by Janet Dawson
“I’d like to help,” he said. “I’ll be over in Sonoma County, starting tomorrow. Some friends offered me the use of their house in Bodega Bay. I thought I’d take them up on it. Might as well get started on that book about hiking and camping on the Sonoma and Mendocino coasts. So I’ll be up that way. Call me when you need me, any time.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that. I’ll keep you up to date on how things are going. It looks like I’ll be up in Sonoma County a lot until we find Brian.”
“You’ve got other cases here in the Bay Area,” Dan said.
I nodded. “That means early mornings and late hours in the office.”
After sharing a dessert we walked back to my house. He kissed me good night. “You look tired. Get some sleep.”
“I will.”
But I didn’t. I went to bed and lay staring at the ceiling, fighting back tears and “what ifs,” wondering what had happened to my brother.
Twelve
How can this be happening to me? he thought. It’s a mistake. Surely they’ll realize it’s all a mistake. They’ll let me go.
His head ached, a dull, throbbing pain. Something wet on his forehead, a damp towel, he realized. He opened his eyes but the light was too bright, it hurt. He closed his eyes again and smelled cigarette smoke.
They were talking. “I don’t like it. Somebody’s gonna be missing this guy.”
“Don’t sweat it. We’ll be long gone.”
After a while, they went outside.
He reached for his forehead, the spot where it hurt the most, and realized that he was handcuffed to the bed railing. He lay on a mattress covered with blue-and-white ticking, and his head was on a pillow. With his free hand he moved the damp towel away from his aching head. He stared at it, seeing streaks of blood.
Blood. How badly was he hurt?
He must have fallen asleep. When he woke up again, they had returned. He heard them talking.
“Let me take a look. I want to see what a quarter of a million dollars looks like.”
Thirteen
Early mornings and late hours, as I’d told Dan the previous night.
On Wednesday morning, I rose earlier than usual and had a quick breakfast. Then I drove to my office, which is located in an older building on Franklin Street in downtown Oakland. Despite the fact that I’d cleared my calendar for my vacation, I still had a number of inquiries, via email and phone messages, from prospective clients. I responded to emails and returned phone calls. I wanted to devote as much time as possible to finding Brian. In some cases I put off meetings and appointments until the following week. In others, I simply said I wasn’t available.
Back in my car, I headed across the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge and then north on U.S. 101, up to Sonoma County.
I wanted to talk with Detectives Griffin and Harris about the case of the body on the boat, and take a look at the autopsy report. The report would presumably answer some of my questions. When had the victim died? Who owned the boat? I needed all the information I could get.
Getting information out of the detectives, however, was like pulling hen’s teeth.
The Investigations Bureau of the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office is located in the department’s main building on Ventura Avenue, in the northern part of Santa Rosa. The large two-story building houses a number of departments and divisions. The deputy at the front entrance called Griffin, who came to escort me to his office. Harris wasn’t in evidence, but Griffin took a seat at his desk, his hands steepled in front of him. I wouldn’t want to play cards with this guy, I thought. He had a good poker face, smooth and bland underneath his blond hair. I knew why he was reluctant to share any information with me, and it wasn’t just because I’m a private investigator.
“Your brother is a person of interest in this homicide,” he said.
“Because his MedicAlert bracelet was found at the scene? If that’s all you’ve got, it’s not much.”
“I think it’s significant. How did the bracelet wind up with the corpse?”
“I can think of any number of scenarios,” I said. “Starting with, my brother lost the bracelet somewhere, and your John Doe picked it up. That doesn’t necessarily mean my brother shot John Doe. Have you had any luck identifying the body?”
He placed his hands flat on his desk. “Not so far. His description matches several missing persons in California and other states. Because his hands and feet were burned in the fire, we don’t have much to go on in terms of fingerprints, palm prints, or footprints.”
“Do you have an autopsy report yet? And can I look at it?”
Griffin took his time answering. “The report’s not completed. When it is, I’ll consider letting you look at it.”
