Devil's Harbor (29 page)

The old man gave him a couple of handfuls of wild berries and two bottles of water for his journey. He went through his pile of flotsam and fished out a faded canvas tote bag to carry the water bottles in, as well as an old Dodgers cap and a long-sleeve T-shirt. “Sun can be fierce, even this time of year,” he said. Finally, he gave Finn a handful of cash. “For the ferry,” he said. When Finn tried to protest that it was way too much, the old man shrugged it off.

“It's not my money,” he said. “It washed up on the beach, a wad of it wrapped in plastic. Personally, I hate the stuff.”

He nodded toward the trail leading north.

“Two Harbors's that way,” he said.

*   *   *

Clambering up the steep goat track out of the bay, Finn found out the hard way that the old man had been right about his diminished strength. Despite the food and water and the two days' rest, his legs felt like they were running on empty, and he had to take frequent breaks.

Finn turned things over in his mind while he walked. He'd expected Cutts to try something, he just hadn't expected it to come through Linda. He should've known better, of course. She was a desperate parent. Someone had told him a story once of a woman who had lifted a car clean off her child—how she'd developed superhuman strength to save her child. In Finn's mind, Linda was like that woman. She'd go to any lengths, that was clear. She'd said herself that she was prepared to do anything to save her daughter. Even if “anything” meant leaving him for dead in the sea. What had happened between them at Escondido made no difference.

After an hour, the slope began to lessen and he emerged at the bottom of a pasture that rose to the crest of the hill. He vaguely noticed a large boulder on the crest. He paused again, wiped away the sweat streaming down his face with his sleeve, and looked west, out over the Pacific. A gentle onshore breeze was blowing, cooling him. Countless silver pinpricks glinted on the surface of the sea. He saw the dark patch of the kelp bed he had swum through and the mouth of the little bay far below, the water there greener than that beyond its mouth. He saw the white triangles of several sailboats a few miles offshore. They looked immobile.

A loud snort behind him made him wheel around. A huge bull bison was sitting on top of the rise. Finn had been so focused on recovering his breath, he'd mistaken it for a boulder. The animal turned its massive, horned and bearded head toward him. Finn remembered the sharks down in the bay, and in the bison's eye he saw the same fixed, inscrutable look he'd seen in the sharks'.

He gave the animal time to see him. He let his shoulders drop. After a long minute, he started walking slowly up the hill, arcing around the colossal beast. The bison let out a loud snort. Flies buzzed around its eyes. Finn reached the crest and found the rest of the herd grazing on the green slope. Far beyond it, to the north, he saw a few buildings crammed into a narrow isthmus and a few yachts bobbing silently on their moorings on either side.

Two Harbors.

*   *   *

Three hours later, Finn walked into town. A handful of off-season day-trippers wandered about in Crocs and breezy tans. Normal people doing normal things. Finn, despite his worn flip-flops and weariness, felt returned to the land of the living.

He went into the public restroom at the ferry pier, cupped his hands under the faucet, and washed his face in the cool, soft water. Then he checked his appearance in the mirror. Sweat had bleached the underarms of his shirt. His eyes and skin were red, and he hadn't shaved since he'd left the hotel in Escondido. He splashed more water on his face and did his best to untangle his hair. Then he refilled his water bottles and made his way to the visitors-information board. The ferry was due in an hour. He bought a ticket from the kiosk and asked for a handful of quarters. He dropped four of them into the pay phone by the kiosk.

“Hello?” said Mona. Hearing her voice, his heart skipped a beat.

“It's me. Don't hang up,” said Finn.

A long silence, but no click.

“Where are you?” she said.

“I'm on my way home. Listen, I know who killed Diego. It was a man called Diarmud Cutts, who owns a bar called Bonito's down in San Pedro. Him and his associate, Serpil. They killed Diego because we connected the floater we found out in the channel to the
Pacific Belle
. Cutts uses the
Belle
to smuggle narcotics in from Mexico. The skipper is a woman called Linda Blake. Cutts kidnapped her nine-year-old daughter, Lucy, and threatened to kill her if Linda doesn't do what he wants. Hello? Are you still there?”

After a moment's silence, Mona said, “The police have issued a warrant for your arrest.”

Finn pulled the bill of his cap down lower. “Arrest for what?”

He knew the answer before she said it.

“For murdering Diego.”

He heard a stifled sob.

“Mona, listen to me. I didn't do it. I swear to God, I didn't do it.”

“For God's sake, Nick. I know you didn't kill Diego. But they have your gun. They say the ballistics match. Every cop in California is looking for you.”

Finn's shoulders bunched up around his neck. He instinctively looked up from the pay phone.

“Cutts set me up. That night I drank, when you went to Sacramento? Cutts mugged me and took my gun. He killed Diego with it so that the cops would have a culprit. Listen to me, Mona: Cutts killed Diego and set me up because he wanted to get rid of us
both
after we found out about the
Pacific Belle
.”

“Where are you?” she said.

“I'm coming back. I need help. Can you meet me?”

A beat. He waited for her reaction.

“Where?” she said.

His heart leaped. He told her he'd be at the San Pedro ferry wharf at 8:00
P.M
.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Mona's RAV4 pulled up outside the ferry terminal. Finn got in. He had the bill of his cap down low. She pulled away from the curb and merged into northbound traffic on Harbor Boulevard.

Mona was also wearing a baseball cap. Hers was in USC Trojans' colors, cardinal red on gold. She'd been on the soccer team as an undergrad, including the year they'd won the national championship. On the sideboard in the living room of their house was a framed photo of Mona and her team holding up the trophy.

