Sleeping with the Fishes
By Karen Carruthers

If the marina had been quiet that evening, the splash would probably have attracted much more attention. As it was, the partygoers on the adjacent beach took little notice of it. A few of the boaters stepped away from the bonfire to have a look in the direction of the noise. They were laughing when they turned back to the group. "Obviously, Ed hasn't passed out yet", they ribbed his wife. "He's managed to knock your inflatable dinghy overboard."

"Is it tied up?" asked Irene.

David, Gary and Rick all nodded. "Yep. We could see the bow line holding it. It's sitting skewed, since the dinghy is upside down," Rick volunteered.

"Well, I'm not dealing with it tonight," said Irene. "It'll still be there in the morning."

By three a.m. when the last of the "hangers-on" put out the bonfire, the marina was finally quiet. The attention that earlier would have been given to the splash near Ed's boat, was instead directed to the bloodcurdling screams coming from the same area. Hatches opened everywhere and people with flashlights could be seen running in the direction of the sound. Gary was one of the first to get there, where he found Irene screaming and clawing at the dinghy trying to get it up on land. It was the body, partly visible under the dinghy that was causing all the commotion.

While Gary and his girlfriend Cathy pulled Irene aside and attempted to calm her down, Rick was on the cell phone dialing the police Marine Unit. This is what they found:

-Ed was fully clothed. He had been in the water for several hours. He had suffered a blow to the head that was probably the cause of death.
-His dinghy only had small amounts of blood on it, probably from coming into contact with the body in the water.
-There were trace amounts of blood on the wooden cap of the retaining wall, built to fortify the land "edge" and to hold cleats for tying off larger boats. This had almost been washed away by the attempts to pull the dinghy ashore.
-A large board was also in the water, floating around the other side of the boat. It was identified as the top board from the main hatch.
-The tarp that Irene and Ed used to cover their storage boxes and cooler had been knocked in the water and was partly submerged nearby.
-The divers found various items of debris in the silt under the boat. There was a full bottle of red wine and a corkscrew, dropped several weeks before by Ed himself when entertaining on the boat. There was a platter that someone remembered Ed losing around the time of the last basin party. There was a partly used can of marine paint matching the hull of Ed's boat, oddly adorned with a piece of rope.

Investigators discovered that Ed had left his office early with a couple of co-workers to play pool and have a few drinks. He consumed four scotch and sodas with them. He went from there to meet Irene before heading to the boat. Irene was late as usual. He had two more scotches while waiting for her and another one with her when she got there.
Irene filled them in on the rest of the evening. At the marina she had sent him to visit some other boaters while she prepared their portion for the evenings pot luck party on the beach. Normally Ed would have been helping, but in Irene's words "He was already too drunk to do anything but get in the way." She confirmed with Rick and Dave that Ed had been drinking with them prior to dinner.

The couple attended the dinner, where Ed made free with the red wine (his and anyone else's). When dinner was over and the bonfire was starting, Ed went back to the boat to pick up a bottle of scotch. Irene thought that might be the end of it, as Ed was already a little beyond his limit. However, Ed returned shortly with the scotch and their next-boat neighbour, Ralph. Ralph was none too sober himself, but then Ralph never was. He was the marina's token layabout. Unfortunately, he was capable of helping Ed back to the party. Over the next few hours the two of them managed to work their way through the bottle. It was a lively party and their consumption went unnoticed until Ed attempted to sit on the picnic table and missed.
At that point Irene decided to take him to bed. She helped him up and supported him, working on maintaining a more-or-less straight line towards their boat. Ralph came along to help. At least that was his declared intention. The added burden of keeping Ralph moving in the right direction made for a tedious walk.

Ed's boat was the last one in that end of the marina, a beautiful forty-two foot wooden sailboat recently restored. He bought it with some of the "fun money" he had come into when he took his IT company public. He was talking about taking it to the Caribbean.

When they got to it, Irene had a bit of a job getting Ed on board. He insisted that Ralph come aboard for one more drink. So Ralph led the way up the portable staircase and into the boat. It was not locked. Nobody in the marina locked their boats. The boys sat down to have a drink while Irene readied the sleeping area and visited the head. When she returned to the galley they were putting back tequila shots. Ed had become belligerent and was reviling Ralph for being a no-good thief. He wasn't very lucid, but Irene thought he was muttering about missing cash and a silver platter. She poured them two more shots and once they had finished them Ed was far enough gone to be easily convinced into lying down in the v-berth. So, Irene took him in and put him to bed "as much as possible". She helped Ralph back to his own boat next door. She even helped him get his hatch in place, as his motor skills were not what they should be, and returned to the party.

Ralph corroborated her story. The portion that he could remember, at least.

Everyone in the marina assumed that Ed's death had been a tragic accident. They ignored the items in the water, assuming that they were just knocked their through Ed's typical clumsiness, but that wasn't the case. Just a few days later the detectives came back to make an arrest.

Whodunnit and what gave the culprit away?

What was the paint can doing in the water?