The mother was tired, awakened from sleep, but listened without comment, her neat head tilted at a dubious angle. Her features were large and not entirely pretty, but her round eyes showed intelligence. She had on a thin white robe and her short hair was cut natural. The only time she touched it was when Judy explained how Mary had been shot. “Why aren’t you goin’ to the police about this?” the woman asked warily. “Why you comin’ to me?”
“I will, but all I have now is suspicion. They can’t do anything about it tonight anyway. Besides, if your son knows something, wouldn’t you rather have me talk to him than the police?”
“At this hour of the night? No.”
“I’m sorry about that. I can’t help it.”
The woman wrapped her robe closer around her slim body. “My baby Dennell don’t know this homeless man you’re talkin’ about. Dennell never said nothin’ about somebody named Eb. Or Heb.”
“I think Dennell did know him. He told us he did. Dennell plays outside a lot, doesn’t he? He must have talked to Eb while you were at work.”
“Dennell don’t know him. He don’t know people hangin’ on the street. He don’t talk to those people.”
“How do you know that? You work at the store during the day.”
The mother pursed her lips. “Look, I do what I can. I work, I don’t take no handouts. Rasheed, he watches the baby when I’m away, or the neighbor lady. What do you know about it anyway? You don’t know nothin’ about it.”
Judy reddened. “I’m just telling you what Dennell told me and Mary.”
“Like I tol’ you, Rasheed watches Dennell good. I told him not to let the baby talk to no strangers.”
“Heb wouldn’t be a stranger. Some of the neighbors knew him.”
“I didn’t. Not me.”
“Dennell said Heb was rich.”
The mother’s brow knitted. “He said that? To you?”
“Yes, he told me Eb gave him money.”
“Dennell don’t have money.”
“Isn’t it possible that Heb gave Dennell money?”
“No. I never saw a dime of it.”
“But Dennell told me about street money. Did you know about that?”
“Street money?” the mother scoffed. “You don’t know if Dennell was for real or not.”
“Does Dennell lie?”
The mother didn’t reply.
“I didn’t think so,” Judy said, and the mother looked at her hard.
The window in the children’s crowded bedroom was insulated with Saran Wrap and Scotch tape, and Dennell’s skinny bed sat underneath the peeling windowsill. The little boy squinted sleepily against the sudden brightness from a ceiling fixture of old, frosted glass. “Momma?” the boy murmured without opening his eyes.
“Dennell, wake up and talk to me a minute, baby.” The mother stroked his head as he lay against a pillow covered with Star Wars characters. “There’s a lady here to ask you some questions.”
“I’m the lady with the skis,” Judy said softly, sitting at the foot of the bed. “Remember me, Dennell?”
The boy’s eyes remained closed, and his mother shook him gently by the shoulder. He wore a thick Sesame Street sweatshirt; the bedroom was cold despite a space heater whose two squiggly coils glowed orange in the far corner, near a bookshelf cluttered with battered board games, paperback books, and cassette tapes. The two older sons shared a double bed and one son was wide awake as the other slept. It was the oldest one who was awake, and Judy judged him to be about fifteen. He wore a bright red T-shirt that said CHICAGO BULLS. “Whas’ up, Ma?” he asked.
“None of your business, Rasheed. Go back to sleep.”
Rasheed quieted but stayed propped up in bed next to his somnolent brother, watching the odd scene. His face was long and handsome with strong features and dark, smallish eyes. Tacked on the wall above the bed were posters of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman’s hair.
“Dennell,” said the mother, shaking the boy only reluctantly. Dennell dozed on.
Judy considered giving up, but it was too important. Somebody had tried to kill Mary and she had to get to the bottom of it. She had a rapport with this boy, and the police wouldn’t. Something was telling her it had to be done tonight. Now. “Dennell,” Judy called. “Remember we played with the skis?”
The child cracked an eye. “The skis?”
Judy inched up on the bed beside Dennell’s mother. “I slid the ski to you. We played, remember?”
Both large eyes flew suddenly open. “You said it’s not a toy!” he said in the loud voice Judy recalled.
