An hour later Santa Barbara County Sheriff Hal Kirkendol leaned on the first level rail of Platform 27 and stared out where the platform boss pointed.
“Hell, Hal, you’ve known me for ten years. All I can say is the last thing Arnie told me last night before I went ashore was that he didn’t like what was going on out on Rig Number 4, right out there. We’ve all seen the big ships that anchor just off the platform. Nobody can figure out why freighters would stop there. The platform has its own resupply ship that makes daily runs. Why in hell those big freighters? Arnie was getting worked up about it, but I said not our business, nothing we can do about it anyway.”
“You telling me that Arnie’s drowning has something to do with that other platform?”
“Not saying that, Hal. That just the only thing I can think of that might be connected to Arnie dying. Hell, the men liked to work for him. He was good at his job. Got a good day’s work out of everyone including himself, and I can guarantee not a man on board would try to kill him.”
“Hey, nobody said anything about Arnie getting killed. He was diving, he got tangled up in that wire, and couldn’t get any air. I’ve seen a hundred reasons why people drown.”
“True, Sheriff. But I know Arnie. He was on a championship college swim team, almost went to the Olympics in the freestyle. He teaches scuba at the Y here in town. He takes a herd of kids free-diving every Saturday. Arnie is the last guy in the world who would drown, especially caught in a bunch of wire right around one of our platform legs. Part of his job was to dive down those legs once a week, all the way to the bottom, and remove any debris that might have hung up there. I can assure you that yesterday there was no mess of wire on the leg that held Arnie underwater. If he drowned, it’s because somebody surprised him and killed him. There’s no other way to look at his death. Arnie was murdered. That I’m sure of. Now I’m trying to figure out why.”
Sheriff Kirkendol rubbed his chin the way he had been doing lately when he had a case he couldn’t figure out. At last he nodded at the oil driller. “Okay, Pete. I’ve known you long enough to believe what you say. I didn’t know the swimming background on the dead man. You say he was murdered. That puts a whole new spin on the case. Why? Why was he killed? That’s the next thing we have to find out.”
“Maybe the answer is out there on Number 4.”
“Now you’re making a lot of assumptions, Hal. First you’re saying Platform Number 4 out there has something to hide. Next you indicate that it’s so secret that they will kill anyone who tries to find out about it, even a late-night swimmer around their platform. They would also have to use some kind of a security system that would warn them when any unauthorized boat or swimmer entered the protected zone around their tower. In the water that would have to be highly sophisticated. Then you’re saying that they have the killer or killers on the platform who could do the job. Those are a whole shitpot full of assumptions. Proving any or all of them is going to be one hell of a tough job.”
“Right, Sheriff, and that’s why you get the big bucks to do that work.”
Sheriff Kirkendol rubbed his chin a moment, then the back of his neck with his right hand. As soon as he realized he was doing it, he stopped. One of his women detectives had told him that the repeated gesture was a dead giveaway that he was worried, troubled, or stumped.
“So I take two men and go visit Platform Number 4.”
“You have jurisdiction?”
“Damn right. It’s in my front yard. So it’s wet. It’s still my own front yard. I’ve got a murder to solve and I’ll do what I have to and let the lawyers yell about it later. You want to come along?”
“Not a chance. I’ve got a rig to run. Besides, I don’t even want to talk to those guys. I might shoot off my mouth about my suspicions. You can do it with a much cooler touch.”
“Flattery…”
“Yeah, still works.”
Two hours later, Sheriff Kirkendol headed for Platform Number 4. He’d had a talk with the coroner, who’d put a rush on his cutting. He’d found two serious head wounds made by a blunt instrument. Neither severe enough to cause death. There was plenty of seawater in the dead man’s lungs, so technically he had drowned. But the man had had a lot of help.
“He must have been clubbed, then held underwater until he drowned. How he got back to his own drill rig is your job, Sheriff. I’m putting the death as a murder by person or persons unknown.”
“Don’t release that information yet,” the sheriff had said. “I have a courtesy call to make first.”
The sheriff had brought with him Nevin Irwin, a former SEAL who had been with him for almost two years handling all of the water-related problems including crimes on boats, drownings, and even one case of piracy. Irwin had blown out a knee on a heavily laden parachute jump somewhere over Europe, and had been eased out of the SEALs. If he couldn’t be in an action platoon, he didn’t want to stay in the service. He did another year on his enlistment in the support units at Coronado, then found his spot with the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department.
The third man was a longtime deputy who handled the boats for the department. The sheriff had radioed the tower indicating he needed to visit the platform for a routine safety inspection. He asked for the safety engineer to be on hand, and was invited to come out at his convenience.
That turned out to be slightly after eleven o’clock that morning. The twenty-four-footer eased up to the water-level dock at Rig Number 4 where a man in a white shirt and tie met it.
“Preston,” the man said, holding out his hand to the sheriff. “Good to see you. Safety around here is one of our primary concerns. So far we have a hundred and eighty-two days without a lost-time accident. We want to keep that record going. Any suggestions you can make will help.”
“Just routine, Preston. We’ll try not to trip over anything. This is Deputy Irwin, who will go with us.” He waved for the boat driver to stay on the boat, and the three men climbed the steel steps that took them to the first level.
“As you can see, we’re a small platform,” said Preston. “None of those giants you may have seen. We have five levels, with the driller’s cabin in the top level. We have basic steel-pipe tendons with direct tendon-pile connections on the bed of the strait. We do work twenty-four hours a day, and we are so far a test hole that we hope will produce. Many of our crewmen are foreigners. We try to get the best men we can regardless of their country of origin. Do you have any questions?”
The noise of the drilling and the various motors running on the level above them set up a clatter and roar that made talking a little hard.
“Do you ever have any security problems? Like boats stopping by, fishermen, paddleboard guys, maybe sea lions crawling up on your little water-level dock down there?” Irwin asked.
“Not a problem. The sea lions get frightened off by the motors and the vibrations before they get anywhere near the platform. Then we do have a fisherman stopping by now and then just out of curiosity. Usually they just want to stare up at the platform and ask a few questions. We don’t exactly give them a guided tour, if you know what I mean.”
Sheriff Kirkendol listened to the reply critically. He couldn’t detect any reluctance or any hint that it wasn’t the truth. The man didn’t seem to be hiding anything.
They took a quick look at levels two and three, and twenty minutes later they were back in the boat heading for shore.
Deputy Irwin looked at his boss and shook his head. “Didn’t play right for me, Chief. Sounded like the guy was trying to hide something. And why is he wearing a white shirt and a tie on a greasy, oily, smelly place like a drilling platform? I just don’t trust the guy.”