"Carver Shipping."
"You may have come to the wrong person, Frederickson. I'm retired. I took the company public a while back, sold it. I retain a substantial portion of stock, but I have nothing to do with the day-to-day operations of the company. It's run by a board of directors. I have no duties. Aside from the rights due any stockholder, I have no power, no say."
"I understand, sir, but I suspect that you have a continuing interest in the company you founded, and that interest is more than purely financial. You seem to be a man who takes pride in the things he creates, and would be concerned with how something he had created was being managed by its current caretakers."
"That's true. What's your point, Frederickson?"
"Carver Shipping's tankers are illegally washing out their bilge, ballast, and storage tanks in the river after they unload their shipments of oil. Then they're refilling those tanks with river water, which they're probably selling in the Middle East-most likely to Kuwait. I can't prove if, or where, they're selling it, but I can show that the tankers are loading up on water. In fact, there's one across the river doing it right now-or about to do it. If you care to check it out, all you have to do is watch out your window for a few minutes, while there's still light." I paused, reached into my jacket pocket, withdrew the packet of photographs I had brought with me, handed it to him. "Those are before and after pictures of Carver Shipping tankers-heading upriver to deliver their oil cargoes, heading downriver after. As you can see, they're all riding just as low in the water going as coming. They're carrying something back with them, and the only thing it could be is river water."
Bennett Carver looked through the photographs, then set them down on a glass-topped coffee table to his left. Then he looked back at me. He definitely did not seem impressed. "Water? The important thing you wanted to talk to me about is tankers carrying river water?"
"You don't seem to take it very seriously."
"I'm not sure just what there is to be taken seriously. River water? Do you anticipate a shortage?"
"The water isn't theirs to take and sell, Mr. Carver. It belongs to all of us. And they pollute the river when they flush their tanks to take it on."
"Have you notified the Coast Guard?"
"They don't take it seriously either-or they don't take it seriously enough. I got the impression they feel they have more important things to worry about."
The silver-haired man with the pale green eyes thought about it awhile, then said, "Assuming they are shipping the water to Kuwait, or some other Middle Eastern nation that needs it, some people might call it a worthwhile endeavor. It may even be legal."
"I doubt very much that selling a public resource for private profit is legal, Mr. Carver. It's easy enough to check out. But washing out their tanks in the river is definitely illegal. You live on the river, and I'm frankly surprised you aren't offended that somebody's dumping toxic chemicals in your backyard."
The old man flushed, and anger gleamed in his bright eyes. "You're out of line, Frederickson. I was living in Cairn, on this river, before you were born. My father and grandfather were fishermen, and our family lived in a shack that stood on this very property. So don't tell me I don't care about environmental matters. Ask the local fishermen who contributed large sums to their association, to the Clearwater, and just about every other environmental group you can name that's been set up to protect this river. I have lent support to legislation that adversely affected my own company's operations and profits."
"But you're not running things any longer, Mr. Carver, and it looks to me like the people who are in charge now aren't following the same enlightened policies you did. I'm here speaking to you because I thought you might still care about the image of the company, and might still have enough influence to get them to stop what they're doing."
"Will you take these photographs to the press?"
"The thought had crossed my mind."
"What makes you think anybody would be interested?"
"I'm not sure anybody will be. But a thing like this can sometimes create quite a stir of bad publicity for a company, and this company still bears your family name."
He grunted, nodded curtly. "I'll make a deal with you. I'll place a couple of calls to look into this matter, see what the story is. When I have the information, I'll get back to you. Is that good enough for you?"
"I'm afraid not, Mr. Carver. I think you're going to be unpleasantly surprised at how difficult it's going to be to get answers out of those people. They're going to be downright upset when you bring up the subject."
"What are you talking about?"
"There's more to it."
"What?"
"Tom Blaine, the riverkeeper. He-"
"I knew Tom well, Frederickson. He was a deacon in our church. That was a terrible thing, the accident that happened to him."
"I don't think it was an accident, Mr. Carver. At the time he died, Tom was working hard to gather enough evidence against Carver Shipping to force the Coast Guard and other authorities to take action. Some of the ships must wash out and refill their tanks at night, so Tom was diving at night. He was underneath a tanker, taking samples as the pollutants were being flushed, before they could be diluted in the river. I believe somebody on board that tanker, probably the captain, knew or was tipped off that Tom was diving that night, and he started up the main engines while Tom was under the ship. That's called murder."
"That's utterly absurd, Frederickson. Do you believe anybody, much less a licensed captain, would kill a man over a boatload of river water?"
"People have killed other people over a lot less. And we're talking about lots of boatloads of river water over an unspecified period of time, profits earned that may not be recorded on the company's books, maybe unpaid taxes. The federal government may not give a damn about them heisting water, but tax evasion is a whole different matter. Besides, the captain of this particular tanker-the one that's parked across the river right now-has a lot to hide. He's a drunk. My brother checked with Motor Vehicles, and it turns out he lost his driver's license in Connecticut, where he happens to live. He's been involved in oil spills, and he just might have been afraid that, if he got caught, he'd be made the fall guy for the whole illegal operation. Maybe he panicked; maybe somebody intimidated him. I don't know. But I do intend to find out exactly what happened."
"Have you gone to the police or Coast Guard about this particular. . theory?"
"When it comes to things floating, sailing, and motoring on that river out there, it's very difficult to get the police in any one section to say, 'Oh, yeah, we'll look into that.' It seems that whatever happens on the river is someone else's responsibility. The Coast Guard is the one agency with undisputed jurisdiction on the entire length of the Hudson, but right now they're acting like they don't want to be bothered."
"Obviously because they don't believe anybody's been murdered."
"Yeah, well, the fact that the particular tanker that probably killed Tom is moored across the river right now lends the matter a certain sense of urgency, Mr. Carver. I have reason to believe that the captain who was in command of that ship on the night Tom was killed is on board now. I'd very much like to interview him before he leaves."
"Do you actually believe he would admit to starting up his engines while there was a diver under his ship?"
"I don't know what he'll admit to before I talk to him, Mr. Carver. I just want to hear what he has to say about the whole affair. Once he leaves, I assume it will be another month or more before he comes back again. I'd like to talk to him now, before any of this other information becomes public, before you talk to any of his superiors."
"You intend to just walk up to the man and ask him if he's guilty of murder?"