The Crooked Street

3

Dawn was still an hour away when Frost parked his Chevy Suburban on the narrow strip of road north of the San Francisco yacht harbor. On his right, the masts of dozens of sailboats bobbed like awkward ballerinas and made a clinking, metallic music. On his left, agitated waves slapped against the breakwater. He saw the lights of the Golden Gate Bridge through billowing fog, the low hills of the East Bay, and the grim outline of Alcatraz. The wind tried to knock him off his feet.

He had no trouble identifying the sleek flybridge of the Roughing It, which had its own diagonal slip among the smaller profiles of private yachts. It was as white as a single cloud against a perfect blue sky. The bow tapered to a sharp, aerodynamic point like an arrowhead, and smoked windows stretched along the main deck. There was open space forward and aft where guests could soak up the sun and lean into the spray as if they were kings and queens of the world. Some of them probably were.

The boat’s price tag had to be in the high seven figures. Frost wondered where Denny had found the money to buy it.

As he waited near the locked gate leading to the piers, the engine of a golf cart rattled from the cypress trees near the marina clubhouse. The cart parked next to Frost’s truck, and a trim, white-haired security guard hopped down to join him. The man had a large loop of keys jangling from his belt. He took a close look at Frost’s badge, and then the two men shook hands.

“Tom Hale,” the guard introduced himself. He was in his sixties, with a nimble step and an easy smile. “I’m the overnight security man at the harbor. Did I hear you right on the phone? Is Denny Clark dead?”

“Yes, he is,” Frost said.

“What an awful thing. Nice man, Mr. Clark. Down to earth. You can’t always say that about the people around this place.”

“When did you last see him?”

“Yesterday morning. Mr. Clark was usually on the boat every day before the night shift ended. He pampered his baby, that’s for sure. Of course, if I had a vessel like that, I’d be good to her, too.”

“Was he alone?” Frost asked.

“I think so. I didn’t see anyone with him.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“I waved. He waved. That was all.”

“What about your shift last night?”

“I didn’t see him,” Hale replied. “The boat didn’t go out. It’s still pretty early in the season. I don’t think the Roughing It has been out on the water since Tuesday.”

“It’s an expensive boat,” Frost said. “Did Denny ever say where he got the money to buy it?”

“People don’t talk about that kind of thing around here. Sometimes it’s family money. Sometimes it’s billionaire nerds from the valley. Or sometimes the things are simply in hock up to their flags. I don’t know about Mr. Clark, but he seemed to have the right contacts. No one at the marina gave him a hard time about getting a license to run charters out of here. Maybe he had partners with some deep pockets and political clout behind him.”

“What about his crew?” Frost asked.

“He’d hire people depending on the charter. Chefs, bartenders, that kind of thing. But Mr. Clark was the captain. He ran her himself.”

Frost eyed the boat, which had the proud look of a Great Dane towering over lesser dogs. “What kind of charters are we talking about? Did you see people you know? Celebrities? Anybody like that?”

“Part of my job is not to notice things,” Hale replied. “The people that Mr. Clark took out valued their privacy. Most of the time, he’d have me close off the road while his guests loaded. I’d let in a couple limos, but I wouldn’t know who was in them. He wanted to make sure gawkers weren’t taking pictures.”

Frost nodded. “Did Mr. Clark have any problems with anybody? Did you ever hear any arguments? Or did he complain about anyone to you?”

“No, nothing like that,” Hale replied. “As far as I could tell, everybody liked him. And that’s a tough clientele to keep happy. Powerful people like things a certain way. If they don’t get what they want, you’ll hear about it.”

“But you never heard any negative scuttlebutt about Mr. Clark around the marina? That’s hard to imagine. Denny and I used to run a fishing boat at the wharf. The one thing I remember is that the captains unloaded more crap on each other than the seagulls.”

“Well, that’s the wharf, Inspector. This is the marina.”

Frost smiled. “Is that a little slam, Tom?”

“Maybe a little.”

The security guard smiled, too, but he didn’t add anything more. Frost wasn’t sure whether Hale was telling the truth about the lack of gossip or whether the man had been tipped well enough by Denny and others to remain discreet about the comings and goings around here.

