“Me, too. Misty has a pink belly and a nick in her fluke-”
“Go on the Internet, kiddo. Find Undersea World in California. Dig up newspaper stories about the raid, old websites, anything that’ll have pictures of Grisby’s dolphins. If the two headliners aren’t doubles for Spunky and Misty, I’ll eat a can of tuna without opening the can.”
“You’re saying Mr. Grisby
“I’m betting the ALM never hit Undersea World. Sanders figured that out but paid Grisby’s insurance claim anyway.”
“Why would he do that?”
“So he could blackmail Grisby. For a while, Sanders probably took cash. Then he demanded Spunky and Misty. He’d make it look like another ALM raid. Grisby can’t refuse. But he plans his own double-cross, to keep the dolphins and get out from under the blackmail. He knows when the raid is coming. All he has to do is kill Sanders and claim self-defense.”
“Wow. That’s totally devious. Can you prove it, Uncle Steve?”
“Not a word. Not yet, anyway. You have any ideas?”
“Only one,” Bobby said. “If Mr. Grisby trained Spunky and Misty to come back to the park, that’s where they’ve got to be now.”
SOLOMON’S LAWS
11. If you can’t keep a promise to a loved one, you probably aren’t going to keep the loved one, either.
Thirty-six
“Didn’t I talk to you an hour ago?” Agent Parsons sounded irritated.
“I just figured out what Grisby did,” Steve said. “Actually, my nephew helped a lot, but he always lets me take the credit.”
Steve pulled into a parking spot on Ponce de Leon Boulevard. He was meeting Victoria and Bobby for dinner in ten minutes. But Agent Parsons had given him her cell phone number, and now he told her his theory about Grisby’s double-cross.
“Grisby has a building he calls ‘the infirmary.’ It’s an oversize quonset hut, out of sight behind some palm trees. It has a big dolphin tank with a spillway into the channel. Bobby says that’s got to be where he’s keeping the dolphins. If you get a search warrant and a squad of marshals, we can hit the place tonight.”
“Now? Saturday night?”
“What’s the matter, they don’t pay you overtime?”
“I don’t have the authority to seek a search warrant on a Wednesday morning, much less call a federal judge at home on a Saturday night. I need to speak to my superiors.”
“Fine. Do it now.”
“And just what crime am I supposedly investigating?”
“Murder, for starters. Grisby assassinated Sanders.”
“No federal jurisdiction. You know that, Solomon.”
“How about insurance fraud?”
“Outside the scope of my investigation. I’m not after the fish-park guy.”
Steve didn’t take the time to explain that dolphins aren’t fish. “What are you, a salesclerk at Macy’s? This isn’t your department?”
“We have procedures, Solomon. We have an office flow chart.”
“That’s why people hate the government. And department stores.”
“Relax, Solomon. First thing Monday morning, I’ll bring it up in a staff meeting. Don’t bother me till then.”
The phone clicked off just as Steve called her a word that rhymes with “rich.”
A moment later, Victoria pulled into the parking spot in front of him, swinging her Mini Cooper to the curb without having to back up. She got out of the car, and Steve waited for the passenger door to open. But it didn’t.
“Bobby said you wanted him to stay off his feet,” Victoria told Steve. “Something about tomorrow’s game.”
“I didn’t mean he shouldn’t come to dinner.”
They were seated at a corner table in Restaurant St. Michel, a romantic dining spot in a 1920’s hotel. A pianist played “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” and diners whispered to one another in the elegant art deco room. Steve figured that Victoria, consistent to her core, would order sugarcane skewered pork tenderloin with a rum molasses glaze. She wouldn’t touch the grilled pineapple plantain chips, so he would clean off her plate along with his filet mignon tartar. Bobby loved the crab cakes, so it puzzled Steve that his nephew hadn’t come along.
“What was Bobby doing when you left?” he asked.
“Eating a cheese sandwich and working on the computer.”
Steve made a
“What are you worried about?” she asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“I told Bobby we’d be home early and we’d bring him dessert.”
“What’d he ask for? Tiramisu or key lime pie?”
“Neither. He said he didn’t want to overload on sugar.”
Steve thought that over. Maybe the boy was just worried about the game. “I told Bobby he was pitching, and I think it scared him a little.”
“How’d you get Ira Kreindler to let Bobby pitch?”
“I haven’t yet, but I’ll persuade him.”
“How? You know what a hardhead he is.”
“You still have that gun Pincher gave you?”
“I’m serious, Steve. You shouldn’t get Bobby’s hopes up if you can’t deliver.”
“I never make a promise to you or Bobby that I can’t keep.”
“What bothers me are the methods you use to keep those promises.”
“Let’s not fight about it. Let’s eat and get home, so I can talk to Bobby.”
Victoria picked up the menu and studied it.
“I’ll eat your pineapple chips,” Steve offered.
“I’m not ordering pork tenderloin. I’m getting the yellowtail snapper with the curry sauce.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t look so disappointed. You can order pineapple chips on the side.”
“It’s not that. You’re becoming less predictable.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“I don’t know.”
“People grow, Steve. They change.”
“They become prosecutors.”
“Don’t start on that. Now, tell me everything that happened today.”
“I thought I already had.”
“You gave me bits and pieces. Start at the beginning.”
Steve did as he was told. It had been an eventful day.
