Louise's Crossing Read online

  The vehicles we were transporting didn’t escape damage. The collapsing winch dented jeeps and trucks parked under them. The German strafing left scars on others, including the locomotive. The whole ship was pockmarked like a smallpox survivor. Engineers patched a few holes in the hull. But the tear in the deck didn’t expand, thank goodness. It looked as if we would get to Liverpool in one piece. The chief engineer believed that much of the damage could be repaired once we docked.

  We casual passengers, with the exception of Olive, who was busy caring for Nigel and Oleson and any number of other seamen with minor injuries, were respectfully requested to stay below and out of the way. Bruce was so restless, though, that the chief steward put him to work carrying coffee and sandwiches to the seamen working on deck. Olive and I decided to wait to tell the master that Nigel had been shot in the back with a handgun. He looked more and more frail every day.

  I spent my time wrapped up in a blanket in my bunk, napping, snacking on Dellaphine’s pralines and making notes about murder.

  SIXTEEN

  I wrote down every tiny detail I knew about Eddie Bryant, Grace Bell and Nigel Ramsey. My notes were many pages long and a disorganized mess. My conclusions that Grace, and possibly Eddie, had been murdered and that someone had attempted to murder Nigel were based on circumstance and instinct, which didn’t amount to evidence. But I just couldn’t let go.

  Eddie may have been murdered or he might have killed himself. There were no witnesses to his death, and he had been strong enough to maneuver his wheelchair and propel himself overboard. Or someone could have come upon him alone, wheeled him to the rail and pushed him. I was sure that Grace was murdered, but all the casual passengers and crew who knew her had alibis. Nigel was shot in the back with a handgun. Could a gunner have accidentally discharged his sidearm during the melee of the German air attack? There was nothing to prevent a passenger, or another crewman for that matter, from bringing a handgun on board in their luggage, but all the civilian passengers were together in the wardroom during the attack.

  I read through my notes again, organizing them and drawing arrows and circles around the facts that seemed important to me. When I was done, I realized that I needed to talk to Nigel.

  Mike Oleson and Nigel had indeed been put up in Grace’s old berth near the galley. The pharmacist’s mate was delighted when I offered to sit with the patients for a time so he could get a cup of coffee and a doughnut.

  Oleson was still quite pale from loss of blood, as you would expect, but he was sitting up in his bunk, with the stump of his left arm resting on a pillow.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ I asked.

  ‘Better,’ he said. ‘I’m going to get solid food for dinner.’ He glanced at his stump. ‘I’m lucky I lost my left hand instead of my right,’ he said. ‘I can at least use a fork and spoon!’ This guy had the right attitude, I thought; he would be OK.

  ‘And you?’ I asked Nigel. He was still lying on his stomach. Olive said she didn’t want any pressure on his shoulder yet.

  ‘I’m so bored,’ Nigel said.

  ‘Poor you,’ Mike said.

  ‘Hey, I’m going to go back to work in this damn war. They’ll probably put you in some fancy hospital in a stately home where all you’ll have to do is eat steak and chips and be waited on by pretty nurses.’

  ‘Stop, both of you,’ I said. ‘I came to ask Nigel some questions.’

  ‘Has anyone told you that you ask a lot of questions?’ Nigel asked.

  ‘Never,’ I said. ‘I’ve always been the quiet, unquestioning type. But what I want to know from you is whether Eddie Bryant ever talked to you about suing someone over his airplane crash?’

  ‘I’m not supposed to gossip about my patients’ conversations,’ he said. ‘That was beaten into us during training. A patient is entitled to privacy.’

  ‘The man is dead, and, besides, Grace told me a little.’

  Nigel sighed. ‘I loved that girl, but she sure could talk. I suppose you’re right, though: what difference does it make now? Eddie was positive it wasn’t his fault that his plane crashed when he landed. He said he didn’t land improperly, that the airplane’s tires ruptured as soon as he touched down so he couldn’t control the remainder of the landing. He was so angry! He said he was going to sue the company that made those tires.’

  ‘Do you know what company it was?’ I asked, trying to keep the eagerness out of my voice.

