Since I didn’t have a car and it didn’t look like the cavalry was going to rush in anytime soon, I needed to decide if I was going to go down there on my own. And if I was going to do that, I needed to leave pretty much right away so I could get to the harbor in San Pedro by Red Car with plenty of time to look around before the ship set sail.
I pondered a bit about it. And then I paced. I knew that, odds being what they were, I’d probably get down there and discover absolutely nothing. On the other hand, what if I didn’t go? Would I forever wonder if a dead man had steamed away with a mystery partner? Would I think about chances missed and doors that were closed?
And I was anxious. Where was Harrison Dempsey and what was his connection to Brucie? Who had taken the fingerprints from the safe? Who was the stiff on Doc Elway’s slab up in Frisco? And why did all of these unrelated things suddenly seem as though they were connected by some gossamer line?
I knew I should probably sit in the office all day and wait for Dex to show up, so he could be given all the facts and half facts I now had and use them to detect whatever could be detected. But if I did that, the City of Los Angeles would surely have steamed away. And it seemed to me there was a good chance I was wrong about the whole thing, that Harrison Dempsey would not be aboard and miraculously cured of whatever mishap had befallen him. Cured and with his beautiful mistress—or one of them—on his arm. I knew I could be wrong. But I really didn’t think so.
Before I left the office, I scrawled a hasty note to Dex, telling him what I’d found and where I’d gone. I didn’t think he’d get back before I did, but it seemed like the right thing to do, in any case. It’s what a detective should do, I thought. And I wasn’t one of those, but if I was going to act like one, I may as well get the procedure right.
Getting to San Pedro by streetcar was not an all-day affair, but it felt like it. When I finally got to the harbor, I resisted the urge to stand in line with the small well-dressed throng waiting to take the ferry out to Terminal Island in order to board the Avalon for passage to Catalina. Seeing them standing there reminded me of my own carefree past, and I felt a fleet but profound sadness. What would it mean, I wondered, to be without care and concern? A time like that seemed impossibly distant now. When I recalled my own trips to Catalina Island, it was like I was enjoying someone else’s memories.
As I hurried past, I saw a small girl, beautifully dressed, tuck her hand into her father’s and look up at him with excitement and anticipation. And happiness—that was the other thing I saw. I hoped I’d looked at my father like that. It was beginning to feel so long ago now; I couldn’t be sure anymore. Maybe I never was.
I followed the signs to the Los Angeles Steamship Company’s berths 155 to 158. En route, the docks were a zoo of departures. One of the “white flyers of the Pacific” that chugged up and down the coast between Los Angeles and San Francisco had recently arrived and was disgorging its passengers into the general melee.
People were coming and going in every direction. Stevedores were straining, porters were porting, and between them were tearful good-byes, joyous hellos, and other expressions of human emotion pushed to the extreme. My head swam with the colors, the scents, and the sensations of travel.
I finally located the City of Los Angeles at the far end of berth 158. And then I chided myself: how could I have ever thought I’d miss it? I hadn’t needed directions; I’d only needed my eyes. The ship was the most beautiful one in the harbor. It was creamy white with stacks painted red and trimmed in black. I’d read about this boat, the largest steamer in American waters: 581 feet long, 62 feet across, with first-class accommodations for over four hundred passengers. When the steamship company purchased her, they’d added a gymnasium and a swimming tank. Standing next to her on the dock was like standing next to a floating hotel or a small well-trimmed city. She took my breath away. I shook my head at the wonder of it all, then realized that none of my gawking was bringing me closer to my target.
My target. Truth be told, I wasn’t even sure what that was. When I thought about it, I was looking for a man I’d never seen, traveling with a companion whose identity I wasn’t sure of. Just what, I thought, was I doing here? Yet in some very real way—and even though I’d contemplated it—not coming had never really been an option.
And then without really knowing anything at all, I suddenly understood precisely why I was there. Though it was difficult to see from the dock to where the passenger I’d spotted was making her way across the deck of the boat, hers would have been a difficult outline to ignore.
