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White Lightning was tied up in Sullivan Bay. Dan got the news when he returned to the office, along with the information that the owner had flown out two days before and was not expected back for several days more.
“I left a message with their office to let us know when he got back and to ask him call us. Told them it was important.” Maureen had her finger poised over a flashing phone console. “And Al Rediger wants to talk to you.” She pressed a button and spoke into her headset.
Rediger was surrounded by boxes and sorting through a stack of folders when Dan arrived.
“Hey Al. Maureen said you’ve got something for me.” Dan watched as Al deftly spun a sheet of paper through the air to land inside one of the boxes. “You could do pretty well in Vegas as a dealer,” he added,
He had been thinking of a card dealer when he said it, but saying the word out loud took him in another direction. “Do you have a list of our known local drug pushers? I’m not talking about the big boys, just the small timers.”
Rediger looked at him. “If you mean the punks that sell on the street, I don’t have a list, but I can give you a few names. Might not help you much unless you happen to know them. Most of them are either bums or kids and they don’t have a record—or at least not for anything serious.” He reached for another folder and opened it. “Markleson put you on that drug business too?”
Dan shook his head. “No, but I think my case might be linked somehow.” He frowned, and then asked, “You got anyone called Eric on your list? I don’t know his last name.”
Rediger thought about it for a minute then shook his head. “Nope. No Eric.”
“How about Victor Halvorsen?”
“Halvorsen? He’s an asshole, but I’ve never heard anything about him being involved in drugs—although I can’t say it would surprise me. We’ve had him in here more than a few times for fighting, and we’ve had several complaints about him threatening people, but nothing ever stuck. Why? You hear something?”
“No. At least nothing I can really put my finger on, but I think he’s involved in something a little more serious than fighting. Only problem is I don’t know what.”
“Well, putting him away would make a lot of people happy.” Rediger reached under the stack of files and pulled out the book he used to record all phone calls from the public. “You got a call from some woman at the MacKay Barge Company up there in Hardy. She said to tell you Reuben Crosbie is back in town. Said he’ll be taking the barge out tomorrow.
***
DAN SQUEEZED HIMSELF into the only remaining car and drove to the office of the barge company. To be able to talk to Crosbie was a bonus. He had been thinking that the barge captain might have disappeared the same way as his crewmember, Paulie Benko had.
The woman behind the desk looked exactly the way she had sounded on the phone, round, matronly and outgoing. If she wasn’t somebody’s mother Dan thought she certainly should have been. Dan introduced himself and asked her if she knew where he could find Crosbie. He had stopped at Crosbie’s house on the way in, but there had been no one at home.
“He’s probably down at the Quarterdeck. It’s where he keeps his boat so he spends a lot of time there. Likes to eat at the restaurant.” She laughed. “I don’t know why he doesn’t sell that house of his. He’s never there. I think he sleeps on his boat even when he’s in town.”
Dan thanked her and started to leave, but stopped as another idea crossed his mind. “I don’t suppose you know what kind of boat he’s got do you?”
She laughed. “Everyone knows what kind of boat Reuben has. It’s his baby. My goodness, it’s all he talks about—that and fishing!” She pointed to a photograph hanging on the wall. “That’s him there.”
The photograph showed a middle-aged man wearing a heavy-knit sweater and jeans standing on the side deck of a large boat.
“He says it’s a Monk 36 if that means anything to you. Can’t say it does to me, but then I’m not really a boat person,” the woman said. “I know it was built way back in 1941 because it’s got a plaque up in the wheelhouse—I saw it when he invited Mark and I to go out with him one day—and he’s restored it himself. Done a really nice job if I do say so myself. All that lovely woodwork . . .”
Dan interrupted her chatter. “So it’s a wooden boat?”
“Oh my goodness yes! He spends hours sanding and varnishing. You’ll see for yourself when you go over there. It’s . . . “
“Thanks for your help.” Dan cut her off in mid-sentence. She reminded him so much of his mother he didn’t like doing it, but he knew if he didn’t he would be there for at least another half-hour of chatter.
The Quarterdeck marina was easy to find and it seemed everybody knew Reuben Crosbie and his boat. The first person Dan talked to pointed it out right away.
“Nicest looking boat we’ve got here.”
