Casey’s
Slip
By Richard L. Wren
Copyright 2010. Richard L. Wren
Poor Richard Publishers, Oakland, California
3rd Edition
A first novel by: Richard L. Wren
Mr. Wren is retired from a highly successful insurance career, during which time he was in demand nationally as a motivational and Estate Planning speaker.
In his new career as an author, he describes himself as tall, dark, handsome and a liar. A fourth generation Californian, he’s a sailor, father of four beautiful and supportive daughters, and husband to one of the best wives of all time.
He lists as his advisors: a retired, very experienced FBI agent, a semi-retired Hell’s Angel leader, a retired Oakland, California Police Detective, Marta Tanrikulu, a very patient editor and Nancy Blackman, an inspiration.
Watch for his next book, “JOSHUA’S REVENGE.”
CHAPTER 1
For once I wished there was a gale blowing. I could take a couple of reefs in the main, put up a storm jib and ride the hell out of a gale. Even in waters as dangerous as these just outside the Golden Gate. Three hundred miles of open ocean sailing from San Diego to San Francisco and the engine chose to conk out here. Now I’ve got no wind, no motor and a rough ocean. The notorious dog patch is looming on my starboard quarter and I’m being pushed toward the rocks and the bridge by the following sea. In an hour or so I’d be in real trouble if I couldn’t fix the engine. If I ask for help and got towed in it’ll cost me my whole ferrying fee and probably more. Time for action.
I had to slow the boat down, get below and fix the motor. I needed a sea anchor, quick. Something large that would sink. A mattress! Handy and quick. I ducked below, grabbed the nearest one, shoved it into the cockpit, secured it to the stern cleat with a spare line and tossed it overboard. In a matter of moments I felt a jerk as it reached the end of the line. I checked the horizon for shipping and found one outbound ship far to my port side and another just emerging from the North Bay, heading for the bridge. That one could be dangerous. It looked like a tanker. They move fast, are ponderous and have the right of way over something small like me. If I was drifting under the bridge at the same time she came through, I could be crushed. The other was a little aft of me and represented no danger.
As I slid down the companionway, I wished I’d insisted on polishing the diesel fuel. Something I usually do before taking off on any open sea passage. Diesel fuel, when left standing for any length of time can become contaminated with bacteria and need cleaning. Private boat owners are notorious for letting this happen and consequently often have problems like mine. The solution is to have a professional come alongside your boat with high pressure pumps and filters to clean the fuel.
Like a dummy I’d let this owner convince me his fuel was fresh and okay. After dozens of sailboat deliveries up and down the California coast I should have known better. Now I was stuck with the consequences.
“Okay Casey, you know what to do, get to it.” I said to myself. “Get your tools and your squeeze bulb and do it.”
With luck I could remove and replace the fuel filter, re-prime the engine with the squeeze bulb and get her running again. If, on the other hand, I had to bleed the lines I was SOL.
Below deck, working on an engine, the boat tossing and corkscrewing, it’s hard not to get seasick. Add to that the nearing danger of shoals and the fact that you’re completely responsible for someone else’s boat and you begin to get nervous.
When I glanced out the porthole, I could see the San Francisco end of the Golden Gate Bridge getting nearer and nearer. I didn’t have much time.
I found the tools and the spare filters and with some sweat and a couple of skinned knuckles, eventually had the new filter installed. Then came the big test, would it work.
If it didn’t I wouldn’t have enough time to dismantle the fuel system and bleed the lines. I’d have to call for help.
I pumped the squeeze bulb until my hand was cramping, saw that the glass bulb looked full and decided it was now or never. The bridge was getting closer and closer.
Crossing my fingers I pushed the starter button. She cranked and then cranked again. Over and over she cranked and nothing happened. Would the batteries hold up? Nothing happened.
