No Accidental Death

by Garrett Hutson

  Aikins gave Doug the kind of pitying look that he detested. “Yeah, Commander, I’m sure he had a name. I bet his mother gave him one, even.” Heiselmann snorted.

  Doug scowled at both of them. “Watch your tone, seaman,” he warned, and both men’s smirks disappeared.

  “We don’t know his name, sir,” Ben Trebinski said, his voice unusually meek.

  “Did any of you see that Italian seaman at any point last night?” Doug asked.

  Heiselmann’s eyes widened, and he wagged his finger in the air as if suddenly remembering something. “Yeah, they was all at Roxy’s last night—that I-tai and all his buddies. He even danced with that Lola once or twice.”

  “What time did you see them?”

  Roger Aikins looked up in thought. “They got there after we did—so probably about three-thirty, maybe?”

  Late enough that they could have dumped a body over the boundary line, and high-tailed it back across the creek and uptown to Roxy’s. The timeline worked, in theory. Doug would have to look into it deeper—but he wasn’t sure where to begin, without a name.

  Unless he could convince someone in the Shanghai Municipal Police to provide him with the arrest records from last month. He thought over his limited possibilities—his own neighborhood patrolman, Constable Billy Dickinson, wouldn’t have access to the arrest records in the West District precinct; although Doug had to admit he had no idea if—or where—Billy would have been reassigned now that foreigners had been moved out of the North District and East District precincts.

  He thought of the Detective Sergeant who had tipped him off during his amateur investigation into Tim McIntyre’s murder two years ago—Wallace was his name. He might be persuaded to give Doug the information he asked for, given that Doug had an official role this time.

  And if all else failed, there was always Jonesy. Doug cringed at the thought, but Jonesy was always able to dig up information that others couldn’t. He had a knack for it that Doug envied a little bit.

  “Is there anything else we can do to help, sir?” Ben Trebinski asked, a surprisingly plaintive look on his face. His blue eyes looked genuinely upset.

  “What time did you boys leave the Ambassador? And when did you get to the Paramount?”

  “It was, what, maybe one-thirty when we left the Ambassador?” Aikens said, looking at his buddies.

  Heiselmann shrugged. “I didn’t look at the time. We didn’t stay long after the show ended, though.”

  “One-thirty’s about right,” Ben said, quietly. He still looked shaken.

  “And you caught a cab uptown,” Doug prompted.

  “Yeah,” Ben said, nodding almost absently. “So we got to the Paramount in somethin’ like ten minutes.”

  “How much was the fare?” Doug asked, watching their reactions.

  “It was two bucks!” Aikens grumbled. “We could get a round of drinks for less than that.”

  “Don’t be so cheap, Rog! We told the fellas we’d meet ‘em there,” Heiselmann said, whacking Roger Aikens’s arm.

  Doug’s pulse jumped. “What other fellas?”

  Chet Heiselmann rattled off a list of seven names, all seamen from the Valparaiso.

  “And they were at the Paramount when you got there?”

  Heiselmann cocked his head, a curious look in his eyes, and nodded slowly. “Yeah, they were all there.”

  Doug paused to repeat the names in his head, committing them to memory. “How long did you stay at the Paramount?”

  “About an hour, maybe” Aikens said with a shrug. “We wanted to cut loose and dance, and they get a little snooty at the Paramount. So we decided to go to Roxy’s.”

  “All ten of you?” Doug asked.

  “Yeah, all ten of us,” Ben said. “We walked together.”

  “That’s a long walk,” Doug said. The Paramount was pretty far west, almost to the end of the International Settlement. “Ciro’s would have been closer. In fact, didn’t you pass it on the way?”

  “Yeah, but Ciro’s is kinda’ snooty, too, Commander,” Aikens said.

  “All the fellas like Roxy’s better,” Heiselmann agreed. “You can cut loose there, and nobody kicks you out for gettin’ too wild.”

  That was all true enough, but Doug had to suppress a touch of irritation; he and his friends enjoyed Ciro’s, though they were partial to the Paramount. He could have smacked himself for not realizing these boys couldn’t get into Ciro’s; it had a strict dress code.

