When he returned, Ray suggested the most useful thing they could do would be to check out whether Jerry had indeed arrived at the dropoff point in Goleen with his four cans of milk. He made one quick phone call to the Central Milk Corporation and came up with the name of the tanker driver, Patrick O’Driscoll, who lived in Goleen.
Ten minutes later, they were at his front door, and Patrick quickly explained the unusual events of the early morning: “Sure, I saw Jerry’s truck come speeding through the village around seven this morning. He drove straight past the collection point and kept on going.”
“Did you see him come back?”
“I did not. And I noticed that his other four cans were still there when I packed up at two o’clock. I collected no milk from Jerry today.”
“Was the truck going unusually fast?”
“Well, Jerry always did drive it pretty quickly, but this morning it was going real quick, even for him.”
“Did he wave to you, or acknowledge you in any way?”
“He did not. Just went right by.”
“Mr. O’Driscoll, I want you to think very carefully before you answer this question. Are you absolutely certain that Jerry was behind the wheel of that truck when you saw it drive straight through Goleen?”
Patrick O’Driscoll hesitated. “Well, I’d thought he was. when you see a fella like Jerry every day of your life, you get a kind of set impression. You know. Truck, milk, and Jerry.”
Detective Ray McDwyer smiled. He was a well-dressed serious man of around forty and looked like the managing director of a bank. But he was a very good policeman, and there were those who thought he would climb even higher in his chosen profession.
“Patrick,” he said, “I want you to swear to God you saw Jerry Driscoll in his truck driving through Goleen this morning.”
Patrick was silent for a few moments. And then he said, “I’m trying to get the picture clear in my mind. And I can do no more. But I cannot swear Jerry was behind the wheel. That truck was past me in a flash, and to tell the truth, if I hadn’t known it was Jerry’s truck, I would not have known who the hell it was.”
Detective McDwyer persisted. “Did you see his back, or his coat?”
“I did not. I was focused on the milk cans swaying around in the back. I just thought Jerry was off on some errand and that he’d be back. I didn’t mean to mislead you, sir. You can trust me on that.”
“I know you didn’t,” replied Detective Ray McDwyer. “The memory’s a funny thing. It can trick you. And I’m grateful for your help.”
Officer Joe Carey drove them back to the Crookhaven waterfront, where McDwyer called in the other cars. He asked all seven of his men to pay attention, and he told them, “It looks to me as if Jerry O’Connell was removed from his truck somewhere between the top road and Goleen, a distance of less than three miles.
“I want you to organize a search all along there with as many officers as you can find. This is getting more serious than I first thought. But Jerry’s truck was seen driving fast through Goleen at around seven o’clock. You may assume he was not at the wheel.”
There were many hours of daylight left, and another dozen policemen were drafted in from outlying districts. And for hour after hour they walked along the high road above the harbor, searching both sides of the road for signs of an injured man — or a dumped body.
At 4:30 P.M., Ray McDwyer himself was walking along the road, staring down in search of any clue as to where the milk truck had stopped. And he stopped at a short, maybe four-foot-long skid mark on the left-hand side of the road. To him, the rubber looked fresh and black, and he told Joe Carey to step up the search along this stretch of road, with six men on the left and eight on the right, along the cliff top.
At 5:25 that afternoon, they found the body of Jerry O’Connell, his septum crushed into his brain.
“Mother of God!” murmured Ray McDwyer.
The Royal Navy’s 7,000-ton
The ship was quiet. There were no U.S. submarines this far south, the French underwater boats were in their huge base at Brest on the Brittany coast, and the Russians right now had nothing beyond the confines of the Baltic. Everyone knew there was nothing around, and nothing was expected.
However, at four minutes past four o’clock, a short, sharp exclamation was uttered by one of the young sonar operators; uttered almost in disbelief, in language not normally associated with the formal idiom of a submarine on patrol.
