Sleeping Beauty

chapter 36

Captain Somerville got home a few minutes later. I heard him and his wife talking quietly in the front of the house, too quietly for me to understand what they were saying. Then Somerville came into the study and closed the door behind him. He looked old and tired.

“My wife says you want to speak to me.”

“If you have a minute.”

“Can’t it wait till morning? It’s very late.”

He yawned at his own suggestion. Tears of exhaustion and exasperation ran down his face. His beard had grown out in the course of the day; it caught the light and glinted.

“It’s a matter of priorities,” I said. “You’re trying to stop an oil spill–”

“And succeeding,” he insisted. “The whole thing will be over in another day or two.”

“I hope so. I’m trying to stop another kind of spill – a series of murders and other crimes.”

“A series of murders?”

“There have been three that I know of. The first one occurred on the night of May 2nd, 1945, when Allie Russo was shot in her bedroom.” Somerville flinched, but I went on. “Last night or early this morning, a hospital inmate named Nelson Bagley was drowned off a Montevista beach. Sylvia Lennox’s secretary was beaten to death on the same beach.”

Somerville’s face lost its remaining color. His eyes closed for a moment, and he swayed. He reached out and took hold of my arm, his fingers hooking painfully into the flesh above my elbow.

“Who told you about Allie Russo?”

I shook his hand off. “Her death is public knowledge. And her son happens to be my client.”

“Laurel’s husband?”

“Yes. Laurel still hasn’t been heard from, and she’s in danger. We don’t want her to be the fourth victim.”

There was a sound in the hallway, a small sound such as a dog makes when he’s left outside. The door was opened, and Marian Lennox came into the room. She moved with awkward diffidence in her dark clothes.

“You were talking about Laurel, weren’t you?”

“Her name came up,” I said.

She moved toward me with one hand outstretched, like a blind woman, but her eyes were bright and fearful. “Did you say Laurel was the fourth victim?”

“I said she’s in danger of becoming that. It’s what we’re trying to head off.”

“And you’re not helping much,” Somerville said to her. “Mr. Archer and I are having a very serious private discussion. Or we were hoping to have one.”

“I’m sorry. When I heard Laurel’s name, I thought you might have some new information.” She looked into her brother-in-law’s face, and then into mine. “Where is she, Mr. Archer?”

“Harold Sherry has the answer. I don’t, at least not yet.”

“Where is Harold Sherry?”

“Somewhere out in the boondocks, dragging a wounded leg.”

“And Laurel is with him?”

“She may be. At any rate, he probably knows where she is.”

“What can we do to get her back?”

Somerville had been pacing the room, and now he stepped between us. “That’s what Archer and I are trying to talk about, Marian. Or were, when you interrupted.” He moved toward her, clasping her shoulders in his hands, and speaking in a softer voice: “I’m well aware of what you’ve been through today, and I don’t mean to be unfeeling. But I suggest you go to bed now. Did you get any sleep at all last night?”

“I don’t remember. No. I don’t think I did.”

She half closed her eyes and hung her head as if she took comfort from the support of his hands. He rocked her gently:

“You’re half asleep, old girl. Now get off to bed. Do you want me to pour you a drink to take along?”

“No, thanks. You’re very kind, Ben, but it would just excite me. Elizabeth promised me a sleeping pill.”

“Get her to give you a couple of chloral hydrates. It’s what I use when I can’t rest.”

He turned her, slid one arm around her shoulders, and walked her out into the hallway. Then he bent down and kissed the side of her face. The gesture seemed unforced, and it gave me a new impression of Somerville. In spite of his long trouble with his wife, he liked women and, in an old-fashioned patriarchal way, was good at handling them.

The contact with Marian seemed to have calmed him. “I’m sorry about the interruption. I’m afraid my sister-in-law is close to breakdown. Her whole life has been just about wiped out in the last thirty hours.”

“How is her husband, Jack?”

“I saw him this evening, and he’s doing all right physically. But he doesn’t handle trouble too well, and Marian handles it very badly. She’s at loose ends without him. And you can imagine what these uncertainties about Laurel have done to her.” He rapped his knuckles together. “We’ve got to get Laurel back.”

“I think I’ve been making some progress. You can help me, Captain.”

“Just tell me how.”

“By answering some questions.”

“All right. I’ll do my best.”

Somerville looked out into the hallway, then shut the door. We sat almost knee to knee in the chairs that his wife and I had occupied. I said:

“Did you know Allie Russo?”

His face became completely grave and still. “I won’t deny it. But I want it understood that anything I tell you about her is in confidence.”

“It has to be further understood that if you have important evidence it goes to the police.”

“Who decides its importance?”

“Both of us, or either.”

Somerville moved uneasily. “I can’t accept that.”

I said without much emphasis, “Would you rather talk directly to the Los Angeles police? Allie Russo’s death occurred in their jurisdiction, and they never close the books on unsolved murders.”

His hand wrenched and scoured at the lower part of his face as if he was trying to reshape it. “I had nothing to do with her death.”

