Chapter 5
AFTER CORUM AND everybody but Simon left to fly back to the mainland, Stilwell showed Simon the bunk room and the locker where clean sheets, blankets, and pillows were kept.
The bunk room was a make-your-own-bed facility.
He went to the desk shared by the on-duty deputies and found a copy of O’Connor’s report on the theft of the ATV used the night before in the airdrop.
The ATV was reported stolen by a man named Art Sellers who told O’Connor the vehicle had been taken from the driveway of his home on Clarissa.
Coming up on two years since his transfer to the island, Stilwell was familiar with many of the residents, particularly those who lived in Avalon.
More than a million people visited the island every year, but there were fewer than six thousand residents, and Stilwell, the lone detective on the island, had done his best to get to know as many of the locals as possible.
Art Sellers was not a familiar name to him, but he knew that Clarissa was a street where a lot of long-term and multigenerational families lived in century-old row houses built as close together as teeth in a smile.
It seemed to Stilwell that someone on that street would have heard a gas-powered ATV being taken from a driveway.
Sellers told O’Connor that he had had the ATV for two years and usually left the key in it because he had never been worried about it getting stolen.
This was the practice of many residents on the island as they tried to cling to the idea of Catalina as a crime-free atoll cleanly separated from the ills of society by twenty-two miles of ocean.
There would be a rude awakening for Sellers and others when word of the murder of a deputy spread in the days ahead.
The ATV in question was still lying on its side up on the mountain by the airstrip.
Though it had been processed by the criminalist who came with the homicide team, extricating it would have to wait until daylight.
The vehicle was clean as far as fingerprints and other evidence went.
The driver in the full helmet had apparently worn gloves.
Before going home, Stilwell pulled a radio from the wall-mounted charging station and called Deputy O’Connor, who was out on patrol, and told him he was leaving the sub and that there was an overtown detective sleeping in the bunk room.
“Roger that,” O’Connor said.
Stilwell left the sub, made sure the door was locked, and drove his ATV up the hill to his home.
Tash had left the front door of the house unlocked despite his repeated requests over the year they had lived together to lock up at night.
He entered quietly and found her asleep and snoring in the bedroom.
Though it was a mid-range snore, he knew it would keep him up.
He grabbed his pillow and retreated to the living-room couch.
It was just past four and he had to get back to the sub early.
He set a timer on his phone for two hours and was asleep within minutes of putting his head down on the pillow. He was too tired to dream.
In the morning he was up before Tash and managed to shower, shave, and get dressed without waking her.
Before leaving, he watched her sleep for a little while.
Stilwell had hated everything about his transfer to the island until he met her.
Now he knew he had stumbled into the right place at the right time and didn’t think he’d ever want to leave.
But that did not stop a sense of foreboding that had descended on him in recent months, a feeling that something bad was coming to his island idyll.
He didn’t know what it was, but he had taken to calling it “the dread” in the once-a-month therapy sessions he secretly attended on the mainland.
It was why he insisted that Tash lock the door at night.
His first stop was the sub to pick up a fully charged two-way and look in on Simon, but he found the bunk room empty. Stilwell assumed he had already gone up to the airstrip to view the crime scene in daylight. He checked the vehicle log and saw that Simon had signed out the SUV.
Stilwell walked from the sub to the ferry dock, where people were lined up to board the 7:50 boat to Long Beach.
It was the first of the day, and the second did not leave until 10:00.
Stilwell thought that if the man in the black helmet was trying to get off the island, he might go for the first boat out.
Stilwell was wearing green cargo pants and a black polo shirt with LASD printed on the breast pocket. The gun and badge on his belt further announced him as law enforcement. He walked along the line of travelers, checking for any sign of nervousness caused by his presence.
But no one flinched or took off running as Stilwell walked by. He also didn’t see anyone carrying a black motorcycle helmet with a full windscreen. That would have been too easy.
He moved on to the ticket window of the Catalina Express office and saw a familiar face behind the glass. Lindsey Fordham was a source he had started cultivating soon after he arrived on the island. He asked her for the 7:50 boat’s manifest and she pushed a clipboard through the window slot.
“We’re sold out and I have a waiting list if you want to see that too,” Fordham said.
“Got it,” Stilwell said. “Let me look at this first.”
He stepped away from the window and looked at the clipboard.
It held a printout with the names of customers who had purchased advance tickets for the 7:50 ferry.
The morning trips to the mainland regularly sold out and it was best to buy tickets ahead of time.
He ran his finger down the list of buyers. None of the names were familiar.
Stilwell slid the clipboard back to Fordham and asked to see the waiting list. There were seven names and cell numbers on it.
These were likely new visitors to the island who hadn’t known the early boats sold out and now were scrambling to get a ride home.
After each name there was a plus sign and a number, indicating how many seats were needed.
Only one of the names was a solo passenger: Kalas.
Stilwell slid the list back to Fordham.
“Lindsey, the solo guy on there, Kalas?” he said. “Is that a first or last name?”
“I don’t really know, Stil,” Fordham said. “Sorry.”
“Not a problem. Do you remember if he was a white guy, Black guy, any accent?”
“Definitely Latino. He had an accent.”
“Do you know where he is?”
Fordham leaned over the counter toward the glass to get a better look at the outdoor waiting area. There were several people sitting on benches or milling about near the last-chance souvenir stands as they opened for the day.
“I don’t see him,” Fordham said. “You want me to call him?”
