Free A False Dawn by Tom Lowe Page A

do my job.”
    “I think you haven’t come up with an ID yet or a real suspect.”
    “This isn’t CSI Miami, O’Brien.  Push me, I push back.  Promise you that.”
    “Here’s a promise:  if you don’t find out who killed the girl, I will.”
    He slammed the phone.  I gripped the receiver hard, my knuckles like cotton. 
    I looked out at the stillness of the river and thought about my conversation with Ron.  A second murder.  Was it the same perp?   Atlacatl imix cuanmiztli I heard her garbled words through the whisper of air from her punctured lung.
    The room suddenly seemed cold.    
    There was a noise near my driveway.  I picked up my Glock, looked out the window, and saw a car parked under the live oaks at the far end of my drive.  By the time I got to the front door, the car was gone. 

 
     
     
     
    SEVENTEEN
     
    I skipped breakfast the next day, loaded a case of beer and Max into the Jeep and drove straight to Ponce Inlet Marina.  I was looking forward to a quiet Monday on Jupiter .  I’d plan to install a GPS system on the boat.
    As I walked by the tiki bar, on the way to my boat, Kim, the bartender, smiled one of her thousand-candlelight smiles and held up her hand for me to stop.  She was in her early forties.  Easy smile.  Dark hair and brown eyes that had their own sense of humor.
    “Looks like a party,” she said, glancing at the beer and then at me.
    “I always seem to get thirsty when I work on the boat all day.”
    “Hi Max!”  Kim bent down and picked Max up, kissing her head.  “So you’re the lucky girl who’s first mate.”  Max’s tail wagged nonstop.
    “Sean, were you on Jupiter a couple of nights ago?”
    “No, why?”
    “I was closing and thought I saw a light on your boat.  Like a flashlight.”
    “Sure it was Jupiter ?”
    “Not positive.  But it looked like it was your boat.”
    “Did you see anyone leave?”
    “No.”
    “Thanks, Kim.”
    She set Max on the ground to follow me.  “No problem.  That’s what I’m here for, neighborhood watch.”
    The breeze across the Intracoastal delivered the scent of a receding tide, barnacles drying on pilings, exposed oyster bars, and mullet feeding across the mud flats.
    The St. Michaels had returned.  Nick’s fishing boat, with its Old World look and feel, seemed to rest quietly in its slip.  On the dock next to the boat, Nick's Calico cat squatted on its haunches, chewing a severed fish head.
    Jupiter sat waiting for me like an old friend.  I stepped into the cockpit and began carefully examining everything I owned.  Deck chairs, cooler, ropes, anything that might look out of place.  I raised the hatch to the engine and begin looking for any sign of intrusion or something that didn’t belong in the bowels of Jupiter .  Nothing.
    I opened the salon door lock and stepped inside, Max following at my heels. 
    The first sign.  Max darted around the salon sniffing every piece of furniture.  The fur raised slightly on her back. “What do you smell, Max?  Let’s check below.”
    The second sign.  Sherri’s picture had been moved, slightly, but I could tell.  A faint dust line on the shelf gave it away.  If it were not for Kim tipping me off, and Max’s antics, I may not have noticed that someone had been on Jupiter.  
    I examined the rest of the boat and could find nothing stolen.  A few things seemed slightly out of place, but nothing gone.  I would check topside in a moment.  I didn’t think I’d find anything taken from there.  If robbery wasn’t the motive, what was? 
    Through Jupiter’s portside window, I saw the feet with the flip-flops.  A few seconds later, Nick Cronus bellowed, “Permission to come aboard.”  Nick eased down like a sloth from the dock into the cockpit.  He had thick curly black hair, moustache, smiling dark eyes, and skin stained the hue of creosote.  A lifetime at sea, pulling nets, traps and battling storms had given him a Herculean build tempered