What She Found (Tracy Crosswhite #9)(33)

“I am,” Tracy said.

“Pete didn’t say you were good looking.” Hopper chuckled.

“He’s married, by the way. But I am flying solo.”

Tracy smiled. “My solo days are long gone. I’m married.”

“Happily?” Hopper asked, still smiling.

“Very. With a little girl, two dogs, and a cat.”

“You’re a Norman Rockwell painting. Can’t blame a guy for asking.”

“I don’t.”

“Come on up. Door is unlocked.”

“I’ll leave you to it,” Welsh said. “By the way, the accountant grumbled, but she’s looking for records. You might not need them though. Dennis is like a repository when it comes to the happenings around here and at the marina. Don’t ask him about any of his other jobs if you’re looking to get home before next week.”

“Got it,” Tracy said. She pushed in the door. The interior was surprisingly well decorated and also eclectic. Somehow it all worked.

A chandelier of hubcaps dangled from the ceiling over a dining room table with legs carved to represent African animals. The room held the sweet aroma of marijuana. Directly before her was a spiral staircase. Tracy climbed it and emerged on a deck with two blue-and-white beach chairs that looked to have seen better days. Hopper gave Tracy a tour of his plants and flowers growing in pots all around the deck—roses, bamboo palms, a lemon and an orange tree, an avocado plant, and various perennials.

“Impressive.” Tracy had tried to grow a lemon tree, without success, and had been told not to even bother with an avocado plant. “You have a green thumb,” she said.

“The real foliage is inside beneath grow lights, but I figured it probably best a police detective didn’t see that aspect of my operation.”

Tracy laughed. “I know nothing.”

“It’s just survival. The stuff they sell in those stores is crap, and way overpriced. I always felt like, Why pay for something you can grow yourself?”

“Makes sense,” Tracy said.

“Do you smoke?”

“I don’t,” she said. “I envy your ability to grow a lemon and an orange tree though. I’ve tried and failed.”

“Tough up here in Puget Sound with all the cloudy weather.

Having the grow lamps helps. What did the woman do when a lemon tree fell on her cat?”

“I don’t know. What did she do?”

“Nothing. Just stood there with a sour puss.” Hopper beamed and Tracy laughed. “Can I get you anything to drink?” he asked. “I got some cold beer in the fridge.”

“I’m fine.” Tracy looked out at the view of boats moored and on the lake. “It’s nice up here.”

“I love it,” Hopper said, spreading his arms. “This is my nirvana.”

“Pete Welsh says you’ve been a resident at the marina a long time.”

“Moved onto the boat in 1990 after the wife threw me out.

Turned out to be the best day of my life. Rented for six months, then bought the boat with the divorce settlement and have been here ever since, when I wasn’t working anyway. I often thought of moving, but the water always called me home.”

“Looks like you put on an addition.”

“I added on this deck for my grow operation, and that room to accommodate a nephew who came to live with me for a few years.

He didn’t have the best home life.”

“How’s he now?”

“Working in LA for one of those movie studios. He builds out many of the sets you see in movies. Built one for a movie starring Dennis Hopper, which I think was preordained since my parents named me Dennis after watching the movie Easy Rider. Might be why I never stay long in one place.”

“I understand you were here in 1995 and knew the harbormaster.”

“You’ll have to be more specific about the month, but generally yeah, and I knew David. He lived a couple piers over and we had some things in common. We traded snippets of our various plants and tried to graft them to grow the best pot in the Pacific Northwest.”

“How’d that work out?”

“We liked to think we achieved it, but we were high, so what did we know.”

Again, Tracy smiled. “And do you recall a boat named the Egregious?”

“A purse seine fishing boat out of Vancouver, BC. Remember it well.”

“I don’t know boats,” Tracy said. “What kind of boat is that?”

“Seventy-or seventy-five-foot long, sky blue with white masts, commercial fishing boat. But that was just a front. The Egregious was running drugs, I can tell you that.”

That caught Tracy’s attention. “Yeah? How do you know it was running drugs?”

Hopper laughed like she was na?ve. “Well, for one I tried to sign on, more than once. I worked fishing boats in Alaska and figured this would be a hell of a lot closer to home, but the captain turned me down flat every time. Said he didn’t need the help even though I never saw a crew when he came into the marina. Never saw no fish neither. Second, the Egregious only came down to the marina once a month, and it stayed for just the one night. Used to pull up to the dock after dark, meaning after the management went home.”

“So he could have had crew who you just never saw?” Tracy asked.