But what kind of disguise?

Kelly returned to Los Angeles. The next day she set to work on the other half of her basic assumption—the boat. A call to Cindy confirmed that Matt did not own one. Therefore, he must have rented it, probably on the same day he vanished. Ventura was the easiest place for Matt to have borrowed a boat and placed it in the path of his flight plan. Santa Barbara was also a possibility, not to mention all the harbors in Los Angeles.

Kelly spent the morning on the phone, a stack of yellow pages by her arm. From the start her efforts were handicapped. She was asking the rental agencies to help her identify someone who did not have a name. A person who did not even resemble her suspect. The best she was able to do was to get them to pull their records for the date of February 12th. She realized soon enough that she would have to visit each harbor and feel her way around. Charlie would have been a big help right about now.

Still, she avoided him at the office and let him focus with Lentil on the south-of-the-border connection. Preoccupied, he did not press her about what she was up to. Vicki was also heavily burdened. The lawsuit from Amy’s father-in-law looked real. There had been an article in the Los Angeles Times about the botched ransom delivery. The mayor had called, complaining. Kelly was able to continue her research without having to answer too many questions.

Checking out the rental places at the harbors proved exhausting. She spent two full days at Ventura alone and came up with squat. Santa Barbara was another dead end. After both experiences, however, she realized she was complicating the situation. Matt had lived in Santa Monica. Although the harbors up north were closer to the spot where the plane had crashed, Marina Del Rey had been closer to him. When she arrived at the marina, she cautioned herself to take her time and examine every rental record personally. She had been to see Cindy once more and had obtained a sample of Matt’s handwriting.

She was at the marina ten minutes when she walked into Harry’s Ocean Rentals.

Of course she had called ahead of time and the owner—Chuck—had already pulled his records for last February. Studying them she noticed nothing unusual. None of the signatures on the credit card receipts resembled Matt’s handwriting. But there was one rental, to a certain Simon Schiller, that had no credit card receipt. She asked Chuck about it and the guy said the customer must have paid in cash.

Falling had paid in cash for his Newport boats.

“Do you remember this guy, Schiller?” she asked.