Page 10 of Nightshade
THE BLACK MARLIN Club was located in a two-story clapboard structure that sat on a private pier off St. Catherine Way on the north side of the harbor. The building had housed the club for more than a hundred years and had been deemed a historic landmark by the county. Stilwell walked there from the sub. The front door was locked, and, remembering what had been noted in the crime report, Stilwell walked around to a side door. He pushed a button on a call box. Soon, a voice responded.
“How can I help you?”
“Detective Sergeant Stilwell with the sheriff’s department. I’m here to follow up on a crime report taken over the weekend.”
“Yes, of course. Please stand by and someone will let you in shortly.”
“Thank you.”
Shortly turned out to be a long few minutes. While he waited, Stilwell took out his phone and sent a text to Henry Gaston’s cell. It said 24 hours. He knew that Gaston would know what the cryptic message meant. There had been no reply by the time the door of the BMC opened and a man in a shirt and tie smiled at Stilwell.
“Sergeant Stilwell?” he said. “Charles Crane, general manager. Please come in.”
He offered his hand, which Stilwell shook.
Crane carried an air of authority that went beyond being one of the few men on the island who wore a tie to work. He walked fast and talked fast as he led the way into the club.
“Let’s go to my office,” he said. “We can talk privately there. Have you ever been to the club before, Sergeant?”
“No, I haven’t,” Stilwell said. “Before we talk, can you show me the hallway where the theft of the statue occurred?”
“Oh, of course. Right here.”
They walked through a sitting room with dark paneled walls and old leather chairs. It smelled faintly of cigars and money. From there they moved into a foyer where the front door was located. Crane turned left into a wide hallway also paneled in dark wood. Down the left side were multiple framed photos, most in sepia or black-and-white, of men over the past century standing next to their catches of marlins. Mounted above the line of frames was a marlin that Stilwell estimated was at least eight feet long, its black spine twisting, frozen in a fight lost a long time ago. A plaque below it said
983-P OUND B LACK M ARLIN
C AUGHT S EPTEMBER 14, 1931, ON THE M ARY M AC
BY H ORACE G RANT , M EMBER BMC
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Crane said.
“Sure is. If you’re into fishing,” Stilwell said.
Museum-style glass cases lined the right side of the hallway. There were three of them and they were mostly filled with fishing lures that had been used over the years to go after the club’s eponymous fish. There were unusual shells and pieces of coral, shark’s teeth, and other knickknacks. Crane pointed to an empty pedestal that stood at the end of the line of cases.
“The sculpture was right here,” Crane said. “For nearly a century. Donated by one of the first presidents of the club, Noah Rossmore.”
Stilwell studied the marble pedestal.
“It wasn’t secured?” he asked.
“This is a gentlemen’s club, Sergeant,” Crane said. “We don’t lock things up and we don’t expect them to be taken.”
Stilwell nodded.
“So it could have just been lifted up without anyone having to touch the pedestal?” he asked. “No earthquake wax or anything that would make it difficult to come loose?”
“Nothing,” Crane said.
Stilwell started asking questions he already knew the answers to, but it was good practice to ask them again because sometimes new information came to the surface.
“How was it discovered missing?”
“It was actually one of our cleaning people who realized it was gone. Mrs. Landry. One of her jobs is to keep this hallway and its contents in pristine condition. She was dusting and saw the empty pedestal. She alerted me and I immediately called your department.”
“Got it. Is this a busy part of the club?”
“Well, this is our entry hallway, but most members come by boat and enter off the docks behind or on the starboard side of the building. Consequently, this hallway is used very infrequently.”
“Which makes it difficult to pinpoint when the statue was taken.”
“Yes, it does.”
“You suggested to Deputy Dunne that Leigh-Anne Moss took it, yes?”
“The deputy who responded to my call asked if I had any suspicions about who might have taken the piece, and I did say that a week earlier I’d let Ms. Moss go and she was not happy about it. But I didn’t directly accuse her of anything. I hope she doesn’t think that.”
“I haven’t talked to her yet. Let’s go to your office so we can talk about it.”
“By all means. Happy to.”
Crane’s office was upstairs at the back of the building. His desk was in front of a window that looked out across the harbor, and it reminded Stilwell of the view from the harbormaster’s tower.
“This is nice,” Stilwell said.
“Allows me to see the arrivals of members and their guests,” Crane said.
