CHAPTER TWO #2
“Even if all of that is true, if this was just an accident, what the hell does any of that matter?” he grated out, eyes flashing angrily.
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m talking to a lot of people and asking them the same questions, Mr. Pruitt.” Maybe a lot was a stretch, but there were definitely some people I needed to talk to besides Dale.
He watched me warily. “I was at home with my wife last night.”
“From when until when?”
He shifted restlessly. “From about noon until this morning.”
I frowned. “You quit work at noon yesterday?” I didn’t know many commercial fishermen who had that luxury.
“Not by choice.” He rubbed his grizzled jaw. “I was out fishing, but noticed the bilge was holding more water than it should. When I checked the pump, the float switch was dead. I decided to head in early rather than babysit the bilge all day with a manual pump.”
“I see.”
“You sound like you don’t believe me.” He scowled. “I’m telling you I was home all night with my wife. Ask her.”
“I will.” I smiled and his eyes flickered. “Did you go out again at all? Maybe after a nice evening at home with the wife you came down to the harbor to check on your boat?”
“No.” Resentment burned in his eyes.
“You didn’t like Eddie though, did you?” I noticed the flush that crept up his cheeks.
“I didn’t think Eddie was the saint everyone else around here did,” he growled. “But I wouldn’t have hurt the guy.”
I narrowed my eyes. “And yet you made verbal threats to Eddie.”
“It was all talk.” He leaned against his truck, mouth grim. “And as I said, I was home all night with my darling wife.”
I didn’t believe him. But just because he might be lying about where he was last night didn’t mean he’d done anything to Eddie.
People had all kinds of reasons for lying to the police.
Dale was angry, but that didn’t make him guilty of anything.
People who felt they were wrongly accused were usually angry.
“Okay, well, I’ll have a chat with your wife.” I forced a smile. “Appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.”
“Like I had a choice?” he muttered, yanking open the door of his truck.
I headed back down the dock toward the Pacific Lady and noticed a dark-haired guy with a notebook and pen, talking to a group of fishermen.
He had to be the reporter the harbor master had mentioned.
He was lean, maybe mid-thirties, although age was hard to tell at this distance.
He was listening more than he was talking, and most of the fishermen seemed comfortable with him.
Apparently he’d taken the time to build real relationships in this community.
Or maybe he was just cultivating sources. It was hard to tell with journalists.
I’d dealt with plenty of reporters in Portland.
Most of them were fine. A few were genuinely helpful, the kind who’d sit on a story if you asked them to.
But even the good ones had an agenda that wasn’t always aligned with mine, and the bad ones could blow an investigation wide open with a single premature headline.
I didn’t know which kind this guy was yet, and until I did, he was a variable I needed to manage.
The crowd that had gathered was creeping too close to Eddie’s boat.
Bree was busy hanging the tape, so she hadn’t noticed them encroaching.
A few people had their phones out and I didn’t want pictures of Eddie’s body spreading through the community or online.
It was disrespectful to Eddie and his family.
“I need everyone to step back from the boat,” I said loudly. “Please head farther down the dock. This is an active scene.”
People moved quickly, most of them looking apologetic. The reporter moved with them, but not far. He repositioned near the fuel dock, where he still had a sightline to the boat. His body language said nonchalant, but I knew he’d picked that spot deliberately. Clever. Annoying, but clever.
Bree finished taping the perimeter while I conferred with the harbor patrol officer about securing the boat overnight. I was at the end of my conversation when I became aware of the reporter guy approaching from my right. Notebook out. Pen in hand.
Here we go.
“Excuse me, Chief Hale. I’m Spencer Cross, Coral Cove Beacon.”
I looked at him. Up close, he was younger and more attractive than I’d thought. Early thirties tops. Sharp blue eyes and a nice full mouth. His smile was warm. Non-threatening. Absolutely calculated to put me at ease. I couldn’t deny it was a nice smile, but it wasn’t going to work on me.
“Any chance you could tell me some details about what happened here?” he asked. “That’s Eddie Salcedo’s boat. So, I’m assuming the body is Eddie’s?”
“Spencer Cross,” I repeated, realizing I knew the name. “I know who you are.”
I’d never met Spencer in Portland, but I’d heard of him.
He had a reputation as a cop hater. I wasn’t sure if it was fair.
Some cops, even good cops, often resented anyone who went after men in blue, even when those men were dirty.
That kind of blind loyalty had never made much sense to me.
Bad cops made us all look bad. If you were dirty, you deserved what you got. Not all my brothers in blue agreed.
“Do you?” He seemed surprised.
“I’m familiar with your work back in Portland.”
“Oh, that’s right.” He smiled, moving closer. “You’re from Portland too. Hey, seeing as we’re both from the same place originally, maybe you could share some details with me about who the victim is and what happened.”
