Chapter 7
A bark worse than a bite
It took us nearly 15 minutes to get the dinghy untangled from the davits and lowered. I wanted to swear at the boys for not putting it away property, but I suspected it was my wine imbibing the night before that had improperly set up the lifting blocks after our trip to the Anchor Inn. But it was still aggravating, made more so by Nym's impatience to get over to The Talking Mime and see what shooting was all about. I was less in a hurry, thinking we would likely be waved off and I also knew I would be rowing in both directions. I vowed to work on our outboard motor later in the day. It had become comatose as we prepared for our voyage last week. It seemed the motor ran fine in San Francisco Bay, but take the 5 horsepower Honda offshore, and it was balky at best.
As we pushed off from Rocinate, both boys bleated their dissatisfaction at being left behind again. But this time it was Nym who played the heavy, arguing that we didn't know what we would run into, and besides, she simply said so.
I marveled at Nym's ease of putting her foot down today, when yesterday she had wanted to bring the boys with us to the harbormaster's office. Then I noticed that instead of her Rocinante sweatshirt and shorts, she had on a very military looking shirt, long slacks, boots more suited to climbing than boating, and was wearing her police-issue mirrored sunglasses.
"You're going to buzz these guys," I said, laughing.
Nym stared at me from behind the mirrored sunglasses, trying not to smile, but I just shook my head at her chutzpah and then resigned myself to probably having to sit in the dinghy while she got aboard The Talking Mime.
In police culture, cops from one jurisdiction frequently give special favors (such as ignoring potential speeding tickets) to other cops, when the police flash their badges to identify themselves (better known as a buzz). In this case, I was more than a little doubtful my 105-pound wife was going to buzz her way onto the boat, but then last night I knew she would've drilled out the kneecaps of any — or all three — of the men threatening us if she knew it was the only way to protect her family.
She also knew — which she told me later — that because she had witnessed their boarding and was an officer of the court, her testimony about the way they boarded, and whether they had just cause to shoot would be given some credibility. As I rowed, she practiced giving hard looks. I tried not to stare, or laugh.
I began covering the distance methodically wth strong, hard strokes, trying to establish a sense of purpose in case the deputies were watching. We seemed to have the water to ourselves as we crossed the distance. In fact, I could only make out a few people on the pier and the shore that seemed to be paying any attention.
At about 50 yards from The Talking Mime, I could see the boat reflected in Nym's glasses, and I saw that one of the deputies was holding his pistol at his shoulder pointed straight up in the air while he spoke into a hand-held radio. Then he yelled directly at us.
"YOU! In the dinghy.
Stand off.
Don't come any closer.
This is police business."
I stopped rowing but didn't turn around. I imagined a flurry of bullets whisking through the water around me.
Nym stood, holding her badge and ID folder directly over her head, showing her other hand to be empty. "I'm a DA," she shouted, whispering "investigator," so low I could barely hear it.
"It's still a sin," I said, getting a smile out of her, knowing her strict Catholic upbringing was already nagging at her for not telling the cop on the boat her true status.
"Just keep rowing, smart guy," she said, still standing up flashing her badge, reminding me of that famous painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware.
As we bridged the gap, I kept waiting for a second challenge and I noticed in Nym's glasses that the cop had dropped both his arms to his sides, the radio still squawking with calls. We were within 10 yards when the deputy told us to halt again, but this time his voice was tentative and instead of telling us to take off, he said to hold our position, as he disappeared down the hatchway and into the boat for a moment.
I nudged us closer, letting the light breeze move us in, thinking I would be rowing against the wind when we went back. Then another deputy, this one with his baseball cap on backwards, yelled for us to tie to the stern where a boarding ladder hung down over a tall transom. "Just you though, mam," he said to Nym. "Your buddy can't come aboard unless he's a DA, too."
Nym answered him by patting me on the head as she climbed out of the dinghy, disappearing out of my sight, down low behind the transom of The Talking Mime. I could hear her introduce herself, now that she was safely aboard and at the shooting scene she said "investigator," first, DA second. Apparently there was no objection, at least none that I could hear.
I felt my stomach tighten slightly, the same way it did whenever Nym walked into these situations and I knew about them. She was very fit, and three years ago had been nationally ranked in martial arts. But I knew her size made assailants and martial arts competitors more likely to underestimate her, though generally they regretted it.
I heard Nym give a girlish laugh, and there was some other laughter from the deputies. I heard one loud, "Oh shut-up" from one deputy, then some more laughter, then Nym's voice saying my name. I heard several words like "stiff, slab" and "body," hoping they were referring to whoever had been shot and not a comment about me.
"Sure, let him see this mess." It was the voice of the deputy with the backwards baseball cap. He had the same southern drawl that you frequently hear from almost any American airline pilot when they make their announcements.
I stuck my head up, eyes peering over the transom and saw Nym standing with the deputies, blocking the entryway to the trawler's cabin. There's was blood, plenty of it, and it occurred to me that I should hear some ambulance sirens pretty soon — unless someone was dead. But even then, I wondered, don't they always call somebody, even to make the official pronounciation of death?
"Alex, you can come aboard, but watch your step, there's blood just in front of you on the cockpit sole."
I crawled up the ladder, weighing in my mind whether I wanted to view a corpse, still a little unclear about why Nym was laughing. I had once gone to a crime scene with her where a man had been killed in a knife fight in an alley. We heard the call on the police scanner on our way out for dinner and she convinced me it was a good idea.
It might've have been a good idea for her — she would get the case and already have it half figured out before she ever went into the office. But for me it prove so awful to see the bloody corpse that I skipped dinner entirely, nursing some wine. Nym devoured a rare steak. The victim hadn't been just stabbed, it looked like his assailant had attempted an appendectomy and maybe a tonsillectomy at the same time.
I shuddered at that thought as I swung my legs over into the boat, glad I hadn't had breakfast yet. Seeing a dead body before breakfast must be some kind of bad luck, I thought.
The cop who had first waved us off, now was sitting on the rail, looking very unhappy as his two partners stepped aside. I figured he had done the shooting and was going to have to do the explaining. And I could see Nym kneeling down on the cabin sole, her back turned to me.
As I stepped closer and looked down, I could see she was tenderly cradling the head of the apparent shooting victim — a very large, very dead, male adult St. Bernard.
Chapter 8 - Call the coroner, or the pound?
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