  ‘The American Rubber Company – Gil’s company,’ Nigel said. ‘Gil tried to talk to him about it when he visited, but it made Eddie furious and he refused to see Gil again.’

  Finally, a motive!

  ‘You left Eddie when you were on deck for a cigarette break – correct? You went back to his berth to find his cigarette lighter. That was when he died?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have left him,’ Nigel said. ‘But he kept that gold lighter with him at all times. I knew he wouldn’t settle down until I got it. He’d dropped it when I helped him out of bed and it took me a few minutes to find it.’

  ‘No one else was around out on deck?’

  ‘Not a soul. Eddie was alone when I left him.’

  Long enough for him to push himself through the gate in the rail, or for someone to come along and do it. Someone like Gil, who’d been smoking alone elsewhere on deck, he said. Or Blanche, who claimed to be doing the same.

  ‘Does that help?’ Nigel asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It does.’

  So I had two good motives for either Blanche or Gil to kill Eddie Bryant. Blanche, because she couldn’t stand him or the thought of living with him for the rest of her life, Gil, because Eddie intended to sue the American Rubber Company. Except that both of them had cast-iron alibis for Grace’s death: Blanche was with Bruce in the ’tween deck during the iceberg adventure, and Gil was with Ronan on the boat deck at the same time.

  ‘My God,’ the master said. He held the small lump of metal that Olive had removed from Nigel in his hand. ‘It is a bullet!’ He handed it over to Tom. ‘Ensign,’ the master said, ‘could this be one of yours?’

  I’d managed to convince the master to meet with me one last time. He asked Tom to join us. We were crammed once again into his cabin.

  Tom examined the bullet under the master’s desk lamp. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s too small. The Armed Guard carries Smith and Wesson thirty-eights. This is smaller. A twenty-two, I expect.’

  ‘A derringer?’ I asked.

  ‘No, a derringer is loaded with one or two forty-five-caliber bullets,’ Tom said. ‘This came from a pocket pistol. It’s a regular revolver, except smaller. It would load four or five bullets.’

  ‘Small enough to be concealable?’ asked the master.

  ‘Definitely,’ Tom said. ‘Especially with the layers of clothes we’ve all been wearing. But a pocket pistol can be just as deadly as a full-sized handgun.’

  ‘Olive said that if Nigel had been hit a couple of inches lower, nearer the heart and its blood vessels, he’d be dead,’ I said.

  The master sat on his bunk and rubbed his eyes.

  ‘Well, Mrs Pearlie,’ he said, ‘I give in. You’re right, I agree with you. The more I think about the issues with Grace’s death that you brought up, the more suspicious I am that it wasn’t an accident. And for one of my seamen to be shot in the back in the middle of an air attack! But I don’t know what I can do about it right now. We can’t possibly search the entire crew, the passengers and the ship for a pocket pistol. That’s more than a hundred people. There are too many places where it could be hidden. I’ve got a cargo ship loaded with munitions to get to Liverpool and an exhausted crew. And I’m short of ten men.’

  Tom turned to me. ‘Do you still think that Grace’s death and the attack on Nigel are related to Eddie Bryant’s death?’

  ‘I can’t help but believe so – it’s the only thing that makes sense. But the two people who might want Eddie dead – Blanche and Gil … well, there were no witnesses to Eddie’s death. And they
both have alibis for Grace’s death. And Blanche and Gil were both with me in the wardroom during the air attack when Nigel was shot.’

  ‘Remind me again why the two of them might have wanted to murder Grace?’

  ‘Grace was a gossip. She told me all about Eddie’s death and how the crew thought he’d been murdered by Blanche. Later she told me about Eddie threatening to sue Gil’s company. I thought one of them killed her to keep her quiet.’

  ‘And Nigel?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Except that Nigel knew that Eddie blamed Gil’s company for his injury. And that Blanche and Eddie’s marriage was a disaster. But, like I said, Gil was in the wardroom with the rest of us during the air attack.’

  ‘Ensign,’ the master said to Tom, ‘I know you’re stretched, but can you place a guard on Nigel? And on Mrs Pearlie?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘not me. It would just draw attention to me. I don’t want that.’

