The Sailcloth Shroud (2 page)

I shook my head in bewilderment. “I don’t get it. Are you sure about all this?”

“Of course we’re sure. Where you think we first got a lead on the identification? We got a body, with no name. Traffic’s got a wrinkled Thunderbird with rental plates somebody walked off and abandoned after laying a block on a fire hydrant with it, and a complaint sworn out by the Willard Rental Agency. The Willard manager’s got a description, and a local address at the Warwick Hotel, and a name. Only this Francis Keefer they’re all trying to locate hasn’t been in his room since Thursday, and he sounds a lot like the stiff we’re trying to identify. He’d been tossing big tips around the Warwick, and told one of the bellhops he’d just sailed up from Panama in a private yacht, so then somebody remembered the story in Wednesday’s
Telegram
. So we look you up, among other things, and you give us this song and dance that Keefer was just a merchant seaman, and broke. Now. Keefer lied to you, or you’re trying to con me. And if you are, God help you.”

The whole thing was crazy. “Why the hell would I lie about it?” I asked. “And I tell you he was a seaman. Look, weren’t his papers in his gear at the hotel?”

“No. Just some new luggage, and new clothes. If he had any papers, they must have been on him when he was killed, and ditched along with the rest of his identification. We know he had a Pennsylvania driver’s license. That’s being checked out now. But let’s get back to the money.”

“Well, maybe he had a savings account somewhere. I’ll admit it doesn’t sound much like Keefer—”

“No. Listen. You docked here Monday afternoon. Tuesday morning you were both tied up in the US marshal’s office on that Baxter business. So it was Tuesday afternoon before you paid Keefer off. What time did he finally leave the boat?”

“Three p.m. Maybe a little later.”

“Well, there you are. If he sent somewhere for that much money, it’d have to come through a bank. And they were closed by then. But when he checked in at the Warwick, a little after four, he had the money with him. In cash.”

“It throws me,” I said. “I don’t know where he could have got it. But I do know he was a seaman. You can verify that with the US marshal’s office and the Coast Guard. He had to witness the log entries and sign the affidavits, so they’ve got a record of his papers.”

“We’re checking that,” Willetts cut in brusquely. “Look—could he have had that money on the boat all the time without you knowing it?”

“Of course.”

“How? It’s not a very big boat, and you were out there over two weeks.”

“Well, naturally I didn’t prowl through his personal gear. It could have been in the drawer under his bunk. But I still say he didn’t have it. I got to know him pretty well, and I don’t think he had any money at all.”

“Why?”

“Two reasons, at least. If he hadn’t been on his uppers, he wouldn’t even have considered working his way back to the States on a forty-foot ketch. Keefer was no small-boat man. He knew nothing about sail, and cared less. His idea of going to sea was eighteen knots, fresh-water showers, and overtime. So if he’d had any money he’d have bought a plane ticket—except that he’d have gone on another binge and spent it. When I met him, he didn’t have the price of a drink. And he needed one.”

“All right. So he left Panama flat broke, and got here with four thousand dollars. I can see I’m in the wrong racket. How much money did you have aboard?”

“About six hundred.”

“Then he must have clouted it from Baxter.”

I shook my head. “When Baxter died, I made an inventory of his personal effects, and entered it in the log. He had about a hundred and seventy dollars in his wallet. The marshal’s office has it, along with the rest of his gear, to be turned over to his next of kin.”

“Maybe Keefer beat you to it.”

“Baxter couldn’t have had that kind of money; it’s out of the question. He was about as schooner-rigged as Keefer.”

“Schooner-rigged?”

“Short of clothes and luggage. He didn’t talk about it, any more than he did anything else, but you could see he was down on his luck. And he was sailing up because he wanted to save the plane fare. But why is the money so important, even if we don’t know where Keefer got it? What’s it got to do with his being butchered and dumped in the bay?”

Before Willetts could reply, Ramirez appeared in the doorway. He motioned, and Willetts got up and went out. I could hear the murmur of their voices in the hall. I walked over to the window. A fly was buzzing with futile monotony against one of the dirty panes, and heat shimmered above the gravel of the roof next door. They seemed to know what they were talking about, so it must be true. And if you knew Keefer, it was in character—the big splash, the free-wheeling binge, even the wrecked Thunderbird—a thirty-eight-year-old adolescent with an unexpected fortune. But where had he got it? That was as baffling as the senseless brutality with which he’d been killed.