“I need to take a look at the boat,” Frost added. “We’ll be out with a forensic team later today.”

“Whatever you need, Inspector.”

Hale unlocked the gate, and Frost walked down the ramp in the darkness. He could see a pink glow on the eastern horizon, behind the skyscrapers that jutted like broken teeth over the hills of the city. He made his way along the water to the pier where the Roughing It was tied up, and he stepped across the dock onto the platform at the stern. His weight didn’t even make the boat sway.

He climbed the ladder to the main deck, which was damp with spray. Cushioned seats surrounded a vast stone-and-chrome fire pit that gleamed with red stones. It was easy to imagine the flames licking at the darkness out on the cold water. Above his head, the overhang of the flybridge was like a flying saucer, and he spotted the octagonal wall of a hot tub.

This was a place for one-percenters. Denny had come a long way since their days on the Jumping Frog.

Frost let himself inside the guest quarters, which were equally lavish. The living room was decorated in white leather, with a well-stocked bar, 4K satellite television, and shining fixtures in cherrywood and stainless steel. The area didn’t just look clean. It looked sanitized. He pulled one of the cushions from the leather sofa and found that the base of the furniture had been vacuumed so thoroughly that there wasn’t even a crumb of food or strand of hair.

The next room was a dining area with tables that could serve at least sixteen people. Steps led down to the crew deck and kitchen. Beyond the dining room was a master suite with a queen-sized bed and mirrored ceiling. The bed was made with brightly colored sheets and a mountain of pillows. Jade sculptures and silk birds-of-paradise decorated the dressers. Soft overhead lights gave the room a romantic glow. Another flat-screen television was built into the wall, and above the television was a geometric wall sculpture made of mirrored glass. The sculpture hung slightly askew, as if it had been recently moved. Frost looked behind it and spotted a small rectangular plastic panel. One corner of the panel was loose. With gloves on, Frost took down the sculpture and pried away the black panel to see what was behind it.

He found the ends of an electrical power cord and a USB cable that ran back behind the wall. Neither cable was connected to a device, but when he shined his light on the small shelf, he could see a circular dust outline. Something electronic had been situated here and recently taken away. Based on the size and location, facing the bed through the mirrored glass, Frost had a suspicion about the missing equipment.

A video camera.

If Denny had been spying on his elite guests, that was definitely a motive for murder.

When Frost finished upstairs, he returned to the dining room and took the stairs to the lower deck. The kitchen was here, gleaming with stainless steel appliances, and it had the functionality to prepare a gourmet meal. There were other, plainer bedrooms for crew and serving staff. He found Denny’s bedroom and office aft, where a locked door led to the boat’s mechanical equipment area. He sat down in the comfortable swivel chair behind the desk and tried to get a sense of Denny’s life.

The first thing he noticed on the desk was a photograph of Carla. Despite the years in between, he recognized her immediately, tall and slim, with long, straight sandy hair and a sarcastic smirk that was always on her lips. The smirk covered darker, scarier things. He sat there, staring at the picture, and eventually realized that several minutes had gone by while he was lost in the past.

He shook himself out of it and examined the rest of the desk. Like the hidden camera — if it really was a camera — Denny’s computer was gone, which likely meant that any video records had disappeared. Probably Denny’s ship logs had been there, too. Frost began to think that someone had beaten him to the boat in order to erase the evidence.

He opened each drawer of the desk but found nothing except loose paper clips, open boxes of printer ink, USB cables, and a pair of mini binoculars. There was also a blue box with an expensive Waterman pen that Denny’s mother had given to him as a high school graduation gift. Even back in the days of the Jumping Frog, the pen had been Denny’s prized possession. Some things never changed.

The lowest drawer of the desk felt oddly heavy as Frost opened it. He removed it and turned it over so that he could check the panel underneath.

Duct-taped to the bottom of the drawer was a small brick of cocaine.

