J is for Judgment (Kinsey Millhone 10)

I slowed my pace, watching. He couldn’t seem to decide what to do. I saw him reach for his car keys as if to turn the ignition. He pulled his hand back, reached into his pants pocket, and took out a handkerchief, which he used to mop at his face and neck. He shoved the handkerchief in his suit coat, then took out a pack of cigarettes and shook one into view. He pushed in his car lighter.

I crossed to his car, hunkering down on the driver’s side so that my gaze would be level with his. “Carl? Kinsey Millhone.”

He turned and stared at me without comprehension.

“We met at the yacht club the other night. I was looking for Wendell Jaffe.”

“The private investigator,” he said finally.

“That’s right.”

“Sorry it took me so long, but I’ve had some bad news.”

“I heard about the Lord. Can I do anything?”

The lighter popped out. He lit his cigarette with hands that shook so badly he could barely make the lighter meet the tip. He sucked in smoke, choking on it in his desperation for a hit of nicotine. “Son of a bitch stole my boat,” he said, coughing violently. He started to say something more, but then he stopped himself and looked off across the parking lot. I’d caught the glint of tears, but I couldn’t tell if they were from the smoke or the loss of his boat.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I live on that boat. Everything I have is tied up in the Lord. It’s my life. He had to have known that. He’d be a fool not to know. He loved the boat as much as I did.” He shook his head in disbelief.

“That’s a rough one,” I said.

“How’d you hear about it?”

“Renata showed up at my office after lunch,” I said. “She said he’d cleared out of her place and she was worried he’d try to make a run for it. Her boat was at the dock, so I guess she thought of yours.”

“How’d he get in? That’s what I can’t figure out. I had all the locks changed the minute I bought that boat.”

“Maybe he broke in. Or he might have picked the lock,” I said. “At any rate, by the time we got here, it was gone.”

He stared at me. “Is that the woman? Renata? What’s her last name?”

“Why?”

“I’d like to talk to her. She might know more than she’s saying.”

“Yeah, she might,” I said. I was thinking about the shooting the night before, wondering if Carl could account for his whereabouts. “When did you get back? I heard you were out of town last night, but no one seemed to know where you were.”

“Wouldn’t have done much good. I was hard to reach. I had a bunch of meetings up in SLO-town in the afternoon. I was at the Best Western overnight, checked out before eight this morning, and threw my bag in the trunk. I sat in another bunch of meetings today and started home around five.”

“It must have been a shock.”

“Jesus, I’ll say. I can’t believe it’s gone.”

SLO-town was the shorthand for San Luis Obispo, a small college town ninety miles north of us. It sounded like he’d been completely tied up for the last two days, or had his alibi all rehearsed. “What will you do now? Do you have a place to stay?”

“I’ll try one of those places unless the tourists beat me to it,” he said with a nod toward the motels that lined Cabana Boulevard. “What about you? I take it you never caught up with him.”

“Actually, I ran into him at Michael’s last night. I was hoping we could talk, but something else came up. We were separated inadvertently, and that’s the last I saw of him. I heard he was supposed to meet you, as a matter of fact.”

“I had to cancel at the last minute when this other business came up.”

“You never saw him at all?”

“We only chatted by phone.”

“What’d he want? Did he say?”

“No. Not a word.”

“He told me you had something that belonged to him.”

“He said that? Well, that’s odd. I wonder what he meant.” He gave his watch a glance. “Oh, shit. It’s getting late. I better get a move on before all the rooms get snapped up.”

I stepped away from the car. “I’ll let you go, then,” I said. “If you hear anything about the Lord, will you let me know?”

“Sure thing.”

The car started with a rumble. He backed out of the slot and pulled up beside the kiosk with his ticket extended to the woman in the booth. I went on about my business, moving toward the snack shack with a quick backward glance. He’d adjusted his rearview mirror to keep an eye on me. The last thing I saw of him was his vanity license plate, which read SAILSMN. That was cute. I thought he’d probably done a little sales job on me. He was lying about something. I just wasn’t sure what it was.