Deadlock (35 page)

The waiter took my plate with a contemptuous glance at the unfinished steak as the wine steward opened the second bottle of St. Émilion for us. Like many very thin men, Ferrant ate a great deal—he’d consumed a sixteen-ounce sirloin while we talked, along with oysters florentine, a special potatoes Filigree, and a platter of beefsteak
tomatoes. He ordered chocolate cheesecake; I passed on dessert and had some more wine.

“The one thing I might be able to get Grafalk on is murdering Phillips.”

Ferrant sat up in his chair. “Go on, Vic! Grafalk murder Phillips?”

“He was last seen alive around one o’clock Sunday morning. The police figure he was in the holds and suffocated by 8:00
A.M
. at the latest. So between one in the morning and eight in the morning someone bonked him on the head and got him onto a Great Lakes freighter. The police have a guard on duty at the entrance to the Port. Not that many people enter the Port that late at night, and they have a pretty good list of who came in. I’m sure that they’ve been through those people’s cars quite thoroughly. If one of them had driven Phillips’s body into the Port, they’d have nailed him for it. But they haven’t made an arrest.”

“Maybe the murderer brought him on board in a plastic bag and no blood got on his car … Was Grafalk at the Port that night?”

“He didn’t drive down there.”

“What’d he do—fly?”

“Don’t think so—a helicopter would be pretty noisy.”

“Then how did he get there?”

“Good heavens, Roger, I’m ashamed of you. You come from this island country, famous for four centuries of naval prowess. It ought to be the first thing to leap to your mind.”

His brow creased. “By boat? You must be joking.” He thought it over. “I suppose he could. But can you prove he did?”

“I don’t know. The evidence is so circumstantial—it’s going to be hard to sell people on it. For instance, you. Do you buy Grafalk as master criminal?”

He gave a half smile. “I don’t know. We proved the figures on Grafalk this afternoon. And yet—that’s a big jump to stuffing someone into a freighter to die … What about Bledsoe?”

I shook my head. “Bledsoe was up in the Soo and his plane was down in Chicago. Not only that, someone sent his plane back down here in such a way as to implicate him for a different murder.”

I wondered what the waiters would do if I curled up on the plush cushion and went to sleep. I yawned. “The trouble is, if I can’t convince you, when you believe the financial evidence, I know I’ll never convince the cops enough to swear out a search warrant. It’s a big step, going to look at a rich man’s yacht. They have to be real convinced before they do something like that.”

I leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes, still holding the wineglass. “He can’t get away with it,” I muttered to myself. But it looked as though he might. Even with blowing up the
Lucella
, because nobody knew where the depth charges came from. If only I had evidence, someone who’d see Grafalk and Phillips at his boat Sunday morning—or some bloodstains on the foredeck of Grafalk’s yacht.

I opened my eyes at Ferrant. “I need to get some proof. And the cards are not going to be stacked all his way. They just can’t be. Even if he is as rich as Rockefeller.”

On this dramatic statement I got up from the table and walked with careful dignity to the front door. The maître d’hôtel also gave me a scornful glance. Not only can women not appreciate the great vintages, they swill them disgustingly and get revoltingly drunk.

“Thank you, my good man,” I said as he held the door open for me. “Your contempt for women will bring you more pleasure than any paltry tip I could give you. Good night.”

In the lobby of the hotel was a pay phone. I walked over to it, carefully avoiding the Greek columns haphazardly dotting the floor, and tried to call the Great Lakes Naval Training Station. The operator and I went a few rounds before I got my meaning across and she found a number for me. The phone rang twenty times or so, but nobody answered. A grandfather clock by the front door showed that it was close to midnight.

Ferrant was standing nearby holding my handbag, which I’d left at the table.

“Who’s defending the country at midnight?” I demanded as I took my bag from him. “If nobody answers the phone, how will they ever know the Russians are attacking?”

Ferrant took my arm. “You know, Vic, I think you should wait till morning to get your proof.”

“If I wait until morning he’ll get away with it,” I protested stubbornly. “Get me a cab!” I yelled at the doorman.

“Where are you going?” Ferrant demanded.

“Back to my car. Then out to Grafalk’s boat. I’m going to get proof.”

The doorman looked at us uncertainly.

“Are you getting my cab?” I called at him. He shrugged and went outside with his whistle.

Ferrant followed me into the chilly night. He kept trying to take my arm and I kept pushing him aside. When the cab came I climbed in and told the driver to take me to my car.

“Yeah, well, where is your car?”

“In the garage,” I mumbled, and fell asleep.

When I woke up, my head pounded uncomfortably and I felt sick. Bright sunlight was coming in through a window, blinding me. That didn’t make sense—I sleep with heavy drapes pulled across my windows. Someone must have broken in during the night and opened my curtains.

Holding my head with one hand, I sat up. I was on a couch in a strange room. My shoes, purse, and jacket were lying on a glass-topped coffee table next to me with a note.

I staggered across the room and out into a carpeted hallway, looking for a bathroom. I took four aspirin from a bottle in the medicine chest and ran a hot bath in the long yellow tub. I couldn’t find any washcloths on the shelves, so I soaked a heavy hand towel in the water and wrapped it around my head. After about half an hour in
the water I started feeling more like me and less like a carpet after spring cleaning. I couldn’t believe I’d gotten that drunk on one bottle of wine. Maybe I’d drunk two.

I wrapped myself in a dressing gown hanging on the back of the bathroom door and went on down the hallway to find a kitchen, a small but completely equipped room gleaming in white and stainless steel. A clock hung next to the refrigerator. When I saw the time I put my head next to the face to see if it was still running. Twelve-thirty. No wonder Ferrant had left me to go downtown.

