A Dangerous Harbor (8 page)

Katy felt the guilty blush rise to her face. Good thing Leila couldn't see her right now, but then Leila always was able to zero in on the source of her troubles.

Interesting that Leila would bring up Gabe now. For all Leila knew, Katy had shed him with shoulder pads and high school graduation. But Gabe was Katy's very own unhappy secret. And if all went well, she should be able to keep it that way.
 

"Kat… you still there?"

"Yeah, honey. Someone wants to use the pay phone, so I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"But, Katy, don't you ever wonder what happened to that gorgeous ever-
lovin
' heart-
breakin
'
lyin
' bad-boy?"

"Nope."

Chapter Seven:

At six o'clock, she sprayed herself with the light floral scent she kept on the boat, something feminine she'd bought for the vacation she'd planned with her now obsolete fiancé. After David's hasty retreat she'd
FedExed
his ring in its box to his office. Her boat would go home on a truck and she could use up the last of her sabbatical doing—what? Lolling around LA? She hated to think of the tap dance she'd have to do to get her career back on track if she was demoted to street cop status. The union had specified that her paid leave of absence was mandatory but she was assured of a position with SFPD. And what might that be—crowd control at the ball park? Pulling nickels out of downtown parking meters? Not what she signed up for with a degree in Criminal Justice, that's for sure. And, if she was demoted she'd be stuck in vice for another hundred years. Maybe she should start over somewhere else, like up Mendocino way. Wasn't there a posting for an officer in Ft. Bragg? A new start, a new home, away from San Francisco, could she, should she do that?

She pushed at the fabric clinging to her hips and wished the wrinkles out of her only sundress. She was proud of her sturdy little vessel but at thirty-two feet,
Pilgrim
had less than twenty-four feet of usable living space and her cabin allowed only a couple of cubbyholes and a few drawers.

She was grateful, however, that Chief Inspector
Vignaroli
was sensible enough to leave her to do her job with the list. He did not, thank God, try to tell her how to conduct an interview. If the information she found tonight was enough to report on, then he could finish what she'd started.

Katy yanked a brush through sun-streaked curls then added delicate earrings with dangling silver leaves. Twisting her head from side to side, she checked her appearance in the narrow mirror. The mirror on her tiny bedroom door said sparkling earrings would do nothing for the worry she was carrying around. Besides, the earrings tangled in her hair. She tried sweeping her hair back but the earrings only burrowed deeper into the thick locks. She glared at her image. Shit! Tangled hair, tangled up in this stupid scheme to get a bunch of wily American boaters to talk about a murder by one of their own. She pulled off the earrings, grabbed the bottle of her favorite Napa Valley chardonnay, squared her shoulders and set off for the stern of
All
Myne
.

A tanned young man in sailor whites tipped her a two-fingered salute and pointed towards the stairs. "Everyone is topside, miss. Watch your step, please." If there was an American in Northern Baja
not
on this yacht, it would be a surprise to Katy. They spilled out of the salon, clogged the stairs and were so tightly packed together that some of them were actually perched on the rails.

This is the dumbest thing I've ever done…well, except for Gabe, that is. I'll be lucky if the witnesses here don't put
roofies
in my drink and toss me overboard.

She pushed through the crowd and into the salon where the AC was barely keeping pace with the crush of perfume, cigar smoke and sweat, then wiggled through a hole in the crowd, and in a victory slam dunk of a quarterback at the end zone, plunked her bottle of wine on the bar.

Booth grinned at her. "Congratulations. Not many folks have the wherewithal to navigate this crowd."

"What's the occasion?" she shouted over the megawatt music and raucous laughter.

Booth cupped a hand around his ear and cocked his head to indicate she should try again. When she shook her head in the negative, he reached into a tight circle of men and extracted a tiny blond. Draping an arm over the girl's bare shoulder he moved her over to where Katy stood.

"Here's
Myne
," he yelled over the noise. "She's Spencer's significant other."

Katy tried not to stare at the oversized breasts spilling out of the expensive red cocktail dress.
Myne
was a fifteen-year-
old's
wet dream and an older man's prized possession and Katy wasn't sure if the girl was even of legal age. The five-foot kewpie doll held out her long red-tipped nails and in the dirt poor accent of East Texas, drawled, "Hi, I'm
Myne
."

Myne
. On the list. Get her out of the room. Talk to her. See what she knows. Yelling was hopeless, so Katy used hand gestures to indicate a move for the door.
Myne
dimpled a smile and winked, then grabbed two beers out of the ice-filled bucket, offering one to Katy as they slid out of the door to lean against a recently deserted rail.

Looking for an opener, Katy held up the beer. "My favorite. People are always trying to hand me a glass of wine when all I want is a nice cold beer."

Myne
giggled. "Me, too! All that 'doesn't this wine have a hint of apple to it?'
don't get it for me.
Gimme
a nice Michelob or Coors. Though this
Tecate
ain't
too shabby. So, Katy, they do call you Katy, right?
 
I been
dyin
' to ask, you sail that
li’l
ol
' boat all the way from California to here?"

"All the way from San Francisco."

"On purpose?"
Myne
asked, squinting up at Katy. "You
ain't
one of them lesbians from Castro Street, are you?"

Katy took a pull of the beer to hide her laughter, then looked down at the pint-sized Mae West and smiled. "No, no, I'm definitely not one of those. Nice dress."

