The Narrows

where?"
    "Just across the water. Long Beach, I think."
    "What did you mean a minute ago when you said he liked to go fishing and get his ashes hauled?"
    "I meant exactly that. We took him fishing and when we'd stop off in Cabo, he always had something on the side."
    "So each night on this last trip, you guys brought the boat into port, always to Cabo." "The first two nights in Cabo and then the third night we made it to San Diego."
    "Who chose those places?"
    "Well, Otto wanted to go to Cabo, and San Diego was just the halfway point on the trip back. We always take it slow going back."
    "What happened in Cabo with Otto?"
    "I told you, he had a little something on the side down there. Both nights he got cleaned up and went into town. I think he was meeting a senorita there. He had made some calls on his cell phone."
    "Is he married?"
    "Far as I know. I think that's why he liked the four-day charters. His wife thought he was out there fishing. She probably didn't know about stopping in Cabo for a Margarita-and I'm not talking about the drink."
    "What about Terry, did he go into town?"
    He answered without hesitation.
    "Nope, Terry had nothing going in that department and he would never leave the boat. He'd never even step on the dock."
    "How come?"
    "I don't know. He just said he didn't need to. I think he was superstitious about it."
    "How so?"
    "You know, the captain stays with the vessel, that sort of thing."
    "What about you?"
    "Most of the time I hung with Terry and the boat. Every now and then I'd go to town to one of the bars or something."
    "What about on that last trip?" "No, I stayed with the boat. I was a little short of bread."
    "So on that last trip, Terry never got off the boat?"
    "That's right."
    "And nobody besides you, Otto and him were ever on the boat, right?"
    "That's-well, not exactly."
    "What do you mean? Who was on the boat?"
    "On the second night going into Cabo we got stopped by the federates. The Mexican Coast Guard. Two guys came on board and looked around for a few minutes."
    "Why?"
    "It's sort of a routine. Every now and then they stop you, make you pay a little tariff, then they let you go."
    "A bribe?"
    "A bribe, a payoff, a bite, whatever you want to call it."
    "And that happened this time."
    "Yeah, Terry gave them fifty bucks when they were in the salon and then they split. It was all pretty fast."
    "Did they search the boat? Did they look at Terry's medicine?"
    "No, it didn't get to that. That's what the payoff is for, to avoid all of that."
    I realized I hadn't been taking notes. A lot of this information was new and worth exploring further but I sensed that I had enough for the moment. I would digest what I had and come back to it. I had a feeling that Buddy Lockridge would give me whatever time I needed, as long as I made him feel like a player in the investigation. I asked him for the exact names and locations of the marinas where they had docked overnight on the trip with Otto and I did write this information in my notebook. I then reconfirmed our appointment on McCaleb's boat for the next morning. I told him I was taking the first ferry across and he told me he'd be on it as well. I left him there because he said he wanted to go back into the chandlery to pick up some supplies.
    As we dumped our coffee cups into the trash can, he wished me luck with the investigation.
    "I don't know what you're going to find. I don't know if there is anything to find, but if Terry had help with this, I want you to get whoever it was who helped him. You know what I am saying?"
    "Yes, Buddy, I think I know what you are saying. I'll see you tomorrow."
    "I'll be there."

CHAPTER 5
    On the phone that night from Las Vegas my daughter asked me to tell her a story. Just five years old, she was always wanting me to sing to her or tell her stories. I had more stories than songs in me. She had a scruffy black cat she called No Name and Maddie liked me to make up stories involving great peril and bravery that ended with No Name winning the day by solving the mystery or finding the lost pet or the lost child or teaching a bad man a lesson.
    I told her a quick story about No Name finding a lost cat named Cielo Azul. She liked it and asked me for another but I said it was late and I had to go. Then, out of the blue, she asked me if the Burger King and the Dairy Queen were married. I smiled and marveled at how her mind worked. I told her they were married and she asked me if they were happy.
    You can become