I was halfway through my second egg burrito when I got a call from Detective Hansen.
“ DNA came back. He’s our boy.”
“ Have you talked with his girlfriend?”
“ Yeah. Met with her this morning. Let her know that her missing boyfriend case has turned into a murder case. You still on the job?”
“ I don’t know,” I said. “Technically, I was hired to find the body.”
“ A trawler found the body.”
“ Found is found,” I said. “I’ll check with her.”
“ And what if she relieves you of your services?”
“ She won’t. It’s not just about her boyfriend.”
“ The dogs,” he said.
“ The dogs and the sharks.”
“ I could give a fuck about sharks.”
“ They probably don’t think much of you, either.”
“ Whatever. Let me know what she says. I could use the help.”
“ Could you say that again?”
“ Fuck off, Knighthorse.”
And he hung up.
Any good detective clarifies the parameters of the investigation with the client, especially in a case like this, when the parameters have changed.
I had jumped the gun a little yesterday when I had passed out the flyers at the beach. In a murder investigation, time is of the essence, and we were already a week behind. Tourists go home. People forget. The flyers had to get out. Hired or not hired.
So I arranged to meet Heidi a few hours later at a Starbucks in Sunset Beach. Sunset Beach is famous for the world’s stupidest house. A converted water tower, it soars high above the surrounding two-story clapboard beach homes and inns and used car lots. It’s an example of what too much money can buy. As I sat in Starbucks waiting for Heidi, I could just see the monstrosity. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so ugly if it didn’t sit atop a tangle of steel beams. Maybe, I don’t know. As it was, it looked like an architect’s practical joke.
Shortly, Heidi came in. She spotted me and came over, sitting opposite me. I couldn’t helped but notice that she was dressed in a nice pantsuit. Her face was made up, as well.
“ You want a drink?” I asked.
She shook her head. Her eyes were even redder than the last time I had seen her. Her nose was about as puffy as before.
“ I’m sorry about your boyfriend,” I said.
She nodded again.
“ The police say he was shot,” she said.
“ He was.”
“ You saw him?” she asked.
I nodded. She was about to ask something else, something she probably shouldn’t ask, something that might scar her for life, and I simply shook my head. She got the hint and closed her mouth.
The day was mostly sunny, but there was a wispy cloud coverage that made things interesting. A woman was sitting in her car at the far end of the parking lot feeding seagulls what looked like a chocolate donut.
“ They killed him,” she said after a few minutes. “Those motherfuckers shot him and dumped him in the harbor.”
“‘ They’ being the shark hunters?”
“ Yes, the shark hunters.”
“ Can you tell me when you last saw Mitch?” I asked.
“ The night he disappeared.”
“ Do you recall your last conversation?”
Her last conversation was summarized in the police report, but I wanted to hear it from her. “We were in our apartment in Huntington Beach. Over on Yorktown. He told me he was heading out to meet some of our guys.”
“ Your guys?”
“ Guys who work for us. We have a few dozen volunteers.”
I nodded. “And he went out drinking with these volunteers?”
“ Yes.”
“ Why didn’t you go?”
“ Boys’ night out.”
“ Are these boys night outs his idea?”
She shrugged. “I don’t mind them. Gave us a break from each other. Sometimes you need a night or two off.”
I nodded. She spoke the truth. “Has he ever been out all night before?”
“ Never.”
“ Did you ever suspect him of cheating?”
She looked at me coolly. The glitter around her narrow eyes caught some of the fancy track lighting above. “Never once.”
“ Was he wearing swimming trunks when he left the house?”
“ No. Jeans.”
“ Did he own a red pair of swimming trunks?”
She frowned. “No.”
I next brought up the subject of our working agreement. Mitch, after all, had been found. Would she be interested in hiring me to look into his murder?
She looked at me as if I was a little dense. “Of course.”
I indicated her nice outfit. “You didn’t get dressed up just for me, did you?”
“ I’m meeting with some supporters. Although we’re non-profit, we still need backers to do what we do. Or, I guess, I still need backers.”
I nodded. She went on.
“ We have a website with a PayPal donation button, but we need more than just the occasional fifty-dollar donations to do what we do.”
“ Of course.”
“ Don’t get me wrong. The fifty-dollar donations help. Everything helps. But if we can get a sizable donation, well, we can really make progress. And we were, until the bastards…”
Her voice trailed off. I waited an appropriate length of time, then asked. “Are you going to be okay?”
“ I don’t really care about me, Mr. Knighthorse. I care about them.” She indicated the nearby shoreline. “ They need to be protected from the true animals, and I’ll do whatever it takes to do so.”
I believed it, too.