The Right Jack

8

FOR the next quarter hour, Sigrid passed along to her colleagues the background information Nauman had given her about Sutton's McClellan days, his current standing at Vanderlyn and his brief visit to the Maintenon Hotel on Wednesday. In return, she heard from them the mostly nonconclusive findings the various forensics teams had delivered earlier that morning.

The sling on her arm elicited questions, and she briefly described her confrontation with the assailant she'd shot the night before. It was the first time any of them had ever seen the austere lieutenant without her hair severely bound. The blue scarf did not restrain her hair as tightly as bobby pins and already a few stray tendrils had feathered around the strong lines of her face.

Some of the older men still had residual misgivings and resentments about a female lieutenant working homicides;but Tillie was universally liked and, as his partner, Sigrid was the automatic recipient of spontaneous condolence. Their warmth and sincerity made Sigrid momentarily tongue-tied, but for once-perhaps influenced by the sling and the blue scarf-they seemed to attribute her stammering acknowledgments to depth of feeling and not to the coldhearted detachment most tagged her with.

Tillie was one of their own, and since Sigrid was the most directly affected by his injury, it was taken for granted that she'd be running this case.

Whom she'd be partnered with until Tillie's recovery was another matter.

Depending upon whom you asked, Tillie was either a saint or a simpleton and not just because he worked with Lieutenant Harald without complaint, but because he also insisted that the lieutenant had a sense of humor and a human side somewhere under all that ice and efficiency. But Tillie could say what he liked: it had not gone unnoticed that Lieutenant Harald's frozen reserve seemed to make even Captain McKinnon uncomfortable at times.

Before anyone was forced to throw himself on the barbed wire, the captain returned with a young naval officer in a dark blue uniform, his black-billed white cap tucked under his arm.

He was not tall, an inch or so short of six feet in fact, but he was well-built; wide shoulders, slim hips, and an easy way of carrying himself that blended military discipline with athletic vitality. In his late twenties, the young officer had deep-set brown eyes, a lopsided smile, well-defined jaw and straw-colored hair a few shades darker than the bright gold stripes on his uniform.

An electric awareness immediately flickered through the other four women seated at the table.

"This is Lieutenant Alan Knight of Naval Intelligence," said McKinnon. "He'll be sitting in on our investigation of Commander Dixon."

An attractive young man, Sigrid noted clinically, and was amused to see a slight scowl appear on Jim Lowry's face as he became aware of Elaine Albee's cuter than usual friendliness when the captain introduced her to the newcomer.

In addition to Albee's flashing dimples, Sigrid noticed that Detective Urbanska was smoothing her curls and that the two women from the bomb squad sat just a shade more provocatively in their chairs.

Her inner amusement deepened as Lieutenant Knight shifted his hat to his left hand and a broad gold wedding band gleamed on that all-important third finger. A nearly inaudible female sigh swept the room and suddenly everyone settled back to normal. As hormonal tensions eased, they were replaced by the ordinary wariness that arises whenever a different authority meddles in what is perceived to be NYPD affairs. It was bad enough that the explosion had the FBI waiting in the wings. Who needed the Navy as well?

Lieutenant Knight seemed to sense their wariness and tried to assure them that the Navy did not mean to interfere with civilian matters.

"Frankly, Commander Dixon doesn't appear to be the bomber's target," he told them, with a slight drawl. "All the same, she does carry a high security clearance. It's probably sheer coincidence and plain bad luck for the commander that the bomb went off so close to her, still-"

He shrugged and flashed that boyish, lopsided smile again. "The Navy sure would appreciate it if you'd let me tag along."

"Shucks, gee willikers, yes indeedy," Jim Lowry mimicked softly, under cover of the captain's rumbled acquiescence. Elaine Albee kicked him. "What's the commander's condition this morning?" she asked.

"Not good. She's still in critical condition. Her right side caught the main force of the blast. If she lives-" Knight shook his head pessimistically. "I never met her, but they say she was real attractive."

Elaine Albee, who knew she was pretty and enjoyed that knowledge, suppressed a superstitious shudder, imagining what a bomb could do to smooth skin and fragile bones.

"Lieutenant Harald will coordinate our investigation," McKinnon said, making it official. "We're shorthanded right now,

Knight, so as long as the Navy wants you to look over our shoulder, why don't you work with her?"

"Fine with me," nodded Lieutenant Knight, grinning at Sigrid.

Briskly, Sigrid ran down the list of priorities, noting which ought to be followed up on immediately and which could wait. "We need a list of everyone connected with the tournament," she told Albee. "Get enough copies so that Mrs. Sutton, Marian Tildon, and-does Commander Dixon have any immediate family here?" She turned to Knight.

He shook his head. "According to her file, her next-of-kin's a cousin in Miami."

"It's unlikely he can help-"

"She," Lieutenant Knight corrected. "The cousin's a woman, as I recall."

