It was too bad Pop was missing this, and it always would be. I finished the bowl, pushed it away. I had a redhead and a hooker, or a redheaded hooker, who liked to play office, to track down. Plus, I still hadn’t spoken to Stephen Ayers or the insurance guy, Vincent Darby. Yet, friendship and gumbo kept me anchored to the spot. I angled my head, smiled devilishly. “Sweet potato, you said?”

Whip shot up from the table. “Yes, ma’am, coming right up. I got to get you fueled up to catch that murdering brother.”

* * *

I’d eaten enough to fortify me for a month and decided to work it off back at the marina. I turned left at the Safe Passage, looking for a boat with a blue canopy, and found at least half a dozen of them all in the same area. I scanned them all from the walkway, but didn’t see anyone sitting on them. I had no way of knowing if anyone was camped out below, of course. It was almost six PM when I trudged up to the marina office, tried the door, and found it locked, the blinds drawn. No Cap, either. I spotted the security cameras that had captured little to nothing the night Tim had died. It’d do no good trying to see the tapes myself. Marta had already examined them and found nothing of value. Dead end there. Besides, even asking to see them at this point would seriously damage our friendship and likely land me in a holding cell.

I went back to my car and made a call to a source I had at the phone company. After a simple lookup and a fair exchange, I had the number and address for a Vincent R. Darby. What had Darby been doing to harass Tim in his last days? It had to be harassment, or Tim wouldn’t have had to ask to be left alone. What had been going on between the two? It was also possible that Ganz had lied to me about the argument to get me looking in another direction. He was angry with Tim about the money that never materialized. If that turned out to be the case, he wouldn’t find me so amiable when we met again. Meanwhile, I’d keep going, check out Darby, and see what I could learn from him.