"That it was," he said, his voice now quiet. "Last year one of our senior patrolmen found out he had cancer. Incurable and inoperable. He decided to end it all, and did it in a motel room at Tyler Beach. Diane helped us a lot, helped us keep it out of the papers. We still owe her big."

  "So do I," I said. "So do I."

  When I saw her later that day, Paula Quinn was not having a good time of it. I had parked my Ford in the rear lot of the newspaper as always, and as I started heading toward the rear entrance of the newspaper, I stopped, looking at the closed door that led into the circulation department and from there into the newsroom. Some battles are worth fighting for, every minute of the day, and others deserve to wait. I decided to wait and swung around and went to the front of the paper.

  The receptionist was a young woman with dyed-blond hair and an earring through her left eyebrow—I was wondering if they were now called brow rings, if that's where they were placed—and she was studiously working on a crossword-puzzle book. It took her two tries with the phone system before she contacted Paula, and then she smiled up at me and said, "You can go right in. Do you need to know where her desk is?"

  ''I'll make a wild guess and stop at the one where she's sitting," I said, giving her my best Chronicle customer smile and walking into the newsroom. The place was empty save for Paula, who was at her desk, which looked as if it had been attacked by a roving gang of junk dealers. She had on a light gray UNH sweatshirt and blue jeans, and her hair had been pulled back from around her face by a thin black bandana. The two chairs near her desk were piled high with folders and newspaper clippings, but I found a spare chair and dragged it over. The desk of her editor, Rollie Grandmaison, was empty, as was the desk of the new guy, Rupert Holman. The front pages from the Chronicle's competition still hung from the ceiling, complete with fake blood and plastic dagger.

  "It looks like you're the one who got left behind at the junior prom," I said, and she looked up at me, her eyes sharp like crystal, and said, "It's been a sucky day, so please don't start."

  "All right, apologies," I said, looking around the place.

  "Where the hell is everybody?"

  "Out having a lengthy victory lunch, that's where," she said. "Latest circulation report came in and we exceeded our new weekly goal by three. Can you believe that? Three newspapers purchased at a newsstand, and we beat quota. Rupert was so thrilled that he took the whole cast and crew of this little adventure out to a nice long lunch to celebrate. Three strangers within five miles of this newspaper office, they decide to buy a Tyler Chronicle because of a story or a photo on the front page, or because they need something to wrap their dead fish in, and because of those three strangers, here I am, alone in the newsroom."

  I looked at her and her desk, at the mess of papers, files and other debris that accompanies being a daily newspaper reporter. "Okay, so you won't ask the question. I'll still answer it," she said. "The reason I'm not at the lunch is because I've been remiss in meeting one of our newsroom goals. Goal number four, if I recall, to have an orderly and clean working space. According to Rupert's anal compulsive mind, I had not even begun to meet the goal, let alone achieve it. So here I sit, while my fellow workers go out and enjoy a free meal."

  "Must be heartwarming, to see how many of your coworkers stood up for you."

  She wiped a strand of hair from her eyes. "Around here, Lewis, standing up just makes you a bigger target. This place is usually either somebody's first job or last job. In any event, it's a job they don't want to jeopardize. And I hate to admit, that means me right about this point. Which is why I’m here, hungry and angry, cleaning out my desk and file drawers.” She reached over to a filing cabinet, pulled out a cardboard box full of pencils, pens, buttons and bumper stickers, which she threw down on the desktop.

  She continued. "You know, you'd think he'd appreciate the fact that I'm his best reporter, that I always meet deadlines, and that I haven't made that much of a fuss in doing those kinds of stories he's been asking for. Speaking of making a fuss, friend, why in hell aren't you returning my phone calls?"

  "Excuse me?"

  Out at the receptionist area, the phone started ringing. It rang six times before it was picked up. Paula looked at me, another strand of hair across her face, but this time she didn't bother to move it. "You heard me. I called you yesterday and left a message. No reply. I called you this morning, same thing. Something going on?"

