His eyes narrowed. Although they appeared to be staring directly at me, I don't think he was seeing me so much as he was seeing something else, recalling a witnessed event from long ago-a terrible, intimate ghost from his own past.
'There is a time,' he said slowly, measuring his words. 'It comes almost at the end, when there are no more cries for help or mercy, when there is no more begging. I heard no words on the Isolde that night, only a groan. It is the nightmare sound of someone consenting to die, Detective Beaumont. Of someone wanting to die. It is the sound I think of now when the priest reads to us about Jesus ‘giving up the ghost.''
Lorenzo Hurtado paused and shook his head. 'Before that night on the Isolde, I had heard that sound only once before when I was a little boy of eleven. When it comes in my dreams, it keeps me awake even now. Because, Detective Beaumont, once you hear it, you never, ever forget.'
'You're saying you came on the boat, heard this terrible noise-the sound of someone being tortured-and then you just left? You didn't even try to help?'
'I ran,' he whispered. 'I ran as far and fast as I could.'
'Judge not, jerk,' I berated myself, while a single tear welled up in the corner of Lorenzo Hurtado's eye and coursed a glistening track down his cheek. He made no effort to brush it away. For a time, no one at the table spoke, although Maria Hurtado was weeping openly.
'I know now that I should have tried to find help,' Lorenzo continued finally. 'I don't know what happened to me. Maybe if I hadn't run away, Senor Gebhardt would still be alive. I should have tried to help, but I didn't. I pray to the Holy Mother every day, asking for forgiveness.'
Shoulders heaving, Lorenzo caught his breath, sighed, and looked away. Call it gut instinct, but there was no question in my mind that Lorenzo Hurtado was telling the absolute truth.
Clearly, although the man was right on the edge, someone had to keep asking questions, and I was elected. 'After you heard the groan, tell us exactly what happened then.'
Lorenzo shuddered and cleared his throat before he spoke again. 'I guess I panicked. Maria's a nurse. She works at the V.A. Hospital. She says what happened to me is a flashback. You think what's happening now is what happened that other time. What is gets all mixed up with what isn't. I don't remember all of it. I think I may have hidden somewhere for a while. My shoes and clothing were covered with mud, but mostly I ran.'
'Until you were hit by the car?'
'Yes. I don't remember that exactly, either. I mean, I don't remember how it happened, but yes. The car hit me.'
'And then?'
'After I got away from the lady in the car, I went home.'
'Where do you live, Lorenzo?'
'Capitol Hill. Maria and I share an apartment there, with our mother.'
'How did you get home?'
'I called Maria from a pay phone. She had dropped me off for work, and she came back to get me.'
'And bandaged your leg?'
'Yes.'
Since Maria was a nurse, there had been no necessity for them to seek medical treatment for the cut on Lorenzo's leg. That explained why his description and the Identi-Kit sketch hadn't rattled any chains of recognition at the hospital emergency rooms where Sue Danielson had made inquiries.
'What were you doing on the Isolde at that hour of the morning? What time was it, four-thirty? Five?'
'Five. Senor Gebhardt asked me to come to work then. He said we had a lot to do that day, that we needed to get an early start.'
'What exactly were you doing?'
'Getting the boat ready to go out. I was supposed to help him overhaul the engine starting next week, but he called me on Sunday. He said he had decided to put off the overhaul until later. He said while it was still good weather, he wanted to take the boat out for one last test before we started working on it. I did some other work on the boat the day before, on Monday, checking the equipment, fuel, and fluids-making sure everything was right. Mostly I helped him load stores on board. The next day he told me he wanted me to come help him load on everything else.'
'What everything else?'
Lorenzo raised his shoulders and shook his head. 'I don't know. He said it would be hard work, that it would take all day.'
'There was a wrench,' I said, 'a small box wrench that was found near the scene of the car accident. The lady who hit you found it in the street after you left. Do you know anything about that?'
He nodded. 'It was on the deck of the Isolde when I came on board,' Lorenzo said. 'I stepped on it and almost fell down. I'm sure it was one of Senor Gebhardt's tools, and I was afraid I had left it out overnight. He was careful about his tools. I was going to return it to the toolbox without letting him know it had been left out. When I picked it up to put it in my pocket, it felt funny, and I wondered why it was covered with paint.'
Sue Danielson had been quiet throughout the interview. She didn't keep still because she's some kind of shrinking violet or because I'm particularly brilliant. The truth is, interrogations can shatter like glass with too much handling or interference. Because Lorenzo focused on me and seemed so concerned with whether or not I believed him, Sue simply assumed it was better to leave well enough alone.
Now, though, she stirred. 'How long had you known Gunter Gebhardt?' she asked.
'Five years.'
'How did you first meet him?'
'Through my cousin, and one of my cousin's friends. They went to work for him, fishing, and they asked me to come along. We made good money.'
'Was he hard to work for?' Sue asked.
'It was a job,' Lorenzo answered. 'He paid us, and the checks didn't bounce.'
'You didn't have any trouble with him?'
'No,' Lorenzo answered. 'No trouble,' but for the second time, that same involuntary tic I had seen before flitted across the man's tense jawline. He glanced reproachfully at June Miller as if to say that exactly what he had feared would now happen-that we would blame him for Gunter Gebhardt's murder.
Lorenzo stood up, as did his sister. 'My leg hurts,' he said. 'I want to go home.'
Sue looked at me questioningly, one eyebrow raised. I shook my head, indicating we should let him go. After all, we had come so far in the process that I didn't want to risk alienating him by pressing any further right then. Besides, the band was tuning up again. Sitting there right on top of the speakers, as soon as the music started, we wouldn't be able to hear a word.
As the first notes of the next number blasted out of the speakers, I got up and followed the Hurtados out into the night.
'Wait a minute,' I called after them as they started down the streetlight-lit sidewalk.
Lorenzo swung around angrily. 'What do you want now?' he demanded.
For an answer, I pulled out my copy of the Identi-Kit picture-the one with Lorenzo's own likeness staring out from the paper.
'Have you seen this?' I asked, handing it over to Lorenzo.
He glanced down and studied the picture for a moment. Then he nodded and handed it back. 'Yes,' he answered. 'I've seen it.'
'So has everyone else in this city,' I told him. 'Including the third party who was on the Isolde with you and Gunter Gebhardt the night he died.'
Beside him, Maria inhaled sharply. Her hand rose reflexively to her throat. Lorenzo's eyes rose to meet mine. 'What are you saying?' he asked.
'Two people are dead so far,' I answered. 'If the killer believes you saw him and can possibly help lead us to him, he may very well come looking for you. Thanks to this, we found you, and the killer may be able to do the same thing. Sometimes, in cases like this, we'll put a witness in protective custody, but I don't think that would work too well here. Do you?'
Lorenzo looked at me but said nothing.
I knew I was bending the rules, but it sure as hell wasn't the first time. 'If I were you,' I continued, 'and if I
