Louise's Crossing Read online

  First, I needed to establish the time of Grace’s death. That was easy. Roughly four o’clock – the usual time Grace brought our afternoon coffee and cookies to us.

  Now, alibis. Who had them? Olive and me. We were together at the ship’s rail, gaping at the iceberg, at the time Grace died. So was the Smit family. Ronan was on the boat deck smoking and admiring the ice mountain. Then he spent a few minutes with Olive and me at the rail. Gil said he was on the boat deck with Ronan and joined Ronan at the rail while he finished his pipe. Tom stood with me and Olive for a bit, then left to tell Sparks to broadcast the coordinates of the iceberg to the rest of the convoy. I needed to check that out, but I was fairly sure it was correct. Tom could hardly shirk that duty.

  Then there was Blanche. Where was she? She claimed to have been on the boat deck during the iceberg spectacle. I’d check that with Gil and Ronan. Cautiously. I didn’t want them to know what I was doing.

  That accounted for the casual passengers, except for Blanche. What about the rest of the crew? I thought I could exclude most of them. They hardly knew Grace.

  Could Grace’s death possibly have something to do with Eddie Bryant’s? She did gossip about it … could she have known more about his death than she realized? Could his killer have murdered her to keep her quiet? This narrowed the suspects down considerably. Most of the crew on the Amelia Earhart hadn’t shipped on its previous voyage, so I could eliminate them.

  Who was on that voyage? Starting with the victim, Eddie Bryant, a paralyzed American Air Force pilot disabled when his plane crashed. By all accounts, he was unlikeable at best, a man so angered by his fate that he lashed out at everyone around him. Including his wife, Blanche, who disliked him in return, and who spent very little time with him – didn’t even pretend to play a devoted wife. Instead, she played cards and smoked on the deck with Ensign Tom Bates, who commanded the Navy Armed Guard. He was young, handsome and perhaps interested in Blanche, since Olive and I came upon them in an isolated jeep on deck during this trip. Then, of course, there was Grace, a sweet young woman who liked to gossip. She was the stewardess on the first trip across the Atlantic and was in a good spot to know the goings on among the civilian passengers. She had occasionally sat with Bryant so his orderly could take a break. Then there was Gil Fox, a salesman from the American Rubber Company, who tried and failed to befriend Bryant. Like Grace, he had implied that Blanche had had a good motive to kill her husband. And Nigel, Bryant’s orderly, who inexplicably left Bryant alone near the ship’s rail while he looked for a lighter. Who fell in love with Grace.

  The merchant mariners on board who’d made the trip from England were the master, who’d refused to conduct an official inquiry into Grace’s death, Chief Popeye and Chief Pearce. A few others maybe, whose names I didn’t know.

  If I was going to look seriously into Grace’s death on my own, I needed to know where everyone had been when she died – when the iceberg had interrupted the ship’s routine. And I couldn’t take anyone’s word for it; I needed corroboration.

  This was the master’s job, but he wasn’t doing it. So I would.

  I would either make a fool of myself or find a murderer.

  ELEVEN

  ‘Don’t you want some syrup?’ Olive asked.

  ‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘I like jelly on my pancakes.’

  ‘Why on earth?’

  ‘Syrup gets all over everything,’ I said, as I spread strawberry preserves over my pancakes, preserving the integrity of my ham.

  Without Grace to keep us organized, the civilian passengers had straggled into breakfast. We gathered into our usual groups. I came in last, joining Olive, while Blanche ate with the Smits family, and Gil and Ronan sat with Tom.

  ‘Want some coffee?’ Olive asked.

  ‘Sure,’ I answered. I was logy from lack of sleep and needed to wake up.

  Olive poured us both cups of coffee and pushed the cream and sugar over to me.

  I drank half a cup, then forced myself to eat.

  ‘It was so odd not to hear Grace’s knock on my door this morning,’ Olive said.

  ‘And her singing,’ I said. ‘Her voice made getting out of a warm bed bearable.’

  I did feel better after coffee and some food. We sat over a second cup; there wasn’t much else to do.

  ‘Listen, Olive, I’ve decided to do something and I need your help.’

  ‘If it passes the time until lunch, I’m willing.’

