by Matt Lincoln
“That sounds like kind of a weird strategy,” I remarked.
“It’s not that unusual,” Nina shrugged. “People get angry, and desperate, and rationalize all kinds of things. He might not actually be wrong, either. Curt and Annabelle did get scared when he filed. Anyway, it looks like that end is all but officially dead.”
“What about Curt and Annabelle, then?” Holm asked, almost hopefully. “Do we think they could’ve done this? Dr. Osborne seemed to think it was a possibility since they did get scared, as you said.”
I knew why Holm was hopeful. As wrong as it would be to stage something like this, if Curt and Annabelle were behind it, Mikey was probably unharmed wherever he was.
“It’s possible, but I doubt it,” Nina murmured. “There’s nothing to indicate that it could’ve been them. And they did come clean about everything else in the end.”
“That we know of,” Holm pointed out, and she bowed her head to him deferentially.
“That we know of,” she agreed, but she met my eyes across the breadbasket, and I knew we were thinking similarly. And if Holm were honest with himself, he probably was, too.
Curt and Annabelle didn’t do this. The kid would’ve turned up by now, or there would’ve been some other sign of the whole thing. And like the couple said, this was kind of a crazy thing to do in the middle of a custody battle. It didn’t reflect well on them, even if they weren’t actually to blame for the incident.
“Well, the Coast Guard still hasn’t seen anything new,” I said somberly, turning my spoon around in what remained of my soup, my appetite having suddenly vanished after the miniature whirlwind of Nina getting an update and then having it turn out to be nothing. “We might as well go down by the shore and see if we can get anything the police couldn’t about the boat. They must’ve left from somewhere around here if they really are out on the water, which means they either own a boat or took one from someone else here who does.”
Holm and Nina both nodded. This was just retreading old ground that the police had already covered, but it was still something to do. And if we were going to retread, it might as well be down by the water instead of just interviewing more residents who knew nothing about this except what they’d heard on the news.
“That sounds like as good a plan as any,” Nina said, pursing her lips. Her phone buzzed again on the table, and she picked it up and read it quickly, though she didn’t look as hopeful as she had before, her resolve having been used up already.
“What is it?” Holm asked, just a small glimmer of hope still remaining in his voice. I looked down at his bowl and realized that he’d lost his appetite around the same time I had, half a biscuit now discarded and soaking in the broth of the last of his soup.
“It’s just Dr. Osborne,” she said, her lips set in a thin line now. “They’re going public with the second perp this afternoon, so brace yourselves. There’s going to be a lot more press soon. And a lot more panicked people.”
“More press?” Holm asked. “How could there be more press?”
He was right. As soon as the clock had struck nine earlier that morning, there were reporters practically banging on the doors to the police station. And everywhere we went, people asked us questions about what they’d seen on the news. This thing was getting play all over the country—how else would Jackson have seen it all the way in San Diego?
Holm and I were used to working quietly on the sidelines or in foreign countries where cases didn’t get much coverage. A very public, sensational crime like this was a whole different ballgame for us.
“Just you wait,” Nina sighed. “It’s going to get way worse before it gets any better.”
14
Ethan
We drove down to the docks then and took a look around. There weren’t many people out, though there were plenty of boats floating in the harbor, unoccupied and abandoned.
We didn’t run into any reporters there, thankfully. The part of the case about the sea wasn’t public yet, and likely wouldn’t be for some time. We didn’t want the perps to know we knew about that, and for now, we had a lot of people looking for them officially on the water.
If we didn’t find this kid soon, though, the Coast Guard wouldn’t be able to devote so much manpower to looking after a certain point. We’d have to enlist the public’s help in the search.
Hell, if we didn’t find this kid soon, Holm and I might even be pulled off the case. I doubted Nina and Osborne would be, considering they got here first, but eventually, they, too, would have to pack it up and move on to the next one, only looking into Mikey occasionally in their spare time.
Everyone knew that after a certain point, these cases usually only ended one way if they ended at all. And it wasn’t pretty.
We mostly walked in silence, my colleagues no doubt pondering the same as I was how quickly the clock was ticking. At least the gently lapping water in the bay provided some means of calming my thoughts and that now ever-present pit in my stomach.
Eventually, we came upon a man who was cleaning a little gray motorboat off to the corner of the bay, amidst a cacophony of other boats that measured at least in the dozens.
“Hello, friend!” Holm cried out to him, shielding his eyes from the sun as he looked up. “Mind if we talk to you for a minute?”
The man jumped and nearly fell into the shallow water, not having noticed our approach and having had his back turned to us.
He wiped his brow when he turned to see us and chuckled.
“Now hey, there,” he said, smiling down at us. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you come up. I got pretty lost in my own thoughts, I guess. You looking for something?”
The man hopped down from the boat more agilely than I would’ve expected for a man of his age. I would say he was in his late fifties or early sixties, though his hair was dyed blond, and he was carrying a bit of extra weight along his midsection. He was sporting a thorough farmer’s tan on his cheeks, neck, and lower arms where his t-shirt cut off, showing that he was probably out here a lot.
