Page 5 of Nightshade

THE RECOVERY TEAM had come by boat and brought a coroner’s investigator with them. The divers were in the water by the time the sheriff’s helicopter flew in from the mainland, circled the harbor, and put down next to the Casino. Stilwell sent Lampley to pick up Ahearn and Sampedro, electing to spend as little time with them as possible.

It was late in the day and the harbor was now almost at capacity with vessels of various sizes moored side by side along three lines of buoys. Tash Dano had managed to keep the fourth line of balls open. She had called Stilwell and told him she was keeping the final boats with reservations out in the bay until he gave the all-clear. He told her that the investigation would move on from the harbor by dusk.

Stilwell was surprised to see only Ahearn walking down the pier with Lampley to the skiff dock gangway. Sampedro had apparently stayed behind on the mainland. Ahearn turned and started plodding down the gangway. He was in a suit and tie and therefore drew the attention of many of the tourists on the pier.

The tide was running out of the harbor now and the water level had dropped four feet since that morning. The gangway and skiff dock floated freely with the tide, and the four-foot drop put the gangway at a sharp downward angle. Ahearn was a large white man with wide shoulders and a thick neck supporting a round head. He picked up dangerous momentum as he came down. Stilwell stepped back, not wanting to get in the way.

The gangway had ribbed rubber matting to guard against slippage, but the deck of the skiff dock had recently been replaced with fiberboard and was slick with moisture from the lapping of harbor waters. The moment Ahearn’s hard-soled dress shoes hit the deck, he went into a full skid. His feet shot out from under him, his arms pinwheeled, and he landed on his back. His silky suit greased his slide across the six feet of remaining deck, and he went into the water between two Zodiac inflatables.

“Shit!” Lampley yelled as he came down the gangway behind him.

Stilwell moved quickly to the edge of the deck, ready to rescue Ahearn, but he popped up between the two boats, immediately reacting to the cold Pacific water.

“Motherfuck!”

Stilwell leaned down and offered his hand and Lampley did the same, but Ahearn was too angry and embarrassed to accept help. He slapped their hands away.

“Get the fuck away!”

Stilwell and Lampley stepped back, raising their hands in surrender, and watched as the big man hoisted his upper body up over the edge of the deck. His dark suit and slicked-back hair made him look like one of the seals that often sunned on the deck in the mornings. He dragged himself out of the water and rolled onto his back, seemingly exhausted by the effort.

“Goddamn it!” he yelled. “I bet you loved that, Stillborn.”

“Actually, no,” Stilwell said. “Because now we have to worry about you getting dry clothes instead of working the case.”

“Fuck off.”

“Sure.”

Stilwell turned to Lampley, whose eyes were wide with what he had just witnessed.

“When he’s up, take him to the sub,” he said. “Get him a hot shower and some clothes out of the court closet—if anything fits. I’ll stay here. Call me when he’s ready and I’ll come over if the recovery team is finished.”

Ahearn was pulling a wet wallet out of his back pocket.

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “You could have warned me, Stillborn.”

“You mean about wearing your Men’s Wearhouse oxfords on a boat dock?” Stilwell said. “Yeah, I guess I could have.”

Ahearn slowly started to get up, dripping water from every thread of his suit. He immediately slipped again and went down to one knee.

“Goddamn it, help me up!”

Lampley offered him a hand and Ahearn grabbed it and intentionally tried to pull him down, but the young deputy was able to hold his ground. Ahearn let go and got up on his own. He looked up at the pier and saw several tourists aiming their phones at the skiff dock.

“Great,” he said. “All I need. I want every one of those phones collected and the videos deleted.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Stilwell said. “Just go to the substation, get a shower, and put warm clothes on. We’ll talk then.” He looked at Lampley and nodded toward the gangway. “Take him,” he said.

Lampley held out his hand to help Ahearn get to the gangway, but the detective slapped it away and crossed the deck with tiny steps, looking like someone on a pair of ice skates for the first time. Once he got to the rubber matting of the gangway, he was safe. He turned and looked back at Stilwell as if to say something but then thought better of it and headed up the ramp. He kept one hand on the railing but held the other up, offering his middle finger to anyone still videoing his embarrassment.

Stilwell watched them go until his phone started to buzz with a call from Tash Dano. She had seen Ahearn’s deck slide from the harbor control tower.

“Wow, that was embarrassing,” she said. “Was that the man from homicide?”

“It was,” Stilwell said. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. What’s up, Tash?”

“Does that guy’s splash delay things? How long until I can bring the last boats in from the bay? It’ll be dark soon and they’re getting a little pissed off sitting out there.”

