The Price of Malice (11 page)

“But what I don’t get,” she continued, “is we never saw any of that. He and José kept going out, and they kept catching lobster. Where was the money going, that they needed more?”

Harry sighed and rubbed his face with both hands. “Jesus,” he muttered.

“What?” she pressed him. “I need to know.”

“Nobody tells nobody nuthin’, you know? It’s no wonder there’s no trust.”

She forced herself to show no reaction. Such a comment, from this of all men. She stayed silent, letting him work through his own inner process.

Eventually, he passed a hand through his thinning hair, took a long pull on his bottle, and sighed again, finally saying, “I don’t really know what they were doing, just why. It had to do with smuggling, though.”

Her shoulders sagged. “I knew something was wrong, for months before they disappeared. Mom did, too. I think that’s why losing them hit her so hard. She must’ve guessed they were up to something and it got her nervous. Then, afterward . . .” Her voice trailed off.

Harry made no comment.

“You have no idea what went wrong?” she asked.

“No,” he told her. “I heard they were supposed to pick up a load before the bad weather, then maybe lay low for a few hours, to ride it out. I never knew. It was like the Bermuda Triangle or something. They just vanished. It wasn’t the storm, though—I’m sure about that.”

“Heard from who?” she asked.

He shook that off. “You don’t need to know, but a solid guy. I go back with him, too. Somebody else got ’em. Who or why, I don’t know.”

“That leaves the question you didn’t answer, then,” she told him.

He frowned. “What?”

“What was going on? You said you knew why they started doing this.”

He shook his head as if warding off a bee. “Jesus, Lyn, what is the point? Leave the dead be.”

Suddenly furious with all the verbal sparring, she half rose from her seat to push her face close to his. “Fuck you, asshole. Somebody
made
them dead. You think I’m going to let that go? You must have shit for brains. I’m not my father’s daughter for nothing, and if Dad were here right now, he’d take you apart for that crack.”

He sat back under the assault, and for a moment she feared her outburst would cost her what little he had left.

But he smiled finally, and even reached out and touched her cheek with his hand, saying quietly, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I was kidding
myself. I felt bad when they disappeared, and made myself think it was better left alone. I let you all down.”

She seized her opportunity. “Who is it you know? I have to start somewhere. Maybe he can help.”

Harry closed down. “I asked already. He’s as clueless as I am. They just disappeared—that’s all he knows.”

She wasn’t going to give up. “Then tell me what started it all.”

“It was José. Abílo was just looking out for him. He got deep into gambling and owed big time. He finally went to Abílo for help. It was bad. But your old man had his pride—he figured they could pay off the debt and keep all of you in the dark.”

“But the people he owed were crooks, no?” Lyn asked incredulously.

Harry smiled. “Technically, maybe—he’s the guy I’ve been talking about. More of a middleman businessman, really. But Abílo was going to settle the debt anyhow, so it doesn’t make much difference.”

She sat there for a while, absorbing a set of images she’d never before imagined, fighting her disappointment.

Looking up at him one last time, she then asked, “What’s this businessman’s name?”

She expected more resistance, but apparently Harry Martin had run out of steam. Without hesitation, he said, “Brandhorst. Dick Brandhorst. Lives up north. Used to be Portland, Maine. I’m not sure now. We always talk by cell phone. That’s all I know.”

“You think he killed them?”

He shook his head. “No reason to—they were playing ball. The guy’s like a banker for the down-and-out, Lyn. He’s not the one José laid the bets with—him I don’t know. Dick’s the moneyman; call him the collection agent, but not a leg-breaker like in the movies.”

Lyn nodded and stood up, shaken and drained. “Thanks, Harry.”

He caught hold of her hand, in an oddly gentle gesture, given the setting. “Lyn,” he said to her earnestly, and in contrast to the placating words he’d just uttered. “Please be careful. You’re all your family’s got now. Think of the living.”

She squeezed his hand back and then let it drop. “I am,” she said, and headed toward the back door.

