Late at night, Joe entered Sam’s hospital room gingerly, half expecting to find Willy there, mad as hell and gun in hand.
He didn’t blame the man. He was naturally high-strung, had just seen his lover shot, and had then almost killed the perpetrator in return. Not to mention that it had all occurred on Joe’s watch and in his absence—a double sin in the eyes of each of them. Joe’s leadership had been wanting here from the beginning, and now—as a direct result—a member of his team had almost paid the highest price.
But Willy wasn’t there. Joe crossed the room to stand beside the bed, and looked down at Sam’s pale, sleeping face—perfectly smooth and trouble-free. He’d paused at the nurses’ station outside, and had spent hours making calls on the drive back from Maine. He now knew it was a clean break, just above the ankle, and that Ryan Hatch’s bullet had passed through the meat of her leg, barely glancing the fibula. A plate had been screwed into place and a cast applied. The doctor had told Joe that Sam should be as good as new in six weeks, aside from some PT.
Impulsively, Joe leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek, touching her hair with his fingertips. She always gave everything she had to him and the job, and he felt terrible now, seeing her laid out so.
He settled into the chair adjacent to the bed, still studying her face, and began reviewing the last several hours.
At least, the worst of his distractions were now officially settled. Beale was under arrest for a felony he’d be hard placed to beat, and Lyn was back in Gloucester with her mother and brother—shaken but intact. It had been she who’d insisted he return straight to Brattleboro, rather than accompany her home. She’d assured him that Beale had done no more than scare the hell out of her.
Of course, many questions remained—why had he grabbed her? What role, if any, did Dick Brandhorst play in it all? What had Abílo and José been up to in the first place, and what exactly had befallen them in the end? And, lastly, what of all this was still obviously in motion, stimulating the vandalism of The Silva Lining?
But Lyn was at least safe, and Joe could now concentrate on the metaphorical oil slick that was spreading around the still unsolved murder of Wayne Castine.
He laid his head back against the cushion of the visitor’s chair, feeling the weight of no sleep bearing down on him.
And more good news? Willy hadn’t killed Ryan Hatch. The boy had undergone hours of brain, rib, and hip surgery, and remained on the critical list at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, where he’d been airlifted, but the doctors there had assured Joe they anticipated only improvement.
As for Willy’s fate legally, the Windham County state’s attorney had been cagier, at first. That phone call had begun with Jack Derby reciting Kunkle’s trespasses, foremost being his reckless disregard for public safety. But added was a total failure to coordinate his actions with local law enforcement or, for that matter, his own team. According to Derby—since Joe hadn’t yet asked Willy for his version—Willy had undermined the planned low-key approach to Ryan Hatch in the bakery, instead marching up to him, grabbing him by the collar, and throwing him against the wall, thereby causing the boy to drop and scatter the drugs he’d been selling to another kid at his table.
Joe had successfully argued the obvious—that Ryan was a suspect in a homicide, that he’d run when apprehended, shot an identified police officer, and sought to elude capture. What better example did the state’s attorney need of an ongoing, active threat, which had been so rapidly and completely dealt with?
An old and practiced pragmatist, Derby had only grumpily conceded, suggesting that this could come back to haunt them—including possible civil suits—once the shock wore off and the facts were aired. In his words, in a town as politically sensitive as Brattleboro—and as left-leaning—“such a demonstration of police exuberance is unlikely to be left to drift away like a bad odor.”
With a sigh, Joe had then called Bill Allard, perversely grateful that all this chatter was keeping him from falling asleep at the wheel. Nevertheless, Allard’s tone had only joined the chorus of disapproving voices. What had Joe been thinking? Was Bill going to have to start reviewing basic tenets of VBI’s organization? Was Willy Kunkle still so indispensable an asset, and Joe still so eager to pin his own future to his?
Joe had barely heard it. The smooth black pavement had drawn him in like a soothing melody, and he’d abandoned himself to simply staying between the white lines, only just noticing any oncoming headlights . . .
Joe opened his eyes, unaware they’d fallen shut. Standing beside Sammie in the dark hospital room was a thin, small boy. He was staring fixedly at her, his hands slack by his sides and his mouth slightly open.
