The Price of Malice Read online

“Okay,” she said, her excitement building. “I didn’t know what he was talking about. Yeah. It’s coming back.”

  “Well, both things stuck in my mind at the time,” Joe continued. “That the captain did some smuggling on the side, and that his name was Wellman Beale.”

  “He’s the one who had the Maria?” she asked, astonished.

  Joe nodded. “And the smuggling involved prescription drugs from Canada. Beale was up to his neck in that case in Maine, with the Customs task force and all the drug cops. He wasn’t a major player, but he was part of the overall scheme to use fishing boats to import the goods.”

  Her expression saddened and her gaze shifted to her lap. “And Dad was involved, too,” she stated listlessly.

  “I didn’t say that,” he emphasized. “According to Steve, your father didn’t even know Beale back then, much less about his smuggling. The way he told it, your dad and brother just happened to meet him on the dock and they talked shop while Steve climbed all over Beale’s boat.”

  Lyn looked at him sourly. “Joe, he was a kid, and he loved them. What do you think he was going to say?”

  “What are you saying?” Joe asked.

  She hesitated before avoiding the question. “Did Beale explain how he got the boat?”

  “That part I told you in full, since there wasn’t much to it—he said he found the Maria floating abandoned at sea and brought it home. Since ‘home’ in this case is an island he shares with nobody else, no one was the wiser. It just sat there from then on, collecting barnacles and seaweed. You got it back, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” she admitted vaguely. “Steve runs it like a taxi service now, for Realtors with offshore property, or rich people wanting groceries . . . Whatever. He renamed it The Silva Lining, which I hate. But it gives him something to do and keeps him out of trouble. Maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  Her face hardened. “Well, think of it. You’re a cop. Here’s a guy with a rap sheet and a boat going out to sea at all times of the day and night for vague purposes. You just told me about drug runners using fishing boats. Steve did time for dealing drugs. I even had an obnoxious little chat about that with a local cop, who was insinuating the same thing.”

  “Based on anything?” Joe asked, and instantly regretted it.

  Lyn stared at him through narrowed eyes, and then threw open the door.

  “Wait. Lyn,” he said, getting out, too.

  He circled the front of the car and met her on the sidewalk. He didn’t touch her, and she refused to look at him, but she stayed by the open door.

  “Lyn,” he said quietly. “You started this. You were the one expressing doubt.”

  Her arms were by her sides, her hands forming fists. She swung them in frustration and then crossed them tightly before her. “Fuck.”

  He let her breathe for a few seconds in silence.

  “He’s not the most stable guy in the world,” she finally said, adding, “and he screwed up before. I’m worried, too.”

  “But not based on anything solid,” Joe suggested.

  “No,” she agreed.

  “Well, then,” he tried comforting her, “that’s all it comes to right now: a concern. Right?”

  She nodded, and then changed topics. “You talked to Beale, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, for what it was worth.”

  “Did he say he worked with my father?”

  “Denied even knowing him.”

  “When did he get the Maria?”

  “He claimed it was just a few days before we busted him. Total bullshit, of course, but we couldn’t prove otherwise, and his sternman, Dougie O’Hearn, said the same thing. So, we were stuck.”

  She raised her arms above her head and clasped her hands behind her neck. “Oh, God. I hate this. Can we walk a little?”

  He looked around them, taken off guard. “Sure, I guess. Where’d you want to go?”

  She pointed vaguely ahead. The street angled uphill and around a slight curve. “Up there. I feel like I’m about to explode.”

  They fell in side by side, the only moving things on an empty, silent sidewalk.

  “Is Beale in jail at least?”

  “I don’t think so,” Joe admitted. “Last I heard, he was about to cut a deal with the prosecutor. They didn’t have much on him.”

  “Typical. What do you think happened, Joe?” She absentmindedly slipped her arm through his, which sent a warm flood through his chest.

  “I wish I knew,” he told her. “That’s why the Mainers allowed me a crack at questioning him, even though I had no legal footing. The boat, whether found recently or long ago, had clearly not been used since the storm you all thought drowned them both. Did you see it after it was returned to Steve?”

