The Price of Malice Read online

  “Ouch,” Joe said softly.

  The old man smiled supportively. “Yes. Well, the word ‘psychopath’ isn’t so heavily laden without good reason. These are very unpleasant people.”

  Joe nodded. “Good point. Speaking of people, though, who were the ones in his life?”

  Dziobek chuckled. “Normally, given that the patient is deceased and the nature of his demise, I would help you in any way. But while I heard about his mother and an abusive stepfather and a number of stories from his youth I had no way of verifying, Mr. Castine told me nothing of value about the here and now. He was well-mannered and put on a great show of openness, but in fact, all he shared were details I would only consider with great caution.”

  Gunther smiled at the erudition of the reply. “Meaning he lied his butt off?”

  This time the doctor laughed outright. “Precisely.”

  Joe stood up, crossed over to his host, and shook hands, saying, “Don’t get up, Doctor. You’ve been a great help, and I really appreciate it. Could I call you if anything else comes up?”

  Dziobek stayed seated and nodded genially. “Absolutely. It sounds fascinating, what you do, and I wish you all the best. A psychopath being brutally murdered, against an implied background of child abuse—I can’t imagine that a little psychological consulting wouldn’t be useful.”

  He reached into his jacket pocket and extracted a card. “I keep this for occasions exactly like this. Do not hesitate to get in touch. I would be delighted to help out.”

  Joe thanked him again, pocketed the card gratefully, and took his leave. While the doctor’s parting comments were as much politeness as genuinely offered, Gunther was getting the feeling that he would be needing all the help he could get before this was over.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Lyn Silva paused on the sidewalk, looking up at the sign over the door. This was Gloucester’s most notorious bar, where the police contended there were as many patrons with aliases as not. The cops were certainly the ones to know, since they dropped by more often than some of the regulars, either to break up a fight, or because this was the first place to begin rounding up suspects.

  Lyn knew this from having served here as a bartender for years, before leaving for Brattleboro.

  It had been a crazy job in ways—sometimes dangerous, and no place for a woman if she couldn’t fend off men. But it had trained her in the art of nonmartial self-preservation, and how to handle situations that, from the outside, might have seemed far too threatening to approach. It had given her confidence, self-worth, a hefty amount of tax-free money, and a sense of ease around people the rest of society simply labeled as pariahs.

  Not that she’d returned now for old times’ sake. She knew a smelly dump when she saw one, and this had always been a classic.

  But it had its purposes, which, in fact, was what had brought her back.

  She pushed the door open and walked into a thick wall of sweat, stale beer, bad perfume, and loud jukebox music. There are bars in which to socialize and be seen by one’s peers, and others, grim and silent, in which to get hammered as efficiently as possible. This one fit a middle ground—you could meet your equals, equipped with tattoos and names like Spike, and you could get so drunk that, for a few hours at least, no pain in the world could reach you. But you could also get laid, buy some drugs, feed and receive information, and otherwise pretend that you weren’t the total loser you suspected you were in the daylight.

  In the old days, Lyn had used the actual physical bar as a barrier. She strutted her stuff, wearing revealing clothes and giving men lip, but all the while remaining resolutely in place. No matter what fracas broke out on the floor, she stayed put—a look-but-don’t-touch surrogate for many a patron’s roving fancies.

  She wasn’t dressed provocatively now. She’d known to wear painter’s jeans and a light turtleneck, despite the heat, but she was still surprised by her own vulnerability merely entering the place. It reminded her of how much of a role she’d played back then, often parodying early on a self-confidence she’d only hoped might be hers.

  She scanned the room, looking for any familiar face, but for one in particular, too—a man who claimed this dive as his office.

  “Oh, my God,” she heard behind her. “Be still my heart.”

  She turned to face a middle-aged man with a full black beard and a nasty scar running near one eye.

  “If it isn’t the best-looking barkeep on the whole East Coast.”

  She smiled, reached out, and patted the man’s upper arm. “Hi, Benny. How’ve you been?”

  He was carrying a mug of beer, but reached out nevertheless and gave her an awkward bear hug. She immediately began to feel more at home, if still aware of the general potential volatility.

  “I thought you’d left forever,” Benny told her. “Someone said you went to California, or something.”

  She laughed. “Hardly. Maybe they were talking attitude. I moved to Vermont. I own a bar there.”