"In any event, we might as well mail her a copy, too. See if she recognizes any of the names."

Peters and his partner, Matt Eberstadt, were told to continue looking into Zachary Wolferman's life with an emphasis on his cousin, Haines Froelick. Albee and Lowry were to return to the Maintenon and continue questioning the staff and anyone connected with the cribbage tournament who might still be there.

"Don't forget your report on last night," McKinnon reminded her as the meeting broke up. "They got a fistful of positive IDs on your assailant."

Sending the others on ahead, Sigrid returned to her own office to fill out the report required every time an officer discharged a weapon. She was struggling to insert the form into her typewriter with one hand when Lieutenant Knight appeared in her doorway.

"Can I help you with that?"

"I thought you went with Albee and Lowry," Sigrid said inanely.

"Didn't Captain McKinnon mean for me to stick with you?" He watched her clumsiness with the return mechanism. "I'm a right good typist. Why don't you let me do that?"

Without waiting for permission, he swung the typewriter around to his side of the desk, seated himself in the nearest chair and rollered the forms into the machine with a businesslike air.

Bemused, Sigrid leaned back in her own chair and gave him her name, rank, and all the other required data. Observing the tilt of his fair head, she realized again how handsome the Navy officer was and, almost against her will, found herself comparing him with Oscar Nauman.

Half as old and probably half as bright, she thought loyally, subconsciously defending Nauman against nebulous threats, completely unaware that loyalty was in question.

In a clear crisp voice, she dictated her account of the previous night's shooting, signed the forms in triplicate, and dropped them in her Out basket. At least Knight hadn't asked a lot of dumb questions about the shooting incident. Did that indicate tact or apathy?

"I'll have a car sent around," she told him crisply. "You do drive, don't you?"

"Sure, but that won't be necessary," he said. "I've got a driver waiting."

The baby-faced young sailor who hopped out from behind the wheel of the black Chrysler and held the rear door for them looked barely old enough to steer a homemade go-cart, much less hold a legal driver's license. He saluted smartly and sir'd and ma'am'd them when told where to go, but it was immediately apparent by the way he inched out into it that New York's free-wheeling traffic intimidated him dreadfully. He tried to hug the curb, ran afoul of a compulsory right-turn lane before he'd gone two blocks, and was freshly surprised each time his lane was blocked by double-parkers. Instead of swerving to the left as everyone else did, he would put on his blinker and wait hopefully for someone courteous enough to let him in. Since double-parkers were as plentiful as courteous drivers were rare, it began to look like a long trip up to the Maintenon.

"Try not to watch," Lieutenant Knight advised Sigrid in a low voice as the timid yeoman flinched from one speeding cab perilously into the path of another. "My regular driver's on liberty this weekend. Sorry."

"Quite all right," Sigrid said through gritted teeth and tried to find humor in the irony that made a slow and supercautious driver infinitely more terrifying than Nauman's breakneck recklessness.

"What can you tell me about Commander Dixon's background?" she asked.

"Born in Florida, daughter of a deceased Navy chief, graduated from college there," he answered promptly. "OCS at Newport, tours of duty in Japan, San Diego, Norfolk, and D.C. Stationed here in New York a little over two years."

"No, I meant her work. You said she holds a high security clearance. What's her field?"

This time the answer came less promptly. "Communications."

"Communications?"

"Messages from various commands back and forth," he said vaguely. "That sort of thing."

"In code perhaps?" she probed.

"Cryptography, yes," he admitted.

Sigrid waited in silence. She had found that as a rule most people felt compelled to fill an expectant silence and certainly became ill-at-ease if it stretched out too long. Lieutenant Knight merely smiled and returned her cool-eyed gaze with bland serenity until a raucous car horn behind cursed their young driver for drawing to a stop while the traffic light ahead was still yellow.

"You wouldn't care to elaborate on exactly what Commander Dixon does?" Sigrid asked, nettled.

"I don't think so. After all, it isn't important, is it? She was injured last night by sheer coincidence."

"So far as you know," she gibed.

He nodded agreeably. "So far as we know."

"Escorted there, I'm told, by a Russian."

"A superannuated, lower-echelon member of a trade delegation, Lieutenant. The Walker case notwithstanding, we do keep an eye on these things," he said lightly. "Which is why I'm along today."

Unnerved by all the horns that urged him not to block the lane before a light was actually red, the yeoman misjudged a yellow and edged into the intersection on the bumper of the car ahead. The light changed to red; the car in front did not move; crosstown traffic entered the fray and soon the intersection was so jammed that it took two more greens for traffic to sort itself out. By the time they drew up to the entrance of the Maintenon, the sailor's baby face was drenched in perspiration and he was somewhat wobbly on his legs as he opened the door for them.

"That'll be all for the day," Lieutenant Knight told him kindly.

"Oh thank you, sir!" he said with such fervent gratitude that Sigrid thought he was going to shake the lieutenant's hand.