“Happy to help, chief.” He glanced again at the door. There was something back there making him nervous. Something he didn’t want me to ask him about.
“Oh, and one more thing?”
“Yes?”
“What’s behind the door?”
“That door?” He pointed.
“No, the other door you keep looking at like a nervous schoolboy with a closet full of smuggled porn.”
“Right. That door. Just my bed.” He walked across the long room, his bare feet making no noise against the old timbers. He tugged on the latch and opened it.
I followed him. Glanced out at the railing and wooden balcony. The heavy scent of salt water and green things curled up around me. The floor was a hatch and it was shut. I bent, yanked it up on hinges that moved easily.
Stairs stepped downward into darkness. Water, wrinkled and black, rolled, lit by the thin yellow light from his boat anchored right beside the building.
“What don’t you want me to see down there?”
“Nothing, I suppose.”
“Or?”
“Well, I’m…entertaining tonight. Or I would be if you’d get out of here.”
“Do I know this person?”
He shook his head. “We met up at the casino a few weeks ago.”
“She have a name?”
“Margot Lapointe.”
I frowned, searching my memory. “Blonde in a cowboy hat? Has those purple feather extensions woven in her hair?”
He nodded. “That’s her.”
I’d seen her around town, down with Lila Carson, who used to own an interior design store and here in the bar once or twice. “I need you to tell her to step out where I can see her.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Now?”
“Yes.”
“Really.”
“Yes.”
“Because you don’t believe me?”
“Because I either hear her say you’ve been here all night with her, or I search the premises for signs of explosives, starting with the boat.”
“Without a warrant?”
“If you’ve got nothing to hide, it’s more of a friendly look about.”
“They teach you that in cop school?”
“Nope. I learned to be a good friend in kindergarten.” I gave him a winning smile.
