Devil's Harbor (18 page)

“It was my husband's Zippo.”

Finn flicked the top shut and turned it over. The metal lighter had a picture of an aircraft carrier etched into it, with
USS ROOSEVELT
engraved below. Linda pried the lighter from Finn's hand.

“After David died, all the other captains expected me to just sell the boat,” she said. “But the inshore tuna ban had just come into effect and everyone had to go way out to fish, so no one wanted a small boat. People said to me, unless you've got a big boat, a factory boat that can be out for months, you're not gonna make it. Anyway, I couldn't sell her. No one wanted the
Belle
.”

“How'd he die?” he said.

She took a drag on her cigarette. “There was a storm. He was swept off.” She paused. The rain had dwindled to a pitter-patter on the deck above. “So I started working the
Belle
myself. I switched to mackerel. I had Lucy to take care of, I needed to make a living, keep us both afloat, right? At first I didn't catch enough. I couldn't even break even. So I went to the bank and took out a loan against the boat. I figured my luck would turn eventually and I'd start catching fish. Things couldn't get any worse, I figured. I was wrong.”

She knocked the ash off the end of her cigarette and stared at the Zippo. “Lucy got sick,” she continued. “Really sick. She needed specialist treatment, and it was expensive. I went to the VHA, but they wouldn't cover her. Medicaid said we didn't qualify. So I maxed out my credit to buy her private coverage. Then, when I tried to claim the costs, they wouldn't pay. They said it was a preexisting condition that I had failed to declare. Like I knew. I was going to sue, but then the credit crunch hit and anyway I'd used all my money on the premiums. Everything collapsed. I defaulted on the boat payments and the bank refused to negotiate. They were going to take the
Belle
and the
Belle
's all I have, Finn. Her, and Lucy. I was desperate. That's when Little John—one of the other captains, you met him this morning—Little John told me about this Irish guy, owns a bar up the road, has some kind of maritime background, I never found out what, exactly. What John said was, this guy knows boats and likes to invest in fishing operations when no one else will.”

Finn felt his temperature rise. His good eye started twitching. “Diarmud Cutts,” he said.

She looked alarmed. “You … you know him?”

Finn nodded. “What happened next?”

“I went to see Cutts. He said, yeah, he could loan me some money, buy out the bank's share in the boat, get me off the hook, let me get back to fishing and looking after Lucy. All he asked for in return was a share in the
Belle
.”

Everything started falling into place in Finn's mind. He remembered Mona saying Muir meant sea in Irish. He remembered the tattoo on Cutts's right arm:
HOPE FROM THE SEA BUT NONE FROM LAND.
Linda added another butt to the already overflowing ashtray.

“Then things got even worse,” she said.

“How?”

“About a month after he paid off the bank, Cutts came to see me and said he wanted me to stop at this fishing village in Mexico, pick something up. That's all he said. I didn't need to know what it was, he said. Just pick up a small package and bring it back to me. You getting the picture?”

Finn was getting the picture. “Where's the village, exactly?”

“About forty miles south of Mazatl
á
n.”

Sinaloa,
thought Finn.
Caballeros de Cristo country.
It kept coming back to them.

“What's the village called?”

“Puerto Escondido.”

Where La Abuelita had said the young men had gone aboard
La Catrina
and disappeared.

“I told him I didn't want to get involved with anything like that,” Mona continued. “I told him I had my daughter to think about. I said I needed to focus on fishing, making it pay for her treatment.” She drew another cigarette from the pack but didn't light it. “That's when he handed me the envelope. I can still feel its thickness in my fingers. It was more money than I could make in six months at sea.” She paused. Her lower lip was trembling again. “The kind of money that changes your life, Finn.” She lit the cigarette and for a moment stared into some private space within her.

“The first time, all it was was a package about the size of a brick, wrapped in black plastic, easy to hide. I never saw what was in it, but of course I took a guess.” She gave him a piercing look.