“Someone, more like,” Holm corrected, and the man’s expression grew dark as he wiped his sweaty hands off on his worn jeans and held one out to each of us in turn.
“Ah, I think I’ve got you,” he said, giving a knowing nod. “You’re looking for that kid that’s all over the news. I’m Marty, by the way, Marty Knox.”
“Hello, Mr. Knox, I’m agent Robbie Holm with MBLIS, and this is my partner, Ethan Marston, and our colleague, Nina Grosse, with the FBI,” Holm said as he shook the man’s hand. “And yes, we’re looking for Mikey, I’m afraid.”
“Well, I’m glad someone’s looking,” Marty said. “What are you all doing down here, though? I thought this all happened at the mall or whatever.”
“Yes, he was,” I said quickly, not wanting to reveal too much. “We’re just thorough.”
“Well, that’s good, too, I guess,” Marty said with a shrug as he shook my hand and then Nina’s, too. “I’m just sorry you have to.”
“So are we,” I said darkly. “We were wondering if you’d seen anything out of the ordinary.”
“You mean other than everyone being gone?” he asked, scratching the thin layer of hair on his head. “That’s been pretty unusual.”
“Yeah, I would imagine,” I chuckled, glancing back over at all the empty boats. “They all clear out yesterday morning?”
“About half of them,” Marty said, scrunching up his face as he considered this. “The rest a few hours after that, when all the shooting happened at the mall.”
Holm and I both glanced over at Nina.
“It was just one shot,” she corrected with the hint of a smirk. “People have a way of exaggerating things like that.”
“Well, that’s good to hear,” Marty said with a weak smile to match hers.
“Why are you still out here?” Holm asked. “Why didn’t you pack up with the rest of them?”
“Ah, I don’t know,” he shrugged. “It’s all a little beyond me, to
be honest. I like coming out here, do it every day since I retired early. Plus, I figured that no kidnappers are going to want anything to do with me, so I’m probably safe.”
He gave a low, nervous chuckle like he was laughing so he wouldn’t yell or worse, to cover the worry we all had for this kid we didn’t even know.
“Fair enough,” Nina said. “So you haven’t noticed anyone else out today?”
“Oh, no, not today,” he said. “Not a soul ‘till you all showed up. That’s why I jumped so high when you did.”
We all chuckled again at the memory.
“Do you own this boat?” I asked, gesturing at the small gray motorboat.
“Oh, no, sir,” he said, shaking his head quickly. “These are Mr. Samuels’s boats. He just lets me borrow this one whenever I’d like, take it out for a spin every morning, as long as I clean it up when I’m finished. I’d love to buy it off him someday, but it would be a bad financial decision for me, I’m afraid.”
“It’s good of him to let you use it, then,” I said, giving him a small smile.
“Sure is,” Marty said with a nod. “He’s an old friend. He owns the shop not far down from here. Old fellow, and he should’ve retired a long time ago. His nephew does the books and runs things most of the time, but Mr. Samuels likes to go in everyday anyway and talk to the customers. I’m not sure he’d know what to do with himself otherwise.”
I shielded my eyes from the sun and looked down at where Marty was pointing. Sure enough, it looked like there was a one-story building down there somewhere, with a small sign with a boat on it hanging out above the front doors.
“Boat sales place?” Nina asked, wincing as she said the words since she didn’t know much about such things, hence why Holm and I were there.
“Oh no, ma’am,” Marty chuckled, shaking his head. “You think old Samuels would let me take a brand new boat every day? Hell no. It’s a rental place. This one’s pretty old, so he lets me take her, but she sure is a beauty, isn’t she?”
He reached up and patted the boat gently, and I smiled.
“Sure is,” I agreed. Sure enough, the boat was in remarkably good shape for its age, but more than that, she’d served Marty well when he needed her. I had a similar affection for my houseboat at that point.
“Is this Samuels fellow in?” I asked, and he shook his head again.
“Nope, they packed up for lunch about a half-hour ago,” he explained. “Talked to him and Danny—that’s his nephew—then. They do that every day. Should be back in an hour or so, I’d reckon, but without any business, who knows?”
“Did they mention anything unusual when you talked to them?” I asked. “Other than how quiet it is today, I mean.”
“Not much,” Marty said, scratching his head again. “Though I guess Danny did say something about a boat gone missing. He kept asking old Samuels who he lent it out to, but the poor old guy couldn’t remember. That’s not too out of the ordinary, though.”
Holm and I exchanged a look, and I could make out the glint of excitement in his eyes that was no doubt in mine, too. A missing boat. That could be something. It could be nothing, but it could be something.
“What kind of boat?” I asked, trying not to sound too eager about this.
