Chapter 7: The Man at the Marina
The marina smelled of wet rope, diesel, and rain that hadn’t fallen yet. Officer Ruiz walked beside me along the public boardwalk, her attention moving from the moored boats to the people working near the slips.
I kept Jessica’s note folded in my pocket. Wade’s slip. Two words that had seemed like a warning at the diner. Out here, beneath a row of bright white masts, they felt more like a door I didn’t know how to open.
Ruiz glanced at me. “You said Jessica gave you that note. Did she explain what she meant?”
“No. She just said Wade wasn’t supposed to come back Thursday night.”
“Did she say why?”
“No.”
Ruiz didn’t press. The wind lifted the edge of her jacket as we passed a bait shop with its windows fogged from the coffee pot inside. Ahead, a broad-shouldered man in a faded green sweatshirt was coiling a line beside a stack of plastic crates.
Ruiz introduced herself and asked if he had a minute. The man looked at her badge, then at me, taking in my still-damp hair and the duffel strap cutting across my shoulder.
“Depends what you need,” he said.
“We’re trying to identify a pickup that may have been here recently,” Ruiz said. “And a man named Wade.”
The dockworker’s hands stopped moving.
“Wade Mercer?”
“You know him?” Ruiz asked.
“I know the truck. Dark pickup, dent over the rear wheel.” He set the coil down. “Wade’s been around.”
Ruiz showed him Frank’s preserved camera still on her phone. The image was grainy, the pickup’s rear angled toward the house, its license plate blurred by the low light. The man leaned closer but didn’t touch the screen.
“That could be it,” he said. “Can’t swear to the plate from that picture.”
“Did you see Wade with it?” I asked.
He looked at me more carefully. “You’re the owner of that house?”
“I am.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and the apology sounded plain, not rehearsed. “I saw the truck here before sunrise. Wade was driving.”
“Did you see what he had in it?” Ruiz asked.
“No. He didn’t unload anything while I was watching.”
The answer left me with nothing to hold on to. My eyes went to the lines of boats, each one rocking gently against its slip as if the lake had no knowledge of the cabinet standing open in my house.
“When exactly?” Ruiz asked.
“Friday morning. Still dark. I was opening the fuel station.” He pointed toward a low building beyond the dock. “That truck was parked over there. Ryan came down a little after him.”
“Ryan came here, too?” I asked.
“Yeah. I know him. He and Wade worked together years back.” The dockworker picked up the line again but didn’t resume coiling it. “They stood by the ramp and argued.”
“What about?” Ruiz asked.
“Money, from what I could hear.”
The word struck harder than it should have. I thought of the house listing, the words Ryan had put in my mouth, the promise of paid weekends in rooms he had no right to offer. I thought of Jessica saying Ryan wanted the house to cover its upkeep, as though there were no difference between asking and taking.
“What did they say?” Ruiz asked.
The dockworker rubbed his jaw. “Not every word. There was some cussing. Ryan said Wade couldn’t keep changing the deal. Wade said he wasn’t doing it for free.”
“Did you hear what the deal was?” I asked.
“No. I was working. I didn’t want to get in the middle of it.” He glanced down the dock, where a couple unloaded a cooler from a small boat. “But I knew they were both wound up.”
Ruiz wrote something in her notebook. “Can you give me Wade’s full name?”
“Wade Mercer. He used to work with Ryan at the warehouse. I’ve seen him helping Ryan move things lately, too—boxes, a dresser, that sort of stuff. Thought they were clearing out a room.”
Ruiz stepped a few paces away to make a brief call. I stayed where I was, facing the lake, while the dockworker’s words settled into place. Wade and Ryan had argued about money before sunrise. Wade had been helping Ryan move household goods. The same man Jessica said wasn’t supposed to come back had been close enough to my house to be photographed in a pickup—and close enough to my locked cabinet for one case to vanish.
None of it showed who had taken it.
None of it showed what Ryan knew.
Ruiz returned, her expression still composed. “Dispatch confirms Wade Mercer used to work with Ryan. Another local report puts him helping Ryan move household items recently.” She tucked her notebook away. “That makes him someone we need to speak with. It doesn’t tell us where he is now.”
I nodded. The answer was careful, but my pulse had already begun to run ahead of it.
“Did you see either of them carrying anything this morning?” Ruiz asked the dockworker.
“Nothing I can identify.” He shook his head. “They were talking. Then Ryan walked back toward the road. Wade stayed here a few minutes, looking at the slips.”
“Did Wade come to your office?”
The dockworker hesitated. That tiny pause tightened the air around us.
“He came by a day or two earlier,” he said. “Asked me something odd.”
“What was that?” Ruiz asked.
“How quickly a sealed case could be sold.”
My fingers curled around the folded note in my pocket.
“What kind of case?” I asked.
“He didn’t say. I asked what he meant, and he said he was just curious.” The dockworker’s mouth tightened. “I told him I didn’t buy or sell anything. I help keep boats running.”
“Did he say why he wanted to know?” Ruiz asked.
“No. But he asked if a buyer would want paperwork.” The man looked from Ruiz to me. “I told him I wouldn’t know. I thought maybe it was something from a job site.”
I tried to keep my voice level. “Did he mention what was inside?”
“No.”
“Did you see him with a case?”
“No.” He met my eyes. “I didn’t see him with anything. I’m telling you what he asked.”
The distinction mattered. It was the only honest thing we had, and I held on to it.
Ruiz thanked him and asked him to call if he remembered anything else. Then she walked me back toward the marina office. Behind us, the dockworker returned to his line, pulling it through his hands one careful length at a time.
My phone vibrated. Jessica’s name appeared on the screen, but I let it ring. I couldn’t talk to her yet—not while every new fact seemed to widen the distance between what she knew and what she had told me.
Ruiz stopped near the public lot. “I’ll add his statement to the report. I can’t tell you what it proves.”
“I know.”
“What it does give us is a name, a reason to look for him, and a question about that case.”
“And Ryan was there.”
“Yes,” Ruiz said. “Ryan was there.”
The lake flashed silver between the boats. I could almost see the dock behind my house, the one I’d imagined sitting on when I started my drive home. I had wanted quiet. Instead, each new answer had come with another person’s version of my life, offered for money or convenience or fear.
From the marina office doorway, the dockworker called after us.
“Officer—one more thing.”
Ruiz turned. I did, too.
May you like
He stood with both hands braced on the doorframe, his face drawn tight.
“Ryan told him that case was worth more than the house.”