  I thought of the four messages I had erased yesterday without listening to them, and how I had gone out of the house this morning without checking messages after my morning shower. Damn. I tried to make light of it. "Sometimes I just forget, that's all. I'm sorry, I haven't checked messages in a while."

  Paula didn't seem to be in the mood for light. "Well, sometimes...sometimes I need to talk to you, especially when the day's not going well and I'm beginning to doubt my own journalistic skills. And I'm not being whiny or needy or greedy or any damn thing, but I sure could have used a talk last night."

  I slowly nodded, looked over at her. "Apologies again. Look, can I help you sort through this mess? Clean some of this stuff out to the rear dumpster?"

  She managed a smile. "No, that's okay. For one thing, this is my mess and I only trust my own eyes for deciding what stays and what goes. Plus, I'm enjoying sitting here, stewing and plotting revenge on Rupert when his time comes up. Tell you what—you can buy me a drink later, if you'd like, 'cause I'm sure I'll be in the mood for one."

  "Deal," I said, and Paula picked up the small cardboard box and looked in and rattled it around. “My word,” she said, “sometimes I can be such a pack rat. Time to dump this stuff and go onto the next pile."

  In front of me was a half-full wastebasket, and Paula turned the cardboard box over to empty it. Paper clips, pens and other debris tumbled out and I was going to ask her where she would like her drink when something yellow and black flashed by me. I felt my breath catch and waited until she had turned and gone to another filing cabinet drawer before I leaned over and looked down in the now full wastebasket, saw the little color of yellow. I gingerly reached down and picked up the yellow button with the black insignia that looked like a fat exclamation point. I was surprised my hands didn't tremble at holding the little bugger.

  Paula noted me and smiled. "Things so tough back at the ranch that you've got to go through my garbage for spare paper clips?"

  "This button," I said, holding it gingerly, as if I was afraid it was going to fly out of my hand and disappear, "do you remember where you got it from?"

  "Sure," she said. "But you're holding it wrong. Turn it about halfway...there. That's the way it should look. Yep, got that up in Porter, a couple of months ago."

  I now looked at the button, saw the way it was supposed to be displayed. The black mark no longer looked like a fat exclamation point. It was now the silhouette of a submarine. "At the shipyard? Did you get this button at the shipyard?"

  "No, I didn't," she said. "I got it at the Porter Submarine Museum, which is on the waterfront. By the USS Albacore. Their grand opening was back in late February, and I was part of the press contingent when they had their ribbon-cutting ceremonies. That button is what you wear after you pay your admission. I'm surprised you haven't been up there yet, knowing your interest in things historical."

  "Me, too," I said. I rolled the metal object between my fingers. The Porter Submarine Museum. Maybe Reeves and her Intel were wrong. Maybe nothing to do with the shipyard, but something to do with the submarine museum. Wrong intelligence from a federal agency? Made one feel like writing a stiff letter to The New York Times.

  I said, “Is it a big place? Do you know the director?”

  "Director? Lewis, the place is in a little converted brick storage building. Has two floors and you can get through the whole museum in under fifteen minutes. There's an old guy who runs the place, looks about ninety years old, and from what I gathered, he runs it by himself."

  "Can I get a copy of the story you did?"

  Her face flushed for a moment. "Oops, another secret revealed from the secret archives of being a newspaper reporter. Don't be shocked, but I was up in Porter that day for a dentist's appointment. It was late in the afternoon, and I decided to go over to the museum and see if I could get something to eat from the reception before heading home. I did a little news brief, if that. Not much of a story. You know we really don't cover Porter that much, especially if it's something like the museum."

  I held the button in my hand for just another moment, and then let it fall into the wastebasket. I looked at the newsroom clock. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and I was about thirty minutes away from Porter, if I pushed it.

  "Sure I can't help you in cleaning up?" I asked, hoping she would turn me down again, which she did.

  "Sure I'm sure," she said. "Unless you want to stay here and keep me company until my fellow members of the working class stumble back in from their free meal."