  “What time did you get to Roxy’s?”

  All three of them exchanged a look. “Listen, Commander,” Roger Aikens said. “None of us wear watches. We don’t pay much attention to the time when we’re out havin’ a good time, see?”

  Doug frowned. “But earlier you said the Italian seamen showed up at Roxy’s about three-thirty.”

  Aikens shrugged. “I mean, they got clocks on the walls. You can’t help but look at ‘em sometimes—just not that often, ya know?”

  Ben nodded. “I remember it was a little after three when we got to Roxy’s, six or seven minutes past, I think. I wasn’t as drunk as these two.” He cast them a sideways glance.

  “You didn’t interact with those Italian seamen?”

  All three shook their heads. “We were all just havin’ fun,” Aikens said. Then his eyes narrowed. “Anything else, commander?”

  Doug shook his head. “No, that’s all for now. We’ll find you again if Commander Rose or I have any further questions for you.”

  “So long, Commander,” Aikins said with a wave, he and Heiselmann turning to go back inside the Sailor’s Inn.

  *

  Doug was halfway down the block when Ben Trebinski called to him. “Commander Bainbridge! Wait a minute, sir.”

  Doug turned around; Ben was hurrying after him. “What is it, Ben? Did you think of something else?”

  “Not exactly—well, kind of.” He looked hesitant.

  “Something you didn’t want to say in front of the others?”

  “Yeah,” Ben said, nodding vigorously. “I think you should talk to that gal, Lola. Nick found out where she lives, and he’d sneak off and go see her on the sly. Chet was sweet on her, too, which is why I didn’t say nothin’ in front of him, you see.”

  Doug nodded. “Yes, I see. Do you know where this Lola lives?”

  Ben’s forehead crinkled. “Not exactly. But I can guess the neighborhood, based on the directions I saw Nick go after he left us a few times.”

  Triangulation. Good work, Ben. “Which neighborhood?”

  “North of here,” Ben said, nodding his head toward the left. “I reckon she’s somewhere off Nanking Road, but the Chinese part.”

  West Nanking Road. Or thereabouts. “No more specific than that?”

  “Maybe,” Ben said with a shrug. “A few months ago, back when Nick was first sweet on her, we spotted her on Nanking Road one night with the tall Russian dame who used to work with her at the Majestic. Nick said we should follow ‘em, and see where they hang out. They went into this club called The Jade Dragon, where this other Russian dame was singing show tunes in Chinese. It was a hoot! But then the fellas noticed we was the only white folks in there, besides Lola and her friend, and the other Russian gal who was singin’. So we split.”

  Doug fought the pangs that rose at the mention of the fated club, where he’d last seen Tim McIntyre alive.

  “My guess,” Ben said, conspiratorial now. “Seein’ how the gals went there on purpose, and how until we followed ‘em in they were the only ones there that ain’t Chinese—that’s their local dive, their neighborhood joint.”

  It was as good a guess as any. If Doug couldn’t find Lola working at Roxy’s, he might find her there. And it would be easier to talk to her if she wasn’t working the dance floor.

  “Thanks, Ben.” Doug patted the seaman on the shoulder in a friendly way. “I appreciate your confidence.”

  12

  Doug was at work in his office that afternoon when the rumble of airplanes r
eturned, again approaching from the south and flying downriver. He glanced out the window to see several Chinese planes flying low beneath the cloud cover. A gust of wind through the window dried out his eyes, and he looked away, blinking away the tears that formed.

  A loud explosion blasted through his window, and the reverberations shook everything in the office. The binder he’d been working in slid off his desk. His ears rang.

  “Jesus! That was close!” one of the men in the outer office shouted. But he sounded muffled for some reason.

  The little desktop clock on the corner of Doug’s desk had fallen forward, and he picked it up and set it back in place. It was four twenty-seven. He frowned when he noticed there was a small crack in the glass face.

