A Dangerous Harbor (9 page)

Her dad used to do card tricks in chambers to diffuse angry confrontations.
"Material witnesses popping up in the middle of a trial?"
he'd ask, clucking his tongue and leaning over the desk to draw a card from behind a lawyerly ear.
"Disclosure is the law. That way we can all see the tricks each of you has hiding behind your ears, right?"

With a lurch of her heart, she could only wish her dad were here to critique the magician's work.
Anyone who wasn't falling down drunk could tell this guy had just slipped that birdcage out from under the stand.

On his worst day, and towards the end of the cancer, her dad was way better than this guy. Despite a howling air conditioner, Katy yawned at the close warmth of too many bodies and too little sleep. Booth,
Myne
and the Howards, she noticed, had already disappeared so she might as well call it a night.

She stepped out of the overcrowded salon and into the sweeter night air. Feeling better, she headed for the stern exit, but at the last moment decided to do a little reconnaissance, walk off the liquor she never touched and skirt the perimeter for an unlocked door. With no one to say she couldn't, she took the steps to the lower level. This level would be the bedrooms. Maybe she could find where Chief Inspector
Vignaroli
and his police found Spencer Bobbitt stretched out and unconscious with blood on his hands.

She ambled along the deck, glancing into each dark window until a porthole illuminated the night like an attractive spotlight. Naturally she leaned forward to peer inside.

The room was mostly unfurnished, lit with overhead fluorescents; lockers sprouted along one wall and diving equipment hung off another. A semi-circle of men, most of them sleekly well-fed and middle-aged, lounged in arm chairs with drinks and cigars filling their hands. The group had the look of pigeons about to be given the ubiquitous condo sales pitch as they puffed and drank and waited the plucking. A drumbeat pulsed against the glass of the porthole and a short blonde, her back to the window, slid into the room wearing white heels and a childish ruffled pink gingham dress. The dress may have been childish, but there was no mistaking her curtsy. To their roar of delight the dress came off her shoulders in one pull and was kicked out of range and she turned around to wriggle her bare ass at the men. Without the red dress,
Myne
was a rounded, pink confection right out of a Donatello masterpiece.

Seeing enough to know what came next, Katy backed away and bumped into something solid, and from the boozy breath on her neck, a drunk. Heavy hands landed on her shoulders and then a voice said, "You
mush
be the new girl."

Katy froze. She didn't recognize the voice but she wasn't looking forward to fighting off a drunk when she might have to face him in the next couple of days.

The hands slid around to grope at her breasts as his mouth slobbered wet kisses down her neck. "
Whad'ya
shay we take it to my cabin?"

Without turning around she jammed her elbows down to break his hold. Then redistributing her weight, lifted a heel and came down hard on his instep. The drunk reeled back, grunting and swearing.

Damn,
she thought,
too drunk to get the message, but let's see if he gets thi
s. She turned, grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed her knee into his groin. Satisfied to see him jackknife to his knees, she backed into the shadows and hurried along the passage only to bump into another male body. This one was shorter, sober, and put up his hands to keep her from colliding into him.

Booth.

He nodded at the lighted porthole behind her. "Enjoy the peep show?"

The question was obviously rhetorical, since she was getting the picture that Booth made it his business to keep tabs on her. But did he know she was a cop, one who was here to see if she could get the goods on his friend Spencer Bobbitt?

She sighed.
Might as well see what I can do to fix the damage.

"Can we talk someplace else?"

"Sure. Foredeck should have cleared out some by now." He indicated they were to head back the way she came.

She stiffened, remembering the drunk she'd left heaving his guts out on the deck.
 
"I'd rather not go that way, if you don't mind."

Booth laughed. "I didn't take you for the prudish kind, but okay, top-deck is nice and quiet this time of night." Doing an about-face, he took a staircase to the next level up.

He pointed her to some deck chairs set out for daytime sunbathing. "Take a chair and I'll get us a
coupla
Cokes."

Katy enjoyed the few minutes of quiet to admire the inky darkness of the Mexican night and the brilliant stars in the Baja sky.

Booth came back and handed her a cold can. "Noticed you don't drink. Gets in the way, don't it? So, where were we? Oh yeah, guess you got an eyeful down there, huh?"

"The magician in the salon keeps the women entertained while the men go downstairs for a strip show. What're they signing up for…Nigerian blood diamonds, shares of nonexistent gold mines in Canada?"

"Want to know how Spencer got his start?"

She waited. He was going to tell her anyway.

"He had a secret formula for copying French couture and sold it to gullible housewives."

"This is a far cry from gullible housewives," she said, waving a hand at the expansive yacht.

 
"It's a fun story, if you
wanna
hear it."

He was too smart by half, in spite of his folksy speech pattern. What was Booth to Spencer? Sycophant?
 
Surely not just a gofer. It reminded her of a cheap parody of
The Godfather
with Booth as
consigliere
to Spencer Bobbitt's Don.

