It was Geoff Baxter who found their victim. “Bingo,” he said softly. “I knew we’d met.”
John rotated his shoulders and waited until his partner shoved the book across the table. From the rows of mug shots, the sullen face jumped out at him.
“He was better looking alive,” Baxter said.
“Who isn’t? No, don’t answer that.”
Ronald Floyd had a lengthy rap sheet, starting with possession of cocaine when he was seventeen in Tacoma. Thirty-four the day he died, Floyd had stuck to his chosen career of dealing drugs and slowly risen on the ladder. The part that always amazed John was how little time a guy like Floyd ever served despite multiple arrests. The system was overwhelmed; he’d walked a couple of times because prosecutors had shrugged and decided he wasn’t worth the bother. John knew how the arresting officers had felt; after all, they’d bothered.
Memory nudged by the photo, he recalled being involved in Ronald Floyd’s last arrest, which had led to four years in the Monroe State Penitentiary. Acting on a tip, officers had been waiting when a cabin cruiser docked at the marina. The hold had been packed with plastic bags full of white powder. It had been a pretty good haul, by Port Dare standards.
Unfortunately, those standards were rising by the day. Half the border between Washington State and Canada was water: the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Puget Sound. The rocky, wooded Canadian Gulf Islands and American San Juan Islands made the waters a maze of spectacular channels and inlets. Pods of orcas tried to elude the ubiquitous whale-watching ships. Sailors and boaters were in paradise, with every island offering hidden coves. Green-and-white Washington State ferries plied the waters between islands and Canada and the USA, while the blue-and-white Canadian ferries carried traffic between Vancouver Island and the mainland.
Paradise for sailors was a nightmare for Coast Guard and law enforcement. Boaters didn’t respect customs laws or international boundaries. Smuggling was a breeze—literally, as it filled gaudy sails on blue waters. Officers couldn’t search every boat that docked at one of the marinas or anchored in the bay, even when they knew damn well some of them were here on business. Luck and tips led to the few big busts.
Ronald Floyd must have made an enemy, because a muffled voice on the telephone had set him up. Officers had waited in the nighttime shadows at the marina while the pretty white boat eased slowly in, water lapping against the pilings. Floyd himself had bounded from the bow to the dock with the first line. The Port Dare P.D. waited until the boat was tied bow and stern and the engine snuffed. Two other men joined Floyd, all wearing jeans, deck shoes and wind-breakers. They’d talked briefly, laughed. Then the spotlight froze them as a dozen police officers packing guns and a warrant surrounded them.
“Stuart cuffed Floyd,” John said slowly, remembering. “I got one of the others.”
“I didn’t make any of the arrests, but I was there.” Baxter ran a hand over his thinning hair. “So Stuart booked the guy. That’s not much of a connection.”
“But it’s something. I’ve been asking myself, why Natalie Reed’s house? Why not the one two doors down with the new sunroom?”
Baxter shrugged. “Chance.”
“Or maybe not.” Suddenly energized, John shoved back his chair. “What do you say we have a chat with some of our stiff’s buddies?”
CHAPTER THREE
NATALIE CAME DOWNSTAIRS in the morning to the sound of a girl’s laugh and a man’s deep voice.
She felt like the walking dead. She’d been able to snatch only bits and pieces of sleep from endless wide-eyed hours. She supposed she’d dreamed, but it was hard to separate unsettling scenes supplied by her unconscious mind from the gruesome images that played behind closed eyelids when she was awake. Last night, sleepless and still in shock, she had wished that today was a working day so that she would have something to do. This morning she was intensely grateful that she didn’t have to go into the office. Coaxing bad-tempered advertisers into agreeing that a check written to the Sentinel was money worth spending was beyond her in her current exhausted state. Maybe she could take Evan and Maddie down to the spit. If she found a warm, sandy spot, she could lean against a log and watch them build castles or splash in the water.
Or fall asleep at last, which wouldn’t make her much of a baby-sitter.
In the dining room, she found John and his children seated at their places at the table, which had been nicely set as if for company, with quilted place mats and cloth napkins. As a centerpiece, asters in bright colors made a casual bouquet in a cream-colored pitcher. French doors were closed against a gray, misty day.
She stood in the doorway unnoticed for a moment, feeling as if she were outside, nose pressed to the glass, looking in at a perfect family tableau. Father and children were laughing together, the affection, humor and patience so obvious she felt a pang of envy. For what, Natalie knew quite well. Stuart had squelched her first tentative suggestion that they think about having children. On their wedding day, she had just assumed…
It hurt still, remembering Stuart’s quick, thoughtless, “What the hell would we want brats for?”
She must have made a sound, a movement, because John’s head turned sharply, his grin fading.
“Good morning.” He searched her face with grave, intent eyes even as he gestured at an empty chair.
“Mom’s making bacon and eggs. She wouldn’t let us help.” A faint smile pulled at his mouth. “We’ve been complaining about how slow the service is. My tip isn’t going to be big.”
“Daddy!” His son giggled. “Grandma doesn’t want money!”
Evan McLean was a miniature of his father: russet, wavy hair, vivid blue eyes and big feet that suggested someday he’d match Dad’s size as well. Natalie wondered if John had had freckles, too, at five years old.
From the lines in his face, she doubted he’d slept any more than she had, if at all, but he had obviously just showered and shaved. His wet hair was slicked back, the auburn darkened by water. Despite the tiredness that creased his brow and added years, he crackled with energy and the grin he gave his son came readily.
“You don’t think Grandma would scoop up a buck if I left one?”
Evan looked crafty. “I bet she’d give it to me. Why don’t you leave a dollar and we’ll find out. Okay?”
“Greedy,” his sister scoffed. Maddie McLean had her mom’s blond hair and blue eyes of a softer hue than her father’s. Gawky and skinny at this age, she wasn’t pretty in a dimpled little-girl way, but Natalie was willing to bet Maddie would be a beauty by the time she was sixteen.
“Just to see,” Evan insisted.
“Uh-huh.” She rolled her eyes. “Like you’d give it back to Dad.”
Her brother bounced indignantly. “I would!” He stole a glance at his father. “If he said I had to.”
John laughed, although he still watched Natalie. “Let’s not put Grandma to the test, shall we?” The door from the kitchen swung open and he said, “Ah. Looks like breakfast is going to be served.”
“At last!” Evan said.
Carrying a plate of toast in one hand and a heaping bowl of scrambled eggs in the other, his grandmother bent a look on him. “Young man, that didn’t sound very polite.”
Even at five, he had the grace to blush. “I’m just awful hungry, Grandma.”
“Ah.” Still sounding severe, she said, “You need to learn to think ‘at last,’ not say it. That’s the secret to good manners.”
His forehead crinkled. “You mean, I can be really rude, just to myself?”
“That’s right.” A tall woman with beautiful bone