  ‘No, it’s important.’ I lowered my voice. ‘I want to investigate Grace’s death.’

  ‘Oh, Louise, no!’ Olive said, rolling her eyes. ‘Dearie, you have to put that behind you. There’s nothing to be done.’

  ‘There’s nothing to be done because she wasn’t murdered, or because we’re helpless to do anything about it?’

  Olive studied her coffee and didn’t answer me.

  ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘you know as well as I do that Grace’s death is suspicious. I just can’t forget how unlikely her fall was.’

  Olive looked up and met my eyes. ‘I know. I remember how unmarked her body was. Not what you would expect from a fall down a metal staircase, even a short fall. But what can we do?’

  ‘I think we need to verify some alibis,’ I said.

  ‘Of everyone on the ship?’ Olive asked. ‘That’s impossible.’

  ‘No, just the individuals who knew Grace best. The civilian passengers, the master and his officers, Tom, Nigel. Remember what Gil said the other night? As a stewardess, Grace knew what went on with all of us, and she’d been on previous voyages with some of the others. Murders aren’t random – whoever killed her had a motive.’

  The Smits passed behind us on their way out of the nearly empty wardroom. We stopped talking until they passed us by. I noticed Tom leaving, too. It must be close to eight o’clock, when his usual watch began. As he passed by Blanche, their eyes met and they shared brief smiles.

  ‘Did you see that?’ Olive asked. ‘Tom and Blanche? I’m not surprised, after we caught them sharing that jeep, remember?’

  ‘I remember,’ I said.

  Ronan and Gil left then, probably on their way outside for their first smoke of the day.

  Now that we were alone, Olive and I could talk more freely. She was thinking along the same lines I was.

  Olive whispered, ‘Do you think Blanche or Tom – or both – could have killed Eddie so they could be together? And then murdered Grace?’

  ‘Anything’s possible, but we don’t have any real evidence yet. That’s why we need to establish alibis first. You and I were standing at the ship’s rail during the excitement over the iceberg, when Grace died. So we alibi each other.’

  ‘Grace brought us our coffee like clockwork, at four o’clock,’ Olive said, ‘so the murder had to happen then. The Smits were with us, so they have alibis, too.’

  ‘Yes, and I can’t imagine why they would harm Grace anyway. Blanche told me she was on the boat deck. Did you see her?’

  ‘No, but I did see the master on the bridge deck.’

  ‘Me, too. He’s in the clear. But we have to find someone who saw Blanche.’

  ‘Ronan and Gil were together – most of the time anyway.’

  ‘We still need corroboration if we’re going to do this properly.’

  ‘OK. And Tom, of course.’

  ‘He told me he was going to see Sparks about broadcasting the iceberg’s coordinates, so we’ll need to check that out,’ I said.

  ‘Are you sure that we need to check on the officers?’

  ‘I am. Except for the chief engineer; I can’t imagine he has anything to do with this. But Chief Popeye and Chief Pearce were on the voyage when Eddie Bryant died. Chief Pearce knew Grace very well – he was her boss. Even if they aren’t suspects, they might know something important.’

  ‘And Nigel? Do you think he could have killed his boss?’

  ‘I guess he could have. Why did he leave Eddie alone to go in search of a cigarette lighter? Surely one of th
e seamen could have lent them a light. And he could have pushed Eddie overboard and then made up the story about the lighter. But he didn’t kill Grace. He was on the boat deck all the time she could have been killed. I saw him there myself.’

  ‘I don’t like this at all,’ Olive said. ‘I don’t want to think any one of these people is a killer.’

  ‘I don’t either,’ I answered. ‘Maybe we’ll find out they are all innocent. I hope so.’

  The view from the deck didn’t change much. Gray sky, gray ocean, gray ship, other gray ships in the gray distance. Chunks of ice floating in the choppy sea. Seabirds following, screaming, waiting for the kitchen refuse to be dumped overboard. Seamen bundled in foul-weather gear, black watch caps pulled over their ears, doing their endless chores. I longed for light and color, but I expected that London was gray, too. And spring was a long time away.

  I found Sparks doing what most of the men did on their breaks, leaning on the rail of the ship, smoking.

