Read Online Wreckers' Key by Christine Kling - Free Book Online

drinks. I drained the last of my beer and dug in my bag for money. When Sam came back, he waved my money aside.
    “This one’s on me,” he said. “I enjoyed talking to you. You want to find Neville, he has an office over on Fleming Street. Just head up Duval to Fleming, turn left, and you can’t miss it. It’s past Fausto’s.”
    “Thanks, Sam,” I said.

    Sam had been right when he said I wouldn’t be able to miss the offices of Ocean Towing. They painted all the boats in their fleet the same bright yellow-green color that some local fire engines had now adopted. I supposed it was the latest color to signify emergency services of some sort. The little office that stood in a block of attached offices was the only one painted that same blinding shade.
    The receptionist who sat behind the desk in the front office of Ocean Towing was a very buxom young woman wearing a tie-dyed, gauzy skirt and a white tank top. She was braless, and I could see the outline through the thin fabric of the metal stud that pierced one nipple. It made me shiver. She had been working on the New York Times crossword puzzle when I came in, and it looked like it was nearly complete.
    “Hi there, can I help you?” she asked. She sounded like Elmer Fudd. I wasn’t sure why.
    “Yeah, I’d like to speak to Mr. Pinder if he’s available.”  
    She frowned. “I don’t know if he’s available or not.”
    I understood then why her speech had sounded so strange. Her tongue was pierced, and she was trying to avoid touching the stud to the roof of her mouth.
    “Do you think you could find out?”
    “Sure.” She got up and disappeared down the back hall.
    The office had some threadbare chairs and a rack of brochures outlining the Ocean Towing fee-based towing plan, but little else. I grabbed one of the brochures, sat down on a worn chair, and had started to read when the girl reappeared.
    “Sorry,” she said and it sounded more like sowy . “I forgot. What’s your name?”
    “Seychelle Sullivan,” I said. “Of Sullivan Towing and Salvage.” I crossed the room and handed her a card.
    She glanced at it, then spun and bounced back down the hall, swishing her skirt with her hand as she walked. From where I was now standing, I saw her enter the last door on the right. I didn’t even have time to retake my seat before she poked her head out the door and said, “Come on back,” waving her hand. I circled her desk and headed back to the door she held open for me.
    Neville Pinder was seated behind his messy desk when I walked in, but he rose and came around it to shake my hand. To say he was a big man would have missed it by half. Pinder had to be about six-foot-five with the massive lumberjack-size hands and feet that would fit a man that tall. And he wasn’t fat, just big. I guessed he was in his mid-forties, and though his hair was shaggy blond, his sideburns and mustache were streaked with gray and his brown leathery face was covered with a web of fine lines. He was wearing shorts and a yellow-green Ocean Towing T-shirt that showed the deep brown skin on his legs and forearms. This was a man who had spent most of his life outdoors.
    When he extended his right hand, I saw the raised pink scar tissue that ran down his forearm in twin parallel lines. The hand itself was missing the pinkie and ring finger, but because his fingers were so huge, his grasp felt more than ample.
    Once we’d finished with the handshakes and introductions, he offered his condolences about Nestor. His eyebrows peaked and the skin pulled tight around his pale green eyes, but he looked more like he was trying not to laugh.
    “So I take it you know why I’m here in Key West.” I wasn’t there for niceties and I wanted Pinder to know it.
    He pointed to one of the two metal folding chairs and returned to the black leather office chair where he’d been sitting when I walked in. “Yeah, the recently departed Captain Frias convinced his boss he should get you to tow