Free Daiquiri Dock Murder by Dorothy Francis Page A

commissioners. Maybe a stranger appeared in the dark of night, killed Diego, hoping to be appointed to replace him as a commissioner. Maybe nobody in this room was guilty of this horrible crime.
    “Have any of you seen this uniform before?” Ramsey asked.
    We all nodded as Brick spoke up. “Of course I’ve seen it—or one like it—many times. It was the chief dock master’s work uniform at my marina. Diego owned several of them and I kept a couple of extras in an employee’s closet at the chandlery in case I needed to call in a sub.”
    Ramsey nodded. “I feel sure you’ve all seen such a similar uniform before. But did anyone see it last night?”
    Nobody answered and Ramsey picked up a closed plastic bag, the kind with a bright-colored zipper across the opening. A bit of coarse dark hair almost filled the small container. A strand of it hung outside the bag, caught in the zipper. I could hardly bear to look. I focused my gaze on the bag, but I let my eyes glaze, forcing myself to avoid looking at Diego’s hair by concentrating on other things. My car. My computer. The Blue Mermaid. For a few moments I could avoid facing the hair, but I couldn’t avoid Chief Ramsay’s intrusive voice.
    “This hair came from the victim’s head.” Ramsay’s voice forced me to look at the bag and think about the hair. “It had been tangled in the anchor line of The Bail Bond. Perhaps the murderer intended to make the death scene look as if the victim died accidentally. Perhaps. But no. The perpetrator knew someone would find the concrete block soon. He had tangled Diego’s hair in the anchor line for shock value.
    Next, Ramsey displayed a leather thong holding a medallion that advertised the Vexton marina. Again nobody spoke. Ramsey laid it on top of the concrete block and picked up a bit of hand-tooled leather. “Anyone seen this before?”
    I spoke. “I’ve seen it many times. I know it belonged to Diego because my father made it for him many years ago as a gift. As a craftsman, Dad enjoyed tooling objects from leather.”
    Ramsey laid the thong aside. “And this?” Now he stepped in front of his desk and held a diamond stud earring in the palm of his outstretched hand as he passed in front of each of us, offering the stud for our inspection. His pudgy hand matched the rest of his body. At times, the gem shifted its position and almost disappeared in a fleshy crease below Ramsey’s index finger. Everyone except Brick examined the diamond from a distance. Brick reached to touch it.
    “I can’t be sure that earring belonged to Diego,” Brick said. “But I know he owned and usually wore a stud similar to this one.”
    While the chief displayed his exhibits, Lyon scribbled in a small notebook. Now he jammed the notebook into the pocket of his suit coat. Suit coats. I guessed that’s the way the chief and his detectives set themselves apart from ordinary citizens. They wore suit coats even on days like today when the temperature threatened to hit the high eighties. I wondered if Lyon had been jotting down our reactions to the desk-top exhibits. I’d been making mental notes, but I’d noticed little reaction from anyone.
    I wondered how difficult it would be to hold one’s expression in a neutral mode while looking at the last effects of a man you’d murdered the night before. Surely a brow would quirk or a jaw would clench.

Chapter 9
    (Early Sunday Afternoon)
    Ramsey pulled a cardboard box from under his desk, placed Diego’s effects in it, and shoved it back under the desk.
    I shuddered as I thought about the grisly items in that box. Had I been the one found dead, what evidence would Ramsey have deemed important enough to save in my cardboard box? Forcing myself to pay attention, I shook that grim thought from my mind and tried to concentrate again on matters at hand. The blue line the killer tied to the concrete block stuck in my memory, but why? Maybe because it matched the shade of my favorite turquoise