Free Just Add Salt (2) by Jinx Schwartz Page A

not take your vessel away from the dock until you hear from me. We’ll have more questions later. After the autopsy. For now, though, where can I find you?”
    “Uh, I live here.”
    “Not for the next twenty-four hours, you don’t. Where can I reach you?”
    Jan gave him her address and phone number. I was officially homeless.
     
    My homelessness was short-lived. The very next morning, after another interview, the cops removed their yellow tape declaring Raymond Johnson a crime scene, and released my boat back to me. They were very polite and didn’t seem to be exactly accusing me of anything, but, just in case, I called Allison Wontrobski, my lawyer, of sorts.
    “Hey girl, what’s up? You in jail?” Allison drawled. She hadn’t lost one bit of her Texas accent since she, Jan and I all migrated to the Bay Area from Houston. Allison—petite, beautiful, black and sassy—was a legal barracuda. My kind of lawyer.
    “Not exactly. I do have this itty bitty problem, though.” I explained the situation and that, even though I had my boat back, I was told not to leave town. And, they wanted to talk to me again, downtown. It was the downtown thing that made me think it a good idea to bring along legal muscle.
    “Shit, Hetta, I was kidding. How do you get yourself into these messes? Oh, never mind. Where and when? I’ll be there. Do you seriously think they are gonna book you for murder? I ain’t no criminal lawyer, you know.”
    “I didn’t murder anyone, so no. But I could use some moral support. Just look criminal lawyerly.”
    “You got it.”
     
    Norquist and another cop seemed to be having a grand old time at my expense. Jan was allowed into the interview, as was Allison, whom I introduced as my lawyer.
    “So, Miss Coffey, you say you never met,” he shuffled in his notes, “Mr. Lonnie Jones?”
    “Never met him, never heard of him. Is he the, er, victim.”
    “Oh, he's the victim, all right. A victim of advanced organ failure due to substance, probably alcohol, abuse.”
    “You mean he got drunk, fell off the dock and somehow got tangled on my anchor and drowned? It was an accident?”
    “Not exactly. You see, Mr. Jones was embalmed.”
    “Been there myself a couple of times.”
    Norquist and his partner burst out laughing. I wasn’t all that amused with my clever self.
    Allison was a little quicker than Jan and I on the uptake. “You mean,” she asked, “that Mr. Jones, who somehow ended up on Hetta’s anchor, was already dead and had been embalmed?”
    “So it seems. His body was lifted from a local funeral home.”
    I was stunned into silence, not a natural state for me. Jan’s eyes were bigger than usual and I detected a touch of green around her gills. “Someone,” she gasped, “stole a dead person? How awful for his family.”
    Leave it to Jan to worry about others, all I felt was a huge sense of relief. But why my anchor? “Was this some kind of practical joke?” I asked, hoping it was just that. Deep down, though, I suspected this was no joke and that someone, for some weird reason, put that poor man’s body on my anchor. A warning? For what?
    Norquist must have sensed my dismay, for he asked, “Miss Coffey, do you have any reason to think otherwise? Do you suspect Mr. Jones was deliberately, uh, placed on your particular anchor?”
    “Certainly not.” I tried to look properly indignant.
    “Well then, I guess you can return to your boat.”
    “You mean I’m off the hook?” I asked, then regretted my unfortunate word choice.
    Jan shot me a horrified look, but Norquist didn’t seem to notice my gaffe. Oops, there I go again.
    “Just let us know when you plan to leave the dock, and how to reach you.”
    “I can go to Mexico?”
    “Whatever floats your boat.”
    I guess two can play the word game.
     
    Back on Raymond Johnson , I spent the afternoon scrubbing decks and anchor chain. Not that any of Mr. Jones remained, I just felt the need for a physical and mental