I switched hands and resumed pumping. The glass bulb was full, the filter was working, why wouldn’t she start? Using the starter, the battery had to turn the engine over enough times to draw fuel in for ignition. If the batteries died, so would I. I could only try the starter button again and hope. She ground on and on until with a gasp, she caught. The satisfying rattling clunk clunk sound of the diesel filled the cockpit.
I quickly looked around to get my bearings and saw that we were safe. My watch told me it’d only taken about 17 minutes to get the engine running again; it’d seemed like an hour.
In order to get the sea anchor in I left the engine in neutral. The damn mattress may have saved my life and the boat, but I hated it while I was struggling to get it back aboard. Of course the mattress was completely ruined, soaked with salt water. Replacing it would come out of my profits. Without self tailing winches, I never would have gotten it in. I probably should have just abandoned it, but that wouldn’t be good stewardship of the open seas.
I made a mental note to tell Mitchell, the owner, what an asshole he’d been. Down in San Diego, he’d assured me over and over that the fuel was fresh and clean. Owners lie, and he was a typical owner. That wasn’t the only thing that’d bothered me. When I first met him, he’d been furtive. We’d had to meet away from the dock and he went to the boat to make sure no one was around. He’d had a bandage over one ear and a honey of a black eye. It looked like he’d been beaten up pretty good, but he said it was from an accident. I was pretty sure that was a lie too. He also made me promise that I’d ferry his boat single handed and not let anyone on the boat.
I was really suspicious, maybe the boat wasn’t really his? But his ownership papers were clean and up to date and he paid me cash in advance including flying me down from Oakland, so I’d taken the job. San Diego to Oakland and almost there with just this one big hiccup, however there’s always something.
With the engine purring along everything fell back into place. The wind picked up a little and seas smoothed a little. Keeping the dog patch well off to starboard, I had a relaxed motor sail under the Golden Gate Bridge, past the “Rock,” under the Bay Bridge and down to the small marina on the Oakland side of the bay. I was able to go wing on wing the last hour or so and started straightening up the boat while under way. I’d been winding down, beginning to feel the pressure lifting as I coasted in toward the slips.
Pulling the boat into the dock area, sails furled, barely underway, I glanced at the notes the owner had given me. The numbers on the page had gotten slightly smudged. I was looking for a slip number that could be either a seven or a nine. Both slips were open. I was faced with your classic either/or situation.
The dock was empty – no one to help me there. I flipped a mental coin, slid the boat into slip #7, jumped off the boat, put a single line around a cleat and tried to find a dock master. When I looked around at the line up of old boats berthed nearby I quickly gave up hope of finding a dock master. This whole dock was pretty decrepit with not a sign of life anywhere.
Over on the next dock I thought I saw movement and headed that way
I had to walk off of my dock, cross over to the next dock and walk out to where I thought I’d spotted some one. On the way I passed a bunch of really old sail and power boats, a couple of fishing boats and one old tug. No people at all until I came to what looked like a 40 foot yawl. There was a guy there, at the stern, his back to me.
He was leaning over, feet
on the dock, deep into the engine wearing only pants, no shirt and a mile wide expanse of skin. On top of that, his pants rode a little low on his backside, exposing a generous amount of crack. He certainly didn’t look like your usual yacht owner duded out in clothes from West Marine, – more like a stevedore, and a big one, at that.
“Can I ask you a question?” There was no sign he heard me.
I tried again, louder. “Can you help me?”
“God damn it, can’t you see I’m busy? What the hell do you want?” came back in a low rumble.
“I just ferried a boat up from San Diego and I might’ve put it in the wrong slip. Can I leave a note with you?”
He uncoiled out of the engine space and turned out to be about six-foot-three and big, as inrealbig. No pot belly, just a gray haired, massive chest topped by a beard and piercing blue eyes in a tanned and wrinkled face. A long gray pony tail hung out from under a Greek sailors cap shoved on the back of his head. I judged him to be over sixty, but in great shape. His body looked a lot younger than his face. Holding a large crescent wrench in his greasy hands, he pinned me with his eyes. He wasn’t smiling.
