Dupree winced. He’d been so distracted by Marianne that he hadn’t bothered to search either Scarfe or Lubey, yet he didn’t believe Scarfe would be stupid enough to bring drugs over with him. But he hadn’t known that Scarfe and Lubey were friendly, and even though they were laughing together the night before, he still got the feeling that they weren’t particularly close. Scarfe wanted something from Carl Lubey and that couldn’t be good because Carl Lubey had nothing positive to offer anyone.
“I’ll keep an eye on Lubey,” he said at last. “You hear anything about Scarfe over in Portland, maybe you’d give me a call.”
“Will do,” said Lockwood. They turned onto Island Avenue. It was still dark, but the sky was brightening slightly.
“Anything else I should know?” asked Dupree.
“Well, we’re still having trouble with the radios. Phones too.”
The problems with the radios were a recent development. The radio system in the Explorer was a dual arrangement. When the Portland PD had updated the island’s equipment, the old radio had been left in the Explorer and a second, portable system had been plugged into it. The new radio allowed the patrol cop to stay in touch with both the island base and dispatch over in Portland. The old system, meanwhile, enabled the island police to contact outside agencies such as the state police or the fire department. Over the last week, there had been gaps in transmission. Each of the island cops, Dupree included, had experienced some difficulty in raising either Portland or the station house, while on other occasions there had been the equivalent of a crossed line, faint voices audible in the background of regular transmissions. The radios had been checked and judged to be in perfect working order. “Ghosts in the machine,” as Lockwood had put it. Now the problem seemed to have spread to the phone lines.
“What about the phones?” asked Dupree.
“Same as the radio. Line was dead at least four times last night, just for a couple of seconds. You know, I picked up, there was nothing, then the dial tone kicked in. Other times there was light static. Could be the storm. Weathermen are saying that it’s going to hit the coast sometime tonight, although I’ve never heard of an approaching snowstorm affecting communications in that way before.”
Dupree didn’t reply. He was reminded of the previous day’s conversation with Amerling and Jack-It’s like the build up before an electrical storm-and the task that he had been putting off until after his dinner with Marianne: the visit to the Site.
“You know anything about this rookie cop Macy?” asked Dupree.
“I know she’s cute.”
“That’ll be a big help.”
“With respect, Joe, it’s not as if she’s entering a war zone.”
“No,” said Dupree. “I guess not.”
While the two men drove together, Sharon Macy stood in line for the small ferry. She’d heard tales about Thorson and his ferry, most of them, she hoped, gross exaggerations. One of the other field training officers, Christine McCalmon, had jokingly offered her the use of a life jacket for the trip. Macy had gone down to the dock the day before to take a look at the ferry as it left for its early-evening sailing. It looked a little rickety, but Macy figured it was better than rowing across Casco Bay in a teapot.
There were three other people beside her at the dock on Commercial Street, all with their eyes fixed on the little diesel boat, which was currently occupied by Thorson and his crewman. Thorson didn’t appear to be in too much of a hurry to get going. Macy thought he looked kind of hung over and figured that she could probably arrest him for some form of seagoing violation if she chose, but she guessed that nobody would thank her for it. Maybe if she took out her gun and forced him at gunpoint to get his ass in gear, then she might get their support and admiration. It was cold on the dock and the wind nipped painfully at her nose and ears.
“Cap’n,” said the man beside her, “what the hell are we waiting for?”
“Supplies,” said Thorson. “I promised Huddie Harris that I’d carry over some machine parts. His sister said she’d carry them along before five.”
“It’s five-fifteen now.”
“Ayuh.”
That was it, thought Macy. Thorson’s “ayuh” was the equivalent of a shoulder shrug, a complete abdication of responsibility. He had promised Huddie his parts, Huddie had probably promised him a couple of six-packs and some cash in return, and nobody was going to be allowed to get in the way of their arrangement. She kicked at a stone and pushed her hands deeper into her pockets as a woman wearing a quilted jacket shuffled along the dock pulling a beat-up metal box on wheels. Erin Harris; she lived in Portland but spent weekends out on Dutch with her brother. Macy recalled her face from an altercation outside the Eastland Hotel a month or two back, when the wife of one of Erin’s sometime boyfriends had decided that enough was enough and that Erin should quit messing with her man. Macy found it kind of difficult to figure out what the man in question saw in either of the women because Erin Harris was ugly on the outside and uglier still on the inside, but she was a bargain compared to the woman with whom she had been slugging it out that night. Barron had tried to intervene but Erin Harris had taken a swing at him and Macy had been forced to spray her. Maced by Macy, as Barron had put it later. It had all been kind of ugly. Macy kept her head down and watched quietly as the box was passed down to Thorson. Erin shot a glance at Macy as she passed. There was no disguising the hostility in her face. Macy didn’t look away.
“Okay,” said Thorson. “All aboard. We’re good to go.”
The four passengers climbed aboard the ferry, three occupying the wooden benches on the lower deck while Macy took a seat on the exposed upper deck. Minutes later they were heading out to sea, the gulls crying above them and gray waves breaking at the bow. Macy was already in uniform. An L. L. Bean backpack lay at her feet. She had taken Barron’s advice and brought a couple of books with her, as well as a Discman and a bunch of CDs. She slipped a CD into the player as Portland grew smaller behind her, the first bars of the Scud Mountain Boys’ “Freight of Fire” filling her ears as the spray splashed her face, the lead singer Joe Pernice advising her to bring her guns and all her ammunition; and she felt the weight of the pistol beneath her jacket and smiled as she recalled Barron’s tales of giants and the bones of men buried beneath pine trees.
Dupree was dealing with another reporter, one who was clearly trying to kill time during the early shift. This one was calling from Florida, so at least the interview didn’t have to be conducted face-to-face, which was something. Like most beat cops, Dupree had a natural distrust of reporters. There had been an accident down in the Keys a couple of days earlier in which three teenagers had drowned after a stolen car went off a bridge. The reporter was trying to pull together a feature about the danger of wayward teens and the accident on Dutch was a good tie-in.
“Yeah, the boy was dead when we got there,” said Dupree. “There was nothing we could do for him. The girl was badly injured. She died at the scene.” He grimaced even as he said the words, then listened to the next inevitable question about what safety measures had been introduced in the aftermath.
“We’re doing everything we can to ensure that a tragedy like this never happens again. We’re looking at ring-fencing the entire area, maybe sowing the slopes with scrap metal to stop anyone taking a car up there again.”
It should have been done years before, thought Dupree. I should have forced them to do it, but they wanted to leave the emplacement as it was, and anyway, kids will be kids. There had never been an accident on the slope before the deaths of Wayne Cady and Sylvie Lauter. It was just one of those things.
The reporter thanked him, then hung up. The clock on the wall read 6:25 A.M. The ferry would be due in soon, bringing with it his partner for the next twenty-four hours. Barker was already down at the little jetty, smoking a cigarette and kicking his heels impatiently, Lockwood sitting quietly beside him.