“Well, it isn’t.”
“I fink it is!”
Rasheed snorted. “ ‘Think.’ You got to say ‘think.’”
“Fink!” Dennell repeated.
Rasheed shook his smooth head. “He can’t say ‘th.’”
“Shhh,” said their mother, waving Rasheed off and turning back to Dennell. “Baby, you know a man named Eb Darning?”
Dennell nodded. His round eyes rolled from his mother to Judy and back again. He had eyelashes so long they curled up at the end, like a baby camel’s.
“He give you money?”
Dennell nodded again, and his mother groaned. “What you do with this money, boy?”
“Did I do bad?”
Rasheed propped himself up higher on his elbows, his expression as intent as Michael Jordan’s. “Don’t lie, D.”
“I ain’t lyin’!” Dennell shouted, and his mother patted his leg.
“Settle down now,” she said. “Don’t be shoutin’. How much money?”
“I don’t know. Two. Ten.” Dennell shrugged, his tiny shoulders lost in the sweatshirt. “Ten.”
“Ten dollars?”
“Yes. Ten.”
“Where’s this money now?”
Dennell blinked but said nothing.
“He ain’t got no money,” Rasheed said, and Judy glanced over. Rasheed looked uneasy. You didn’t have to be a mother to know what was going on, and the mother turned from her youngest to her oldest.
“Rasheed. You know something ’bout this money?” Rasheed shook his head, and his mother stood up and put her hands on her hips. “Young man, you look me right in the eye and tell me you don’t know what this baby’s talkin’ about.”
“Ma—”
“You heard me. You look at me and lie to me. Don’t be a sneak.”
Rasheed flopped backward on the bed, his eyes on the ceiling. “I ain’t a sneak.”
“Nothin’ I hate worse than a sneak. A sneak’s not goin’ anywhere in this world. No how. No way. Now you tell me.”
Rasheed sighed. “The man give him money and shit.”
“Watch your language. Now, what money?”
“Dollar bills.”
“How many? Ten?”
“More,” Rasheed said to the ceiling.
The mother folded her arms. “Where’s this money now?”
“I got it.”
“Get it, boy.”
Rasheed sighed theatrically, tore off the covers, and swung his large feet out of bed. He started explaining as soon as he hit the thin rug. “It’s my money, straight up. Dennell give it to me.”
“Get it,” his mother said.
“He can have it, Momma,” Dennell said helpfully, but was ignored.
Rasheed strode to his closet in his oversized T-shirt and Champion sweatshorts. He was tall and thin, with wiry calf muscles knotted in long legs. He slid the closet door aside on a broken runner and reached in the messy closet to the top shelf. “I was saving it.”
“You were keepin’ a secret.”
“I was savin’. You’re always sayin’, ‘Save, save, save.’” Rasheed shoved a shoe box aside, revealing another tucked way back. It said ADIDAS on the hidden box. “I was savin’ in case I didn’t get those sneakers for my birthday. The Air Jordans.”
His mother looked pained and her body sagged with resignation. “You know I can’t get you those sneake
rs, Rasheed. They’re a hundred dollars. I don’t have that kind of money, boy.”
“I know it, that’s why I’m savin’. To get ’em myself.”
“You can’t get ’em yourself!”
“Yes, I can. You’re always sayin’, ‘Try, try, try.’ ‘Save, save, save.’ Now I’m doin’ both and you’re rip-shit.”
“Rasheed, that’s enough. Why didn’t you tell me about the money?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Judy watched in silence. She felt like an intruder, but was thrilled that her search was leading somewhere. She held her breath as Rasheed grabbed the shoe box from the shelf, plopped it on the bed, and lited off the lid. Dennell sat up and tried to peek in the shoe box, and his mother peered inside. “God help me,” she said in a hushed tone, and Judy looked in the box.
A thick roll of money nestled in the corner of the shoe box, coiled like a snake. There was a twenty-dollar bill on the outside, but Judy had no way of knowing how much was on the inside. Where had all that come from? Underneath the money was a bright white notebook, and it caught Judy’s eye. She was dying to know what it was. “Rasheed,” Judy asked, “is the white notebook yours or did that come from Darning, too?”
