THE FOURTH WATCH (16 page)

''I'm probably going to want to talk to these
guys," I said.

"Sure. You gonna keep me in the
loop?"

"Best as I can, Mr. Archer. As you probably
guessed, I'm not sure what I'm doing at this point."

He waved his hand at me and chuckled. "I know,
I know, but listen ... you know ... Red and me, we ... " he
shrugged and shook his head. "Long time we been
together."

"Sure," I told him. "Well, listen, Mr. Archer,
you've certainly given me something to think about. I want to thank
you for your time."

"Not at all, anything I can do, you just give
me a call and I'll do it. If someone fucked over Ol' Red, I'd like
to see him go down before my watch is over," he said pushing
himself up out of his chair. "I meant what I said about not having
thought about that connection until you mentioned it. But you know,
Mr. Knight, I'm getting the willies over here."

"Me too," I said.

9

THERE WAS A HEAVY-SET MAN
with reddish-blond hair sitting at the table with Alex
Andreason when I arrived a few minutes late for lunch. I was led
toward them, across a plant filled atrium room, by a stuffy,
balding, uppity twerp in tails. The Stockyard is a swanky
Gentlemen's Club
on Rt.
9 in Framingham. It caters to the discriminating male chauvinist
pig, rich enough to get away with it. Chesty waitresses in
short-shorts wear name tags clipped in the center of cleavage
uniformly on display. The gentlemen leer with sparkling eyes, as
the staff leans over the low tables with their trays, and leave
obscene tips to show their appreciation.

The rain had stopped by the time I left The
Loading Dock Headquarters, but the streets were steaming on the
drive over to The Stockyard. It was unusually hot for early
September and I must have looked suspiciously of boiled destitution
to my tuxedo-ed escort, who only reluctantly led me to the master's
table.

"Michael Knight, say hello to Ted Whorley,"
Alex said without preamble as I was seated.

Alex must have seen the look of surprise on my
face as we shook hands. He chortled good-naturedly. "Teddy called
me yesterday afternoon to inquire as to whether I'd ever heard of
you. He said you were a lawyer that was out and about asking
questions about his father's death. With a great deal of reluctance
I admitted that you were a friend. He asked me if I could find out
what you were doing. I declined, but told him we were having lunch
together today and suggested he come along and ask you himself.
Here he is. I hope you don't mind. I left a message for you. You
must not have had a chance to check with your secretary, between
appointments." He smiled at me with his eyes.

"Yeah, slipped my mind. I was just going to
call her."

"Of course."

The maitre d' hadn't moved from my side since
seating me. His haughty attitude vanished when I was warmly
welcomed to the table of wealthy men. When I thought I had let him
stand in the corner long enough for his impertinence I said:
"Southern Comfort Manhattan," and watched as he beat a hasty
retreat to the bar to have my drink crafted.

"Actually, I was just at your office, Mr.
Whorley." I said turning my attention to him.

"Really," he said in reply, and lifted a
martini glass two inches off the table and lowered his head to it.
Teddy Whorley had a big red face and rubbery neck, complete with
jowls. He wore an extra large golf shirt in an unsuccessful attempt
to hide his rotund body. He leaned forward with his elbows on the
table, as if they were keeping him from crashing to the floor. His
hair was finger-raked, and there was a day's worth of stubble on
his chins. He wore square glasses in a thin gold frame. In front of
him on the table was a pack of Camel cigarettes with a silver Zippo
lighter sitting on top of the pack. Gentlemen were allowed to smoke
in their club. He shook a cigarette lose and lit it. He blew out a
cloud of blue smoke and picked a piece of tobacco off the end of
his tongue. "I'm sorry I wasn't there. Snuck in a quick 9 holes
this morning. You could have called and I would have been happy to
meet you."

"Well I had an appointment to meet with your
purchasing manager, Mr. Archer."

“Jed?"

"Yes. He was gracious enough to give me a few
minutes of his time."

"Well that's just fine. I'm glad, but just what
are you doing Mr. Knight? What's this all about?"

Alex the Cat was motionless in his seat. His
eyes were alert; his hands were folded out of sight in his lap. He
wore a charcoal suit over a dark blue shirt and a tie of the exact
same color. A matching show hankie was immaculately folded in the
breast pocket of his suit jacket. I looked like I had spent the
morning in a hot dog steamer, Whorley looked as if he'd just been
scrubbed on a washboard, Alex looked as if he'd been on mannequin
duty in the window of a ritzy men's store on Beacon
Hill.

"Well, Mr. Whorley ... "

"Ted"

" ... what it's about is your sister hired me
to look into your father's death."

He looked genuinely startled.
"Carolyn?"

"Yes, Carolyn. Do you have another
sister?"

"No ... no I don't. Why would she do such a
thing? My father drowned in his pool. It was horrible! My God, this
is extraordinary! I...don't know what to say."

And I could tell that he didn't. It is not easy
to prolong fake surprise. "Why didn't she say anything to
me?"

"Well you know your sister better than I do,
Mr. Whor ... Ted, but she says that she went to the police and they
didn't take her very seriously. She said you all seemed to accept
the fact ... well that your father's death was an
accident."

"But it was an accident, Mr. Knight, an awful,
terrible accident!"

"Maybe it was, but she isn't so
sure."

"But, but ... the police, they ... why wouldn't
they ... do whatever it is they do, conduct an investigation or
something, if they didn't believe that it was an
accident?"

"Well, you know, that's a good question. I've
been over there asking them that. I think that they thought that it
was an accidental drowning. They find a man in his pool, no sign of
a struggle, nothing to point to foul play. They make an assumption,
coroner's office backs them up." I shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first
time that a man drowned in his own pool. If it wasn't for your
sister sending me to poke around, nobody would have given much
thought to these ... what should I call them ... inconsistencies
that are starting to crop up."

