5 - Choker: Ike Schwartz Mystery 5 by Frederick Ramsay Read Free Book Online Page A

couldn’t see was the water’s depth. That would be important if he ever hoped to locate Nick Reynolds’ plane. He locked up and went to breakfast.
    As a breakfast venue, The Avenue Restaurant compared favorably with his usual haunt in Picketsville, the Crossroads Diner. He maintained, as a faith statement, that no one but a culinary incompetent or a drunk could possibly ruin breakfast. On reflection, however, he remembered one he’d been served in Grants, New Mexico, that qualified as a breakfast disaster. But those experiences were rare. Breakfast was one of America’s great achievements and a major contribution to the world. Gourmet or Denny’s, one was rarely a disappointment. For Ike, the advantage of the Rehoboth facility lay in the fact that it was not run by Flora Blevins, the proprietor of the Crossroads, and, therefore, Ike could order anything he wanted without her vetoing his choices or lecturing him on the benefits of deep-fat frying in bacon grease.
    He slathered butter and syrup on a short stack with scrapple on the side. A fruit cup was his nod toward good nutrition. He might or might not eat it. A vision of Flora rose up in his subconscious and he felt guilty—for about two seconds. Three cups of coffee and a block of green melon, which he assumed was honeydew, and he was on his way.
    A marine supplies store on the ocean highway supplied him with a boating chart of Eastern Bay and its surrounding area. The Exxon station next door sold him a road map of Maryland.
    Spreading the maps and photographs side by side turned out to be a problem. He didn’t have enough table space. He found a card table behind the front door, and by positioning it next to the dining room table and pushing them both to the kitchen counter, he managed to create sufficient surface to assemble a display of three maps and the photos in approximate order. He spent the next hour studying one and then another. Not enough information. He called Charlie.
    “Ike, it’s Sunday morning, for God’s sake.”
    “Why aren’t you in church, Charlie?”
    “What? You’re joking, right?”
    “I never joke about the Almighty, Charlie.”
    “Okay. Why are you calling me at this hour on Sunday? I just might have been going out the door to church, for all you know.”
    “And I might have been having breakfast with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Have I got that pairing correct?”
    “Who knows? I haven’t had my supermarket check-out line update lately. So, what’s up?”
    “I’m looking at maps. Three different kinds of maps, all depicting the same area. It’s fascinating.”
    “Really? You called me on Sunday, the only day I can catch up on my sleep, to tell me about maps?”
    “I have an aeronautical map, a road map, and a local boating chart side by side. I have your satellite pictures arranged in the same order. I am studying the Eastern Bay—that’s a part of the Chesapeake Bay south of Kent Island.”
    “What is so interesting about that?”
    “I think that’s where your almost nephew-in-law went in. I can’t be sure, but that’s what it’s beginning to look like.”
    “I thought the search was north of Kent Island.”
    “It was. That’s why they never found anything. Since he disappeared from the radar over that bit of water, they figured that’s where he must be, but according to your sister’s answering machine, he flew another ten to twelve minutes. That would put him south of Kent Island somewhere near, in, or about, Eastern Bay.”
    “Wow. What do you need? I assume you need something since you called me on the Sabbath—my Sabbath, not yours, of course.”
    “I’m touched by your piety, Charlie. Okay, I am studying these maps and pictures, and each tells me a different story. The topography is the same, but the information each gives up is different. As I said, it’s fascinating. What I need—what I think I need—is more comparisons. Send me pictures of the area over time. Today, last month, August, last