“Well,” Dickason said.
“This is all going to be a waste of time anyway,” Norton said. “Where the hell’s that damn list again?” He reached into his pocket and came up with a letter on an FBI letterhead. He ran down the list, selected one of the addresses, and penciled it out. “That takes care of that one. About seven more to go. You feel up to it, or you want to stop for some coffee first?”
“I could use some coffee,” Dickason said.
“You’re beginning to catch on,” Norton answered, smiling.
“Why do you think this is going to be a waste of time, Fred?”
“It is,” Norton said.
“But why?”
“Because I don’t think anyone will remember them. Besides, this will all work out fine, anyway. We’ll be in Washington before you know it.”
“How so?”
“Look at it this way. Matt: There’s a murderer somewhere aboard that ship. We figure he’s one of three men, or at least the circumstantial evidence — as slim as it is — points to one of these three men. We couldn’t possibly get a conviction on what we’ve got now, but our murderer doesn’t know that. Unless he’s supersmart.”
“Maybe he is,” Dickason said.
“A supersmart murderer doesn’t kill in his own back yard. So I figure this pigeon isn’t too clever.”
“All right so what?”
“So he’s not too smart. He’s been in the Navy for a while, and he’s scared stiff of authority. He’s killed an officer, and that officer was a woman, and he knows damn well he’s in hot water. There’s a big hubbub aboard ship, and on the base, and in the fleet. He’s the cause of all the hubbub. He begins to sweat a little.”
“All right he’s sweating a little.”
“The Superior Officer Present Afloat — SOPA — sends over a legal officer and an intelligence officer. Our murderer begins to sweat a little more. Then the skipper appoints an investigation board, and the perspiration really begins to flow now.”
“This begins to sound like a soap commercial.”
“No. Our boy is frightened now. The noose is tightening. And then we come. The Federal Bureau of Investigation.” Norton announced it grandly. “Secret agents. The FBI. The dread of all criminals, the nemesis of all evil. So we come to this ship. Bang, everyone is restricted to the vessel. Bang, the crew knows we’re taking fingerprints up in the radar shack. Bang, we begin asking questions, and then our questioning begins to get heaviest on three men: Daniels, Schaefer, and Jones. If our murderer is one of them — and I feel certain he is — he’s beginning to get a little nervous now. After all, how long can he go on outwitting the almighty FBI?”
“I don’t get your point, Fred.”
“My point is this: We have nothing on which to convict anyone. Only our murderer, I hope, doesn’t know that He just sees a lot of activity, secret agents coming and going to the ship, quiet, taciturn, except when they’re asking questions. This guy is not a professional, Matt. We ask about Wilmington. All right, he knows we know about the Wilmington shack-up, and then he begins wondering. Do we know why the nurse was killed? he wonders. As it happens, we don’t know — but he doesn’t know that- She wasn’t pregnant, according to the autopsy. All right, maybe it was just a lovers’ quarrel. But something provoked him into action. He knocked off the nurse, and now we’re asking questions about Wilmington. How’d we find out about Wilmington? One of the dead nurse’s girl friends? If so, how much did Claire Cole tell? Is his identity known? How tight is the noose? Are we just playing cat-and-mouse with him? What’s the penalty for murder? All these things begin eating at him. In short, Matt, he is goddamned good and scared, and it’s just a matter of time before he cracks.”
“Cracks! You think he’s going to come running to us to confess?”
“He might. Or he might do something that’ll point the finger at him.”
“Like what?”
“How do I know? Maybe he’ll seek out some of the nurses who knew the dead girl. That’ll give us something to follow up, at least. Maybe he’ll try to jump ship, make a run for it. Who knows? But one way or another, he’ll crack. All we’ve got to do is wait.”
“I don’t know,” Dickason said.
“I do know. I’ve seen amateur killers before. They don’t know their asses from their elbows.”
“Well, I hope you’re right.”
“And me, too,” Norton said emphatically. “I don’t like Norfolk, and I don’t like the Navy. The sooner we get back to Washington, the happier I’ll be.”
“Norfolk’s not bad,” Dickason said.
“No, but Delia’s good.”
“Delia? Oh, your wife.”
“Yes,” Norton said, “my wife.”
“So why bother checking these hotels and rooming houses?” Dickason asked, disturbed. “I mean, what’s the sense?”
“It may make the job shorter. Someone may just possibly recognize the photos. And if they don’t, we just wait. Our killer will make his move soon, you’ll see. They always do, one way or another. When the guilt gets too heavy for them, when they begin to think the whole damn world is against them — bang! They crack.”
“They crack,” Dickason repeated.
“Here’s a shop,” Norton said. “Let’s get that coffee.”
Five
He was quite pleased with the way he’d come through all the questioning. They really had nothing to go on, of course, except the fact that he’d been at the hospital. Well, he’d handled that very nicely, he thought. With both the FBI and Mr. Masters.
There were undoubtedly a good many ways to react to questioning. The point, naturally, was not to appear suspicious, and you could do that by being arrogant about the whole thing, or by being innocent about it. He’d made his choice and then stuck to it, keeping up the pose all along.
They did suspect him. There was no question about that. But they suspected two others as well, and you can’t hang a man on suspicion. Somehow they’d learned about that Wilmington week end with Claire. Knowing how Claire had felt about the whole thing, knowing now in retrospect, he was fairly certain she had not discussed it with anyone. The Wilmington information must have been a slip, then, something she’d done or said unawares. Yes, they knew Claire had met someone in Wilmington on that week end. He didn’t care how they’d found out. That they knew was enough for him.
And once they knew that, they’d undoubtedly checked the ship’s liberty list, and then checked that against the list of men who’d been to the hospital recently, men who’d had a chance to know Claire. He’d turned up as a possible suspect. But that was the extent of it. He was sure they didn’t know more than that. If they did, they’d have already pulled him in.
He had never been seen together with Claire, and that was definitely in his favor. Oh, yes, they’d been very careful about that angle. It had been necessary at the time. You couldn’t expect a j.g. to go running around with an enlisted man. But it was all working to his advantage now, and that was fine.
Even the Wilmington thing had been completely under wraps. Claire had gone earlier by bus and train, and he had followed later. She had taken a room at the David Blake, telling the desk clerk she was expecting her husband later in the day. She’d registered as Mr. and Mrs. Mark Knowles. She’d had luggage. She looked respectable; Claire always had looked respectable. There’d been no questions asked.
When he arrived in Wilmington, he called the hotel and asked for Mrs. Mark Knowles. Claire had come to the phone breathless.
“Claire? Honey? I’m here.”
“Oh, baby, I’m so glad.”