Joe spoke in a near whisper, thinking he knew who this might be. “Hey there.”
The boy gave a twitch, as if he’d been caught daydreaming in class. His wide, guileless eyes took in Joe.
“You okay?” Joe asked him.
“Yeah.” He pointed his chin at Sam. “Is she?”
Joe lifted his head off the seat cushion behind him. “She’s fine. Just a broken leg. They probably gave her something so she could sleep. You’re Richard, right?”
The boy nodded.
“She really likes you.”
Richard considered that for a moment. “She’s cool.”
“I think so, too. I was sorry to hear about your brother.”
Richard returned to watching Sam. “Yeah.”
“He hanging in there?”
“Yeah.”
“You seen him yet?”
“Nah. My mom’s up there.”
“The whole family must be pretty upset.”
“I guess.”
That answer told him a fair deal. “I don’t suppose you’ve been home much.”
“Nope.”
Sammie stirred at their voices. She reached out gently and touched Richard’s chest with her fingertips. He stared at the IV attached to the back of her hand.
“Hey, Richard,” she said softly, as if she, too, were being careful not to wake anyone up. “You come to check up on me?”
“I’m fine. Honest. Just a broken bone.”
“I’m real sorry Ryan shot you,” he said.
“I’m sorry he got so messed up,” she countered. “I think we scared him.”
“Wasn’t your fault,” Richard said firmly. “He was wrong.”
“How’s your sister taking all this?” Sam asked.
Richard glanced at Joe. “That’s what I was telling him. I don’t know. I been pretty much hanging out alone.”
Sam turned her head to see Joe for the first time. She smiled tiredly. “Hey, boss.”
“Hey, kiddo.” Joe reached out and squeezed her other hand briefly.
“He’s your boss?” Richard asked.
“Yeah. This is Joe. Joe—meet Richard Vial.”
“We’ve been chatting,” Joe admitted.
Sam’s smile broadened. “I like doing that with Richard, too. He’s one of the good guys—a real trooper.”
Joe sensed the boy’s hesitation, and rose to his feet. “I think I’ll go get some coffee. You two all set?”
Sammie nodded. “Yeah, Joe. Go for it. I’ll see you in a bit.”
He left them alone and walked down the empty hallway. Hospitals have an eerie stillness at night, like an anxious person wrestling to sleep, knowing the next morning will be filled with chaos.
He reached the nurses’ station, where a lone woman glanced up from the magazine before her and inquired, “She okay?”
He wondered if Richard had managed, by pure habit, to slip in here unnoticed.
“Fine,” he said. “I’m just going for coffee.”
“There’s a machine one floor down. To the right off the elevator, at the end of the hall. It’s not too bad.”
She shook her head. “Thanks. All set.”
He rode the elevator down, and stepped through the doors to come face-to-face with Willy.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” he said sourly. “Been making your apologies?”
Joe ignored that. “Met Richard Vial. They’re talking right now. I thought I’d give them a little privacy.” He pointed down the corridor. “Buy you a coffee?”
Willy studied him a moment before allowing a half shrug. “Okay.”
They fell into step beside each other. Willy, to his credit, dropped his outrage long enough to comment, “You look terrible.”
“Been a long few days. You don’t look much the worse for wear. How’re you doing after the shootout?”
Willy said instead, “I hear you been working the phones.”
“Oh?”
“Allard, Jack Derby.”
“What did they tell you?” Joe asked, genuinely curious.
“That you’re the only reason I haven’t been fired.” He suddenly stopped in his tracks and stared at Joe. “What is it with that anyway? Why’re you always saving my butt? Why do you give a good goddamn? Am I the son you never had or some bullshit?”
Joe smiled. “Jesus, I hope not.”
“Then what?” Willy was almost shouting, his face red and his body tense. Joe knew not to tell him to settle down.
“We’ve had this out before, Willy,” he said quietly instead. “Maybe we’re salt and pepper, or yin and yang, or polar opposites that make for a good whole.” He reached out and laid his hand on Willy’s shoulder—a gesture he was surprised the other man accepted. “But I benefit from having you around. You’re a good cop, an honest man, and you speak your mind. The fact that you’re a pain in the ass takes second place.”
