“On what grounds? I’d need to show some probable cause. Besides, the feeling on our team is that something like that would only tip our hand. We’d be taking a big risk. If there’s nothing in that warehouse that shouldn’t be there, Keller would know we’re after him and cover his tracks.”
“Maybe,” I say. “But a warrant is what I’m here for.”
“Not for the warehouse -?”
I shake my head. “The boat. If that really was a body they dumped, then maybe there’s some trace evidence onboard. Now, if I go through the usual channels, there’s no way they won’t know what’s going on. But you guys, on the other hand, have back doors into the judges’ chambers.”
“You should have come to me sooner,” he says with a laugh. “Trying to find a judge in chambers today is going to be a challenge. They’ve got mansions to board up and yachts to tie down.”
“Maybe we’ll find one down at the marina.”
His smile fades. “It’ll have to wait.”
“If we don’t get in there before the hurricane hits, we could lose the opportunity. They’re talking about Galveston being underwater, Stephen, so I doubt the Kemah Boardwalk is going to be in good shape. I can’t have my smoking gun sinking to the bottom of the sea.”
“The slips can’t be that deep,” he says.
“Come on. I know there are strings you can pull. What’s the point of having a man inside IAD if he doesn’t throw his weight around from time to time?”
After a little token resistance, he gives way. “Fine, March. Whatever you want. But you’re writing it up, not me.”
I slide the warrant across his desk, typed before my visit. He takes it with a rueful smile, glances over the cover page, then reaches for the phone.
Thanks to the floating docks, the boats in the marina rise and fall as the water does, the waves choppy harbingers of the coming storm, as is the cloudy gunmetal sky. The late afternoon wind is electric, thick with humidity, smelling of salt. Wilcox is with me, along with a couple of handpicked officers from Internal Affairs. We check in with the security chief, who’s wearing the same shorts and shirt I remember from before, with a little more stubble around the jowls. He guides us through the network of slips, checking his clipboard from time to time as though he’s forgotten which boat we’re heading for.
The Rosalita is tucked between two newer, larger vessels, its hull pearlescent and dingy from the passage of time. We descend from the pier to the cruiser’s stern, feeling the roll underfoot, then advance beneath the open-backed enclosure that shelters the wheel. In spite of his portly form, the security chief moves in easy strides. The rest of us, already gloved, reach for the nearest handholds to keep our balance.
“If you think this is bad,” he says, “just you wait.”
The cabin door is securely locked, but we’ve brought along an officer who specializes in surreptitious entry. After a couple of minutes crouched at the door, he announces victory, stepping aside to let Wilcox pass. My ex-partner pauses, motioning me forward.
“Ladies first,” he says.
A narrow row of steps leads into the cramped cabin, which reminds me more of a fiberglass bathtub insert than the opulently appointed, wood-paneled abode I was imagining. There’s a tight banquette molded into one side, complete with folding table, and a set of storage cubbies on the other, lit only by a row of narrow dirty windows that pierce the hull. I fumble along the wall for a light switch, but if there is one, I don’t find it.
“I hope nobody’s claustrophobic,” I say.
The cabin smells damp and a little fishy, but the surfaces gleam cleanly in the dimness. At the far end, behind a tiny door, I find a cleverly compartmentalized shower and toilet small enough to make an airplane restroom seem vast in comparison. The others file in, and somebody finds the lights. Fully illuminated, the cabin reminds me a bit of a camper my uncle used to keep in the driveway when I was a kid. The idea of it seemed cool, but whenever I went inside, I couldn’t wait to get out again.
We search slowly, methodically, using flashlights to illuminate every crack and crevice, causing as little disturbance as possible. It doesn’t take long, because there’s so little ground to cover. A minute or two into the hunt, I begin to lose hope. There won’t be anything here. They brought the body – assuming it was a body – already bagged. Salazar’s truck, assuming that’s where she bled out, might yield a treasure trove of blood evidence, but by the time they reached the boat, the body would have been squared away. At best, this search might allow me to cross another possibility off the list, but there’s nothing – “Sir.”
One of the IAD officers kneels at the foot of the built-in cabinets, his arm shoulder-deep inside, cheek flat against the frame. He squints in concentration, then jerks back, pulling something loose with a ripping sound. His hand reappears, clutching a bundle wrapped in layers of thick plastic sheeting, secured by strips of duct tape.
Wilcox takes the package to the folding table, carefully unwinding the plastic. He stops halfway through, once the object’s form becomes obvious. I move in, uncoiling the rest of the sheet, removing the final layer aware that no one in the cabin is so much as breathing.
The boat rocks. We sway a little. Our eyes remain fixed on the table. Under the pile of plastic, resting unevenly, lies a blued sig Sauer P229. On the exposed side of the chamber, visible through the cutout of the ejection port, the barrel is stamped BAR STO.357 SIG.
“Is that what I think it is?” Wilcox asks.
Nobody answers. Nobody even breathes.
Driving home late that evening, I remember Carter Robb. Instead of calling, I flip through my notebook for the address he gave me, stopping by on the way. I find him with a group of other men, all stripped to the waist, nailing plywood sheets across the windows of a two-story brick building that could pass for the scrawny cousin of the one housing the Morgan St. Café. The ground floor is done, and now they’ve mounted ladders to reach the second, the work illuminated by shop lights in the yard, since the streetlamps are too far away. The boom box is tuned to ktru, only audible during lulls in the hammering.
I call up to Robb, who shimmies down the ladder and snatches a black T-shirt from a pile on the ground, using it to wipe the sweat from his face.
“I thought you forgot about me,” he says.
“I did.”
There must be a residual glow on my face, left over from the discovery at the marina, because Robb perks up all the sudden.
“Something’s happened?”
“Not with Hannah, no. I just happened to be in the neighborhood so I stopped by. The truth is, the task force is waiting for new developments.”
He nods slowly. “So we’re back where we started.”
“There is one thing. I talked to a friend in New Orleans and had him track down the Dyer family. According to the mother, Evangeline Dyer ran away from home again. I know you said she’d done it before. She left eight weeks ago. I haven’t spoken to the mother myself, but I have her contact information, assuming you’d want it.”
“I should call her,” he says.
I copy the information onto a blank sheet of my notebook, ripping the page out and handing it to him. He studies the writing, though his eyes don’t seem to focus on the numbers. More like he’s looking through the page, or seeing something reflected on it.
“I should call her,” he says again.
Over his shoulder, the other workers have knocked off for the moment, keeping their distance but clearly interested in our conversation. I glance their way, prompting Robb to turn as if noticing them for the first time. He waves a hand toward the building.