Metro Girl (Alex Barnaby 1)

“Do you follow NASCAR?” he asked.

“No.” I hiked my bag higher on my shoulder and headed for the concrete walk.

Hooker ambled after me. “Do you know who I am?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want an autograph?”

“No!”

He caught up with me and walked beside me, hands in his pockets. “Now what?”

“I want a newspaper. I want to see what they said about the guy who was murdered.”

Hooker cut his eyes to the dockmaster’s office. “I can tell you more than the paper. The victim was a forty-five-year-old security guard named Victor Sanchez. He was a nice guy with a wife and two kids. I knew him. They found his body when he didn’t check in as scheduled. Someone slashed his throat just outside the dockmaster’s building, and then the struggle got dragged inside. The office wasn’t totally trashed, but logbooks and computers were wrecked. I guess the guard didn’t go down easy.”

“Anything stolen?”

“Not at first look, but they’re still going through everything.” He grinned. “I got that information from the cops. Cops love NASCAR drivers. I’m a celebrity.”

Not too full of himself, eh?

Hooker ignored my eye roll. “Do you want to know what I think? I think the guard saw something he wasn’t supposed to see. Like maybe someone was smuggling in drugs. All right, I didn’t think of that all by myself. That’s what the cops told me.”

I’d reached the path at the water’s edge. The marina stretched on either side of me. There were several high-rises in the distance. They were across from Fisher Island, looking over the harbor entrance. I turned and walked toward the high-rises. Hooker walked with me.

“Are there really boats bringing drugs in here?” I asked him.

Hooker shrugged. “Anything could come in here. Drugs, illegal aliens, art, Cuban cigars.”

“I thought the Coast Guard intercepted that stuff.”

“It’s a big ocean.”

“Okay, so tell me about my brother.”

“I met him a couple months ago. I was in Miami for the last race of the season. When the race was over I hung around for a while, and I met Bill in Monty’s.”

“Monty’s?”

“It’s a bar. We just passed it. It’s the place with the thatched roof and the pool. Anyway, we got to talking, and I needed someone to captain the boat for me down to the Grenadines. Bill had the week off and volunteered.”

“I didn’t know Bill was a boat captain.”

“He’d just gotten his certification. It turns out Bill can do lots of things…captain a boat, steal a boat.”

“Bill wouldn’t steal a boat.”

“Face it, sugar pie. He stole my boat. He called me up. He said he needed to use the boat. I said ‘no way.’ I told him I needed the boat. And now my boat’s gone. Who do you think took it?”

“That’s borrowing. And don’t call me sugar pie.”

The wind had picked up. Palm fronds were clattering above us, and the water was choppy.

“A front’s moving in,” Hooker said. “We’re supposed to get rain tonight. Wouldn’t have been great fishing anyway.” He looked over at me. “What’s wrong with sugar pie?”

I gave him a raised eyebrow.