Randy Coffin led the way up the gangplank to the deck of an older, sturdy ocean trawler, rigged with enough lights to make it look like a Broadway stage, albeit one where each bare bulb fairly hummed with a swarm of nocturnal bugs. Once aboard, however, she and Joe didn’t encounter either thespians or sailors, but a massive confusion of piled-up netting, with a single rough-hewn man sitting in its midst. To Gunther’s untrained eye, he seemed to be repairing the net, although how on earth he knew where to find what needed attention was beyond Joe’s comprehension.
“Neil,” Randy called out upon clearing the rail.
The man looked up and smiled broadly. “It’s Ranger Randy. How’re you doin’?”
“Old joke,” Randy murmured over her shoulder to Joe as she picked her way across the deck to where their host was perched on an upended milk crate.
There was no shaking of hands or introductions, apparently stemming from an understanding that such gestures were frivolous and unnecessary.
“How’s life been keeping you?” Randy asked him.
“Can’t complain,” Neil admitted, his hands smoothly at work, weaving in and out of the net’s meshing.
“Finding fish out there?”
“Enough to keep me fed.”
“Seen anything I’d like to hear about?”
Neil didn’t miss a beat, nor did he take his eyes off his task. “Funny you should ask. You might want to check what George Mullins maybe could be keeping in that shed out back of his equipment barn.”
“Oh?” Randy smiled at Joe over the top of Neil’s bowed head. “Any idea what that could be?”
“Damned if I know for sure, but there’s a possibility that gear you were asking about last month found its way out of the weather.”
“No kidding?”
This time, he glanced up quickly, fast enough to flash her a grin. “No kidding.”
“That’s good to know,” she told him. “How ’bout Wellman Beale? You seen him around lately?”
That stopped him. His hands suddenly froze in midmotion and he straightened, taking in Joe carefully for the first time.
“Beale?”
“Yup.”
He considered the question, as if how best to approach a dangerous animal.
“I guess so,” he finally conceded.
“Tonight?”
Neil cocked his head and shifted his gaze to her. “Maybe.”
“So you did.”
“Don’t guess I actually said that.”
Randy nodded deliberately. “No. You didn’t. That’s true.”
“Someone else might’ve, though.”
“Assuming Beale had been around to be seen, you mean?” she asked.
“Right—assuming.”
Joe joined in. “Along those same lines,” he suggested, “might someone have seen a young woman with him—slim, good-looking, light brown hair?”
Neil studied him again and smiled. “You catch on fast. Yeah—I’d say that was right. Somebody might’ve said she didn’t look real happy about it, too.”
“Where did they go, Neil?” Randy asked directly.
But the old fisherman shook his head. “Can’t tell you. Got on his boat and went out.”
“Anyone else with them?”
“Pretty sure it was just the two of them.”
“How long ago?” Joe asked.
“Maybe four hours,” Neil suggested.
Randy patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks, Neil. You done good.”
Neil had returned to his handiwork. “You take care, Ranger Randy, and don’t forget about George’s stash.”
“Allard called,” Lester told Willy as the latter entered the office late the next morning. “Looking for Joe again.”
“You didn’t throw him under the bus, did you?” Willy asked.
Les didn’t rise to the bait. “Just so we’re all on the same page, I told him the boss had been up half the night and was still out working an angle.”
Willy laughed. “That’s good—wish we knew what the hell that was.” He paused before adding, “Sam probably does, but she’s not talking.”
He then updated Les on their midnight activities. “We met with Karen, Nick, Richard, and Becky at the ER last night. Becky was caught cutting herself and Mom wigged out.”
“You get anything out of it?” he asked.
“Sam got a nifty picture,” Willy said dismissively, just as she entered the room. “And I got to see Nick acting crazier than a rat in a box.”
Sam showed her cell-phone image to Lester, explaining, “Becky’s fingernails.”
Lester pegged the significance immediately. “Whoa. Expensive. How’d she swing that?”
Willy turned from dumping a file on his desk. “What the hell do you know about painting fingernails?”
Lester laughed. “You don’t have a daughter.”
Sam snapped the phone shut. “Wayne paid for it.”
“You don’t say so?” Willy asked.
“That’s where I’ve been,” she explained. “There’re only a couple of places in town to get this done. I got lucky first time. Flashed the photo, talked to the Asian guy who did it, and he ID’d both Becky and Wayne—didn’t blink an eye.”
“Pretty convenient,” Willy cautioned.
“Pretty memorable,” she countered. “Wayne grossed the guy out. He was all but sticking his tongue in her ear. The manicurist said it made him sick. He also said she was eating it up.”
“That would fit,” Lester commented. “Immature girl on the outs with her friends and family, falls for an older guy who flatters the hell out of her. I wouldn’t doubt he told her she was ten times the woman her mother is.”
“Gross,” Willy growled. “True, but gross.”
“That also explains her being shut down last night,” Sam ventured.
“It’s one explanation,” Willy said.
“What’s another?” Sam asked.
“She killed him,” he suggested. “He dissed her and she carved him up.”
“What about the drop of blood?” Lester asked. “It’s from a male related to Karen.”
Willy shrugged. “Maybe she had help.”
“Like Nick?” Les proposed. “You said he was crazy.”
Willy was dismissive. “Yeah, but crazy-loony; not homicidal. He walks in circles like a kicked dog.”
