Dockside Dive Supply was three blocks inland from the public marina, sharing side walls with a liquor store and a used books shop, all three in need of a fresh coat of paint. Matthias parked and checked the photocopy of Hiram Standish’s dive card, front and back, which Sergeant Cuthbertson had given him. The card certified that Hiram Standish had completed a basic course in skin and scuba diving which included twenty-two hours of instruction. It was signed on the back by Hiram Standish, diver, and Wendell Minns, instructor. Matthias went inside. He’d been in a lot of dive shops. He could grade them at a glance. Dockside Dive Supply had the usual gear: tanks, regs, BCs, masks, fins, snorkels, backpacks, gauges, watches, wet suits, but not much of any of them, and nothing of the best: D. But the prices could have been higher, and a yellowed photograph of Valerie Taylor, mask pushed up on her forehead, hung on the wall: D plus. A man came through a back door, wiping his hands on the sides of his jeans.
