“With pleasure,” Thompson said with a broad smile. He came to his feet, holding Jan’s chair back. “We’ll probably be on the promenade deck when you’re through with your call. I’ll show your Jan the ship. Look for us up there.”
“Right,” Reardon said and followed the junior officer from the dining room, even forgiving him the sidelong, admiring glance at Jan. He picked up the telephone on the table outside of the purser’s office, not at all surprised to find Dondero on the line.
“Hello?”
“Jim? This is Don—”
“Just once I’d like to eat in peace. Do you mind?” He grinned.
Dondero disregarded the tone. “I figured you’d end up on the ship after Mr. Noguchi said you weren’t at the Little Tokyo...”
Reardon sighed. “And I figured you had figured it when they told me I had a telephone call. Who else knows how to dial? What’s up?”
Dondero took a deep breath, plunging in.
“It’s Penny. Penny Wilkinson. She told me the whole story on the way downtown. We—” He cleared his throat. “Well, we stopped for a drink, as a matter of fact. And she let her hair down.”
“Oh.”
It wasn’t the standard method of interrogating a prisoner, but if it got results, it accomplished everything Reardon was interested in. And it had been his feeling that the girl would talk to Dondero if they were alone; it was his reason for permitting the sergeant to take her in by herself. He cleared his throat and spoke into the telephone softly.
“I hope you warned her and explained her rights to her.”
“Just like it says on the card,” Dondero said. There was a moment’s hesitation. “But she wanted to talk, and she wanted to talk to me — and, well, I wanted her to talk to me. I let her. And I believe what she says.” This last was said almost defiantly.
“I’m not arguing with you,” Reardon said patiently. “Where are you?”
“Not in a bar. We’re at the Hall of Justice. I’m in my pigpen on the fourth floor; she’s in a cell on the fifth floor.”
He made it sound as if it were Reardon’s fault. Reardon took a deep breath, disregarding the tone. “So what did she say?”
“She says this Crocker was just supposed to pick up the stones, and that’s all. He wasn’t supposed to touch Cooke, let alone kill him. She says the boy had a crush on her. It was only his third trip with her and he said he’d be only too happy to do her a little favor — like taking something off the ship for her. He knew it was a bit of smuggling, but he didn’t know what the contraband was, and he couldn’t have cared less. She told him it was perfume, and she’s sure he believed her.”
“But?”
“But I guess Crocker wasn’t as trusting. Apparently he preferred no witnesses to even one well-meaning witness.”
“Did Cooke and Crocker know each other, did she say?”
“Penny says no. Under his full name — Ralph Crocker Rolf, or rather, Ralph C. Rolf — Crocker used to travel with her quite a bit in the old days, but not since Cooke has been on the ship. He’d buy the stones — with dough from a group on the East Coast, Mafia I guess, though she didn’t say — and she’d take them off. Usually she waited until everyone was off the dock to leave the ship. But this was the biggest haul they’d ever attempted, and they also knew this was one haul they weren’t going to turn in to the wheels in New York. So they figured an infatuated deck officer would have less trouble. And it almost worked.” Dondero paused, thinking. “This guy Crocker figured about everything, I guess,” he added. “Penny says that’s the kind of guy he was. He wasn’t the type to take chances.”
Reardon nodded at the telephone.
“Which is why he didn’t run after he killed Bob Cooke,” he said. “It would have been taking a chance he didn’t feel was necessary. Some kid coming home from a movie might have seen and remembered a big, old Buick in the neighborhood — the kind George Raft drove in the midnight television movie. Or some longshoreman working the Central Basin docks might have lived in the Mission district and hiked home to save dough, and seen the works. And of course he might have broken a headlight or left black paint from the fender on the body. A hundred things could have tripped him up. But he was smart — he called the police.” He smiled humorlessly. “Which is what we try to teach them: Always Call the Police.” He wiped the smile away. “Still, even the smart ones get the wind up. He should have left the Buick in the garage and taken a powder, period. We’d never have given the car a second thought. He might even have picked it up at the city auction six months from now.”
“He couldn’t,” Dondero said softly. “The group in the East didn’t know Cooke had taken the stones off the ship. They never heard of Cooke. All they knew was that Crocker had got himself in a temporary jam with a car accident, and should be free and clear in a few days. But after that, they expected him to catch the first plane to Kennedy and deliver the goods. Of course,” he added, explanatorily, “Penny and he had their tickets and visas for Mexico City and then Brazil. Crocker had to move fast, and he certainly wasn’t going to go without the stones. Not after killing to get them. And he also certainly wasn’t going to make excuses to the boys back East that the stones were in a Police Garage, and how they got there.”
“True,” Reardon conceded and smiled.
Dondero frowned. “What got me was why Penny reported Cooke as a missing person. Why not let him remain on a slab as an Unknown and stay out of it herself?” He didn’t wait for the lieutenant to even hazard a guess. “I asked her, and she said this was Crocker’s idea. Crocker called her from that phone booth on Indiana — probably before he called the police — and paged her at the Fairmont bar after he killed Cooke. He told her what he’d done. She was — well, what’s the word? Shocked? Anyway, she wasn’t happy. She says so and I believe her. Anyway, Crocker told her Cooke had no identification on him. He’d searched him when he took the stones off him—”
“I love that bit about how he was too squeamish to touch the body!” Reardon said with disgust. “Go on.”
“Yeah. Like he stayed off the Freeway because heavy traffic bothered him! Anyway, Crocker thought they might hold him at the Hall pending identification of the Unknown, but where the victim was identified — and had no known connection with him — then he figured to be released like at once.”
“And he was right,” Reardon conceded. “He was smart.”
“Except he’s on a slab in a morgue,” Dondero said. “And except he should have bought a car that didn’t leak oil.” He sighed. “Well, I’m off to home and another cold cheese sandwich, I guess. I don’t feel like a big meal tonight.” A thought occurred to him. “How’s the food on the S.S. Mandarin?”
Reardon took pity on him. The truth would have only been an added irritant to Sergeant Dondero’s evening.
“Pretty bad,” he said untruthfully. “Even worse than the Navy.”
“Well, in that case I’ll be happy with my sandwich.” Dondero tried to sound brave, to take a light tone. “I may even grow to like them.” He seemed reluctant to hang up. “Jim—”
“Yes?”
“You know, I believe Penny when she says she didn’t know anything about the killing. I believe her when she says Crocker was just supposed to pick up the stones from Cooke and let him go his way. Otherwise, why would she have been waiting for him at the bar on top of the Fairmont? If she knew Crocker was going to knock the boy off?”
“It’s a point,” Reardon admitted.
“Jim—”
“I’m still here.”
“Well — what do you think? I mean, what do you really think? If she beats this accessory rap, which is crap for my money, the smuggling thing shouldn’t put her away too long, should it?”