“Think hard. It would have been on March fourteenth, a Tuesday,” Louis said.

Lynch shook his head. “Just a minute. Hey, Woody, Ty! Come here!”

Two crewmen came forward. One was the tall blond, his lanky hair visible beneath a sweat-stained Miss Monica cap. The other man was shorter, black, wearing the same cap.

“Either of you remember this guy being onboard about two weeks ago?”

The blond man was staring at the photo. “Yeah, I remember him. He was with that six-pack we took out in the gulf.”

“Why do you remember him?” Louis asked.

“ ’Cause he was really pissed that he didn’t catch anything. I told him tough luck, that’s why it was called fishin’ and not catchin’.”

“Woody—” Lynch interrupted.

“He was mouthing off, Cap,” Woody said.

“I don’t care. He paid his money.” Lynch’s mouth pulled into a tight line.

“Was he with anybody?” Louis asked, pulling out a notebook and pen.

“Nah, came on alone. Left alone.”

“You saw him get into a car?”

Woody shook his head. “No, I sent him over to Dixie’s to buy some fish to ship home.” He stared at Louis. “Anything else?”

Louis shook his head.

“Go finish up,” Lynch said.

The crewmen left. Louis watched them. Woody went back to coiling lines. Ty was manning the cleaning table, pulling glistening silver fish up onto the wooden board and slitting them open with one expert thrust of his knife. Louis focused on the fillet knife. It was only about eight inches in length and perfectly straight. He pulled out the photo of the broken blade.

“Have you ever seen a knife like this before?” he asked Lynch.

Lynch looked at the photo. “That a fillet knife?”

“We were hoping you could tell us that.”

“Nothing like anything I’ve ever seen.” Lynch called again for Woody and Ty, but Woody had disappeared below. Ty came over.

“Ty, you ever seen a knife like this before?”

The crewman wiped his hands on his dirty cutoffs and took the photo. He stared at the photo for a long time. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I saw one like this once. A guy working in Montauk had one. It’s German-made, I think.”

“Montauk? That’s New York, right?” Louis said.

“You know his name?”

Ty shook his head. “He was here last winter. I haven’t seen him around this season.”

“Thanks, Ty,” Lynch said. “Finish up and you can go.”

“Okay,” Ty said. He noticed Louis looking at him and gave him a reticent smile, his hazel eyes dropping to the dock. He went back to the fillet table, bagging the fish in plastic filled with ice. Louis looked for Woody, but he was nowhere to be seen.

“You think these fellows were killed with fillet knives?” Lynch asked.

“We’re not sure. We haven’t identified the weapon yet, but it’s a good possibility.”

Lynch nodded emphatically. “I can see that,” he said. “We have to keep ’em sharp as razors.” He held up his left hand. “Look at this. I was filleting a pompano once and slipped. Lost my pinkie. Sliced it clean off.”

Louis stared at Lynch’s callused hand, trying not to think of the defense-wound slash marks on Anthony Quick’s hand.

“Captain Lynch,” he said, “what can you tell me about your crew?”

“My crew? Do you—” He stopped. “You guys think someone down here did this?”

“We’re just checking all possible leads,” Louis said.

“Tell me about your crewmen. How long have they been with you?”

Lynch looked uneasy. “Well, Ty’s been with me, geez, it has to be nearly three years now. Woody . . . let’s see. He came on this past November right here.”

“What’s both their full names and addresses?”

Lynch gave them to him.

Louis closed the notebook. “Thanks, Captain Lynch.”

“I had a third man,” Lynch said, “but he left a while back.”

“He left? Why?” Louis asked.

Lynch shrugged. “Who knows? These guys, they’re like Gypsies. It’s a transient business, and we don’t ask a lot of questions. The most important thing is just showing up.”

“When did he leave?” Louis asked.

“Oh, two or three weeks ago. Left me short.”

Louis flipped opened the notebook. “Name?”

“Gunther . . . Gunther Mayo.”

“How long did he work for you?”

“He came on last April up in Barnegat Light.”

Louis stopped taking notes. “Barnegat Light, New Jersey?”

Lynch nodded. “Yeah, that’s where we go in the summer.” When he saw the look on Louis’s face, Lynch added, “Something wrong with that?”

“You split your time between here and Jersey?” Louis asked.

Lynch nodded again. “Winter here, summer up north. We call it following the tuna.”

“Do all the charters here do that?”

“Nope. Just the bigger boats like the Miss Monica here.” He waved a hand proudly at the fishing poles stowed behind him. “We go after the big stuff.”

“Do you know where he might have gone?”

“Shit, he could be anywhere from Maine to Key West. That’s the circuit.”

“You know anything else about him?” Louis asked. “Where he lives?”

“I’m not sure. There’s a lot of seasonal rentals over around Buttonwood Street. You can walk there from here.”

Louis felt his patience drying up fast. “You don’t keep records of your employees, Mr. Lynch?”

“Not unless I have to.”

“What about Mayo’s vehicle?”

“Don’t know. Never saw him drive anything.”

Louis sighed. “Okay, let me ask you this. Did you ever hear Mayo make any racial slurs? Threats against blacks? Anything like that?”

Lynch shook his head. “He didn’t say much about anyone or anything. Quiet, moody kind of guy.”

“I don’t suppose you’d have a picture of him.”

Lynch started to shake his head, then paused. “You know, I might, I just might. Hold on.”

Lynch disappeared and came back with a stack of photos. He sifted through them and held one out to Louis. “That’s him behind the fat guy, holding the hose.”

It was a photo of four tourists standing at the rail of the Miss Monica, holding up their catches. Mayo was visible in the background, a blur of profile and dark hair worn in a ponytail.

“Can I see the others?” Louis asked, nodding at the stack in Lynch’s hand.

“You can have them,” Lynch said, handing them over. “These are just extras the tourists didn’t buy.”

Louis stuck the photos in his pocket. His fingers closed around a business card and he pulled it out. It was one of Farentino’s FBI cards on which she had scribbled the Sereno Key Police Department number. He printed his own name on the back and handed it to Lynch.

“Call me if you think of anything else or if Mayo shows up,” Louis said.

Lynch looked at the card. “Wow . . . FBI.”

Louis turned to leave. His eyes locked on the fishing gear now stowed neatly on the aftdeck. A question floated into his mind, but he knew no matter how he asked it, it would sound stupid. What the hell.

“Captain Lynch?”

The captain turned back to him.

“Do you ever have reason to use guns when you fish?”

“What?”

“Do you ever use a shotgun onboard?”

For a moment, Lynch looked at him like he was nuts; then he held up a hand. “Hang on.”

He went below and when he came back on deck, he was holding a slender metal pole about six feet long. Louis instantly knew it was the pole Roscoe Webb had seen.

“What is it?” he asked Lynch.

“A bang stick. We use it on sharks mainly.”

Louis came forward and gingerly took the pole.

“It ain’t loaded,” Lynch said.

“How—”

Lynch pointed to a cylinder on the top. “You load the shell in here and it kind of sits cocked on a spring device that is triggered by touching the tip to the target. In our case, the shark.” He pointed to a pin. “That’s the safety pin. Keeps you from shooting yourself in the foot.”

“It takes a shotgun shell?” Louis asked.

“Standard variety.”

“What about blanks?”

Lynch frowned. “Well, I heard of alligator hunters using blanks ’cause they don’t want the hides messed up. But a blank would only stun a shark.”