  Sparks, who, like most enlisted men, was just a skinny kid, touched his cap to me. Maybe he was twenty-two or twenty-three. Maybe. He offered me a cigarette.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘but I don’t smoke.’

  He nodded and went back to smoking himself. ‘Are you glad to be going to England, ma’am?’ he asked me.

  ‘I am. I’ve always wanted to go abroad. Of course, it’s during wartime. But still. What about you?’

  ‘For sure,’ Sparks said. ‘We’ll have some shore leave. I’d love to see a play, if they’re putting any on these days. I’ve read all of Shakespeare’s plays.’

  ‘Really!’

  ‘Yep. I was in college training to be an English teacher when the war started. If I don’t get blown up, I intend to finish.’

  ‘That’s why you read so much.’

  ‘There’s not much else to do, ma’am.’

  ‘I guess the iceberg gave you something to do,’ I said. ‘Ensign Banks told me on the deck he was on his way to tell you to broadcast its coordinates to the convoy.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, tossing his cigarette butt into the sea. ‘But he didn’t tell me himself. He sent one of the gunners to me with the message.’

  My gut clenched. I’d expected Sparks to verify Tom’s alibi. I’d assumed he was innocent. Why? Because he was handsome and likeable? During my time at OSS, I’d met plenty of handsome, likeable, evil men. And women. It was hard for me to imagine that Tom might have killed Grace to cover up Eddie Bryant’s murder, but I had to add him to my suspect list. Unless he could come up with another alibi.

  Olive was accustomed to uncomfortable situations. She’d been a nurse for ten years, part of that time during this war. She’d seen death, tragedy and suffering and learned to live with it. But she’d never investigated a murder before. Louise had told her to pretend she was an actress, to play a part. Engage people in casual conversation, then pry their alibis loose. All she had to do, Louise said, was get Ronan to corroborate Gil’s alibi – that they were on the boat deck together when Grace was killed. Olive wasn’t used to snooping. She was surprised that Louise was. She was just a file clerk. When did she learn how to nose around like this?

  Olive found Ronan in the wardroom playing solitaire at one of the tables. She went to the ‘entertainment’ closet to look for a book, where she found an Armed Services edition of The Grapes of Wrath. She’d read it already, but she was only going to use it as a prop.

  ‘Can I sit here and read?’ she asked Ronan. ‘I’m so tired of my berth. I can get another table if you’d rather be alone.’

  ‘Of course not; I’d be glad of your company,’ he said. He threw down his cards and then gathered the entire deck to him. ‘I can’t seem to get a good run here,’ he said.

  As Ronan reshuffled, Olive noticed how worn and scarred his hands were. ‘What did you do before you retired?’ she asked.

  ‘I was a bricklayer,’ he said. ‘It paid the bills and I liked the rhythm of it. I’d rather work – the days are so long without it – but I’m just too old. I put a bit of money aside; I hope it’s enough. That’s why I’m going back to Northern Ireland – I can live with my sister.’

  ‘I know what you mean. I miss my job, too. I’m eager to get to my next posting. Thank goodness for books. I’ve managed to find enough to read.’

  ‘I’ve never read much except the newspaper. Maybe I’ll take it up when I get to Bridget’s.’ Ronan dealt himself new cards and leaned over them, pursing his lips. ‘Looks like I have a better hand here.’ He began to flip his cards and stack them.

  Olive thought this might be her opportunity to pry.

  ‘We need some excitement,’ Olive said.

  ‘I reckon a German submarine would be exciting, but I’d rather be bored, thank you!’ Ronan said, looking up from his game.

  ‘Oh, I meant something like the iceberg!’

  ‘That was an astonishing experience. I’ll never forget it.’

  ‘I think you and Gil had a better view from the boat deck than we had from the rail,’ Olive said.

  ‘I don’t know; you were much nearer to it. When I joined you there, it looked magnificent.’

  So, Olive thought, that verifies that Gil and Ronan were together on the boat deck. Mission accomplished!

  ‘I didn’t stay up there for long,’ Ronan said. ‘Too cold. That’s why I joined you and Louise. After you left Gil came down from the deck and smoked a cigarette with me while I finished my pipe.’

