“Joe, I’m real sorry to be disturbing you, but Lockwood is dealing with a possible burglary over on Kemps Road, and Barker is out with one of the fire trucks tending to a car fire.”
Dupree couldn’t hide his displeasure. He’d asked the cops on duty to try to give him a little space tonight, even if they were snowed under, which seemed unlikely at the start of the day. Still, it wasn’t their fault that cars were burning and houses were being burgled, although if they found the people responsible for either event, Joe Dupree was going to have some harsh words to say to the culprits.
“What is it, Sally?”
“Terry Scarfe is in the Rudder, and he’s not alone. He’s got Carl Lubey in there with him and they’re thick as thieves. Just thought you should know.”
Marianne watched Dupree’s expression darken. There was sorrow there too, she thought, a reminder of events that he had tried to forget. She knew the story of Carl Lubey’s brother. Everybody on the island knew it.
Ronnie Lubey had been a minor-league criminal, with convictions for possession with intent and aggravated burglary. On the night that he’d died, he had a cocktail of uppers and alcohol in his belly and was spoiling for a fight. He’d started shooting out the windows of his neighbor’s house, yelling about tree trunks and boundaries, and by the time Joe and Daniel Snowman, who had since retired, arrived out at the house, Ronnie was slumped against a tree trunk, mumbling to himself, puke on his shirt and pants and shoes.
When the two policemen pulled up, Ronnie looked at them, raised the shotgun, and shot wildly from the hip. Snowman went down, his left leg peppered with shot, and after an unheeded warning, Dupree opened fire. He aimed low, hitting Ronnie in the thigh, but the shot busted Ronnie’s femoral artery. Dupree had done his best for him, but his priority had been his partner. Snowman survived, Ronnie Lubey died, and his little brother, Carl, who also lived on the island, had never forgiven the big policeman.
Marianne didn’t know who Terry Scarfe was, but if he was keeping company with Carl Lubey, then he wasn’t anyone she wanted to know. During her first month on the island, Carl had tried to come on to her as she sat with Bonnie at the bar of the Rudder. When she’d turned down his offer of a drink, Carl called her every name he could think of, then tried to reach for her breast in the hope of copping a consolatory feel. She had pushed him away, and then Jeb Burris had climbed over the bar and hauled Carl outside. The young policeman Berman had been on duty that night. Marianne remembered that he had been kind to her and had warned Carl to stay away from her. Since then, she had endured only occasional contact with him when he came into the market. When she passed him on the street or saw him on the ferry, he contented himself with looking at her, his eyes fixed on her breasts or her crotch.
“I’d better go take a look,” Dupree said as Sally nodded a good-bye and returned to the bar. “You excuse me for a couple of minutes? I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
He rose and laid his hand gently on her shoulder as he passed by her. She brushed his fingers with her hand, and felt his grip linger for a moment before he left her.
Dupree walked down Island Avenue and made a right. Straight downhill on the left was the island’s ferry terminal and across from it was the Rudder Bar. It had an open deck at its rear, which filled up with tourists during the summer but was empty now that winter had come. Inside, he could see lights and a half dozen people drinking and playing pool.
He entered the bar and saw Scarfe and Lubey immediately. They were sitting at the bar, leaning into each other. Lubey raised his glass as Sally came out from the small kitchen behind the bar.
“Hey, Sal, you got any shots that taste like pussy?”
“I wouldn’t know what pussy tastes like,” said Sally, glancing at Dupree as he drew closer.
Lubey lifted a finger and extended it to her.
“Then lick here,” he said, and the two men collapsed into laughter.
“How you doing, boys?” said Dupree.
The two men turned in unison to look at him.
“We’re not your boys,” said Lubey. His eyes were dull. He swayed slightly as he tried to keep Dupree in focus.
“It’s the Jolly Green Giant,” said Scarfe. “What’s wrong, Mr. Giant? You don’t look so jolly no more.”
“We don’t usually see you over here, Terry. Last I heard, you were doing three to five.”
“I got paroled. Good behavior.”
“I don’t think your behavior is so good tonight.”
“What’s your problem, Off-fis-sur?” said Lubey. “I’m having a drink with my buddy. We ain’t bothering nobody.”
“I think you’ve had enough.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Lubey. “Shoot me?”
Dupree looked at him. Lubey held the gaze for as long as he could, then glanced away, a dumb smile playing on his lips. Dupree returned his attention to Scarfe.
“I want you off the island, Terry. Thorson has a crossing in ten minutes. You be on that ferry.”
Scarfe looked at Lubey, shrugged, then slid from his stool and picked up his jacket.
“The Green Giant wants me off the island, Carl, so I got to go. I’ll be seeing you.”
“Yeah, be seeing you, Terry. Fight the power.”
Dupree stepped back and watched as Scarfe headed unsteadily for the door, then turned back to Lubey.
“You drive here?” he asked.
Lubey didn’t reply.
“I asked you a question, Carl.”
“Yeah, I drove,” said Lubey at last.
“Give me your keys.”
The other man dug into his pockets and found his car keys. As Dupree reached out for them, Lubey dropped them to the floor.
“Whoops,” he said.
“Pick them up.”
He climbed from the stool, bent down gingerly, then toppled over. Dupree helped him to his feet, picking up the keys as he did so. Once he was upright again, Lubey shrugged off the policeman’s hand.
“Get your hands off me.”
“You want me to put you in cuffs, I will. We can get a boat over here and you can spend the night in a cell.”
Lubey reached for his coat.
“I’m going,” he said.
“You can pick up your keys from the station house in the morning.”
Lubey waved a hand in dismissal and headed for the door. Behind the bar, Jeb Burris took off his apron and said: “I’ll give him a ride back.”
Dupree nodded and gave him Lubey’s car keys.
“Yeah, do that.”
Back outside, he watched as Terry Scarfe and two other people, tourists who’d been eating at the restaurant, climbed onboard Thorson’s ferry and headed back to Portland.
Scarfe kept looking back at the island, and Dupree, until the ferry faded from view.
Marianne had enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine at dinner, Dupree a single beer. He offered to drive her back to her house and said he would arrange to have her car dropped at her door before eight the next morning. She sat in the passenger seat of Dupree’s own Jeep and stared in silence through the side window. Dupree wanted to believe that it was a comfortable silence, but he sensed her sadness as he drove.
“You okay?”
She nodded, but her mouth wrinkled and he could see that she was near tears.
“It’s been a long time, you know?”
He didn’t, and he felt foolish for not knowing.
“Since what?”
“Since I had a nice evening with a man. I’d kind of forgotten what it was like.”
He coughed to hide his embarrassment and his secret pleasure.
“You always cry at the end of a nice evening?”
She smiled and wiped at the tears with the tips of her fingers.