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Chapter Thirty Five

CHAPTER THIRTY-Five

Detective Moran walked out of the boat and back to his car. Sheila followed him down the hill to Seattle Center. When they got to the base, all five working DUKWs were jammed in the parking lot and the other drivers were hanging out in front of the building. Sheila was just barely able to pull her vehicle into the lot without blocking the sidewalk. Detective Moran walked up to the back of the boat and pulled the stairs down. 

“Come on everyone, this should be fun,” he said, waving them out.

Steven, Marie and Suzi all marched out of the boat, following the detective over to the office. 

Suzi thought she was a little out of place, so she asked, “Can I go home now?”

“You’re Suzi Hashimoto?” Moran asked, reading from his notebook.

“Yes. My car is over in the parking lot,” she said.

“I think you’re going to want to stick around for this,” he said.

Detective Moran walked into the office and shut the door behind him. Sheila walked up to the other drivers and asked if anyone knew what was going on. They told her that all the other boats had been called into the station about thirty minutes before she showed up. 

Sheila tried to look into the office to see where The Padre was, but the blinds were all closed. Just as she was trying to look through the hold of the open mail slot, the door flew open. Detective Moran was leading The Padre out of the building in handcuffs. Walking right behind the detective was an elderly Japanese man in a black suit.

“Father!” Suzi yelled, seeing her father, Toshi Hashimoto.

“Suzi! Why are you here?” he asked.

“This driver is a friend of mine. Why are you here?” she asked.

“The detective called me the other day to ask about the manager,” he explained. “Mr. Moran discovered some interesting facts about the priest.”

“I was just telling my friends that you owned the boats, but I didn’t think I’d see you around the office,” Suzi said.

“I haven’t been down here since I contracted the work out to the priest, who apparently isn’t a priest after all, but a killer,” Mr. Hashimoto said, drawing his finger across his throat.

Detective Moran had contacted Mr. Hashimoto when he was suspicious of The Padre’s credentials. He looked up the ownership of the business and then followed the trail that led to the discovery of The Padre’s true identity. 

His name was actually Willis Volkavich, and he had a long criminal record back in New Jersey. The New Jersey State Police even had his DNA profile on record, which matched skin cells found under Jimmy Grant’s fingernails. Everyone had gathered around to hear Moran give them the news about Jimmy Grant’s murder.

“But,” he continued, “the smoking gun, so to speak, was some footage from the webcam on the houseboat from Sleepless in Seattle.”

“That’s nowhere near Salmon Bay. What happened there?” Sheila asked.

“Let’s go to the video,” Mr. Hashimoto said as he walked back into the office.

He pulled up all the blinds on the partition windows so everyone could see the television on the back wall. The picture was frozen on a still frame of the lake from the houseboat. Mr. Hashimoto picked up the remote hit the rewind button. 

The infrared camera footage showed a motorboat slowly going past the dock. Everyone could see the name on the stern as the boat drifted in a circle.

“The Hail Mary?” Sheila asked.

“It’s The Pad...Volkavich’s ski boat,” Toshi explained. 

Then everyone cringed when they saw The Padre hit Jimmy over the head with fish club, sending the shorter man out of sight on the floor of the boat. The Padre looked around and then sped out of the camera’s view, leaving a wake that made the camera teeter up and down as everyone watched the video end.

“Why? What did Jimmy do to The Padre?” Steven asked.

“He discovered that Volkavich was skimming money off the operation,” Moran said.

“That’s why he always paid us in cash!” Sheila exclaimed.

Moran went on to explain that Jimmy Grant threatened to tell Mr. Hashimoto that The Padre was keeping two sets of books unless he got part of the action. The business took in about forty percent of the receipts in cash and The Padre was only putting half of that in the bank. 

“The day that Jimmy’s boat broke down, Volkavich had rushed out of the office and left the records on the desk.  Jimmy got stuck in the office answering phones for two hours while the boats got sorted out,” the detective continued. “His curiosity got the better of him and he poked around the office and discovered the scheme.”

“That’s certainly counts as motive,” Toshi said.

“That’s not all. Jimmy also got away with a few thousand in cash from the safe,” Moran said. “We found a backpack full of wet bills after his Volvo went to the impound lot. Volkavich wasn’t about to share, so he decided to stage Jimmy’s suicide.”

“He thought he had covered his tracks well enough from New Jersey, but he should have picked another church to put on his fake business cards. I go to St. Cecilia’s every Sunday for mass and I’ve never seen him there,” Moran explained. 

The detective joined his partner in the car and drove away with The Padre still yelling from the back seat.