Rather than sitting in front of Crane’s desk, Stilwell walked to the window and looked down. Behind the club, the pier extended into a wraparound deck with a hinged gangway connecting to a floating dock. There, members could tie up their skiffs when they arrived from their moored yachts. At the moment, a small sailboat and three other skiffs and workboats were tied to cleats on the floating dock. On the north side of the building, the dock was under an extended corrugated steel roof that allowed members covered access to the club’s side door, protection from rain or blistering sun.
“I bet you had a busy weekend here,” Stilwell said.
His eyes were scanning the harbor. He saw the lines of orange mooring balls. The harbor had largely emptied at the end of the weekend.
“Yes, we had a lot of members come out,” Crane said. “It was very busy.”
“So you have a full restaurant and bar in here, right?” Stilwell asked.
“Yes. We serve lunch every day and dinner Thursday to Sunday.”
“What about rooms? Can members stay here or do they have to stay on their boats?”
“We have four rooms available to members and guests on a first-come-first-serve basis. But as you can imagine, our members have substantial vessels, and most elect to stay on them.”
“Yes, I get that.”
Stilwell had a view of the spot where the body had been found thirty feet down.
“You had a clear view of the body recovery on Friday,” he said.
“I did,” Crane said. “Terrible. Have you found out what happened? I heard it was a girl.”
“A woman. They haven’t identified her. But it’s not my case. The theft of your statue is.”
“Well, it’s not my statue. It’s the club’s.”
Stilwell stepped away from the window and took a seat in front of Crane’s desk.
“Tell me about Leigh-Anne,” he said. “Why’d you fire her?”
“I hate that word,” Crane said. “ Fire, terminate —they sound so harsh. But I did let her go. She had become… a problem.”
“How so?”
“We have strict rules about socializing between the staff and the members. She knew the rules but elected to break them. Repeatedly.”
“Repeatedly in what way?”
“She was overly flirtatious with several members and that was brought to my attention. I warned her once about it and then felt the need to act when I continued to get reports of this behavior.”
“What does ‘overly flirtatious’ behavior mean?”
“To use an archaic phrase, she was a gold digger, Sergeant. She attempted several times to lure members to meet her outside the club. She was clearly looking for someone to marry or possibly extort.”
“That’s a pretty strong accusation. Did any of these meetings ever happen?”
“I don’t know. I just know the invitations were made and we acted to protect our members.”
“You said her flirtatiousness was brought to your attention. By who?”
“Well, my bar manager, for one, and I have to say, some members complained as well.”
“Who were the members?”
“I’m afraid that’s confidential, Sergeant. And I fail to see how it’s germane to the question of whether Ms. Moss took the jade marlin.”
“Tell me about when you fired her.”
“Well, we don’t have a human resources department here. With a small staff, I am HR, and I simply called her up here to the office, told her that she had been warned repeatedly, that she’d ignored those warnings, and that it was time for her to find another place of employment.”
“And this was when, exactly?”
“Saturday morning, the seventeenth.”
“What time would you say?”
“The Marlin Room opens for lunch at eleven, which means she would have been here by ten to help set up the room. I left word in the kitchen that she should come see me upon her arrival. So I would say our conversation occurred shortly after ten o’clock that morning.”
“And how did she take it?”
“Not well, as you can imagine. She was angry and she stormed out of here.”
“And on her way out, she grabbed the sculpture.”
“Well, we can’t say for sure that she took it. But a week later, a staff member noticed it was missing.”
“Mrs. Landry.”
“Correct. And she notified me.”
“Is Mrs. Landry here today?”
“No, she’s primarily here on weekends, when we have many members visiting. But I could call her in if you need to speak to her.”
“I think we can hold off on that for the moment. But for the report, what’s Mrs. Landry’s first name?”
“Judith.”
“And how long has she worked here?”
“I’d have to look that up—much longer than me, I can tell you that.”
“Then how long have you been here?”
“This is my eighteenth year in the employ of the club, but it has been eight years since I was named general manager. I was second-in-command before I was promoted.”
“Let’s go back to Leigh-Anne for a moment. Were there a lot of members here when you fired her and she stormed out? Did they see or hear any of this?”
“Actually, the club was quite empty. We don’t serve breakfast, and lunch starts at eleven. It doesn’t get busy till noon or later. I chose that time to make the change because I knew the club would be quiet.”
“Sounds like you knew she was going to get angry.”
