He didn’t say anything or even open his eyes.
“I’ll check in again tomorrow,” I said. “And I’ll get the nurse to put my cell number in your file. Actually, I’ll put it right here too.” On the wall facing his bed was a small whiteboard with the nurse’s name written on it and a red marker attached to it with a string. I uncapped the marker and wrote across the bottom “Mr. Munroe (lawyer)” and my number.
“Okay,” I said. “If you want me, just tell them to call me. Anytime, day or night.”
That night, I took Squatter for a drive. He snoozed peacefully in his dog purse, which had a seat belt loop to keep him safely on the passenger seat. I sped down the causeway with the windows open, enjoying the racket and the salty air. I didn’t know what to make of Jackson’s unwillingness to confide in me, and I was hoping a drive might clear the cobwebs from my brain.
Since the marina wasn’t too far off, I turned toward it. As I rounded the last corner and headed down the marina road, Squatter barked in his sleep. There was nobody on the road. My headlights skimmed bushes and the trunks of trees. If they hit a white T-shirt, I thought, I’d know it was white. All those death metal shirts Jackson wore were black.
Down toward the end, the road forked: right to the old marina, and left to the new dock and clubhouse where the yacht charters moored. One of Blue Seas’ vessels was anchored there, a sleek white yacht with “Lady Jane” written on the side. I parked at the side of the road, eighty or a hundred yards short of the yacht, and got Squatter out to do his business. As he sniffed the bases of various palm trees, I watched a few uniformed men unloading barrels from some sort of opening in the side of the yacht. Waste barrels, maybe; they had biohazard symbols on the sides.
I realized I didn’t know how to describe what I was seeing. The correct nautical terms were not in my vocabulary. When I was growing up, any boat with room for more than two or three passengers was for rich people, as far as I was concerned. As a result, I had a mental block when it came to port and starboard and whatever else rich sailing men talked about. I figured I should learn about boats now, since Roy was having me do more work for Blue Seas. Heck, I should’ve started learning as soon as I found out that the murder scene in Jackson’s case was a speedboat.
There was an unpleasant, oily smell in the air. It had never smelled like this down here when I was a kid; all you could smell then was the water and, if you were close enough, the little bait hut that used to stand here, before the road was widened. Where the large dock and clubhouse now stood, there’d been tall rocks that we all liked to jump from. Henry’s company had brought more prosperity to Basking Rock, and I myself was starting to benefit from that. But I still wondered at what cost it had come.
Squatter finished his business and curled up on the asphalt. I figured it must still be warm from the long, scorching day. I scooped him up, turned back to my car, and was startled half to death to see a man looking at me from the grass a few yards past the passenger side. He had on what looked like the same uniform as the crew members unloading the barrels down by the dock.
“Evening,” I said. “Sorry if I startled you.”
He scowled at me and took off walking toward the water.
I got in, locked the doors, and took a moment to get Squatter situated before turning the ignition and hightailing it out of there. I didn’t know if that man had meant to scare me or if the scowl was because he hadn’t wanted to be seen. Whatever it was, it left a bad taste in my mouth.
19
Thursday, August 1, Evening
Roy told me the Malibu he’d leased for me would be ready to pick up on Friday at the dealership two towns over. That made me decide to visit the Broke Spoke again while I was still driving my beater. Somehow it felt wrong to take my brand-new company car to a strip club.
When I pulled up, around six-thirty, I didn’t see the red Mustang. I parked anyway. Even if Kitty wasn’t around, she couldn’t be the only person there who’d known Karl.
Inside, the place was dimly lit and, at most, half-full. At the back, on stage in purple light, a girl was dancing to some pulsing electronic beat. It wasn’t my kind of music. Then again, exotic dancing was probably not a great fit with the music of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers.
I headed to the bar. Behind it, polishing a glass and occasionally glancing at the dancer, was Terri’s nemesis, Dunk. Like anyone from Basking Rock, I knew his name and face even if I’d never talked to him. He was built like a pro wrestler, about six four, with shoulders that looked like they might actually be three feet wide. As befitted an entrepreneur in the truck stop/strip club industry, his blond hair was cut in a mullet: business in front; long, shaggy party in back.
As I took a seat down the bar from him, a red-haired waitress came up from behind me and yelled an order back to the kitchen, which was visible through a wall of stainless steel shelves.
She shouted, “Two wings, extra large, extra hot! And don’t wimp out this time—I mean