“Who did?”

“There were several suspects, including her husband. She had a rather disordered life after she left Russo.”

“How do you know that?”

“I saw her from time to time.”

“Did you see her on the night she was killed?”

“I did not. I was with my wife at her father’s house that evening. I went from there directly back to the ship, and we sailed for Okinawa the following morning.”

“Did you know she was dead when you sailed?”

“I certainly did not. Ask my wife, and she’ll confirm what I just told you.”

“She already has.”

“Then what is this all about?”

“You said you wanted to help.”

“I do. That should be obvious. But I can’t solve your problems for you by confessing something that I didn’t do.”

“What about something you did do? Were you Allie Russo’s lover?”

“Not in any real sense. I may have slept with her a few times.”

“You may have.”

“I did. It was no great matter. I wasn’t married at the time, and she had already left her husband when I met her. We were good friends, that’s all.”

“How did you meet her?”

“One of my crew members asked me to help her out. She was living with her little boy in a cheap hotel in Seattle, and he got the flu. I arranged for some medical treatment.”

“What was the crew member’s name?”

“Nelson Bagley.” His voice was flat. “Bagley was crazy about her, but I don’t think he ever got to first base. Which is probably why he killed her.”

“You know that he killed her, do you?”

“Yes. I think I do.”

“Were you there when it happened?”

Somerville took a deep breath and let it out, making an angry noise. “Certainly not.”

“Did you know about her death on the night she was killed?”

He thrust out an impatient hand which pushed the idea away. “I didn’t say that. I wasn’t aware that Allie was dead until nearly three weeks after it happened. We were at sea off Okinawa. The battle for the island was still going on, and the Canaan Sound was providing fighter support for our troops–”

“What about Allie’s death?”

“I was getting to that. We withdrew from the battle area to refuel – that was the night of May 22nd – and the oiler put some mail aboard before we started the fueling operation. My personal mail included an envelope containing a newspaper account of Allie’s murder. Some kind soul had clipped it out and sent it to me.” His voice was dry and harsh.

“Do you know who the kind soul was?”

“There was nothing in the envelope to identify him or her. Of course, I’ve thought of various possibilities, including her husband and my wife.” Somerville gave me a rapid questioning look.

“I don’t think it could have been your wife. The clipping may have been sent by Allie’s murderer.”

He shook his head. “Allie’s murderer was aboard the Canaan Sound with me.”

“Do you mean Bagley?”

“Yes. The newspaper clipping gave a fairly accurate description of Bagley as he was then. One of Allie’s neighbors saw him sneaking around her house on the night she was killed. Apparently he was spying on her through the back windows. As soon as I read the description, I sent for Bagley, but he failed to show up. Then something happened that put the whole thing out of my mind.”

“Was that when the ship caught fire?”

“No, it didn’t happen immediately. That came later, and Nelson Bagley was responsible for it.”

I studied Somerville’s face. His look was grim and driven. I wondered for a moment if Bagley had become his monomania, the imagined source of all the trouble in his life, killer of his mistress, wrecker of his ship.

“I’ve heard it suggested that you were responsible for the fire on the Canaan Sound.”

The Captain showed neither anger nor surprise. “I may have been partly responsible.”

“You’re very candid.”

“I’m trying to be honest with you,” he said. “The captain of the oiler reported later that I called for too much pressure when we were filling the avgas tanks, and that was why one of them ruptured.”

“Did you?”

He lifted his hand like a statue coming alive, then dropped it as if coming alive was too much effort. “I don’t remember the details of that night too clearly. I’ve spent a lot of other sleepless nights trying to. But I honestly don’t remember making the request for higher pressure. Possibly I did. Certainly something went wrong.” His eyes were puzzled. “I’d just received the news of Allie’s death. It stunned me, and it’s left me with a very foggy recollection.”

It was an extraordinary admission. It seemed to me that for the first time I was hearing the truth about the loss of the Captain’s ship and the Captain’s mistress.

“Wasn’t your avgas officer blamed for the rupture of the tank?”

Somerville’s eyes moved with difficulty, like stone eyes, to my face. “Have you been investigating the Canaan Sound disaster?”

“Not exactly. But it keeps coming up.”

“Has Ellis been talking?”

“Some. He took it very hard when he was shown Bagley’s body. He seems to blame himself for the whole thing.”

Somerville looked down at the floor between us.

“Did you encourage him to take the blame, Captain?”

“That was hardly necessary. Ellis was a willing volunteer. Anyway, it didn’t really matter to him.”

“It didn’t matter? You should have seen him today.”

Somerville shook his head abruptly. “I mean in the sense that he wasn’t a career officer. It was just a job, and when he left the Navy I saw to it that he got a better job. But I lost my command. I lost the possibility of any future command. I sat out the rest of the war.”

The Captain was still and quiet for a time. He seemed to be mourning obscurely, for his lost honor, or his lost pride. I had the queer impression that he had been sitting out those last few months of the war ever since, while some unreal alter ego carried on the business of peacetime life.