“Then it started happening more and more regularly. The shipments got bigger. Pretty soon, I wasn't even bothering to put the net out. On top of that, Lucy wasn't getting better, despite the treatment. The doctors said they wanted to try a different kind of treatment … an even more expensive kind. The pressure was getting to me, but the money helped. If you had kids, you'd understand. You wouldn't look at me like that.”

Finn realized he was clenching his jaw. He'd been thinking of his father—how he had turned mule after his accident. How easy it must have seemed to him with a boat and an open sea, no one on the horizon. To Linda, too. Finn forced a smile. He watched her press her hand hard into her side, trying to stop it from trembling.

“Tell me about Diego,” he said.

She contemplated him for a moment. “What difference does it make now if you know?” she said quietly, as though to herself. She took another drag before she continued.

“Last Friday, Cutts phones me. Right away, I notice his tone is different. Before, he used to speak to me like we were partners, even though we weren't, really. I mean, I didn't think I could refuse him, you know? Once I'd done that first run? Anyway, I was scared of him, but he'd never threatened me and he always spoke to me in a friendly way—asked about Lucy, how she was doing. That all changed last Friday. He called late. I was at my sister's. Lucy was asleep in bed. He told me to go to the boat. I said I couldn't, I couldn't leave Lucy, but then he said what he would do to Lucy if I didn't go. It was … shocking. I went numb.

“I went into autopilot. I just did what I was told. I left Lucy with my sister and I went to the boat. The dock was deserted. I came aboard and I waited.”

She tapped the ash from her cigarette and glanced at Finn. “Then your friend showed up,” she said. “Diego.”

“What time?” he said.

“Really late. Around two in the morning.”

“How could he have known that you would be there at that time of night?”

She shrugged. “No idea. But when he arrived, he acted like he wasn't surprised to see me. He asked me about Espendoza. He seemed to think that I was going to tell him something.”

He was set up,
thought Finn. “Keep going.”

“All Cutts had said was, keep him there, don't let him leave. So I did. We talked. I told him whatever he wanted to hear. He wanted to hear about Espendoza, so I told him how the kid had crewed for me. Then he said how you'd found him out in the water, and what had happened to his legs.…”

She composed herself and took another drag on her cigarette.

“The whole time we were talking, I had my phone in my pocket, waiting for Cutts to call, tell me what to do. I was going crazy. I wanted to run away, go back to my sister's and grab Lucy and disappear. But I couldn't leave. She couldn't stop the treatment she was getting at the hospital and I … I needed the money to pay for it.”

“So Espendoza
was
on the
Belle,
” said Finn, his throat dry.

She smiled weakly at him. “Yes. He dealt with the … with Cutts's connection in Mexico. I told Cutts it would make everyone in the fleet suspicious, me having this kid aboard who was obviously no fisherman, but Cutts insisted. ‘Make him blend in,' he said.” She laughed bitterly.

“Espendoza didn't blend in. He didn't do shit. He was just a stupid, arrogant kid with a gun, playing gangster. His job was to be Cutts's eyes, wave his goddamn gun around, make sure I didn't lose my nerve and go to the coast guard or anything like that. He was dumb, he was lazy, he couldn't handle his liquor, and he had a gun. I had to sleep with the door locked.”

Yet he's the one who ended up dead in the channel,
thought Finn. “Then what happened?”

“Like I said, Cutts had told me to keep him there. So I … I kept him there. It wasn't hard. He was sitting right where you are now. We were drinking from these mugs. It was late. I didn't know what would happen next. I was terrified, but I was on autopilot, just doing what I'd been told to do. He went outside to piss over the side. I heard three shots.… Oh, Finn, it was horrible.”

He tried to swallow, but he didn't have any spit left in his mouth.

“Who killed him?”

“I didn't see the actual … I was inside, I didn't see it happen. But then Cutts and this other man I didn't know came in. The man had a gun in his hand.”

“The other guy—what was his name?”

“No one told me, and I was too frightened to ask. He had dark skin, and he was wearing a suit. He had a foreign accent, Arabic it sounded like. I had no idea they were going to kill him, Finn. You believe me, don't you?”