"As Spencer tells it to his friends," said Booth, "of which I count myself one, he'd roll into some Midwest burg, get himself on the local radio station and with a heavy French accent proclaim that he was sick of France, hated the French." Booth stopped for a moment to hack out a wet cough that he tried to disguise as a laugh. "Midwesterners hate the French, so they were ready to listen." The cough caught him again and he reached in a pocket, pulled out a couple of tissues and spat. Putting it back into his pocket, he continued. "He's stolen the secret of French couture, see, and if the fine women of Bum-fuck Missouri wanted it he'd meet them at such and such time at a local auditorium or high school gym, whatever, and reveal the secret that every French woman knew; how to make beautiful couture with only a simple pattern and a sewing machine."

"Did it work?"

"Boy, howdy, did it. He would fill up a high-school auditorium and then pretend to measure off his assistant, consult his secret book, cut a pattern and in minutes he'd have haute couture. But that last town went wrong on him. He'd misjudged his target in that last town and climbing outta bathroom windows to escape the law taught him a good lesson. See, women are not as proud as men when it comes to admitting they've been had. That's when he decided to switch his game for the weaker sex—primarily married, wealthy, retired men with a taste for very young flesh. Eventually the men wise up to the con. Land or condo or whatever deal he has them hooked up to is all smoke and mirrors. Some try to cut their losses and back out of the deal but the few who do get an envelope with some photos delivered to their homes. Then it becomes a write-off for a Lolita fantasy."

"Well, as my daddy used to say, 'A fool and his money are soon parted.'"

"Your daddy said that, huh? Then he was a wise man. Spencer's had a run of bad luck lately though."

She thoughtfully rolled the can between her hands. "I saw some kind of message pass between you and Spencer tonight. What's he hoping to accomplish, Booth?"

Booth's jolly expression slipped into a complacent smile and he sat back in the chair, hands clasped over his belly.

 
"You were also conveniently there to help me tie up my boat. Very anxious that I come meet all these swell people; the Howards and
Myne
and pointing out what a generous fellow Spencer Bobbitt is, considering he might be guilty of murder."

He held up both hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. We thought you should meet him, see what a swell guy he is, though I guess that didn't go so well. You
wanna
talk to him, right?"

"How do you know who I want to talk to?"

"Oh," he said, squashing the aluminum can between his hands, "I know what's going on around here, who comes into the marina and why." He stood up. "Don't be sore, honey, it's my job. I'll set it up for tomorrow."

 
"What exactly is it that you do for Spencer Bobbitt?" she said, getting out of the deck chair.

"I didn't remove a dead girl's body if that's what
yer
thinkin
'." Then with a quick nod, said, "Tomorrow afternoon I'll come get you for that interview with Spencer.
G'night
, Katrina."

He left her then, leaving her to wonder what was next and how safe she really was here in this dangerous harbor.

Chapter Eight:

Tucking a pillow up against the coaming of her cockpit, Katy sat where the early morning sun could warm her as she studied the list from the inspector. Handwritten—was that because he didn't trust any of his staff to see what he was up to? A leak in the police department would explain how someone like Booth might know who she was and why she was there. But it didn't answer why his name wasn't on the list. So far, at least three people knew who she was and why she was here. Tapping her pencil on her lip, she pulled her notepad from under her thigh and started to make notes

Spencer Bobbitt: Swindler, con artist according to Booth. Rap sheet?

Myne
: Young, impressionable, susceptible to Hollywood types. How attached was she to Spencer Bobbitt? Get her real name and/or rap sheet.

Booth: Was Booth the man the chief inspector put on the dock to watch her? Could that be Booth?

Wally and Ida: Find out how long here, why? What's Wally's relationship to Spencer, if any?

Fred McGee the magician: If he also knew who she was did he see her as some kind of threat? Might he be a suspect?

Astrid Del Mar: Fake name, good assistant to a lousy magician. Need more.

Boat Captain: Jeff Cook… didn't meet him last night so…

What the… ?

A beam of light smacked her in the eyes. She blinked, and thinking it a reflection off another boat, moved to the right. It hit again, this time flashing across her face, forcing her to close her eyes. "Ugh, that hurt!" she mumbled to no one in particular and closed her eyes to watch round black dots bounce around her retinas. She gave it a moment then opened them again.

Shaking it off, she went back to work on the list. She would call Bruce Sullivan, her partner in the SFPD, see if he could help with these names.

When the searing light did another pass across her face, she jerked out of her seat, banging her head on the metal ribs of her canvas
bimini
.

Now she was mad.

Rubbing at the sore spot on her skull, she stumbled off the boat and peered down the quiet length of dock. There it was again, smacking her in the face.
 
If it was the reflection off one of the boat windows, then why did it follow her like this? Curious, she hurried up the ramp to the parking lot. Someone may be opening a door, or moving a car in the early morning light. But all the windows were still opaque from last night's wet marine air.

A sharp whistle and another flash of light blistered her corneas. When her vision cleared, she looked up to the cliff overlooking the marina. A figure held up a hand, waved, and motioned for her to come up.
 
Who was this Boy Scout signaling her with a mirror?