“Uh, no. I didn’t think to—”
“He might be on the run. Go back up there and look around the house. Ask about his things. See if he packed a bag.”
“But why would he do that and not tell his wife?”
“I don’t know if he would, but on Friday I gave him until Wednesday — tomorrow — to come in and talk about the buffalo mutilation. He could’ve gotten scared and rabbited. Or he could actually be missing — as in forcibly missing.”
“Oh, wow.”
“Yeah. So you do that and I’ll go check out the cart barn.”
“Roger that.”
She got up and left the bullpen. Stilwell turned and saw Mercy at her desk.
“Mercy, anything on the socials about Leigh-Anne Moss?” he asked.
“I found her on Instagram,” Mercy said. “Her profile hasn’t been updated in a while. Do you want me to send it to you?”
“I don’t have Instagram. Can you print it out?”
“I think so. Might take me a bit.”
“Fine. I’m going over to the desal district to check the cart barn.”
Once he was in the Gator and heading to where Gaston worked, he called Tash.
“Tash, something came up and I can’t make it for a while,” he said. “But I did order the food. Can you go pick it up?”
“Uh, I can’t leave right now,” Tash said. “I’ll see if Heidi can go over there.”
Heidi Allen was a secretary in the harbormaster’s office. She was also the mayor’s aunt, which caused Tash some concern. She worried that the mayor had placed Heidi there so he’d have eyes on the internal operation of one of Avalon’s most important and visible public services.
“Sorry about this,” Stilwell said. “I’ll come by to look at the cams as soon as I get free of this other thing.”
“What’s happening?” Tash asked.
“A missing person. I’ll tell you about it later.”
“Okay. I’ll keep your lunch warm.”
He was already up high and cresting the mountain on Wrigley Road. The air was crisp and clear, and the view across the bay was marred only by the hazy layer of smog that hung over the mainland like a warning. Stilwell often drove up here to contemplate his surroundings and think about what he had left behind in the dirty air over there. It always seemed to reinforce the idea that sometimes you don’t know what you’re looking for until you’ve found it.
He had found good things on Catalina. He had found Tash and he had found meaning in his work. He had initially objected to his transfer but now knew that he never wanted to go back. That he was home.
At the cart barn, the garage door was down and there was no sign of activity. Stilwell got out of the Gator and went up to the pedestrian door to the right of the garage. It was locked, so he knocked. He waited and then knocked again. There was a camera over the door. He looked up at it and guessed that there was someone inside watching him. He stared unblinking at the lens for a few moments before turning.
As he walked back to the cart, he heard the door open behind him. He turned to see Oscar Terranova standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame.
“You scared away my mechanic, Stilwell,” he said. “Now I have to find a new one.”
“I scared him away?” Stilwell said. “Or was it you?”
Terranova didn’t answer. Stilwell walked up the drive and over to him. He stood close enough to make Terranova drop his relaxed position and take half a step back.
“I don’t care where you stashed him or what you did with him,” Stilwell said. “It’s not going to stop anything. This doesn’t end here.”
“We’ll just have to see,” Terranova said.
“Yeah, we will. You take care, Baby Head. If I were you, I’d get myself a good lawyer — one of those slick guys from the mainland. You’re going to need one.”
“Yeah, but you’re not me, right? So why don’t you run along and fuck off.”
Stilwell nodded, noting that it was the second time so far in the day that he’d been told to fuck off. He took that as a good sign on multiple levels.
13
Stilwell’s enchilada from Maggie’s Blue Rose had long been cold by the time he got to the harbormaster’s tower on the pier. Tash popped it in the office microwave, and he took it on a paper plate to a desk where she had set up a screen with a feed from the cameras that were trained on the harbor from eight different angles.
“Have at it,” Tash said. “Anything in particular you’re looking for?”
“Just want to check the weekend before last,” Stilwell said. “See what boats were coming and going.”
“Shit. I forgot to put that list together for you. I’m so sorry. I just was so busy in here till today.”
“It’s okay. The video will show me and then I might have some specific questions.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Well, let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.”
“Actually, here’s a question: How many moorings does the Black Marlin Club have?”
“They have the eight balls right behind the club. The red ones are all theirs. Plus they have their own dock and they can put two to four boats there, depending on length. They usually keep the embarcadero open for drop-offs and pickups.”
“‘Embarcadero’?”
“The covered slip on the side of the club. The people who use the mooring buoys come in on skiffs to the side slip and there’s an entrance to the club’s restaurant right there.”
“Got it. I saw that this morning when I was over there. So do their members register with you when they come in and out of the harbor?”
“They’re supposed to. It’s best practice so we know who’s here, but it doesn’t always work that way. They have some members who think they’re above the rules.”
“Rich guys — got it. Do you keep a list of members?”
“Not really, but I could go through the logbooks and get you names of the boats that use their moorings. I’ll have some of the owners’ names. Those would be the most active members. You could get the registration information from the state if we don’t have it.”
“If you have time, that would be very helpful.”
“Do you think they had something to do with the woman Denzel found? I thought the mainlanders were taking that case.”
“They are.”
“But you’re working on it anyway?”
Tash didn’t seem concerned, just curious about what he was up to.
“The club reported a significant theft over the weekend,”
Stilwell said. “A valuable sculpture was taken, and the manager over there thinks it was grabbed on the weekend I want to look at.”
“But that’s not really what you’re investigating, right?”
“Uh...”
Stilwell paused. She knew him well, but this was a situation where it was too early to discuss case theory or the risk he was taking by investigating a case he had repeatedly been told to stay away from.
“Never mind,” Tash said. “I know you can’t say what you’re doing. I’ll leave you to it. It’s so slow around here post — holiday weekend that I actually have some time to work on that list for you.”
“Thanks, Tash.”
She discreetly touched his hand as she turned away. Heidi Allen was at a desk nearby, and the shy move was a vestige of the time they’d kept their relationship secret.
Stilwell went to work. The screen showed live feeds from the eight camera locations. By moving the cursor to any square, he could click and enlarge the image to full-screen. He could also drop the squares showing camera angles he was not interested in. He cut his search down to four cameras, three of which had a range that included at least part of the Black Marlin Club’s wraparound dock and eight mooring balls.