  His ears popped then, and the world no longer sounded silent. From the open window, a chorus of screams filled the air, accompanied by shouting in multiple languages. Doug dashed to the window and stuck his head out. The explosion had been too close to determine what direction the sound had come, but he looked left first, toward the Japanese ships, and he froze in place.

  Smoke and flames rose from the street only a block north on the Bund—at the intersection of Nanking Road, one of the busiest intersections in downtown Shanghai. At the edge of the sidewalk, amid a sprawl of debris and bodies, he could make out the blackened edge of a deep crater.

  The bomb had fallen short of the Japanese ships again—but this time, it hadn’t splashed harmlessly into the river. The wind must have blown it onto land, right into downtown Shanghai.

  Doug ran into the main office. “A bomb landed at Nanking Road and the Bund!” he shouted to the staff, all standing there with their mouths open. He rushed out the door, and sprinted down the stairs. Bolting out the front of the building, he ran full-tilt north along the Bund into the haze of dust and smoke, until he reached the carnage of Nanking Road.

  He was not prepared for what he saw. The pavement was covered in blood, and rivers of red ran along the gutter toward the storm drains. There were so many bodies lying around with gaping wounds, some with organs spilled out onto the street. And then he noticed the body parts—legs, arms, a hand, plus many unidentifiable lumps of flesh covered in tatters of cloth; and worst of all, about twenty feet from where he stood the head of a small Chinese child, eyes and mouth opened wide, sat by itself next to a ragged chunk of brick wall.

  He turned and vomited onto the sidewalk.

  When his stomach finally stopped heaving, he straightened and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, looking around in a daze.

  To his right, broken glass littered the sidewalk in front of the Cathay Hotel. Lying across the threshold he saw the uniformed figure of their doorman, Baron Ivan Alekseyevich Demidov, blocking the revolving door, motionless. A dozen yards from there, a late-model car burned, flame and black smoke belching from both the hood and the cab. The acrid smell burned Doug’s eyes and nose.

  But to his left, it was far worse. A giant hole gaped in the wall near the top of the Palace Hotel, where the upper floors had been. The crater in the street and sidewalk went right to the edge of the Palace Hotel’s north wall. Brick rubble covered the sidewalk in a pile taller than a man. Dozens of people of many nationalities tore at the bricks, tossing them aside to dig into the pile of rubble.

  The wail of sirens joined the din of screams and moans, and it jarred Doug out of his delirium. Ambulances with flashing lights screamed up Nanking Road from the west. He hurried toward the pile of rubble, and joined the impromptu collection of rescuers who were digging for any sign of life.

  Someone shouted in American-accented English that he’d found someone. In the adrenaline buzzing his brain, it took Doug a second to focus on that. Maybe only a body, but may someone alive. Doug and several others rushed to that spot and frantically threw aside bricks and chunks of plaster, until bit by bit they uncovered the figure of a teenage Chinese girl, her face covered in blood, eyes blinking rapidly, chest rising and falling in short, rapid breaths.

  Doug straightened and waved his arms at one of the ambulances stopped across the road about thirty yards away. “We need a medic!”

  Then another loud blast sounded behind him, nearby, to the south. The ground shook, and everyone still standing in Nanking Road ducked for cover.

  After a couple of seconds, when Doug realized they weren’t hit again, he turned around to look in the direction of the explosion. Great billows of black smoke were rising from somewhere not far to the southwest.

  Slowly, everyone around realized that the explosion hadn’t been in their immediate vicinity, and got back to work, frantically digging through rubble for survivors, or helping medics load the wounded—the savable ones—onto stretchers.

  Even as Doug flung chunks of stone and plaster from the pile of rubble, he couldn’t get the image of the infant’s severed head out of his mind.

  **

  Abbie shrieked in relief when she opened her door. “Doug, thank God you’re alright!” She stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. On her hip she carried their five month old daughter, Margaret.

  Behind her, Lucy leapt from the couch and rushed to him, throwing her arms around his neck and collapsing against his chest. “We were so worried,” she said, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. “We didn’t know what to think. We heard on the radio what happened, and we’ve been trying to call everybody we know, but no one’s picking up. I know the first blast was not far from your office, and I thought maybe you’d gone out for some reason, or maybe you were walking home and passing that way...” She started to cry for real, and buried her face in his chest.