He resumed walking down the hall, adding, “Maybe you should turn the question around—why do you stick around, when you seem so hell-bent on getting fired all the time?”
Willy joined him, but didn’t respond, staring in silence at the floor as they went.
Now it was Joe’s turn to stop and face his colleague. “And I do apologize,” he said. “For what it’s worth. I screwed up. I should’ve been there.”
Willy wouldn’t play. Joe saw him consider several responses, but his final choice was vintage Kunkle. “We didn’t need you.”
“ ’Cause you got the bad guy?”
“He shot Sam.”
“Did he kill Castine?”
Willy broke away and resumed their quest. “Doesn’t matter.”
Joe didn’t disagree. “For your sake, you’re right.”
“What’s that mean?”
“That, for the record, you ran him down because he shot Sam, and that I saved your bacon based on the same reason—a nice, clean whitewash, covering up the fact that none of you should’ve been there in the first place.”
“Fuck you. You don’t get to quarterback after the game.”
Joe shook his head. “I do this time. All those phone calls I made tonight? One of them was to David Hawke. I called him at home. He told me they got the mini-STR results a few hours ago and will fax them over this morning. They were able to stretch out the DNA to nine loci. Bad news is that the reason you went in all fired up to grab Ryan Hatch fell apart—his DNA no longer matches the sample.”
Willy didn’t answer. They’d reached the coffee machine, but neither of them turned to it. Instead, Willy stared out the window overlooking the darkened parking lot, studying his own translucent reflection.
“Where the fuck were you, boss?” he asked tiredly.
Joe looked at him, startled by the question’s plaintiveness. For all of Willy’s rudeness and rage, he was an honest man. But he was also a lost soul.
Joe knew why Willy stayed around, at once wrestling with self-destruction and clinging to the likes of Joe and Sammie. Despite his fury, he yearned for salvation, and perhaps saw the two of them as the only way to achieve it.
Not that he’d ever admit it.
Joe stepped up beside him and commingled their reflections in the window. “I was doing the same thing in Maine that you were when you ran down Ryan,” he explained.
Willy turned to look at him. “What?”
“Lyn got kidnapped by some guy who had a hand in her father’s and brother’s deaths. I was getting her back.”
Willy scowled at him. “You are such an asshole, you know that?”
Joe shrugged. “We all have our moments.”
“One word, and we would’ve been there. Is this a New England thing? This I-am-an-island, screw-my-friends, do-it-alone-and-get-fucked attitude? Jesus, Joe, what happened to all your no-‘I’-in-TEAM shit?”
Joe was laughing by now, his exhaustion combining with the irony of this speech coming from this source.
Willy let him settle down before asking, “Wild guess—she’s okay?”
Joe wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and finally addressed the coffee machine, feeding it change from his pocket.
“Yeah,” he said. “Thanks for asking.”
Willy nodded, his universe back to as close to normal as ever.
“What else did Hawke say?”
Joe extracted one cardboard cup from the machine and handed it over. “The nine loci match Ryan’s brother, Nicky. Turns out they’re full brothers, with the same father. Nick took on the last name King because he hates his old man.”
Willy turned that over in his head. “Crazy Nicky whacked Castine?”
Joe fed the machine more money, amazed by how he constantly had to rein the man in. “Maybe. The science is just saying that a drop of his blood was on Castine’s body. Right now, that’s all we’ve got.”
Lyn was no longer sure what she had. Having all but pushed Joe into his car to get him headed back toward Brattleboro, she’d spent hours with a succession of Maine police officers, repeating her story, onerously working her way through the ritual until she could finally reclaim her car in Jonesport and return to Gloucester, where Steve and their mother were still hiding out in a motel.
All that, she’d taken in stride, even using it to isolate herself from what she’d experienced at the hands of Wellman Beale.
But it turned to naught when the three of them at last reached home. As Lyn pushed open the door to her mother’s apartment, she had to reach out to steady herself against the jamb.
“You okay?” Steve asked from behind, his hands full of belongings.
