Chapter 40

We crowded around the laptop, all of us eager to see if there was anything on the security camera disk that would help nail our intruder, possibly our would-be bomber. "Nice clear picture, Gary," said Mitch, "I wish every one of these we had to look at was this good."

Gary said, "Thanks. The owners finally decided that we need something to keep watch on things around here," he nodded toward me, "Rob's guy put it in, a few days ago. This is the first time I've seen real pictures on it, ones that mattered, anyway." He looked at the timestamp on the screen, "That's just about when I got the call about the floating debris by the deep water dock. Only took me a minute or so to lock the office and head over there."

"There! Freeze it," interrupted Mitch. "There's your mechanic." Sure enough, a man had appeared on the path to our dock. He was dressed in nondescript coveralls, and he carried a standard-looking mechanic's toolbox. "Can we single-frame with this, Rob? I need all the detail we can get."

"You bet," I said, "see that slider on the side of the frame? Drag it down to slow the action. Click it to stop, and it'll automatically back up a few frames so you don't miss anything."

He did as I instructed, and we watched as the guy made his way down onto the dock, and out to our boat. George said, "Guy's good, never even looked around. I'll bet he knows he's on camera, and he's not gonna give us a thing."

"So all we get is generalities – like clothes, build, stuff like that?" Kay wasn't happy. "I wanted to see his face, see if we could tell who it was."

"Nope," said George, "this guy is good. Not gonna give us a thing. We'll have to check with your Mister Dingle, to see if he got a good look at the guy's face, and maybe remembers what he looked like. You wanna set him up with a sketch artist, Mitch?" Getting a nod from the younger detective, he continued, "And we'd probably better keep quiet about him being there, too. I'm thinking it was lucky for him that the guy didn't know he'd been seen."

Mitch nodded again, "Yeah, we'll be discreet about that, for sure. No sense taking chances with the old guy." He looked out the window, as we all heard a siren approaching. "There's Lieutenant Carlson and the rest of the boom-boom guys; we'll see what they find, first."

We went out and directed the squad down as far as they could drive on the approach to the dock, and Mitch filled them in on what had been seen so far. The lieutenant saw me, and asked, "Didn't we run one of these down here before?" I nodded, and he looked over to Gary and said, "You should think about switching this guy to a different dock. Maybe you could get the whole marina rebuilt!" I couldn't help chuckling, got an elbow from Kay.

He turned back to Mitch, "You say you got this asshole on video?" Mitch nodded, and Carlson said, "Let's take a look, and see how long the guy was on site. Get an idea of how long he had to hide his goodies."

Mitch took him back into the office and showed him the video, and he timed the guy's activity on the boat. "Okay," he said as they came back out, "looks like he had to confine himself to just one or two spots. Didn't have time to get into the engine hatch, so it's gotta be somewhere in the main cabin. Makes it a lot easier on us." I asked if he wanted to see a layout of the cabin, but he said, "No, I wanna see it just like he saw it, with no preconceived notions of where to look."

They established their safety zone, and told us to stay back behind it. I happened to think about my keys. Carlson took them, and asked if I had unlocked the hatch. I said, "Nope, never even put the key in the lock."

He said, "That could be a good thing in itself, sir." I thought that was a strange response, and must have looked puzzled. He explained, "I've seen triggers where just putting the key in the lock made the circuit." Then he grinned, "So since you didn't do it for us, we still have to check for that, so it'll take a few minutes longer." I thought about what he said, and realized what could have happened. Must have paled a little further.

"You'll have to excuse the lieutenant, Rob, these guys develop a strange sense of humor after a couple of years on the force. He looked at the guy then, "If they make it that far."

It was Carlson's turn to snort, "You're just jealous, George, 'cause you don't get to wear all this sexy body armor."

He took off his uniform shirt, and George said, "Hmmpf! Figured you for one of those tee shirts that said somethin' about 'Bomb squad - if you see me running', or something witty like that."

The lieutenant made a face, and said, "That would be tacky indeed, George." He stripped to the waist and reached for a heavily padded pullover. That's when we saw his tattoos.

"Wait," said Mitch, "what the hell have you got all over your back?"

"And your chest," said George.

"And all over everyplace else. What's it look like?" Carlson did an exaggerated pirouette for us, displaying his torso.

Mitch said, "I was to guess, I'd say jigsaw puzzle outlines."

"Bingo!" The guy grinned again, and winked at Kay, "How else is the mortician gonna know what goes where, in case I screw up?"

I thought Kay was going to faint, and George just said, "See what I mean?" He shook his head, "Let's go back and look at videos, while these maniacs do what they gotta do."

We walked back up to the office, and Mitch asked Gary if he had Mister Dingle's phone number. Then I remembered that the old guy had said he was going to visit family for a few days, and he probably wouldn't be home. "Damn! I wanted to get him together with a sketch guy, before he forgets what he saw." Then he said, "Wait, you got a record of his vehicle and plate number, no?"

"Sure do!" Gary dug out a file card, and gave it to Mitch. "You've got a warrant, right?"

"Must be the day for comedians." Mitch started copying down some information, then spotted the copier and used that. Then he said, "Oh look! Here, Gary, just found this address card on the floor. Even has emergency contact names on it." He handed the card back, "You should be more careful with valuable office stuff." He ignored Gary's grumping, turned to George, and said, "I'll go and see if I can find him, and see if he knows anything else that might help us. You see if there's anything more on the video that will give us a lead."

We watched him drive out the gate, then looked at the monitor screen again. Kay said, "I hope those bomb guys will be okay."

Why didn't I think of it before? "Gary, flip the switch to that live cam, see what they're doing now." He did, and we watched as they put down some sort of scanner, and Carlson motioned his guys back. They moved down the dock a ways, and we saw him cross himself, then cross his fingers, then he put the key in the lock and turned it. The hatch opened. His guys came back.

"Not for a million bucks, and not in a million years, would I do that," whispered Gary. "Especially not after hearing what he said about that lock. Must have more balls than brains, for sure!"

George's phone rang, startling us all. "The girls," he said. "Hi, Suzy, wha? OK, Richelle. I wish you guys would quit swappin' phones on me. What's up?" He listened for a minute, then said, "Nope, it's all good here, so far. You with Laurel and Krista? Okay, then stick with 'em, and we'll see you at Rob's place, in maybe an hour or so." Then, "No, we're not near the boat, and we're staying away until we get the all clear."

He put his phone away, "They heard the call for the bomb squad, wanted to make sure you guys were all okay. Believe it or not, they're shopping with Krista and Laurel, something about a wedding."

"Yeah," said Kaitlyn, "we were just gonna measure for curtains, and look what we started." I thought she was going to start crying, but she pounded her fist on the counter and said, "If I ever get my hands on those SOBs, they'll need to be measured for shrouds!" She turned to me with tears in her eyes, "I'm sorry, Rob; you must hate me by now."