Unlike the people all around her, she wasn’t waving down to the crowd. Even though that’s something you do when aboard a boat. Bon voyage. Was she avoiding waving? I wondered. Trying to avoid being seen?
I was sure … well… almost sure. The flash of red hair, the swivel in her hips as she moved away, the careless touch on a dark and expensive-looking coat. Could it be anyone besides Rita Heppelwaite? Well, it could. But deep down, I felt certain that it was her.
My dilemma in that moment was huge. Though I had no proof, I believed that the boat was carrying Rita Heppelwaite and Harrison Dempsey—perhaps disguised as one John Harrison—away to some island in the South Pacific where they’d be safe from the law as well as whatever mobster mess Dempsey had managed to ignite. And it was one thing to think that—and to think that I knew that. And quite another to understand what to do. And I didn’t.
I’d done everything I could to alert Dex by leaving a note at the office. But the chances of him seeing it and then thinking enough of the message to get here in time were slim. I found a phone box and tried to reach Mustard, but there was no answer. I thought about calling the police, but it brought the two flatfoots to mind again. And anyway, I really had nothing to tell them beyond some suspicions and uneasy feelings about things not fitting together properly. I knew that those weren’t the circumstances that brought the police rushing to your aid. According to Dex, when it came to this matter and this particular man, it was hard to tell who was more crooked: the police or the dark characters Dempsey ran with.
In the end, though, I didn’t call for help for one simple reason: what if I was wrong and neither Rita nor Dempsey was aboard? What if it was all some figment of my overactive imagination? Even then, I believed this to be a possibility. After all, how could even a fraction of the things I was imagining be correct? A world like that would make no sense. I wanted a world where one was one and two was two. I didn’t want to be right about any of the things I was supposing. But I had to know.
There was an hour left before the City of Los Angeles was due to launch. I had to get aboard. The crew was watchful though. As if waiting for just such a move. Perhaps it was a sign of the times? I took a seat on a bench near the gangplank and just kept my eyes open for a while. Perhaps an opportunity would present itself. After a while it did.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
THE FAMILY was large and complicated. I could see a husband and wife, three children, and perhaps six servants. One of the children—a boy of maybe three or four—cried incessantly, an intensely loud cry that seemed designed to pierce the calm of even the bravest of sailors. The men nearby shuddered as the wails rent the air.
There was some confusion with the party’s ticketing. The father bellowed at the man in charge. “Do you know who I am?” he said three or four times. The officer obviously did not, because it didn’t seem to ease their progress. Perhaps, I thought from my safe distance, it even made things worse.
The woman—I took her to be the bellowing man’s wife— kept clasping and unclasping her hands, looking as though she might say something, then holding back. The servants shuffled madly this way and that; one young woman in particular looked nervous about the whole venture and was already turning slightly green. And the child wailed on.
I slipped my hat off my head and pushed it into my handbag so I might be more easily taken as a servant. Then I joined the group as quietly as possible, just as the uniformed
officer indicated they should go on aboard. Everything would be sorted out later, he assured them. I got the feeling he would have done anything to get the noisy kid out of earshot, and in any case, the group had been holding up the line.
One of the servants seemed to notice me join the group. She met my eyes and looked at me oddly. I thought for a second she was going to say something; then she seemed to change her mind, and she looked away. Bellowing employers don’t do much to inspire loyalty in those who work for them.
I stuck with the group until we were deep inside the vessel. At the earliest opportunity I went left when they went right, ducking into yet another powder room to catch my breath, fix my hair, and replace my hat. The small glimpse I’d already had of the ship told me one thing: the City of Los Angeles was huge. I’d have my work cut out for me finding anything at all.
I’d taken perhaps six tentative steps away from the washroom when an employee of the line stopped me. Feeling guilty as I did, I was sure he was about to give me the bum’s rush, but he smiled pleasantly and asked if he could be of assistance.
