Page 37 of Nightshade
“Probably not. How do you know when he’s here on the boat?”
“Because Mr. Colbrink always checks in with us. The harbor doesn’t allow storage mooring. It’s for active boating only. He’s pushing it by leaving his ketch here for weeks at a time, so he always wants us to know when he’s here and using it. He thinks that makes it okay.”
“Got it. Do you keep that on the registry? His comings and goings?”
“We do to a point. Mr. Colbrink is sort of cagey about that.”
Stilwell sat back down in front of the screen and pointed to theEmerald Sea.
“Can you tell me whether Colbrink was here on the weekend of the seventeenth?” he asked.
“I’ll check on that and get you the name and owner of the other boat,” Tash said. “This is fun.”
“What is?”
“Being part of an investigation.”
Stilwell watched her go back to her desk. He felt uncomfortable involving her in any part of his work. The last thing he needed was his girlfriend thinking this work was fun and wanting to join in. The reality was that you never knew when a phone call, door knock, or keystroke could bring mortal danger. Just the year before, there had been a story out of Los Angeles about a so-called amateur sleuth who ended up shot to death in her home office’s closet.
14
WHILE TASH WENTto work at her desk, Stilwell returned to the playback, continuing it at twenty-four times normal speed and keeping his eyes on the two boats that the skiff had disappeared between. He was well into daylight Sunday and hadn’t seen any movement of the vessels by the time Tash came back.
“Okay, as far as I can tell, Mr. Colbrink was not here that weekend,” she said. “He was here over Memorial Day weekend and took the boat back to MDR or some other destination on Monday.”
“Okay,” Stilwell said. “What about the other boat?”
“That’s theAventuraout of Mission Bay. It’s registered to a corporation of the same name so it can be rented for charters. The captain’s name is Bernie Contrares.”
“Mission Bay?”
“Between San Diego and La Jolla.”
“Does it come up here a lot?”
“A few times a year at least.”
“You know the captain?”
“A bit, from working out moorings. Bernie’s an old navy guy. He’s always nice.”
“Was the boat occupied that weekend?”
“I show it arriving Friday and leaving the following Monday morning, the nineteenth. I assume there were people aboard.”
“You have something I can write all of this down on?”
“Here.”
She gave him a slip of notebook paper where she had already written everything down. Stilwell saw that the information on theAventuraalso included the owning corporation’s address in La Jolla. Under her notes on theEmerald Sea,Tash had put down an address and phone number for Mason Colbrink in Malibu.
“This is great, Tash. Thanks.”
“I’m also making a list of the Black Marlin members we deal with on the moorings. Everybody who’s come in this year.”
“That’ll be helpful. Thank you, but then you can stop there.”
“What do you mean? I said it was fun. I want to help.”
