bottles of champagne. Veuve Cliquot, though, don’t forget.
Clear-eyed this morning, despite the full bottle of bubbly he and Sarah had shared last night, he was at the wheel of the police sedan, wondering out loud if the Feds would be coming in on this one.
“Thing I don’t like about working with them,” he said, “is they have this superior…”
“Way I understand it, it’s a dead cinch they’ll come in,” Kling said.
“Then why are
“Way the Loot wants it. Guess he’d like a heads up, case there’s static later on.”
“
“Tamar Valparaiso.”
“Never heard of her.”
This was the third time he’d said this.
“Me, neither,” Kling said.
Third time for him, too.
The two made a good pair.
Both men were some six feet tall, but Meyer presented a burlier look, perhaps because he was entirely bald, perhaps because he was possessed of a steady, patient demeanor that made him seem somewhat plodding in contrast to Kling’s more open, enthusiastic country-boy style. Born and bred in this city, Kling nonetheless looked like he’d been found in a basket in a corn field. He was the perfect Good Cop to Meyer’s Bad Cop, although often they switched roles for the fun of it, blond, hazel-eyed, fuzzy-cheeked Kling suddenly snarling like a pit bull, steely blue-eyed big bald Meyer purring like a pussy cat.
The man who owned Capshaw Boats and its adjoining marina was a one-eyed former Navy SEAL who called himself Popeye, not to anyone’s great surprise. He had opened the marina at a little before six this morning…
“Lots of skippers like to get out on the water before all the river traffic begins. That’s a nice calm time of day, you know,” he said, “that time just before sunrise. It’s called morngloam, not many people know that.”
Meyer certainly didn’t know it.
Neither did Kling.
“I think it’s a Scottish word,” Popeye said. “Morngloam. The opposite of it is evengloam. That’s the time just before sunset. Evengloam. I think it comes from the word ‘gloaming.’ I think that’s a Scottish word. The derivation, I mean. I think it’s Scottish.”
“Tell you what we’re looking for,” Kling said. “Harbor Patrol stopped a boat from your marina last night…”
“Oh?” Popeye said, his one good eye widening in surprise.
“Name’s
“Oh, sure, the Rinker. She was already back in this morning, when I got here.”
“Whose boat is she?” Meyer asked.
“Mine. Well, Capshaw’s. I rent her out.”
“Then she doesn’t belong to one of your customers, is that it?”
“No, she’s mine. I just told you. She’s a rental boat. I sell boats, and I store boats, and I service boats, but I also rent them.”
“Who’d you rent this one to? Would you remember?”
“Oh, sure. Nice young feller. I’ve got his name inside.”
“Can you let us know who he was?” Kling asked.
“Oh, sure. Just let me finish here a minute, okay?”
He was washing down one of the boats. Soaping it, hosing it. Meyer watched him with interest. Kling looked upriver where early morning traffic was already moving steadily across the bridge to the next state.
“When you say she came back in…” Meyer said.
“She was tied up at the dock when I got in this morning.”
“When did she go out?”
“Evengloam last night. Nice time of day.”
“You rented her out last night at sundown…”
“Just before sundown. Twilight. Evengloam.”
“When was she due back in?”
“Well, she was a twenty-four-hour rental. Actually, she wasn’t due back till this evening sometime. I was surprised to find her here this morning.”
“We’d like that name, if you can get it for us,” Kling said.
“Oh, sure,” Popeye said, and turned off the hose. “Come on in.”
They followed him inside. The office was hung with lobster pots and fishing nets. Through the windows facing the river, Meyer and Kling could see racks and racks of stacked boats. Popeye went behind the counter, vanished from sight for a moment as he knelt beneath it. He emerged again, plunked a long narrow black book onto the counter top, and began riffling through its pages.
“Name was Andy Hardy,” he told them.
“Andy Hardy, huh?” Meyer said.
“There it is, right there,” Popeye said, and turned the registry log so they could see the name.
“That’s Mickey Rooney,” Meyer said. “A character he played in the movies. Andy Hardy.”
“You know, you’re right,” Popeye said, opening his one good eye wide in surprise.
“Never occurred to you, huh?” Kling said. “While this guy was renting the boat?”
“Well, the name did sound familiar, but we get a lot of people in here, you know. Sometimes too
“How’d he pay for the rental?”
“Credit card.”
“Showed you a credit card with the name Andy Hardy on it?”
“Andy Hardy was what it said. Same as on his driver’s license. Picture matched his face, too. You rent a boat, it’s the same as when you rent a car, you know. You’re responsible for it. There’s more boating accidents, ratio of boats to cars, than there are automobile accidents, you know. Anything happens to the boat—theft, fire, accident—I’ve got the man’s credit card.”
“And you got Andy Hardy’s credit card for the little
“You betcha,” Popeye said.
“Think we can get a line on Mr. Hardy?” Kling asked Meyer.
“Fat Chance Department,” Meyer said.
“I saw his driver’s license, too, I just told you,” Popeye said. “He seemed legit to me.”
“Maybe he is,” Kling said. “We’ll hit the computers when we get back to the office.”
“We’ll want our people to look over that boat, too,” Meyer said.
He was already on his cell phone.
“Why?” Popeye asked.
“It may have been used in a crime,” Kling said.
Meyer was dialing a number he knew by heart.
“How’d this Andy Hardy get here?” Kling asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Did he walk up? Drive up in his own car? Arrive in a taxi? How’d he get here?”
“In a black Ford Explorer. Two other people with him. They waited in the van while he filled out the rental papers.”
“Can I take a look at those papers?” Kling asked.
“Sure,” Popeye said, and went digging under the counter again. Meyer was just telling the Mobile Crime Unit where to find them.
“Man and a woman, right?” Kling said. “These two other people with him?”
“How’d you know that?” Popeye asked.
“Happen to see the license plate number?”
“Didn’t look. Here you go,” Popeye said, and put the rental folder for the Rinker on the counter top. Kling
