Murder Strikes Twice: A Catrina Flaherty Mystery, Book 2 (Catrina Flaherty Mysteries) by Wallace Pendelton

Author:Wallace, Pendelton [Wallace, Pendelton]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Victory Press
Published: 2015-10-23T04:00:00+00:00

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Mary Beth Henderson sat at her desk all morning, combing through the paperwork on another case, the Jorgensen divorce. Somewhere in here there had to be a clue. Leah was so good at finding this kind of stuff, why had Cat assigned it to her?

Her phone rang. She didn’t recognize the phone number. Who could that be?

She picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Hi, Miz Henderson, this is Jack Petty, at Salish Sea Yacht Brokers . . .” The voice had a familiar Texas drawl.

The yacht broker, what could he want?”

“Yes?”

“Ah remembered that you were in here a few days ago askin’ ‘bout Brody Barrett.”

She perked up. “Uh-huh.”

“I thought I should give y’all a call. He just bought a Hans Christian 40.”

“He bought a what?”

She heard a chuckle through the phone. “You’re not a sailor, are ya? A Hans Christian 40 is a big, tough ocean-going sailboat.”

The palms of Mary Beth’s hands tingled as she reached for a notepad. “How far could a boat like that go?”

“Miz Henderson, it could go anywhere. Anywhere in the world.”

Oh, my gosh!

“Wow! I didn’t know he was a sailor.”

“Well, ma’am, Ah don’t think he is. He don’t know the first thang ‘bout sailin’, but the pretty young thang who was with him, she knew a lot. She asked all the right questions.”

“A girl? Can you describe her?”

“Sure, she’s hard to miss. A tiny little thang, no bigger ‘n a minute. Blonde hair, blue eyes and, if you’ll pardon me miss, she was built like Sofia Vargara. Easy on the eyes.”

That must be Hailey Waitley.

“Thank you so much for calling, Mr. Petty. I can’t tell you how important this is.”

“Well that’s not why ah called y’all. Somethin’ about this deal just didn’t feel right. For one thang, they insisted on immediate delivery. They didn’t even wait for a survey.”

“Ah . . . what’s a survey?” Mary Beth put her pad aside and opened a Word document.

“A survey is like havin’ yer house inspected before ya buy it. Ya know, ya want to know if there’s termites or the plumbin’ don’t work. It’s like that with a boat. Ya haul it out of the water and have a professional crawl all over it to find any problems. They didn’t want that. They said if I couldn’t deliver the boat this week, they’d go somewhere else.”

“It sounds like they were in a hurry to go somewhere.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Mr. Petty, thank you again. Oh, by the way, can you tell me where the boat’s located?

“Uh, let me see.” Mary Beth heard some papers being shuffled. “Here it is, it’s at Seattle Marina.”

“One more thing. What’s the boat’s name? How will I recognize it?”

Petty chuckled. “Miz Henderson, it’s a big white sail boat. A sloop, that means she only has one mast. Her name is Dawn Treader.”

“Thank you, Mr. Petty, good bye.”

She slammed down the phone and thought. Cat needs to know about this. Right now!

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