He smiled unconvincingly. “What happened next?”

“We went out on deck. The two of them carried the body off the boat. They told me to go back inside the cabin. I heard a car revving on the quay. I heard a splash. Then Cutts and the man came back. Cutts told me to scrub the blood off of the deck. While I was doing that, he told me what he would do to Lucy if I talked to anyone about what I'd seen that night. I said I hadn't seen anything, but he still told me. The things he said … I could barely stand to listen, Finn. It was bloodcurdling. He's a monster. He said if anyone asked, I was at my sister's, with Lucy. He said that that was my story. He said to make sure to get the details straight with Rhonda—that's my sister—in case any cops came around to ask her questions. Afterwards, I raced home, I held Lucy in my arms and didn't let go. I almost took off. I thought about it, believe me. I wanted to get in the car and drive somewhere far away, out of state. But where could I go? I had to stay near the hospital for Lucy. And I needed the money to pay for it.”

She put her face in her hands and started sobbing again. Finn waited, trying to keep a lid on the rage seething inside him.

Linda stopped crying and took a breath before continuing.

“When you came around the next day, when I saw how kind you were with Lucy, I felt like I could trust you. I wanted to tell you everything. I almost did … but I couldn't. I knew I was in too deep, and I thought if I told you, you would arrest me, and then who would take care of my Lucy?”

She paused, looked at him with wet green eyes, and said, “You're not going to arrest me, are you, Finn?”

He didn't answer her question. “Do you know where Cutts is now?”

“He called me this afternoon and told me to get the boat ready to leave at dawn tomorrow. ‘To resume operations,' he said. That's what the groceries are for. I told him it was too dangerous, the police were probably watching the boat. He told me there was nothing to worry about. He said the police had a suspect in their sights and that they were about to arrest him.”

Finn sneered. “What suspect?”

She looked straight at him. “You.”

Finn laughed. “Cutts thinks he can set
me
up for Diego's murder?”

“He said he has evidence.”

Finn's feeling of incredulity started ceding ground to one of dread. He cast his mind back to that night in Bonito's when Diego had asked Cutts, “You ever heard of a boat called the
Pacific Belle
?” Then Diego had told Cutts about the floater, even telling him his name. “A
cholo
from East L.A. named Espendoza.” Finn remembered him then saying to Diego, “Give me your cell. I hear of anything, I'll call.”

Then, later that night, someone had mugged Finn and taken only his gun; they'd left him his wallet and his phone and his truck. His dread unfettered now, Finn realized that the killer had used
his
gun to kill Diego. And now all Cutts had to do was plant the pistol somewhere where Benitez would find it, and that would be that: the cops would have their evidence. If they needed a motive, all they had to do was ask Ruiz and Petchenko; they'd say that Finn had murdered Diego to cover up what had really happened on
La Catrina
.

He looked at the frightened woman sitting opposite him. She was right: Cutts
was
a monster. To protect his narcotics-smuggling operation, he had murdered Diego and set up Finn for it. But Linda … Linda, with her beautiful green eyes, had played the honey trap. She'd been the lure that had fooled Diego. Finn's head said she was a victim, but his heart saw it differently.

“What happened to Espendoza?”

“I swear I don't know—”

“Bullshit. All this traces back to the floater. Diego didn't know you were running narcotics on the
Pacific Belle.
He didn't know any of that. All we had was Espendoza's body and his probation officer linking him to the
Pacific Belle
. Something spooked Cutts and it goes back to Espendoza. What happened to him?”

“I don't know—”

Finn slammed his fist on the table. “Don't lie to me, Linda!” He was shouting.

She started sobbing again. “I swear on my life, Finn, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.” She dropped her head in her hands.

Finn looked at her without pity. “To Diego,” he said, and he emptied what was left of the bourbon into his mug.

She stared at him in horror, not touching her drink. He downed the bourbon, picked up the Glock, slid the clip back into it, and got to his feet.