  ‘But, Louise,’ Tom said, ‘I think it would be a good idea.’

  ‘I don’t,’ I said. It would prevent me from learning anything else.

  ‘You must promise not to be alone and to lock your berth,’ the master said.

  ‘I will.’

  ‘I’ll turn this over to the constabulary in Liverpool when we dock,’ the master said. ‘The passengers and crew will hate it. They won’t be able to leave the ship until they’re questioned and their belongings searched. We might not be able to unload our cargo right away either.’

  SEVENTEEN

  Olive and I sat in the cab of the locomotive engine. It was pockmarked and had a cracked windshield, but other than that seemed undamaged. From that height we could see the expanse of the ship’s deck all the way to the bow. The Amelia Earhart was battered but not broken. Sort of the way I felt.

  Olive was smoking, of course. I was drinking the last of my gin. Straight out of the bottle! I’d told Olive everything that had gone on in the master’s cabin when I showed him the bullet she’d extracted from Nigel’s back. She deserved to know and I was sure she would keep her mouth shut.

  ‘You see,’ I said, ‘this is a civilian American ship. The deceased were civilian Americans who died in international waters. That means the American FBI has jurisdiction over their possible murders.’

  ‘But we’re docking in England,’ Olive said. ‘In the middle of a war.’

  ‘I know. So, instead, the master will have to contact the local constabulary, and they can call in Scotland Yard if they want.’

  Olive stubbed out her cigarette on the floor of the cab and crammed her hands into her pockets. ‘Does Scotland Yard have time for this?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘and neither does the constabulary.’

  Olive stared at me. ‘Louise! You don’t think anything will be done, do you?’

  ‘No. There’s just not enough evidence. The gun used against Nigel was probably tossed overboard. The crew and the passengers are desperate to get off the ship. The cargo needs to be unloaded, and the ship moved to dry dock for repair. The master told me the ship is scheduled to take German POWs back to the States in a couple of weeks. I expect the constables will take our statements and that will be that.’

  ‘You seem awfully calm.’

  ‘I’ve accepted it. There’s nothing else I can do.’ And I had accepted it. In a couple of days I’d be starting a new life. I hated that Grace would get no justice, but there were massive tasks to be undertaken to prepare for an invasion of Europe and I needed to clear my mind and concentrate on my new job. Grace’s life was important, but thousands, millions, of other people’s lives depended on the Allies’ success.

  The messman slopped the dreaded chipped beef on a burnt piece of toast, added a scoop of canned peas and carrots, for the third night in a row, and handed the plate to me. I plonked it on my tray with resignation. At least the rolls were still hot and fresh, even if we only had margarine to spread on them. Dessert was cherry gelatin. Over the course of the war I’d developed a pure hatred for gelatin. It was everywhere. The worse gelatin dish I’d been served was oxtail, carrots and parsnips suspended in gelatin made with chicken bouillon cubes. I swore I would never eat it again after the war was over. So I passed on the cherry gelatin dessert. I still had a few of Dellaphine’s pralines left.

  The casual passengers all sat together at breakfast. Despite the joy we all felt at the prospect of actually arriving at our destination in one piece, we were a somber group. We knew that an adventure was coming to a close, and that what happened to all of us next was likely to be much less interesting. And still so cold! Sparks had gotten a weather report from Liverpool that the temperature there was below freezing at noon.

  I sat across from Ronan. He’d debark first. We’d drop him off at Londonderry the next day. No one would meet him, he said; it was impossible to notify his family when he was arriving.

  ‘How will you get home?’ I asked him.

  ‘What?’ Ronan said. He’d eaten little of his meal and looked as if he hadn’t slept well.

  ‘After you arrive tomorrow, how will you get home?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Bus.’

  That was all he said. He looked unhappy to me, not contemplative or reflective like the others. No talk of Bridget and her grandchildren or anything else he was looking forward to upon finding himself back in his native country. He didn’t even mention his first pint of Guinness. I noticed that he’d had rolled his tobacco pouch into a thin tube that stuck out of his vest pocket. There couldn’t be enough tobacco left in it for one pipe. I noticed a tiny hole in the corner of the vest pocket, where the fabric was separating. The cuffs and collar of his shirt were frayed. I didn’t know how long it had been since he had laid a brick, but he still had heavy callouses and scars on his hands. I’d bet that his fare across the Atlantic had consumed a large portion of his savings.

