Long Shadows (Amos Decker, #7)(45)

Decker set the beer aside and rose. “I gotta get back to work.”

“Could you…walk with me on the beach?”

“Do I really look like a beach guy to you?”

“Just for a few minutes? Please?”





Chapter 31



ONCE MORE DURING THIS TRIP Decker found himself on the sand.

Roe had taken off her shoes. Decker had stuffed his socks in his coat pocket. He towered over her as he did most people. They walked in silence for a minute or so until she stopped and looked toward the water.

“It was out there, somewhere.”

“You never said how your father died.”

“I didn’t, did I?”

“Look, it’s no business of mine.”

“I didn’t bring you out here because it was no business of yours.”

He looked out to the horizon. “Okay, I’m listening.”

“I think he went out to fish. My father loved deep-sea fishing.”

“Was he alone?”

“I don’t know.”

“How could you not know?”

“Well, no one went out with him, at least that I know of. But that doesn’t mean he was alone.”

“Anyone reported missing other than him?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Well, if someone was with him, wouldn’t they have come back and told you what happened?”

“No one came back. The boat disappeared. They never found any bodies. They never found the cause of what had happened.”

“You mean no debris, no oil slick to show if the boat went down?”

“They did a brief search of the area where they thought he might have been, but they did no underwater search because there was no evidence that the boat sank. And it’s a huge area. And unlike a plane which has to file a flight plan, you don’t have to file a plan for your boat trip. The regular fishing charters go to the same areas, but that didn’t apply to my father, of course.”

“Who reported him missing, then?”

“A friend of his who often went fishing with him. No one realized my father had not come back until the next day. He went out on a Saturday and no one noticed his boat was missing from its slip until later in the day on Sunday. Then, as I said, they sent a search team out to where they thought he might have been. They found nothing. But he might not have stayed in that location. The water is very deep out there. During the time he was gone, the boat could have sunk. But as I said, they found no evidence of that.”

“Then how do you know he died?”

“Because I’ve heard nothing from him for three years. If he was alive, he would have contacted me. He has to be dead. My father would not leave me in limbo.”

“Are there pirates out there?” asked Decker.

“There are smugglers. And he might have run into something like that. I had an investigation done along those lines, and it got nowhere.” She turned to Decker. “Which is why the Slovakian money found at the crime scene has me…concerned.”

“Because it might somehow connect to your father’s disappearance?”

“And it might help explain what happened to him, after three years.” She stopped and turned to him. “Because I have to know, Mr. Decker.”

“You have a company specializing in investigating just this sort of thing, Ms. Roe.”

“Please, call me Kasimira. And yes, I know that, but much of our work is protection. While we do have investigators, I would like a fresh pair of eyes on this, an outsider. And my people have had a shot at solving it over the last three years. They’ve come up with nothing.”

“I already have a job,” countered Decker.

“With this latest revelation about the money, you may not have a choice. I think somehow the murders of Draymont and the judge might be connected to my father’s disappearance.”

Decker looked down at his white wrinkled toes. “That’s an interesting theory.”

“Which might be proved correct, or not. But you can’t discount it, not yet.”

He glanced up to see a set of pleading eyes on him.

“No, you’re right. I can’t. Yet.”

“So you will look into it?”

“I follow the evidence where it takes me. And if it takes me in the direction of what happened to your father, that’s where I’ll go, too.”

“Thank you, Mr. Decker. Thank you.”

They walked back to her apartment after rinsing off their feet, and Decker put on his socks and shoes.

She held out a file. “This is everything I have on my father’s disappearance.”

Decker took it and said, “Your father was a child when he left Czechoslovakia?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“So he personally couldn’t have had enemies when he left there. What about the rest of his family?”

“He rarely spoke about them other than to say they were simple farmers.”

“Did you know your grandparents? Were they politically connected, or wealthy? Were they with the KGB and the Soviets were pissed they fled the country with maybe a bunch of nuclear weapons secrets?”

“They died before I was born, so I never met them. But I’ve seen pictures, though. They were simple farmers. They would have meant nothing to the Soviet leadership.”