The Lonely Silver Rain Read Free

Sundowner that got stolen out there at the inlet last fourth of July, and I didn't want to take up his time but just needed to find out if they'd made any progress at all since we last checked with him. Because if there was any progress at all that meant a chance of recovery, and-winking at him-the longer we hold the money, the more money the money makes.
    He beamed and told me I was in a rotten line of work, and he lumbered over and got the folder and brought it back.
    "Nothing to add," he said. "We got the same two missing persons as before, with no way of knowing if they'd anything to do with it. They were going together and they could have just run off elsewhere." He laid the two glossies in front of me. Even in black and white I could tell that the boy was a buck-tooth redhead. He had a long neck, a prominent Adam's apple and a squint. The girl was cuddly blonde, with an imitation show biz smirk and some acne pits. They were posed pictures.
    "High school yearbook," he said, "from two years back. Howard Cannon and Karen McBride. He's a bad kid, comes from trashy stock-drunks and wife beaters. Lots of trouble with the law. She's a dentist's daughter. Her people tried hard to break it up. Too hard. Sometimes you let it go on, and it wears itself out. They sent her off to an aunt in Wisconsin and she hitched all the way back. I've distributed copies to all the interested parties. Got some extras here if you want a set. Physical description and history on the back of each one. Nobody has heard from either of them. Friends or families. Got everybody alerted to get in touch first thing if they hear anything."
    "Is it likely they could have done it?"
    "Possible. Howie did fool things on impulse. He was with the McBride girl that day. His tin skiff is missing. They had the feeling the whole world was against them. Howie's spent most of his life on the water. He worked at Tyler Marina and she wouldn't let them send her off to school, and she worked at the K-Mart. Maybe he just swung around close to look at that new boat. Climbed aboard and found it was empty. Saw the keys, checked the fuel, talked her into it. Tied the skiff off, cut the anchor line and left. Could have been that way. Could just as easy been some other way too.
    "They probably went right on over to the islands," I said. "Safer for dockage and fuel over there."
    "Owner left over nine hundred dollars aboard, and it was all provisioned for a long cruise. Nice honeymoon for those kids. Find themselves some little cove down in the Exumas. All fine until the day you have to pay for your fun."
    Meyer came over to my houseboat, the Busted Flush, that warm October evening to find out how things had gone with old Billy. We sat in the lounge and I told him, and spread the photographs of the boat and the suspects out on the tabletop.
    "I think I was working my way around to changing my mind and telling Billy it would be a waste of time, but that bride of his rubbed me the wrong way. So I am stuck with taking some kind of a shot at it. Chances vary from very slim to none. Where did he find that Millis?"
    "She was working for him."
    "I know that. She went to work for him, what was it, two years or three years before Sadie died."
    "From what you say about the way he looks and acts, Travis, she's good for him. So why care about her prior activities?"
    "Something just a little out of focus there, Meyer. She's a beautiful woman. She's living well. But she has her guard up."
    He examined the color shots of the Sundowner. "Distinctive. Certainly no mistaking it for a production boat. Beamy. Lots of range. Displacement hull?"
    "Yes. Twelve knots top cruising. Fifteen-hundred-mile range."
    "Probably been repainted by now. Not too useful for the drug trade. Too small to lay around offshore as a mother ship, and too slow to make night runs to the beaches. All in all, a little too conspicuous to be useful."
    I opened a pair of beers and took them back to the table.
    "Humpf!" said