I tried another tack. “What about the boat? Who owns it?”
“His name is Lowell Rhine. We haven’t talked with him yet.”
The name sounded familiar, as though I’d heard it before, but I couldn’t place it. I managed to pry one other detail out of Griffin. A witness who lived in a nearby cabin had seen an SUV near the dock before the explosion. The detectives were looking for the vehicle, but hadn’t found it.
I felt frustrated as I left the sheriff’s office. I was not, however, deterred by the unsatisfactory encounter with Griffin. If he wouldn’t help me, I’d go around him, with the help of Sid, Grace and their contacts.
That morning’s edition of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat was spread out on the dining room table at Aunt Caro’s house, with my parents seated side-by-side at the table as they perused it. The front page story about the body was illustrated with an artist’s drawing of the dead man. Below this was a box with an appeal to the public for information that might help identify him.
“I don’t think this sketch looks like Brian at all.” Mother reached for the mug in front of her, took a sip, and grimaced. “This coffee’s cold.”
“I’ll get you a warm-up,” I said.
She shook her head. “Thanks. I’ll get it myself. I can’t just sit here.” She pushed out her chair and stood up, walking into Caro’s kitchen, where a drip coffeemaker with a half-full glass carafe sat on the counter.
I pulled the newspaper toward me and read through the article. The reporter had ferreted out a few more details than Griffin had provided to me. The boat where the body had been found was called the Esmeralda. It was a fifty-foot wooden-hulled cabin cruiser manufactured by Chris-Craft, a well-known boatmaker. The explosion and resulting fire had occurred at approximately one-fifteen A.M. on Sunday morning. According to fire investigators, the explosion and fire had most likely been caused by a propane leak in the boat’s cabin. As to what had ignited the propane, they weren’t saying. The article did say that the victim had been shot before the boat caught fire. There was nothing in the story that indicated who owned the boat, just that the burned-out hull had been hauled away for further investigation.
Aunt Caro came through the back door, carrying a colander full of tomatoes and cucumbers. “Jeri, how about some lunch? Just picked these veggies.”
“You know, a tomato sandwich sounds really good.” I sliced a few tomatoes and slathered some sourdough bread with mayonnaise.
——
I left Santa Rosa after lunch and headed south to Petaluma, then took Lakeville Highway down to Newman’s Roadhouse and Marina. The marina office was open. I stepped inside. The office was about half the size of the roadhouse. To my right was a collection of marine supplies, including hardware and cleaning supplies. In front of me was a short counter with a cash register, and behind this, a desk and a four-drawer filing cabinet. To my left was an interior door. I guessed it led to the bar next door.
A woman sat at the desk, sipping from a mug and reading a worn paperback novel, Agatha Christie’s Hickory Dickory Dock. She was on the far side of fifty, her hair a mixture of gray and blond. As I entered the office, she put the paperback face down on the desk and got up from the chair, coming to the counter. She had hard lines around her eyes and mouth,
but her expression was friendly as she smiled at me. “Hi, can I help you?”
“Is Mr. Newman around?” I asked.
“He’s around,” she said, “but not in the office at the moment.”
“I have some questions about that explosion and fire early Sunday morning, when the boat burned.”
“Are you with the insurance?”
“I do insurance work,” I said, handing her one of my business cards. Let her think I’m investigating the claim on the boat. That’s what the bartender in the roadhouse had assumed yesterday.
The woman looked at my card. “I’m Tracy Burgoyne. I help Walt run the marina and the roadhouse. Oh, that fire, what a mess. And scary. God, I thought the whole marina was going to go up.”
Good, she was a talker. Such people were always helpful when I was investigating something.
“I understand it was a propane explosion. What time did it happen?”
“Before closing time. I think it was fifteen or twenty minutes after one. I’m not sure, wasn’t looking at the clock.” Tracy pointed a thumb at the door. “I was over at the bar, having a brew. And then, bang. I thought somebody dropped a bomb. A guy came running in, yelling there was a fire down at the north end of the marina, that one of the boats was burning. Somebody called the fire department and all the people who was in the bar and around the cottages and boats, they went running down to the dock where that boat was burning. They were using buckets and hoses, trying to put that thing out. It would have been a disaster if the other boats caught fire. There were three boats tied up at that dock, all of ’em belonging to the same guy.”