It was nice. White-painted hull, oiled teak deck and varnished wood trim. It was a boat Dan would have been proud to own although there was no way he would want to do all the work required to maintain it. Even the bronze ship’s bell gleamed.
Crosbie appeared within a few seconds of Dan knocking on the hull.
“Help you?” he asked.
He was larger than he had looked in the photo, with wide, athletic shoulders and a heavy chest.
“Nice looking boat,” Dan said as he held out his wallet. “I’ve got a an old Frostad but she doesn’t look nearly as good as this.”
“Takes a lot of work,” Crosbie answered as he waved Dan aboard. “So what can I help you with?”
“You were driving the barge when Colin Farnsworth went overboard?”
Crosbie nodded his head. “Yeah. One of the worst damn days of my life. I still can’t figure it out—hell, we weren’t even using the crane right then and Colin was one of the fittest and most agile guys I ever had working with me.” He gestured to the cabin. “You like something to drink? I don’t keep any booze aboard but there’s plenty of other stuff.”
“No thanks. So what do you think happened?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Like I said, they’d finished unloading the palette, although the hook was still hanging out there. All I can think of is somehow he stepped back into it and hit his head. It happened so fast I don’t think anyone saw it.”
“Was Paulie Benko out there with him?”
“Paulie? Yeah, he was there. Marge says he’s done a runner. She tell you that?”
Dan nodded. “Seems like it. So was there anyone else around when it happened?”
“Yeah, there were three guys in some fancy powerboat. Looked like a SeaRay or a Maxim. Probably a SeaRay. I think they call them Sports Coupes or something. It was tied up right in front of me beside the hoppers.”
Dan pulled his camera out of his pocket and held it out. “This look like the same one?”
Crosbie scanned quickly through the photos. “Looks like it, but I couldn’t swear to it. You don’t see a lot of them up here though, so if you took these shots here, it probably is.”
“So were any of the men on that boat near Colin when he fell?”
Crosbie scratched his head. “I guess so. I was checking the controls so I didn’t actually see it happen. Heard the yelling and when I looked he was already gone and everyone was milling around looking down into the water.”
The scene he was painting didn’t quite fit the scenario Dan had pictured from the other information he had received.
“So was everybody on the float or on the barge? I was told Farnsworth fell off the barge.”
“Probably a little of both,” Crosbie answered. “You ever seen one of the big barges up close? There’s metal rungs go down the side at both ends. Paulie said Colin had started to climb back up—had his foot on a rung anyway—and then there was a bang and next thing you know he was gone. The hook from the crane was hanging right there so I figure he must have hit it with his head and the bang was the hook hitting the side of the barge.”
It was certainly plausible, Dan thought, and it would explain why no one had mentioned a gunshot. Under the circumstances it would have been the last thing anyone would have thought of.
“You know what the guys in the powerboat were doing there?”
Crosbie shrugged. “I asked Reg—he’s the foreman out there—when I first arrived. Had to ask him to check if we had enough room behind it to get onto the float. He said it was some guys the office had sent out. Something to do with the food totes. I think one might have been damaged because it hadn’t been put into the hoppers like they usually do.”
There was nothing else Crosbie could add and with a couple more stops still to make, Dan took his leave. He was halfway down on the float when another thought came to him and he went back and found Crosbie still out in the cockpit bent over a locker. He stood up at the sound of Dan’s voice.
“You forget something?” he asked.
“Yeah, maybe. I was wondering where those guys were when you first arrived.”
“The guys on the powerboat? I think they were all on the float standing near the tote. It was right across from where they were tied.”
“That the tote you said was damaged?”
“Well, I don’t know that for sure, but I can’t think why else they would leave it there.”
It was a question Dan was going to be sure to ask Reg Johnson, but right now he had one more for Crosbie.
“Did Farnsworth go over to that tote at any time?”
For the first time, Crosbie looked confused. “I don’t know. I can’t say I actually remember him doing it, but he probably did. I mean it was right there and Colin was always checking things out, always trying to make sure things were okay. He might have figured he could help pick it up or move it while he was waiting for our stuff to come down. That’s the way Colin was.
“Okay, thanks,” Dan said. He shook Crosbie’s hand and climbed back down on the float. He couldn’t be sure, but he figured being a good guy might just have been what got Farnsworth killed.