I went into the marina office. The man with the Seattle Mariners baseball cap was behind the counter.
“I know you,” he said. “You live in Sea Village, right? It was your house that almost sank a few years back, wasn’t it?”
“It was,” I confirmed.
“Bernie Simpson, the salvage guy who patched her up, he’s my uncle.”
Living on Granville Island was like living in a small town or a large goldfish bowl. Everybody knew everybody else’s business. The residents of Sea Village were the only permanent residents, except for a few who lived (semi-illegally) on boats in the marinas. We tended to stand out and were frequently the subject of local gossip, not all of which was undeserved. A few years before, a small deadhead — not a Grateful Dead fan, but a water-saturated log that floats below the surface, usually more or less vertically — had drifted under my house. When the tide had gone out, the log had cracked the ferroconcrete hull and my house had begun to sink. The barman at Bridges had probably known about it before I had.
“Name’s Witt DeWalt,” the Mariners fan said, sticking out his hand. “What can I do for you?”
I introduced myself and said, “Did the police tell you that a woman was assaulted near here last night?”
“Yeah. They did.” He shook his head slowly. “Terrible.”
“The woman who was assaulted is one of my closest friends and my business partner. We’re commercial photographers. We were hired to take photos of Ms. Waverley’s boat. Bobbi, my partner, she was supposed to meet Ms. Waverley here at eight last night. You didn’t happen to see anything, did you?”
“Sorry. I got off at six. But you sure you got the right boat? The police asked about the Wonderlust.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, like I told them, there must be some kind of mistake, then. The Waverleys don’t own that boat. It’s owned by some company that’s just a number. They’ve been trying to sell it for months, except they haven’t been taking care of it. The Waverleys have a sailboat.” He waved in the general direction of the docks. “Thirty-eight-foot Sabre called Free Spirit. They don’t use it much, either, but take better care of it.”
“Anna Waverley,” I said. “Is she blonde, about thirty, with green eyes and, um, a full figure?”
Witt DeWalt shook his head. “Not even close. She’s at least forty, maybe a bit more. Slim on top, a bit huskier down below. What you might call a low centre of gravity, but not fat or anything. A runner. I don’t remember what colour her eyes are, but her hair’s a dark red. Auburn, I guess you’d call it. About this long.” He held his hand level, just below his earlobe, and sliced it back and forth. “Good-looking woman. Handsome, you might say. Always friendly, too, although she doesn’t smile much.”
“Do the Waverleys come around here often?”
“They haven’t kept the Sabre here long, just since the winter before last. But, like I said, they haven’t used it much. I don’t think it’s been out in months. Mrs. Waverley comes by in the evenings couple of times a week. Just to check her out, I guess.”
“Where does she live?”
He looked uncertain. “Point Grey,” he said. “But, look, I’m sure Mrs. Waverley didn’t have anything to do with your friend getting hurt.”
“You’re probably right,” I said. “Mr. Waverley, what does he do?”
“No idea. Whatever it is, though, he must do all right to have a house in Point Grey and that boat.”
“What’s he like?”
“Only seen him a couple of times. Seems friendly enough. About sixty, sixty-five, a little on the chunky side, but not obese or anything. Lotsa hair. Might even be his. Both times I seen him he was wearing a suit that looked like it cost as much as my car. He drives a big Mercedes.”
“I appreciate your help,” I said.
“No problem,” he said.
I hesitated, then said, “Can you give me the Waverleys’ address? I promise no one will know where I got it.”
He shook his head. “Look, man, I’m sorry about your friend and all, but it would be my ass — not to mention my job — if my boss ever found out I gave out the addresses of the people who keep boats here.”
“Just this one,” I said.
“Sorry. No can do. There must be some other way you can get it. Maybe they’re in the book.”
“You gave it to the police.”
“Sure, but that’s different, isn’t it?”
I didn’t press him. When I went outside, the two detectives were climbing the ramp from the docks. The younger detective looked relieved to be on solid ground again.
“Look,” Kovacs said to me. “I appreciate that the victim is your friend, and that you’re a pal of Constable Firth and Greg Matthias, but neither one of them will be a help to you if you interfere with our investigation. Am I making myself clear?”
“Yes, you are,” I said. “I have no intention of interfering with your investigation, but I don’t think you can do a damned thing to stop me from talking to people.”
“Don’t count on it.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“You can ask,” he said. “No guarantee I’ll answer.”
“Bobbi was driving our van. A white ’94 Dodge Ram. She also had a few thousand dollars’ worth of photo equipment with her. I don’t give a damn about the van or the equipment — it’s all insured — but if either turns up it’ll provide you with a lead, won’t it? Have you found the van?”
Kovacs shook his head. “I haven’t heard,” he said. “Give me the plate number.”
I gave him the van’s license number, which he wrote in his notebook. “I’ll have to look in my files to give you any information about the equipment. Can I fax it to you?”
Kovacs wrote something on the back of a card. “That’s the case number,” he said, handing me the card. “Write it on each page of the fax. Are we done?”
“Just one more thing, if you don’t mind.”
“Why should I mind?”
I told him what Witt DeWalt had told me, that Anna Waverley didn’t own the Wonderlust, and that the woman who’d hired us probably hadn’t been Anna Waverley.
Kovacs nodded. “Yeah, so what’s your question?”
“If the people who own that boat didn’t hire us, who did? And why?”
“Yeah,” Kovacs said again. “Good question. The woman who called herself Anna Waverley, she touch anything while she was in your office?”
“Now
