Page 25 of Mother-Daughter Murder Night

“Look, I already told them, it’s none of their business. I wasn’t there. So what? I’m the owner. I don’t have to be there every second . . .” Paul’s eyes were growing wider, his hands juggling imaginary balls in the air.

Lana put her hand lightly on his forearm and brought him back to the table. “Paul, they didn’t even bring it up. When the detectives came to our house, they focused completely on Jacqueline.”

“Really? That’s good.” Lana’s eyes narrowed, and Paul quickly changed his tone. “I mean, not good. But I guess they know what they’re doing.”

“Hardly,” Lana said. “Seems to me they don’t know squat.”

Paul shot her a smile. “You want another drink?”

Two martinis, six Coronas, and a basket of fried calamari later, Paul and Lana were old friends. Paul extolled his business acumen—beers two and three—and then expounded—beer four—on the incompetence of the local authorities. The harbormaster was a watered-down, sauced-up version of the three previous harbormasters, all of whom were related. The coast guard cared more if their uniform pants were creased than if the waterways were in order. The sheriff wanted total control of the marina, except when anyone who’d donated to his reelection campaign got in trouble. The jurisdictions crisscrossed in dizzying permutations, leaving parking tickets double-charged, boat fires uninvestigated, and enterprising businessmen like Paul completely on their own.

Which was apparently the way he liked it. Paul described the marina as a kind of Wild West, himself and his buddy Scotty O’Dell the heroic duo working together to keep the peace. Lana squinted up at a grainy photo of bristly fishermen in a gilt frame above Paul’s head, trying to imagine Gary Cooper among the crabbers lined up in their rubber waders. It was a stretch.

Lana shuddered and gave Paul her widest eyes.

“It sounds lawless. Do you really think it’s safe for Jacqueline to be out there?”

“Tiny’s my best guide. I’m gonna need her back at work this weekend, now that the slough’s reopened. And she’ll be safe with me.”

“You mean, when you’re there. Which is when, exactly?”

“Look, Lana, I’m not gonna lie. What happened to that guy was terrible. But whoever hit that dude over the head knew him. A crime of passion, they said. Committed by someone who was seriously pissed off. So unless your granddaughter was close with Ricardo Cruz—”

“She wasn’t.”

“Then I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt her.”

“He was hit in the head by an acquaintance? How do you know that?”

Paul’s hands went still on the table, as if he was surprised to hear his own words spoken back to him. His eyes darted around the room. “Uh . . . that’s what Fredo told me.” Paul pointed to a shriveled man in dungarees at the bar. “His great-nephew is the harbormaster.”

“With what?”

“What what?”

“With what did he get hit in the head?”

“I’m not sure,” he finally said. “Something heavy. Metal, I heard.”

“That’s even worse.” And interesting. As far as she knew, there weren’t any heavy, metal objects just lying around the slough. Lana looked at the fork in her hand, willing herself to remember to jot down a note about the weapon later. Then she looked up at Paul, who was eyeing her with discomfort, as if his sandals were suddenly too tight for his feet. Which warranted one more push.

She shook her head. “A young man. On one of your tours. Violently attacked.”

“He wasn’t on a tour.”

“Oh, and you’d know. Because you were there. Except, you weren’t.”

Paul’s face flashed fierce for a moment, like an angry rodent flushed from its den.

Lana leaned back. She should have known better than to use sarcasm with a man. She gave him a weak smile and shifted her tone.

“Paul, I’m sorry. I’m just worried. I want to believe you, but until we know more about what happened or even who this Ricardo was . . .”

His face softened from concrete to clay. She kept going.

“So far, all I’ve heard is that he was a young man from Santa Cruz, some kind of naturalist, booked on one of your tours.”

“A naturalist?” Paul looked at her. “What kind of naturalist?”