"For openers," I said tersely, "an investigation into the circumstances of his death-which I understand is your job."
He didn't like that, but at least it got his attention. His jaw muscles tightened, and his light brown eyes glinted. "Where did you get that idea?"
"From people who claim it isn't their job-local cops, and presumably the state police, since they never showed up. I haven't checked with the FBI, CIA, or United Nations, but I'm sure they'd tell me the same thing-that whatever happens on the Hudson is your jurisdiction."
"You want to know what my job is, Frederickson? I'll tell you. This is the largest operational command in the Coast Guard. Six thousand ships a year pass through this harbor. I'm responsible for monitoring oil spills, polluters-"
"Aha," Garth said with quiet intensity.
"And a few other little things. It's our responsibility to enforce the laws of marine navigation; we're responsible for averting terrorist threats. I command three hundred and forty men and women, and thirty-two ships on the Hudson River all the way from this port up to the Canadian border. Now, gentlemen, we love the environment, the seas and rivers, as much as the next person-probably more, or we wouldn't have chosen to serve in the Coast Guard. But we're not an arm of the Environmental Protection Agency; we're armed forces. We're not pollution detectives. We don't have the manpower. One of Tom Blaine's problems was that he thought we should be pollution detectives, and that we should spend all our time helping him clean up his relatively small bailiwick up there around Cairn. If you've got a major oil spill from a tanker, we'll be on the scene in minutes; but if I had to cooperate with every environmentalist, every individual who brought in a lab report about some bad water and asked us to do something about it, there wouldn't be enough hours in the day to do that work, much less carry out our mandated responsibilities. Blaine wouldn't accept that position, and I finally had to bar him from this facility and stop our people from taking his phone calls-not because I wanted to, but because I had to. The reason your local police don't want to handle it is because they have to answer to the local politicians, and the politicians don't want to rattle the cages of the local industries that pay a lot in school and property taxes. In short, if you want something done about a minor pollution problem upriver, you're going to have to rattle the politicians' cages, not mine. I'm not saying that whatever's on those sheets doesn't represent a real problem; you're just going to have to take it someplace other than the Coast Guard."
"This may be more than just a minor pollution problem, Captain," Garth said quietly. "Tom Blaine was killed collecting samples like those. Maybe he was murdered."
"Murdered?" Marley said it as if the word itself had a bad taste.
I stepped closer to the edge of the desk. "Yes, Captain. Tom wasn't stupid enough to dive under a moving ship. There would be no reason for an oil tanker captain to power up the props while he was at anchor and flushing out his tanks."
"Who says Blaine was killed by an oil tanker, and who says a captain was flushing out his tanks in the river?"
"It's the conclusion the chemical analyses on those printouts points to-if you'd care to look at them." I paused, waiting to see what the Coast Guard commander would do. He glanced at the sheets, then looked back at me. I continued, "Garth and I think there's a good possibility that a captain of an oil tanker turned on the engines of his ship, knowing Tom would be killed, to stop Tom from collecting samples of what that captain was dumping in the river. If you'll look at those printouts, you'll see there was all kinds of toxic crap in the samples. I take it flushing out tanks in an inland waterway is illegal, right?"
Captain Richard Marley ran a hand through his thick brown hair, which immediately sprang back into place. "I think you're looking at the problem from the wrong end, Frederickson, and it's leading you to make unwarranted conclusions. A certain amount of leakage from bilge and ballast tanks is unavoidable-even though Tom Blaine would certainly have argued otherwise. There would be absolutely no reason for a tanker captain to risk a fine by flushing out his tanks in the river, because he'd have nothing to gain; he has nothing to transport back to the refinery in those flushed tanks. He delivers oil, then goes back to his shipping point in the Middle East, or wherever, to pick up another load. He has an entire ocean voyage to wash out ail his tanks at his leisure."
Garth said, "Maybe he was taking a load of something out."
Marley extended his hands out over his desk, palms up. "What? The industries up the river are users of oil, not suppliers. You know how many millions of gallons those tankers can hold? They're not used for carrying seltzer. There aren't any chemical plants up there with either a capacity or product that requires tanker transport; barges, yes, but not tankers. That's what's wrong with your speculation. For the sake of argument, let's suppose a captain did flush his tanks in the river-maybe by accident, since I can't think of any reason for it. You think a captain is going to murder a man over what amounts to a relatively minor infraction? It would be like killing a traffic cop over a parking ticket. I find it highly unlikely."
"My brother and I would just like to make sure, Captain," Garth said in a flat tone.
"Look, I have no doubt that Tom Blaine was investigating something he considered important, and gathering evidence he hoped his employers could use in court. He was always investigating something; it was his job, and he loved it. But that doesn't mean there's a connection between what he was looking into and the fact that he was run over by a very big ship. You use the word 'murder,' but my guess is that the captain of whatever vessel killed him wasn't even aware of what had happened. He still isn't. And if he doesn't know what happened, then it's damned unlikely that you're ever going to be able to identify with any certainty the ship that was involved. That leaves you with whatever data you've got on these computer printouts you've brought me. I'm not unconcerned about whatever pollution violations may have occurred, gentlemen, but I can't set a precedent by doing for you what I wouldn't do for other people who came here with similar requests-as much as I personally might want to. I know who the two of you are, and your reputations truly precede you. It's why I agreed to meet with you personally. My recommendation is that you approach the appropriate New York State authorities with whatever you think the problem may be-pollution, or murder, or both."
So much for our visit to the Coast Guard. "Captain," I said, "I presume you keep a log of every commercial vessel that passes in and out of this harbor?"
He nodded curtly. "Each and every one."
I took a pad and pen out of my pocket, wrote down two weeks' worth of dates, put the paper down on the captain's desk, literally under his nose. "Sir, there's a time frame around the Tuesday night the medical examiner thinks Tom died. Would you be willing to give us the names and registration numbers of the oil tankers that were on the Hudson River on those dates?"
"No," he replied immediately, as he pushed the paper away from him.
"My brother and I are private investigators licensed by the state of New York, Captain. This is business, not a personal favor. Our licenses entitle us to certain privileges and courtesies from both state and federal agencies. You can check with any agency we've ever dealt with in the city, state, or federal government. You'll find that not everybody likes us, especially in this administration, but I think you'll also find that they all have respect for the way we deal with information, privileged or otherwise, that comes our way in the course of our business. We won't embarrass you."