  I made a show of looking at my watch. "Well, I was thinking about running a couple of errands. How about I do that and then come back for that drink and conversation?"

  If she was disappointed, she managed to hide it quite well.

  "A drink and a conversation would be wonderful. Especially after today."

  I got up and said, "This Rupert guy. In addition to keeping tabs on what you do and how clean your office is, do you think he does video surveillance?"

  "Here? In the newsroom?"

  "Yeah, here in the newsroom. Any chance of video cameras in here?”

  She laughed, started flipping through a number of newspaper clippings. "He's hard to work for in a number of ways, but I don't think we can accuse him of spying on us. Not yet, anyway."

  "Good," I said, and leaned over to give her a kiss. She was surprised but then she laughed against my lips and kissed me back, quite well and diligently, thank you, and her hand gently tugged at the back of my neck.

  "Hmmm," she said. "Any reason for this little PDA?"

  I pulled back, glad to see the smile on her face. "Is it really a public display of affection if we're not in public?"

  "Shoo," she said, waving a handful of clippings at me. "Before I fall behind even more and Rupert sees what a bigger mess I've made."

  I touched her lips quickly with my fingers. "Drinks and conversation, very shortly."

  "Good. Now, go."

  I got.

  9

  The quickest way to get to Porter from Tyler is to get on Interstate 95, which I did after leaving the Chronicle's offices, moving quickly only when I was out of view of Paula and the newsroom. Heading north on the interstate, I joined the other streaming crowds of cars, trucks and minivans heading home on their daily commute after another day of doing whatever it is that normal people do.

  Normal people, I thought, looking ahead, trying to remember which exit was the closest in Porter to get to the USS Albacore. Normal people don't end up getting dragooned to working for the Drug Enforcement Agency, and normal people don't try to chase a spirit called Whizzer, and normal people don't go to Porter twice in one day, asking questions and prying and ignoring the attentions of a lovely young newspaper reporter who just recently tasted of cinnamon.

  But I've never claimed to be normal. Near Porter the interstate splits in two, one way heading to a traffic circle—a free one-ring circus that can provide long minutes of terrifying amusement as four lanes of traffic merge into one place—and the other way heading up and over the Piscataqua River, heading into Maine. I took the last possible exit before ending up in the Pine Tree State, helped by the exit sign that said PORTER WATERFRONT. The exit is elevated and I got a good view of the harbor—the salt and scrap piles, the small tankers heading up to the oil and gas terminals in Lewington. Many places in New Hampshire have been gentrified and yuppified and turned into theme parks that would make Walt Disney proud, but this port was still a working port, and I felt an irrational sense of pride at that.

  At the end of the exit I turned right onto Harborview Road, and then I turned right again after fifty yards or so, at the submarine, the USS Albacore, now landlocked and a tourist attraction. Before I came back to New Hampshire years ago, the locals in Porter had asked the Navy if the city could have the decommissioned Albacore to use as a tourist attraction. The experimental submarine had been built at the Porter Naval Shipyard in the 1950s and was destined to be scrapped. The Navy agreed to donate the submarine, and through lots of planning, criticism and scrambling, the city had pulled together to bring the sub in. One creative bit of planning included digging a ditch across four lanes of highway and building a temporary canal, so that the submarine could be placed inland.

  At the entrance to the submarine and the museum, a small blue and white OPEN flag was flying, so I knew I had some time. The parking lot only had a few vehicles parked there and to the right was the submarine, with a ramp leading into the side of its hull, where a door had been cut away. The white numerals "596" were quite bright. I parked and sat there for a moment, thinking about the man called Romero, who had died so near my home. He had been here, without a doubt. To do what? Meet up with his contact? And why continue wearing the little button as he sat in the parking lot of the state park? Being forgetful? Or was it used as an identification of some sort? And why was the button missing from the crime scene photos that Reeves had shown me?

  Lots of questions, and I got out of my Ford and walked over to the museum building. But no easy answers, none yet.