I was not about to confirm the identity of the deceased to a reporter before the next of kin had been notified. Basic procedure, and the fact that he’d asked told me he was either testing my boundaries or rusty on how these things worked.
I frowned. “I’m sorry. When I said people needed to stay back because this is an active scene, did you think that didn’t include you?”
Color rose in his face. I’d embarrassed him. I hadn’t meant to, exactly, but I also wasn’t sorry about it. Boundaries mattered. If I gave an inch to the press on day one of an investigation, I’d spend the rest of it chasing the narrative instead of controlling it.
“Well, I’m not just here gawking at the body,” he said. “I’m trying to write an accurate story for my paper.”
“And you think that because we’re both from Portland, I’ll just invite you on the boat or something?”
“I noticed you had your officer hang crime scene tape,” he said, ignoring my sarcasm. “That’s not usually the case when it’s an accidental death, is it?”
“We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet.”
“I see.” He twisted his lips, glancing at the boat. “Why do I get the feeling your department is treating this as a suspicious death?”
“I have no idea,” I said dryly. “Maybe because you’re a reporter and your kind like to jump to conclusions.”
He laughed. I hadn’t expected that. Most reporters got offended or pushed harder. Spencer just laughed. It was a nice husky laugh too. He really was more charming than I’d expected. I’d have to watch him. He was the kind of guy who could weasel his way in before you realized what was happening.
“That’s not true,” he said.
“No?” I allowed myself half a smile. “Seems like that’s exactly what you’re doing right now.”
He shrugged. “I’m just asking questions. That’s my job.”
“Fair enough,” I said agreeably. “And figuring out what actually happened here by examining the facts is mine. The department will issue a statement when we have something to share.”
“And you won’t confirm you’re treating Eddie’s death as suspicious?”
I held onto my patience. “We’re investigating the circumstances of the victim’s death. That’s all I can tell you right now.”
He studied me for a moment, and I had the uncomfortable sense of being read. Not in a hostile way. More like he was filing me away the same way I’d filed him away, each of us trying to figure out what the other one was.
“You know,” he said, “we’re really on the same side. We both just want the truth.”
I’d heard that line from reporters before.
It was never true, not entirely. Cops wanted the truth, even if it took a while to get it.
Our evidence had to hold up in court. Reporters wanted the truth on a deadline, in their words, on the front page by morning.
Those two versions of wanting the truth collided more often than they aligned.
“Even if that’s true,” I said, “I can’t tell you any more than I already have. Sorry.”
“Okay.” He sighed, but it wasn’t defeated. It was patient. Like he’d expected this and was already planning his next move. “Well, I’ll be around if you decide you want to talk.”
I nodded and turned back to the scene. I could feel him watching me as I walked away, and I made a mental note: Spencer Cross was going to be a problem. I was sure of it.
* * *
I spent the rest of the morning and afternoon on the boat and at the dock.
Bree and I photographed the scene, bagged what evidence there was, and coordinated with the county medical examiner’s office for the body removal.
I talked to six fishermen, three dock workers, and the owner of the bait-and-tackle shop.
Nobody had a bad word to say about Eddie Salcedo.
Well-liked. No known enemies. Steady as a man could be.
Except.
Two of the fishermen pulled me aside and admitted, independently and without prompting, that Eddie and his partner, Gil Moran, hadn’t been getting along lately. When I pressed for details, neither would elaborate. Maybe they didn’t know the reason.
And then there was Dale Pruitt. Three different people mentioned the grudge, the permit, the threats at the bar. Dale’s name was all over this scene like a fingerprint. Which, in my experience, usually meant one of two things: either he did it, or somebody wanted me to think he did.
I needed the autopsy results, I needed the harbor security footage, and I needed the GPS data, or whatever was left of it after somebody wiped the unit.
I also needed to talk to Gil Moran, who had conveniently not gone fishing with his partner the one night his partner ended up dead.
And I needed to talk to Pruitt’s wife about that alibi, because a spouse’s word was worth exactly nothing until it was corroborated.
And even then it wasn’t necessarily worth much.
One reason I’d come to Coral Cove was because I was tired of dealing with so many murder cases.
That was the miserable truth. I’d wanted peace and quiet, and to be surrounded by less death.
But too many things about Eddie Salcedo’s passing didn’t add up to an accident.
If the man had been murdered, he deserved justice, and I’d have to be the one to get it for him.
I pulled out my phone and called the medical examiner’s office to request a rush on the autopsy. Then I called Bree and told her to pull whatever security camera footage existed within a half-mile radius of the harbor, going back forty-eight hours.
Peace and quiet would just have to wait.