“Different sizes of anchors?”
“No, all the same. That way they’re interchangeable.”
“Can you show me the others?”
“This way.”
Stilwell kept his phone light on as they made their way back to the stern. Colbrink stepped down into the helm, where the boat’s wheel was located. Behind the wheel was a bench with a white pad on it. Colbrink lifted the pad, revealing another storage hatch underneath. This one had no locking device. He reached down to open it.
“Hold it a second, Mr. Colbrink,” Stilwell said.
Colbrink straightened up.
“What is it?” he asked.
Stilwell was pulling a pair of disposable gloves from the pocket of his windbreaker.
“The sail bags would not have held prints,” he said. “But the lid of that compartment may. Let me open it.”
Colbrink stepped back and Stilwell opened the hatch, revealing two anchors with chains and coiled rope attached.
“Nothing missing,” Colbrink announced.
Stilwell aimed his light into the hatch. The two anchors appeared to be a match to the one that had been used to weigh down the body in the harbor. He wanted to pull them out for further examination but thought better of it. Even though the boat had recently been cleaned, there could be fingerprint evidence on the anchors.
“Do you know the weight and brand of these?” he asked.
“Twelve pounds each,” Colbrink said. “Made by a company called Hold Fast.”
Stilwell nodded and bent down farther, using his light to study the two anchors for any indication that one was new.
“Does that mean anything to you?” Colbrink asked.
Stilwell ignored the question.
“Mr. Colbrink,” he said. “I’m going to give you my card so we can be in contact. I ask that you stay off the boat and keep others off it until I can get a forensics tech out here.”
“I thought you said any evidence would be gone by now,” Colbrink said.
“I changed my mind. Especially with these anchors being in the compartment. You opened the front hatch with a key. Did you bring that with you?”
“No. It hangs on a hook in the cabin by the chart table.”
“So it’s always on the boat.”
“That’s right.”
“And the cabin hatch is not locked?”
“Not usually. The CYC has armed security on the premises twenty-four seven. I never lock the boat. That way I can have Duncan come out and make sure the bilge-pump battery hasn’t lost its charge.”
“Not sure what that means.”
“Old boats like this leak, Sergeant. The bilge pump clears the water out so that the boat stays afloat. If the bilge pump goes down, the boat could go down. It’s important to keep the battery charged.”
“Got it.”
Stilwell stared down at the anchors and thought about the timeline. It had been ten days since the unusual activities associated with the Emerald Sea had occurred in Avalon Harbor. If he assumed that those activities involved moving a body onto the ketch and then out of the harbor to the place where it was bagged, wrapped in an anchor chain, and dumped overboard, then there had been plenty of time to replace the anchor and jib bag with duplicates.
“What are you thinking, Sergeant?” Colbrink asked.
Stilwell was thinking that he wished it were his case so he could make the moves he knew needed to be made. But he didn’t say that to Colbrink.
“I’m thinking that I’d like to look around inside the cabin,” he said instead.
And he was thinking that he needed to talk to Colbrink’s crew member and cleanup man, Duncan Forbes.
19
Two harbors was little more than a fishing village at the island’s isthmus. There was a scattering of small independent hotels, restaurants, and markets that catered to the hillside homes, campgrounds, and fishing guides. Duncan Forbes might have moved there in an attempt to fall off law enforcement radar. No driver’s license was needed on the island to operate a boat or golf cart. No marine license was needed if you were crew for someone with the proper licensing. And there was no need for bank accounts and other electronic tails if you were a day player paid in cash for your work on the water.
But with a name like Duncan Forbes, he could not completely escape the grid. There were only two people named Duncan Forbes in the sheriff’s crime-index computer. One was seventy-four years old and lived in Sacramento. He had a criminal record that included convictions for domestic abuse, DUIs, and assaulting a police officer. The other Duncan Forbes was thirty-three years old and wanted on a minor warrant for jumping probation for a marijuana arrest before California legalized recreational use of the drug in 2016. In law enforcement parlance, it was a chickenshit warrant, but it was still on the books and it was all Stilwell needed to talk to Mason Colbrink’s part-time crew member.
After getting back to the island Wednesday morning, Stilwell dispatched Deputies Lampley and Ramirez on the sheriff’s Zodiac to Two Harbors to locate Forbes, arrest him on the outstanding warrant, and bring him back to Avalon. They could have taken one of the sheriff’s two SUVs that were kept on the island for use outside Avalon, but the drive to the isthmus took twice as long as the trip by boat and Stilwell didn’t want to waste time.
While Lampley and Ramirez were following his order, Stilwell cleared out the sub’s one interview room, which was rarely used for its stated purpose and had become more of a storage unit for office supplies as well as a community lost and found. There were paddleboards, fishing poles, life vests, laptops, and suitcases left behind on the ferry docks. Cardboard boxes contained sunglasses, cell phones, and wallets that had been turned in over the past year or so. Stilwell had a strategy for his interview with Forbes and wanted the room to be clean and clear when they sat down face-to-face.
Once the room was prepped, Stilwell radioed Lampley to get his ETA. Lampley replied that they had Forbes in custody but had not left Two Harbors yet. They were heading to the Zodiac now, which put them close to thirty minutes out.
“Any trouble with him?” Stilwell asked.
“Only trouble we had was finding him,” Lampley said. “People out here didn’t want to give him up. But we got him. He says we have the wrong man.”
When the deputies questioned why they had to go all the way to Two Harbors on a chickenshit warrant, Stilwell had told them the real reason, but he hoped they hadn’t shared that with Forbes.
“You mean he says he’s not the guy on the warrant?” Stilwell asked.
“Yeah, the warrant,” Lampley said.
“Tell him I’ll explain it all when he gets to Avalon.”
“Roger that.”
The delay gave Stilwell time to leave the sub and go to the harbormaster’s tower. As he headed out, he told Mercy he’d be on the radio.
After he was buzzed through the door to the tower, he saw both Tash Dano and her boss, Dennis Lafferty, in the control room. Stilwell had only come by to see Tash and tell her he was back, but Lafferty’s presence made the moment awkward. Lafferty knew that Stilwell and Tash were a couple, but he wasn’t keen on seeing it displayed in the workplace. Stilwell kept a professional demeanor.
“Just checking in,” he said. “Wanted to see what the weekend looks like.”
“The season is underway,” Lafferty called from the control desk. “Another full house.”
Stilwell nodded. “Okay, we’ll be ready,” he said. “Anything else happening that I should know about?”
“Not here,” Tash said.
“They figure out who that was in the water last week?” Lafferty asked.
“Not as far as I know,” Stilwell said. “Overtown sheriffs are handling it.”
He gave Tash a surreptitious wink. She suppressed a smile.