"Some treasure hunters think they're going to find cannonballs, old ship bells and whatnot in waters around here."
We were standing between the cargo ship El Paso and the submarine Exploiter, both of them lusterless and rigid in the river. The water looked like cappuccino, and I realized that visibility was going to be even worse than I had feared. Near the submarine, there was a dive platform. But I saw no sign of the victim or the rescuers and police supposedly working his death. I asked Green about this as wind blowing off the water numbed my face, and his reply was to give me his back again.
"Look, I can't be here all day waiting for Stu," he said to a man in coveralls and a filthy ski jacket.
"We could haul Bo's butt in here, Cap'n," was the reply.
"No way Jose," Green said, and he seemed quite familiar with these shipyard men. "No point in calling that boy."
Hell," said another man with a long tangled beard.
We all know he ain't gonna be sober this late in the morning."
"Well, now if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black," Green said, and all of them laughed.
The bearded man had a complexion like raw hamburger.
He slyly eyed me as he lit a cigarette, shielding it from the wind in rough bare hands.
"I hadn't had a drink since yesterday. Not even water," he swore as his mates laughed some more. "Damn, it's cold as a witch's titty." He hugged himself. "I should'a wore a better coat."
"I tell you what's cold is that one over yonder." Another worker spoke, dentures clicking as he talked about what I realized was the dead diver. "Now that boy's cold."
"He don't feel it now."
I controlled my mounting irritation as I said to Green, "I know you're eager to get started, and so am I. But I don't see any rescuers or police. I haven't seen the johnboat or the area of the river where the body is located."
I felt half a dozen pairs of eyes on me, and I scanned the eroded faces of what easily could have been a small band of pirates dressed for modern times. I was not invited into their secret club and was reminded of those early years when rudeness and isolation could still make me cry.
Green finally answered, "The police are inside using the phones. In the main building there, the one with the big anchor in front. The divers are probably in there too staying warm. The rescue squad is at a landing on the other side of the river where they've been waiting for you to get here.
And you might be interested in knowing that this same landing is where the police just found a truck and trailer they believe belonged to the deceased. If you follow me."
He began walking. "I'll show you the location you're interested in. I understand you plan on going in with the other divers."
"That's right." I walked with him along the pier.
"I sure as hell don't know what you expect to see."
"I learned long ago to have no expectations, Captain Green."
As we passed old, tired ships, I noticed many fine metal lines leading from them into the water. "What are those?" I asked.
"CPs-cathodic protectors," he answered. "They're electrically charged to reduce corrosion."
"I certainly hope someone has turned them off."
"An electrician's on the way. He'll turn off the whole pier."
"So the diver could have run into CPs. I doubt it would have been easy to see them."
"It wouldn't matter. The charge is very mild," he said as if anyone should know that. "It's like getting zapped with a nine-volt battery. CPs didn't kill him. You can already mark that one off your list."
We had stopped at the end of the pier where the rear of the partially submerged submarine was in plain view. Anchored no more than twenty feet from it was the dark green aluminum johnboat with its long black hose leading from the compressor, which was nestled in an inner tube on the passenger's side. The floor of the boat was scattered with tools, scuba equipment and other objects that I suspected had been rather carelessly gone through by someone. My chest tightened, for I was angrier than I would show.
"He probably just drowned," Green was saying. "Almost every diving death I've seen was a drowning. You die in water as shallow as this, that's what it's going to be."
"I certainly find his equipment unusual." I ignored his medical pontifications.
He stared at the johnboat barely stirred by the current.
"A hookah. Yeah, it's unusual for around here."
"Was it running when the boat was found?"
"Out of gas."
"What can you tell me about it? Homemade?"
"Commercial," he said. "A five-horsepower gasoline driven compressor that draws in surface air through a lowpressure hose connected to a second-stage regulator. He could have stayed down four, five hours. As long as his fuel lasted." He continued to stare off.
"Four or five hours? For what?" I looked at him. "I can understand that if you're collecting lobsters or abalone.
He was silent.
"What is down there?" I said. "And don't tell me Civil War artifacts because we both know you're not going to find those here."
"In truth, not a damn thing's down there."
"Well," I said, "he thought something was."
"Unfortunately for him, he thought wrong. Look at those clouds moving in. We're definitely going to get it." He flipped his coat collar up around his ears. "I assume you're a certified diver."
"For many years."
"I'm going to need to see your dive card."
I looked out at the johnboat and the submarine nearby as I wondered just how uncooperative these people intended to be.
"You've got to have that with you if you're going in," he said. "I thought you would have known that."
"And I thought the military did not run this shipyard."
"I know the rules here. It doesn't matter who runs it."
He stared at me.
"I see." I stared back. "And I suppose I'm going to need a permit if I want to park my car on this pier so I don't have to carry my gear half a mile."
"You do need a permit to park on the pier."
"Well, I don't have one of those. I don't have my PADI advanced and rescue dive cards or my dive log. I don't have my licenses to practice medicine in Virginia, Maryland or Florida."
I spoke very smoothly and quietly, and because he could not rattle me, he became more determined. He blinked several times, and I could feel his hate.
"This is the last time I'm going to ask you to allow me to do my job," I went on. "We have an unnatural death here that is in my jurisdiction. If you would rather not cooperate, I will be happy to call the state police, the U.S. Marshal, FBI. Your choice. I can probably get somebody here in twenty minutes. I've got my portable phone right here in my pocket." I patted it.
"You want to dive-he shrugged-then go right ahead. But you'll have to sign a waiver relieving the shipyard of any responsibility, should something unfortunate happen. And I seriously doubt there are any forms like that here."
"I see. Now I need to sign something you don't have."
"That's correct."
"Fine," I said. "Then I'll just draft a waiver for you."
"A lawyer would have to do that, and it's a holiday."
"I am a lawyer and I work on holidays."
His jaw muscles knotted, and I knew he wasn't going to bother with any forms now that it was possible to have one.
We started walking back, and my stomach tightened with dread. I did not want to make this dive and I did not like the people I had encountered this day. Certainly, I had gotten entangled in bureaucratic barbed wire before when cases involved government or big business. But this was different.
"Tell me something," Green spoke again in his scornful tone, "do chief medical examiners always personally go in after bodies?"