Tracy paused and took a breath. I started to ask a question. Before I could speak, she went on telling me about the incident. “As it was, that boat burned real bad. And then, to top it off, the fire department guys found a man’s body on the boat.” She grimaced. “What a horrible way to go.”
“Sounds like quite a mess.”
“It was. A big section of that dock is gonna have to be replaced. That’s where Walt is now. He’s meeting with our insurance guy, down at the dock where it happened.”
“How long had the boat been here?”
“I don’t know for sure. It was before Rick...” She stopped and glanced back at the filing cabinet. “I’ll look it up.”
She pulled out the top drawer in the filing cabinet and removed a manila folder. She brought it back to the counter and opened the folder, leafing through several sheets. “Hmm, I don’t see the agreement Walt has all the owners sign. He must have that paperwork with him.”
I took a notebook and pen from my bag, and opened the notebook to the page where I’d written the name Detective Griffin had mentioned. “Let me verify the name of the boat’s owner. I have it listed as Lowell Rhine. Is that correct?”
“Yeah,” Tracy said. “Rhine, like that river in Germany. He’s from San Rafael. Rick knew him, asked his dad to keep the boats here as a favor for the guy.”
I wrote “San Rafael” next to Rhine’s name. Again, I wondered where I’d heard Rhine’s name before. At least now I knew he was from San Rafael.
“And you say Mr. Rhine has three boats berthed here?”
Tracy nodded. “Yeah, the one that burned, the Esmeralda, was the biggest, a fifty-foot cabin cruiser. It was a nice boat, a Chris-Craft. The others are cabin cruisers, too, but not as big. The Silverado is thirty-five feet, and the Rosarita, that’s a forty-footer.”
“You mentioned Rick. Who’s that?”
“Walt’s son,” she said. “He died about six weeks ago, last week in June.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah, well, it happens. What I started to say was, Rick and a friend of his brought those boats here about a week before Rick died.” She thought for a moment. “That would have been the third week in June. That’s when the boats got here.”
“How did Rick die?”
“He wiped out on Highway One, north of Jenner. He skidded on the pavement and went off a cliff. They found his Harley at the bottom, but they never found a body.” Tracy’s mouth twisted into an ironic smile. “Knowing Rick, he was probably speeding. Live fast, die hard. That was Rick all over.”
Highway 1—California’s Coast Highway—is two lanes and sometimes quite narrow. It winds its way along the rocky coast, hugging the cliffs high above the Pacific Ocean. The stretch north of Jenner could be scary and unforgiving, in good weather and bad. Interesting that Rick Newman’s body hadn’t been found. But not unusual. If he’d been thrown into the surf when his bike went off the cliff, the body could have been washed out to sea.
“Rick must have been a young man,” I said.
“Young enough. He was thirty-three, the oldest. Walt always favored Rick, took it real hard when he died.”
“You said the oldest. Does Mr. Newman have another child?”
“Martha. She’s a few years younger than Rick. She doesn’t get along with her dad,” Tracy said. “Walt’s a rough cob, blue-collar, like me. Martha, she’s artistic. Makes pottery. Here, this is one of her pieces. She gave it to me for Christmas. Real pretty, isn’t it?”
Tracy turned back to the desk where she’d left her paperback mystery and picked up the pottery mug she’d been drinking from when I entered the office. She brought it to me. It looked a lot like the mug my brother had, though a different color. This one was glazed in green and blue with gold highlights.
“Yes, it’s lovely.” I took the mug from Tracy and examined it. There was an inch or so of coffee inside the mug. I raised it past eye level so I could see if the mug was signed on the bottom. It was, with a stamp that looked like a long, narrow leaf with a letter in the middle.