J
oe paused at the bottom of the stairs, adjusting to the darkness. He knew where the light switch was—the municipal building’s basement was as well known to him as his own, housing as it did the police department’s cells, booking room, old case files, lockers, and sundry other areas. But it was cool down here, resonant only with the dull mechanical rumblings of most nineteenth-century hulks, and he wanted to savor the soothing silence. He was reaching the limit of how many hours he could stay awake and still be effective, and was therefore finding every cold drink, trip to the men’s room, or moment of respite like this to be an oasis amid the exhaustion.

But for the time being, they couldn’t be overly indulged. He hit the lights and walked down the ancient, gloomy corridor to a door with a combination lock. This he typed in quickly from long memory, waited for the audible click, and pushed the door open.

Ron Klesczewski turned from the table he was overseeing, deep in thought, and greeted his old boss.

“Hey, Joe. You look like you could use some sleep.”

Joe half smiled. “I might grab a little just to kill off all the comments.”

Ron laughed. “Oh, oh. Sorry.”

Joe flapped his hand dismissively. “No—you look like death warmed over, you should expect it. I can’t fake it like I used to. After this, I’ll lie down for a while.”

He gestured toward the table—actually one of three that had been shoved together to carry all the items seized from Castine’s apartment. “You find anything?”

“We’re getting a feel for his habits,” Ron told him. “His garbage hadn’t been tossed yet, so we got a mother lode there. That job,” he admitted with a laugh, “I assigned to somebody else.”

He crossed over to a neat display of soiled and wrinkled receipts. “We got these to add to the ones you found,” he explained. “And I have people talking to merchants all over town, flashing his picture and asking if he’s been seen with a kid—or anyone of interest, for that matter. Maybe we’ll get lucky. It’s a small town, especially the circles he traveled, and nobody likes what he was doing.”

“Plus, he’s dead,” Joe added.

“Never hurts,” Ron agreed. “Nobody’s gonna come knocking at night.”

“What about the computer?” Joe asked.

“Sheila’s got that,” Ron said simply. Sheila Murphy, one of his detectives, had recently gone to school to get certified in high-tech forensic autopsies, as Joe thought of them. “Don’t know what she’s found yet.”

Joe was staring off into space, seemingly miles away.

“You okay?” Ron asked him quietly.

Joe shifted his gaze. “Yeah. Sorry. Daydreaming a little.”

“Troubles?”

“Could be,” Joe conceded. Ron was an old friend, they didn’t work on the same squad anymore, and certainly Ron had bared his soul to Joe a time or two in the past.

“Lyn really took it to heart when I discovered her father’s boat in Maine.”

“I heard about that,” Ron said. “She’s not blaming you, is she?”

“Not rationally,” Joe agreed, “but it’s not rational territory. The family disintegrated when the old man disappeared. It was an old-fashioned patriarchy.”

“I don’t get it, though,” Ron argued. “Why’s finding the boat a big deal? I mean, not to be indelicate, but he and the son are still dead, right?”

“It implies they didn’t die in a storm,” Joe explained. “And in that culture, where smuggling is like a historical prerogative, the next reasonable explanation ain’t too cheery.”

Ron grunted softly. “I see what you mean. You get the local authorities on it?”

“On what?” Joe countered. “They know about it, but there’s nothing to work with.”

He paused and surveyed the belongings scattered across Ron’s three tabletops. “Anyhow, that’s not what we’re here for. What else have you got?”

Sam stood in the shadows, her body loose and relaxed. Over the years, initially coached by Willy—a past master at this—she’d learned to stay on surveillance, immobile and nearly invisible, for hours on end, denying any desires for food or drink, or even the need to pee. She knew she was probably slowly ruining her kidneys in the process, but her prowess had gained her a reputation she perversely enjoyed.

She was standing outside Castine’s now emptied apartment, unknowingly where Gary Nelson had stood guard when Joe had told him to interview the neighbors.

Nelson had met two of the three, and gotten the story of Castine being seen with a young girl, but that’s where it had ended.

Sam thought she might improve on that. For one thing, she’d run the occupants of all three apartments through the Spillman data bank—shared by ninety percent of all the law enforcement agencies in the state—and had come up with some interesting tidbits on the one missing tenant.