“He gave it to ME!” Dennell chirped up, sitting cross-legged on his bed. “He tol’ me to keep it. So it don’t get stole.”
“Can I see it?” Judy asked, and Rasheed handed it to her. She opened the notebook. Its pages were filled with lists of numbers written in pencil. What did the numbers mean? Was the handwriting Darning’s?
“There must be a hundred dollars here,” the mother said, astonished as she plucked the money roll from the box and flipped through it.
“Only eighty-two,” Rasheed corrected.
“Only eighty-two?” she repeated, shocked. “You took eighty-two dollars from a man on the street?”
“I didn’t, Dennell did.”
“He don’t know better, you do,” she shot back as her surprise turned to anger. “You don’t take money from nobody on the street! You don’t take money from nobody. You know what they want for their eighty-two dollars, boy?”
Rasheed looked down. “The man didn’t want nothin’.”
“I work for my money, son. So will you.”
“I work. I was gonna shovel—”
“You’re damn right you’re gonna shovel! You’ll shovel all winter, for free. I’ll loan you out. Then you’ll remember. You don’t take money from nobody. And you don’t keep secrets from me.”
“What was I supposed to do? Tell you?”
“Yes, tell me.” Veins bulged in her slender neck. “Tell me, so we could give it right back.”
“Give it back?” Rasheed started to laugh. “Are you crazy?”
“Yes, I am. Watch this!” Suddenly the mother peeled a twenty from the roll, ripped it in two, and threw the pieces into the air.
“Mom!” Rasheed shouted. “What are you doing?” He scrambled for the money as the pieces sailed to the bed and landed on his brother, who, incredibly, remained asleep. “Stop!” Rasheed pleaded, but his mother was already ripping up another bill, then another, and the one after that, throwing them into the air, setting the pieces flying around the shabby bedroom like snowflakes.
“You think I’m crazy?” she grunted to tear a stack of ones. “This is what I’ll do if I ever, ever catch you taking money again!”
Dennell clapped in delight at his mother’s adventure while Rasheed scurried to fetch the money falling to the carpet. The mother kept tearing until all the bills were gone and the room a blizzard of cash. “Get the point, boy?” she shouted, her expression grim and satisfied.
“Wha?” asked the middle son, waking up. He rubbed his eyes in bewilderment as money floated around his bedroom. “Is this a dream?”
The mother laughed, and Judy did, too. But Judy’s smile was because of what she had in her hand. Eb Darning’s notebook.
40
Marta shined her flashlight through the snowy cyclone fence at the LBI Marina, where Steere’s bills had showed he docked his boat. The marina was tucked in a harbor on the bay side of the island, ringed by shuttered summer homes and protected from the brunt of the snowstorm at sea. Next to the fence sat a flat-topped wooden building, apparently a small office. On its wall was a faded JET SKI RENTALS sign. A frayed basketball hoop fluttered in the breeze.
Marta poked her fingers through the fence and leaned closer to get a better look. Snow fell steadily, but the bay was calmer than the ocean and rippled with choppy whitecaps that washed onto the docks at the ends. There were no boats in the water, which looked frozen in spots. Wooden slips covered with snow jutted into the empty water. Next to them stood a tall boat lift with a canvas sling. The marina was vacant, deserted, and dark except for a boxy security light on the outside of the office. Where were the boats?
Marta cast the flashlight through the snow flurries to her right, behind a covered section of the fence. Boats stood on dry land, in racks. There were motorboats and sailboats, their decks and awnings blanketed with snow. Marta estimated thirty hulking white outlines in the boatyard but didn’t know if any of them were the Piratical. She had no idea what Steere’s boat looked like even when it wasn’t covered with snow. She’d have to get inside the marina to read the names.
Marta tucked the flashlight into her pocket and squinted up at the fence in the snow. It was tall, about eight feet high, and she tried to remember the last time she had climbed anything. The memories came back only reluctantly, they had been so long buried. She’d climbed oak trees in the woods, and rail fences. Onto a pony, bareback; even into her father’s lap. Marta used to be a tomboy before she became a lawyer, a grown-up version of a hellion anyway. If she had to climb, she could climb.