  The museum building looked like a two-story brick schoolhouse, and many of these buildings still exist in some of the small towns in the county. Inside, a tall older man was talking loudly into the phone. A couple of tourists were examining brochures at the other wall. I looked over at the info sign, saw that the place closed in less than an hour, and that an admission to the museum and the submarine cost five dollars. The man with the phone was behind a counter fronted by a glass display case and I walked over to him. At his elbow was a cash register and he looked at me and gave me an exasperated look, as if he would rather be anyplace than here. He looked to be in his mid-seventies, and wore black slacks, a dungaree shirt and red suspenders. A nametag on his chest said JACK EMERSON. Behind him was an open doorway into an office area packed with a small desk, chair, filing cabinets and some framed photos and certificates.

  "And I'm telling you," he said, "I do have spaces for two tour buses. But I don't have a place to feed your people. You'll have to make arrangements in town."

  To the right of the display case was a short archway made of brick, and a sign overhead said EXHIBITS. Glass windows overlooked the parking lot, the harbor and the silent black shape of the Albacore. I slid a five-dollar bill across the glass counter.

  Without missing a beat, Jack picked up the five-dollar bill and rang up the cash register. "Well, there are plenty of restaurants in Porter. I can't go ahead and book you in one. Best I can do is fax you a list of restaurants in walking distance."

  He reached underneath the counter and I heard a clicking sound, like poker chips being rubbed together, and then he brought up a yellow button, just like the one Paula had had in her office, just like the one Romero had on his lapel when someone shot him in the head. It was almost as if I were picking up some kind of cursed voodoo fetish as I took the button and pinned it on my shirt.

  "Well, we do a lot of things here at the submarine museum, but we're not a catering outfit," Jack said. "That's the best I can offer you. I know you're bringing in seventy-five people and I appreciate that, but right now, you’re being more of a pain than I need."

  Hoping I would have better luck with this button than the man called Romero, I went through the archway into the museum.

  Right away, I was transported back in time, back to 1800, when the first ships were constructed in the harbor for the U.S. Navy and the shipyard had been officially opened, though shipbuilding of all sorts had taken place in Porter since the place was first settled in 1623. The first part of the museum showed various displays and exhibits on the shipyard's early years, when it built all types of vessels for the Navy. And then, in 1914, the submarine work began for Porter and its navy yard.

  I went upstairs into the main exhibit, highlighting the submarine work that the yard had been so famous for during World War II. I walked quietly and respectfully through the exhibits, which showed the different types of submarines that were built here in the 1930s and 1940s, as Porter supplied seventy-nine fleet-class submarines for the Atlantic and Pacific naval battles of World War II. All of the photos were black and white, some were large and mounted on the walls. A lot showed submarines, draped in bunting, going down the slideways as they were launched, and others showed men at work, pipe fitters and welders and steamfitters. And for a time, during the height of the war, the men were joined by women, standing there proudly in their boots and overalls.

  Another wall contained small ribbons commemorating all the submarines that had been built and launched here, name after name: Aspro, Ronquil, Requin, Odax, Diablo, Piper, Pomfret, Sea Owl, Piranha. I smiled as I remembered a book I had read about when the new nuclear subs were being built, and Admiral Hyman Rickover began naming submarines after states and cities. The old salts in the Navy had sniffed about tradition, about how the tradition was to name the underwater craft after marine creatures. And in a snappy response, Rickover noted that fish didn't vote; residents of cities and states who had submarines named after their hometowns, did.

  Thus endeth the argument.

  There was a smaller display, titled TRANSITIONS, which covered the time during the 1960s and 1970s, when layoffs struck the shipyard, and when it became a yearly battle for the New Hampshire Congressional Delegation to keep the yard open and its thousands of jobs safe. But before I entered the TRANSITIONS gallery, I came to a full stop before a small display that showed a different type of submarine, with a "U" designation on the side.

  German subs, docked at the Porter Naval Shipyard.

 

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