She slammed her notebook closed, stowed the pen away. “Someone reported a male trespasser on Ayers’s boat. Normally, this wouldn’t be any of my business, seeing as there’s no body, but the second I heard it was Ayers’s boat, I headed over here. The boat has been tossed. On the uniforms’ canvass, they found a witness who reported seeing a guy hanging around, watching the place. He also says he found a lone woman cop, fitting your description, hanging around a couple of days ago, asking questions. Mary Meachum.” Marta smirked and shook her head. “Who will you be next, Lois Lane? Not surprisingly, my witness thinks the two sightings might be related.”

I eyed the dock, spying Reese in the center of the action like a little magpie flitting from ear to ear. I looked around for Cap, but he’d gone. “Eldon Reese?”

“Well, that confirms it.”

“I took a quick look around, but left everything as I found it. And I never said I was a cop, he just assumed. I can pull out cop face, too, you know.”

Marta studied me closely. She was listening to what I was saying, but she was also listening to what I didn’t say. She was also analyzing my body language, looking for signs of evasion, untruthfulness, nerves—“Cop 101.” And she knew me. I could only imagine how much more heat she’d apply to the look if she was dealing with your ordinary off-the-street suspect.

“But that was early Monday, not today,” I added. “And I haven’t been anywhere near here since the day before yesterday. Last night, I had beans and rice for dinner around seven-thirty, got schooled for being a shitty friend, then I went to bed. You have a description on the male trespasser?” I had a sinking feeling this was where Jung came into the picture. “Is anything missing?”

Marta scowled. “Description matches Jung Byson, that weirdo you bugged me about.”

“What reason would Jung have to toss his friend’s boat?”

“I don’t know because I don’t know him, but Reese puts him here, ‘skulking around,’ as he put it. Now I need to know where to put hands on him.”

“I don’t know where he is or how to contact him.”

Marta’s eyes dove in again. She took a moment. “If this is you doing your ‘shadowy PI stuff,’ I swear . . .”

Shadowy PI stuff? It was a dig, and from her defiant expression, it looked as though she’d meant it as such, but no good would come of getting heated over it. I needed to keep the lines of communication open and get Marta working with me, instead of against me.

“I don’t know where he is. I did not trash that boat. I don’t think Jung did, either.”