“Sometimes I can help a witness provide more details that I need for a sketch,” Sierra said in an attempt to get Mr. Rivers to cooperate.
“Fine. What do you want to know exactly?” Mr. Rivers folded his arms in a defensive manner.
“Everything,” Sierra said.
“I don’t see how this has anything do with the description of the men there.”
“It helps if I can see the scene in my mind’s eye when I’m drawing the sketches.”
Mr. Rivers let out his breath. “All right, so three men were there, and one of the three was in charge. The other two acted like bodyguards or something.”
“Had you bought anything from the man before?” Adam asked.
“No.”
“How did you learn about the boat being for sale?” Even though Adam knew very well that Tori had asked all these questions of the boat buyer, as thorough as she was when questioning a suspect, it helped to ask the person to describe the events that took place again to see if he altered the testimony.
“Craigslist. I told the other detective that. I thought it was legitimate.”
“No bill of sale? The price was too good to be true, but the hull number was painted over. Not paying attention to something like that is a big mistake.” If Mr. Rivers was innocent of any wrongdoing, Adam had an obligation to tell him what could get him into trouble if he was buying property that might be stolen. “If you ever find a boat where the hull number is missing or has obscured numbers, be wary. Unless it can be proven that it’s not a stolen boat, don’t buy it. You can see here that the number one was turned into a seven and the five was turned into an eight. The numbers should be clear and distinct.” Adam glanced at Sierra who was patiently waiting to sketch the guy. “So what did the guy in charge look like?”
“The guy who sold me the boat—which, like I told the other detective, means I’m out $30,000 when I had to forfeit the boat—had shoulder-length blond hair and pale-blue eyes, a long face, and ears that stuck out. He was wearing torn jeans and a T-shirt and sneakers. He was, I’d say, around forty and had a potbelly.”
Adam could smell the man’s deception, fear, and sweat and saw his forehead perspiring. “Did it ever cross your mind that the boat was stolen?” The engine number was also what gave the boat away. It hadn’t been changed or removed.
“Of course not. If I had, I wouldn’t have bought it.”
“The blue-book value of the Monterey Bowrider is nearly $64,000. You paid cash for less than half the value of the boat,” Adam said.
“Yeah, so? I didn’t know it was stolen or worth that much.”
Adam didn’t believe the man wouldn’t have checked on the value of the boat. Most anyone would to make sure they weren’t getting a bad deal. Especially when paying that much for a boat.
“Can you give me a description of the other two men?” Sierra asked.
“One was muscular, blond, his hair cropped short. I couldn’t tell the color of his eyes. He was too far away. I don’t know. Shorter than the seller. Maybe five six. He was wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt, boots, I think. The other guy I gave even less of a glance at. Dark hair, shaggy, he was probably the tallest, leanest of the two.”
“Okay, thanks. On the shorter man, spread of eyes? Together, apart? Bushy brows?” Sierra asked.
Adam got a call from Tori. “Yeah, what’s up?”
“The three men who drowned in the Willamette River have been identified. One of the men’s wives called in to say that one of the sketches Sierra had drawn was of her husband, who owned the boat that we now have in custody, and that the sketches of the other two men were good friends of his. They had reservations at a cabin. We had already checked all the cabins in the area, but she told us they weren’t due to arrive there until tomorrow because the cabins had all been rented out for the rest of the time. They were staying at a hotel in the meantime. We found their IDs in their hotel rooms and their truck and boat trailer in the hotel parking lot. A friend in Portland returned the truck and trailer there after dropping them off at the launch site. He was supposed to pick two of the men up tomorrow so they could move their stuff to the cabin. The other one was staying with the boat. The friend hadn’t known they’d run into any trouble.”
“Okay.”
“And we have more of a break.”
That was what Adam liked to hear. “What else?”
“The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office River Patrol’s Freedom stopped this same boat on the Willamette River when they saw three men cruising in it who didn’t appear to be carrying any life jackets. Everyone onboard a craft has to have a life jacket. When the patrol questioned the captain of the boat to see if he had a safety education card, required for the operator of a craft with a ten-horsepower engine or greater, he didn’t. He was supposed to produce a driver’s license, but he didn’t have it on him. The officer gave him a citation and loaned them three life jackets that were to be turned in when he went to court.”
“Did the description the officers have of the men on the boat match the drowned men?” Adam asked.
“Nope. As soon as I had the IDs for the men from their hotel rooms, I ran the info over to speak to the officers. None of the men pictured in the IDs had been on the boat. So the other men must have grabbed the boat after the men drowned or possibly had something to do with the drowning,” Tori said.
“Well, damn, it’s too bad that they hadn’t had any IDs on them when the river patrol stopped them to question them. But if one of them tried to sell the boat—”
“Yep, we need to have Sierra draw some sketches based off the river patrol’s eyewitness accounts. It will be interesting to see just how similar they are to the man or men that the boat buyer described, unless the men weren’t the same as the ones who sold him the boat,” Tori said.
“Okay, thanks, Tori. We’ll head over there next.” Adam ended the call. When he saw that Sierra was still drawing but Mr. Rivers wasn’t adding anything to the account, Adam said to Mr. Rivers, “Three men died on the Willamette River, and the boat you had purchased belonged to one of the men.”
Mr. Rivers’s eyes widened. Sierra stopped drawing and glanced at Adam, looking just as surprised.
“It could have been a case of accidental drowning of all three men,” Adam continued. “The current is swift and cold, even in the summer. None of the men were wearing life vests. Or it could be a case of homicide. We haven’t confirmed which yet. Oh, and the good news is that officers with the Multnomah Sheriff’s Department have given us descriptions of the seller of the boat. Now we can match the descriptions you offered us with the ones the officers gave.”