“Come again?” he rumbled. “Couldn’t hear you with my head in the engine.”
“Can I leave my name and cell phone number with you? I just ferried a boat up from San Diego and I might have put it in the wrong slip” I repeated. “I’d be happy to come back and move the boat if I did. I’m only about fifteen minutes away on my bike.”
“Okay, which slip?” he said. I pointed out the slip and gave him my boat delivery captain’s card. I was happy to get away from him; I’ve met his type before around the waterfront. They’re kind of social outcasts. Live on their boats, have a kind of gang mentality and often have a short fuse and a long temper. This guy looked like one of those and on top of that was huge.
Back on the boat I cleaned out my gear, hosed the deck and hull with fresh water, draped the ruined mattress over the cabin, lifted my folding bike off the foredeck, set the combination lock and headed for home. Home being my small apartment near Lake Merritt. On the way I stopped at the laundry mat where I left some dirty clothes and picked up 2 local newspapers. Then on to a quick Chinese dinner. I read both papers during dinner and caught up on my craving for politics. Not much had changed in the four days since I’d seen a paper.
One headline was about a State Senator rumored to have been caught with his hand in the till and another one was about a senator being caught with his pants down, literally. As soon as I read the headline, I bet myself that I knew who one of them was. I expected it to be Senator Goldberg, an old timer who somehow or other kept his position as his party’s whip, year after year after year. I was really surprised to find it was Goldberg that was denouncing and excoriating another Senator. Of course the denounced Senator was from Goldberg’s opposing party. The crime the Senator was accused of was taking bribes from a big California land broker. Senator Goldberg was hogging the news for all it was worth. Business as usual.
I found myself dozing and decided it was time to catch up on lost sleep. At sea you catnap. Eventually it catches up with you and you need a good nights sleep. I’d been at sea solo for five nights; it was time for a good rest.
My plan was to sleep in late, then head over to West Marine and get the latest copy of Latitude 38, the best west coast sailing magazine ever. I had an ad running in it and another ad posted at West Marine. With luck, I’d get another delivery job quickly, I sure needed the money.
Things never work out as planned. I was wide awake a little before six AM. Way too early to go out for breakfast, I’d make do with some instant coffee using my hot plate and read the ads for used sailboats. Coffee in hand I must have dozed until my cell phone rang. I jumped up, spilled my coffee, found the phone and answered. “Yeah?”
“CASEY!” the voice roared. “GET YOUR SORRY ASS DOWN HERE LIKE RIGHT NOW OR YOUR GONNA HAVE MY WHOLE GANG ON YOUR TAIL!”
I glanced at my watch, 6:15 A.M. It was still dark outside. Got to be a wrong number I told myself.
“I think you got the wrong Casey,” I quietly responded and started to hang up.
“FOR CHRIST’S SAKE, I KNOW I GOT THE RIGHT CASEY AND THE RIGHT NUMBER, YOU ASSHOLE. YOU JUST GAVE IT TO ME LAST NIGHT,” he bellowed.
A light dawned. “You the guy I met last night down at the docks?”
Now he lowered his voice and became even more threatening. “You bet your sweet ass I am, and I’m telling you right now, get off the damn phone and down here fast.”
“What’s wrong, did I put the boat in the wrong slip?”
“Jesus H. Christ. Are you stupid or something? Do I hafta send some of my gang up there and beat the crap out of you? Who the hell cares what slip you put it in?”
“Is there something wrong with the boat?”
“Shut the hell up and listen. I’ll make it real slow and simple for you.”
In short staccato sentences he said, “Some guy’s been murdered on your boat. The police are here. They want to blame it on me. I told the police about you. They want you here, I want you here. Is that simple enough?
“A murder?”
“Finally, you got it. Now get on your little bicycle and get down here right now or I’ll have my Devils drag you down.”
“Okay, okay. I’m on my way.”
