Rogue Wave by Susan Dunlap Page B

wouldn’t have gone. What if someone picked her up on their way to Hawaii? Dammit, do you think there’s a possibility that you can come up with what I haven’t already squeezed dry?” He lifted the mug with both hands and gulped down coffee. “She had a Zodiac, a rubber dingy, and survival suits on board. But a Zodiac would be useless in a storm and you don’t swim in from the Farallons.”
    “We only know he went over near the Farallons. What makes you think she did?”
    “She didn’t have time to call for help. No one heard a call.”
    Kiernan raised a palm. “No, what we know is that she didn’t call for help, not necessarily that she couldn’t. Why would Delaney’s body be on the Farallons, the boat have washed ashore south of the city and Robin Matucci’s body be nowhere around?”
    He banged the mug down. Coffee spilled in all directions. “Because Delaney was a drunk. Jesus! I could have told her that. Yeah, he swore he’d been dry for years. And then what do I hear but that the guy’s got enough liquor in him for New Year’s Eve. If he’d stayed sober, maybe they’d both still be alive.” He reached behind him for a rag.
    “Why’d Robin hire him? Shouldn’t she have known better?”
    “Yeah, well,” he said, mopping up the coffee, “Robin was sharp as they come dealing with city inspectors, and suppliers. She could scotch a fight on board Early Bird before the second guy realized he was being baited. But, damn, she was one pushover for half-assed deckhands.” He flung the sopping rag into the sink behind him.
    “How come?”
    “Got me,” he mumbled, his voice unsteady. “You can work with a bad deckhand, but it makes your job twice as hard. The worst deckhands are the ones who can’t deal with people. They make their money in tips, so that kind don’t last. And that wasn’t the problem with Robin’s guys. They were …” He fingered his beard. “Well, deckhand is not a career position. The biggest problem is guys who don’t show up one morning and leave you shorthanded. The guys Robin took on, they couldn’t get the hang of things. She used to laugh about it. Said when they were baiting a hook they were working to capacity.”
    “And was Delaney like that?”
    Pedersen spun his mug around thoughtfully. “No, he wasn’t dumb. Unless you call getting so drunk you can’t stand on deck dumb. Dead dumb. And he never did that till that last day. There was no way she could have known he’d fall apart like that. No way any of us could have warned her. No one on the dock ever saw him drunk.”
    “How long had he worked for her?”
    “I don’t know. A month maybe.”
    “Did he work for anyone else?”
    “No. Robin was the top of the heap.”
    The sea lion had moved closer, barking impatiently. On the dock more voices called back and forth, buckets and chains clanked more insistently. Feet slapped the ladder beside the boat and a lanky man stepped on board, hauling two buckets after him. Pedersen glanced at him, then at his watch. To Kiernan, he said, “I have to get moving. But look, if there’s anything funny about Robin’s death, I want to know.”
    Kiernan nodded. “And, I can take it, you’ll help me however you can?”
    “Right.”
    “Okay, who was her closest friend?”
    “Girlfriends? Not many women here. Sometimes her sister’d meet her across the street, but she never came on the dock, just waited over there. Then they’d go get Robin’s car and drive off in that red car with their red hair flowing out behind them.” He swallowed hard.
    “Where does this sister live?”
    “Don’t know. Never met her. For some reason Robin never wanted to talk about her.”
    Odd, Kiernan thought, but there was no time to press him for speculation. “What about friends here, on the dock?”
    “Everyone liked Robin. She was everyone’s friend.”
    “Including the deckhands?” Kiernan asked skeptically. Nobody is everyone’s friend.
    “Oh, yeah. She started as a hand