“So Joao motors out on one of my vessels and picks me up and I let the Outcast, uh, go on her way. I assumed when she was found it would look like Robbie got lost in a squid jigging accident. Which is what happened.”
“And then where did you go?” Walter asked. “After Mr. Silva picked you up?”
“Back to harbor.”
“Mr. Stavis, you might want to search your memory.”
Stavis stared.
“Then let me help. We know you returned to the site. Where Donie went overboard.”
Stavis turned to Tolliver. “This is going way off course.”
“We're right on course,” Tolliver said. “We can place you there, Fred.”
“What?”
“You returned to take care of Robbie's body,” Tolliver said. “You couldn't dive — with your eardrum trouble — so you had Silva take care of it.”
“No.”
“Mr. Shaws says otherwise.”
Stavis reluctantly returned his attention to Walter.
Walter said, “I've learned a good deal about squid hunting, on this case. Doug showed us the equipment, on the Outcast. Those lures have rows of heavy-duty hooks — and that explains what happened to Donie's jig line.”
“Yes, like I said, it got caught in the kelp.”
“The kelp wasn't the only entanglement. If you'll take notice of those scratches on the float?”
Stavis studiously ignored the red float on the table. “I don't know anything about that.”
“Then let me explain,” Walter said. “The scratches contain residue of stainless steel, a composition that includes ten percent nickel, eighteen percent chromium. Marine grade. At first, Cassie and I thought the source might be a sharp edge on the instrument cage, but when we were diving there yesterday I found no sharp edges. This morning, I thought of another possible source. A eureka moment. I phoned Doug and he was able to supply me with a sample, and I made a match between that and the scratches on the float.”
Stavis just shrugged.
“A squid-jigging hook made those scratches, Mr. Stavis. It caught the eyebolt end of the float, and when Mr. Donie yanked on his line, that pulled the float free of its attachment to the cage. We don't have the jig hook in question but we do have Donie's supply of spare hooks, whose points match the gouges, whose composition matches the residue.”
“I don't know anything about any of that,” Stavis said.
“The evidence suggests that you do.”
“Hey, if you say so, Robbie hooked the float. The point is, his line got tangled and he fought it and he went overboard. End of story.”
“Not quite,” Walter said. “The red float has one more twist to add to the story.”
Stavis just shrugged.
“It left particles of hematite embedded in the rub rail of the Outcast.”
Stavis said, “Okay.”
“Given that you just expressed surprise that Donie hooked the float, we can rule out the possibility that he hauled his entangled line — with the float — all the way up to the rub rail. You were the only other person on board. Ergo, you hauled up the line.”
Stavis was silent.
“The question is why. So let's walk it through. Donie, trying to free his line, goes overboard. He gets entangled in the line and probably the kelp. The problem, for you, was that the lure had an LED flasher inside — the lights attract the squid. You couldn't simply leave a flashing lure there — someone might come along and see it. Get nosy. You needed to get that lure out of the water. And so you got hold of the entangled line — using the Outcast boat hook, perhaps. And you tried to haul the line aboard, to reach the lighted lure. The lure was hooked to the float, so you ended up raising the float, as well. Impacting the rub rail. But you didn't manage to retrieve the lure.”
“How could you know anything like that?”
“Because Jake Keasling tried, as well.”
“What?”
“You didn't realize Jake was out there, that night? He was. He heard you and Robbie arguing. And then, after you 'motored away' Jake motored in to find out what was going on. He spotted the lighted lure. Wanted to find out if it was a squid jig. He tried to haul it up — just as you had — and he dragged the float across the rub rail of his sister's boat.”
“Jake? Good golly.”
Tolliver put in, “I had a chat with Jake today. On the record.”
“Look,” Stavis appealed to Tolliver, to the recorder, “if I'd known Jake was in the area I would have called on him for help.”
“Missed opportunity,” Walter said. “Jake went back to harbor, not knowing what he'd done to Sandy's boat. Not knowing what happened to Donie. Not knowing where you went. But of course, you explained that — Silva picked you up. And then you returned to the site.”
“I didn't say anything about returning.”
“The evidence says that.”
Stavis shook his head.
“How else would Joao Silva's path intersect with the red float?”
“I don't know anything about any of that.”
“Ah, but we know. We know that you sent Silva diving to take care of the problem.”
Stavis just shook his head.
“Not just to retrieve the lure. You also had him disentangle Donie's body and remove it.”
“This is wild speculation.”
Tolliver said, “We'll continue the search, Fred. I'm assuming you instructed Silva to move the body to the dropoff at the shelf break, so the currents could take it away.”
“Assume all you want. For heaven's sake.”
Walter said, “Let me ask you something. Why did Silva return two days later — sometime early on Tuesday — to retrieve the float?”
“How would I know?”
“Think it through. He cuts the body free of the entanglement and he retrieves the lighted lure for you, but he leaves the float behind — perhaps for the simple reason that the float would have prevented the body from sinking. But in the following two days, as attention focuses on the mystery of Donie's disappearance, Silva understandably gets worried. What if the authorities find the site, and the red float? What if they learn that his boss — you, Mr. Stavis — worked on a job that used red floats at the site of that accident. Given his illegal status, he risked discovery, or jail, or deportation. And so Joao Silva did the only thing he could do to protect himself — he returned to remove evidence of his participation.”
Stavis was silent.
“And so early Tuesday morning Mr. Silva retrieves the float. He bags it. And that would have been that, had he not had his encounter with a jellyfish. Had he not been stung. And the current then took him on a course that intersected Sandy Keasling's whale-watching trip. And we had a mystery. An unconscious diver adrift with a red float in his dive bag.”
Stavis remained silent.
“A mystery now ninety-nine percent solved.”
Stavis finally spoke. “Just ninety-nine?”
“There remains the mystery of how Silva got to the site. We never found a boat.”
“I can help you with that.”
Walter paused. Looked at Tolliver and me — what's this? Tolliver shrugged, eyes narrowing. I shrugged. I had no idea where Stavis was heading.
Stavis smiled. “It wasn't exactly a secret, that you found my diver at sea. Like I told you earlier, I was in a pickle. Worried about the site being found. When Joao was found I couldn't keep it from Oscar any longer. And he wasn't a happy camper.” Stavis gave a brief laugh. “After he took my head off, we shifted into damage control. We went out to the site Tuesday night on Oscar's boat. He dove and replaced the iron-seeding floats with the standards, the yellows. I picked up my vessel — Joao had taken it without my permission.”
After a moment, Walter said, “Thank you, for clarifying that one percent.”