“Do I look that lost?” I asked, pleased that my voice came out sounding controlled when I didn’t feel that way at all.
“I’m afraid you do,” he said, nodding kindly. Under his peaked cap, he had an open face and kind blue eyes. “Getting lost is an easy enough thing to do on this ship, miss. I spent my first few weeks aboard just trying to find my way around.”
“You did? Well, I’ll try not to feel so silly then.”
“What deck are you on?” he asked.
I looked around for a hint. “I’m afraid I haven’t a clue. Don’t you know?”
He looked at me blankly for a moment, then burst out laughing. “No, no. You’re on C deck now, of course. I meant, on which deck is your stateroom?”
It was my turn to look blank. I really had no idea of what to say, which is what in the end I decided to tell him. “That’s the problem, you see. I don’t remember. Is there any way … that is … can you help me?”
“Yes, of course I can. Come with me.” He led me back the way I’d come when I’d slunk past with the noisy family. He stopped at the purser’s desk.
“I’m afraid this young lady is quite lost,” my new friend said to the man behind the desk. “Oh, ho,” he said warmly, smiling at me. “Is she now?” I had the feeling this happened a lot. “You don’t remember at all?”
I shook my head.
“Well, then, what’s your name?”
Any second’s hesitation was a hesitation too long. Yet I had to hesitate. I had to process quickly who I should be and where I wanted to be sent. I reasoned that the receipt I’d seen was for John Harrison and Mrs. John Harrison. I decided I looked more like Mrs. than John.
“Mrs. John Harrison,” I said into the void. I told myself it had only seemed like long minutes had passed. In fact, it could only have been a few fat seconds.
“Harrison … Harrison. Let me see …” he said, running his index finger over the passenger list. “Here we are. You said John Harrison?”
I nodded.
“Good. Only Harrison this sailing, in any case. Right then, you’re in one of the suites deluxe.” He looked me over again, perhaps checking for signs of affluence he’d missed on the first take. There weren’t any, so he went on. “Those rooms are all on the highest level, which makes them quite easy to find. Gill here can show you the way.”
“If you’d just direct me,” I said quickly, “I’d prefer to find my own way.” Poor Gill looked somewhat crushed, so I hastened to add, “I’ve taken more than enough of his time already. And in any case, I think I’d like to look around before I go back up.”
The two of them gave me careful directions, the purser adding to them with a small but well-crafted diagram. I assured them I wouldn’t get lost and headed on my way.
The ship seemed immense to me. And immaculate. The pristine woodwork was carefully painted, beautifully maintained. Polished floors flowed underfoot, and everywhere you looked, the brasswork gleamed like so much spun gold.
I knew that at another time I would have delighted in exploring the craft—following the stairways, trying the food that was already being laid out. The ship was a wonder to me. A small, self-contained city preparing to make a journey to a different realm.
At the same time that my imagination told stories about this seagoing magic carpet, it tried to tell me others about the people I passed in the broad corridors. There, that stout woman. She was no doubt a dowager duchess abroad, looking for an unsuspecting king. That woman there? She must be a silent screen actress, left jobless because she didn’t have a voice anyone wanted to hear. That tragic man there, with the dark eyes? He was a widower, of course. He had undertaken the journey in the hope of finding a new wife, one who could be mother to his children. The little girl in a pinafore. What disappointments lay in her future? And here I stopped myself. The game was becoming too dark.
Even with good directions, it took a while for me to find what I sought. That was just as well because I used the time to try to think about what I was going to do. By the time I reached the stateroom door, I’d come to no conclusions, and before I even knew what I was doing, my arm snaked out and I gave the door a firm knock.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
THE EXPRESSION on Rita Heppelwaite’s face when she pulled the door open told me she’d expected a more pleasant surprise. As it was, her eyes went all wide when she got a load of me. She stood there for a second or two just looking at me, perhaps trying to figure out where in her memories I fit. For her, I was out of place.
