Stilwell knew she was talking about the mooring lines available outside the protection of the harbor. He also knew that the capacity of the inner harbor was 360 boats of various sizes. When they were all taken, the town was full and busy. Shopkeepers, restaurateurs, and hoteliers were pleased, Mayor Allen was happy, and all was well.
Supposedly.
Stilwell waited while Tash radioed instructions to the harbor patrol boat to lead Delilah to a mooring off Descanso Beach. When she was finished, he approached the desk.
“Tash.”
“Hey. Any news on the body?”
She whispered the word body as though saying it louder might create a panic in the harbor.
“Nothing yet. You thought of anybody with a purple streak in her hair?”
“No, not yet.”
“I know you’re super-busy, but how long would it take to pull together a list of what boats were in the harbor last weekend through Tuesday?”
“Why?”
“I’m guessing that body was in the water four or five days. That would take us back to last weekend. I’d like to know who was in the harbor then and the next few days after.”
“I thought the investigation was being handled by the overtown sheriffs.”
“It is, yeah, but they’re going to need all the help they can get. Do you want me to talk to Dennis about getting records?”
Dennis Lafferty was the harbormaster and her boss. He was probably down in his office under the control room.
“No, I can do it. Just that today is busy. Maybe in the morning when people are still in their bunks?”
“That would be fine. Thanks.”
“I’ll do my best to pull it together. I feel so bad about that girl. It’s horrible.”
“Yeah. It is.”
“I could see them from up here when they pulled her out. She was already in a body bag.”
“Yeah, they do that when the recovery is in a public place with people watching.”
“Did you ever do it that way?”
“On the dive team? Yeah. A few times. Oddly, there’s something peaceful about it. When you’re underwater, I mean.”
Tash said nothing in response and Stilwell wondered if he had said something weird. She didn’t know much about his time on the sheriff’s dive team. It wasn’t something he liked to talk about.
“Okay,” he said. “I guess I’ll let you get back to it.”
“No, I... uh, it just seems so weird,” Tash said. “Her being down there for... how long did you say?”
“Probably four days. Maybe longer. The tide brought her into the harbor. It’s probably a case that has nothing to do with this place.”
“But then why are you asking about a girl with a purple streak in her hair?”
“Force of habit, I guess. But I’ll be standing down on this. Let A-Hole handle it from overtown.”
“A-Hole?”
“What they call Ahearn over on the sheriff’s homicide team.”
“I wonder if you had anything to do with that.”
“Could have. I’ll talk to you later, Tash.”
“Yes, see you later.”
Stilwell nodded, hesitated, then headed for the steps.
7
Stilwell woke Saturday morning with a headache firing on all pistons behind his eyes. He didn’t know whether to blame the fumes he had inhaled during the dive the day before or the two fingers of Knob Creek he had put down after finally getting off work the night before.
He went into the kitchen and put a pot of coffee on to brew, then went to the front door. It was seven a.m. and he had received no calls from the sub during the night, so he took that as a sign that all was quiet.
The Catalina Call was on the front porch. Stilwell picked it up and sat on one of the Adirondacks as he unfolded it. A photo of the sheriff’s dive boat with the tented back deck was the center image on the front page. The headline was big and bold: HARBOR HOMICIDE: BOUND BODY RECOVERED. Stilwell smiled slightly as he thought about Mayor Allen unfolding the paper to the same image and words. He guessed that the editor of the Call had not gotten the message that murder was bad for business.
The story carried Lionel N. McKey’s byline, and most of its details had been supplied by an interview with Denzel Abbott. The sheriff’s department officially declined to comment, which Stilwell believed would put him in the clear with the mayor.
The Call was tabloid-size, and the splash of the photo and story on the harbor homicide left room for only two other articles on the front page. One focused on the town council receiving a first look at design plans to build a giant Ferris wheel on the pier that would be lighted in neon and visible at night all the way from the mainland. Though billed as a project that would boost tourism to the island, it was a controversial proposal. Polling by the Call revealed significant opposition from Avalon residents. It had become common to see signs on lawns and in windows that said TURN THE WHEEL DOWN! And this was before any real plans had even been seen.
The last story on the page was another McKey-authored piece on the mystery surrounding the mutilation of a buffalo on the mountain preserve three nights earlier. The animal had been cleanly beheaded and the head remained missing. The mystery tapped into the island’s long history of supposed UFO and USO sightings. With no official update from Stilwell on the investigation, McKey had turned to a chorus of self-proclaimed extraterrestrial experts who were eager to plant the idea of alien mischief at the preserve. “Look, they’ve been coming to Catalina since forever,” said Jack Sprague from the Center for the Study of Unidentified Submersible Objects. “They’re in the air and water. This doesn’t surprise me at all.”
Other so-called alien experts were quoted as well, though none offered an opinion, scientific or otherwise, as to why the aliens would want a buffalo’s head.
Stilwell was about to turn to the continuation of the story inside the paper when he heard the front door open behind him.
“Coffee should be ready,” he said.
“I’ve gotta go,” Tash Dano said. “I’ll get some at the tower.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. Anything in there about the body?”
Stilwell stood up to show her the front page.
“The mayor didn’t get to Denzel Abbott,” he said. “He told McKey everything.”
“Oh, man,” Tash said. “His Honor’s not going to be happy about that.”
“Well, on the other hand, there’s an alien story on the front page. That should be good enough to get a boatload or two of true believers to come out and spend their money.”
“Aliens cancel out murders. Nice. You have any extraterrestrial suspects yet?”
“I have suspects. But they’re more of the terrestrial kind.”
“Hmm, too bad.”
She was already dressed for the day in khaki cargo pants and a black polo with the harbormaster badge embroidered on it. Tash was a beauty in Stilwell’s opinion. She was a lean and tanned island girl with dark hair and dark eyes, and she didn’t need anything in the world beyond the twenty-two-mile-long island where she’d been born. Their relationship had started soon after Stilwell’s arrival and their first lunch meeting. Stilwell had been coming out of a divorce at the time, and she’d just broken up with another island native.
She was also eight years younger than Stilwell, and that at first gave him pause. He was worried they would not be on the same page when it came to things like music and movies and politics. But soon that didn’t seem to matter. Tash loved the outdoors — boating, fishing, and camping — and so did he. That was where they connected and where they could leave the world behind. They had initially decided to keep the relationship under wraps, until they saw how it went, but now they were no longer as protective of the secret.