Louise's Crossing Read online

  ‘Don’t you remember?’ Ronan said. ‘Gil went into the hall to the door to the deck so he could see what was happening better. The ladder to the boat deck is right next to the door. I figured that Nigel was climbing it just as Gil went outside. All the smoke and noise, Gil could have shot him then. I don’t understand the whole story, but I know that Blanche, Gil, Grace and Nigel were all on the ship together when Eddie Bryant died and that the police were called in when the ship docked in New York.’

  No, I hadn’t remembered that Gil had briefly left the wardroom and I could kick myself for it.

  ‘Do you know if Gil has a gun?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, he showed it to me days ago. It’s a little pistol, a handsome one. It has a carved bone handle and is engraved with his grandfather’s initials. Apparently, the grandfather was a conductor on a railroad out west.’

  ‘Ronan, you have to tell the master.’

  Ronan had gotten all the smoke he could out of his half-filled pipe. He tapped the charred remnants of the burnt tobacco on to an empty butter plate on the table. ‘I guess I will have to try one of those horrible cigarettes, after all,’ he said.

  ‘Ronan! You have to tell the master what you’ve told me! Right away! You’re getting off the ship tomorrow!’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m keeping the money.’

  ‘You can’t! You can’t let a man guilty of murder go free.’

  ‘You still don’t know for sure that Gil killed Grace. Or shot Nigel. And nothing will bring Grace back. Once I get off this ship, I’m going straight to the nearest church to confess. God will forgive me, and I’ll go home with money in my pocket.’

  I could hardly breathe. He was right. And unless he broke his silence, Gil still had an alibi. Anything I could say about this conversation would be hearsay and Ronan could deny it.

  The messmen had finished cleaning the wardroom and moved into the mess hall to clear the breakfast dishes away and set the tables for lunch. Soon we’d have no more privacy.

  I had an idea.

  ‘I understand about the money,’ I said. ‘My husband died during the Depression. I didn’t have a penny. I had to move back with my parents. I hated it.’

  ‘You’re young and have a job now,’ Ronan said. ‘I’m past working anymore.’

  I rummaged in my pocketbook until I found the gold coins that Henry had given me at dinner the night before I left DC. I dropped the two coins into my hand and reached out to Ronan.

  ‘Take these. Then you can give Gil back his money and tell the master the truth.’

  Ronan stared at the coins. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I can’t take your money. Are those coins gold?’

  ‘Yes. And why can’t you take them? You allowed Gil to bribe you. These are a gift. A friend gave them to me, and now I’m giving them to you. You can tell the truth and still take money home to your family.’

  Please, I thought to myself. Please.

  ‘I don’t know what these are worth,’ I said. ‘On the black market, I mean.’

  ‘Nowhere near two hundred and fifty dollars,’ Ronan said.

  Without hesitating I pulled the ring Phoebe had given me off my finger and added it to the coins on the table. ‘I don’t know how much this is worth either, but the diamond is real.’

  Ronan stared at the coins and the ring for what seemed like a long time. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a battered wallet. He drew five fifty-dollar bills out of it and tucked them in his threadbare waistcoat pocket. I’d never seen a fifty-dollar bill before. Then he picked up the coins and the ring and tucked them into the coin slot of the wallet. ‘I’ll give Gil back his money right away. I wish I’d never gotten on this bloody boat.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘no! You could be in danger if you tell him that you’re going to tell the truth. The man has killed people, and he has a gun.’

  ‘Then I’ll find the master and tell him the truth first.’

  After he left the table, I felt exhausted. Sweat trickled down my back as if I’d been running hard. I had a headache coming on.

  But it looked as if justice might just win this one.

  I expected that once Ronan had talked to the master, all hell would break loose. I needed a few minutes alone and some fresh air.

  I walked the length of the ship. Once I got to the bow, I leaned over the rail and watched our wake churn for a few minutes. I gazed into the east, but as hard as I tried, I didn’t see land yet. I wondered if Ireland really was emerald green. Not this time of year, I told myself. Even Eden wouldn’t be green in this weather.

  ‘You witch,’ Gil’s voice said behind me.

  I turned around and saw Gil standing very close to me. ‘You witch,’ he repeated. He raised his clenched fists to his chest. ‘I should break every bone in your face,’ he said, ‘and then throw you to the sharks.’