The two detectives came back and motioned for me to sit down. “All right,” Willetts said. “You saw him Thursday night. Where was this, and when?”

“Waterfront beer joint called the Domino,” I said. “It’s not far from the boatyard, up a couple of blocks and across the tracks. I think the time was around eleven-thirty. I’d been uptown to a movie, and was coming back to the yard. I stopped in for a beer before I went aboard. Keefer was there, with some girl he’d picked up.”

“Was there anybody with him besides the girl?”

“No.”

“Tell us just what happened.”

“The place was fairly crowded, but I found a stool at the bar. Just as I got my beer I looked around, and saw Keefer and the girl in a booth behind me. I walked over and spoke to him. He was pretty drunk, and the girl was about half-crocked herself, and they were arguing.”

“What was her name?”

“He didn’t introduce us. I just stayed for a moment and went back to the bar.”

“Describe her.”

“Brassy type. Thin blonde, in her early twenties. Dangly earrings, plucked eyebrows, too much mascara. I think she said she was a cashier in a restaurant. The bartender seemed to know her.”

“Did they leave first, or did you?”

“She left, alone. About ten minutes later. I don’t know what they were fighting about, but all of a sudden she got up, bawled him out, and left. Keefer came over to the bar then. He seemed to be relieved to get rid of her. We talked for a while. I asked him if he’d registered at the hiring hall for a job yet, and he said he had but shipping was slow. He wanted to know if I’d had any offers for the
Topaz,
and when I thought the yard would be finished with her.”

“Was he flashing money around?”

“Not unless it was before I got there. While we were sitting at the bar he ordered a round of drinks, but I wouldn’t let him pay, thinking he was about broke. When we finished them, he wanted to order more, but he’d had way too much. I tried to get him to eat something, but didn’t have much luck. This place is a sort of longshoremen’s hangout, and in the rear of it there’s a small lunch counter. I took him back and ordered him a hamburger and a cup of black coffee. He did drink the coffee—”

“Hold it a minute,” Willetts broke in. “Did he eat any of the hamburger at all?”

“About two bites. Why?”

They looked at each other, ignoring me. Ramirez turned to go out, but Willetts shook his head. “Wait a minute, Joe. Let’s get the rest of this story first, and you can ask the lieutenant for some help in checking it out.”

He turned back to me. “Did you and Keefer leave the bar together?”

“No. He left first. Right after he drank the coffee. He was weaving pretty badly, and I was afraid he’d pass out somewhere, so I tried to get him to let me call a cab to take him back to wherever he was staying, but he didn’t want one. When I insisted, he started to get nasty. Said he didn’t need any frilling nurse; he was holding his liquor when I was in diapers. He staggered on out. I finished my beer, and left about ten minutes later. I didn’t see him anywhere on the street.”

“Did anybody follow him out?”

“No-o. Not that I noticed.”

“And that would have been just a little before twelve?”

I thought about it. “Yes. As a matter of fact, the four-to-midnight watchman had just been relieved when I came in the gate at the boatyard, and was still there, talking to the other one.”

“And they saw you, I suppose?”

“Sure. They checked me in.”

“Did you go out again that night?”

I shook my head. “Not till about six-thirty the next morning, for breakfast.”

Willetts turned to Ramirez. “Okay, Joe.” The latter went out. “There’s no way in and out of the yard except past the watchman?” Willetts asked.

“I don’t think so,” I replied.

Ramirez came back, carrying a sheet of paper. He handed it to Willetts. “That checks, all right.”

Willetts glanced at it thoughtfully and nodded. He spoke to me. “That boat locked?”

“Yes,” I said. “Why?”

“Give Joe the key. We want to look it over.”

I stared at him coldly. “What for?”

“This is a murder investigation, friend. But if you insist, we’ll get a warrant. And lock you up till we finish checking your story. Do it easy, do it hard—it’s up to you.”

