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“What were her parents thinking? After that, Kaye and I went shopping at the farmers’ market and loaded up on produce because we were about to take a little cruise.”
“And where did you go?” Conklin asked.
I thought about the dead surfer, seventeen years old, lying in the medical examiner’s lab fifty miles up the coast, time of death still undetermined.
Hewett said, “What are you fishing for, Inspector?”
I took out the morgue shots of the unidentified teen on the autopsy table. I said, “This boy washed up in Big Sur very early this morning. He was linked to the bodies at the Ellsworth compound.”
Chandler lifted his eyes, met my gaze. “I don’t know this boy. I have never seen him before, alive or dead.”
Against his lawyer’s advice, Chandler gave us the names of shops he and Kaye had visited. He produced time-stamped digital photos of them together, and just for good measure, he said there was surveillance video at the yacht club showing that he’d taken the boat out at four in the morning and returned at nine at night.
I asked him when he’d last seen his son, Todd.
“Years and years ago,” Chandler said. “And no, I don’t think he killed anyone. But you should ask him yourself.”
I said, “We’ve obtained a search warrant for your boat.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“The Crime Scene Unit is there right now.”
“They’re inside my boat?”
I guess we finally pissed off Harry Chandler. He stood abruptly and said to his attorney, “I don’t have to answer any more questions, do I?” And he stormed out of the interrogation room.
Charlie Clapper called me at the end of the day, said he’d found no incriminating evidence on the Cecily; no blood, no trace, no bleach, no nothing.
I had just hung up the phone with Clapper when it rang again. Claire calling to say, “That surfer boy who washed up on Big Sur?”
“Yes?”
“The ME in Monterey County said cause of death was blunt-force trauma to the head. The wound matched to his surfboard that also washed up. Witnesses saw him going out into the surf on that board.”
“It was an accident.”
“Right, Lindsay. Accidental death.”
That card with the number 613 on it that some insane tipster said he’d found — it was pure fiction.
Chapter 70
I WAS IN desperate need of a laugh or, even better, a boxcar full of them.
I called an impromptu meeting of the Women’s Murder Club, and because it was only two blocks from the Hall, I convinced everyone to meet at MacBain’s Beers o’ the World Saloon.
An hour after sending up the flare, I climbed the wooden back steps to the small room with two tables and one window where Captain MacBain used to count out the day’s cash. Cindy and Claire had already made good progress on the first pitcher of beer, and Yuki had only about an inch left of her margarita.
I could have put down a pitcher of beer all by myself, but the little bundle I was carrying under my jacket had the majority vote and that vote was no to booze.
Claire pulled out a chair and patted the seat and I dropped into it.
Yuki flashed me a grin, said, “I was telling everyone about Brian McInerny.”
“The comedian? Go ahead, Yuki.”
“Okay, so he’s suing a transit worker for taking a punch at him. He deserved the punch, but anyway, I’m deposing him,” Yuki said. “McInerny wants to give answers as both himself and his alter ego.”
