The fish box. Buddy's mention of it reminded me of the sheriff's report up in the chart station drawer.

"I meant to ask you about that. You say this guy took the GPS?"

"Phony bastard, I'm sure it was him. He went out with us, the next thing we know my GPS is gone and he starts a charter over on the isthmus. Put two and two together and you get asshole. I've been meaning to go over there and pay him a little visit."

I was having trouble following the line of his story. I asked him to explain it to me in English, as if I didn't know a fish charter from a fish chowder.

"This is the deal," he said. "That little black box had all our best spots on it. Our fishing holes, man. Not only that, it had the points marked by the guy I won it from. I won it in a poker game from another fish guide. The value assigned was not for the box but what was on it. The guy was putting his best twelve spots on the table and I won 'em with a full fucking house." "All right," I said. "I get it now. Its value was in the coordinates of the fishing spots recorded on it, not the device itself."

"Exactly. Those things cost a couple hundred bucks. But the fishing spots, those come from years of work and skill, fishing experience."

I pointed at the photo on the computer screen.

"And this guy comes along and takes it and then he starts out his charter business ahead of the game. Using your experience as well as the guide's you won it from."

"Way ahead. Like I said, I'm going to go pay him a visit one of these days."

"Where is the isthmus?"

"On the other side, where the island pinches together like a figure eight."

"Did you tell the sheriff's department you thought he stole it?"

"Not at first because we didn't know, you know? The thing turned up missing and we thought maybe some kids came onto the boat or something at night and grabbed whatever they saw. It gets pretty fucking boring growing up on the island, from what I hear. Just ask Graciela about Raymond-the kid's going stir crazy. So anyway we made a report and that was that. Then a couple weeks later I see this ad in Fish Tales and it's announcing this new charter out of the isthmus and there's a picture of the guy and I say, 'Hey, I know that guy' and I put it together. He stole my fish box."

"Did you call the sheriff then?"

"Yeah, I called and told them he was the guy. They didn't act too excited. I called back the next week and they said they talked to the guy-by phone. They didn't even bother to go out there for a face-to-face. He denied it like of course he would and that was that as far as they were concerned."

"What's this guy's name?'

"Robert Finder. His operation is called Isthmus Charters. In the ad he calls himself Robert 'Fish' Finder. My ass. More like 'Fish Stealer.'"

I looked down at the photo on the screen and wondered if this meant anything at all to my investigation. Could the missing GPS box be at the center of Terry McCaleb's death? It seemed unlikely. The idea that someone would steal a competitor's fishing spots was understandable. But then to engage in a complicated plot to also kill the competitor seemed on the far limit of belief. It would require a hell of a plan and execution on Finder's part, that was for sure. It would require a hell of a plan on anyone's part.

Lockridge seemed to read my thoughts.

"Hey, you think this bastard could've had something to do with Terror going down?"

I looked up at him for a long moment, realizing that the idea of Lockridge being involved in McCaleb's death as a means of gaining control and location of the charter business and The Following Sea was a more believable theory.

"I don't know," I said. "But I'll probably be checking it out."

"Let me know if you want somebody to go with you."

"Sure. But listen, I noticed on the stiff's report that the GPS was the only thing reported stolen. Did that hold up? Nothing else ever turned up missing?"

"That was it. That's why me and Terry thought it was so strange at first. Until we figured out it was Finder." 'Terry thought that, too, that it was him?"

"He was coining around to it. I mean, come on, who else could it have been?"

It was a worthy question, but not one I thought I needed to put front and center at the moment. I pointed at the laptop screen and told Lockridge to keep moving back through the photos. He did so and the procession of happy anglers continued.

We came across one more curiosity in the photo series. Lockridge backed up to a set of six photos that depicted a man whose face was not shown clearly at first. In the three initial shots he was posed holding a brilliantly colored fish up to the camera. But in each shot he held the fish up too high, obscuring most of his face. In each of these shots his dark glasses peeked over the ridge of the fish's dorsal fin. The fish appeared to be the same in each of these three shots, which led me to assume that the photographer was repeatedly trying to get a photo that included the fisherman's face. But to no avail.

"Who took these?"

"Terror. I wasn't there on that one."

Something about the man or maybe the way he had avoided the camera in the trophy photo had made McCaleb suspicious. That seemed obvious. The next three photos in the series were shots of the man taken without his knowledge. The first two were taken from inside the salon, shooting out into the cockpit where the fisherman leaned against the right gunwale. Because the glass on the salon door had reflective film on it, the man would not have seen or known that McCaleb had taken photos of him.

The first of these two photos was in profile. The next a fiill-on face shot. Take away the setting and McCaleb had instinctively gotten mug shot poses, another confirmation of his suspicion. Even with these photos the man was still obscured. He had a full beard of brownish gray hair and wore dark sunglasses with large lenses and a blue L.A. Dodgers hat. What little could be seen of the man's hair appeared to be close cropped and matching the colorations of his beard. He had a gold hoop earring in his right ear.

In the profile shot his eyes were crinkled and hooded, naturally hidden even with the dark sunglasses. He wore blue jeans and a plain white T-shirt beneath a Levi's jacket.

The sixth photo, the last in the sequence, was taken after the charter had ended. It was a long shot of the man walking on the Avalon pier, apparently after leaving The Following Sea. His face was turned slightly toward the camera, though it still wasn't much more than a profile. But I wondered if the man had continued to turn after the shot and perhaps had then seen McCaleb and his camera.

"So what about this guy?" I asked. 'Tell me about him."

"Can't," Lockridge said. "I told you, I wasn't there. That was one Terry picked up on the fly. No reservation. The guy just showed up on the water taxi while Terry was on the boat and asked to go out. He paid for a half a day, the minimum charter. He wanted to go out right away and I was over on the mainland. Terry couldn't wait on me, so he took him out without me. Alone, which is a pain in the ass. But they got a nice Spanish mack out there. Not bad."

"Did he talk about the guy after?"

"No, not really. He only said that the guy didn't take the full half. He wanted to pack it in after just a couple hours. So they did."

"Terry had an alert on. He took six photos, three while the guy wasn't looking. You sure he didn't say anything about that?"

"Like I said, not to me. But Terry kept a lot of stuff to himself."

"Do you know this guy's name?" "No, but I'm sure Terry put something in the charter book. You want me to go get it?"

"Yes. And I'd also like to know the exact date and how he paid. But first, can you print out these photos?" "All six of them? It will take a while." "Actually, all six and give me one of Finder while we're at it. I have the time."