Murder? Police? Devils? What the hell’s going on?
At the bottom of the stairs, Mrs. Perkins, my landlady, blocked my way. Not on purpose, she was just standing there.
“My goodness Casey, you’re up early. Did I hear your phone ring a little while ago?”
She’s old, inquisitive, very nice and has excellent hearing.
Thinking fast I said, “Yeah, kind of an emergency on one of the boats, they need me as quick as possible.”
“Oh that’s too bad dear. I’ve got some fresh crumpets you could have for breakfast. Are you sure you don’t have just a wee bit of time for me?”
“I’m really sorry I gotta rush.” I couldn’t afford to alienate her, she was the perfect landlady.
I sidestepped her with apologies, and rushed to my bike.
As I neared the end of the street leading to the marina, a news truck with antennas on it whizzed by me. This was beginning to look like a big deal.
I skidded to a stop next to a bunch of police cars. It was just coming up daylight and there was a pretty good sized crowd between me and the docks.
The crowd didn’t want to budge. I had to force my way through. I’m not a real big guy, but I’m stronger than I look. My dad always says I have a swimmer’s body. Long lean muscles and fairly slim. I’m also a little taller than most at six foot two and could see over the heads of the crowd.
“Excuse me; excuse me that’s my boat down there.” I worked my way through pushing my bike before me.
When I got up to the front of the crowd, the police held me back, forcibly. I tried to get one of them to pay attention to me.
“Sir” He ignored me. I tried again, louder.-“SIR,” he glanced around. “I think they want me down on the dock. Something about a body on my boat”
It took several attempts to convince him I was wanted on the pier. Finally he barked something into his radio and got permission to let me and my bike through.
My next hurdle was a barricade of yellow tape at the entrance to the docks and a few more policemen. I finally spotted my friend (friend?) from the previous night and caught his eye. He nudged the cop next to him and nodded towards me. The cop had me brought over.
“This the guy you’re waiting for?”
Ignoring the cop he glowered at me and said, “It’s about time you got here! Get the hell over to that cop by your boat and tell him what happened.”
“But I don’t know anything about a body,” I started.
“Shut the hell up and talk to the cop.”
CHAPTER 2
Most of the group around the boat had their backs to me as I approached them.
“Sergeant,” I ca
lled out. He whipped around.
“Who the hell are you? What the hell’re you doing down here? Somebody get this kid out of here.” Was the sergeant’s greeting.
“It’s my boat” I replied.
“Your boat? Then who the hell’s the dead guy and what the hell is he doing on your boat?”
“It isn’t really my boat.”
“You just said it was. Make up your mind.”
“Well, I put it here, but I don’t own it. I just ferried it up from San Diego for the owner last night.”
One of the other police said “he’s the guy Smitty said was his alibi.”
The sergeant immediately bristled. “So you’re in this with Smitty, I should've guessed. You part of the Devils?”
“I don’t even know what the Devils are.”
“Don’t give me that crap. You’re a friend of his and you don’t know about the Devils?”
The cop that’d brought me over said, “Smitty said he just met him last night when he sailed in.”
The sergeant again, “You just brought this boat here last night? Where from”
“Like I said before, direct from San Diego.”
The sergeant wanted me to tell him the whole story, about how I’d been hired to bring the boat up and who owned it. I didn’t tell him about my suspicions about the boat owner or about his bruises and bandages.
“Where’d you go after you left the boat and are there any witnesses to prove where you were?”That scared me.
When I told him about leaving the note with the big guy with the pony tail, he didn’t believe me.
“You expect me to believe a cock and bull story like that? You drive a big Harley like him? How long’ve you been in the gang?” Question after question.
The entire time the cop was quizzing me, the motorcycle guy was glaring at me over the cop’s shoulder. Geez, here I was, literally caught between a rock and a hard place, and only a half hour before I’d been happily sleeping my cares away at home.
“Honest to God, it’s true.”
Casey's Slip Page 1