I told him we thought the criminal was an angry seaman we'd got rid of a few days ago, but Boom Boom said there was more to it than that. I waited on the bridge until five on Tuesday, hoping to talk to him. Then we got news that he'd died.’
Did anyone here see him fall?' I asked.
Captain Bemis shook his head. ‘I'm sorry, but we didn't even realize there had been an accident; none of our men was on deck when the ambulance came.'
I felt disappointed. It seemed so - so unfair that Boom Boom had slid out of life without one person to see him do it. I tried to concentrate on Captain Bemis and the accident to his ship, but it didn't seem important to me. I felt stupid, rushing around the wharf, playing detective, just to avoid admitting that my cousin was dead.
I asked Mike Sheridan to drive me back the Eudora Grain to Company. I picked up the Lynx and drove home. The next morning I drove to Boom Boom's apartment. I stood again at the huge window and looked at the lake. The water was green, and in the distance a ship moved towards the other side of the lake. I stared for a long time before going to the study.
A horrific sight met me. The papers I had left in eight neat piles were thrown around the room. Drawers were opened. Pictures pulled from the walls. Worst of all, a body lay crumpled on the other side of the desk. The man was dead. I guessed his neck had been broken - I couldn't see any wounds. I lifted the head gently: it was the watchman I had spoken to the night before, when I was leaving the building. I ran to Boom Boom's bathroom.
I drank a glass of water from the tap and my stomach felt tap calmer. I used the phone in the bedroom to call the police. In the bedroom, too, drawers stood open with clothes thrown on the floor. Someone had been looking for something. But what?
The police said that it was an ordinary burglary. I argued that nothing valuable had been taken, but they insisted that was because the watchman's death had frightened the burglar. I felt I had sent the old man to his death, by asking him not to let anyone into Boom Boom's apartment.