  “Yes. It looked perfect, except where all the identifiers had been painted over.”

  “That was another thing,” Joe remembered. “We took a close look at that paint. You could tell it had been applied a long time ago. I mean, we knew Beale was lying—no doubt about it. And the guy is a total lowlife. But even with the paint, he would’ve said he just found it that way.

  “Anyhow,” he continued as they reached the end of the block and Lyn steered them gently left, now slightly downhill, “I was left with several possibilities: Your father and brother did drown at sea, the boat did survive, and Beale did find it, just like he said.”

  “Right,” she almost spat out.

  “Or,” he went on, “they survived the storm, which may not have been a factor, anyhow—since the Maria was found two hundred miles north of its home port—and they ran into trouble some other way.”

  She didn’t comment for several steps. Ahead of them, the maze of tightly clustered streets showed signs of opening up. He could see the glow of the harbor and plant lights faintly brushing the sides of the buildings in the distance.

  “That’s very delicate,” she finally said. “What’re you really saying?”

  He stopped to face her. “You know, they may not even be dead.”

  She studied his features for a moment, and then tugged at him to keep walking. “Enough.”

  “What?”

  “Maybe they weren’t who we thought they were. Or maybe they were. Who knows? But I know in my gut that if they weren’t dead, one of them at least would have contacted us. They’re dead. That much I’m sure about. I just don’t know how or why.”

  Joe bowed to her clear-sightedness. “All right. Did you ever get an inkling that either one of them was into smuggling?”

  “No.”

  “A few minutes ago, you implied that Steve might’ve lied when he said your father didn’t know Beale when they all met at the dock that time.”

  She laughed bitterly. “Jesus, Joe. I don’t know, but look around you. People on the coast have been making ends meet any way they can for hundreds of years. Short lobsters, booze, cigarettes, marijuana back in the seventies, pills nowadays.”

  She stopped and pointed ahead, since by now they could see a bit of the harbor’s inky water below, shimmering in the harsh industrial lights.

  “People do what they have to, Joe. It’s not right or wrong all the time. The big rules are followed—most of the time—no killing, stealing, or cheating the people you know. But there’s a lot of gray worked into it.”

  She resumed walking. “Did José and my dad wink and nod now and then? Probably. Did their friends? Sure. But were they drug runners?”

  She left the question unanswered.

  Except to Joe, her omission spoke volumes, along with her grim, almost angry tone of voice.

  If Lyn was unhappily adapting to the idea that half her family might have run drugs, he knew she’d have to settle it for sure. She had a history of seeing things through to the end.

  What was left for him to consider, therefore, was how she’d pursue that quest—and what it might cost.

  And that had him worried.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  You look like shit.”

  Joe loo
ked up from his paperwork. “Thank you, Willy. Always good for a shot in the arm.”

  “Didn’t you get any sleep?” Willy persisted, dumping a thick report on his desk and pawing through one of his drawers.

  “Not much,” Joe conceded. “Drove to Gloucester last night to see Lyn. Her mother’s under the weather.”

  “Jesus,” Willy commented. “True love. If any of Sam’s relatives got sick, I’d be more inclined to help ’em get it over with.”

  “I’m sure you would. Aren’t you supposed to be out interviewing people?”

  Willy scowled at him. “Ah, the micromanager finally surfaces. If you have to know, I need to find out who’s who before I talk to them. Of course, I could just wander up and down the street . . .”

  Joe cut him off, “I got it. I got it.”

  Willy finally found the tattered black notebook he was after, shoved it in his pocket, and headed back toward the office door. “Roger. Don’t piss off too many people out there, boss. One of ’em may shoot you. Hot weather, you know? They’re not all sweethearts like me.”

  He was gone. Joe stared at the empty doorway. It was hot, and it was barely eight in the morning. Willy was right, of course, if indelicately so. Joe would have to monitor how his weariness affected his manner.