I shrugged, and handed over the key. Ramirez nodded, pleasantly, nullifying some of the harshness of Willetts’ manner. He went out. Willetts studied the paper again, drumming his fingers on the table. Then he refolded it “Your story seems to tie in okay with this.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“The autopsy report. I mean those two bites of hamburger he ate. It’s always hard to place the time of death this long afterward, especially if the body’s been in the water, so about all they had to go on was what was in his stomach. And that’s no help if you can’t find out when he ate last. But if that counterman at the Domino backs you up, we can peg it pretty well. Keefer was killed sometime between two and three a.m.”

‘It couldn’t have been much later than that,” I said. “They couldn’t dump him off a pier in broad daylight, and it’s dawn before five o’clock.”

“There’s no telling where he was thrown in,” Willetts said. “It was around seven-thirty this morning when they found him, so he’d have been in the water over twenty-four hours.”

I nodded. “With four changes of tide. As a matter of fact, you were probably lucky he came to the surface this soon.”

“Propellers, the Harbor Patrol said. Some tugs were docking a ship at Pier Seven and washed him to the surface and somebody saw him and called them.”

“Where did they find the car?”

“The three-hundred block on Armory. That’s a good mile from the waterfront, and about the same distance from the area that beer joint’s in. A patrol car spotted it at one-twenty-five Thursday morning. That’d be about an hour and a half after he left the joint, but there wasn’t anybody in sight, so they don’t know what time it happened. Could have been within a few minutes after you saw him. The car’d jumped the curb, sideswiped a fireplug, pulled back into the street again, and gone on another fifty yards before it jammed over against the curb once more and stopped. Might have been just a drunken accident, but I don’t quite buy it. I think he was forced to the curb by another car.”

“Teen-age hoodlums, maybe?”

Willetts shook his head. “Not that time of morning. Any ducktails blasting around in hot-rods after midnight get a fast shuffle around here. And there wasn’t a mark on his hands; he didn’t hit anybody.
That sounds like professional muscle to me.”

“But why would they kill him?”

“You tell me.” Willetts stood up and reached for his hat “Let’s go in the office. Lieutenant Boyd wants to see you after a while.”

We went down the corridor to a doorway at the far end. Inside was a long room containing several desks and a battery of steel filing cabinets. The floor was of battered brown linoleum held down by strips of brass. Most of the rear wall was taken up with a duty roster and two bulletin boards festooned with typewritten notices and circulars. A pair of half-open windows on the right looked out over the street. At the far end of the room a frosted glass door apparently led to an inner office. One man in shirtsleeves was typing a report at a desk; he glanced up incuriously and went on with his work. Traffic noise filtered up from the street to mingle with the lifeless air and its stale smells of old dust and cigar smoke and sweaty authority accumulated over the years and a thousand past investigations. Willetts nodded to a chair before one of the vacant desks. I sat down, wondering impatiently how much longer it was going to take. I had plenty to do aboard the
Topaz
. Then I thought guiltily of Keefer’s savagely mutilated face down there under the sheet.
You’re
griping about your troubles?

Willetts lowered his bulk into a chair behind the desk, took some papers from a drawer, and studied them for a moment. “Did Keefer and Baxter know each other?” he asked. “I mean, before they shipped out with you?” “No,” I said.

“You sure of that?”

“I introduced them. So far as I know, they’d never seen each other before.”

“Which one did you hire first?”

“Keefer. I didn’t even meet Baxter until the night before we sailed. But what’s that got to do with Keefer’s being killed?”

“I don’t know.” Willetts returned to his study of the papers on his desk. Somewhere in the city a whistle sounded. It was noon. I lighted another cigarette, and resigned myself to waiting. Two detectives came in with a young girl who was crying. I could hear them questioning her at the other end of the room.

Willetts shoved the papers aside and leaned back in his chair. “I still don’t get this deal you couldn’t make it ashore with Baxter’s body. You were only four days out of the Canal.”

I sighed. Here was another Monday-morning quarterback. It wasn’t enough to have the Coast Guard looking down your throat; you had to be second-guessed by jokers who wouldn’t know a starboard tack from a reef point. It was simple, actually; all you had to be was a navigator, seaman, cardiologist, sailmaker, embalmer, and a magician’s mate first class who could pull a breeze out of his hat. Then I realized, for perhaps the twentieth time, that I was being too defensive and antagonistic about it. The memory rankled because I was constitutionally unable to bear the sensation of helplessness. And I had been helpless.