Frost leaned back in the chair and shook his head. He’d already talked about the possibility of Denny smuggling drugs with Captain Hayden, and now here was a supply of cocaine to back up that theory. Even so, something didn’t feel right to him. The evidence of Denny’s yacht business had been carefully removed, but the drugs had been left behind in a way that no one doing a routine search could fail to find them.

Too easy.

He slipped an evidence bag out of his pocket to secure the cocaine but froze when he heard a footstep on the stairs that led up to the main deck. He wasn’t alone on the boat anymore. Whoever had made the footstep above him froze, too, as if he knew he’d given himself away. Frost reached into his jacket and slid his gun into his hand. He waited in the silence and then called out, “This is the police. Come down here slowly and show yourself.”

The warning didn’t work. Instead, the person above him ran. Frost leaped to his feet and gave chase. He took the steps two at a time on the twisting staircase and reached the boat’s dining room just as he saw the shadow of a figure disappearing through the doors to the open deck. He crossed the space and burst into the pink light of morning. When he spun around the corner, he saw someone sprinting down the starboard gangway between the ship’s railing and the slanting wall of the cabin.

“Stop!”

The man was halfway along the length of the boat when he glanced back and saw the gun in Frost’s hands. He weighed his chances and gave up. He froze where he was, turned around, and put his hands in the air.

Frost closed in on him along the length of the gangway. As he got closer, he realized that the man looked more like a boy, probably no more than five feet tall and fourteen years old. He was Asian, dressed all in black in a tank top, cycling tights, and black sneakers. His dark hair was bushy and styled. A gold chain hung around his neck, and one gold stud dotted his ear. His skin had an almost plastic glow, as if he were wearing makeup, and his eyes were alert and suspicious.

“Who the hell are you?” the boy demanded, like a dog standing up to a bear.

Frost smiled. He replaced his gun in his holster and took out his badge instead. “I told you, I’m a cop. My name’s Frost.”

The badge didn’t do anything to ease the boy’s suspicion. “Yeah, so? This ain’t your boat.”

“It’s not yours, either,” Frost replied. “Who are you?”

The boy set his mouth in a tough line and didn’t answer.

“Just tell me your name and what you’re doing here,” Frost said. “Do you know Denny Clark?”

A long silence passed. The morning sky got lighter as the clouds moved. The boy’s eyes darted between the boat and the water of the harbor. “Sure, I know Denny,” he said finally.

“What’s your name?” Frost asked again.

“Fox.”

“Okay. Why are you here, Fox?”

“First, you tell me why the cops are on Denny’s boat,” the boy demanded. “What’s up? Is he dead?”

“Why would you think that?”

“I hear things. Word on the street is that somebody whacked him last night.”

“Yeah? Did you get a name?”

“I just heard he was dead.” The boy drew his index finger across his throat and made a gurgling noise.

“Why would someone want to kill Denny?” Frost asked.

“No idea.”

“So what are you doing on his boat?”

“My father did a job for him,” Fox replied. “Now he’s missing, and I’m trying to find him. I figured maybe Denny left something behind that would give me a clue about where he is.”

“Who’s your father?”

The boy said nothing.

“Fox, if your father worked with Denny, I need to talk to him,” Frost insisted.

“Why should I trust you?”

“Because I’m here to help. You’re not in any trouble. How about you and me sit down and talk?”

Fox shrugged. “Yeah, okay. Whatever.”

Frost reached out a hand to the boy’s shoulder, but that was a mistake. The next movement happened so quickly and unexpectedly that Frost had no time to react. Fox cartwheeled in place. His leg rocketed through the air, and his shoe crashed heavily into the side of Frost’s head. The blow knocked Frost sideways and toppled him over the railing, airborne. A second later, his body splashed into the cold water of the harbor. He sank below the surface and then kicked his way up, coughing and spitting. His head spun as he struggled to stay afloat, and the side of his skull throbbed. His clothes and shoes weighed him down. He swam clumsily around the aft section of the boat and then dragged himself onto the pier. The water gave up his body with a loud sucking sound.

He stood up, drenched from head to toe and freezing. He looked around at the yacht and the pier and saw that he was already alone again.

Fox had vanished.