It didn’t take long for her to figure out what part of her memory I belonged in though. I saw the recognition dawn on her face, and in almost the same moment she reached out with one gloved hand, fastened it on my wrist, and dragged me into the stateroom. She was stronger than she looked; I figured I’d have a bruise the next day where her hand had grabbed me. If I lived to bruise, that is. That wasn’t a forgone conclusion at that moment.
As she closed the door behind us, I realized there was a third person in the cabin. Now it was my turn to shuffle through recent memories. I knew that I knew him, but his appearance was so altered by his grooming and clothing, I didn’t recognize him at first. He was dressed in a good suit, a well-made fedora tilted at just the right angle on his handsome head. It was Calvin, Brucie’s brother, considerably altered out of his country-boy clothes. And though I was certain he recognized me, he played as though he had not.
“What’s goin’ on?” he said.
“You know that shamus? Dex Theroux?” Rita asked. Calvin nodded. “This is his secretary.”
“His secretary,” the guy said. He made his voice show the shock Rita would have expected, but he wasn’t so shocked that he couldn’t reach under his jacket and pull his hand out with a roscoe inside. A big roscoe too. Big enough to put a hole or six into me without too much trouble.
Up close and personal like this, I realized I had made at least one mistake. It made sense to me that since Cal was here with Rita, Rita probably didn’t know anything about Brucie. Cal would want to keep it that way, making the danger to me very real. Everyone knows there’s only one real way to silence someone. I tried to swallow, but my throat had closed up. My heart was up to some odd shenanigans too.
And in between the attempts at swallowing and trying to get my pulse under control, I realized I’d made another miscalculation: whatever game was being played here, there were very few points that I’d gotten right. And I’d gotten enough of it wrong to put me in grave danger.
“I thought you told me that mook hadn’t gotten wise,” Cal said.
“He didn’t. I’m sure he didn’t.”
“What’s she doin’ here then?” He waved his gun at me most disconcertingly as he said this, the motion oddly like deja vu. I forced the swallow I’d been working on, but didn’t say anything.
“I don’t know, Cal. I just don’t know.” She looked honestly perplexed.
&
nbsp; “We’ll have to croak her.” It wasn’t a question. He looked a challenge at me. I wasn’t sure he was smart, but he was wily, like a fox with distemper. However this went down, he was holding the gun. In this particular game of poker, Cal was the one who held the best hand.
Rita Heppelwaite nodded, as though he’d said they’d have to plant roses or buy a new car. “We will,” she agreed. “But not now. The gun would make too much noise. We’ll wait until tonight. We’ll be under power, and we can get rid of the body then too.”
The mook nodded his understanding. “Good thinking. We’ll just take her outside, croak her, then slip her into the drink.”
There were things I could have been saying at this point. Things I should have been saying. Things that would help my situation, perhaps ease my plight. I’m quick with the tongue. I always have been. Too quick sometimes, if my teachers at school were to be believed. Yet in that instant, in the confines of the stateroom deluxe, with Rita Heppelwaite’s beautiful eyes on me and Cal’s secrets and his impatient-looking gun, I couldn’t make myself say boo, let alone the clever, witty, and persuasive things I knew myself capable of dreaming up. I just stood there and watched them, feeling like a deer caught in headlights. The forest was near—so near—yet I hadn’t the courage or the wherewithal to make a single move.
Just as I figured I’d be pushing up daisies in no time flat, there was a ruckus at the cabin door. The knock came triple time—and hard. I saw Cal’s and Rita’s eyes meet over my head, but neither of them made a move. Then both sets of eyes went to the doorknob as it turned. The door opened, and Harrison Dempsey burst into the room without so much as a how-do-you-do. And this time I knew it was Harrison Dempsey. It was in the way he stood there, his legs spread just slightly apart, like they were his roots and he was an oak. And it was in the way he looked at the three of us, sizing up the situation as though seeing where he fit. Where we all did.
Death Was the Other Woman Page 20
