This was one of the rare occasions when I wished I had a partner, someone who could dig into Paige’s background while I disguised myself as a load of wheat and infiltrated Eudora Grain.

I paid the bill and headed for home and a free phone. Relatively free. Murray Ryerson, crime reporter for the Herald-Star, had left for the night. They took a message from me at the city desk. I also left my name and number on Fackley’s phone machine. There was nothing more I could do tonight, so I went to bed. A life of nonstop thrills.

Chapter 8

Learning the Business

I tried Murray again in the morning after my run. I was getting up too early these days—the star reporter hadn’t arrived for work yet. I left another message and got dressed: navy linen slacks, a white shirt, and a navy Chanel jacket. A crimson scarf and low-heeled navy loafers completed the ensemble. Tough but elegant, the image I wanted to get across at Eudora Grain. I tossed an outsize shirt and my running shoes into the back seat to wear at the elevator—I wasn’t going to ruin any good clothes down there.

Margolis was waiting for me. As the men came off shift for their morning break I talked to them informally in the yard. Most were pretty cooperative: seeing a detective, even a lady detective, relieved the monotony of the day. None of them had seen anything of my cousin’s death, however. One of them suggested that I talk to the men on the Lucella. Another said I ought to speak to Phillips.

“He hanging around here? I don’t remember that,” a short fellow with enormous forearms said.

“Yup. He was here. He come through with Warshawski and told Dubcek here to put on his earmuffs.”

They debated the matter and finally agreed that the speaker was right. “He stuck pretty close to Warshawski. Don’t know how he missed him out there on the wharf. Guess he was in with Margolis.”

I asked about the papers Boom Boom was supposed to have stolen. They were reticent but I finally pried out the information that Phillips and Boom Boom had had a terrible argument about some papers. That Phillips had accused my cousin of stealing? I asked. No, someone else said—it was the other way around. Warshawski had accused Phillips. None of them had actually heard the argument—it was just a rumor.

That seemed to be that. I checked back with Margolis. Phillips had been with him at what might have been the critical time. After the Bertha Krupnik pulled away he had asked impatiently for Warshawski and had gone out to the wharf to get him and found him floating off the pier. They’d hauled Boom Boom up right away and given first aid, but he had been dead for twenty minutes or more.