She hoisted herself up and tried to wedge the tip of her boot into the cyclone fencing. Her boot was too large. Marta kicked the fence, driving her toe in. The fence jingled and shook. Snow tumbled onto her head. She brushed it off, pulled up her hood, and began to scale the slippery fence. Her parka weighed her down; her snowpants felt clumsy. She almost lost a boot but she made it halfway up and kept plugging.
When Marta reached the top she was panting. She threw a puffy leg over the bar and stopped to catch her breath. Wind gusted through her hair, freezing her ears. She blinked against the snow as she looked around her. No alarm began clanging and the marina wasn’t ritzy enough to have a silent alarm. Marta felt safe.
Then she fell off the fence. The flashlight slipped out of one pocket and the pritchel slipped out of the other.
Marta replaced both without comment and lay for a minute in a snowdrift beside the fence. The pile of snow wasn’t as soft as advertised, and Marta’s body ached. She wiggled her arms and legs, taking inventory. Her head hurt but she couldn’t remember when it hadn’t. So far she had survived a car accident, a killer, a fall, and psychotherapy. Marta was beginning to think she was invincible, if not entirely professional.
She got up and brushed herself off. The dock was slippery, covered with snow, as were the empty boat slips. They looked like five capital I’s facing her. Marta grabbed the handrail because she wasn’t sure where the dock ended and the water began. She tramped over to the large boatyard in the snow, flicked on her flashlight, and began reading the names of the boats on the racks.
Free ’n’ Easy, Skipperdee, Weekend Folly. The names were legible in the blowing snow because the letters were so big. The wind whistled off the bay as she read. My Girl, Showboat, Slip and Fall. The boats were all out of New Jersey, but none of them was Steere’s. Marta hurried to the next rack.
Our Keough. Molly’s Deal. Semicolon, but no Piratical. She bit her lip. Steere’s boat had to be here; Marta had seen the docking bills. There’d been no other bill that showed Steere paid anybody to move his boat, or that he’d put in a claim for its loss. It was here and she would find it and whatever was hidden on it. Papers, a clue, whatever.
Rate’s Bait. Huggybear. Amazing Paul. Some of th
e boats were registered in Maryland and a couple were from points north: Camden, Maine, and Marblehead, Massachusetts. Marta squatted on her haunches and read the last line of names. It was dark on the far side of the marina, less protected from the sea. Saltwater lashed the fiberglass hulls, and Marta turned her face to avoid a drenching. Mandessa, Ebony, and Go Below. She reached the end of the row of boats and stood up. Where was the Piratical? How could Steere hide a boat?
Marta looked around. Next to the marina’s office, close to the water’s edge, was a cinderblock building large enough to house boats. Maybe Piratical was inside. She hurried to the building. She reached it and shone the flashlight through its garage doors, pressing her nose against the cold glass like a kid at an aquarium.
It was dark in the building and there were no security lights. Marta squinted, her nose a refrigerated pancake. She could make out vague outlines of more boats on racks, but there was no way she could read the names from here. She had to get inside. She eyeballed the panes of glass. They were large enough. Marta drew back her rubber boot and with a technique only a lawyer could envy, drove her toe through the brittle glass. It cracked with a tinkling sound and she kicked until she had broken the pane completely, then squeezed through the jagged frame and scrambled onto the floor inside.
The floor was paved cement, dry except where pools of water had leaked under the door. Marta grabbed the flashlight and stood up among the glass shards. She dusted off quickly, leaving a tiny pile of snow behind Pigpen. It was quiet inside and it felt good to be out of the snowstorm, sheltered and protected. Just her and Jail Bait, Bet Thrice, and Ain’t Nobody’s Business. Where was Piratical?
Marta cast the flashlight around the warehouse. Its roof was of a corrugated metal and its steel reinforcing showed. The air smelled musty, and the building had the windless, still cold of a large, unheated space. It was full of boats, maybe owned by those with the money for indoor storage. She headed for the boat racks.