The collar of her blouse was stained. I leaned closer and saw that some of what I’d thought was bruising was really a brown, greasy stain. I rubbed my finger along her collar and the odor of petroleum rose up from it. Cosmoline, I guessed. The greasy stuff they pack guns in to prevent rust.
I wiped my hands on my trousers and sighed. What had Deanna done to deserve this? Her eyes were open, gazing at the sky, seeing nothing. I closed them. I found her wide-brimmed straw hat and placed it over her face. The flies had begun to descend, and I didn’t like the idea of them crawling over her. Didn’t like the idea of seeing that in my dreams.
It had gone silent in the alley, but it was only my thoughts that crowded out the sounds from the street, the eager onlookers, the debaters, the drunks, and maybe a killer watching the aftermath of his handiwork. I rose, and a wave of noise-combined with a foul stink of alcohol, heat, garbage, and sweat-hit me. I pushed people back and spotted two sailors and a GI in front of the bar, bottles of Ballantine’s Beer clutched in their hands. Jack was nowhere to be seen.
“Hey, you guys,” I said, shouting at them from the entrance to the alley, not wanting to leave Deanna’s body unattended. “Is there a telephone around here?”
“Yes sir,” the GI said, indicating the comm wire strung along the street. “There’s a harbormaster’s office on the dock. They’re connected to the base switchboard.”
“Get down there on the double. Call the hospital and tell them we have a body to transport. You two, lose the bottles,” I said to the sailors, beckoning them over to where I stood. “You’re on guard duty. No one gets in the alley.”
“Is it true it’s a dame, Lieutenant?” asked the freckle-faced sailor who looked like he should be in high school instead of on Tulagi with the two stripes of a petty officer second class gracing his denim shirt.
“Yeah,” I said. “Deanna Pendleton. She was a nurse who came down from Vella Levalla.”
“She was the one everybody thought was Amelia Earhart, right? I heard about her,” he said, his voice a quiet drawl. “What happened?”
“She was murdered, knifed by the looks of it. Did either of you see anybody with her?” I asked. I watched their reactions. A dead body was one thing. It could have been an accident, a fall, heatstroke, any of a number of calamities. But when murder is mentioned, it’s always a shocker.
“Jeez,” the young sailor said. “No, we woulda noticed her. Nothing but Chinese girls around here.”
“I think I saw that skirt,” his pal said, leaning in to take a look. “From behind. I didn’t see her face ’cause she had that big sun hat on. But I remember the polka dots.”
“Was she alone?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “I’m pretty sure there was a guy walking next to her. But to tell you the truth, Lieutenant, I wasn’t studying the guy much at all.”
“Could it have been the navy officer who was with me?” I asked.
“That skinny guy? I dunno. Maybe. I can’t even be sure the fellow was actually with her. They coulda just been walking in the same direction. Hard to tell with all the khaki hereabouts.”
“Where’d you see her?” I asked, changing tack.
“Down that way,” he said. It was in the direction of Rui Chang’s house, where Jack and I had been headed. “We walked down the street to check things out, you know? There was nothing down that way, so we turned around and headed for this bar. I spotted them a little before we got here. Hey, you don’t think-?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe. That could have been right before he killed her. How long ago?”
“We ain’t been keepin’ track of time, Lieutenant. We got twelve hours of liberty, you know? But maybe an hour ago, a little longer. Can’t say for sure.”
“Okay, fellas, stay put until I get back, okay?” They nodded and I went into the dive with the record player. The bar girls spoke some English, but the bartender was a better bet. He was positioned to see out the wide-open windows, and probably kept an eye on the foot traffic. He spoke decent English.
“No, no white lady come in here,” he said, shaking his head more than he needed to. “We have no trouble here. Honest establishment.” He was still shaking his head emphatically as he drew out each syllable of the last word.
“Hey, I’m not the shore patrol, okay? I only want to know if you spotted the woman in the white blouse and blue polka-dot skirt.”
“European lady?” he asked.
“American,” I said. “Was she with anyone?”
“European ladies do not come here,” he said, starting up the head shake after a brief rest. “Plenty sailors, nice Chinese girls, but no white ladies.”
“Were the Japanese good customers when they were here?” I asked, trying another tack.
“It was very bad,” he said, and his head settled down as he sighed. “Bad for business. Worse for girls. Japs take what they want, you understand?”
“Yeah,” I said. “This white lady, she was a Coastwatcher, from Vella Lavella. A brave woman.”
“Really?” he asked. I nodded, and he leaned on the bar, glanced around to see if anyone was listening, then spoke in a low whisper. “She come in here, ask where Rui Chang lives. I say I don’t know. Not good for business if Changs hear I tell anyone about them.”
“Was she alone?” He nodded, a quick affirmative. “How long ago?”
“Hour and a half, maybe more,” he said. “I didn’t see her again.”
“Even though she must have walked right by?” With the shutters wide open, the street scene was in plain view.
“Mister, people walk by all day, every day. Big blur to me. I am sorry. If she was a Coastwatcher, she was brave lady indeed. If I could help, I would.”
“Then tell me where Rui Chang lives,” I said, leaning in to whisper myself. He told me, the same house Jack had been leading me to. I figured he was on the level if he dared to share that dangerous dope with me. Not that it helped much.
I worked the street as best I could, asking shopkeepers and anyone who didn’t turn away at my approach about Deanna. Most didn’t understand, or played at it. I got the idea pretty fast that this was a company town and that the Changs were top dog. Again, not that it helped one bit.
I returned to the alley to find the GI who’d gone to the harbormaster’s office waiting with his sailor buddies.
“I made the call, Lieutenant,” he said. “They’re sending an ambulance.”
“Good,” I said. I wanted a doctor to examine her for anything I’d missed, and to take a close look at the stab wound. It appeared damn professional to me. “How’d you know they were patched in to the base hospital?”
“Signals company, Lieutenant,” he said. “We strung all this comm wire you see around here. Call ourselves the Tulagi Telephone Company.”
“The PT base at Sesapi, too?”
“Sure. Hospital, Base HQ, the Government Wharf, the district commissioner’s house, this place, and a bunch of smaller units.”
“The Coastwatchers, too?” I asked.
“Oh yeah. Captain Sexton has a field telephone like everyone else. There’s a switchboard at headquarters and all calls are connected through that.”
I spotted the ambulance seconds later, the Red Cross bright against its olive drab paint job. I told the sailors to get back to their drinking and asked the GI where the signals company was stationed.
“In the old police station, Lieutenant, on the south shore. Corporal Wilbur Warren. Ask for me if you need anything.”
I told him I might. Something was buzzing through my mind about telephone lines and lies. I needed to puzzle out how the killer intercepted Deanna right when she’d be alone. There really hadn’t been a lot of time; if she’d found Rui Chang’s residence, she would have been safe there, as far as I knew. And after that, she would have been with Jack. Safe? Yeah, safe. Jack was a lot of things, but I didn’t see him sticking a knife into a woman. My back, well, yeah.
The hospital sent a driver and a medic, just in case. But all the medic had to do was help get Deanna’s body on a stretcher and drape a sheet over it. I told them to get her into the morgue, if they had one, ask Dr. Schwartz to take a look, and tell him I’d be by later. Then I went to find Jack.