Daryl, clad in jeans and a splashy shirt with a lot of tropical fruit on it, came onto the rear deck and seated himself on the railing, since all the chairs were occupied by his elders. 5 9
S t u a r t W o o d s
“So?” Tommy asked. “Are we charging Billy Guy with Charley’s murder?”
“Probably not,” Daryl said.
“What was the fi ght about?”
“Charley made an unkind comment about Billy’s girl. Billy took exception and put a fist in Charley’s face.”
“I got sort of a sideways look at that,” Stone said. “The management separated them before it got any farther.”
“Was Charley’s remark unkind enough to make Billy want to kill him?” Tommy asked.
“Nah,” Daryl replied, “and his girl wasn’t even along. She was back on his boat with PMS. He got home about nine and stuck.”
“Is that just Billy’s story, or did she confi rm it?”
“She confi rmed.”
“It’s not very far from over there to over here,” Tommy pointed out.
“I know Billy,” Daryl said. “I don’t think he has a murderous streak.”
“If you say so, Daryl,” Tommy said.
A Boston Whaler putted by with Charley Boggs’s corpse covered and strapped to a stretcher.
“You have a decent medical examiner down here?” Stone asked.
“Yeah, but he ain’t going to find anything, except a bullet in Charley’s brain. This one ain’t rocket science.”
“Then somebody tell me who offed Charley Boggs,” Stone said.
“And tell me if Evan Keating had anything to do with it.”
“All in good time,” Tommy said, turning to the sports page. 6 0
14
THE IN S I D E O F Charley Boggs’s houseboat looked like he hadn’t lived there for very long. There was a sofa, a big fl atscreen TV and an expensive-looking audio system and a lot of CDs.
“Pretty easy to see where Charley’s interests lay,” Tommy said.
“Yeah, and his interests make the place easy to search,” Dino agreed.
“Let’s look at upstairs,” Stone said. “I predict a bed and another TV.”
Stone turned out to be right.
“Look, there’s a bedside table, too,” Dino said.
“They must love Charley at the furniture store,” Tommy opined. He opened a drawer in the bedside table and pointed. Inside was a new-looking semiautomatic pistol.
“SigArms P229,” Stone said. “Charley lived simply, but he liked the best of everything—at least, the best of everything he owned: TVs, stereos and weapons.”
Tommy pulled on a pair of latex gloves, popped the magazine from the gun and racked the slide, spitting a round onto the bed. He sniffed the barrel.