“Good evening, sir,” Frost said. “I appreciate the support, but there was no need for you to come out here personally in the middle of the night. We have the situation under control.”
“When someone gets murdered in one of my detectives’ houses, I want to know what’s going on,” Hayden replied.
“Well, he died at my house, but we don’t know where the actual crime took place yet.”
Hayden didn’t seem impressed by the distinction. “You knew this man?”
“I did, although we hadn’t spoken in a long time.”
“So why did he come to you?”
“I have no idea,” Frost replied. “I’m surprised he even knew where I lived.”
“Can you think of a motive for his murder?”
“Not yet. He was carrying plenty of money, but the killer didn’t bother taking it. Dr. Finder seems to think that an unusual type of poison was used. He said it reminded him of a political assassination.”
“An assassination,” Hayden repeated, rolling the word around his mouth like a fine wine.
“Yes, sir. Denny seems like an unlikely target for a professional hit. All he did was run charters from a yacht in the marina. I’ll see what I can find on his boat.”
“Do that. And keep an eye out for drugs, weapons, or other contraband. If he’s out on the water regularly, trafficking of some kind could be a factor here.”
“That was my first thought, too,” Frost agreed.
“I want to be kept in the loop on this case,” Hayden told him. “Copy Cyril on your reports and give him a daily update on what you find. He’ll make sure the information gets to me.”
“Of course,” Frost replied. He waited a beat before adding, “Do you mind if I ask why? No offense, sir, but you don’t typically get involved in a specific homicide investigation unless it has some broader political implications. Is there something here that I should know about?”
“When there’s something you need to know, I’ll tell you.” Hayden focused on the glowing screen of his laptop again. “That’ll be all for now, Easton.”
“Yes, sir.”
Frost opened the rear door of the town car. The cool breeze blew in and mixed with Hayden’s cologne. He began to get out, but the captain reached out and closed a powerful hand around his wrist.
“Wait, one more thing,” Hayden went on. “The victim, Denny Clark. Did he say anything to you before he died?”
Frost heard Denny’s voice in his head again: Lombard.
He was about to reply, but then he stopped himself.
In his memory, he saw Denny’s twisted face as his friend battled for breath. His eyes were wide with the terror of someone who knew he was about to die. He looked as if he’d climbed a mountain and held off the end, just so that he could give Frost one last message.
One odd, puzzling, meaningless message.
Frost wasn’t going to say anything about it until he knew what it meant.
“No,” he told the captain. “Denny said nothing at all.”
3
Dawn was still an hour away when Frost parked his Chevy Suburban on the narrow strip of road north of the San Francisco yacht harbor. On his right, the masts of dozens of sailboats bobbed like awkward ballerinas and made a clinking, metallic music. On his left, agitated waves slapped against the breakwater. He saw the lights of the Golden Gate Bridge through billowing fog, the low hills of the East Bay, and the grim outline of Alcatraz. The wind tried to knock him off his feet.
He had no trouble identifying the sleek flybridge of the Roughing It, which had its own diagonal slip among the smaller profiles of private yachts. It was as white as a single cloud against a perfect blue sky. The bow tapered to a sharp, aerodynamic point like an arrowhead, and smoked windows stretched along the main deck. There was open space forward and aft where guests could soak up the sun and lean into the spray as if they were kings and queens of the world. Some of them probably were.
The boat’s price tag had to be in the high seven figures. Frost wondered where Denny had found the money to buy it.
As he waited near the locked gate leading to the piers, the engine of a golf cart rattled from the cypress trees near the marina clubhouse. The cart parked next to Frost’s truck, and a trim, white-haired security guard hopped down to join him. The man had a large loop of keys jangling from his belt. He took a close look at Frost’s badge, and then the two men shook hands.
“Tom Hale,” the guard introduced himself. He was in his sixties, with a nimble step and an easy smile. “I’m the overnight security man at the harbor. Did I hear you right on the phone? Is Denny Clark dead?”
“Yes, he is,” Frost said.
“What an awful thing. Nice man, Mr. Clark. Down to earth. You can’t always say that about the people around this place.”
“When did you last see him?”
“Yesterday morning. Mr. Clark was usually on the boat every day before the night shift ended. He pampered his baby, that’s for sure. Of course, if I had a vessel like that, I’d be good to her, too.”
“Was he alone?” Frost asked.
“I think so. I didn’t see anyone with him.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“I waved. He waved. That was all.”
“What about your shift last night?”
“I didn’t see him,” Hale replied. “The boat didn’t go out. It’s still pretty early in the season. I don’t think the Roughing It has been out on the water since Tuesday.”
“It’s an expensive boat,” Frost said. “Did Denny ever say where he got the money to buy it?”
“People don’t talk about that kind of thing around here. Sometimes it’s family money. Sometimes it’s billionaire nerds from the valley. Or sometimes the things are simply in hock up to their flags. I don’t know about Mr. Clark, but he seemed to have the right contacts. No one at the marina gave him a hard time about getting a license to run charters out of here. Maybe he had partners with some deep pockets and political clout behind him.”
“What about his crew?” Frost asked.
“He’d hire people depending on the charter. Chefs, bartenders, that kind of thing. But Mr. Clark was the captain. He ran her himself.”
Frost eyed the boat, which had the proud look of a Great Dane towering over lesser dogs. “What kind of charters are we talking about? Did you see people you know? Celebrities? Anybody like that?”
“Part of my job is not to notice things,” Hale replied. “The people that Mr. Clark took out valued their privacy. Most of the time, he’d have me close off the road while his guests loaded. I’d let in a couple limos, but I wouldn’t know who was in them. He wanted to make sure gawkers weren’t taking pictures.”
Frost nodded. “Did Mr. Clark have any problems with anybody? Did you ever hear any arguments? Or did he complain about anyone to you?”
“No, nothing like that,” Hale replied. “As far as I could tell, everybody liked him. And that’s a tough clientele to keep happy. Powerful people like things a certain way. If they don’t get what they want, you’ll hear about it.”
“But you never heard any negative scuttlebutt about Mr. Clark around the marina? That’s hard to imagine. Denny and I used to run a fishing boat at the wharf. The one thing I remember is that the captains unloaded more crap on each other than the seagulls.”
“Well, that’s the wharf, Inspector. This is the marina.”
Frost smiled. “Is that a little slam, Tom?”
“Maybe a little.”
The security guard smiled, too, but he didn’t add anything more. Frost wasn’t sure whether Hale was telling the truth about the lack of gossip or whether the man had been tipped well enough by Denny and others to remain discreet about the comings and goings around here.