We Begin at the End(80)

A single photo of the family before.

Martha zoomed in close and Walk was struck by Darke, that emptiness, the hollow gaze, it was all absent back then.

“So Madeline would be fourteen now,” Martha said.

“Yes.”

“Jesus. She’s been in there nine years. Around the time Darke started making his moves. It’s a lot of money.”

Walk found another article, this one focused on Madeline and the work done at Unity. It said a lot and nothing at all. The girl was kept alive by a machine.

Darke was hoping for a miracle.





33


HARBOR BAY.

Walk made it there in thirty, didn’t flash the lights because Cabrillo was empty. The call came in an hour after he made it back from Portland.

He left the cruiser close to the gate and walked past the bobbing trawlers, a shiny Bayliner and a line of Navigators. Gaps between boards, water slopped beneath. He saw a cluster of catfish turning as an old man tossed what was left of the day’s bait.

Frenzied water, salt breeze, a sense of dread.

The trawler was a ’73 Reynolds but looked newer, fresh paint and blue trim, Andrew Wheeler on the deck, his eyes on breaking waves.

Walk knew him a little. Andrew had taken Star out a few times.

In the distance was the Cape, the cliffs, land trailing down to the beach and the King house commanding all of it. Andrew still worked with Skip Douglas, so old and grizzled he barely spoke a word on dry land. Skip stepped onto the boards, nodded once at Walk and headed back toward the lot, no doubt to grab a couple of beers to take the edge off the day they’d had.

Andrew came down and they shook hands, Andrew’s arms muscled and tan, sunglasses on his head despite the dusk sky. Lights flickered on as Walk stepped onto the boat.

“What happened?” Walk said.

“We were out with city people, group from Sacramento. Three of them, childhood friends out traveling their way up to Six Rivers.”

Lobster season ran October through March. There were limits, number and size and weight, but most of the customers just wanted a day out on the water.

“We were heading in slow when Skip called me over. The net was caught, happens often, always a pain in the ass. Sometimes I pull on a wetsuit and head in, cut away where needed.”

Walk placed a hand on the side though the waves were gentle.

“It was heavy, though. Skip even took off his ball cap and wiped his head, and that guy never breaks a sweat. I grabbed the trawl winch and we got it moving. Then it broke the water. The guys puked, all three. Gulls circled, more than usual, that’s how I knew, cries so loud Skip closed the dead man’s eyes.”

“You didn’t touch him other than that?”

Andrew shook his head, then stepped aside.

“The guys were so sick I had to try and cover him on the ride in.”

Walk pulled the towel back then fought for breath.

Milton.

Bloated, mottled, eyes swollen over.

“You alright, Walk?”

“Jesus.”

“You know him?”

Walk nodded.

He thought of the blood at Darke’s place, they’d match it soon enough, he had little doubt. More pieces to figure, so uneven.

“Sit down for a bit, you don’t look so good.”

They sat on the deck and waited for the coroner. Andrew passed Walk a beer, which he sipped as the color returned to him.

“Better?”

“You don’t seem all that shaken up,” Walk said.

“It’s my third body.”

“Serious?”

“One in Jersey, and then I worked the Keys. A lot going on in Cape Haven.”

“Too much.”

Walk held the bottle to his head and soothed the ache forming. His hand shook as he drank, he did not even try and hide it.

“I saw you at the funeral. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to come over.” Andrew had stood at the back, head bowed, stayed a few minutes then slipped out.

Andrew waved him off. “I was … it was sad. The whole thing, when I heard about her. I thought about the kids, even back then, the boy was a baby but the girl used to glare at me.”

Walk thought of Duchess.

“You know who did it, this guy?”

“Maybe.”

Andrew asked nothing else.

They watched a boat head in, low lights over calm water.

Andrew held his bottle to the dying sun. “It’d been five years since I last saw her. But I still thought about her. It wasn’t even … the one that got away, nothing like that. You know when you want to save someone, but you don’t have the first clue how to do it?”

“You saw her a while.”

“A few months maybe. Met her at a bar, watched her sing then bought her a drink, thought she was nice-looking and funny and kind of damaged, which wasn’t all that unusual in the kinds of bars I drink in.”

“And then?”

“We were together but not. Almost like friends. I wanted more.”

Walk watched him.

“Sex. We never did.”

Walk glanced over at a speedboat, out of place, white and garish, no doubt a vacationer bringing out their toy, the old and new colliding in a way that still pained him. FOR SALE sign, Walk hoped whoever bought it took it someplace far away.