The Price of Malice Read online

  “Nothing you’ll like,” Cathy said. “You were seen with a woman, getting onto your boat and leaving harbor. Do you admit that?”

  Beale glanced at Joe and raised an eyebrow. “A lot of women have gotten onto that boat, and not one of them’s ever complained.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “Yeah, I gave a quick tour of the harbor to some skinny broad. She wanted to see the sights.”

  “That include taking her to Lubec?”

  A quick shift of his eyes from one to the other of them preceded his answer. “Bullshit.”

  Cathy leaned forward slightly. “You really think after all the crap you’ve pulled that you can walk around without our knowing? We’ve been putting your tax dollars to work, Wellman.”

  He shifted his weight. “Well, you wasted your money. I dropped her off, like I said.”

  “Then you’ll invite us in to look around.”

  His readiness gave him away. He stepped back and waved a hand. “I’m real embarrassed. The maid’s a cow. The place is a mess.”

  “We’ll survive,” Cathy said, brushing by with Joe, as Randy and Dave stayed at the door to watch Beale.

  Of course, it led to nothing. He was right about the mess and, unfortunately, about there being nobody else on the premises.

  Joe and Cathy paused alone in what passed for a living room.

  “No surprise,” she said softly. “What do you want to do?”

  Joe pulled on his ear, fighting to keep focused. “We can’t roust him for anything.”

  “Nothing that’ll stick.”

  “She’s got to be in the warehouse—it belongs to him and it’s near the boat.”

  “Don’t have a warrant,” she reminded him, “not that we couldn’t use exigent circumstances.”

  He pointed to the front of the house, where they could hear Beale talking to the other two. “We have the man with the key. Why don’t we let him use it?”

  “You mean tail him?” Cathy asked. “He’s going to know we’re watching.”

  Joe smiled. “Unless he thinks it’s his lucky day. Call Dave on his cell phone and try this out . . .”

  Moments later, Dave Beaubien stepped back a couple of paces from Beale’s front door to answer his cell. He nodded a couple of times, snapped it shut, and spoke to Randy. “Get them out of there. We’ve got a cluster fuck just north of Machias—a tractor-trailer into a school bus.”

  “Oh, my God,” Randy said as Dave shoved Beale aside.

  “Move it,” Dave said. “Cathy,” he called out. “We gotta go. Big-time ten-fifty outside Machias—multiple casualties. They need everybody.”

  Cathy and Joe appeared from the house’s dark interior. “What happened?” she asked.

  “Truck versus bus. We’ll have to do this later.”

  Joe protested. “Wait. We got the son of a bitch right here.”

  Cathy turned to him as the other two headed for the car. “Sorry. Maybe the sheriff can spare a babysitter to keep you company. We’ll drop you off at his office on the way.” She pointed a finger at Beale, who could barely contain a smile. “You stay put, jackass. I hear you’ve moved one foot off this property, I will bury you. You understand? We’ll be right back, so you better be here.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Beale answered her. “Absolutely will not move a muscle.”

  Joe hesitated. “I’ll stay with him.”

  Cathy looked peeved. “You don’t have a car, you have no jurisdiction, and we’ll be right back. Get in the car, for Chrissake.”

  Defeated, Joe avoided eye contact with Beale and angrily joined the rest of them in the car. Cathy took off with tires spinning.

  “Think he bought it?” she asked as she turned off Mowry onto Pleasant and began heading back to the boats.

  “Bought what?” Randy asked.

  “Our bullshit. We wanted to leave the coast clear for him.”

  “We hope he’ll beat feet for the warehouse,” Joe explained. “Sorry.”

  She laughed. “No problem. Better that than a bunch of mangled kids. What’s the plan?”

  Cathy stopped at the corner of Washington Street, which paralleled Mowry one block away. “Only two ways for him to leave—this corner and where Mowry does a forty-five to hook up with this road one street up. One of us gets out here and tucks into the pucker brush to watch; another does the same at the other corner; and Joe and I stake out the warehouse. Whoever sees him first gets on a cell to update the others about what’s up. If we’re right, we’ll be back together on Commercial Street in a few minutes.”

  Randy had already opened her door. “Got it. Talk to you soon.”