  My OSS training kicked in and I was immediately poised to defend myself. But how? My Schrade switchblade was still in my musette bag in my berth, where it had been during the whole trip. I had my hands and feet. Maybe there was something nearby I could use as a weapon.

  But what had happened? How did Gil know that Ronan was going to the master to tell him the truth about Gil’s alibi? And how did he know so soon?

  ‘That ignorant Irishman told me he was going to give me up,’ Gil said. ‘He said that he’d talked it all over with you, you nosy female! Grace was the same way! Talk, talk, talk! And Ronan gave me my two hundred and fifty dollars back! What am I going to do with money on death row! I wanted to break his neck, but there were too many seamen around. So I guess I’ll just have to break yours instead.’

  ‘That won’t help you,’ I said. ‘Ronan’s on his way to tell the master the truth.’

  ‘No, but it will make me feel good. Not as good as killing Eddie and that colored girl, but good.’

  I needed to stall him, hoping help would miraculously appear.

  ‘You killed Eddie because he threatened to sue your company,’ I said. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Damn right,’ Gil said. ‘I’d gotten a few complaints about those tires, but I didn’t forward them to the company. If there was a lawsuit that might come out. I’d be fired and maybe charged with a crime. So a couple of airplanes had defective tires. Most of them didn’t, and this is a damn war!’

  ‘Why did you have to kill Grace?’ I asked. ‘She was such a nice young woman.’

  Gil shrugged. ‘She was a loudmouth. I thought she might gossip to someone who could put two and two together. And she did! You!’ The menace in his voice and face was frightening. ‘When everyone went nuts over the iceberg I saw my chance. I knew Grace would be coming down the stairs with the coffee tray soon. I hid in the lavatory. I heard her singing as she came down, and when I opened the lavatory door she’d just reached the bottom of the stairs and turned to go down the passageway. She never knew what hit her.’

  ‘Why did you shoot Nigel?’

  Gil shrugged. ‘Who knew what that kid might have overheard? I had a chance to shut him up and I took it.’

  He moved toward me. I had nowhere to go and no weapon. If I screamed, no one would hear me because of the noise of the wind and the ocean. I braced myself on the rail, determined to at least leave marks on his face where the others could see it.

  ‘Cheerio, Mrs Pearlie! Hello, Mr Fox!’

  Bruce! Oh no!

  ‘Get out of here, kid,’ Gil said. ‘Louise and I are having a private conversation.’

  ‘Miss Nunn sent me to find you,’ Bruce said to me. ‘She’s trying to make a foursome for bridge.’

  ‘You go on, honey,’ I said to him. ‘I’ll be right along.’ Please go, Bruce, and be safe.

  Gil’s jaw was working so hard I figured he must be cracking teeth. Bruce, go, I telegraphed to him with a warning look. Bruce telegraphed back, No!

  ‘You heard the lady,’ Gil said to him. ‘We’ll have our little talk and then follow you. Go on.’

  Bruce
had one hand hanging at his side, but he drew it up holding one of the big wrenches the seamen used to tighten or loosen nuts and bolts all over the ship. It was maybe twenty inches long. He tapped one end on his open hand.

  ‘No,’ Bruce said, defiant. ‘Mrs Pearlie is coming with me. You do what you like.’

  I was being defended by a skinny schoolboy. He must have been half Gil’s size.

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ Gil said to him. I calculated the distance between him and me, planning to jump him and keep him busy long enough for Bruce to get away.

  Bruce kept tapping the wrench. ‘Did you know that I’m really good at sport?’ he asked Gil, with such an innocent look on his face that I could almost believe he didn’t know what was happening. ‘I was first in my year at fencing and boxing.’

  Gil lunged at him and I moved, tripping him up so that he fell at Bruce’s feet. He grabbed at the boy’s heels, but Bruce raised the wrench over his head and brought it down hard on Gil’s shoulder. Gil cried out. I grabbed Bruce’s free hand and pulled him away.

  ‘Run!’ I shouted. ‘Run! He might have a gun!’

  We ran. As we went around a jeep, we almost hit Tom, who was coming our way with several of his men, their sidearms drawn. Tom reached for me and threw an arm around Bruce.

