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brain about that all day.”
    “Explain to me the business setup. I don’t want to be nosy, but where do you fit in?”
    “I own about ten percent of the shipyard, but I don’t take any money out yet. We’re barely keeping our heads above water. Since I have an MBA, I run the office. Jerry was president, and Brian is vice president. Brian is the brains behind the designs while Jerry has always been the salesman. He could sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo.”
    “So with Jerry gone, how has business been going?”
    Simon shrugged. “Okay, I guess. Brian and I have been trying to take up the slack. We figured Jerry would surface when he was good and ready.”
    Wynne was disliking Jerry more and more. “Did he have any enemies?”
    Simon frowned. “We’d had to fire our manager two weeks before he disappeared. He’d embezzled ten thousand dollars. Right after that, we had a small fire in his old office. We managed to get it out before it did much damage, but I always wondered if he’d set it.”
    “Did the sheriff check it out?”
    “That was in the days of Andrew Mitchell, and he couldn’t be bothered. We never pressed charges about the embezzlement. Roger had been a friend of Jerry’s for years, and Jerry didn’t want to hurt Roger’s wife, Teresa. She was an old girlfriend.” He grinned. “Of course half the women in town were, too.”
    “Jerry must have been charming.” And if he looked like Simon, it would have been a dangerous combination. Not that Simon wasn’t appealing. His good humor and killer smile would have lured his own share of women.
    “So this Roger could have wanted to get back at Jerry for being fired. And maybe he was jealous that Jerry had once dated Teresa.”
    “Maybe. Nothing adds up though. Killing Jerry wouldn’t get Roger his job back. Look, we’re barking up the wrong tree. I’m sure it was an accident.”
    He didn’t sound sure. Wynne wondered why. “It might make him feel he’d evened the score. Is he still on the island?”
    “Yeah. He opened a rival company. Shelby Boats.”
    Wynne had seen it the last time she’d gone to Turtle Town. “Even more of a reason,” she pointed out. “If the Superior Lady was such an innovation, maybe he was afraid of being run out of business.”
    “He hadn’t opened it yet.” Simon stretched his long legs along the deck.
    He was so overwhelmingly male. His strong legs were tanned and muscular. Wynne turned her gaze away. “Have you seen his boats? Could he be using the design of the Superior Lady? ”
    “That would be stupid. I’d recognize it right off. He hasn’t launched anything yet.”
    “Any possibility of our getting a look in his shop?”
    “He’d never let me in there.”
    Wynne bit her lip. There had to be a way. “Max has been thinking of buying a new boat. Maybe I could get him to call, and me and Max could go look.”
    “Roger would likely be suspicious. He knows me and Max are friends, and I would likely be Max’s choice of a builder.”
    “True, but what can he say if Max calls? It’s worth a try.”
    Simon looked up, and his gaze was intent. “Why are you doing this? It isn’t your problem. I hired you to help find the boat, not solve a murder.”
    Murder. It was an ugly word, and it was the first time anyone had spoken it, though she’d thought it. “You think it was murder, don’t you?”
    Simon was silent for a long moment. “I don’t see how that boat could have gone down,” he said. “So maybe I do. I hope I’m wrong.”
    “I hope so, too,” she said. More than he knew. If the sheriff deemed it homicide, they had their work cut out for them to prove Simon’s innocence.

FIVE
    “B rian, you in here?” Simon walked through the boat plant, his shoes squeaking on the concrete floor. The place had that deserted feel, but he’d seen Brian’s car out back. He dreaded telling Brian the news.
    “Is he here?” Wynne whispered.
    “He has to be here somewhere. His car is