Luck was with me, because I struck gold on the second try. Monroe’s Marina had maybe sixty vessels moored in its slips. I parked my car in the small lot and walked the dozen or so long docks, reading the boat names. After about ten minutes of searching, I spotted Rabbit Run, a thirty-five-foot inboard of white fiberglass.
Gotcha.
In the light of day, I could see the “boat” was really a power yacht. The helm was weather protected under a hard top, and there appeared to be a salon and galley below the deck, maybe even a sleeping berth.
From the dock, I looked for any sign of human activity aboard, someone I could speak with, but the yacht looked deserted. And so did the marina. I squinted against the glare of the morning sun, spotted a middle-aged couple on a sailboat at one end of the marina and a young man emerging from a mid-size yacht on the other. But that was it for human activity.
At seven in the morning in a resort area like this, most people were still sleeping off their partying from the night before. Any serious fishermen would have already taken their crafts out at dawn. And judging by the expensive-looking yachts in this marina, I’d say nobody was actually “serious” about much of anything here except maybe their pleasure.
I checked my watch again and sighed. If I were a professional P.I., I could have waited around here all day for someone to show up and board Rabbit Run. But at the moment I was being paid for my barista-management talents, not my sleuthing ones, so I had only a few free hours before I’d be expected at work for the Saturday lunch shift, one of the busiest times of the restaurant’s week.
I’d have to bite the bullet, I decided, and speak with the people running the marina. Certainly, they’d know who owned this vessel. The only question was—would they tell me? I’d have to concoct a good story for them to give away what they might very well consider to be private client information. But if I could persuade them, I’d have a name and a solid lead.
I walked over to the marina office, a squat gray building located between the parking lot and the water. I turned the handle on its front door, but it was locked up tight. There was no closed sign in the window, no hours posted. I peered in the window, knocked.
No answer. No sign of anyone.
With my morning caffeine still coursing through my molecules, spurring me on, I decided to take another plunge—so to speak. I walked back to the slip mooring Rabbit Run. With one more careful look around, I boarded her. If my luck continued to hold, I figured I could find some sort of lead on the identity of the man who’d been doing the frogman act (and, of course, swim fins and a hunting rifle with fresh fingerprints wouldn’t hurt, either).
I stepped onto the polished wood deck of the stern, but didn’t see any personal items. There was nothing telling in the helm area, either—just two leather seats, a steering wheel, and a whole lot of technical bells and whistles.
I went below, and I checked the salon and galley. There were some dried spills of liquids on the bolted-down coffee table, a few wrappers on the floor. I picked them up—Twinkies? A half bag of Doritos had been left in the small galley (reportedly Saddam Hussein’s favorite snack, but I doubted very much the deposed Iraqi dictator was my frogman). I also found six empty Sam Adams beer bottles and a few Coke cans.
I found more trash in a small container below the sink. But there wasn’t much in there, just a few more Twinkie wrappers, also the kind of thick cellophane that gourmet food stores use to wrap sandwiches, and some newspapers—yesterday’s editions of Newsday and the New York Times sports section.
Nothing. I found nothing to indicate an identity of the owner or any reason someone would have been in diving gear at night near Bom’s mansion.
I continued to move forward below the yacht’s deck, opening up the door to the sleeping berth. There was a comfortable-looking double bed, portholes, but no personal items. I was about to inspect the small head when I heard voices outside. It sounded like two young women talking and laughing.
“Girls!”
The third voice was deep, a man’s, coming from far away.
I knew I had to stay below, but I wanted to see who these people were. I moved back into the sleeping berth and peeked out the porthole to see if I could glimpse what was going on.
Two slender young women of about sixteen or seventeen wearing worn jeans and tee-shirts stood on the next dock over. Approaching them was a gray-haired portly man in khakis and a blue Windbreaker. I strained to hear what he was telling them.
“…busiest weekend of the year, so don’t waste any time. Here are the boats that came in late last night. Start cleaning them in this order and be quick about it.”
After the portly man turned and stalked away, one of the girls gave an exaggerated salute behind his back. The other rolled her eyes. They consulted the list for a second then both looked up, straight at Rabbit Run.
“Oh, damn,” I whispered, reactively pulling back from the porthole. Of course, my luck had just run out. They were heading right for me, and not slowly.
I knew I couldn’t very well scramble onto the dock now. If I did, they would see me leaving the yacht. In itself, that might not produce any dire consequences. The girls were young, clearly just a couple of local kids hired to keep the rentals clean. They’d probably shrug off my exit, and I could get in my car and drive away without being charged with trespassing. But it would also mean I’d leave here without any good leads.
Come on, Clare, think of something!
But I couldn’t. And the girls were getting closer—
“…and he said he wanted my digits, so I gave them. I really thought he’d call me, you know?”
“You can’t expect that anymore. Some guys just collect numbers. It’s like little trophies or something to them. You know, to brag to their loser friends.”
My imagination continued to fail me, but I knew Madame would have found a way out of this. My dear old dad would have, too, for that matter.
That’s it!
I almost laughed out loud when I realized that each of them—the bookie and the grand Manhattan lady—would have resorted to exactly the same thing in this situation.
Bribery.
Digging into my handbag, I found two twenty-dollar tips from waiting tables the night before. I shoved them into a front pocket of my jeans then quickly moved to the cabin’s salon and sat down on the built-in couch, crossing my legs like it was my plan all along to just wait here for the girls to find me. Their last snippets of conversation gave me the final bit of inspiration I needed—
“That’s pretty shitty. I mean, why are guys like that?”
“Are you kidding? Romance is a joke. Guys are so cheap. It’s like in their DNA—”
The girls had come down the stairs together, each carrying a bucket filled with cleaning products. But they pulled up short and gaped when they saw me just calmly sitting on the cabin couch.
“Excuse us,” said the first one, a blond with a short ponytail and a light dusting of freckles across her nose. “We didn’t know Mr. Monroe rented this yacht out already.”
“He didn’t,” I told them levelly.
The blond exchanged a nervous glance with her partner, a brunette with ruddy cheeks and hair in a long French braid.
“Well…” said the brunette slowly, “should you be on here then?”
“No. I shouldn’t. But I couldn’t help myself. You see I’m only here because of true love.”
The girls eyes widened. They exchanged glances again, but not nervous ones. They were clearly now excited and curious.
“You see, I was having a drink at Bay Bar, you know the one, in Southampton, where the boats can just pull up and dock?”