  He squeezed her tight and kissed the top of her head. He knew she’d feel him trembling—as he’d been trembling the entire way here—so he concentrated on keeping his voice soothing. “It’s alright, honey. I’m fine, I promise. I went down to the scene of the first blast, trying to help in any way I could. I should’ve called you, but everything was happening so fast. I’m sorry I frightened you.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she said, sniffling. “I’m glad you tried to help. I can imagine there wasn’t time to stop and make a phone call. Oh, good lord, I bet there wasn’t a working phone booth around there, anyway.”

  He gave her a weak smile. “No, probably not.” He touched her cheek and stared into her eyes for a few seconds, and then kissed her. “I am sorry you were so frightened.”

  “I know Kenny’s at the hospital with George,” Abbie said, pacing the room with the baby gurgling at her hip. “I can’t imagine how busy they must be now, after all this.” She looked on the verge of tears herself.

  “I’m glad he got through before the Japanese closed off Hongkou,” Doug said. “I know George appreciates it.”

  “God, it’s like the end of the world,” Abbie said, still pacing. “Is this what it was like for our mothers during the Great War? I don’t remember.”

  “My father didn’t serve in the war,” Lucy said, almost absently. “America didn’t draft men with children.”

  “I wish I could call the hospital and talk with Kenny, but I don’t want to be selfish.” Abbie set the baby down in a playpen in the corner of the room, with a rattle and a little teddy bear in it.

  A startled look came to Lucy’s face all of a sudden. “I just realized, Doug—you went to work before the Japanese evacuated foreigners from north of the creek. You didn’t get to pack a bag, did you?”

  He shook his head. In the midst of everything, that hardly seemed all that important. “I’m not sure I’ll get to go home for a while.”

  A young Chinese woman came into the room, bowed to them, and addressed herself to Abbie. “Wantchee two guest stay for chow, Missy Abbie?” she asked in a peculiar mix of Pidgin and regular English.

  “Yes, Changying, they will be staying for dinner,” Abbie said, her voice taking on a tone of command that sounded odd coming from her. “Please make extra tonight, and set two additional places.”

  “Mista Kenny be home for chow, Missy?”

&n
bsp; Abbie hesitated. “I don’t know, Changying. Better set a place for him just in case.”

  The young woman bowed and backed out of the room.

  “She really has been a god-send,” Abbie said, collapsing in her chair and putting a hand on her forehead. “How she can stay calm on a day like today is beyond me. Hardly rattled at all.”

  Doug wondered if Changying had come to Shanghai from somewhere in the country. So many young men and women did, and if she didn’t have any family or close friends in the city, that could be why she acted unperturbed by the day’s events.

  His own hands were still shaking. He shoved them in his pockets.

  **

  Doug pulled Lucy aside a few minutes later, and spoke with her quietly.

  “After dinner, why don’t you and I go out for a while, and leave Kenny and Abbie with a little privacy?”

  “I think that’s a lovely idea,” she said, slipping her arms around his waist. “But good luck convincing them not to come with us.”

  She had a point. He supposed he could tell her what his other motivation was, and maybe he could enlist her help. “You know how I told you they found one of our seamen shot last night?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes held his, unblinking.

  “It was someone you met the other day—Seaman Nick Bonadio.”

  Surprise lit her eyes for a moment. “Oh, Doug! I’m so sorry to hear that.” Then a conflicting emotion flitted behind the concern.

  He gave her a wry smile and nodded. “Yes, it’s the man you were thinking of, the loud and obnoxious one. Confidentially—someone killed him, and dumped his body in the battle zone. He wasn’t killed by a Chinese or Japanese bullet. It was probably an American.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “And I’ve been put in charge of overseeing the investigation into his presumed murder.”

  She nodded resolutely, as if she were in complete agreement, which took him by surprise. “You have experience, of course.”

  Not that his superiors in the Navy knew that, but he didn’t argue with her.