Up ahead was the Portsmouth Hospital on a slight rise of land. It was as if his mind were directing him where to go.
Sam found William Saunders sitting at his desk, smoking a cigarette. The doctor looked up from a sheaf of papers. “Inspector Miller, to what do I owe this pleasure?”
“Looking to see if you’ve had any special visitors lately.”
Saunders tapped some ash from the cigarette. “Alive or dead?”
“Alive, of course.”
“Yeah, I have,” he said. “Two thugs. One working for a gangster called Hitler, the other working for a gangster called Long. Charming visitors.”
“Mind if I ask what they did here?”
“Hell, no,” Saunders said. “The usual crap about autopsy, cause of death, that sort of thing. Stayed all of five minutes and then went on their way. But one interesting thing… They didn’t want the body or his clothing. Funny, huh? You’d think a murder case that has the interest of the feds and the Gestapo would mean they’d want the body. At least to have another autopsy done by a fed coroner. Nope. Our John Doe stays with the county.”
Sam said, “I’d like to look at him again.”
Once again, Sam followed the medical examiner into the autopsy room. Saunders went to the wall of refrigerator doors. The one in the center said JOHN DOE.
Saunders opened the center door and reached in. The metal table slid out, making a creepy rattling noise. Saunders pulled down the soiled white sheet.
Sam stared at the dead man. Once upon a time this man walked and talked and breathed, was maybe loved, and had ended up here, in his city. Murdered.
As if he were watching someone else, Sam reached down, turned over the stiff wrist, examined the faded blue numerals again.
9 1 1 2 8 3.
“Inspector?” Saunders asked. “Are you through here?”
“Yeah, I am,” Sam said. He put the wrist down and wiped his hands on his coat. The sheet was placed back over the body, the tray was slid back in, and the door was closed.
“So what now?” Saunders asked.
“The FBI and the Gestapo have taken my case. This John Doe belongs to them. Question is, what do you do with the body?”
“Potter’s field, where else? But if need be, I can keep him here for a while. If you’d like.”
Sam remembered something from a couple of years back about old Hugh Johnson, his deceased predecessor. Hugh had been holding court one night in one of the local taverns when he loudly announced that the most important part of the job was closing the case. That’s it. Close the case and move on. Closed cases meant no open files, no pressure from the Police Commission, and a good end-of-the-year report, to keep your job for the next year.
“That’d be great, Doc,” Sam said. “Because I’m still going to work the case. It’s mine. No matter what my boss says. Or the FBI and the Gestapo.”
Saunders scratched at his throat, where the shrapnel scar from the Great War glistened out. “Your boss? The FBI? The Germans?”
“Yeah?”
“Fuck ’em all,” the county medical examiner said.
“That’s an unpatriotic response, Doc.”
“Glad I surprised you. You get this old, sometimes that’s the only joy you get—that and ticking off the powers that be.”
Sam said, “What are you driving at?”
Saunders raised a hand. “Enough. Leave me be with my dead people, okay? Christ, at least they have the courtesy to leave me alone most hours.”
When he left the city hospital, Sam knew where to go next. He walked the eight blocks briskly, thinking and planning. The Portsmouth railroad station stood at Deer Street, almost within eyeshot of his crime scene. It was an old two-story brick building with high peaked roofs, which looked as though the architect who had designed it had been frustrated that he hadn’t been born during the time of the great European cathedrals. The last time Sam had been here had been as an errand boy, dropping off that Lippman character for the Interior Department.
Sam made his way past tiny knots of people buying tickets to Boston or Portland or checking on arrivals. He went through a glass door that said MANAGER and took the chair across from Pat Lowengard. Pat was a huge man with slicked-back hair who looked like he couldn’t stand up without his office chair sticking to his broad hips. He had on a tan suit and a bright blue necktie and looked surprised to see Sam. His desk was nearly bare, and on the walls were printed displays of train schedules for northern New England.
“Something more I can do for you, Sam?”
“Yeah, there is,” Sam said. “I’m looking for more information about that five forty-five express from Boston to Portland.”
“What kind of information?”
“Let’s just say… is there anybody working at the station who might have been on that train?”
Lowengard rubbed at his fleshy chin. “Gee, I’m not sure…”
Sam waited, but Lowengard kept silent. Sam said, “Well?”
“Huh?”
Sam said, adding a bit of sharpness, “Then find out, will you? I need to know if anyone here was on that train. The sooner the better, Pat.”
The man’s face flushed. He picked up the phone, started talking to his secretary, made a second call. Sam sat there patiently. From outside there was the sharp whistle of a steam engine heading out, its engine hissing and grumbling.
Lowengard put the phone down. “You’re in luck. A stoker named Hughes was on that train. He’s in the marshaling yard. I told his boss to send him over. That all right?”
“That’s perfect.”
Sam waited, took out his notebook. Lowengard said, “Heard there was a corpse found two nights ago near our tracks. I hope you don’t think we hit him, Sam. Even though the express goes through here pretty fast, our engineers would notice something like that.”
Sam said nothing. Lowengard wet his lips with his tongue, as if he couldn’t stand having his mouth being dry.
There was a knock at the door. Lowengard called out, “Come in!” and a man about Sam’s age came in, wearing greasy overalls and a denim cap. His skin was soiled as well, especially his big hands, and when he entered the office, he took off his hat. There was a white stretch of clean skin on his forehead, making it look like an errant paintbrush had struck him.
Lowengard told Sam, “This is Peter Hughes. Peter, this is Sam Miller. He’s an inspector from the Portsmouth P.D. He’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Hughes blinked and looked at Sam. “Is… Am I in some kind of trouble? Sir?”
Sam said, “No, not at all. I’m conducting an investigation, and I have some questions about the Portland express.”
Hughes was twisting his hat in his big greasy hands. “An investigation, sir?”
“A police investigation,” Sam said, flipping open his notebook. “You were on the express two nights ago, from Boston to Portland?”
“Yep.”
“Did the train hit anything when it came through town?”