"What 'inconsistencies'?" Whorley asked, his
eyes narrowing.

"Yes, Kato," Alex said, "do tell." His eyes
were swimming, but they had lost some of their humor.

"Alright," I said, "lets start with the fact
that your father had diatoms in his lungs."

''Diatoms?'' He rolled the word around in his
mouth like marbles. "What's that?"

"Algae." I said.

He thought about that. "Okay," he said drawing
the word out, "but doesn't algae grow in pools?"

"Yes it does. But algae are little organisms.
They grow in areas where the light is intermittent, where the water
temperature is coldish, where the water sits a little stagnant,
where the surface areas are right for it to collect and the .. I
don't know ... ingredients are there for it to draw on as it grows.
It grows better in ponds and lakes than it does in pools. But it
does grow in pools. When you open a pool, for example, in early
spring. The pool has been sitting there all winter. Leaves have
collected in it and started to decay. Snow brings God knows what
with it when it falls and melts into the mix and so on. That's why
you have algae in the spring."

Whorley was thinking about that. His head was
nodding slightly up and down. "But our pool has got to be cleaned
all the time, right? It's a constant battle to keep it looking
good. Fernando, that's our handy man, he is working at it all the
time."

"That's right," I said. "He has his filters
going all the time and he is cleaning and adding chemicals and all
that. So I would say it is less likely ... though not impossible
... that algae would be growing in a pool that gets the kind of
care that yours does. Not a lot of algae anyway."

He was with me on that I could see. His big
head kept bobbing up and down.

"And here is another thing that's a little
weird. Your father had his pants on backwards when he
died."

I watched Ted Whorley closely when I said that
but there was nothing there except puzzlement.

"His pants?"

"Yeah, his shorts, they were on him backwards.
I don't want to get to graphic on you here, Mr. Whorley, Ted ...
I'm sure your father's death was very difficult for you, but when
they took him to the coroners office, you know, if you can kind of
picture it, they, well, they lay him on his back and cut his
clothes off."

"Cut them off:" he said, his voice was a
whisper. He was looking past me over my shoulder, into an unfocused
place somewhere in the half distance.

"Yes," I said, a little more respectfully
now.

For the first time Alex moved. He lifted a
glass of water and took a small sip. I noticed my Manhattan for the
first time sitting on a cocktail napkin next to my elbow. I picked
it up and drained about a third of it.

Alex said: "They can't very well pull the
clothes off of him, can they Teddy." His

voice was firm and it brought Whorley
back.

"No," he said. ''I imagine he ... "

Alex said: "So, they cut the clothes off: very
carefully, down the middle. First the

shirt, then the pants, and so on." Alex had
seen it right away.

"And when they did they cut through the label,"
I said. “so you see?"

"Yes, I. .. " his voice was hoarse. He finished
his drink and motioned almost imperceptibly for another. He glanced
up at me from his crouch on his elbows and asked the question. "Why
would he have his pants on backwards?" But he knew that that was
indeed the point.

I shifted gears. "What was bothering your
father in the weeks before he died?"

He held my eyes for a long time without saying
anything. He could see it all suddenly. Teddy wasn't the brightest
star in the heavens, I could tell, but he could see that the
questions were starting to pile up. ''I don't know," he said
finally. It wasn't defiant; it was almost a little reluctant. Like
he wished he knew the answer. As if in his answer there was an
admission that his father didn't confide much in him. ''I think he
was looking for something. Somebody stealing from him, or hiding
something from him, I don't know."

"He didn't tell you though?"

"No, he didn't," he said flatly.

"But you have an idea, don't you, Kato?" Alex
said, nipping at his water glass again.

"Well, no, not me, but when I asked him what he
thought, Jed Archer guessed that Mr. Whorley suspected that the
Loading Dock was being used to bring something illegal into the
country."

"Smuggling?" Alex said, his eyebrows
arching.

"You must be joking," Teddy Whorley said almost
simultaneously.

"Pirates perhaps," Alex said, his eyes
sparkling with merriment again.

I shrugged. We sat with our thoughts. I
finished my Manhattan.

Finally Teddy Whorley said: ''Mr. Knight, I
don't know what this is all about, my sister is excitable, and she
was very close to my Father, but ... if there is something going
on, I'd want to know of course. Maybe the company could hire you,
get you inside ... "

''I have a client," I said.

That stopped him. He smiled a little sadly. "So
you do," he said, "and a rich one at that. Carolyn got most of
Daddy's money, you know, the cash that is. Sam and I got the
company," his eyes got that middle-distance look again, "as if
either of us knew how to run it," he said.

"You'll do just fine, Teddy," Alex said, "I'm
certain of it."

"With your help, Alex, we may not run it into
bankruptcy for a few years," Whorley said. He turned to me. "You
see, Mr. Knight, I didn't have a great deal to do with the success
of The Loading Dock. My Father always had grand intentions for me,
but never really got me into the decision making end of things. I
have a nice job and a fancy title, but the truth is I never did
much except play golf and pick up a pay check."

"There are worse jobs," I said
smiling.

"That's true," he said. "As far as this
business goes, I will help you all 1 can, Mr. Knight. If there is
something to all this, I would, we all would, want to get to the
bottom of it."

"Thank you," I said. "I'd like to visit your
home. Carolyn gave me kind of a standing invitation, but I don't
want to ambush anyone. I want to talk to Mrs. Whorley."

"Which one?" He laughed. "Nevermind, you shall
meet them both," he said. "When would you like to come?"

He caught me a little off guard with that.
"Well, I don't know, what's convenient for you?"