  His eyes widened. “No shit? I never been to Vermont. I never been anywhere ’cept out there.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the sea.

  “You ought to give it a try,” she encouraged him, knowing it would never happen.

  Sure enough, he ignored the comment. “And you own a bar? Good for you. I thought you’d want nuthin’ to do with bars after this hole.”

  “Hey,” she said with a smile, “sometimes, it’s what you know that you go with.”

  He looked up at the dark ceiling. “Oh, Jesus. Do I know what you mean. You come back for old memories?”

  “I’m looking for Harry Martin, actually,” she admitted.

  Benny straightened with surprise. “Harry? What would you want with an old fart like that? Stick with me, girl. I’ll show you a good time.”

  She patted his chest with her open hand. “I bet you could, Benny, but I got business on my mind right now, and Harry’s the man for that.”

  Benny didn’t argue. Lyn had said the magic words. Of the many unclassifiable jobs that people claimed in this bar, being a “businessman,” in the literal sense, was Harry Martin’s. Harrison Martin, as only his birth certificate knew him, was the type of man forever found between two others hoping to do a deal. He might have introduced them, or have never met them, but somehow he would know what they were up to, and—better still—how to end it unless he was kindly included. He never overstepped his bounds, and always made sure to be more help than a hindrance, but he was always where he needed to be at the right time.

  Lyn made her farewells to Benny and plowed deeper into the crowd. Since her departure, there’d been a management change, and special event nights were now standard. Tonight, it was discount beer and limited free pizza—and, she suspected from experience, something more in the back room. The place was as packed at midweek as it used to be only on Saturday nights. The noise was deafening, the smell awful, and the number of hands on her butt and elsewhere as she navigated through too many to count. In the distance, seen only occasionally through the press, the bartender glided behind her barricade, flashing a broad, empty smile.

  Lyn found Harry Martin parked in his spot of choice—a corner table beyond the pool players, his back to the wall and a bottle before him. An anxious man was sitting in the single seat beside him, his body bent at the waist like a supplicant’s, a sheet of dog-eared paper near his hand on the tabletop. Harry was staring out over the crowd, not showing any sign that he knew the man was there.

  Harry had chosen his post carefully. Even with the place this full, he wasn’t overly hemmed in, the pool players needing room to move. He was also on the far end of the worst of it, meaning anyone had to travel to get to him. And, lastly, immediately by his side was the dim hallway leading to the restrooms and the rear exit. The drunks needing to pee—or the half-blind couples needing a little privacy—were well worth the defensive advantage such a position discreetly supplied.

  After all, not all of Harry’s deals went as smoothly as desired.


  Lyn waited for the pool players to migrate to the far side of the table before she emerged from the mob and walked into Harry’s view.

  His weather-lined face broke into a broad smile at the sight of her. “I’ll be damned,” he said as she drew near. “If it ain’t Abílo’s little girl. Have a seat. Take a load off.”

  He reached out and poked the man in the shoulder. “Beat it,” he said without emphasis, making the latter fade away without complaint. He didn’t act that way often—he could be a supplicant, too, after all—but right now, he was feeling top dog.

  There was no question of hugs in this case, though. That wasn’t his style, and Lyn was here for a favor.

  “Hi, Harry,” she said simply. “Long time.”

  “I heard your mom’s not too good.”

  That was to tell her his sources were on the job—a small running up of the flag, in case it mattered. Harry liked to prepare the ground before him—it wouldn’t have surprised her if he knew her current companion was a cop.

  “She’s doing better now.”

  “The bar business treating you okay in Vermont? You like being the boss?”

  She shrugged. A waitress she didn’t know appeared by their side. She ordered a beer no one would be paying for.

  “It’s okay. It’s something I know. Makes it a good starting point.”

  Harry nodded. “You always had a head on your shoulders. Your dad was happy about that. How’s Steve doin’?”

  It was not a casual question. “You probably know better than I do,” she said.

  He took a pull on his bottle and wiped his lips with the back of a gnarled hand. “Probably.”

  “Is he going to stay out of trouble?” she asked him.

  “That why you’re here?”

  “No,” she admitted.

  “Probably,” he repeated, adding, “if he minds his manners.”

  She wasn’t sure what to make of that, but knew he wouldn’t tell her. A large part of his livelihood depended on people thinking he knew more than he did.

  “I am sorry about Maria,” he said without prompting.