  He rubbed his eyes, shut down his computer, shuffled his papers together, dumped them into a drawer, and followed Willy’s example, heading out the door.

  The Brattleboro Retreat was one of the town’s oldest institutions, dating back to the mid-1800s. It was a mental health and addictions treatment center, a major area employer and landowner, and was housed in what outsiders commonly mistook for a picturesque small college campus, overlooking the lakelike confluence of the West and Connecticut rivers. Dr. Eberhard Dziobek, the name on the card Joe had found at Castine’s apartment, had an office there, and had agreed to a meeting.

  At times, business at the Retreat had been good enough to sustain a substantial operation, and the campus—from the roadside—stood as testimony to that. But closer inspection revealed the current subterfuge—the cracks and peeling paint here and there, the roofs in need of repair, the windows intact but sheltering only hollow voids. The Retreat, although perfectly healthy, with full parking lots and people wandering about, was operating on partial power, and while some of its structures were modern and alive with activity, others, immediately adjacent, stood oddly still, like awkward reminders of a heady past.

  Joe proceeded through the lobby, along a couple of nondescript passageways, and up a flight of battered stairs, all familiar from years of exposure to the place’s inner workings, until he abruptly found himself in a contrastingly elegant corridor—carpeted, gently lighted, accented with artwork, tasteful armchairs, and potted plants. It was an office wing, quiet and far from the hurly-burly of the lockdown ward, and presented the vague aura of an upscale, nineteenth-century, robber-baron hotel.

  He walked to the door Dr. Dziobek had described on the phone and knocked gently.

  “Come in, come in.”

  The theatrical setting shifted once more. The fancy hotel became a scholar’s den—all books and prints and faded Oriental carpets anchoring a scattering of heavy, comfortable antique furniture in need of a dusting.

  Joe crossed the room to greet a man rising from behind a century-old partners’ desk.

  “Mr. Gunther?” he asked. “I am Eberhard Dziobek. Delighted to meet you.”

  He was bearded, white-haired, with bushy brows and a kindly smile. Sharp blue eyes overlooked a photogenic pair of gold reading glasses. Joe noticed he even wore a herringbone tweed jacket, which was not completely ludicrous, given both the setting and the central air-conditioning.

  Dziobek ushered him over to a couple of worn leather armchairs in a far corner of the room. On the table nearest one of them was a framed photograph of a pretty, smiling young girl, inscribed, “To the best Daddy in the whole world—Hannah.”

  Dziobek smiled as he followed Joe’s glance. “My daughter. A very precocious nine-year-old. Please, have a seat. Would you like some tea?” The man’s accent was faintly Germanic.

  Joe thought that Hannah was perhaps not the only precocious one in the family. “No. Thanks. I’m all set.”

  They settled opposite each other, Dziobek chuckling. “Just as well. My wife tells me my tea is so awful that I really shouldn’t offer. I’m here, after all, to heal, not to poison.”

  Joe nodded noncommittally and smiled politely, trusting that, for the moment, he was only to receive such polite preliminaries, and not prolong them by actually responding.

  He was right. After crossing his legs and sighing happily, the older man broadened his smile and commented, “So, you are after a little information about Wayne Castine. How was it that he died?”

  “We’re thinking he was knifed,” Joe said bluntly. “The autopsy’s this morning.”

  Dziobek nodded, his face thoughtful. “I cannot say that I am surprised.”

  “Oh?”

  “I do not mean the weapon,” he corrected himself, adding, “although even that seems right. It is a personal thing to use, no? Is that not what you have found?”

  Joe agreed, “Yeah, I’d say so. Of course, he was also beaten. To call it a crime of passion is a no-brainer. But you were saying that the mere fact he was murdered doesn’t surprise you.”

  “Correct,” Dziobek said. “Mr. Castine was an almost classic psychopath, with a very strong mean streak. It seems reasonable to me that someone without Castine’s elevated verbal and social skills might have resorted to a more primitive means of communicating.”