Andrea Halnon, nicknamed Andie, had not chosen the straight and narrow. A thief, a drug mule, a check forger, she had several pages of references attesting to her criminal acumen—from consorting with known felons, to supplying kids with cigarettes, to being the driver at an armed robbery—the list was a veritable primer on how to violate the law. And she was only thirty-three years old.

The point of interest to Sam, however, wasn’t her easy way with rules, but her negotiating skills after being caught. Andrea Halnon had become a master in judicial deal making. In exchange for selling everything and everyone down the river, she’d either bartered her way straight back onto the street, or at worst spent a few months in one of the state’s less-than-lethal lockups.

To Sam’s mind, that made her someone who was not only willing to deal, but who made sure she always had something to trade, just in case.

Halnon also had a weak spot. She was a two-time loser in cases where it counted, and she’d been officially warned that the habitual offender statute was dangling right over her head. Even for able, fast-footed runners, there was an end to all roads eventually.

Sam knew something else: that all her research had only revealed
the crimes for which this woman had been caught. That meant, especially given her record, that Halnon had done much more than the law knew, and was most likely still hard at work—if cautiously. Finally, she was on the last legs of a probationary stretch. If she messed up now, even slightly, she’d be back in jail.

Sam heard noises in the distant stairwell—quiet talking, some muted laughter—before two figures appeared at the far end of the hall. They paused while the shorter of them toggled the light switch to the bulb hanging halfway down the corridor, and which Sam had unscrewed earlier.

“That dumb fuck,” she heard a woman exclaim. “The light’s out again. Jesus. What a rat hole.”

The taller shadow stayed quiet.

They proceeded slowly, the woman leading, still talking. “Every week, something craps out in this goddamn building.”

“You should move,” the male suggested quietly.

Halnon laughed. “Yeah. Fuckin’ A. I should have a million bucks, too.”

She reached the apartment door and pulled a key from her jeans, fumbling to fit the lock. When she pushed open the door at last, the light inside shot into the hallway, catching them like a theatrical spot. Sam immediately recognized Halnon’s companion as Tanner Fitzhugh, recently released from jail on a federal weapons charge, and someone that Halnon’s probation prohibited her from contacting.

It wasn’t quite what Sam was expecting. She’d hoped to put the squeeze on this woman after a late night out, while she was possibly drunk, tired, doped up, or all three. Sam hadn’t considered a possible companion.

By protocol, she had several choices: give up until the odds improved; retreat and call for backup, preferably from Parole and
Probation, since they had the real clout in this game; or simply forge ahead and be the cowboy that her boss kept stressing she should never be.

Without hesitation, she stepped forward, gun drawn, and ordered, “
Police
. Get down on your knees, cross your ankles, and lock your hands behind your necks.
Now
.”

Luckily, her rashness didn’t cost her this time, as it had in the past. Both people simply followed orders and dropped to their knees, only Halnon muttering the obligatory, “Fuck me.”

“Tanner Fitzhugh,” Sam addressed the man, approaching slowly.

“Yeah,” was the tired response. “I know you?”

“Keep looking straight ahead,” she ordered. She crouched behind him and quickly patted him down, looking for weapons and finding none.

“I’m the cop who actually reads all the faxes about recently released federal inmates, and the fact that they’re not to consort with known criminal elements. That phrase ring a bell?”

“Yeah,” he admitted with a sigh.

“Well,” Sam informed him. “She’s what they were talking about.”

Halnon varied her delivery only slightly. “Fuck you.”

Sam grabbed Fitzhugh’s interlinked fingers from behind and yanked him to his feet. He let out a short cry of pain.

“You come here to get laid?” she asked. “Dope? Do some planning for the next bank heist?”

“I don’t have to talk to you,” he said, but without great effort.

“That make you feel better?” Sam asked him, picking up on his weariness. “Good. You’re wrong, by the way. I could have you mailed right back to Rahway. You feel like testing me?”

“No.”

She let go of his fingers. “Drop your arms and walk down the hallway. Ten feet.”

He did so, and stood still, peering into the darkness ahead.

“Okay, Fitzhugh,” Sam told him. “Now that we’ve met, you can take a hike. But don’t forget the favor. I’ll come knocking someday.”

Fitzhugh half turned on his heel and glanced back at her, the surprise clear in his voice. “For real?”