Leaving the recliner chair, I walked into the master bedroom where my belongings had metastasized throughout most of the small, chilly space. I undressed quickly and took a hurried shower, having discovered my first day here that the hot-water heater had its limitations. In fact, I did not like Dr. Mant’s drafty house with its knotty pine paneling the color of amber and dark brown painted floors that showed every particle of dust. My British deputy chief seemed to live in the dark clutches of gusting wind, and every moment in his minimally furnished home was cold and unsettled by shifting sounds that sometimes caused me to sit up in my sleep and reach for my gun.
Swathed in a robe with a towel wrapped around my hair, I checked the guest bedroom and bath to make certain all was in order for the midday arrival of Lucy, my niece. Then I surveyed the kitchen, which was pitiful compared to the one I had at home. I did not seem to have forgotten anything yesterday when I had driven to Virginia Beach to shop, although I would have to do without garlic press, pasta maker, food processor and microwave oven. I was seriously beginning to wonder if Mant ever ate in or even stayed here. At least I had thought to bring my own cutlery and cook-ware, and as long as I had good knives and pots there wasn’t much I couldn’t manage.
I read some more and fell asleep in the glow of a gooseneck lamp. The telephone startled me again and I grabbed the receiver as my eyes adjusted to sunlight in my face.
“This is Detective C. T. Roche with Chesapeake,” said another male voice I did not know. “I understand you’re covering for Dr. Mant, and we need an answer from you real quick. Looks like we got a diving fatality in the Inactive Naval Ship Yard, and we need to go ahead and recover the body.”
“I’m assuming this is the case one of your officers called me about earlier?”
His long pause was followed by the rather defensive remark, “As far as I know, I’m the first one notifying you.”
“An officer named Young called me at quarter past five this morning. Let me see.” I checked the call sheet. “Initials S as in Sam, T as in Tom.”
Another pause, then he said in the same tone, “Well, I got no idea who you’re talking about since we don’t have anybody by that name.”
Adrenaline was pumping as I took notes. The time was thirteen minutes past nine o’clock. I was baffled by what he had just said. If the first caller really wasn’t police, then who was he, why had he called, and how did he know Mant?
“When was the body found?” I asked Roche.
“Around six a security guard for the shipyard noticed a johnboat anchored behind one of the ships. There was a long hose in the water, like maybe there was someone diving at the other end. And when it hadn’t budged an hour later, we were called. One diver was sent down and like I said, there is a body.”
“Do we have an identification?”
“We recovered a wallet from the boat. The driver’s license is that of a white male named Theodore Andrew Eddings.”
“The reporter?” I said in disbelief. “That Ted Eddings?”
“Thirty-two years old, brown hair, blue eyes, based on his picture. He has a Richmond address of West Grace Street.”
The Ted Eddings I knew was an award-winning investigative reporter for the Associated Press. Scarcely a week went by when he didn’t call me about something. For a moment, I almost couldn’t think.
“We also recovered a nine-millimeter pistol from the boat,” he said.
When I spoke again, it was very firmly. “His identification absolutely is not to be released to the press or anyone else until it has been confirmed.”
“I already told everybody that. Not to worry.”
“Good. And no one has any idea why this individual might have been diving in the Inactive Ship Yard?” I asked.
“He might have been looking for Civil War stuff.”
“You speculate that based on what?”