Free Knight's Late Train by Gordon A. Kessler

being in her mid-seventies.
    “Maybe the dumb Greek was telling one truth to draw me off,” Rankle said.
“He told me ‘ Slip 12 ’, didn’t he?”
    The old woman sailor on the boat gathered up her calico cat and stood gawking at them. “Who’s the prick in the suit,” she asked, “and why is he eyeballing my boat?”
    Smokey smiled at the seventy-something-year-old, admiring her perception. She had discovered a fondness for the old gal from the start when she met Esmeralda McCourkle and rented her the slip earlier this morning.
    Old lady McCourkle released her cat, and it leapt to the pier. She told it, “Sic him, Friendly!”
    The cat trotted up aggressively, but stopped about ten feet from Rankle, turned sideways with arched back and started a spit and hiss fit.
    “Slip 21 is over here,” Lt. Legend said and gently led Rankle away.
    In a few seconds they were standing in front of E Z’s boat.
    “The Reckless Abandon ?” Rankle asked, reading the boat’s stern. “That’s an understatement.” He scanned the old 27-foot Catalina, then his eyes lit up. “I’m betting Knight is here, and he’s hiding inside the boat’s cabin right now.”
    Smokey saw the bikini top and bottom la ying out on the cabin roof as if drying in the sun. A towel lay in the open cabin companionway.
    Rankle stepped onto the boat and withdrew his gun, as the small vessel rocked. “Come out with your hands up! You know I won’t mind putting a bullet in you.”
    In a blur of pink flesh, a young nude woman raced out, threw a small fur-ball at Rankle and dove into the water beside the dock.
    The fur-ball turned out to be a very angry ferret. It latched onto Rankle’s nose. The ADA went crazy and fired two shots wildly, before the small polecat let go. It bounded twice across the boat and then followed the girl into the water.
    “Stop it!” Smokey yelled. “You’re going to kill someone.”
    “What the hell was that?” Rankle said, not paying attention to Smokey, his gun aimed at the cabin companionway. “Knight, come out!” He edged closer, then stepped down into the cabin. In a couple of seconds, he was back out.
    “He’s not here,” he said, blood dripping from his nose. He looked over the side of the boat at the water. “Who’s the girl?”
    “It was only Jada,” Tamara said. “You damn near killed her!”
    Smokey added, “She’s just a teenager who does odd jobs around the marina for folks. She cleans their boats, chips some paint ….”
    “And sleeps with them?” Rankle asked.
    Smokey sh ook her head. “She sometimes stays in boats when the owners are away.”
    Rankle smiled. “She’s a minor, isn’t she?”
    “She’s a computer geek,” Smokey said.
    “And she has an illegal, wild , exotic animal as a pet,” Rankle said, now holding a monogrammed handkerchief to his nose.
    Smokey realized what was coming. Nostradamus was a stray but very sociable ferret that E Z had befriended and the kids around the marina had grown very attached to, including Jada and her own son Rabbit and little daughter Dolly.
    “You mean that wharf rat?” Smokey asked, remembering she’d seen a dead one next to the garbage this morning. “Looked to me like she was trying to get away from it as much as she was trying to get away from you. The poor girl was scared to death. She thought you intended to shoot her.”
    “ It was a ferret that attacked me, and ferrets are illegal in California.” Rankle’s voice became excited, “I’m making a long list. Knight’s going back to prison as soon as I find him. Indecent liberties with a minor, statutory rape, probably sodomy, illegal possession of an exotic animal, violating parole by both leaving the county and state without permission, as well as by violating a Federal court ordered restraining order. I’ve got him. I’ve got him by the short hairs!”
    “ It wasn’t a ferret and what you got might be hydrophobia,” Smokey said. “You get peed on, spit at — and now