Sam looked around. “Tony! You out there?”
No reply. Just the cries of a few seagulls and the whistle of a piece of equipment out in the shipyard.
Sam reached into the Packard, took out a bag of sandwiches he had made quickly while Sarah and Toby got dressed. He went over to a path that led into the woods and, in a few moments, fashioned three sticks that pointed to the left. Another old Boy Scout message. Look to the left. And to the left, at the base of a large pine tree, he dropped the sack of sandwiches. Waited. Waited for movement out in the brush and the trees. One hand went into his coat pocket, about a set of handcuffs.
If Tony came out right now, Sam could get control of one problem. Get him back to his house, toss him in the cellar… So much going on, and to have his escapee brother roaming around…
Waited some more, checked his watch, and then went back to his Packard.
When he got to his desk, he was pleased to see that Mrs. Walton was out sick that morning. He hated having her nearby, listening in on what he was saying over the telephone, reading his notes and paperwork when he went away, and generally being the nosy woman that she was, keeping track of him and the others in The Log.
He had another pleasant surprise when he settled in his chair: an envelope on his desk with his name scribbled on the outside, and a stamped return address of Boston & Maine Railroad. Portsmouth Station. Portsmouth, N.H.
The envelope felt heavy in his hand. To do the smart thing, to be a smart fellow, would mean tossing the envelope into the trash without opening it. The case now belonged to the FBI and the Gestapo. It didn’t belong to him. But that old man, that tattooed man… Sam remembered what the medical examiner had said. Fuck ’em all. He leaned back in his chair, slit the envelope open. A thick sheaf of papers came out, with a note clipped to the top:
Sam—
Happy to get this to you quicker than I thought. Let me know if you need anything else.
Sam looked at the papers. A collection of blurry carbons listing the passenger manifest of the train from Boston to Portland, the one that just might have been carrying his John Doe.
He dialed the local four-digit number for the B&M station, and when Lowengard got on the phone, Sam told the station manager, “Pat, you did good. Thanks. The department owes you one.”
Lowengard’s voice was shaky, but he seemed happy to be praised. “So glad it worked out, Sam. Is there anything else I can do for the department?”
“Yeah, there is.”
Silence. Just the sound of the heavy man’s labored breathing.
“Only a question, Pat. According to the new internal transport laws, there’s got to be a manifest for the passengers, right? And the manifest is checked by a railroad cop assigned to that particular train?”
“That’s right,” Pat said carefully.
“Good. Now. According to the law, shouldn’t the manifest be checked when the train arrives? To match the number of people getting off the train against the master list?”
“Sam, please don’t hold me to this… I really don’t want to say anymore. I mean, look, I’m in an awkward position and…”
“Pat, whatever it is, you won’t be in trouble from me. I’m just trying to find out if my John Doe got tossed off that train to Portland. If there’s a name on the list that didn’t get checked off in Portland, then there’s a pretty good chance that’s my man.”
No answer.
Sam said, “Things get busy, don’t they? Paperwork gets sloppy. Train pulls in late, nobody wants to hold up the passengers, checking off names. So people look the other way. Maybe there’s a favor. Someone doesn’t even make the list. A good guess?”
“A very good guess, Sam.”
“Then tell me who to call up there in Portland, your counterpart. On the off chance that the paperwork was done right.”
“George Culley,” the station master said. “He should be able to help you.”
“Thanks, Pat.” But by then Sam was talking to a dead phone.
Sam took a quick bathroom break and then came back to his office, saw a note among the papers. It was from Sean Donovan, records clerk, and all it said was See me ASAP, v. important, Sean. Sam called down to the records department. No one picked up the phone.
Later, then, for now it was time for real police work. After going through the local New England Telephone operator, getting a long-distance line, he got hold of George Culley of the Portland office of the Boston & Maine. Culley’s tough Maine voice sounded as though he belonged on a lobster boat and not in a train station, but when Sam told him what he needed, the Mainer’s voice became conspiratorial, like that of a child who had spent too much time listening to Dick Tracy.
“Really?” George asked. “A murder investigation?”
“That’s right,” Sam said. “I believe the murdered man was on the express from Boston to Portland three days ago. I have the manifest of those passengers who boarded in Boston. If you have the manifest of the departing passengers, then—”
“Then we can find out who didn’t get checked out up in Portland, and you know who your dead man is! Hold on, let me get that paperwork.”
There was a thud of the phone being dropped. Sam looked about his tiny work area and was thankful again that Mrs. Walton was out.
“All right,” George said.
“I’ve counted the number of passengers on this manifest, and I came up with a hundred and twelve. What do you have?”
He could hear Culley murmuring, and then his voice came back, excited. “One hundred eleven. I counted it twice. One hundred eleven. So my manifest must have your John Doe.”
“Okay, let’s start, and remember, just the male names. Don’t need the females.”
“Sure,” George said. “First name on the list, Saul Aaron.”
Sam looked at the blurry carbon. “Check.”
“Okay, Vernon Aaron.”
“Check.”
Sam yawned. It was going to be a long afternoon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
About thirty-five minutes later, they found it.
“Wynn. Roscoe Wynn.” George’s voice sounded tired.
Sam rubbed at his eyes, looked again.
“Repeat that, George? What was that name?”
“Wynn. Roscoe Wynn. With a Y.”
He checked the fuzzy letters once more. There was a Roscoe Wynn, but another name was listed before it.
“Not Wotan? Peter Wotan?”
“No. It goes from Williams to Wynn. No Wotan. You think that’s it?”
“Not yet,” Sam said. “Let’s be thorough. It looks like there’s only a dozen left.”
Which was true, but at the end, as he felt a thrill of excitement course through him like a drink of cold water on a hot day, he knew who his dead man was.
Peter Wotan.
No longer John Doe.
Sam looked at the list again.
Peter Wotan.
Let’s find out who you are, he decided.
An hour later, he didn’t know very much more.
Using the long-distance operators, calls to the B&M office in Boston confirmed that Peter Wotan had boarded the express train from there to Portland. Sam even got a home address, 412 West Thirty-second Street, Apartment Four, in New York City. But a series of additional operator-assisted long-distance calls to various police precincts in New York City—he shuddered to think of what Mrs. Walton would say about next month’s long-distance bill—revealed that the address was a fake.
Fake address.