Page 75 of Nightshade
He took another slug of wine and handed the glass back to her. He leaned down and they kissed.
“I need to take a shower,” he said apologetically.
“I can wait,” she said.
He went in through the open door. She soon followed.
25
STILWELL ATE THEsandwich from the Sandtrap in the morning with fresh-brewed coffee. He ate quickly, filled a Yeti with more coffee, and left the house early—while Tash was still asleep—to get to the sub to start working on a search warrant for the Black Marlin Club. He knew the probable cause statement would need to be bulletproof in order to get by Judge Harrell, but that would be only the first test it would face. If a case was ever built against a defendant in the Leigh-Anne Moss murder, the search warrant would be his lawyer’s first stop in an effort to derail it, and that didn’t even take into consideration the appeals that would very likely come later. Prosecutions often succeeded or failed based on the underpinnings of probable cause. Stilwell knew it and wasn’t going to let his warrant be the Achilles’ heel of this case.
Mercy was already at her desk when he got there.
“Good morning,” she said cheerily.
“Morning, Mercy,” Stilwell said. “I’m going to set up in my office today to do some writing work. Try to keep people off me if you can.”
“Not a problem.”
“Anything going on that I should know about?”
“All quiet except back there in the jail. That man can get on my last nerve.”
Stilwell had forgotten about Spivak. He put the Yeti on the desk in his office and went back to the jail. Once again, Spivak was standing right at the bars like he was waiting for him.
“The big boss,” he said. “I thought you were bringing me dinner last night.”
“I was until I found out you already had dinner,” Stilwell said. “So, listen, Spivak, I’m not going to fuck around with you today. I need you to cooperate and that means you keep it down back here. If that’s a problem for you, we have the means to keep you quiet.”
“You going to gag me?”
“If we have to. We have a spit harness I’m authorized to use. When you’re back here yelling, it’s a threat to the people who work in this building. I’m authorized to do what I have to do to alleviate that threat. If you want to be cuffed to the bars with a harness wrapped around your face, that’ll be your choice.”
“You try that on me and you’ll end up in the hospital next to your deputy.”
“If I have to call in every deputy on the island, I’ll do it. My people have jobs to do, Spivak. And I’m not going to let them work in an environment where they feel unsafe. Consider yourself warned.”
“When am I getting my fucking hearing?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll make sure you’re first up.”
Stilwell turned and left the jail section. In the bullpen he told Mercy to keep an eye on the camera feed from Spivak’s cell. He then went into his office and closed the door, a clear sign he did not want to be disturbed.
For the next three hours Stilwell worked at his computer. First he outlined the accumulated facts and evidence: The victim in the harbor had been identified as Leigh-Anne Moss and shehad been fired from the Black Marlin Club probably on the same day that she was murdered and the jade statue was stolen. He noted that the new anchor and sail bag on theEmerald Seawere similar to those used to submerge the body. He added descriptions of an unidentified person making a middle-of-the-night trip from the club to theEmerald Seaand the ketch’s short trip out to the bay and back the following Monday—both of which were unauthorized by the boat’s owner.
Next, Stilwell spun his wheels online looking for any kind of tidal or ocean currents report that would support his belief that Moss’s body had been dumped from theEmerald Seainto the bay and then brought back into the harbor by such underwater movement. He gave up after forty minutes of searching but knew it was a weakness in his crime theory that could possibly raise a red flag with a judge or jury. He made a note to find an oceanography expert who could testify to the possibility that Leigh-Anne Moss’s body had returned to the scene of the crime like, as Ahearn had said, a ghost.
Last, he set to work on a summary showing probable cause to search the BMC for forensic evidence of the murder, the missing sculpture, and all records of membership, personnel, and use of the club’s guest rooms on the weekend in question. His goal was to make the statement complete and concise. It was a sales pitch to the judge, urging him to buy Stilwell’s theory of the crime and demonstrating the need to take the investigation into the hallowed confines of the wealthy private club.
By the time he finished the first draft, he realized he was famished. He checked his phone and saw he’d been working for more than three hours straight. He sent the document to the printer and left his office to grab it from the tray before anyone else could see it.
He saw Ralph Lampley at a desk working at a computer, and it prompted him to remember the ten-o’clock deadline imposed on Starkey up at the Zane Grey.
“Ralph, did you get the report on the eviction at the Zane Grey?” he asked. “What happened up there?”
“I was going to tell you but Mercy said not to knock on your door,” Lampley said.
“Tell me what?”
