Bledsoe gave an exclamation. “My God, Vic!” He fished around for something else to say but made several false starts before he could get a coherent thought out. I watched him carefully. Surprise is such an easy feeling to counterfeit. It looked genuine, but…

The captain looked at me with narrowed eyes. “You seem pretty cool about it.”

“Would it be more believable if I lay down on the floor and screamed?”

Bemis made a gesture of annoyance. “I assume I could radio the Chicago police and get some verification of this.”

I pointed to the radio on the port wall. “By all means. A Lieutenant Robert Mallory can tell you anything you want to know.”

“Can you give us some more detail on what happened?” That was Bledsoe, finding his voice and his authoritative manner.

I obliged with as much of the accident as I could recall.

“Now what makes you think someone on the Lucella might be involved?”

“There’s a limited universe of who could have done it,” I explained. “Only a few people knew I was down there. Only a few could identify my car.”

“How do you figure that?” That was the captain again. “There are a lot of vandals down at the Port and this frankly sounds like vandalism.”

“Captain, I don’t know what your exposure to vandals is, but I see a lot of them. I don’t know of any vandal who goes around with a cutting torch and a ratchet wrench to disable cars. It’s a lengthy procedure with a very high risk of getting caught, and there’s no point to it. Especially in a place like a grain elevator, which is hard to get to.”

Bemis’s brow creased. “You think just because the Lucella was tied up there we’re implicated somehow?”

“You people and Clayton Phillips are the only ones who knew I was down there … Captain, I’m certain that my cousin was pushed overboard last month—or underboard, to be literal about it. And I know someone else was killed in connection with my cousin’s affairs. The way I see it, the killer is either connected with this ship or with Eudora Grain. Now you’ve got a big machine shop here. I’m sure you have a couple of cutting torches lying around—”

“No!” Bemis exploded. “No way in hell is Mike Sheridan involved in this.”

“How long have you known him?”

“Twenty years. At least twenty years. We’ve been sailing together a long time. I know that man better than I know—my wife. I see more of him.”

“Besides,” Bledsoe put in, “there’s no reason for Mike—or any of us—to want to kill you.”