“You said that Bagley set fire to the ship. Were you serious, Captain?”

He roused himself from his gray dream. “I can assure you I wasn’t joking. Bagley took a gun out of the communications shack and tried to kill himself. He gave himself a superficial wound in the head, but the damage he did was incalculable. This was some time after the avgas tank ruptured. Parts of the ship were awash with gasoline and fumes, and of course the smoking lamp was out. The flash of Bagley’s gun started a fire in the passageway and set fire to him as well. He ran up to the flight deck and jumped overboard. We lost him – it was still dark, and we had to mobilize all hands to fight the fire. But the oiler found him in the sea and picked him up, along with some other men who had gone overboard. My steward Smith was one of them. Several other men were lost, either burned or drowned.”

Somerville was breathing hard. It had cost him an effort to tell me about the fire that had ruined his ship and his career. He closed his eyes as if to shut out the memory.

“I don’t understand why Bagley tried to shoot himself, Captain.”

He opened his eyes reluctantly. “Whoever sent that clipping to me apparently sent one to Bagley as well. Bagley realized the game was up, stole a gun from the comm office, and went down into an empty passageway and shot himself, or tried to.”

“How did he get hold of the clipping? Had the mail been distributed to the crew?”

“No. But remember that Bagley was a messenger in the comm office, where the mail was handled. It gave him special access.”

“Do you know he saw a copy of the clipping?”

“I didn’t see it in his hands,” Somerville said. “But a copy of it was later found in a drawer in the comm office. It’s all in the official record of the inquiry into the cause of the fire. You can refer to that if you don’t believe me.”

I neither believed the Captain nor disbelieved him. I had been in the Army, though, and traveled on naval vessels. I knew something about the power of their captains to create their own reality aboard ship – a power that sometimes could extend long past the event, and shape the record of official inquiries. I said:

“I still don’t entirely understand why you didn’t have Bagley brought in and questioned.”

Somerville looked at me in some confusion. “When do you mean?”

“When you sent for him and he didn’t show up.”

“I had more pressing things on my mind. I was sitting on top of an oil spill, man.”

“An oil spill?”

“A gasoline spill.” The Captain turned red, as if the fire in his memory was showing through. “I mean to say a gasoline spill. I’m very tired, I’m afraid.”

“So nothing was said to Bagley?”

“Not that night. Certainly not by me. I didn’t see him at all until several months later. He was in a Stateside hospital, and he was hardly more than a living corpse. There was some idea of prosecuting him, for the sake of the record, but I helped to get it quashed.”

“Prosecuting him for Allie Russo’s murder?”

“Yes. There’s no doubt he was guilty. But the authorities, both naval and civilian, saw no point in pressing the matter further, and neither did I. It appeared very unlikely at the time that Bagley would ever get out of bed again, or regain his powers of speech. It’s a miracle that he did.”

“Maybe that’s why he was killed,” I said. “He was learning to talk again.”

Somerville glanced up sharply. “He was learning to talk again?”

“Yes. I spent some time with his doctor earlier this evening. Bagley had been doing considerable talking.”

“About Allie – about Mrs. Russo’s death?”

“The subject came up,” I said.

“Did Bagley confess?”

“Some of the things he said could be taken as a confession. I’m not sure that’s what they were, though. He may simply have been a witness to the murder. Or he may have done something to her after she was dead.”

I watched Somerville as I named the possibilities. His face seemed to undergo a process of aging. “Exactly what did he say?”

“That he did something terrible.”

Somerville inclined his head abruptly, his chin chopping down like an axe. “He killed her. His own death last night only confirms it.”

“How does it do that?”

“I think he was killed in revenge by one of the Russos, Allie’s husband or her son. You may not know those hot-blooded types as well as I do – if they have a stain on the family honor, they wash it away with blood.”

The guilt of one of the Russos was a possibility I had considered. But I wasn’t prepared to discuss it with Somerville. I tried to change the subject, unsuccessfully, since the possible guilt of the Captain himself was involved in what I said.

“Nelson Bagley saw your face on television Tuesday night. Did you know that, Captain?”

“I certainly did not. You mean to say that Bagley was watching television?”

“Somebody put him up to it.”

“Somebody?”

“I think it was arranged by Harold Sherry.”

“What was the point?”

“To get something on you and possibly other members of your family. Apparently Harold Sherry took Bagley out of the hospital for that purpose.”

The Captain’s face went through still another aging process which ended in a bitter smile. “Are you suggesting that I’m a suspect in Bagley’s death?”

“The suggestion is yours.”

“The hell it is. Where would I find the time, man? I’ve been working a twenty-hour day. And if there’s anyone more in the public eye than I’ve been this week–” He opened his hands loosely and let them fall.

What he said was true. But he seemed to be an unreal man even when he was saying true things. We sat and looked at each other, the unreality expanding between us until it lay like a pollution over the endless city and across the endless sea, all the way to Okinawa and the war.