Partial transcript, phone call received 01 May 1943, FBI Officer in Charge, Boston Field Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation, from Confidential Informant “Charlie”:
CI Charlie: …sorry, it didn’t work out.
FBI OIC: What do you mean it didn’t work out?
CI Charlie: It didn’t work out. He’s dead. That’s it.
FBI OIC: Did you recover anything from the body?
CI Charlie: Not a goddamn thing.
FBI OIC: Were you seen?
CI Charlie: I don’t think so.
FBI OIC: There’s going to be hell to pay.
CI Charlie: Tell me about it.
FBI OIC: And you should know, something huge is coming down the pike in less than a week and in your neck of the woods. You and your crew better be ready. You can’t afford to screw up again or you’ll be a dead man for sure, along with whoever else gets in the way or screws up.
CI Charlie: But there’s going to be a police presence on this, I’m sure—
FBI OIC: What, you think a local police badge protects anyone nowadays?
CI Charlie: Oh, Christ.
CHAPTER ONE
Through the gloom and driving rain, Inspector Sam Miller glimpsed the dead man sprawled beside the railroad tracks, illuminated by the dancing glow from flashlights held by two other Portsmouth police officers. Sam had his own RayoVac out, lighting up the gravel path alongside the B&M tracks. The metal flashlight was chilly in his hand, and a previously broken finger was throbbing. It was raw and cold and he was hungry, having been called out just as he sat down to supper, but dead bodies demanded the presence of a police inspector, and Sam was the only inspector the department had.
Minutes earlier he had parked his Packard next to a Portsmouth police cruiser, back at the nearest spot open to the tracks, the dirt parking lot of the Fish Shanty restaurant. In his short walk to the scene, he had gotten soaked from the rain, and his shoes were sloppy with mud. His umbrella was safe and dry back home. The two police officers waited, flashlights angled, black slickers shiny with rain.
The path was getting rougher, and he had to watch his step past the wooden ties. When he was young, he’d found railroads exciting, romantic and adventurous. In the bedroom he shared with his brother, late at night, the steam whistle would make him think of all the places out there he’d visit. But that was a long time ago. Now trains still did their work, but the passenger trains were crowded, tramps often overwhelmed freight cars, and there were other, secretive trains out there that spooked him and so many others.
Near the two cops standing in the middle of the tracks was another figure, hunched over in the rain. Beyond the tracks, grass and brush stretched out about twenty feet to the rear of some warehouses and storage buildings. To the right, another expanse of grass melted into marshland and North Mill Pond, a tributary from the Portsmouth harbor. Farther down the tracks, Sam saw the flickering lights of a hobo encampment, like the campfires from some defeated army, always in retreat.
Thirty minutes earlier he had been dozing on the couch—half-listening to the radio, half-listening, too, to Sarah talking to Toby, warm and comfortable, feet stretched out on an old ottoman, and he had been… well, if not dreaming, then just remembering. He wasn’t sure why—and maybe it was the onset of his finger aching as the temperature dropped—but he was remembering that muddy day on the football field of Portsmouth High School in the finals of the state championship in November, he the first-string quarterback… an overcast autumn day ten years ago, wind like a knife edge with the salt tang from the harbor… the wooden bleachers crowded with his neighbors and schoolmates… slogging through the muddy field, aching, face bruised, and the first finger of his right hand taped after an earlier tackle, no doubt broken, but he wasn’t going to be pulled out, no sir… down by three points against Dover, their longtime rival… knowing that a pretty cheerleader named Sarah Young was watching him from the sidelines, and Mom, Dad, and his older brother, Tony, were there, too, in the nearest row of the stands, the first time Tony and Dad had ever come to one of his games.
Slog, slog, slog… minutes racing away… only seconds left… and then an opening, a burst of light, he got the ball tight under his arm, raced to the left, his finger throbbing something awful… dodging, dodging, focusing on the goalposts… a hard tackle from behind… a faceful of cold mud… his taped finger screaming at him… and then quiet, just for an instant, before the whistles blew and the cheers erupted.
He scrambled up, breathing hard, ball still in his hands, seeing the scoreboard change, seeing the hand of the clock sweep by, and then a gunshot… game over. Portsmouth had won… Portsmouth had won the state championship.
Chaos… shouts… cheers… slaps on the back… being jostled around… looking at the people, his high school, his playing field… pushing… taking off the snug leather helmet, his hair sweaty… and there, Mom clapping, her face alight, and Dad had his arm around Tony’s shoulders, Tony standing there, grinning… Mom saying something, but he was staring at Dad, waiting, desperate for him to say something, anything, as so many hands patted his back… hands trying to get the game ball away from him… his broken finger throbbing.
Then Dad spoke, and Sam could smell the Irish whiskey on his breath. “Great news, boy, great news! Tony got into the apprenticeship program at the shipyard. Like father, like son… ain’t that great?”
Sam’s eyes teared up. “We won,” he said, despising himself for the humiliation in each word. “We won.”
Dad squeezed Tony’s shoulder. “But that’s just a game. Our Tony, he’s got a future now… a real future.”
And that winning, confident grin of Tony the school dropout, Tony the hell-raiser and hunter, Tony whom Dad cared about… not the other son, the winning football hero, the Eagle Scout, the one who—
A series of bells rang somewhere. Something nudged his foot. Sam opened his eyes.
“That was the station,” Sarah said. “Someone’s found a body.”
The taller cop said, “Sorry to get you wet, Sam. You okay with that?” His companion laughed. The tall cop was Frank Reardon, and his shorter and younger partner was Leo Gray. The third man stood behind them, silent, arms folded, shivering.
“I’ll be just fine,” Sam answered. The body beside the tracks was splayed out like a starfish, mouth open to the falling rain, eyes closed. The man had on black shoes and dark slacks and a white shirt and a dark suit coat. No necktie. No overcoat. Sam stepped closer, stopped at the gravel edge of the tracks. The man lay on a stretch of ground that was a smooth outcropping of mud, with just a few tufts of faded grass.
“How long have you been here?” Sam asked Frank.
“ ’Bout ten minutes. Just long enough to make sure there was something here.”
“That our witness?”
“Yeah.” Frank grabbed the third man by the elbow and tugged him forward. “Lou Purdue, age fifty. Claims he found the body about an hour ago.”
“An hour?” Sam asked. “That’s a long time. Why did it take you so long to call us?”
Purdue was bearded and smiled with embarrassment, revealing bad teeth. He wore a tattered wool watch cap and a long army overcoat missing buttons and held together with safety pins. “I tried, I really tried.” His voice was surprisingly deep. “But the Shanty place, I went there and asked them to call, and they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t even give me a nickel for the pay phone. So I went out in the street and waited till I saw a cop car come by. I waved them down, that’s what I did.”