Boston to Portland, the one that just might have been carrying his John Doe.
He dialed the local four-digit number for the B&M station, and when Lowengard got on the phone, Sam told the station manager, “Pat, you did good. Thanks. The department owes you one.”
Lowengard’s voice was shaky, but he seemed happy to be praised. “So glad it worked out, Sam. Is there anything else I can do for the department?”
“Yeah, there is.”
Silence. Just the sound of the heavy man’s labored breathing.
“Only a question, Pat. According to the new internal transport laws, there’s got to be a manifest for the passengers, right? And the manifest is checked by a railroad cop assigned to that particular train?”
“That’s right,” Pat said carefully.
“Good. Now. According to the law, shouldn’t the manifest be checked when the train arrives? To match the number of people getting off the train against the master list?”
“Sam, please don’t hold me to this… I really don’t want to say anymore. I mean, look, I’m in an awkward position and…”
“Pat, whatever it is, you won’t be in trouble from me. I’m just trying to find out if my John Doe got tossed off that train to Portland. If there’s a name on the list that didn’t get checked off in Portland, then there’s a pretty good chance that’s my man.”
No answer.
Sam said, “Things get busy, don’t they? Paperwork gets sloppy. Train pulls in late, nobody wants to hold up the passengers, checking off names. So people look the other way. Maybe there’s a favor. Someone doesn’t even make the list. A good guess?”
“A very good guess, Sam.”
“Then tell me who to call up there in Portland, your counterpart. On the off chance that the paperwork was done right.”
“George Culley,” the station master said. “He should be able to help you.”
“Thanks, Pat.” But by then Sam was talking to a dead phone.
Sam took a quick bathroom break and then came back to his office, saw a note among the papers. It was from Sean Donovan, records clerk, and all it said was
Later, then, for now it was time for real police work. After going through the local New England Telephone operator, getting a long-distance line, he got hold of George Culley of the Portland office of the Boston & Maine. Culley’s tough Maine voice sounded as though he belonged on a lobster boat and not in a train station, but when Sam told him what he needed, the Mainer’s voice became conspiratorial, like that of a child who had spent too much time listening to
“Really?” George asked. “A murder investigation?”
“That’s right,” Sam said. “I believe the murdered man was on the express from Boston to Portland three days ago. I have the manifest of those passengers who boarded in Boston. If you have the manifest of the departing passengers, then—”
“Then we can find out who didn’t get checked out up in Portland, and you know who your dead man is! Hold on, let me get that paperwork.”
There was a thud of the phone being dropped. Sam looked about his tiny work area and was thankful again that Mrs. Walton was out.
“All right,” George said.
“I’ve counted the number of passengers on this manifest, and I came up with a hundred and twelve. What do you have?”
He could hear Culley murmuring, and then his voice came back, excited. “One hundred eleven. I counted it twice. One hundred eleven. So my manifest must have your John Doe.”
“Okay, let’s start, and remember, just the male names. Don’t need the females.”
“Sure,” George said. “First name on the list, Saul Aaron.”
Sam looked at the blurry carbon. “Check.”
“Okay, Vernon Aaron.”
“Check.”
Sam yawned. It was going to be a long afternoon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
About thirty-five minutes later, they found it.
“Wynn. Roscoe Wynn.” George’s voice sounded tired.
Sam rubbed at his eyes, looked again.
“Repeat that, George? What was that name?”
“Wynn. Roscoe Wynn. With a Y.”
He checked the fuzzy letters once more. There was a Roscoe Wynn, but another name was listed before it.
“Not Wotan? Peter Wotan?”
“No. It goes from Williams to Wynn. No Wotan. You think that’s it?”
“Not yet,” Sam said. “Let’s be thorough. It looks like there’s only a dozen left.”
Which was true, but at the end, as he felt a thrill of excitement course through him like a drink of cold water on a hot day, he knew who his dead man was.
Peter Wotan.
No longer John Doe.
Sam looked at the list again.
Peter Wotan.
An hour later, he didn’t know very much more.
Using the long-distance operators, calls to the B&M office in Boston confirmed that Peter Wotan had boarded the express train from there to Portland. Sam even got a home address, 412 West Thirty-second Street, Apartment Four, in New York City. But a series of additional operator-assisted long-distance calls to various police precincts in New York City—he shuddered to think of what Mrs. Walton would say about next month’s long-distance bill—revealed that the address was a fake.
Fake address.
Fake name as well?
Where to next?
He looked to the clock on the near wall.
Time to go home, that’s what.
Toby was a handful at dinner, wanting to bring an Action comic book to the table and trying to sneak it in during a dessert of lime Jell-O. Distracted, Sam spoke sharply to him, sending him to his room in tears. Toby stormed out, yelling, “You never let me have
Finally, when Toby had gone to bed and they were in their own bedroom, he stood by the door and remembered again what had happened just over twenty-four hours ago. “That was a real close run last night.”
“I know, I know,” she said. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, brushing her hair. The radio was on. It seemed like Sarah had found a new dance station, though it was peppered with bursts of static. Then the dance music stopped and was replaced by Bing Crosby singing “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning.”
