Keller’s head dropped. The defiance drained out of his posture, leaving him sagging against the timber post like an empty coat.
Magistrate Chen hadn't just signed an admiralty arrest warrant for our cargo protection. When my brother presented our thermal recordings and the electric load logs to the federal clerk at two o’clock, the court had forwarded the file directly to the county prosecutor's special investigations unit. For eight months, the city had been investigating an unaccounted-for power drain along the southern waterfront that had siphoned over ninety thousand dollars of electricity from the municipal utility. Every time the auditors scheduled a physical inspection of the pier vaults, the discrepancies vanished because Keller had twelve hours' advance warning through the port's internal dispatch system.
Today, he didn't get twelve hours. He didn't even get twelve minutes.
The door of the white municipal sedan opened, and a woman in a dark trench coat stepped into the rain, holding an open leather credential case. She was followed by two technicians from City Light wearing insulated high-voltage gloves and carrying digital spectrum analyzers.
"Officer Keller," the woman said, stopping at the edge of the boarding zone. Her voice was level, carrying easily over the hiss of the rain. "I'm Deputy Prosecutor Aris Thorne. We received the remote telemetry from the North Star’s bypass uplink at three-forty this afternoon. Judge Chen signed the search warrant for units one through four in shed three twenty minutes ago."
Keller didn't answer. He stared at the wet wood between his boots.
"Your brother-in-law is currently detained at the weigh station on Interstate 5," Thorne continued, her eyes shifting from Keller to the torn manila envelope resting on our deck plate. "The state patrol stopped his refrigerated tractor-trailer with twenty-two hundred pounds of uninspected Dungeness crab in the sleeper compartment. The bill of lading he was carrying had your signature stamped on the port clearance line at three-fifteen today."
The technician from City Light returned from the south corner of the shed, accompanied by Petty Officer Chen. The technician held up a heavy clear plastic evidence bag. Inside the plastic lay a six-inch steel cotter pin, its prongs bent back and blackened with electrical scorch marks.
"Found it wedged straight into the trip solenoid on the main four-eighty panel," the technician reported to Thorne. "The jumper leads are four-gauge commercial wire, spliced directly into the feed line for the private walk-ins inside the shed. The meter was completely bypassed. They've been pulling eighty amps continuous since Tuesday."
Thorne looked down at the envelope on the deck of the North Star. "And what’s the cash on the diamond plate, Captain Miller?"
"Three thousand dollars in twenties," I said. "Banded with our fuel co-op's private wraps. Officer Keller demanded it twenty minutes ago. He said if we didn't pay his dock assessment in cash, he'd file an emergency safety hold on our vessel and leave our lines tied to this pier until our freight spoiled."
Thorne turned her gaze back to Keller. The harbor officer looked up, his jaw set in a hard, desperate line, but his eyes were wide and bloodshot under the harsh white lights of the cutter.
"Ronald Keller," Thorne said, her voice dropping into the formal rhythm of a felony arrest. "You are under arrest for commercial extortion, grand larceny of municipal utilities, and obstruction of federal maritime navigation. Petty Officer Harris, please transfer the defendant to the county vehicle."
Keller tried to take a step forward, but his right ankle buckled beneath him. The two Coast Guard officers caught him under the arms, lifting him bodily across the gangway. As they moved him toward the waiting cruiser, Keller turned his head back toward our wheelhouse, his teeth bared in one last, bitter snarl.
"You're a dead man on this waterfront, Miller," Keller hissed, his voice breaking into a wet cough. "You'll never tie up at a public dock in Puget Sound without every inspector on the coast checking your bilges for grease. You burned the whole port."
"The port didn't burn, Keller," Frank called after him, his hand resting firm on the brass companionway rail. "We just turned the lights back on."
The cruiser door slammed shut with a heavy, final latch. The amber beacons reflected against the wet corrugated siding of shed three as the City Light crew moved in with bolt cutters to isolate the illegal busbars and secure the stolen power lines for court evidence.