  Joe couldn’t resist a short laugh. “By killing him?”

  Dziobek smiled slightly. “Yes. It is one way of telling someone you don’t like them, correct?”

  “True enough,” Joe conceded.

  “And if violence is what you know, and language comes awkwardly for you, then a knife will stand in better than an argument.”

  “Castine was that good?”

  “Not the word I would have used,” the old man faintly chastised. “But I see your point. Yes, he was highly developed verbally, given his indifferent education. Critically, however, he was effectively manipulative, which is also a hallmark of psychopathy.”

  “What are the others?”

  Dziobek tossed his head slightly and waved a hand. “Oh, goodness. There is a menu of them, some of which we all share. It is a slippery thing to reduce such complexity to a simple list.”

  “Still . . .” Joe suggested.

  “They have charm without warmth,” he answered, holding up a finger. “Self-delusional grandiosity—they often speak of great schemes for which they have little training; a lack of remorse and empathy; the manipulativeness I mentioned; a short, explosive temper. They are also impulsive, thin-skinned, easily bored, and abusive of others. Very unpleasant, seductive people,” he concluded, shifting in his seat and tacking on, “and they love to prey on the weak.”

  “Was he a child abuser?” Joe asked.

  Dziobek shrugged. “I do not know. It would not be a long reach for him.”

  Joe pursed his lips momentarily. “Why did he come to you?” he asked.

  The therapist’s eyes widened. “Ah, yes. He only came as part of an agreement with the prosecutor. As I’m sure you know, sometimes, when people get into trouble for anger issues, rather than being sent to court, they are encouraged to offer reparation to the injured party and seek therapeutic aid. That was the agreement here.”

  Joe knew of the process—a hopeful, kinder, gentler alternative than saddling people with a criminal record for minor crimes. It wasn’t unheard of for someone like Castine, with a bad but sealed juvenile record, to appear far more benign than he was.

  “What was the nature of the case?” Joe inquired.

  “An altercation at a restaurant across the river, in New Hampshire—name calling, a shoving match. On the face of it, not much. That’s why I was startled when I met him—not at all what I w
as expecting. It’s one of the great benefits of my occupation.”

  The New Hampshire reference explained why they’d missed this in their background search.

  “How many times did you meet?”

  “Only what was required. Four sessions—not really enough to do much. And totally useless for the likes of Mr. Castine.”

  “That hard to reach?”

  “Psychopathy, especially in someone his age, is not like bed-wetting with a child,” Dziobek explained. “The modern expression—one I rather like—is ‘hardwired.’ Wayne was very much that way.”

  “Did you read the paper this morning?” Joe asked.

  Dziobek nodded. “Yes, so I wasn’t wholly surprised by your call. You contacted me faster than I’d anticipated, however. My hat is off to you. He was discovered in a flat not his own?”

  “Yes. We wondered about that—why he’d run the risk of being caught there. He had a key to the place, but the current owner didn’t know him.”

  The other man smiled knowingly.

  “What?”

  Dziobek’s eyes brightened. “Ah—well, of course, one can never be absolutely certain, but I suggest that you consider the element of thrill. It fits rather well, unless you have an alternate theory.”

  Joe shook his head, swearing to himself that he would never tell Willy what he’d just heard. “We’re just starting to dig. I barely know about the man. The rumor on the street, though, is that he abused kids.”

  “I gathered that, from your earlier question.”

  “Why did you say that wouldn’t have been a stretch for him?”

  Dziobek considered the question before answering. “Childhood predeterminants coupled with this particular psychopath’s being drawn to weaker victims. He wasn’t a big or imposing man and his own early years were, I’m sorry to say, an all-too-familiar nightmare. It makes sense to me that he’d have been attracted to children. Males or females?”

  Joe was caught off guard. “I’m not sure—both, maybe. Why?”

  “Simple professional curiosity. Both would be unusual, but not unheard of, and—again—given this man’s degree of intelligence, perfectly possible. He might even have seen it as a worthy challenge.”