had to be one of this young woman's two men. I could feel the pulse jumping in my throat. Good-bye parking tickets. I had myself a piece of honest-to-god police work.
Murphy's voice was surprisingly eager. He was as mystified as me. "No. This guy's a stranger. Big, heavy-set, around forty-five, I'd say, black hair. I get the feeling he could've been a drinker."
"That sounds like a man called Charles Murray. There's a woman here says he and Ross and a man called Pardoe went off in Ross's boat last night, around ten."
Murphy cleared his throat, like a log being dragged over gravel. "Tell me, did she say what line of work this Murray was in?" He was angling, I could feel it.
"No. Why?"
The same growl again, then he said, "Well, the reason I'm asking is he's carrying a .38 Smith and Wesson."
W
ord had gotten around.
By the time I made it back to town with Angela Masters in her Volvo, there must have been fifty people around the front of McKenney's funeral parlor. None of them was grieving. Grooving would be closer to their state of mind. Most of them had cans of pop they'd bought down at Ellicott's store, and a couple had radios, tuned to different rock stations. There was whole lot of laughing and shoving going on. One or two of the girls put on a serious face for my sake, but it wasn't real. Nothing livens up a long hot day like the death of a stranger. I guessed one of them must have been at the lock when the body came bumping down. One scream had gathered all the idlers for half a mile each way.
Maybe once I would have tried to shoo them all off, all the gum-snapping crowd of them. But it was a waste of time. And in a minor way, I felt for them. After you've seen enough guys left where they dropped, just the dog tags picked up by their buddies, you stop worrying about death. It is an unpleasant fact of life and it sure as hell makes a break in the routine.
I pulled into the driveway alongside the funeral parlor, the girl got out, and I opened the rear door and gave Sam the nod. He followed us in through the wide door they use for shipping out the coffins, into the back part of the building where McKenney does his dreary, necessary business.
I told the girl to sit down and went on through the double doors into McKenney's preparation room. Murphy was there, towering over McKenney, a little pink and white guy in a black suit. He has gray hair and a suitably sorrowful expression that keeps his mouth closed over the worst set of false teeth I've ever seen. When I came in he parted his Chiclets in a grin.
"Hello, Chief," he whispered. "Did you bring someone to identify the deceased?"
"Yeah. Let her sit outside a minute, Jack, while I talk to Murph."
"Whatever you say," he cooed.
Murphy was looking down at the body. He turned and said, "He looks drowned, Reid, but he took one goddawful crack on the head. Come 'n' see."
I checked the gray face. Down the left temple the skin was split, pulled back obscenely, revealing colorless flesh underneath, water bleached like fish meat.
"Did the doctor see him?"
Murphy nodded. "Just for a couple of minutes. He was heading out for a delivery. He said it took priority over this."
"I guess so." I pointed to the gash. "Did he have anything to say about that?"
"Figures it could have been caused by banging the head against the thwart of the boat when it was hit. He's not sure if killed him right off or if he drowned. Said he'll do an autopsy later if you want him to."
I sniffed. "Sure looks drowned, doesn't he?"
McKenney chimed in softly. "A few hours in the water will do that, Chief."
I guess I could like him better if he was less sneaky about his trade. I said nothing, just rolled the flap of the coat back on the left side to reveal the leather holster and the pistol. Did you search him?" I asked.
"I figured that was your job," Murphy said, a touch of bitterness in his voice. The chief before me had been older than Murphy and had left most of the dirty work to him. I'd made it clear I wanted things done my way.
"Thanks. Let's see if he's got any reason for carrying that thing."
I lifted the body slightly, enough to reach the hip pocket. It was tight to him; the body had swollen and the suit seemed to have shrunk. He had a billfold in there. It was wet and repellant. I inched it out with my fingertips, flipped it open, and saw it contained a big brass badge, an ornate shield design. The words "Bonded Security Service Operator 376" were picked out in chrome. The badge looked like it came in a box Crackerjack, but it was probably from a real security firm. Some of those companies are chintzy beyond belief.
I opened the compartments in the wallet and found a hundred and fifty-six dollars in U.S. bills. "Fifteen consecutive tens," I said aloud. "Looks as if he drew a yard and a half of expense money for this trip."
"He's left it a bit late to spend any of it." Murphy barked out a quick laugh.
I smiled politely and went on searching. There was a driver's license made out in the name of Charles Murray, with an address in New York City.
"He must have come here on business," Murphy said, as if apologizing for losing his head and laughing earlier.
The holster had bothered me so I checked it again. The snap was made of heavy leather with a big clip that was stiff and difficult to open; I tried it a couple of times.
"Was the snap open like this when you found him?"
"Yeah. Doesn't look like it came undone by accident. It takes a good pull to open it," Murphy said. He was standing with his bad hand pressed under his other armpit, the way he always did when he was thinking hard.
I figured he was coming to the same conclusion I'd already reached. This man had been going for his gun when whoever was clobbered him in the temple. I locked eyes with him and owned slightly. This was not information for McKenney to play with.
McKenney wasn't paying attention, not that you could notice. He had tiptoed to the door and peeked out at the Masters girl. Now he came back, his thin little lips parted over those incredible teeth. "Do you think we should do the identification?"
I nodded. "Sure. Get a sheet to throw over this guy and we'll wheel him out there for her to see."
"You mean you won't bring her in here?" He was upset. This was his studio. His works of art originated here.
"She may not be part werewolf," I told him. "Places like this give a lot of people the creeps. Let's do it in the hallway." He gave a tiny pout and took the rail at the end of the slab to heel it through the doorway like a grocery cart full of provisions.
"Throw a sheet over him, eh?" I repeated.
He bridled at this. "It'll get wet."
"And it'll dry." I told him, "I don't want this woman spooked—she's the only one who knows what the hell is going on." We went out: McKenney with the trolley, then Murphy, good hand holding his good leg like a man going up a steep hill; then me. The girl stared at us as if we were the school ugh guys coming to pull her hair.
I squatted down to her eye level. "Miss Masters, I'm certain this is Mr. Murray, not your friend Mr. Pardoe. But if it's neither one of them, we can save a lot of upset at somebody's house tonight if you'll please identify the man on the trolley." She looked at me, her eyes widening in a way that would have been sexy, provocative, in any other setting. Her mouth was tightly shut. "So I'm going to pull the sheet back and ask you 'Is this the man you knew as Mr. Murray?' If it is, you just nod your head."
She gave me a tiny nod and I straightened up and took her elbow. She rose with me and stared down at the sheet. I could see McKenney looking her up and down. Whether he was leching or just sizing her up for one of his empty boxes, his heart was in it, I could tell.