None of the names struck me as curious or suspicious and there were no notations by Terry or Buddy in the file that raised any of those feelings either. Nevertheless, I took a notebook from the back pocket of my blue jeans and wrote a list that showed the name of each client, the number in the party and the date of the charter. Once I had this I was able to see that the charters were by no means regular. A good week for the business was three or four half-day charters. There was one week in which there were no charters at all and another in which there was only one. I was beginning to see Buddy's point about the need to move the business to the mainland in order to increase the frequency and length of charter bookings. McCaleb was running the charter business as a hobby and that wasn't the way to make it thrive.

Of course, I knew why he was running it that way. He had another hobby-if you want to call it that-and he needed time to devote to that as well. I was putting the records back into the chart station drawer, with the intention of heading down to the bow to explore Terry's other hobby, when I heard the salon door roll open behind me.

It was Buddy Lockridge. He had come up on the boat without my hearing the Zodiac's little engine or feeling its nudge against the fantail. I also hadn't felt Buddy's considerable weight as he climbed onto the boat.

"Morning," he said. "Sorry I'm late."

"That's okay. I've got a lot to look through here."

"Find anything interesting yet?"

"Not really. I'm about to go below, check out his files."

"Cool. I'll help."

"Actually, Buddy, where you can help is if maybe you called the man who was the last charter."

I looked at the last name written on the page in my notebook.

"Otto Woodall. Could you call him and vouch for me and see if I could come by this afternoon to see him?" "That's it? You wanted me to come all the way over to make a phone call?"