“I suspected she might be angry and try to create a…”
“A scene?”
“A distraction.”
“You called it a gentlemen’s club earlier. Are there no female members?”
“My mistake. We do have female members.”
“How many?”
“Two members are female, but you have to remember that the club’s bylaws cap membership at one hundred, and it’s generational. It gets passed on. We have members who are the great-grandsons of our founders. New members are admitted only if an existing member resigns or there is no heir to come forward upon a member’s death. So the transition has been slow. In my time, there have been only three openings, and two of those went to female applicants.”
“Can I get a list of the members?”
“Uh, this is a private club, Sergeant, and it’s my job to protect the privacy of our members.”
“Is that a no?”
“I think you would need to come back with a search warrant for something like that. It would put me in a difficult position if I were to just hand over the membership list. I’m sure you understand.”
“I do. I’ll come back with a warrant if I need the list. Do you have the paperwork that Leigh-Anne Moss filled out when she applied for work here?”
“Yes, and I showed it to the deputy on Saturday.”
Crane opened a desk drawer and took out a single-page document that was sitting atop a stack. He handed it across the desk to Stilwell, who studied it for a long moment.
“Did you ever call either of these references she lists?” he finally asked.
“No, I didn’t,” Crane said. “I should have. But applicants don’t usually give you the names of people who are not going to speak glowingly about them.”
“True. Can I get a copy of this?”
“Of course.”
Stilwell handed the document back to Crane. Without getting up, Crane rolled his desk chair over to a copy machine to his right. He fed in the document and soon had a copy to hand back to Stilwell.
“What else can I do for you, Sergeant?” he asked.
“By any chance, do you have a photo of the missing sculpture?” Stilwell responded.
“Yes. The deputy asked me that Saturday and I didn’t have one readily available, but in our archives I found a photo of the presentation of the sculpture to the club in 1916. I have it here.”
Crane opened another drawer and took out a file. From it he pulled a yellowed photo of two men standing next to each other, one passing the black marlin sculpture to the other. A typewritten caption was taped to the back of the photo.
Presented this day, April 4, 1916, from Noah Rossmore to BMC president Padgett Smith
“Can you make a copy of this too?” Stilwell asked.
“Gladly,” Crane said.
Stilwell handed the photo back and waited as Crane rolled over to the copier.
“What else?” Crane asked after handing the photocopy to Stilwell.
There was a note of impatience in his voice. Stilwell knew he had outstayed his welcome. He didn’t care.
“The résumé shows that Moss gave an address on the mainland,” he said. “Do you know if she had a place here on the island?”
“I don’t,” Crane said. “She worked weekends here, which is when we are busiest. A lot of our employees do. Many live on the mainland and go back and forth, or they stay with friends over here. I don’t know what Leigh-Anne’s situation was.”
“Did she ever stay in one of the four rooms you’ve got here?”
“No, of course not. Those are for members’ use only.”
“I thought that would be the case but I had to ask. What about security cameras? Are there any in the building?”
“No, there aren’t. Again, we’re an old club and we protect the privacy of our members. There were no cameras when the club was founded. There are no cameras now.”
Stilwell nodded.
“One last thing,” he said. “You said earlier that your bar manager was one of the people who complained about Moss breaking the rules about socializing with members. What’s his name?”
“My bar manager is Buddy Callahan,” Crane said. “He’s been here almost thirty years.”
“I need to talk to him. Is he here now?”
“I believe he is. But I would prefer that you speak to him when he’s not serving our members.”
“Mr. Crane, this is a criminal investigation. You started it when you reported the theft of a priceless object. The investigation goes where it goes when it goes. I need to see your bar manager right now.”
“Very well, Sergeant.”
Crane picked up the phone on the desk and punched in three numbers. He instructed whoever answered to send Buddy Callahan up to the office immediately, then hung up.
“He’s on his way,” Crane said.
“Thank you,” Stilwell said. “And I want to speak to him alone.”
“I feel like I should monitor the conversation. In case something he says needs clarification.”
“It’s procedure. I have to talk to him without anybody, including his boss, listening. Is there a—”
“Not a problem. You can have the office. I need to check on something downstairs anyway. I must warn you, though, that Buddy is opinionated and very protective of the club and its members.”
“Meaning what?”
Crane stood up.
“Meaning he shoots from the hip and speaks his mind,” he said. “I’ll go bring him in.”
He moved around the desk and headed out of the office.