“Ah, just a motorboat like this one, except more white than gray,” Marty said with a shrug. “Nothing too special. As I said, it’s not too unusual, though. Mr. Samuels is loaning these things out all the time as he does with me. It drives Danny totally nuts, I know, ‘cause it makes it so hard for him to keep all the books. Usually, when push comes to shove, the old man will remember who he gave ‘em to, though. That was the unusual part. I’m starting to think the poor guy’s losing it, and by the look on his face, Danny does, too. It’s too bad. He’s a local legend just about. He’s been here longer than anyone, and nicer than anybody, too.”
“You said the nephew’s name is Danny?” I asked, pulling a notepad and pen out of my jacket and beginning to scribble this all down. “Last name?”
“Samuels, just like his uncle,” Marty said. “And the uncle’s first name is Danny, too, everybody just calls him Samuels, or Old Samuels, or something like that. Hey now, you don’t think either of them had anything to do with all this, do you? Those guys wouldn’t hurt a fly. A fish, maybe, if it was giving them trouble, but not a fly.”
“We’re just covering all our bases,” I assured him, giving him a smile. “And if a boat’s missing, maybe we can help them find it.”
“Isn’t that a little below the FBI and… uh… em-bell-what’s-you-call-it, anyway?” Marty asked, stumbling over the name of Holm’s and my agency.
“A little,” I relented. “Though we can help someone else by pointing them in the right direction if need be.”
“Is there anything else you can think of?” Holm asked. “Anything that might help us? Anyone you’ve seen on the water today, or maybe yesterday, that looked out of place to you?”
“Haven’t seen anybody doing anything in a day,” Marty reiterated. “Even out on the water. Except the Coast Guard, if you count them. In fact, there were more of those ships than usual today.”
I let that slide, not explaining why that might be, though I was glad to know that the Coast Guard was still looking fervently as ever for Mikey.
“Do you know the name of the ship that’s missing?” I asked him, glancing back over at the one he’d borrowed himself and seeing that the name “Annette” was coated across its sternum in calligraphy.
“Uh, let’s see,” Marty said, swiveling on his feet to gaze out at all the docked boats. “Mr. Samuels named all these old models after ex-girlfriends of his, believe it or not. There’s Marcy, and Becca, and Caroline. I do not see Lucy anywhere, and she’s one of the white ones, I know that. Don’t think anyone rented her out, either, since I remember seeing her when I got back yesterday around this time, and almost everybody was cleared out by then.”
“Thank you,” I said again, nodding to him in thanks as I scribbled this down. “We appreciate you talking to us, and if you think of or see anything else, just give me a call, okay?”
I replaced the notebook and pen in my jacket and pulled one of my business cards out instead, handing it to him.
He squinted down at it.
“Marston,” he muttered as if committing my name to memory. “Will do, Agent Marston. I appreciate what you’re doing here.”
15
Ethan
Marty left the docks not long after that, having finished cleaning the boat for the most part. He saluted us and headed up to where he must have been parked in a lot not far from there, where Nina had left her rental car from the airport.
“We might as well stick around until this Samuels guy and his nephew come back,” Holm suggested. “Take a look around. Maybe this missing boat is the one we’re looking for.”
“Hold on, I should send that description to the Coast Guard,” Nina said, pulling out her phone and giving Marty’s rental boat a penetrating stare as if she was trying to determine how best to describe it properly.
“Give it here,” I chuckled, holding out my hand for her phone. “I’ll write one.”
“Thank you,” she said as she passed the phone over to me, looking relieved.
I quickly described the boat and gave the name Marty had deduced, and snapped a quick picture of the witness’s boat for good measure, sending it along to Nina’s contact with the addendum that “Lucy” was white, not gray.
When I handed the phone back to Nina, we all started instinctively walking toward the boat rental place without really discussing it. I felt like we didn’t have an hour to waste, but we didn’t have much else to do, and in the meantime, we could keep exploring the bay and hope we ran into another Marty along the way.
We didn’t run into another Marty. We walked all the way to the store, just to see that it was closed with an old, worn hand-written sign denoting that the owners were away without a set return time, taped to the inside of the
front door’s window.
After that, we continued to walk up and down the pier for some time, our steps and my stomach a little lighter now that we might actually have a lead until Nina’s phone buzzed.
“It’s the Coast Guard guy,” she said apprehensively as she looked at it before her shoulders deflated. “They got the message and got the word out to everyone, but nothing new yet.”
“Well, that’s something at least,” Holm sighed, though his tone revealed he’d gotten his hopes up again when her phone went off.
My own phone vibrated in my pocket just then, as we were walking past the boat rental place for the second time. I pulled it out to see that Diane had messaged me. I had sent her a text earlier about the boat, as well.
“It’s Diane,” I told them. “She’s informed all our international contacts on nearby islands of the boat’s name and description.”
“I hope some poor bloke didn’t borrow it from this Samuels fellow,” Holm remarked, chuckling at the thought. “Otherwise, he’s in for a scare the second someone sees him.”
“Yeah,” I sighed, shaking my head. “If the shop owners don’t have anything concrete for us or can say for sure that it was stolen, we should probably release this to the media. As much as I don’t want to give away this lead, I also don’t want the boat to go unnoticed just because we didn’t want to do that.”
