The Death of David Malone (Audition)

Law gentry, the catch Scarlet Queen. Position 123 degrees, 8 minutes west, 37 degrees, 31 minutes north. Gyro Compass Course 237, Wind Fresh, Sky Fair.

Remarks, cleared Port of San Francisco at 2.30 pm. Sailing to late 19 hours due to death of first officer. Cause of death, murder. I stood there in the pier that evening. The ache in my frame reminding me that a long hard day of loading stores was behind me and looked out over the bay.

It wasn't a night for stargazing or anything, just typically San Francisco, damp and grey. The kind most people trade off early for steam heat and drinks in short glasses, but for me, it was good.

The Scarlet Queen nudged her fenders against the dock right below me. She looked clean and young and her new white paint with her shining bright work picking up the pure lights like costume jewelry and a neon. She was beautiful and she was mine. All 78 feet of her.

She rose and fell just a little even in the quiet harbor water delicately lifting her piggy head out of the shadows now and then to give her a glance at the dock. The Scarlet Queen, a fresh young body looking forward from just under the Bouspottie, bold, teasing, dressed in only a crown, and painted

scarlet. But that particular gray San Francisco night wasn't cut out for romance between man and lacquered wood. I didn't hear him as he walked up behind me, but it didn't take me long to pick up the odor of a jail cell after he opened his mouth. You fell off, Connie. Yeah, that's right.

I'm Castle Homicide. You know a man named David Armilone? Yeah, he's my chief mate. Who'd he kill? That's not what I'm interested in. I want to know who killed him. Come on, he got a date at headquarters.