And that led to the uncomfortable and unlikely scenario of Lanny encountering Donie again aboard the Outcast, ransacking Donie's duffel. And that didn’t sit well with me because — as Jake Keasling noticed — I’d grown a soft spot for the sweet boatman.
Well, someone had ransacked the duffel bag. At least, that was Tolliver's theory. Tolliver's word. The duffel lying open on the deck, empty but for a little sand.
I stole a glance at Walter at his microscope analyzing his pinch of sand and then I returned to my own evidence at hand.
Theoretically, it could have originated offshore.
Seafloor sand came from beaches, from eroding coastal rock faces, swept by wave action out from shore. Sand did not form in deeper water, it just ended up there because it moved down slope.
Unfortunately there was no geological marker on a grain of sand under a microscope that would distinguish seafloor from onshore origin.
And so we had to look at context.
According to Tolliver, Robbie Donie was not a diver. That put 'onshore origin' at the top of my list.
That, and the fennel in my sample.
I decided to learn about fennel. A quick googling taught me two things. First, fennel grew on the sea coast and around river banks. Onshore. Second, fennel seeds turned a dull gray as they aged.
My seed was green. Fresh.
Either Robbie Donie or some unidentified person had spilled fresh fennel in his duffel, or the fennel was in the sand to begin with. Either way, this stuff had not been sitting in Donie’s pack for a long time — else the seed would be gray.
Walter said, “Getting anywhere?”
“You want fast or you want thorough?” I shot him a smile.
“Thorough.”
I finished separating out the organic bits and then put the sand under my stereoscopic scope.
The obvious stared back at me — mostly quartz, feldspars, augite, hornblende — and indeed those minerals gave our sand its grayish gold hue. But Walter was doing the in-depth mineral analysis. My job was to sort the grains by size and shape.
Shape mattered.
Sand was shaped by wind and to a lesser degree by water. The most rounded shapes — heavily wind-blown, banging grains into one another, abrading the edges — suggested desert sand. Less rounded, it likely came from inland dunes. Angular shapes indicated beach sand.
The trend of Robbie Donie’s duffel sand, under my scope, was angular.
“Walter,” I said, “I'm calling it beach sand.”
He looked up.
“But we don't have enough grains for a useful size analysis.”
Size mattered. Coarse grains would indicate a beach where the waves were big. Fine grains were found where the wave action was smaller.
He said, “Then we’ll want a closer look.”
Thorough. I smiled. For that, we needed a sexier piece of equipment.
I phoned Doug Tolliver and asked if he could get us time on a scanning electron microscope at the county lab. He called back to say that the lab’s scope was down for emergency repairs — and the electron scope at the nearby college was booked for three days.
I groaned.
“Give me half an hour,” Tolliver said, “and I might be able to scare up something.”
We took a coffee and donut break and then Tolliver called back.
“It turns out,” he said, “there’s a fellow who has an electron scope. Right here in town. How about that?”
“He works in a…” I cast about. “A scientific company of some sort?”
“No. He works for himself. Name of Oscar Flynn.”
“Well that’s great. That, actually, is surprising. I mean, it’s not an ordinary scope.”
“He’s not an ordinary fellow.”
CHAPTER 12
Oscar Flynn lived in a cave.
His house clung to the side of the hill overlooking Morro Bay, a multi-level place of redwood and tile, a place with terraced gardens and patios and a million-dollar view. In the late afternoon light, the place looked golden.
And yet, once through the front door, the visitor entered a cave. There were no windows. The walls were faux rock — worse, painted black. The floor was real slate — criminally, painted black. The vaulted black ceiling was inset with dozens of recessed lights, which cast a starry glow over the room.
Flynn flipped a switch on a control box near the door and the lights went up so bright I flinched.
The cave took on a more domesticated look, with leather seating and glass tables and a huge flat screen TV. Expensive domesticated.
Flynn faced us. Arms folded, feet apart, like some massive sentry. I thought of Morro Rock. He was well over six feet, well over two hundred muscled pounds. He wore a snug long-sleeved T-shirt and cargo pants and high-top sneakers — all in black, which streamlined his bulk. He wore a black goatee, which gave his round face some contour. His black hair was buzz-cut nearly to the scalp. He said, gruffly, “Show me your credentials.”
Walter shot me a look. I shrugged. He pulled out his wallet. I opened my purse and followed suit. We held up our driver licenses. We are who we said we are.
Flynn scowled. “That’s no good.”
Walter extracted a business card from his wallet. “Will this do?”
Flynn read the card. Unimpressed. “You carry nothing else?”
“Such as?”
“A professional association identification. Something prestigious. I carry mine in my wallet.”
“I'm afraid my semi-prestigious membership cards reside in my desk drawer. Back at our laboratory, in Bishop, on the eastern side of the Sierras. Bit of a drive.” Walter worked at a smile. “I was under the impression that Detective Tolliver vouched for us.”
“He did,” Flynn said. “And he directed me to your website.”
“Well, then.”
“People say anything they want on a website. If you carried a professional association card, that would lend some credence to your website claims.”
Walter’s eyebrows lifted. “Is this really necessary?”
“I don’t let laymen near my equipment.”
“PhD, geology,” Walter said, thinly. “And a master’s in criminalistics. UC Berkeley.”
“I’m a Stanford man. My degrees are microbiology and computer science — double PhD. Master’s in mechanical engineering.” Flynn turned to me. “You?”
“Me? I went to UCLA. Double master’s — geology and criminalistics.”
Flynn said, “I see.”
I suppressed a smile. Nothing to see here. I wasn’t going to be impressing Oscar Flynn with my credentials. Perhaps if I pulled out my library card I could truly piss him off. Bad idea, though. We needed access to his machine.
“Mr. Flynn,” Walter jumped in, “there has been a disappearance, possibly a death, possibly a murder — the victim’s boat was found adrift this past Sunday. Three days ago. I assume you’ve heard the news.”
“What’s that got to do with my machine?”
“We’re trying to shed light on events by analyzing some samples of sand, and unfortunately the equipment we have at hand is insufficient to the task. Your scanning electron scope would be of great help, Mr. Flynn.”
“It’s Doctor Flynn.”
“Ah.” Walter nodded, correcting himself. “Well Dr. Flynn, might we use your SEM?”
“You may, Dr. Shaws.” Flynn abruptly turned and walked away.
I threw Walter a wink, and whispered, “He’s all yours.”
We followed Flynn across the cave room to a hallway that had normal walls. It led past three closed doors and a circular stairway with metal treads that rose from a level below to a level above. It looked like something from a firehouse. I thought, this is a pricey playhouse and Oscar Flynn is an overgrown kid. With a surly teenage attitude.