Stilwell had to think about that for a moment. He had nothing other than his instincts to confront the man called Kalas with.
“He’s fourth on that list,” he said. “Do you think he’ll get on the boat?”
“Probably,” Fordham said. “We usually have ten or fifteen no-shows.”
“Is the ten o’clock boat sold out?”
“Not yet.”
“What if I told you I don’t want Kalas to leave on the first boat?”
“Not a problem, Stil. I’m sure you have your reasons.”
“Okay, so call him and ask him to come back to the window. When he gets here, don’t mention me, but tell him he’s not going to get on the early boat. I’ll take it from there.”
“But why wouldn’t I just tell him by phone instead of making him come back to the window?”
“Say that the ten o’clock is going to sell out and he needs to buy a ticket before it does.”
“Good. I’ll do that.”
“Okay, and when he gets here, tell him you need his full name for the manifest or you can’t sell him the seat.”
“Will do. That’s actually the rule anyway.”
“Good.”
Stilwell walked away from the window and used a souvenir kiosk as a blind. He kept his eye on the ticket window, and when a call came in on his cell, he answered without checking the screen. It was Tash.
“Thank God!” she exclaimed when she heard his voice. “You didn’t come home last night, and I just saw the news. You’re all right?”
“I’m fine. It was Quigley.”
He guessed that the name of the fallen deputy had not been put out to the media yet, giving rise to Tash’s panic.
“Oh, no,” Tash said. “What happened?”
“Well, we don’t really know yet,” Stilwell said. “I was chasing a runner down the side of the mountain and didn’t see what happened on the landing strip. But Quigley and Ramirez both got shot.”
“Ilsa? Is she okay?”
“I haven’t gotten an update yet today. The Coast Guard flew her to the hospital and she was stable when she got there. But that’s the last I heard.”
“When I saw you hadn’t come home, I thought it was you.”
She was trying to control her relief and worry. Stilwell could hear it in her voice. Maybe some anger too.
“I’m all right, Tash. Really. And I’m sorry, I should have called you. But I actually did come home for a couple hours. I slept out on the couch so I wouldn’t wake you.”
“You mean so you could get away from my snoring.”
“Not really. You weren’t bad last night.”
“You’re a terrible liar, Stil.”
Stilwell watched a man walk up to the ticket window.
He wore sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat.
Stilwell saw that he was Hispanic and thinly built.
Stilwell thought about the man who’d jumped out of the ATV to retrieve the duffel bag last night.
The body size seemed close. So did the black jeans and the dusty boots he was wearing.
The man carried only a backpack, no suitcase. This told Stilwell that he was a short-timer on the island. The backpack bulged and sagged off the man’s shoulder like it contained something heavy and bulky.
Stilwell watched as the man slid cash through the slot. He was buying a ticket.
“Maybe,” Stilwell said to Tash. “But listen, I’m in the middle of something and I need to go. Can we talk later when I know more?”
“Of course,” Tash said. “I’m about to head in.”
Tash Dano was interim Avalon harbormaster, elevated from the assistant position when the longtime harbormaster resigned. Tash was hoping that the city council would give the job to her permanently, but she had competition from applicants in overtown yachting centers.
They said their goodbyes and Stilwell watched as the man at the ticket window turned and started walking back toward town. He had a slight limp, maybe from an injury he had gotten when he dumped the ATV on its side last night.
Stilwell hurried back to the ticket window.
“Was that Kalas?” he asked.
“Yes,” Fordham said.
“You get his full name?”
“Yes, Gonzalo Kalas.”
She slid the clipboard with the manifest to the window and put her finger on the handwritten name.
“Got it,” Stilwell said. “Thanks.”
“I’m glad you’re okay, Stil,” Fordham said. “I heard what happened up at the airstrip. Terrible thing.”
“It was. Thanks.”
Stilwell stepped away from the window, got a bead on Kalas, and started following.
He was aware that he was advertising that he was a cop with his exposed gun and badge.
He hung back even though the docking area was now crowded with travelers who had just gotten off the first ferry in.
He stayed a hundred feet away and watched as Kalas left the pier and turned onto Crescent Avenue.
Many of the shops and restaurants were not open this early.
Kalas raised a cell phone to his ear but it was not clear if he had called someone or received a call.
Kalas turned abruptly onto Catalina Avenue. Stilwell got to the corner and glimpsed him slipping through the door of Original Jack’s Country Kitchen, which was open for breakfast.
Stilwell crossed the street and stepped into the entry alcove of a closed shop. He pulled the two-way off his belt and called the substation.
“Avalon One to base.”
“Go ahead, One.” It was Mercy, the office manager. The sub had its own radio channel and she had a stand-up microphone on her desk.
“Is our visitor from overtown there?”
“No, haven’t seen him.”
“Copy.”
Stilwell pulled out his phone. He had Simon’s number in his contacts from when they both worked homicide. Simon answered, and Stilwell could tell he was driving.
“You left the airport?” Stilwell asked.
“Just did,” Simon said.
“Where to now?”
“I was going to interview the owner of the stolen ATV. You want to come with me?”
Stilwell wondered if Simon knew that he was supposed to be on the bench.
“Yeah, I’ll go with you,” Stilwell said. “But before we go, I have eyes on a guy who might have been the one driving that ATV last night.”
“What makes you think that? You never saw his face.”
“True, but this guy has the right size and the right boots. Plus he’s trying to get off the island.”
“I’ll meet you. Where?”