“Let’s go to my office,” he said. “We can talk privately there. Have you ever been to the club before, Sergeant?”
“No, I haven’t,” Stilwell said. “Before we talk, can you show me the hallway where the theft of the statue occurred?”
“Oh, of course. Right here.”
They walked through a sitting room with dark paneled walls and old leather chairs. It smelled faintly of cigars and money. From there they moved into a foyer where the front door was located. Crane turned left into a wide hallway also paneled in dark wood. Down the left side were multiple framed photos, most in sepia or black-and-white, of men over the past century standing next to their catches of marlins. Mounted above the line of frames was a marlin that Stilwell estimated was at least eight feet long, its black spine twisting, frozen in a fight lost a long time ago. A plaque below it said
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Crane said.
“Sure is. If you’re into fishing,” Stilwell said.
Museum-style glass cases lined the right side of the hallway. There were three of them and they were mostly filled with fishing lures that had been used over the years to go after the club’s eponymous fish. There were unusual shells and pieces of coral, shark’s teeth, and other knickknacks. Crane pointed to an empty pedestal that stood at the end of the line of cases.
“The sculpture was right here,” Crane said. “For nearly a century. Donated by one of the first presidents of the club, Noah Rossmore.”
Stilwell studied the marble pedestal.
“It wasn’t secured?” he asked.
“This is a gentlemen’s club, Sergeant,” Crane said. “We don’t lock things up and we don’t expect them to be taken.”
Stilwell nodded.
“So it could have just been lifted up without anyone having to touch the pedestal?” he asked. “No earthquake wax or anything that would make it difficult to come loose?”
“Nothing,” Crane said.
Stilwell started asking questions he already knew the answers to, but it was good practice to ask them again because sometimes new information came to the surface.
“How was it discovered missing?”
“It was actually one of our cleaning people who realized it was gone. Mrs. Landry. One of her jobs is to keep this hallway and its contents in pristine condition. She was dusting and saw the empty pedestal. She alerted me and I immediately called your department.”
“Got it. Is this a busy part of the club?”
“Well, this is our entry hallway, but most members come by boat and enter off the docks behind or on the starboard side of the building. Consequently, this hallway is used very infrequently.”
“Which makes it difficult to pinpoint when the statue was taken.”
“Yes, it does.”
“You suggested to Deputy Dunne that Leigh-Anne Moss took it, yes?”
“The deputy who responded to my call asked if I had any suspicions about who might have taken the piece, and I did say that a week earlier I’d let Ms. Moss go and she was not happy about it. But I didn’t directly accuse her of anything. I hope she doesn’t think that.”
“I haven’t talked to her yet. Let’s go to your office so we can talk about it.”
“By all means. Happy to.”
Crane’s office was upstairs at the back of the building. His desk was in front of a window that looked out across the harbor, and it reminded Stilwell of the view from the harbormaster’s tower.
“This is nice,” Stilwell said.
“Allows me to see the arrivals of members and their guests,” Crane said.
Rather than sitting in front of Crane’s desk, Stilwell walked to the window and looked down. Behind the club, the pier extended into a wraparound deck with a hinged gangway connecting to a floating dock. There, members could tie up their skiffs when they arrived from their moored yachts. At the moment, a small sailboat and three other skiffs and workboats were tied to cleats on the floating dock. On the north side of the building, the dock was under an extended corrugated steel roof that allowed members covered access to the club’s side door, protection from rain or blistering sun.
“I bet you had a busy weekend here,” Stilwell said.
His eyes were scanning the harbor. He saw the lines of orange mooring balls. The harbor had largely emptied at the end of the weekend.
“Yes, we had a lot of members come out,” Crane said. “It was very busy.”
“So you have a full restaurant and bar in here, right?” Stilwell asked.
“Yes. We serve lunch every day and dinner Thursday to Sunday.”
“What about rooms? Can members stay here or do they have to stay on their boats?”
“We have four rooms available to members and guests on a first-come-first-serve basis. But as you can imagine, our members have substantial vessels, and most elect to stay on them.”
“Yes, I get that.”
Stilwell had a view of the spot where the body had been found thirty feet down.
“You had a clear view of the body recovery on Friday,” he said.
“I did,” Crane said. “Terrible. Have you found out what happened? I heard it was a girl.”
“A woman. They haven’t identified her. But it’s not my case. The theft of your statue is.”
“Well, it’s not my statue. It’s the club’s.”
Stilwell stepped away from the window and took a seat in front of Crane’s desk.
“Tell me about Leigh-Anne,” he said. “Why’d you fire her?”
“I hate that word,” Crane said. “Fire, terminate — they sound so harsh. But I did let her go. She had become... a problem.”
“How so?”
“We have strict rules about socializing between the staff and the members. She knew the rules but elected to break them. Repeatedly.”
“Repeatedly in what way?”
“She was overly flirtatious with several members and that was brought to my attention. I warned her once about it and then felt the need to act when I continued to get reports of this behavior.”
“What does ‘overly flirtatious’ behavior mean?”
“To use an archaic phrase, she was a gold digger, Sergeant. She attempted several times to lure members to meet her outside the club. She was clearly looking for someone to marry or possibly extort.”
“That’s a pretty strong accusation. Did any of these meetings ever happen?”
“I don’t know. I just know the invitations were made and we acted to protect our members.”
“You said her flirtatiousness was brought to your attention. By who?”
“Well, my bar manager, for one, and I have to say, some members complained as well.”
“Who were the members?”
“I’m afraid that’s confidential, Sergeant. And I fail to see how it’s germane to the question of whether Ms. Moss took the jade marlin.”
“Tell me about when you fired her.”
“Well, we don’t have a human resources department here. With a small staff, I am HR, and I simply called her up here to the office, told her that she had been warned repeatedly, that she’d ignored those warnings, and that it was time for her to find another place of employment.”
“And this was when, exactly?”
“Saturday morning, the seventeenth.”
“What time would you say?”
“The Marlin Room opens for lunch at eleven, which means she would have been here by ten to help set up the room. I left word in the kitchen that she should come see me upon her arrival. So I would say our conversation occurred shortly after ten o’clock that morning.”
“And how did she take it?”
“Not well, as you can imagine. She was angry and she stormed out of here.”