I staggered across the room and out into a carpeted hallway, looking for a bathroom. I took four aspirin from a bottle in the medicine chest and ran a hot bath in the long yellow tub. I couldn’t find any washcloths on the shelves, so I soaked a heavy hand towel in the water and wrapped it around my head. After about half an hour in the water I started feeling more like me and less like a carpet after spring cleaning. I couldn’t believe I’d gotten that drunk on one bottle of wine. Maybe I’d drunk two.
I wrapped myself in a dressing gown hanging on the back of the bathroom door and went on down the hallway to find a kitchen, a small but completely equipped room gleaming in white and stainless steel. A clock hung next to the refrigerator. When I saw the time I put my head next to the face to see if it was still running. Twelve-thirty. No wonder Ferrant had left me to go downtown.
Puttering around, I found an electric coffee maker and some canned coffee and brewed a pot. Drinking it black, I recalled last night’s events—the meeting with Paige and dinner with Ferrant. I dimly remembered trying to call the Great Lakes Naval Training Station. The reason why came back to me. Sober, it still sounded like a good idea.
Using a white wall phone next to the stove, I tried the Station again. This time a young man answered. I told him I was a detective, which he interpreted as meaning I was with the police. Many people think that and it helps not to disillusion them.
“Niels Grafalk keeps his private yacht at the Training Station,” I said. “I want to know if he took it out early Sunday morning.”
The young sailor switched me down to the dock, where I talked to a guard. “Mr. Grafalk handles his boat privately,” the guard told me. “We can call around and try to find out for you.”
I told him that would be great and I would call again in an hour. I put my clothes back on. They were smelling rather stale by this time. I was short a corduroy pantsuit, jeans, and two shirts as a result of this case. Maybe it was time for new clothes. I left Ferrant’s apartment, rode the elevator down to the ground, and walked across the street to Water Tower Place, where I treated myself to a new pair of jeans and a red cotton shirt with a diagonal yellow stripe at Field’s. Easier than going back to my apartment at this point.
I went back down to the Loop. I hadn’t been in my office since the morning I talked to Mrs. Kelvin, and the floor inside the door was piled with mail. I looked through it quickly. Bills and advertisements—no solicitations from millionaires to find their missing husbands. I dumped the lot in the trash and phoned the Naval Station again.
The young sailor had exerted himself to be helpful. “I called over to Admiral Jergensen’s office, but no one there knew anything about the boat. They told me to call Mr. Grafalk’s chauffeur—he usually helps out when Mr. Grafalk wants to sail. Anyway, he wanted to know why we were asking, so I told him the police were interested, and he said the boat hadn’t been out on Saturday night.
I thanked him weakly for his help and hung up. I simply hadn’t anticipated that. Calling Grafalk. At least they had said police and not given my name, since I’d never told the sailor who I was. But if there was evidence on the boat, they’d be at pains now to get rid of it.
I debated calling Mallory but I couldn’t see how I could convince him to get a search warrant. I thought about all possible arguments I might use. He still believed Boom Boom and I had been victims of separate accidents. I was never going to be able to convince him Grafalk was a murderer. Not unless I had a sample of Phillips’s blood from Grafalk’s yacht.
Very well, then. I would get a sample. I went to a safe built into the south wall of my office. I’m not Peter Wimsey and I don’t carry a complete police lab around with me, but I do have some of the rudiments, like chemicals to test for the presence of blood. And some self-sealing plastic pouches to put samples in. I had a Timothy Custom Utility Knife in there, so I took that along. With a three-inch blade, it wasn’t meant as a weapon but a tool, its razor-honed blade ideal for cutting up a piece of deck or carpet or something containing the evidence. My picklocks and a magnifying glass completed my gear.