He shoved by her to find the apartment as ransacked as his boat.
“Jesus Christ,” he said disgustedly.
Lyn was suddenly struck by fear and pulled him back onto the landing. “They might still be here,” she cautioned.
But Steve was having none of it. He stormed in as Maria Silva tentatively sidled up beside her daughter and peered over the threshold.
“Come on out, you sons of bitches,” Steve yelled, as it turned out, to no one.
The two women waited until he’d checked every room, swearing and waving his arms in frustration, until he finally sat heavily on the living-room couch, his hands between his knees, moaning, “What the hell’s going on?”
Lyn entered then, still nervous, with their mother trailing behind, uncomprehending. She made a more analytical tour of the place, trying to assess both the damage and the intent of the break-in, her own anger displacing the cold fear that had initially gripped her.
She stood before Steve and asked him, “Any ideas?”
He looked up at her, his eyes wide. “Me? How should I know? I don’t know who did this.”
“I think I do,” she told him. “What I don’t know is why.”
“And I’m supposed to know that?”
“You’re being pretty defensive about it.”
He stood up abruptly, forcing her to step back. “You’re full of crap.” Their mother approached them and began muttering nervously, touching them both, her hands fluttering like hummingbirds.
Lyn reached out and draped her arm around the older woman’s shoulders. “It’s okay, Momma. We’re just a little upset. Let’s get you settled in.”
She glanced at her brother. “Sorry, Steve. Let me start over.”
She could see from his face that he was ready for more, finally tired of being tarred for misdeeds he considered far behind him. But he swallowed his protest and responded quietly, “All right. Go for it.”
She spoke as she steered her mother over to a chair, which she righted and placed before the TV set. “This look like the boat to you?”
“What do you think?” he asked.
“No, no. I don’t mean the mess. I mean the nature of it.” Lyn turned on the set, searching for a channel she knew Maria would enjoy. “Does it look like vandalism, or theft, or what?”
He glanced around instinctively, at first nonplussed. “How the hell do I know? A search, maybe.”
She faced him directly. “Exactly. They tossed the boat, looking for something, and now they’ve done the same here. That tells me—just maybe—that whatever they’re after was either moved from one place to the other, or is small enough to be easily missed.”
He spread his hands out wide. “What’s that mean, sis?”
She steered him into the kitchen where they wouldn’t disturb Maria, who was already transfixed by the program Lyn had chosen. “Steve, let’s face it. Dad and José were into something—smuggling, running drugs, something that probably got them killed. What I’m saying is that whatever it was looks like it’s still hanging around. Did you take anything off the boat and bring it here after we got it back?”
He scratched his head, trying to remember. “There wasn’t all that much. Beale had pretty much cleaned it out. There were some old charts; some equipment, like rope that I didn’t trust. I threw all that out.”
“Electronics?” she asked. “Any radios you replaced?”
He smiled at the thought. “Not with our money. I took Grandpa’s old barometer off the wheelhouse wall. It didn’t work and the glass was cracked. I figured it would be better off here.”
He led her to the bathroom. Behind the door was the ancient, oblong, meteorological indicator of yore, now stained and beaten and quaint. He removed it from its nail and handed it to her.
“Don’t know what you can make out of that.”
She stared at it, wondering the same thing. “That’s it?” she asked.
“All I can think of.”
She turned it over in her hand, squinted slightly, and then moved it under the overhead light. “Look,” she said, pointing at something on the back.
“The screw?” he asked.
“Yeah—it’s shiny. Well, shinier, like it’s been fooled with. They all are. You got your knife?”
He handed her his pocketknife. She opened the screwdriver blade and inserted it into each of the four screws holding the instrument’s back in place. Crouching down in the middle of the bathroom floor, so as not to lose anything that might fall out, she gingerly worked the wooden back free.
“What do you see?” he asked, crowding next to her.
Instead of answering, she placed the back on the floor and tipped the barometer into the palm of her outstretched hand. A small, shiny, plastic object dropped into view.
“What is it?”
She took the plastic case between her fingers and pried it open, revealing an even smaller, tablike structure, smaller than a stamp.
“Looks like it belongs in a computer,” she said.