  There wasn’t nearly enough time between when Ronan left the boat deck and when Gil joined him at the rail for Gil to have murdered anyone. Olive was pleased with herself. She’d gotten verification of Gil’s alibi from Ronan. They were both in the clear.

  After Olive left him, Ronan gathered his cards up again. ‘I wonder what that was about,’ he muttered to himself.

  I didn’t know how to go about checking Blanche’s alibi. She’d said that she was on the boat deck, gawking at the iceberg, when Grace died. The boat deck was small compared with the main deck, but it was packed with crewmen off watch trying to get a good look at the berg. Gil and Ronan were up there, too. Olive had told me during lunch that their alibis held up. What was I supposed to do? Start asking everyone if they’d seen Blanche on the boat deck with them? That wouldn’t be suspicious or anything! I couldn’t ask Ronan; he’d already been quizzed once today. And Gil was so shifty that I didn’t want to alert him to what I was doing; he was bound to make something of it. I’d seen Nigel on the boat deck myself, but I didn’t want to bother him. He would still be grieving.

  Didn’t Ronan mention he’d talked to Popeye about the height of the iceberg? Popeye was on the bridge deck. So Popeye had an alibi.

  Then I had an idea. Although the chief mates were always on duty, this wasn’t Popeye’s watch. Really, I should call the man Chief Pitts, but I couldn’t get over the sight of his massive forearms. I was familiar enough with the ship’s routine to be fairly sure where he was.

  I climbed the metal ladder to the boat deck, clinging to the rungs while a frigid wind did its darnedest to blow me off. I should have made this ascent through the superstructure, but I was feeling so shut in that I wanted to be outside.

  Sure enough, I found Popeye sitting on a camp stool near one of the lifeboats poring over a map. As if he was intent on navigating even when he wasn’t at the wheel.

  ‘How are we going?’ I asked.

  ‘Steady on,’ he said, looking up at me and smiling.

  I perched on a spool of rope nearby.

  ‘Why aren’t you inside?’ he asked. ‘It’s freezing.’

  ‘It’s always freezing. I had cabin fever. And I’m tired of playing cards and I believe I’ve finished every readable book on board.’ I quickly added, ‘I’m not complaining, mind you. No news is good news.’

  ‘No, we’ve had more than enough bad news for one trip,’ he said, grimacing. ‘Poor Miss Grace.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘we all miss her terribly.’ Then, changing the subje
ct, I gestured toward the map. ‘Can you show me where we are?’

  He turned the map toward me, spreading it flat on his knee. It was covered with navigational marks I didn’t understand, but he pointed to a spot roughly two-thirds of the way to England.

  ‘How long until we reach Liverpool?’ I asked.

  Popeye rolled up the map. ‘A week to ten days,’ he said, ‘depending on the weather and the Germans.’

  My heart clutched. We’d be on land soon, off this huge explosives-packed vessel, a clear target for submarines and airplanes. England wasn’t what you would call safe, but it would be safer than this. I felt relief swell over me, but then reined it in again. A lot could happen in a week.

  ‘Chief,’ I began, remembering not to call him Popeye to his face and pulling my notebook and a pencil out of my pocket. ‘I’m thinking of writing a story. About the iceberg. Just a small article I might be able to get published in a magazine.’

  ‘Really?’ he said. ‘Sure. I’ve never been interviewed before.’

  ‘Even if I can’t get it published, it will pass the time. I’ve always wanted to write.’

  Popeye stretched his legs and re-crossed them. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Ronan said you measured the height of the iceberg with some kind of instrument. Would you tell me about that?’

  ‘I used an old-fashioned sextant,’ Popeye said. ‘It’s been used for navigation since the seventeen hundreds. You can measure anything with it as long as you can, well, triangulate. I could see the top and the bottom of the iceberg from where I stood. I had one of the seamen measure, with a sounding line – it’s old-fashioned, too – the distance from where I stood to the base of the iceberg. It’s not perfect – he had to throw the line out to the base of the iceberg near the waterline and estimate. Then I measured the angle of the arc from the top of the berg, which I calculated by viewing … well, if I had a sextant with me I could explain it better. Anyway, then you have the two distances of the legs of a triangle, and you can calculate the other one mathematically. In this case, it’s just close enough for government work.’