Sam asked Frank Reardon, “That true?”
“Yeah, Sam. Almost ran over the poor bastard. Said there was a dead guy by the tracks, we had to come up to see it. We came up, saw what was what, then I sent Leo back to make the call. And here you are. Pulled you away from dinner, I bet.”
“That’s right,” Sam said, playing the beam from the flashlight over the body. The man’s clothes were soaked through, and he felt a flicker of disquiet, seeing the falling rain splatter over the frozen features, the skin wet and ghostly white.
The younger cop piped up. “Who was there? The mayor?”
Sam tightened his grip on his flashlight, then turned and played the beam over Leo Gray’s face. The young cop was smiling but closed his eyes against the glare. “No, Leo. The mayor wasn’t there. Your wife was there. And we were having a nice little chat about how she peddles her ass to pipefitters from the shipyard ’cause you waste so much money on the ponies at Rockingham. Then I told her I’d arrest her if I ever saw her on Daniel Street at night again.”
Frank laughed softly, and Leo opened his eyes and lowered his head. Sam, feeling a flash of anger at losing his temper to the young punk because of his father-in-law, turned back to the witness. “How’d you find the body?”
Purdue wiped at his runny nose. “I was walking the tracks. Sometimes you can find lumps of coal, you know? They fall off the coal cars as they pass through, and I bring ’em back. That’s when I saw him over there. I figured he was drunk or something, and I kept trying to wake him up by callin’ to him, and he didn’t move.”
“Did you touch the body?”
Purdue shook his head violently. “Nope. Not going to happen. Saw lots of dead men back in the Great War, in the mud and the trenches. I know what they look like. Don’t need to see anyone up close. No sir.”
The wind gusted some and Purdue rubbed his arms, shivering again, despite the tattered army overcoat. Sam looked back at the Fish Shanty, saw a flashlight bobbing toward them from the parking lot. “What’s your address?” he asked Purdue.
“None, really. I’m staying with some friends… you know.” He gestured to the other end of the tracks, where the hobo encampment was clustered near a maple grove. “Originally from Troy. New York.”
“How did you end up here?”
“Heard a story that the shipyard might be hiring. That they needed strong hands, guys who could take orders. I took orders plenty well in the army, and I figured it was best to come out here. Maybe they’d be a veteran’s preference. So far—well, no luck. But my name’s on the list. I go over every week, make sure my name’s still there. You know how it goes.”
Sam knew, and spared a glance at the lights staining the eastern horizon. The federal Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, set on an island in the middle of the Piscataqua River, an island claimed bitterly by both New Hampshire and Maine for tax purposes, and busily churning out submarines for the slowly expanding U.S. Navy. The world was at war again, decades after this filthy soul before him and Sam’s father had suffered to make the world safe for democracy. Some safety.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “I know. I might need to talk to you again. How can I do that?”
“The place—you know the place down there. Just ask for me. Lou from Troy. I can be found pretty easy, don’t you worry.”
“I won’t. Hold on.” Sam reached under his coat, took out his wallet, and slipped a dollar bill out of the billfold, along with his business card. He folded the dollar bill over the card and passed it to the soaked and trembling man. “Go get some soup or coffee to warm up, okay? Thanks for grabbing a cop, and thanks for not disturbing the body. And call me if you think of anything else.”
The dollar bill vanished into the man’s hand. He snickered and walked in the direction of the camp, calling back through the darkness, “Hell, a damn thing for that guy to end up dead. But hell. That’s a lucky walk, you’ve got to say, finding a body like that and making a buck… a hell of a lucky walk.”
Frank shuffled his feet, “So the bum gets to go someplace dry. You gonna look at the dead guy some, or you gonna keep us freezing out here?”
“Going to wait a bit longer,” Sam replied. “Don’t worry. The coffee and chowder will be waiting for you, no matter the time.”
“What are you waiting for, then?”
“To record history, Leo, before we disturb it. That’s what.”
Frank muttered, “Ah, screw history.”
“You got that wrong, Frank,” Sam said. “You can’t screw history, but history can always screw you.”
Another minute or two passed. From the distance, near where the fires of the hobo camp flickered, came a hollow boom, and then another.
“Sounds like a gunshot, don’t it,” Frank said, his voice uneasy.
The younger cop laughed. “Maybe somebody just shot that hobo for the dollar you gave him.”
Sam looked to the thin flames from the hobo camp. He and the other cops stayed clear of the camps, especially at night. Too many shadows, and too many angry men with knives or clubs or firearms lived in those shadows. He cleared his throat. “We got one dead man here. If another one appears later, we’ll take care of it. In the meantime, you guys looking for extra work?”
The other cops just hunched their shoulders up against the driving rain, stayed quiet. That was the way of their world, Sam thought. Just do your job and keep your mouth shut. Anything else was too dangerous.
CHAPTER TWO
From the rainy gloom, another man stumbled toward them, swearing loudly, carrying a leather case over his shoulder, like one of the hordes of unemployed men who went door-to-door during this second decade of the Great Depression, peddling hairbrushes, toothbrushes, shoelaces. But this man was Ralph Morancy, a photographer for the Portsmouth Herald and sometime photographer for the Portsmouth Police Department.
He dropped the case on the railroad ties and said, “Inspector Miller. Haven’t seen you since your promotion from sergeant to inspector, when I took that lovely page-one photo of you, your wife, the police marshal, and our mayor.”
Sam said, “That’s right. A lovely photo indeed. And I’m still waiting for the copy you promised me.”
Ralph spat as he removed his Speed Graphic camera from the case. “Lots of people ahead of you. Can’t do your photo and be accused of favoritism, now, can I?”
“I guess not. I remember how long it took you to get me another copy of a photograph, back when I was in high school.”
The older man rummaged through his case, clumsily sheltering it from the rain with his body. “Ah, yes, our star quarterback, back when Portsmouth won the championship. How long did it take for me back then?”
“A year.”
“Well, I promise to be quicker this time.”
Sam said, “Just take the damn photos, all right?”
Ralph put a flashbulb in the camera with ease, like a magician performing the same trick for the thousandth time. “Anything special, Inspector?”
“The usual body shots. I also want the ground around the body.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I want photos of what’s not there,” Sam said.
Frank Reardon stirred. “What’s not there? What kind of crap is that?”
Sam played the flashlight beam around the corpse, the raindrops sparking in the light. “What do you see around the body?”
“Nothing,” Leo said. “Mud and grass.”
“Right,” Sam said. “No footprints. No drag marks. No sign of a struggle. Just a body plopped down in the mud, like he dropped from the sky. And I want to make sure we get the photos before the body’s moved.”