  Cathy swung left, dropped off Dave, and then took Church Street and Eureka to return to Commercial and the harbor. As Joe sat in the passenger seat, watching the gently hilly neighborhoods speed by, he couldn’t focus on the quaint wooden buildings, the church, or even the town’s most prominent feature—a bright blue, towering, silolike structure, presumably a water tower, stamped with the town’s name. Instead, he thought only of Lyn, and hoped they were still in time.

  As it turned out, the warehouse’s vague address explained itself instantly—it was the only such structure standing, if barely. Cathy hid the car out of sight behind a pile of weed-choked dirt, and she and Joe chose their hiding places far to either side of the place’s entrance.

  Then they waited.

  As hoped, it didn’t take long. Joe’s cell buzzed on his belt fifteen minutes later.

  “It’s me,” Cathy told him from her spot. “Dave called. Beale just drove by, slow and careful and looking all over the place. If we’re right, he should be here right about now.”

  “Got it,” Joe told her, adding, despite his instincts, “Let’s see what he does.”

  “What do you think that’ll be?” she asked skeptically.

  “What I’d do,” he told her. “Put Lyn back on the boat and head out to sea. That’s his comfort zone.”

  “He won’t just kill her?”

  Joe appreciated her directness, while hating the thought. “If he comes here, it means she’s either still alive or he needs to dump her body. Either way, he’ll want to get back on that boat.”

  After a moment’s pause, Cathy responded, “Well, you’re right about the first part. I can see his car now.”

  The phone went dead. A few seconds later, Joe saw what Cathy had, and Beale’s car slid into view onto the hardscrabble parking area adjoining the warehouse entrance.

  Keeping out of sight, Joe saw his nemesis stay at the wheel for half a minute, watching for any movements, before finally easing out of the car. Then, again, he surveyed everything around him, wary and tense, until, finally, he walked quickly to the warehouse door, unlocked it, and vanished inside.

  Joe’s phone vibrated again. Irritated, he held it to his ear and growled, “What?”

  Willy Kunkle’s voice filled his ear. “ ’Bout time you plugged that fucking thing back in. I don’t know where the hell you are or what the hell you’re doing, but while you been screwing around, Sammie’s been shot. See you at the hospital, dipwad.”

  Stunned, Joe stared at the dead phone, his chest hammering. Fumbling, he dialed a Brattleboro number.

  “Emergency Room. How may I help you?”

  “This is Joe Gunther of the Vermont Bureau of Investigation,” he said softly, struggling to control the quaver in his voice, his eyes glued to the door ahead of him. “An officer of mine was brought in with a gunshot wound. What’s her condition?”

  “Joe?” the woman’s voice said. “It’s Elizabeth.”

  “Willy just called me,” he said. “I’m stuck out of state. What the hell happened?”

  “It’s Sammie, Joe,” Elizabeth Pace told him. “And she’s fine. She got winged in the lower leg. The bullet fractured her fibula, but it’s not bad. Very clean. You want me to put someone on? There’re a lot of them here right now—it’s like a cop convention.”

  “No, not now. I’ll be there as soon
as I can. They get the shooter?”

  Her voice dropped. “What’s left of him. He’s being operated on right now.”

  Joe saw Cathy’s head appear from behind her hiding place. She looked at him quizzically and gestured as if she were also holding a phone, asking him what on God’s earth he was doing.

  “I gotta go, Elizabeth. I can’t thank you enough.”

  He pocketed the phone and gave a thumbs-up. Willy’s histrionics aside, everything important back home seemed to be under control for the moment. One disaster at a time.

  Joe slipped away from his spot, approached the building from a blind angle, and sidled up to the door that Beale had used earlier.

  Cathy did the same from the other side, until she was positioned across from him, her back against the wall, waiting for either a legal justification to enter, or simply for Beale to reappear.

  The latter occurred first. Startling them both, the door suddenly squealed open, followed by a familiar voice ordering someone, “Wait there. I gotta look around.”

  Beale stepped into view, allowing Joe to place the muzzle of his gun against the man’s temple.

  “You move, you die,” he said quietly.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  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?”

  “Yeah.”

  “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.”

  “Thanks. You want any?”

  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?”