I swept past her, my mind on the marina. “If you’re coming, come on. You can stay in the car.”

I grabbed my keys and checked my bag for aspirin, finding a small bottle tucked in the inside pocket. I had a feeling I was going to need it. Four AM, I thought as Barb and I stepped out into the street. My neighbors were sound asleep in their beds; Jung was somewhere doing Lord knows what; Barb had something she needed to talk about. In my opinion, talking was overrated. People talked too much. Handle your business, keep it to yourself, and keep it moving. Those were words to live by.

Chapter 21

Chapter 21

I saw the blue police lights from Lake Shore Drive and pulled into the marina lot, parking far away from the hub of activity. Barb glowered. “If you’d parked any farther away, I’d have to take a bus to see anything remotely interesting.”

“That’s what I was aiming for.”

The talk we were supposed to have on the ride over never happened. She talked about Africa and the kids she missed, her family, her mother, what was new with me—small talk. I didn’t press it. You had to give Barb room. When she was ready, whatever it was she needed to talk about, she would. I turned to her. “Please stay in the car.” She frowned, nodded. Not good enough. “I need verbal confirmation. Actual words, so I know you heard me.”

Barb folded her arms over her chest. “I see Mrs. Vincent’s talk is going to take some time sinking in.”

I squinted at her, my voice low. “I knew that smelled like an ambush. You were in on that?”

Barb grinned. “We’ll talk about it later.”

I climbed out of the car, holding the driver’s door open. “We sure will, along with the other thing we were supposed to talk about on the ride over, but didn’t.”

I pushed the door closed without further comment and headed toward the slips, scanning faces, looking for ones I knew. I didn’t see the ME’s van parked anywhere, which was a good sign. That meant nobody was dead. There was also no ambulance, no red crime-scene tape, just a few squad cars and two unmarked vehicles. I spotted Detective Marta Pena in the middle of a small huddle, which didn’t compute. She was a violent-crime detective. Dead bodies were her specialty. Cap was also there and the nosy Eldon Reese, his complaint book gripped tightly in his pale, hateful little hands. The two stood and talked, their heads together. What was that all about? I wondered. Cap said he didn’t talk to any of the marina residents, couldn’t stand them, in fact, but he and Reese looked downright chummy.