The agent turned the bottle in the light from the window, inspecting it. “Codeine sulfate, one-half grain. Your physician verifies this is a legal prescription, but said you use more and more every year. In fact, this past month, you’ve doubled your dose.”
Winslow let out a series of rough breaths, and his fingers tangled with each other. “My nerves have been acting up with the upheaval here at the shipyard. I need it to do my job.”
“Addicts...” Agent Sheffield narrowed his eyes. “Addicts behave erratically.”
Tremors ran through Mr. Winslow’s arms. “I do my job, sir. I do it well.”
“Tell you what.” He tossed the prescription bottle to Agent Hayes. “You cooperate, and we’ll give you a pill. Sound like a fair trade?”
Winslow’s hungry gaze bored into Agent Hayes. “I have cooperated. I let you into my house last night without a search warrant, didn’t I?”
“You did, didn’t you?” Sheffield flicked his chin in Hayes’s direction. “Give the boy a cookie.”
Mary swallowed the nasty taste in her mouth. She might have to transcribe the conversation, but she didn’t have to like the interrogation techniques.
Mr. Winslow swallowed the pill like a starving man. Then he smoothed his hair and stood. “You said you’d bring me here to compare my original plans to the blueprints. May we please get started so I can return to the comforts of my prison cell?”
Agent Sheffield unrolled a blueprint on the desk. After Mr. Winslow read something off the blueprint, he went to a filing cabinet. In a minute he pulled out a large drawing covered with numbers and notations.
“You see the coordinating number and date.” Mr. Winslow pointed to the bottom corner of each diagram. “Let me examine them. The bolts ... the bolts...”
“The drawings should be exactly alike,” Agent Sheffield said.
Mary resisted the urge to lean forward and examine the diagrams herself. She was a secretary right now, not a detective.
“There!” Mr. Winslow jabbed his finger at the blueprint. “Look right there. See, on my original, the numeral one. On the blueprint, the numeral four. And here, the five is an eight. And here. And here.” He cussed, then shot Mary an apologetic look.
She chose not to record those words.
The FBI agents inspected the diagrams, and Hayes took notes in a small notepad.
“I told you. It isn’t me.” Winslow strode to the window and spun to face them. “It’s O’Donnell. He’s the one. He altered my plans to sabotage our ships and to frame me. That’s why he always refused to let me inspect his work. Why’d I let him bully me? Why?”
Agent Sheffield straightened. “O’Donnell has worked on all the affected blueprints?”
“Yes, sir. That’s his assignment, the Fiske crew.”
“Hayes?” Sheffield cocked his head to the door.
Agent Hayes opened the door and leaned out. “Mr. O’Donnell. Would you please join us?”
Mary tucked her crossed ankles under her chair. Things were about to get explosive.
O’Donnell entered the office, a smug smile on his face, and he opened his mouth.
“Come here.” Agent Sheffield motioned him over, apparently not in a mood to listen to O’Donnell taunt his boss. “We’ve found some discrepancies between Winslow’s original plans and the blueprints you drew. See here, and here, and here.”
The draftsman bent his iron-gray head over the papers, silent. “Those aren’t my marks. Look here—I close up my fours—these are open at the top. And these eights—someone added a line to a five. I always make eights with two circles. That’s what I learned in drafting school. See? These are my marks.”
“Hmm.” Sheffield looked closer, and Hayes made more notes.
So did Mary. Could O’Donnell have deliberately made such marks? Or had someone else done the alterations?
“Look. These marks are thicker than mine too. Someone altered the draft after I finished, but before the blueprints were developed.” O’Donnell leveled his gaze at Winslow. “Nice try, boss. You failed.”
“You think I’d alter my own plans? That’s poppycock.” Winslow ran shaking hands over his trousers. “If you didn’t do it, one of your friends did. Perhaps your buddy Fiske.”
“Frank? You’ve got to be desperate to accuse him.” O’Donnell’s thick eyebrows twisted. “I know it was you. I leave the plans on my desk. I never thought I needed an armed guard.”