“Is that an ‘M’ for Martha?”
“No, it’s a ‘W’ for Willow. That’s what Martha calls herself now.”
“Does she indeed.” I set the mug on the counter. “She does good work. Is her pottery in any of the galleries around here?”
“Occidental,” Tracy said, naming a small town in the forested coastal hills west of Sebastopol. “She lives there, too.”
“You know a lot about the Newman family,” I said.
Tracy smiled. “I don’t just work here. Walt and me, well, we live together. I moved in about five years ago. Used to live here before that, in one of the cabins. I was working in the roadhouse, barmaid, cook. Still do a little bit of that, plus working the marina side.”
“What about his wife, the children’s mother?”
“Arlene? She died last year, had cancer. Her and Walt, they divorced about ten or twelve years ago. It was right after Martha graduated from high school. Arlene remarried, a real nice guy named Steve Kennett. He lives in Cotati. He called us when Arlene got sick, to keep us posted. And when she died, he let us know about the funeral and all that.”
“I suppose Rick and Martha went to Petaluma High School.”
“Oh, sure. They rode the bus when they were younger. Then Rick got his motorcycle and Martha had her own car.”
I didn’t see any family photographs here in the marina office and I was itching to see what Martha, or Willow, looked like. And her deceased brother as well. If they’d gone to Petaluma High School, they probably had photos in the yearbook. Since Lance Coverdell was a Petaluma native, I wondered if he’d retained his PHS yearbooks, or if he’d known the Newman siblings in high school.
“I guess the marina’s doing well,” I said. “Looks like most of the slips are full.”
“Oh, yeah, we got good prices, real competitive, you know, compared to those marinas in town. And we’re downriver, closer to the bay. Walt’s hoping to buy some land, just south of here. That way we can build more docks and spruce up the place.” She looked past me and smiled. “Here’s Walt now.”
I turned and looked at Walt Newman, owner of Newman’s Marina and Roadhouse. He was in his late sixties, I guessed, about six feet tall, with a face that looked lived-in, bags under his brown eyes and a network of wrinkles and freckles decorating his skin.
He had a beer gut above the belt of his faded jeans. His hair had once been a sandy brown and I could see some of that color amid the gray that did a poor job of covering his bald spots. Right now he had a face as stormy as a thundercloud.
“What did the insurance guy say?” Tracy asked.
“God damn it,” Walt Newman said. “Passel of trouble, nothing but trouble.”
Tracy frowned. “Trouble about what?”
“The insurance. That damned high deductible. Gonna have to eat a big chunk of cash on the repairs to the dock. And Rhine called. He’s sending somebody to pick up the other two boats. So now we’re out the berthing fees for all three.”
“That’s rough, coming right now,” Tracy said. “We could sure use the money from those berthing fees. And we need to get that dock fixed as soon as we can.”
He scowled at her. “I know that. Damn it, never rains but it pours.”
Tracy glanced at me. “Oh, Walt, this lady’s here to see you.”
Newman walked past me, around the counter’s end, to the desk on the other side. He scowled at me and said in a gruff voice, “Who are you and what do you want?”
I guessed I didn’t look much like a prospective customer. Or maybe Newman was this brusque with everyone who walked through the door. I took out one of my business cards. “My name’s Jeri Howard.”
He stared at the card. “Private eye, huh. It figures. Are you one of those damn tree huggers that’s trying to shut me down?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Then what the hell do you want?”
“I have some questions about the fire.”
“Talk to the fire department.” He crumpled my card and tossed it into the wastebasket. Then he walked to the door that separated the marina office from the roadhouse. He wrenched it open and went through it, slamming the door in his wake.
“I’m sorry about that,” Tracy said. “He’s really in a bad mood, has been since the fire. I guess it’s gonna cost a bunch to repair that burned dock, and the high deductible we had on the insurance doesn’t help. Plus, Mr. Rhine’s gonna take those two boats. That and the boat that burned, that was a couple thousand bucks a month in fees, money we won’t have now.”