Page 36 of On Fire

Chapter Nine

Nic Silvano

The walk to the harbor is just a few blocks. It’s already hot out and the concrete smells like dry clay and fish, especially when the breeze kicks in. I am so tired. So fucking tired.

There. Didn’t say it, just thought it. I make it a practice not to swear too much. My father, both cruel and a hypocrite, would set my ass on fire with a belt if I so much as said “shut up” to our poor dog, Janie, but swore like a demon when he and I were alone.

In our divided family, that was way too often. I was with him too much of the time and my sister grew up with our mother, even though we all lived under the same roof. When I was ten, he had me go out with him to the pines of Northern California where we lived and bring a burlap potato sack.

I dutifully found one. Mother Jenny gave me the bag from the school kitchen and I brought it along. When he fired the first bullet into a rabbit, I understood I was there to hold the bag for his kill.

And his not-quite-killed. In the end, I carried seven rabbits back in a blood-soaked bag, some still screaming, bones smashed, jaws broken. The man did not have the decency to finish what he started.

“Mother will do that,” he said. “No use wasting a bullet.”

It would make me a man, he said. Look at them, he said. Don’t you cry like a fuckin’ girl, he screamed before slapping me so hard across the face, the breath left my body. When Janie came running over, barking at him, trying to get between us, he kicked her. The following year, I watched her give birth to seven wriggling little black mixed lab puppies. He took them all in a box to the pound along with Janie.

It turns out they never made it to the pound. He told me later in a fit of rage that he dug a pit, put them all in it and shot them all in the head. He had eight bullets for that. Eight bullets to make sure I didn’t fawn over them anymore. Eight bullets to make sure I would turn out like a man. Janie went first, he said. Now go get ready for church.

Sundays we went to church. Friday was church school. And Monday was silent prayer—at church.

Today is a Monday. The sea sparkles, glittering a bright blue under a perfect Maine summer sky.

This is my church, the church of puffins and sea gulls, the temple of pine studded islands, the mosque of tumbling bald boulders coughed up on dark shores. Taking a deep breath, I spot the low-slung barge in her slip right away. Noah Tappen, the young harbor master, helps us with the ropes.

Oddly, for living on the shore for two decades, Keller seems to know nothing of the sea.

As Tappen tosses the line to Keller, he tries to catch it as if he was born on the sea, but the way he staggers when I pull the boat from the slip, almost makes me laugh. “Hang on there, captain,” I say and open the throttle wide. The slender boat easily glides into the bay and toward open water.

This won’t be the most expeditious maritime trip. Carlson’s barge is essentially a houseboat, with a long spacious sitting area toward the bow and a small but well designed and stocked galley to the stern. This is where Keller now stands, grabbing the island. Parallel to both is the head and a bedroom.

The only reason I know all this is because I’ve been on it a few times and steered her from Portsmouth to Portland after she had some finish work done on her wooden cabinets.

Her wood is dark, and most of the furniture is heavy and bolted to the floor. She’s long and sturdy and was brought over in the 1920s from England. When Carlson found her in a boat yard, she was a mess, but he’s invested a lot of time and effort to bring her back.

And that’s what we’re doing. For some reason she was moored in Portland Harbor—that’s why he drove down with Keller for the tabletop meeting. I didn’t get into it on the phone with him, but he never made it back with her.

I’m happy to accommodate him, though. And I’m glad Keller noticed I didn’t give him much of a choice but to come with me. By the time I explained the plan, Mateus and Bryce had found Luke and were halfway to the two Lexus.

Before we left, I asked both Turrow and the detectives to send a list of everyone who had been on the scene of both sites. It was a long shot, but we had to be thorough.

Turrow’s last crack was that nearly every fire chief, division chief, and explosives team in a hundred-mile radius had showed up already and the day wasn’t half over. Colton Security was the only private firm being grandfathered in because we worked well with Portland PD and because our relationship with Carlson and the Rockland PD.

And now that Henry was dead, there was no way we were walking away. Maybe that’s what these deaths reminded me of—those puppies in the pit—being slaughtered by some psycho for sport—because feeling something for them wasn’t manly.

“Would he mind if we had a beer?” Keller says, gingerly making his way to the small fridge, gripping counters the whole way.

“We’re doing him a favor, go for it,” and explain to him how to pull open the door.

“One for you?”

A cold beer sounds great, but I’m running on an empty stomach, and when I’m around Keller alcohol seems to go right to my head.

“No thanks.” The beer is a twist off and Keller pockets the cap rather than try to find the trash and how to open it. Adorable.

He takes a sip and then hands the bottle to me with a nod. “Sip?”

The beer is cold and effervescent in the back of my throat. It slides down easy. Handing the bottle back to him, I raise the top of the captain’s cabin and pull it back. Even the cool air and spray off the water is no match for the heat.