CHAPTER NINE

THE BUILDING AT 495 East Pike was less than a mile away from Harborview. It was a large, two-story brick structure with a chiropractor on the second floor and a Mailbox Worldwide shipping franchise on the first.

It was before the lunch hour, and the Mailbox office was quiet. Between the painted words on the windows, I could see a young woman behind the counter, sealing boxes with strapping tape.

A man walked in and headed for the bank of golden-doored boxes on the side wall. I followed him inside and pretended to be listening intently to my phone while finding Box 1701, high on the right side. I watched as the man used a short silver key with a circular head to open his box. Dono had a similar silver key on the big key ring in my pocket.

When the woman carried the cardboard box into the back, I walked over to the wall and opened Box 1701 with Dono’s key. It was crammed full of envelopes and postcards. A lucky spin for me that Dono hadn’t picked up his mail in a while. I stuffed the stack of mail into my jacket and left. I sat in the driver’s seat of the Charger to leaf through J. T. Callahan’s correspondence.

Most of the stack turned out to be advertisements. Tool shops obviously liked Callahan. The more personal items included a bank statement, a couple of letters from workman’s associations, and an envelope from Western Maritime.

I opened the envelope. It was a receipt correction and a letter, apologizing to Mr. Callahan for the incorrect pricing of his purchases in February and hoping that he was enjoying them to the full. I looked at the receipt. A Lowrance HD Chartplotter, a Garmin VHF radio, and other equipment. Over four grand of new electronics in all.

Which confirmed that Dono had acquired a boat, and recently. But it didn’t tell me where it was.

I checked the bank statement. It was short. The balance was just under twenty thousand. There had been automated withdrawals for his mailbox, for the car insurance on the Lincoln, and for Altamont Garage, which I guessed was where he kept the Lincoln.

And one more withdrawal, for something called BLUERIDGE MOOR LLC. I took out my phone and searched for the name. There was a Blue Ridge Marina, a couple miles north of the big public piers at Shilshole Bay in Seattle.

Hot damn.

AT FIRST GLANCE THE marina didn’t look like much. Just a row of six or seven short docks separated from Puget Sound by a breakwater. Maybe two hundred slips in all. But the resident vessels were upmarket, mostly oceanworthy sailboats and tall cruising yachts. I saw a lot of varnished teak and shiny brass fittings that managed to gleam even on this overcast day. It was Monday, and the docks were empty of people.

Each floating dock had its own entrance door, made of flat steel mesh with side extensions and razor wire on the top to keep the riffraff from climbing around to the ramp.

I knew from Ganz’s guy at the DMV what I was looking for. A twenty-two-foot gray Stingray speedboat. All the boats near that size were parked in the slips closest to shore, because they had shallower drafts than their bigger cousins. I walked down the row of docks, looking at them. Most were white, with a few blues and blacks. Only one was gray.

The lock on the steel gate was a heavy mechanical combination type. Six punch buttons marked with letters of the alphabet, A through F. I had a pry bar from the truck under my coat, but a quick glance at the lock told me I wouldn’t need it.

Four of the six buttons were shiny from repeated use. Each button can only be used once in a mechanical lock, since each corresponds to a separate tumbler inside. Four buttons, twenty-four possible combinations. When I put a little tension on the door handle and pressed gently on each button, I could tell by touch that button C was first in the sequence, because its tumbler wasn’t providing as much resistance. Eight possible sequences left. By trial and error, I had the gate open in forty more seconds.

It had been a long time since I’d greased a lock with just my hands. Score one for the riffraff. I walked down the dock to the boat.

The Stingray was a sport boat, built for zipping between islands on day trips or dragging water-skiers behind it. About half of its length was the sleek bow section in front of its raked windshield. No name was painted on the stern. Nothing about the boat stood out as particularly unique. Even the gray paint was dull.