“There’s a closet in the galley where the cleaning supplies are.”
He snapped his fingers as he remembered something.
“That’s right,” he said. “The mop head was missing, and I never leave it that way.”
“Explain that to me,” Stilwell pressed.
“Last thing I do is either bleach the mop head or put on a new one so it’s clean and good to go for next time. Mr. Colbrink likes everything super-clean. He’s a germophobe. He’s always got the hand sanitizer, and he wipes his phone constantly. Half the time, he’s wearing a mask. Even on the boat. He was the one who told me to always keep a clean mop. If you start with a dirty mop, you’re not gonna get a clean boat. He told me that the first day he hired me like six years ago.”
Stilwell recalled that when they’d driven from Malibu to the marina the night before, Colbrink had put on a mask.
“So the mop head was missing,” he said.
“Right,” Forbes said. “I had to put a new one on, and that isn’t how I leave things.”
Stilwell was thinking about how this seemingly insignificant detail about the mop fit with his evolving theory of the crime.
“Is that important?” Forbes asked.
Stilwell came out of his reverie.
“Uh, it could be,” he said. “Every detail counts. You remember anything else? Did you find the mop head that was missing in the trash or somewhere?”
“No, it was just gone.”
“Okay. Were any other cleaning tools used?”
“Yeah, I had to open a new bottle of Three-Oh-Three,” Forbes said.
“What’s Three-Oh-Three?”
“It’s the marine cleaner I put in the bucket for the mop. Somebody left an empty bottle in the supply cabinet, so I opened another.”
Stilwell felt another charge go through his chest.
“What happened to the empty bottle?” he asked.
“It got tossed with the stuff from the fridge I cleaned out,” Forbes said.
Stilwell’s hope for a surface containing fingerprints was immediately dashed.
“You mean you took it to a dumpster or something at the marina?” he asked.
“Yeah, they have trash cans there,” Forbes said. “At the end of the dock.”
Stilwell nodded. He thought he had gotten from Forbes everything he could in a first-round interview.
“Okay, we’re going to take a break,” he said. “I’m going to call your PO and see what we can do about the warrant. You can stay here or I can put you in a cell where there’s a bed if you want to lie down. I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to work this out.”
“Man, can’t you just let me split?” Forbes pleaded. “I mean, you know where I live. I’m not going to take off or anything.”
Stilwell shook his head.
“Can’t,” he said. “You were officially taken into custody. I can’t just let you walk out without clearing this up. So, here or the cell?”
“I guess I’ll take the cell,” Forbes said dejectedly.
“Good choice.”
“It doesn’t seem like it.”
“Let’s go.”
Stilwell stood up, opened the door to the room, and led Forbes out and toward the jail. He put him in the cell next to the one where Merris Spivak was still detained. Cell two had been emptied of the three other men arrested over the holiday weekend, as one had made bail and Monika Juarez had declined to file charges on the other two — an unofficial sentence of time served. After locking Forbes in, Stilwell moved down the bars to cell one to check in on Spivak, who was lying on his back on a bunk. Without looking over at Stilwell, Spivak raised a middle finger to him.
“Still not talking, Spivak?” Stilwell asked.
“I don’t talk to cops,” Spivak said.
“You know we’re going to find out.”
“Find out what?”
“How you know Deputy Dunne.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, boss.”
“Yes, you do. It was Pitchess, wasn’t it? I know you were both there at the same time. What did he do to you that would make you blindside him like that?”
“Didn’t we have this conversation? I’m not telling you jack, Jack.”
“Yeah, well, assaulting a law enforcement officer on camera — you won’t be going back to Pitchess this time, Spivak. You’re going upstate. See how that works for you.”
Spivak gave another middle-finger salute, this time shaking his hand intensely as if that would make the move more insulting. Stilwell just nodded and headed back to the bullpen to call the state probation office.
22
The case officer who had put out the warrant on Duncan Forbes for violation of probation was long retired. It took Stilwell fifteen minutes and four different phone calls to locate the inheritor of the long dormant and inconsequential file. His name was Rodney Willingham and he worked out of a satellite office in the south county. Stilwell’s first two calls were diverted to a message center that reported that Willingham’s message box was full. He finally got through to him on the third call.
“Willingham.”
“Uh, yeah, this is Detective Stilwell with the sheriff’s department. I got a guy here on one of your warrants.”
“Case number?”
“Fifteen-dash-seven—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa — you’re talking about 2015?”
“I am.”
“You gotta hold on, then.”
“How long?”
“Let me just get my computer going.”
Stilwell heard the phone clunk down on a desk and waited. He heard typing and then Willingham picked up the phone and asked for the case number again. Stilwell gave it to him, heard typing, and then Willingham started reading from his screen.
“Forbes, Duncan. Violated May third, 2015.”
“That’s him.”
“This is a chickenshit case. Just book him and I’ll eventually make my way to him.”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about. I want you to drop the violation and lose the warrant.”
“Now, why would I do that — what did you say your name was?”
“Stilwell. I need you to drop it because Forbes is an important witness in a case I’m working.”
“Really, now. What case?”
Stilwell had hoped he wouldn’t ask that. He had to have high stakes to convince Willingham to drop the warrant. Telling him it was a theft investigation wouldn’t cut it. Stilwell needed more gravity than that, but he knew if he mentioned the murder, he would be creating one more witness to his crossing the lines of authority.
“It’s a homicide,” Stilwell said. “And I need Forbes clean when he testifies. I don’t want him on the stand wearing Wayside blues. You understand, Rodney?”
Wayside was the former name of the Pitchess Detention Center, and Stilwell used it to signal to Willingham that he had been around the system for a long time and knew that the probation officer could do what he wanted him to do.
“I understand,” Willingham said. “It says here he stopped coming in to piss and skipped out on his rehab sessions. This mofo’s a regular douchebag.”
“I know all of that. He told me. But this was on a bust for something that’s not even illegal anymore. It’s chickenshit. You said it; you know it. So can you do me a solid on it or not?”
“Oh, yeah, I can do you a solid. The question is, what are you going to do for me?”
Stilwell shook his head. It seemed that everybody wanted something from him.
“I don’t know you, Rodney. What do you want?”
“Tell you what, I’m gonna keep this number — this your cell?”
“Yes, it’s my cell.”
“Then I’m gonna keep your number and call you next time I need a pickup, and I don’t want you to shine me on like you all like to do over there at the sheriff’s. I’ll say I got a guy needs to be tossed back into county and you have to help me go get him. That’s when you say, ‘I’m on it, Rodney.’”