  ‘Thank God!’ he said. ‘Where is Gil?’

  ‘At the bow. He hasn’t followed us,’ I said.

  ‘Go to the wardroom. One of my men is on guard there. Don’t leave.’

  We went while Tom and his men ran past us.

  But Gil was long gone when Tom reached the bow. Tom mobilized all forty-four of his men, and sent the seamen, except for a skeleton crew, to their quarters. The master and Popeye stood on the bridge deck, binoculars to their eyes, sweeping the deck. Tom and his men searched the ship for hours. There were so many places a man could hide. Countless parked vehicles, utility closets, the ’tween deck.

  In the meantime, Bruce and I drank cocoa and ate sugar cookies in the wardroom, where all the casual passengers had been sent for safety’s sake. We told them our story. Ronan sat in silence, brooding. I managed to tell my part of the tale without including how Gil bribed Roman. It would have humiliated him so.

  It was late afternoon, after we had played countless games of gin rummy and checkers, when Tom and the master came into the wardroom.

  ‘We can’t find him,’ Tom said.

  ‘But where could he be?’ Olive asked. ‘Are we in danger?’

  Tom glanced at the master, who folded his arms, his usual posture when speaking.

  ‘After Ensign Bates finished his first search of the ship, he went back to the bow to begin the search again. One of his men thought to open a metal tool chest on deck. In it were Gil’s heavy coat, his scarf and his life jacket. And there were clear marks on the rail where he’d climbed over it.’

  ‘He jumped into the ocean?’ Bruce said, his blue eyes wide. ‘But it’s so cold.’

  I’d thought the same thing. Just thinking about plunging into the freezing water, full of drifting ice, was horrible.

  ‘He killed himself, then,’ Ronan said.

  ‘Yes. I guess he preferred drowning to hanging,’ Tom said.

  When we went out on deck after breakfast the next morning, we saw land. It wasn’t emerald, but Popeye insisted it was Ireland anyhow. By early afternoon we could see Londonderry and its port. It was hardly picturesque. The port was crowded with docks, cranes, ships of all kinds and warehouses. Like Halifax, only larger.

  The Evans’ launch collected Ronan to transport him to the port while we would continue on our way to Liverpool. We all shook hands with him. When Ronan grasped my hand he palmed something into mine. When no one was looking, I opened it and found Phoebe’s ring. I slipped it back onto my right ring finger. I hadn’t regretted giving it to Ronan under the circumstances, but I was glad to have it back.

  We watched Ronan clamber down the accommodation stairs with his only suitcase, much battered and tied shut with rope. We waved and shouted goodbye to him, but he only waved back once, settling into the launch and keeping his eyes trained on the shore.

  ‘I bet,’ Bruce said, ‘that the first thing he does is buy some pipe tobacco.’

  ‘Probably so,’ I said. But I knew better. The first thing Ronan would do was find a priest and confess. After that would come the tobacco, a pint of Guinness and the bus home.

  We were quiet at dinner. The absence of Ronan and Gil was a constant reminder of the tragedy we’d all experienced. That and the two patched holes in the exterior bulwark of the wardroom, where German projectiles had pierced the metal skin of the Amelia Earhart while we were cowering under tables.

  We were lingering over our coffee when the master and Tom sat down with us. The master was in no mood for small talk. He looked me right in the eyes when he spoke.

  ‘This is what we are going to do,’ he said. ‘When we arrive in Liverpool, I am not reporting any of this to the British authorities.’

  Olive and I started to object, but he raised his hand to stop us. ‘I’m not finished yet. I’ll write a complete detailed report of what happened here, beginning with Eddie Bryant’s death and concluding when Gil went overboard. I’ll submit it both to the US Maritime Commission and the FBI. Ensign Bates will convey the information about the defective tires to the RAF and the USAAF. There is no reason to bring the British into this. I won’t have a bunch of constables crawling all over the ship and questioning us while we’re trying to unload our cargo and get to dry dock. There are ships stacked up behind us that will need our berth as soon as we can vacate it.’ He paused for a moment. ‘And you all,’ he continued, focusing his gaze on Olive and me, ‘will not speak of this to anyone.’

