11th hour

Chapter 23

I liked Kaye Hunsinger on sight.

She was about forty, had a wide, toothy smile, and owned a small bike shop in North Beach. I made note of her massive diamond ring of the engagement kind.

Kaye, Harry Chandler, and I sat on semicircular sofas at the stern with little multigrain sandwiches on a plate in front of us. We caught some afternoon breezes, and everything was chatty and casual, but all the while, I was checking the couple for tells.

Could they have been players in the nightmare on Vallejo Street? Was Harry Chandler a murderer? Was Kaye Hunsinger, knowingly or not, covering for him?

Kaye told me that she and Harry had been down the coast for the past week, returning to the South Beach Yacht Club only last night.

“It was a brilliant week,” she said. “Zipping down to Monterey, docking at the marina there. Kicking off the boat shoes, putting on heels and a witchy black dress — oh my. Dancing with Harry.”

Pause for an exchange of moony grins and hand-clasping. Okay. They were believably in love.

“We signed in with the harbormasters at stopovers, of course,” Chandler said to me. “And lots of people saw us. If you still need more of an alibi.”

I was thinking about Chandler’s remarks of a few minutes before, that he’d been “wondering” if his wife’s remains were among those that had been dug up in his garden. I wondered too, and I was equally interested in the woman whose head had been separated from her shoulders with a ripsaw about a week ago.

Had a body dump been part of the Chandler coastal cruise?

I had no warrant and no probable cause to search Chandler’s yacht, so an eyeball search of the premises might be my only opportunity to check out the floating home as a possible crime scene.

“I’ll take that list of stopovers,” I said. “And I’m really dying to see the rest of this yacht.”

Harry and Kaye showed me around the four-cabin luxury craft. It was House Beautiful marine style, everything enviably top of the line, and not a throw pillow out of place.

The boat was fast, and the alibis could have been manufactured, but I strained to find a reason why Harry Chandler would come back to San Francisco during his cruise, dig up a couple of skulls, and then leave them with a cryptic message in his backyard.

It would be crazy, and I didn’t see any crazy in Harry Chandler.

I complimented the couple on the boat, and before the conversation could devolve into chitchat, I said that I’d be going and gave Chandler my card.

Chandler said, “I’ll walk you out.”

I started down the gangway and this time Chandler’s hand on my back was firmer, more forceful. I stepped away and turned to give Chandler a questioning look.

“You’re like a butterfly,” Harry Chandler told me, fixing his gray searchlight eyes on mine, “with steel wings.”

I was taken aback for three or four reasons I could have spat out right away. Had Harry Chandler’s crazy just surfaced?

What had Nigel Worley told me?

Harry Chandler would like you.

I said, “I hope you’re not coming on to me, Mr. Chandler. Because when a suspect in a murder investigation hits on a cop, you know what I think? He’s desperate. And he’s trying to hide something.”

Chandler said, “You actually think of me as a suspect, Sergeant?”

“You haven’t been excluded.”

“Well, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend.”

I said sharply, “Stay anchored. If I were you, I wouldn’t draw attention to myself by leaving town.”