I emptied everything out of my shoulder bag, put my driver’s license and my detective ID in my pocket with some money and stuck the detective equipment in the zippered side compartment. Back to Grant Park for my car, which cost me fifteen dollars to retrieve. I wasn’t sure I was going to remember all my expenses for submitting a bill to Boom Boom’s estate. I needed to be more methodical in recording them.
It was after four when I reached the Edens Expressway. I kept the speedometer at sixty-five all the way to the tollway. Traffic was heavy with the first wash of northbound executives from the city and I kept pace with the cars in the fast lane, not risking a ticket and the delays that would bring me.
At five I exited onto route 137 and headed toward the lake. Instead of turning south on Green Bay for Lake Bluff, I went on to Sheridan Road and turned left, following the road up to the Great Lakes Naval Station.
A guard was on duty at the main entrance to the base. I gave my most vivacious smile, trying hard not to look like a Soviet spy. “I’m Niels Grafalk’s niece. He’s expecting me to join a party down at the Brynulf Nordemark.”
The guard consulted a list in the booth. “Oh. That’s the private boat the admiral lets the guy keep here. Go on in.”
“I’m afraid this is my first time up here. Can you give me directions?”
“Just follow this road down to the docks. Then turn left. You can’t miss it—it’s the only private sailboat down there.” He gave me a permit in case anyone asked me any questions. I wished I was a Soviet spy—this would be an easy place to get into.
I followed the winding road past rows of stark barracks. Sailors were wandering around in groups of two or three. I passed a few children, too. I hadn’t realized that families lived on the base.
The road led down to the docks, as the guard had said. Before I reached the water I could see the masts of the ships sticking up. Smaller than the lakes freighters, covered with turrets and radar equipment, the naval ships looked menacing, even in the golden light of a spring evening. Driving past them, I shuddered and concentrated on the road. It was pitted from the heavy vehicles that routinely used it and the Omega bounced from hole to hole past the line of training ships.
About a hundred yards farther down, in splendid isolation, sat the Brynulf Nordemark. She was a beautiful vessel with two masts; sails furled neatly about them. Painted white, with green trim, she was a sleekly lined boat, floating easily against the ropes that fastened her to the dock, like a swan or some other water bird, natural and graceful.
I parked the Omega on the boat’s far side and walked out on the little jetty to which the Brynulf was tied. Pulling one of the guys slightly to bring her over to me, I grabbed the wooden railing and swung myself over onto the deck.
All of the fittings were made of teak, varnished and polished to a reflecting sheen. The tiller was set in a gleaming brass base, and the instrument panel, also teak, contained a collection of the most up-to-date gadgets—gyro compass, wind gauges, depth sounders, and other instruments I couldn’t begin to understand. Grafalk’s grandfather had bought the yacht, I recalled—Grafalk must have updated the equipment.
Feeling like a caricature of a detective, I pulled the magnifying glass out of my handbag and began to scrutinize the deck—on hands and knees, just like Sherlock Holmes. The tour took some time and I failed to discover anything remotely like blood on the highly polished surface. I continued the inspection along the sides. Just as I was about to give up on the deck, I spotted two short blond hairs caught in the starboard railing. Grafalk’s hair was white, the chauffeur’s sandy. Phillips had been a blond, and this was a good spot for his head to have banged as they dragged him off the yacht. Grunting with satisfaction, I took a pair of eyebrow tweezers from my purse, plucked out the hairs, and put them in a little plastic bag.
A small flight of stairs next to the tiller led to the cabin. I paused for a minute, hand on the wheel, to look at the dock before I went down. No one was paying any attention to me. As I started down the stairs my eye was caught by a large warehouse across the road from me. It was a corrugated Quonset hut, dingy like the other buildings on the base. Plastered with red triangles, it had a neatly lettered sign over the entrance: MUNITIONS DEPOT, HIGH EXPLOSIVES. NO SMOKING.
No guard patrolled the depot. Presumably, if you had clearance to be on the base at all, you weren’t likely to rifle the munitions. Grafalk passed the dump every time he went sailing. His chauffeur probably had the tools to get past the lock on the large rolling doors. As a friend of the admiral’s, Grafalk might even have gone in on some legitimate pretext. I wondered if they kept an inventory of their explosives. Would they be able to tell if enough depth charges were gone to blow up a thousand-foot ship?