  I could see the wisdom in what the master said. We were an American ship, the murders took place in international waters, and the murderer was dead. I didn’t much want to be delayed once we reached port either.

  ‘Got it?’ he said. We all murmured our agreement.

  ‘I thought you might want to see this,’ Tom said. He took a small pistol out of his pocket and laid it on the table. ‘The chief steward found it when he was packing up Gil’s things.’

  It was a handsome object that had been well cared for. I picked it up. The bone handle was cracked. Where it had come into contact with Grace’s head? I gave the gun back to Tom. ‘What are you going to do with it?’ I asked.

  ‘Send it back to his family with his other things,’ Tom said. ‘It’s a family heirloom.’

  ‘Now,’ the master said, looking straight at Bruce, ‘don’t you have something to say to us, young man?’

  ‘What?’ Bruce said innocently. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘We’re now close enough to shore that we’re receiving some routine radio transmissions, like the one we got this afternoon, from the British Foreign Office, inquiring if the Honorable Bruce Beauchamp was on board. It appears that this young member of the British aristocracy, who has four names by the way – Alfred Arthur Bruce something – ran away from his American cousin’s home and is believed to be trying to make his way back to his family in England.’

  ‘Bruce!’ Blanche said. ‘You’re posh!’

  Bruce sighed heavily, as though he was confessing to something unsavory.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘My grandfather is Lord Henry Beauchamp.’

  ‘He wasn’t a don at Cambridge?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, he was,’ he said. ‘You can be both a don and an earl.’

  ‘Do you live in a castle?’ Alida asked.

  ‘I suppose you could call it that, but it’s a bloody ugly stone pile. I like the house in town better. It’s warmer. But it’s not safe right now.’

  ‘Your grandmother will meet you when we dock tomorrow,’ the master said. ‘You will be there. Understand? Your family has been worried sick about you.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Bruce said. ‘I hope it’s just Grandmother who meets me. If Grandfather comes too, I’ll be in for it.’


  Olive, Blanche and I took a final walk around the ship that night, arm and arm, wending our way around the vehicles that would carry our troops into war on the European continent. Blanche was still reserved but clearly had a huge burden lifted from her. Olive and I realized that we couldn’t exchange addresses, since neither of us knew where we’d be living, but Blanche gave us hers. We’d send our addresses to her and she would put us in touch. There was even some talk of getting together again.

  We ran into Nigel stowing away gear in a locker and we gathered around him. He looked embarrassed, as a young man might be when surrounded by chattering matronly women.

  ‘What’s going to happen to you, Nigel?’ I asked.

  ‘The master isn’t going to report me,’ he said. ‘So I’m not going to prison.’

  ‘What will you do?’ Blanche asked.

  Nigel looked at Olive.

  ‘I’m sure I can get Nigel a job,’ Olive said, ‘at whatever hospital I’m stationed at.’

  ‘She’s going to give me a reference,’ Nigel said.

  ‘I’ll give you one too,’ Blanche said.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Now I just have to figure out what to do with the rest of my life, without Grace.’

  I’d forgotten I could look like this. My hair was clean, shiny and styled. I’d exchanged the glasses I’d ruined in the salt spray for my spare pair. I wore a wool suit and matching pumps I’d saved to wear when I arrived. My last pair of hose was free of ladders. Every other article of my clothing packed in my suitcase was filthy. Filthy from salt and grime because I couldn’t wash them properly in the bathtub. I couldn’t wait to unpack the clean clothes packed in my trunk that had been banished to the hold for the entire trip.

  I’d been told a car would come for me later in the afternoon, so I watched everyone else leave. The Smits carted their luggage down the stairs where they were greeted by a dozen or so fellow Dutchmen, who hugged and kissed them, chattered in Dutch and escorted them down the dock.

  Bruce refused to let any of us kiss him goodbye, but when he saw his grandmother on the dock, he charged down the stairs and into her arms. She wore a fur coat and a diamond bracelet that gleamed even from a distance, but she hugged the boy fiercely. A chauffeur was with her. He tipped his hat to Bruce, who then shook his hand. Of course, Bruce had no luggage at all and still wore clothing from the bosun’s store. The two of them, grandmother and grandson, climbed into a waiting Bentley.