Chapter nineteen

“What’s going on, Chief?” Sam stormed into Chief Singleton’s office at full speed, ignoring the growl Singleton made as he whirled around in his desk chair, the phone glued to one ear. “Put the damn phone down and give me some answers!” Sam grabbed the phone away from Chief and slammed it down on the receiver; then he glared at a startled Chief from across his own desk.

“What’s gotten into you, Sam?” Chief shot back. He moved around to close his office door so the department wouldn’t hear the ensuing shouting match; then he warily walked back to his chair and slowly sat. His desk phone rang again. This time, he answered it with a short, “I’ll call you back,” before hanging up.

“Me? I am just looking for some answers.” Sam’s hands balled into fists as he leaned on the desk. “I just learned that my old truck’s bugged. Then, I see with my own two eyes a suspect’s car that was lifted from the dunes at the Golden Sun has already been crushed beyond recognition over at Wally’s. Whatever happened to proper procedures? I thought you assigned me to the fire case because you thought I could find some answers. But now I think you put me there to keep me out of the way or something. I am guessing my loaner car was bugged too, which means somebody was tracking me the night I ran into a tree. Help me out, here, Chief. What the hell is going on?” Sam crossed his arms over his chest as he stared at Singleton.

“First off,” said Chief, taking a deep breath apparently to control his temper, “the car has been in the warehouse for close to a week. We dusted it inside and out, and it was clean. There’s no room in there for ghosts, so we talked with Commissioner Martin, who signed the order. Next, we sent it to Wally’s Wrecking to be crushed. That’s standard operating procedure.” Chief shifted forward in his chair and thumped a thick stack of papers on a corner of his desk. “Second, I have a caseload here like none I’ve seen before. Your piddly-assed attempt to find some answers at Golden Sun means nothing to me. I’ve got me a suspect, and I was on the phone trying to round up some more information to make it stick. Meanwhile, Andy tells me you are out sailing with some chickie. That’s really being on the case, I’d say. And you are being watched because you are a suspect in Lee’s murder. So shut your loud mouth and get your skinny ass out of my office. You are suspended, and I don’t want to see you lurking around here until we get this solved!” Chief stood up with such force that his chair tipped over behind him as he pushed away from the desk. “I want your gun and your badge on the main desk on your way out the door.”

“Suspended? You think I had something to do with Lee’s murder? What are you, nuts?”

“Out! Now!”

“But I…. Shit!”

Sam nearly ripped the door off its hinges on his way out, and he shouted obscenities all the way to the street. Before he got in his truck, he dropped to his hands and knees to search the underside. Not seeing what he was expecting, Sam peeled out of the parking lot and headed toward the marina.

Before he reached his dock, Sam heard someone shout his name.

“Sam! Hey, Sam, can you wait up?”

Dillon Bates, the marina’s smug young dockmaster, trotted toward him from the covered porch of the dock office. His pressed white polo shirt and khaki shorts were his personal uniform, even though the marina had no formal dress code for its four employees. His cropped blond hair was swooped and gooped up in the front, seeming to blow in a nonexistent breeze.

“What’s up, Dillon?” Sam didn’t slow his gait, forcing the young prepster into a run to catch up.

“Apparently, your lease.” Dillon seemed pleased to be giving Sam the boot.

“What now?” Sam stopped to face Dillon. He was a full six inches taller than Dillon, and he noticed that the upturned swoop of hair helped to hide an encroaching bald spot.

“Your contract clearly states, ‘No pets.’ Sorry, man, but you got to get rid of the pet, or we have to get rid of you.”

“I don’t have a pet.”

“Birds count, Sam.”

“Bir…you mean the duck?” Sam couldn’t hold back his laugh. “That’s not a pet; that’s a duck that likes to hang around on the pilings. I don’t feed it, I don’t cuddle it, and I don’t pick up after it. Thus, it is not my pet.”

“That’s really not our concern. Besides, you are five days late in paying your slip fee, giving the marina owner another reason to turn it over to someone else who can pay. You have to go, Sam, and you have to take your pet with you.”

“But it’s not my pet! It’s a duck. A wild duck. I can’t take it with me because it’s not mine!” No longer amused, Sam was agitated at this little runt of a guy telling him to leave.

“You signed the agreement. Right here, see? N-O P-E-T-S!” Dillon was having way too much fun with this as he held up the agreement with the clause highlighted in yellow for Sam’s benefit.

Sam stomped toward his boat, and sure enough, there sat Kathy the duck, cozy on her seat in the cockpit. As he approached the boat, Sam tried to shoo her away, but she wouldn’t budge. He grabbed a cushion and swung at her, missing as she flapped her wings and flew to the top of the aft rail. Sam didn’t think; he just reached for the key and started the engine. The duck stayed put, and Sam started untying lines. Without a word to anyone, he motored out of his slip and headed out of the marina.