Dead in the Water by Ted Wood

unseen person sitting low in the boat cranked the outboard up to full speed.
    My hand dropped to my gun. I drew it and aimed with both hands, but as I did so I saw a sailboat tacking down the channel, out where my bullet would end up if I missed.
    The realization stopped me cold. I was no killer. I let the gun sink back into the leather and strained my eyes to see if I could make out the person in the boat. He didn't raise his head until he was a hundred yards out, too far for me to be sure whether his hair was gray or blond.
    I swore again in a low savage monologue, taking time out to swat the mosquitoes away from my face. As I watched, the boat made a long left turn and headed north, through the arrows. That drove even the mosquitoes out of my thoughts. Ross Winslow was in the boat, it figured he would have headed down to his place. The man there had to be Pardoe. It had to be.
    It took me about twenty minutes to attract the attention of the people in the sailboat, and then another ten for them to come up close enough for me to jump aboard. They were startled. You don't expect stinking chiefs of police to come out of the undergrowth in mid-channel islands. I spun them a story about having been put ashore to look for a missing kid and my relief being late. They probably didn't believe me, but least it saved the embarrassment of telling them the truth. I sure didn't want that getting around the district.
    In midlake I managed to transfer to another boat, a power boat that dropped me at the dock of my house. The girl who as driving it was a dumb, big-busted blonde who snapped gum all the time and kept looking at me and sniggering. I sat there grinning like a stupefied saint and watching how the wonders of her front stretched her T-shirt and made nonsense out of the words on it. "Lone Pine Lodge" became "one Pin odg" under the torture. I thanked her and went into the house to change into clean clothes.
    The mirror had funny news for me. The bug bites around my eyes and under my chin had puffed up. I looked like an overweight Rod Steiger who'd just gone three rounds with Ali.
    When I took off my shirt the envelope that Angela Masters had given me was stuck to my skin with sweat. I pulled it away and looked at it carefully. This was the key. I stood there for a moment, debating whether to open it up. But I didn't. Rules are rules. It had been handed to me sealed. I would let it stay at way until I visited her again in a little while. After that, if there was no help from her, I'd open it up and see if it gave me any answers. I put on my last clean shirt and spare pair of pants, pushing the envelope back inside my shirt.
    Then I called Murphy at the station to tell him about the missing boat. He wanted to know if I thought Ross Winslow had taken it, and I told him I didn't know. I told him to call the locks at both ends of our stretch of water and tell them to keep a lookout for the boat. He had the license number with him at the office. If the boat turned up they were to keep the lock half full, playing dumb while I came up there and arrested the guy in it. Times like this I wished I had at least one other fit man to help me. The City Department would have put a man at each lock and that would have been the end of that worry. For me it was yet another juggled ball in the air.
    I bundled up my dirty clothes after calling Murphy and walked down to Main Street to leave them at the cleaners. He's a smiling old Chinese who likes me because I have a few words of Mandarin. As a favor he promised to have them ready for the morning. Then I picked up the car from the marina and went to the office. Murphy was typing. Sam was lying on the floor. He sat up when I came in and Murphy told him "Okay, Sam, go to Reid." He bounded over like a kid let out of school. I rolled him over and bumped his chest while he squirmed with delight. I wondered for the hundredth time whether it was possible to get that kind of loyalty from a human being.
    After a