  Maria was her mother, and the comment made her wonder if he was fishing, which she hoped would be to her advantage.

  “It’s been a rough time,” she said vaguely.

  He shook his head mournfully. “That water out there. It’s made a lot of widows.”

  Lyn purposefully didn’t answer, forcing him to ask after a pause, “She’s still a widow, isn’t she?”

  Lyn tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t she be, Harry?”

  He laughed softly, his gaze wandering to a young woman in a miniskirt who’d taken up a pool cue and was lining up a shot.

  “Why’re you here, little girl?”

  Her beer arrived. She took a swig before asking him in turn, “Why do you think?”

  His eyes returned to hers. “I think it has something to do with your brother running a boat we all thought was at the bottom of the ocean.”

  “You picked up on that, did you?”

  “What happened to Abílo and José, Lyn?”

  “You interested as a friend or an old business partner?”

  She took another sip to hide the tension within her. This was going to the heart of her visit here, and to questions that she’d never shared with anyone—questions that had to do with how all the Silvas had eventually turned out, including the two who would never again speak for themselves.

  “Your father and me went back a long way,” Harry said ambiguously.

  “So do you and I,” she said, smiling.

  He thought about that. “Fair enough,” he said. “So, maybe we know why you’re here. The question is, what do you want?”

  She leaned forward, watching him closely. “What was my dad up to, Harry? What was he doing?”

  Harry dodged at first—a creature of habit. “The day he disappeared? Fishing, I thought. He was a lobsterman.”

  “And when he wasn’t?”

  Harry pressed his lips together momentarily before answering vaguely, “They all dabble a bit. You know that. Didn’t Abílo ever put a short lobster on the table?”

  “No,” she said pointedly.

  “Huh,” he muttered.

  “Short lobsters wasn’t his game,” she said.

  “Right,” he agreed.

  “So, what was?”

  Harry rubbed his index alongside his nose. “The man’s dead. Who cares?”

  Lyn kept her eyes on him. “You’re looking at her.”

  “Why?”

  “My family’s in the toilet and I want to know why. I have a brother who thought he never could live up to his brother and father, and now he’s not sure if they weren’t worse than he ever was. My mother’s like a walking dead woman because the fantasy she buried at sea has come back to bite her in the form of a perfectly preserved boat. As a kid, I worshipped my father, Harry. He was everything a man was supposed to be, and maybe because of that, no man I could find as a young woman ever measured up. But now . . .”

  He reached out and grabbed her forearm, his expression hard. “Don’t you go back on that. Abílo was one of the best of us.”

  “Not toward the end,” she insisted stubbornly.

  “Maybe not,” he relented, “but that’s not how he should be judged.”

  She put her hand on top of his. “Then tell me, Harry. I mean, for Christ’s sake, the genie’s out of the bottle. You’re saying the truth’s not as bad as what’s going on in my head, but I don’t know the truth. And my mom and Steve don’t, either. And if you’re right about Steve, what he thinks is liable to get him into really hot water, ’cause he’s got no heroes left.”

  She shifted in her seat. “You wanted to know what happened to José and Dad. I can’t answer that, but I do know the boat was found two hundred miles up the coast, on a privately owned island, hidden in a boathouse, with all its markings painted over.”

  “Whose island?”

  “I wasn’t told,” she lied. “I have a friend who’s a cop, and that’s all he told me. Why was the boat that far away, Harry? What were they doing, almost in Canadian waters?”

  He wavered, staring at the bottle before him. “If you don’t know that, you’re not as smart as I thought.”

  She let him go and sat back, her face ashen. “Drugs?”

  This time, he leaned toward her, his expression intense. “No. No way.”

  One of the nearby pool players glanced at them. Harry gave him a glare, making him move away.

  Harry lowered his voice. “Your father was no drug dealer.”

  “I didn’t say he was a dealer,” she reacted.

  He waved a hand angrily. “I don’t give a flying fuck, okay? He wasn’t into that shit.”

  “So what was it, then?”

  “Stuff. What do I know?”

  “You know, Harry,” she said in a forceful whisper. “He would’ve come to you, like I’m doing now. You’re like my uncle, for crying out loud. You two were the brothers neither one of you ever had. My dad came to you and asked how he could make ends meet, right? Isn’t that what happened?”

  Harry merely nodded, studying the tabletop.

  “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 s
agged. “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.”