“Detective Ramirez? You’re working the career fair?”
Ramirez pursed her lips at the wobbly folding table. “I was voluntold. Apparently a detective has to put in an appearance.”
Then she looked at Jack. “But I am glad to see you. I could use your help with something.”
“What kind of something?”
“It’s at the marina,” Ramirez said. “I’d prefer to tell you about it on-site. How much longer do you have to be here?”
Jack looked at her classmates shuffling around the tables spread throughout the gym. It was last period. No one would miss her.
“I could go now,” she said. She felt a twinge of guilt about her promise not to do any investigating on her own. “Should I ask my grandma to meet us there?”
“That’s your call.”
At this time of day, Lana would probably be taking a nap. And Jack figured a short field trip to the marina with a cop didn’t count. “I’m good. I can meet you there in twenty minutes.”
“You want to ride with me?”
Jack’s eyes flicked to the gun-shaped bulge on the detective’s hip. “I’ll bike.”
Jack arrived to a sea of cop cars parked at wrong angles around the marina parking lot. A young officer waved her through, and she rolled up to where Ramirez was leaning against a Buick.
“Now can you tell me what’s going on?” Jack asked.
“We’re taking a thorough look at your boss’s operation.”
“Paul? Is he here?”
“Mr. Hanley has vanished. But it doesn’t matter. We have a search warrant.”
They walked over to the fence behind the Kayak Shack and Jack locked up her bike.
“You know this Kayak Shack pretty well, right?” Ramirez asked. “You’d know if something was missing or out of order?”
“Um . . . I guess so? Things can get messy in the back. Still, I probably know it better than anyone.”
Ramirez nodded. “I knew you were observant. Listen, when we’re inside”—the detective put a hand on Jack’s forearm—“just keep calm and tell the truth. That’s all I’m asking you to do.”
“Is your partner in there?”
Ramirez eyed the girl closely. “He is. But he won’t bother you. I promise.”
Jack gulped a swallow of air. “Okay. I’m ready.”
As Jack expected, the back room was a disaster. Or rather, half a disaster. Two officers wearing gloves were picking through a jumble of life jackets and paddles, excavating one layer at a time, while a third photographed each item before stacking it neatly on the other side of the room.
Detective Nicoletti was overseeing the operation from a cleaned-out corner, his linebacker body squeezed into a brown, nubbly suit. He gave a tight nod to Ramirez and Jack, as if their presence in the overstuffed room was just as reasonable as the sixty-four-pack of vegan energy drinks they’d just unearthed.
“Jacqueline runs inventory for Mr. Hanley,” Ramirez said. “Anything you’d like her eyes on?”
Nicoletti scanned the room. “I assume this level of disarray is typical?”
Jack grimaced. “I’ve tried to tell them life would be easier for all of us if we kept it neat. But the guys don’t listen. At the end of a long day, it’s easier to just throw stuff in here and not think. And I just fix it at the end of the month anyway, so—”
“Anything here you don’t recognize?”
Jack scanned the room. First aid kits. Old time cards. A trash bag of empty chip bags and granola bar wrappers, the kind that wreaked havoc on sea turtles. The grungy cot Paul slept on sometimes. A Styrofoam cooler. A stack of boating catalogs, shiny Hobie Cats spraying water off the covers.
Nothing was in place, but everything fit. Except one item, leaned against a wall behind a mountain of life vests.
“That.” Jack pointed, and the young officers scrambled to pull the life jackets away. “No one keeps bikes in here. Store policy.”
Once unearthed, the bicycle was a nice specimen. It was a road bike, green, with drop handlebars, skinny tires, and the kind of gears you had to lean over the frame to shift. There were cages on the pedals and a black storage bag snapped to the left side of the back wheel. The tires were full of air, and the chain didn’t grind when the officer wheeled it into the middle of the room.
“Could it belong to Mr. Hanley?” Nicoletti asked.
“No. He doesn’t trust bicycles. Something about his disks. But I think”—Jack walked toward the bike, until the physical bulk of an officer stopped her from proceeding further—“I’ve seen it before.”