“How’d they take it?”
“Scraped it off with a pocket knife, put it in their pocket, probably. You can see the marks. That ruins it for everybody. I think you should arrest him.”
This whole matter seemed to depress Kelso as if it affirmed some darkly held vision. He stared at the place where the face had been.
“Last night it happened. We discovered it at dawn. I think you ought to arrest him,” the man insisted.
“Arrest him?” snapped Kelso. “On what charge?”
“Yes. That’s the problem.” The man turned and continued spearing his way down the hill.
“Well, I guess I’ll be going,” I said. “If you have no objections.”
“No, none.”
“Would you give this check to Dwight—for the boat?” I asked. I would have asked Hawley to give it to Dwight, but I forgot.
He took my check, folded it into his shirt pocket. “Say, just between us, you didn’t set that up, did you, the explosion?”
“He neglected the sniff test. That’s what Dwight called it, the sniff test.”
“Artie, I’d just as soon you don’t come back.”
“Okay.”
“I mean, I know none of this was your fault, but I think it’d be best for everybody concerned if you didn’t come back. No hard feelings?”
“No.”
“Take care, Artie.”
“You too, Ted.”
I looked down the hill at Crystal and Jellyroll. She was leaning against a dock piling, and he was lying at her feet. They seemed small and vulnerable. I wanted to enfold them in my arms, and my chest ached with love as I watched.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Edgar Award nominee Dallas Murphy is a novelist, a nonfiction writer, an essayist, and a journalist.
His hugely popular Artie Deemer series follows the fast-paced, rollicking adventures of the reluctant sleuth Artie and his celebrity dog Jellyroll—who foots all the bills as a star of screen, TV, and dog-food boxes. Lover Man, the first mystery in the series, was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best First Novel and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. It was followed up by the darkly-funny thrillers Lush Life and Don’t Explain.
He also wrote the wild crime novel Apparent Wind about the antics of an ex-con and his unlikely entourage as they dodge bombs, corrupt cops, and crazy killers in Florida. The book earned him well deserved comparisons to John Irving and Kurt Vonnegut.
In his nonfiction career, Murphy contributes articles about sailing to a number of magazines. He also writes nonfiction books about the ocean, including Rounding the Horn, To Follow the Water, Plain Sailing, and most recently, To the Denmark Strait. He lives in New York City.
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