Payback by Keith Douglass

talk to those guys. I might shoot off my mouth about my suspicions. You can do it with a much cooler touch.”
    â€œFlattery . . .”
    â€œYeah, still works.”
    Two hours later, Sheriff Kirkendol headed for Platform Number 4. He’d had a talk with the coroner, who’d put a rush on his cutting. He’d found two serious head woundsmade by a blunt instrument. Neither severe enough to cause death. There was plenty of seawater in the dead man’s lungs, so technically he had drowned. But the man had had a lot of help.
    â€œHe must have been clubbed, then held underwater until he drowned. How he got back to his own drill rig is your job, Sheriff. I’m putting the death as a murder by person or persons unknown.”
    â€œDon’t release that information yet,” the sheriff had said. “I have a courtesy call to make first.”
    The sheriff had brought with him Nevin Irwin, a former SEAL who had been with him for almost two years handling all of the water-related problems including crimes on boats, drownings, and even one case of piracy. Irwin had blown out a knee on a heavily laden parachute jump somewhere over Europe, and had been eased out of the SEALs. If he couldn’t be in an action platoon, he didn’t want to stay in the service. He did another year on his enlistment in the support units at Coronado, then found his spot with the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department.
    The third man was a longtime deputy who handled the boats for the department. The sheriff had radioed the tower indicating he needed to visit the platform for a routine safety inspection. He asked for the safety engineer to be on hand, and was invited to come out at his convenience.
    That turned out to be slightly after eleven o’clock that morning. The twenty-four-footer eased up to the water-level dock at Rig Number 4 where a man in a white shirt and tie met it.
    â€œPreston,” the man said, holding out his hand to the sheriff. “Good to see you. Safety around here is one of our primary concerns. So far we have a hundred and eighty-two days without a lost-time accident. We want to keep that record going. Any suggestions you can make will help.”
    â€œJust routine, Preston. We’ll try not to trip over anything. This is Deputy Irwin, who will go with us.” He waved for the boat driver to stay on the boat, and the three men climbed the steel steps that took them to the first level.
    â€œAs you can see, we’re a small platform,” said Preston. “None of those giants you may have seen. We have fivelevels, with the driller’s cabin in the top level. We have basic steel-pipe tendons with direct tendon-pile connections on the bed of the strait. We do work twenty-four hours a day, and we are so far a test hole that we hope will produce. Many of our crewmen are foreigners. We try to get the best men we can regardless of their country of origin. Do you have any questions?”
    The noise of the drilling and the various motors running on the level above them set up a clatter and roar that made talking a little hard.
    â€œDo you ever have any security problems? Like boats stopping by, fishermen, paddleboard guys, maybe sea lions crawling up on your little water-level dock down there?” Irwin asked.
    â€œNot a problem. The sea lions get frightened off by the motors and the vibrations before they get anywhere near the platform. Then we do have a fisherman stopping by now and then just out of curiosity. Usually they just want to stare up at the platform and ask a few questions. We don’t exactly give them a guided tour, if you know what I mean.”
    Sheriff Kirkendol listened to the reply critically. He couldn’t detect any reluctance or any hint that it wasn’t the truth. The man didn’t seem to be hiding anything.
    They took a quick look at levels two and three, and twenty minutes later they were back in the boat heading for shore.
    Deputy