Free Candy

Chapter 24

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Detective Moran pulled into the Tideflats Marina and had second thoughts about getting out of his car in the muddy parking lot. He pulled into the only open parking space and grabbed his camera out of the trunk. He looked up after he checked the battery and memory card and saw the old man in a dirty tank top. 

“Is it that time of the month again?” the man asked him.

“Time for what?” Moran replied, stepping gingerly though the puddles and onto the wooden walkway.

“I thought you were the sheriff,” the man said, scratching his belly. “I wasn’t sure if anyone was scheduled for an eviction.”

“No, that’s not me,” the detective told him. “Do you know where Jimmy Grant’s boat is?”

“Yep.”

Moran just shook his head at the response.

“Could you point me in the right direction?”

“Sure, follow me,” the old man said, shuffling toward the end of the dock. 

Moran looked into the portholes of the boats as he walked by. The marina itself had weathered to a uniform grey patina, and most of the boats were trying to catch up. The old sailor stopped at a nearly derelict sailboat by the name of The Drinky Crow.

“Here’s Grant’s sloop,” he told Moran.

“When was the last time you saw Jimmy?” the detective asked.

The old man looked at the dock and scratched his head. He counted on his fingers and worked his tongue around the hole where his front teeth used to be. Moran didn’t have high hopes for the information he was going to extract from this old salt.

“No clue,” he finally answered with a shrug.

“Well, thanks. I’ll take it from here,” he told the old man. 

The old man shuffled back down the dock toward the boathouse where he lived. Moran took a few pictures of the boat and the dock, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. He stepped onto the rail of the cockpit and saw that the door was unlocked and cracked open. 

“Hello?” he said, not sure if Grant lived here alone.

He poked his head into the cabin and saw that there was barely enough room for one person to squeeze through the junk that was piled inside. He put on a pair of gloves and opened the door. Once he got past the galley the sleeping quarters were a little more civilized, but still cramped. 

He took a picture of the unmade bunk and Grant’s hat. There was part of a comic strip inside the hat that fell out when he picked it up. The incomplete comic had been clipped from a newspaper and it showed a crow that was armed with a  revolver. The crow takes a drink from a bottle of alcohol and then blows his brain out.

Moran put the cartoon on top of the hat and took another picture. He wasn’t sure if this was someone’s idea of a suicide note, but the medical examiner had determined that Grant was killed by a blow to the head, not a bullet. He looked around the boat for a few minutes before he decided to leave.

When he emerged from the cabin, he noticed some blood on the port railing. He took a picture and then walked back to the car to call for an evidence collection team.