Page 60 of Nightshade

“Never mind the boat, Duncan. You’re here, you’re safe. When you say ‘We had clients,’ who are you talking about?”

“I crew on a boat at Two Harbors. Like with theEmerald Sea,but there’s more work out there. It’s fishing, not sailing.”

“What boat?”

“It’s calledSea Mistress. The captain is a guy named Tracey Bonnette. He’ll vouch for me. We were out the whole weekend.”

Stilwell stood up. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

He stepped out of the room and closed the door. He went to Lampley’s desk and saw a property bag containing an iPhone, wallet, keys, and a thin fold of money. He opened the bag, took out the phone, and headed back to the interview room. As he sat down, he slid the phone across the table to Forbes.

“Unlock it,” he said.

“I’ll show you,” said Forbes.

“Just unlock it and give it back. I have the same phone. I’ll find the photos.”

Forbes tapped in a combination to open the phone. Stilwell caught the sequence—112392—and knew it was his birthday.Forbes slid the phone back across the table, and Stilwell opened the Photos app. He tapped the All Photos button and was presented with a gridwork of pictures he could scroll back through by date. When he got to May 17, he opened one of the photos and saw the stern of a sport-fishing boat crowded with smiling men holding up their catch. Halibut, yellowtail, lingcod, and calico bass—they’d had a good day on the water.

Stilwell used his thumb to slide through the other photos from the outing. Forbes was not in any of them, but it was his phone and it was likely he had been the photographer. One of the photos had been taken from an up angle and captured the boat captain—Bonnette, he assumed—looking down from the helm on the bridge. He wore mirrored sunglasses. Stilwell used his fingers to expand the photo, and in the mirrored lenses he saw a reflection of the photographer. It was Forbes.

The last photo in the day’s set showed a sunset from what Stilwell assumed was Frenchy’s Cove on Anacapa. The time stamp saidMay 17, 7:52 p.m.He moved on to the photos taken on May 18, and there were shots of men holding up fish and cans of beer. He also came across a selfie taken by Forbes on the bridge, where he was steering the boat. The time stamp on that shot readMay 18, 10:13 a.m.

Stilwell thought it was a near-perfect alibi, even though there were several hours between the sunset shot on Saturday and the first photos of fishing Sunday. It could possibly be argued that Forbes had made his way back to Avalon during those hours, taken the skiff from the Black Marlin Club to theEmerald Seain the middle of the night, and gotten back to Anacapa in time for a morning of fishing. But Stilwell put the chances of that at slim to none. He believed Forbes was telling the truth.

21

NO LONGER Aperson of interest, Forbes was now a witness. Stilwell had to rethink and retool his approach. The interrogation had become an interview. He started by telling Forbes what the man wanted to hear.

“I’m going to go to bat for you, Duncan,” he said. “I’ll talk to probation and the DA’s office about making this warrant go away. I’ll tell them you’ve been very cooperative in this investigation.”

“It’s such bullshit,” Forbes said. “They better fix it.”

“Well, the more you help me, the better the chance of that happening.”

“But I told you, I don’t know anything about that girl.”

“That’s fine. But I want to talk to you about theEmerald Sea.”

“What about it?”

“You sailed the boat back to Marina del Rey this past Monday, right?”

“Monday morning, yeah.”

“How did that get set up?”

“The way it always does. The owner, Mr. Colbrink, just called me and said he wanted to take it back across. That was Sunday—he wanted to go Sunday. But I was working on theMistressandtold him I couldn’t. He then said Monday morning and I said I could do that.”

“Why did he want to leave in the middle of the holiday weekend?”

“He just said it was too crowded.”

“So, on Monday, was it just you two on the boat?”

Forbes hesitated. He leaned back and scanned the confines of the room, his eyes eventually going to the camera mounted in the corner over Stilwell’s left shoulder.

“Man, this could cost me my job with Mr. Colbrink.”