Puttering around, I found an electric coffee maker and some canned coffee and brewed a pot. Drinking it black, I recalled last night’s events—the meeting with Paige and dinner with Ferrant. I dimly remembered trying to call the Great Lakes Naval Training Station. The reason why came back to me. Sober, it still sounded like a good idea.

Using a white wall phone next to the stove, I tried the Station again. This time a young man answered. I told him I was a detective, which he interpreted as meaning I was with the police. Many people think that and it helps not to disillusion them.

“Niels Grafalk keeps his private yacht at the Training Station,” I said. “I want to know if he took it out early Sunday morning.”

The young sailor switched me down to the dock, where I talked to a guard. “Mr. Grafalk handles his boat privately,” the guard told me. “We can call around and try to find out for you.”

I told him that would be great and I would call again in an hour. I put my clothes back on. They were smelling rather stale by this time. I was short a corduroy pantsuit, jeans, and two shirts as a result of this case. Maybe it was time for new clothes. I left Ferrant’s apartment, rode the elevator down to the ground, and walked across the street to Water Tower Place, where I treated myself to a new pair of jeans and a red cotton shirt with a diagonal yellow
stripe at Field’s. Easier than going back to my apartment at this point.

I went back down to the Loop. I hadn’t been in my office since the morning I talked to Mrs. Kelvin, and the floor inside the door was piled with mail. I looked through it quickly. Bills and advertisements—no solicitations from millionaires to find their missing husbands. I dumped the lot in the trash and phoned the Naval Station again.

The young sailor had exerted himself to be helpful. “I called over to Admiral Jergensen’s office, but no one there knew anything about the boat. They told me to call Mr. Grafalk’s chauffeur—he usually helps out when Mr. Grafalk wants to sail. Anyway, he wanted to know why we were asking, so I told him the police were interested, and he said the boat hadn’t been out on Saturday night.

I thanked him weakly for his help and hung up. I simply hadn’t anticipated that. Calling Grafalk. At least they had said police and not given my name, since I’d never told the sailor who I was. But if there was evidence on the boat, they’d be at pains now to get rid of it.

I debated calling Mallory but I couldn’t see how I could convince him to get a search warrant. I thought about all possible arguments I might use. He still believed Boom Boom and I had been victims of separate accidents. I was never going to be able to convince him Grafalk was a murderer. Not unless I had a sample of Phillips’s blood from Grafalk’s yacht.

Very well, then. I would get a sample. I went to a safe built into the south wall of my office. I’m not Peter Wimsey and I don’t carry a complete police lab around with me, but I do have some of the rudiments, like chemicals to test for the presence of blood. And some self-sealing plastic pouches to put samples in. I had a Timothy Custom Utility Knife in there, so I took that along. With a three-inch blade, it wasn’t meant as a weapon but a tool, its razor-honed blade ideal for cutting up a piece of deck
or carpet or something containing the evidence. My picklocks and a magnifying glass completed my gear.

I emptied everything out of my shoulder bag, put my driver’s license and my detective ID in my pocket with some money and stuck the detective equipment in the zippered side compartment. Back to Grant Park for my car, which cost me fifteen dollars to retrieve. I wasn’t sure I was going to remember all my expenses for submitting a bill to Boom Boom’s estate. I needed to be more methodical in recording them.

It was after four when I reached the Edens Expressway. I kept the speedometer at sixty-five all the way to the tollway. Traffic was heavy with the first wash of northbound executives from the city and I kept pace with the cars in the fast lane, not risking a ticket and the delays that would bring me.

At five I exited onto route 137 and headed toward the lake. Instead of turning south on Green Bay for Lake Bluff, I went on to Sheridan Road and turned left, following the road up to the Great Lakes Naval Station.

A guard was on duty at the main entrance to the base. I gave my most vivacious smile, trying hard not to look like a Soviet spy. “I’m Niels Grafalk’s niece. He’s expecting me to join a party down at the
Brynulf Nordemark.”

The guard consulted a list in the booth. “Oh. That’s the private boat the admiral lets the guy keep here. Go on in.”

“I’m afraid this is my first time up here. Can you give me directions?”

“Just follow this road down to the docks. Then turn left. You can’t miss it—it’s the only private sailboat down there.” He gave me a permit in case anyone asked me any questions. I wished I was a Soviet spy—this would be an easy place to get into.

I followed the winding road past rows of stark barracks. Sailors were wandering around in groups of two or
three. I passed a few children, too. I hadn’t realized that families lived on the base.

The road led down to the docks, as the guard had said. Before I reached the water I could see the masts of the ships sticking up. Smaller than the lakes freighters, covered with turrets and radar equipment, the naval ships looked menacing, even in the golden light of a spring evening. Driving past them, I shuddered and concentrated on the road. It was pitted from the heavy vehicles that routinely used it and the Omega bounced from hole to hole past the line of training ships.

About a hundred yards farther down, in splendid isolation, sat the
Brynulf Nordemark
. She was a beautiful vessel with two masts; sails furled neatly about them. Painted white, with green trim, she was a sleekly lined boat, floating easily against the ropes that fastened her to the dock, like a swan or some other water bird, natural and graceful.

I parked the Omega on the boat’s far side and walked out on the little jetty to which the
Brynulf was
tied. Pulling one of the guys slightly to bring her over to me, I grabbed the wooden railing and swung myself over onto the deck.

All of the fittings were made of teak, varnished and polished to a reflecting sheen. The tiller was set in a gleaming brass base, and the instrument panel, also teak, contained a collection of the most up-to-date gadgets—gyro compass, wind gauges, depth sounders, and other instruments I couldn’t begin to understand. Grafalk’s grandfather had bought the yacht, I recalled—Grafalk must have updated the equipment.