“Going through with a convoy, I suppose. War supplies for Murmansk. That’s where he expected to go when he left, — but he couldn’t have made it over and back on a freighter in this time. I expect the convoy was sent somewhere else after it reached the assembly port, — and now he’s going to start all over again.”
“Happens once in a while. What was his ship?”
“He didn’t tell me; he wasn’t supposed to talk about it.” She bent her head, lifted one arm to brush a spattering of gray from her cheek. “Do you think a man who went to sea over the bitter objections of his family — because he thinks it is the one thing he can do best in the war — is the sort who’d be a murderer?”
Koski blew smoke at a stone statuette of a hip-booted clam-digger. “Maybe some of these psychiatric sharps could tell you who’s likely to be a killer. I can’t. Plenty of people who wind up behind a homicide eight-ball couldn’t be classed as criminals, — until after the fact.”
“I understand that.” Her face was impassive; only the speed with which her fingers patted the clay into shape showed the tension she was under. “If a man got angry suddenly—”
He shook his head, briefly. “This wasn’t one of those. Guy hotheaded enough to commit manslaughter offhand wouldn’t go to the trouble of dismembering his victim afterwards.”
Ellen laid the spatula carefully on an up-ended orange crate. “That’s what I meant Merrill couldn’t have done that.” She indicated the row of portrait busts. “It’s my business to know something about men, — what sort of human beings they are, underneath their habits, their prejudices, the masks they wear in front of people. Without that, it’s no good starting a sitting.”
He waited, worrying the pipe-stem between his teeth.
“I know Merrill. He could no more do a horrible thing like that than be one of Hitler’s storm-troopers.” She flipped the muslin drape back off the life-size figure. “See for yourself.”
The statue was that of a sailor on lookout, one hand gripping the ship’s bulwark, the other shading his eyes. He wore cloth cap and pea-jacket; leaned into the wind, chin outthrust. It was a strong, hard, youthful face with boldness and perhaps a little bitterness stamped into the firm mouth and prominent nose.
Koski had known plenty of seamen like that; this had the flavor of salt spray in a force five breeze. “You’re good, Miss Wyatt.”
“If this is good, it’s because I’ve caught Merrill as he is. Perhaps not as some people know him, but the sort of individual that’s actually there.”
“Is it life-size?”
She held up a pair of huge calipers. “Every measurement is exact. It’s the only way I can work.”
“Probably a swell likeness. But I can’t carry it around in my pocket.”
She didn’t understand.
“You may be right about his not having anything to do with this dead man. But I have to make sure; I have to put him through a true-or-false. He might show up here, as per telegram, — but I can’t depend on that. So I have to send out an alarm. With a description. I doubt if the Commissioner would stand for the expense of running off a few hundred copies of your statue.”
“Oh, I see.” Ellen hesitated a moment, went behind the table, to a trunk. “Here are some stills from a sixteen-millimeter film a friend of ours took.” She handed over a half-dozen glossy miniatures. “Posture studies. Some of them don’t show his face.”
“These ought to do it. I won’t tell him I got them.”
She smiled. “I will. I’m not afraid he’s done anything so very wrong. So I don’t mind helping you to find him. But I expect — he’ll be here before you can get those reproduced...” Ellen stopped, listening to heavy footsteps coming up the stairs.
Koski wandered casually toward the door.
It banged back on its hinges. A blocky-shouldered man strode in, stopped short at sight of the detective.
Koski had the feeling he’d seen this man before; then he realized it had been in plaster; one of the portrait busts there on the floor had this same short-necked build, — compact as a truck motor. His leather jacket and deep-sea cap spotted him as a waterfront worker. He took off the cap; the strong light showed features reddened to the dull shade of old brick; a jagged purplish scar zigzagged down from one corner of his mouth across the jutting chin.
“Hi, Ellen.”
“Hello, Tim.”
“Am I comrade Buttinsky?”
“Not at all.” She gestured toward Koski. “A plainclothesman, inquiring about Merrill.”
Tim said “Oh” and “You came to the wrong place, cop.”
“Yair?”
“Yeah. We know from nothing about Señor Ovett.”
Ellen cut in quickly. “I do, Tim.” She fluttered the telegram. “Had a wire from him.”
The man bent his head as if he hadn’t heard correctly. “You did?”
“Isn’t it... odd?”
Koski said: “What’s odd about it?”
Tim took the telegram. “One thing... I didn’t know he was where he could send a wire.”
“Another thing,” Ellen put her hand on Tim’s sleeve. “Merrill knows how I feel about Tim. He must have something pretty... important... to say to me.”
Koski said: “Might be something about the killing”
“What killing?” Tim’s tone was hostile.
“Body was hauled up out of the East River tonight. Engineer on Ovett’s yacht is missing. I’m trying to add this and that together.”
Tim shrugged, disinterested. “You won’t get the right score if you add Merrill into a murder case. Did you try him at home?”
“His wife says he doesn’t use the Riverside Drive place much; the phone doesn’t answer, there.”
Tim made a slashing movement with the edge of his palm. “His father’s home. Harbor House. Up in the fancy Fifties. Merrill usually goes there sometime or other when he’s in town.”
“Thanks.” Koski drifted toward the door. “Don’t be surprised if there’s a couple of loungers hanging around your front door for a while, Miss Wyatt.”
“Detectives?” She laughed. “It’ll be the first time I’ve had any police protection since I’ve been on the waterfront.”
Tim spoke up. “Tell your sherlocks they better not try to strong-arm Merrill He’s a mean customer in a rough and tumble.”
“I’ll bear it in mind.” Koski went down to the street, stood for a moment gazing out over the line of barges nestling between the piers. On one of those dark hulks the Gurlid kids would be asleep, now...
He climbed back of the coupe’s wheel, made time over the cobbles toward the Battery.
VII
It was eleven o’clock when Koski made his way through the tunneled driveway that pierces the old Dock Department building at Pier A, jerked open the little green door marked Detectives, Harbor Precinct. In the bunk room, a lanky plainclothesman lay stretched out on a cot, reading a Racing Form. He waved the paper.
“Hi-yo, Silver. Identification calls you, few minutes ago.”
“What about, Johnny?”
“They been doing some leg-work for you.”
“Makes it even. You’re doing some, too. Gallop these pix up to Centre Street. For a rush flyer.”
“You think I’m kidding?” Johnny O’Malley got up, unwillingly. “I’m not kidding. They found a leg for you.”
“Goody.”
“Or rather one of the Army Em-Pees on Governors Island finds it. He sees a bare tootsie sticking out of the water, figures it’s some A.W.O.L. who tries to swim back after the last ferry. Turns out it’s a solo limb with no body attached. So prob’ly it belongs to that tasty little tidbit you found in the river.”
Koski grabbed the phone on his desk. “Climb in your cockpit, Johnny. That’s really a rush, now.”