"You think so? It's a
Wanger
."

This time Katy let the smile out. It was Vera Wang and probably cost Spencer a cool two grand.

To grease the skids, Katy said, "I don't know a
Wanger
from a
Wallabie
, but my sister gets to wear some nice designer dresses to the Emmys every year."

The little blonde squealed. "Get out! Who's your sister? TV or movies?"

"She's got a long-standing gig on
All My Tomorrows
."

"Oh…"
Myne
put her hands over her heart in a near swoon. "I
love
that show. Which one is she, Tamar or Rachel? Don't tell me she's that scheming bitch, Suzanne."

"Bingo. But she's an actress, so to take the sting out of her bad girl image she's always looking to do different parts in movies. Did you see
Knives
with Bruce Willis? She was Bruce Willis' sympathetic psychiatrist."

Myne's
red lips widened into a big grin and she nodded. "Then she's a
real
actress, not some naïve walk-on whose work ends up on the cutting floor along with her clothes 'cause that's all the producer thinks she's good for."

Well,
thought Katy,
that explains where
Myne
was headed when Spencer Bobbitt found her.
But before she could move on to more interesting subjects, a gray-haired, grim-faced woman angrily brushed past with Wally in tow. Still tight-lipped, he managed a brief nod, as resigned to his fate as a hooked sea bass.

That is, until
Myne
bellowed in a voice that could project the length of a football field. "Hey, y'all
ain't
leavin
' the party! Come on back here, I got somebody y'all
oughta
meet."

Ignoring his wife's desperate attempt to drag him away from the party, Wally did a U-turn, towing the angry wife back to where
Myne
waited.

Myne
ignored the older woman and chirped her introductions. "This here's Wally and Ida Howard. They've got a sailboat too,
Consolation Prize
.
Ain't
that cute?"

Ida Howard, her mouth set in a thin line of disapproval, nodded curtly at Katy and went back to eyeing a path for the door. Wally, however, appeared to be under some kind of spell. Why else would he stand open-mouthed and glassy-eyed in front of this gaudy little canary?

Katy, hoping to break that spell, said, "Wally was kind enough to help me tie up this afternoon."

Through gritted teeth, Ida muttered, "Of course he did."

Wally blushed, closed his mouth and stuttered, "G—g—glad to be of h—help." Five words appeared to be it for Wally, so he shut up and went back to gazing at
Myne
.

No wonder his wife was desperate to get him off the boat. A few more minutes of this and Wally would be consumed into a pulsing vortex of lust for the little blond.

Katy excused herself for the buffet table, where she picked up a sausage with a miniature Mexican flag skewered through it, added some carrots and celery and a dollop of ranch dip.

As if on cue, Booth appeared. "So, how's it going, Katy?"

Katy was impressed at the engineering of his introduction to
Myne
and wondered what he had in mind.

"Did you try the bean and sour cream dip? It's my specialty."

Booth's dish of bean dip looked to have grown a few hairs.

"Um, no thanks on the bean dip, but I am having a good time."

He nodded, waiting.

"
Myne
seems nice."

"You liked her, huh? Then you should meet Spencer Bobbitt. There he is," he said, pointing at a tall man in a pale yellow silk shirt and matching linen slacks. In his fifties, she guessed. Big head of graying blond hair styled into a poufy comb-over, a predatory brow and a long stubborn jaw radiated a cool self-confidence that said he wasn't worried about any murder investigation with his name on it. He also had a cigarette holder jammed between a row of perfectly capped teeth and a pair of round tortoise-framed glasses perched on his nose. The FDR image could not have been accidental. The big head turned in their direction, and she felt some kind of signal pass between the two men.

The tension eased in Spencer's face and he raised his hand. Someone whistled loudly while another couple of people bellowed for quiet. In a warm and perfectly pitched baritone meant to be heard without benefit of a
mic
, he said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm pleased to introduce tonight's entertainment."

As whoops and jeers broke out he held up a cautionary finger. "Not that kind of entertainment. Not tonight, anyway. I give you Frederic the Magician and his beautiful assistant, Astrid Del Mar!"

The magician, in a flowing white silk peasant shirt and tight leather pants, bowed deeply enough to show a speckled, egg-shaped bald spot nesting in the frizz of his dyed black hair. She remembered seeing this man. He had been leaning on the stern of his fifty-foot motor yacht smoking and watching as she struggled to bring her little boat through the churning waters of the estuary. Floating past his boat, she'd momentarily locked eyes with him. But instead of acknowledging her with a welcoming nod, he flicked his cigarette into the water and looked away.

He also wasn't one of the men who'd bounded up to help her tie up her boat. There was plenty of dock help with Wally and Booth, so why did his boorish behavior chafe? Add boor to bad magician and she had enough reason to want him for the culprit. He was obviously guilty of something.

Now the magician was all jokes and smiles while he flipped cards and delighted the boozy crowd with his sleight of hand. His colorful assistant, a slim whirl of red shimmering sequins on four-inch heels, was fun to watch. She reminded Katy of a wood sprite with her magenta hair cut pixie style, mostly absent light brows and heavily lined big brown eyes. She did her job well, dazzling the drunks and deflecting attention away from the sloppy work of the magician. Most of the crowd was too drunk to notice when he palmed and layered a card so that it appeared on the top of the deck.