Free Wreckers' Key by Christine Kling

at Motowave. Mrs. Sparks would usually come scurrying out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a dish towel, and shoo us back into the kitchen. There, she’d sit on a red vinyl chair and, speaking in a hushed voice, tell us that we were not to bother Mr. Sparks as the work he was doing was top secret and he wasn’t allowed to talk about it. We believed it at first, but when we got to be teens we decided she’d been teasing us. Later I read in the paper that Motowave got many of its contracts from the Department of Defense, and I decided old Sparky might have been doing some 007 work after all.
    When we parted, I promised him that I would drop in to visit them once I was back in Fort Lauderdale. I remembered all the times Mrs. Sparks had fed us sweets, listened to our problems, put Bactine and Band-Aids on skinned knees, and shared her love of books with us. Now she was back home gravely ill. We needed to step up, to return the gift of time and comfort. I wondered if Molly even knew—and she lived just down the street from them.
    When I got to Fausto’s market halfway up the block, I paused to look back at Arlen, and I was surprised to see him open the green door and walk into the offices of Ocean Towing. What the hell would he be doing there? He had said that his house was on a canal, so I supposed it wasn’t such a stretch to assume he owned a boat here, too. I tried to picture him at the helm of a powerboat, his long strands of gray hair flying off his bald crown and trailing back in the wind. I shook my head. It was a ridiculous thought.

VIII

    The cabdriver dropped me off at the entrance to Robbie’s boatyard, and as I walked the sandy track in the shadow of the rows of propped-up boats, I felt my pace slowing. I had to go see her. I couldn’t stay away no matter how much I wanted to. Part of my reluctance was the usual shying away from the reminder of my own mortality. We all feel it when we see someone close to us through age or circumstance die unexpectedly. Nestor was about my age and a part of my waterfront world. But he had been more than that to me—hell, I’d once lusted after the body that now lay cold in the morgue. And seeing her was a visceral reminder of that loss. He had been vigorously alive yesterday at this time, and even though I had seen his body I still found myself struggling with the how and the why. How could anyone feel safe in a world that let someone as strong and alive as Nestor die? He was such a good, decent human being. When there were so many scumbags who lived long lives, you couldn’t help but keep asking yourself why.
    But I was also dreading this visit because I knew what she was likely to say. After last night, I knew it wasn’t the why that was driving Catalina. She would begin again trying to convince me that someone had murdered her husband and that I should help her find and punish the who .
    Thanks, but no thanks. First off, I wasn’t convinced— as she was—that there was even anything to investigate. It seemed pretty clear to me that Nestor’s death came at the end of a bad string of accidents. Watching his career go into the toilet had upset him so that he probably wasn’t really paying proper attention on his windsurfer. I remembered how it had been blowing yesterday. Those big schooners had been charging through the water like ornery horses with the bit in their teeth, and it takes a fair amount of wind to get those big heavy boats moving like that. Out in the open ocean on a little sailboard, conditions would have been worse.
    But she is alone now, I thought as I climbed the ladder to the Power Play 's deck. She will have things to see to, arrangements to make, and I am the only friend she has here.
    There was no sign of either Drew or Debbie, but the door to the main salon was wide open, so I went on in. Down in the captain’s cabin, I found Catalina lying on her bunk fully dressed, facing the bulkhead. I wondered if she was sleeping, but before I could