“Hold on.”

Stilwell put the phone in his shirt pocket and then took the radio off his belt. It was set to the dive team’s frequency, so there was no need for him to speak in code to the topside deputy, Gary Saunders, whom Stilwell had known for years.

“Gary, how long we talking now?”

He waited for a return voice on the radio.

“Uh, yeah, they’re bringing her up. They already bagged her and we have the curtain up, so no worry on the lookie-loos. We’ll get her on here and then we’re done. Chuck already did a floor search. There’s nothing. She was dropped somewhere else, probably in the bay, and the tide brought her in here.”

“Roger that. What I thought.”

“The weight belt is yours?”

“I borrowed it.”

“Okay, we’ll bring it to you.”

“Thank you.”

“Hey, was that A-Hole I saw slide into the water?”

That was one of the popular nicknames for Rex Ahearn. The other was a play on both his names: King A-Hole.

“It was,” Stilwell said.

“I guess it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” Saunders said.

“What I said.”

“That’s sure to go viral. A lot of people with phones up on the pier.”

“I saw.”

“Okay, we’ll finish up here and drop by your twenty.”

“Copy. Out.”

Stilwell pulled his phone and relayed the information to Tash.

“Anything you can do to hurry them would be good,” she said.

“They have to get back to the mainland with it,” Stilwell said. “I’m sure they want to get there before dark.”

“Okay.”

“Hey, Tash, while I’ve got you, you remember seeing anyone around here with long dark hair with a streak of purple dye in it? A woman?”

“Hmm.”

She went silent for a long moment before continuing.

“Something about that seems really familiar but I can’t place her. I don’t think it’s a local. I know all the locals. But I think I remember seeing a girl with hair like that somewhere.”

“A girl?”

“I mean a woman. She was older.”

“If you can remember where or anything else, let me know.”

“That’s the person in the water?”

“Yes. Age unknown at the moment.”

“Right. So sad.”

“Yeah.”

They disconnected. Stilwell sat down on a fiberglass equipment box at the end of the dock and watched the recovery operation from afar. Saunders had put up a privacy tent over the back deck of the dive boat. Stilwell knew that this was where they would place the body for the trip back across the bay.

The divers soon surfaced and lifted a submergible body bag onto the fantail of the dive boat. Saunders and a coroner’s investigator Stilwell didn’t recognize grabbed the straps on the bag and moved it through the gunwale door, onto the rear deck of the boat, and out of sight. Next the coiled rope, chain, and anchor were handed up by the divers, followed by the weight belt Stilwell had wrapped around the anchor.

The two recovery divers climbed up the drop ladder and onto the boat. The ladder went up and soon Stilwell heard the twin 10 engines come to life. Saunders went to the bow and pulled up the anchor and then the boat started moving at idle speed toward the skiff dock.

Stilwell called the harbormaster’s office.

“Tash, you can start bringing the rest of the boats in.”

“Perfect. They’ll be happy.”

“Did you tell them why there was a delay?”

“Uh, no.”

“Good. I gotta go.”

He disconnected, grabbed the front rail of the dive boat as it came to the dock, and gently brought it to a stop.

Saunders came forward with the dive belt Stilwell had borrowed from Abbott and handed it over the rail. “Do me a favor, Gary,” Stilwell said. “Let me get a look at the anchor and chain.”

“You got it,” Saunders said.

He stepped back so that Stilwell could climb onto the boat. They went back to the stern, where the anchor, chain, and rope were on the deck next to the yellow body bag. Stilwell took out his phone and took separate photos of each item.

“Can we turn it to see if there’s a manufacturer’s mark?” he asked.

With a gloved hand, Saunders turned the anchor on the deck to show the other side. Imprinted on the polished metal was a manufacturer’s brand.

“It’s a Hold Fast,” he said. “They make ’em by the thousands.”

Stilwell was looking at the body bag. Even with bloating, the contents seemed small.

“You want a look?” Saunders asked.

“No, I saw it down below,” Stilwell said. “That was enough.”

“Yeah, she’s ripe.”

“Well, you guys can go. I’m sure Ahearn will be in touch.”

“Then we’re out of here.”

Stilwell retraced his steps to the skiff dock, then used his foot to push the prow of the dive boat away. He himself almost slipped on the new decking. As the boat headed toward the mouth of the harbor, Stilwell’s phone started to buzz. It was Lampley.

“Sarge, you coming back here?” he asked. “Detective Ahearn is getting dressed.”

“Yeah, we’re done here,” Stilwell said. “I’m on my way to the sub.”