Free The Price of Malice by Archer Mayor Page B

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 obnoxiouslittle 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