He crossed to his desk, suddenly reminded of something. “Hang on, hang on. Did I get a call or anything from Waterbury? A woman named Alice Plouff?”
“You’re kidding,” Sam said.
He wasn’t. “Damn. I knew she’d screw it up.”
He dialed a number on his phone and began speaking in a jarringly upbeat voice. “Alice, hey. How’re you doin’? . . . No, no, that’s okay. I know we all get busy, and it was a favor, right? Anything you could do would be a hell of a lot faster than going through channels. That’s why I called you first. I just forgot that I hadn’t followed up . . . So, you did it? It matched? No joke? I mean, you’re sure? Damn, girl. Dinner’s on me next time I’m up.”
He hung up, smiling, before raising an eyebrow at Sam. “She’s three hundred pounds. You’re safe.”
“Like I care. What was that?”
Willy was feeling good. “Since none of you has collected a DNA sample from Ryan Hatch yet, that was confirmation that Karen’s first-born has a sample on file in Waterbury that hasn’t gotten into the system yet. Also”—he held up his index finger—“my new best buddy Alice just compared it to the six-loci sample collected off of Wayne’s body, and it’s a perfect match.”
“Given only six loci,” Lester cautioned.
Willy frowned at him. “Six is still a one-in-a-million match, especially since none of those boys has a father in common. I always liked Ryan for this.”
“How’d you think of checking?” Sam asked.
“Ryan’s rap sheet,” he explained. “He got nailed on a felony assault charge last month—some bar brawl involving a bunch of guys and a few pool cues—but in order to duck any inside time, the judge had him agree to a DNA sample.” Willy flipped his hand in the air. “Just took a little digging.”
“I guess we better have a talk with him,” Sammie said, letting him bask in his glory. She also remembered her impression of Ryan when she met him at the trailer. “He is the eldest,” she played along, “he’s hot tempered, and I bet he’s pissed about Todd coming back home from prison. If a guy like that found out his little sister was being boinged by a scuzzy bastard like Wayne, I’d lay odds he’d have an up-close-and-personal with him.”
Willy laughed. “I’d say what we got qualifies. I’m up for squeezing Ryan.”
Sam glanced at Lester, who lifted a shoulder, not so much agreeing as not offering any opposition. “He’s right about Karen being the only shared parent among them,” he said. “That pretty much guarantees a six-loci match being good enough, at least for our purposes—be different if two or more of them shared a father.”
“I’ll run it by Joe,” she said, opening her phone. “Grabbing Ryan might be a little premature, since he’s probably not going anywhere and we still haven’t done our homework yet.”
She punched in the number, held the phone to her ear, and then almost immediately snapped it shut, visibly disappointed. “Out of cell range,” she announced.
Willy scowled. “Fuck him, then. Let’s do it.”
Joe closed his phone slowly, hanging on to the pole supporting the Zodiac’s small roof above the steering console Randy Coffin was manning.
“No service,” he announced in a loud voice, over the roar of the twin outboards.
“Maybe later,” she shouted back, keeping to her task and increasing speed. The boat could reach over forty knots—a rate that demanded she avoid even the smallest obstacle.
Joe kept watching the small island they’d just left, recalling when he’d first seen it, at night, weeks ago, when he’d had his one and only encounter with Wellman Beale.
Beale hadn’t been there this time, though. All they’d found was Dougie O’Hearn, his grizzled sternman, who’d allowed them to tour the place, and had obligingly told them—while he couldn’t swear to it—that he thought his boss might be in Lubec, where he owned some property.
Joe could still see the old man far behind them, a stick figure standing on the dock, studying them as they blended into the northern horizon. If Wellman Beale is in Lubec, Joe thought, then I’m the proverbial monkey’s uncle.
Lyn startled awake at the sound of a scrape overhead. She was sitting curled up against one wall of the cellar Beale had placed her in hours earlier, extracting the ladder as he left.
“Hello?” she called out toward the pale gray opening of the overhead trapdoor, barely visible in the thin daylight from the windows above.
A bulky shadow appeared in the frame. “That the best you can do?” Wellman Beale asked. “Not, ‘Hello, asshole,’ or something?”
“Would that get me out of here?” she asked, fighting to keep her voice strong and direct, hoping her fear couldn’t be heard.
“Nah. Probably not.”
A pinprick of bright red light suddenly leaped from the shadow’s midst—a laser beam, as from a gun sight—it began dancing cheerfully across her body, a Tinker Bell with lethal intent.
“What’re you going to do?” she asked, trying to ignore it, while transfixed by its erratic wanderings. “If you’re worried about a kidnap charge or anything, I’m happy to keep my mouth shut. Nobody needs to know about this.”
He laughed. “Right.” He sat on the edge of the square hole, dangling his feet into her cell, better to steady his aim. “We’ll just let bygones be bygones—until some fucking SWAT cops come kicking down my door.”
“Then what do you want?” she blurted out, instantly regretting the despair she heard echoing back off the enveloping concrete.
“I don’t know yet,” he said lightly, as if he’d just been asked what kind of sandwich he wanted at a picnic. The tiny red dot settled down between her legs. “Maybe I’m getting interested in seeing the color of your panties.”
She stared up at his shadow in muted terror, half expecting him to simply drop down on top of her. Please, Joe, she thought, wrestling with her panic, find me.