  Then a thought came to me that I badly wanted to reject. And couldn’t.

  ‘Ronan,’ I said. ‘Could we talk in private somewhere for a few minutes?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, looking at me apprehensively. ‘Of course.’

  After breakfast the group broke up, Bruce and the Smit girls pulled a Monopoly game out of the storage cabinet in the wardroom. Olive and Blanche went outside to smoke. The Smits went down to their berth to pack. Gil came over and pulled a cigarette out of his pack, holding it out to Ronan. ‘Ready to try one?’ he asked Ronan.

  ‘No, thanks,’ Ronan said. ‘I’m not that desperate yet.’

  Gil shrugged and went on out of the room.

  Ronan and I left the three kids playing Monopoly and went into the deserted crew mess. We took a table in the corner. Ronan picked up a salt shaker and turned it around and around in his hands. Then he put it back and met my eyes.

  ‘Ronan,’ I began. ‘Please forgive me, but I must ask you a question that I’m afraid will make you very angry.’

  ‘I lied when I said that Gil was with me when Grace died,’ he said. He put his head in his hands. ‘Oh, God, what a relief it is to tell the truth.’

  His confession stunned me. Yes, I was going to ask if he’d lied, but having him actually say so was painful. Ronan was a good man we’d all come to trust.

  ‘Why?’ I said. ‘Why did you do that?’

  Ronan sat up straight again and pulled the thin tube that was the remainder of his pipe tobacco out of his pocket, rummaged for his pipe and half-filled it. After he sucked the flame through the pipe bowl, he inhaled, then visibly relaxed against the back of the chair.

  ‘It didn’t seem like a bad idea at first,’ Ronan said. ‘Gil wasn’t with me on the boat deck while we were all staring at the iceberg. He joined me later at the rail just as you and Olive were leaving. I finished my pipe while he smoked a cigarette. Then, on our way to the wardroom, we found Chief Pearce and Olive carrying Grace’s body to lay out in the first-aid room. I was very upset, and Gil seemed to be, too. Then, after the stretcher passed us by, he asked me to say I’d been with him on the boat deck for
the entire time I was there.’

  ‘He asked you for an alibi.’

  ‘It wasn’t quite like that.’ Ronan drew in another breath of tobacco smoke. ‘He said he’d been involved in an earlier accident, the one where Blanche’s husband Eddie killed himself, and his name had been in the newspaper. His company didn’t like the publicity, and he didn’t want to be involved in another mess. It didn’t occur to me that he might have killed Grace. You have to believe me!’

  ‘I believe you. But, Ronan, when Olive and I brought up the possibility of murder, why didn’t you admit you lied for Gil then?’

  ‘I still didn’t suspect him of anything.’

  ‘I believe that. Now tell me why you didn’t explain what happened to the master.’

  He didn’t answer me, just sucked on his pipe and stared at the floor.

  ‘Ronan,’ I said, ‘did Gil pay you?’

  He lifted his head to face me. His eyes were wet with tears.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Two hundred and fifty dollars.’

  Money that would go a long way in rural Northern Ireland.

  ‘You see,’ Ronan said, ‘I’m a poor man. So much of what I’d saved went for my wife’s doctor bills and my passage home. But I’m afraid Bridget, my sister, is convinced that I’m a rich American. Oh, I have a little money, but I wanted to show up at my sister’s door able to buy some treats for the family.’

  ‘So, you accepted a bribe,’ I said. ‘You sold an alibi to Gil.’

  Ronan flinched as if I had struck him. ‘I still didn’t believe Gil was involved,’ he said. ‘He kept telling me he might lose his job if he was involved in another death inquiry. Then, once Nigel was shot, I realized that Gil could have done it. And that made me wonder about him.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘Gil was with us in the wardroom during the airplane strike.’