“You lost two crewmen,” Nudger said.
Waite nodded, gazing down at the Styrofoam coffee cup that was barely visible steaming in his huge hand. “Yeah, a signalman name of Hopper, and Captain Stevenson. They were on the bridge when the Kelso got hit; damage was heavy there. Artie Akron tried to pull the captain out of the flames, but he was already dead. That’s how Akron got wounded, going onto the burning part of the bridge after the captain. Won himself a Navy Cross, and now he got himself drunk and killed in a bad part of town. Hard to figure.”
“It is that,” Nudger agreed. “Did Akron do much drinking on board the Kelso?”
Waite thought about that, looking beyond Nudger at the sandwich machine. “No more than any of us, as far as I can remember.”
“Who did Akron pal around with who might know more about him?”
“Nobody in particular on the Kelso, but when we were laid up in Honolulu he did a lot of bumming around with Mack Perry. A lot of serious drinking, come to think of it. I guess they both got too far into the bottle there. Maybe that’s what led to their alcohol problem. Odd, though, them both getting rolled and killed within a week of each other.”
“How come Akron and Perry all of a sudden became buddies on shore, but hadn’t been on board ship?” Nudger asked.
Waite shrugged. “Hell, who knows? Maybe they were bunked next to each other in the hospital there. Perry was on the bridge, too, when the Kelso and that torpedo met. He picked up some shrapnel and got burned some. It makes sense that he and Artie Akron were in the hospital bum unit together.”
“Makes sense,” Nudger agreed. “Did anyone else from St. Louis get wounded in the torpedo attack?”
“Jack Mays, Danny Evers, Milt Wile, maybe a few others. None of them got badly hurt, though. Just enough to earn some medals and some hospital leave. I got injured myself, in the stampede to get up on deck after the ship got hit. All hell erupts when a little ship like a destroyer takes a hit, Nudger. For a few minutes there’s terror and panic. It’s nothing like in the movies.”
“Not much is,” Nudger said. He checked his list. Milt Wile had died in an auto accident four years ago. Running his forefinger down the list, Nudger said, “Jack Mays is one of the ten crewmen who moved away from St. Louis.”
“Yeah. I saw him at our five- and ten-year reunions, but he wasn’t at the fifteen-year get-together.” Waite sipped his coffee. “He’s in prison somewhere, I heard, mixed up in narcotics trafficking.”
“Do you know the whereabouts of the other crew members who moved from the city?”
“Most of them. I talked to them at the last reunion, five years ago. We decided not to have a twenty-year reunion, though. You know how it is, other interests, lives gone in different directions. Only eight of us showed up at the fifteen-year reunion.”
Waite told Nudger about the other crew members. Two more of them had died within the past five years. Now Artie Akron and Mack Perry were dead. Nudger could see that Waite was depressed just talking about it. Time did that to people who went to reunions. Another Kelso crewman, Ralph Angenero, had done seven years for extortion before being released from the state prison in Jefferson City two years ago. Other than Mays and Angenero, the crewmen had, as far as Waite knew, stayed on the sunny side of the law.
Nudger spent the rest of that day and part of the next talking to the Kelso crew members still in the city. They all more or less substantiated what Waite had said. The series of interviews hadn’t given Nudger anything to work with; no new insights, no new direction. He was still at sea.
From time to time in that situation, Police Lieutenant Jack Hammersmith had tossed Nudger a life preserver. Though it would be difficult to discern from their conversation, the two men had a deep respect and affection for each other that went back over ten years to when they shared a two-man patrol car. Nudger had saved Hammersmith’s life; Hammersmith never forgot or considered the scales even. His sense of obligation hadn’t flagged even after Nudger’s nervous stomach had caused him to quit the force and go private.
Nudger sat now in one of the torturous straight-backed oak chairs in front of Hammersmith’s desk at the Third District. He watched with trepidation as Hammersmith’s smooth, pudgy hand fondled the greenish cigar in his shirt pocket then absently withdrew. Close. Smoke from Hammersmith’s cigars had the capacity to kill insects and small animals. Even secondhand, it was more than mildly toxic to humans.
“Who are these people?” Hammersmith asked, studying the list of names that Nudger had handed him. “Is this the infield of the Minnesota Twins?”
“They’re former crewmen of a destroyer in the Vietnam War,” Nudger said. “As were Artie Akron and Mack Perry. All presently St. Louisans.”
“Those last two names strike a chord. Murder victims, right? A couple of alkies who got themselves rolled and killed.”
“Making any progress on those cases?” Nudger asked, with an edge of sarcasm.
Hammersmith’s pale blue eyes glared at Nudger from his smooth, flesh-padded features. He sure had put on weight during the past ten years. “You know there actually are no cases, Nudge. It’s not unusual to find alkies rolled and dead in this city or any big city. It’s virtually impossible to find a suspect. Maybe some bum or small-timer we pick up on another charge will confess to one of the killings, but probably not. The risk of dying comes with the territory for alcoholics. It’s an American tradition.”
“These two men were members of the same Alcoholics Anonymous chapter,” Nudger said. “They hadn’t consumed any alcohol for months, maybe years, before they were found dead.”
“Maybe. Anyway, that’s when an alkie really goes on a big bender, Nudge, coming off a long dry spell.” He shook the paper in his hand. “What do you want me to do with this list?”
“Check with Records and see if you have anything on the names.”
“That’s what I thought you wanted,” Hammersmith said. “Unauthorized use of police files.” He drew the cigar from his pocket, methodically unwrapped it, and lit it. Greenish smoke billowed. Nudger’s remaining time in the office was very limited. Hammersmith intended it to be that way. He was a busy man; crimefighting was a demanding profession.
After Hammersmith had phoned Records and given them his request, he leaned his corpulent self back in his padded desk chair and puffed on the cigar with a rhythmic wheezing sound, fouling the room with a greenish haze. Nudger was going to earn this information.
“You’re going to kill yourself with those poisonous things,” Nudger said, to fill the silence in the hazy office.
“You’ll probably get to me first,” Hammersmith said. “You and your pestiness.”
Nudger was sure there was no such word as pestiness, but he thought it best not to correct Hammersmith’s diction. Anyway, the message was clear. He sat quietly until a young clerk who knew better than to mention the smoke in the office came in and laid some computer print-out paper on Hammersmith’s desk.
“Not very interesting,” Hammersmith said around his cigar, even before the pale clerk had gone. He removed the cigar and placed it in an ashtray, carefully propping it at an angle so it wouldn’t go out. “Nobody here has anything on this sheet more serious than a traffic violation. Well, here’s a five-year-old assault charge against one Edward Waite. Disturbance at a tavern. Other than that, not a black hat in the bunch. Your two deceased drunks, however, had a string of alcohol-related offenses until about six years ago. They’ve been clean since then. I checked last week, Nudge. Your police department does care when a corpus delicti is noticed at the curb.”