The sight of his estranged wife gladdened Finn's heart. She'd lost weight since he'd seen her last, but she still looked beautiful to him. She seemed much more composed than she'd sounded over the phone when he'd called her from Two Harbors.

She looked him over and said, “You look like a vagrant.”

Finn rubbed a hand over his gaunt, bruised, scarred, and bearded face. He couldn't argue with that. He'd slept the last two nights in a cave. Before that, he'd spent the night adrift at sea. Before
that,
he'd stayed awake for forty-eight hours. He'd done some hard drinking in Mexico. He'd been badly beaten up. He'd killed four men and watched four others die. The last time he'd seen Mona was when she'd packed her bags and moved to her parents' house. It felt like a lifetime ago.

Finn started talking. He told Mona how, after she'd left, he'd gone back to the
Pacific Belle
and confronted Linda Blake; he told her how Linda had broken down and confessed that she'd been running narcotics for Cutts, who'd loaned her the money she needed to pay for her daughter's medical treatment, and who'd taken a share in the
Belle
as collateral, through his company Muir Holdings.

Finn told Mona how Cutts had lured her brother down to San Pedro, and how Serpil had killed Diego with Finn's stolen gun; he told her how Cutts had then kidnapped Lucy and threatened to kill her unless Finn helped Linda smuggle in another load of narcotics aboard the
Belle
.

He told her about Escondido and the Caballeros, about La Abuelita's fisherman cousin, and about the cocaine hidden in the fire extinguishers. He told her about Navidad. He told her about the storm and the
Bertholf
off San Clemente. He told her how Linda had betrayed him at Two Harbors, and how he'd washed up in the cove where the old man had saved him.

He told her the whole story except the part about what had happened between Linda and him on the Day of the Dead. What had happened in Escondido now seemed unreal to Finn, like a feverish dream that dissolves with wakefulness. He saw no reason to hurt Mona with an incident as hazy as that. He never wanted to hurt her again.

They were on the freeway now. They drove on awhile, Mona not saying anything, absorbing it all.

Finally, Finn said, “I wasn't sure you'd even talk to me, let alone help me.”

“The detectives investigating Diego's murder came around asking questions about you,” she said. She shook her head slowly. “You've got a lot of problems, Nick, but I know you didn't kill my brother. I know I didn't marry a murderer. I asked them what motive they thought you had, and when they said to stop Diego from testifying against you for shooting Perez, I knew for certain they had it all wrong. I told them Diego had given a sworn statement supporting your account of what happened on
La Catrina
. They said they had a different story. They said Diego was ready to write an affidavit stating that you were emotionally unstable when you shot Perez. They seemed pretty sure of themselves. They said that it fit with your history of violence. Then they told me that they had your gun and how the ballistics matched. For them, that sealed it, they said. I told them they weren't as smart as they thought they were if they believed that rubbish. They wanted to know if I knew where you were or where you might've gone. I said I had no idea.”

She glanced at Finn.

“After the police left, I tried to call you, but you didn't answer. I knew you were still looking for Diego's killer and I knew you were suspicious about the
Pacific Belle
. So I went down to San Pedro and asked a fisherman there which one she was. The guy told me she'd put to sea. He couldn't tell me where she'd gone or when she was due back or how to get in touch with her. All he knew was that she'd left on the morning of the twenty-eighth—right when you disappeared. I took an educated guess and figured that you were aboard.

“Then I thought, Why would he go to sea without telling
me
? We were supposed to be working together. Something wasn't right. I had to figure out a way to get in touch with you without alerting the CBP or the port police or coast guard or anything like that. So I went to this private investigator we use sometimes to find people. He tried contacting the
Belle
through VHF radio, but you didn't answer. He said you were probably out of range. But I had a bad feeling. I asked him to keep the port under surveillance and let me know when the boat came back in. Then the big storm hit Baja—it was all over the news how all these boats were destroyed—and I got really worried. Finally, two days ago the PI called to say the
Pacific Belle
was back in port, but that you weren't aboard. When he told me that, I imagined the worst. That's why I was so emotional when you called.”

Finn stared out the passenger-side window awhile, at the millions of city lights latticed across the darkness. Then he said, “What happened with your bill? In Sacramento?”

“The bill? The committee passed it without amendment. They're sending it to the floor to vote.”

Finn felt a surge of pride. A lot of people talked about making a difference. Mona made it.

He went back to staring out the window. He was trying to formulate a way of telling Mona how much he loved her. How he wanted to come back to her a better man.

“Mona…”

“Nick, please, don't. I'm glad you're okay, but that doesn't mean I want to go back to before. I'm helping you because so long as the police believe you killed Diego, then they're not looking for the real killer. The person who really killed my brother is still free and the police aren't doing anything about it.
That's
the reason I came down to pick you up. Let's not make this about anything else.”

It was a sound enough reason, thought Finn. Still, he knew the risks Mona was taking to help him—risking not just her career but her liberty. Her composure, her matter-of-factness, seemed put on. He could hardly blame her for holding back from him, after everything he'd put her through, bringing his drinking and its chaos into their marriage.

“I was just going to say, congratulations on getting the bill through the committee,” he said. “That's really great.”

“Thanks. You said on the phone you needed help.”

Mona in strictly business mode. Smart and efficient.

When Finn had left for Escondido aboard the
Belle,
he'd vowed to kill Cutts and Serpil when he got back, then kill himself. But after his moment of clarity in the cove, he now imagined a different future. He no longer wanted to check out of this life the way his father had. He wanted to live. Preferably with Mona, but even without her, he wanted to live.

“I need a car,” he said.

She waited for more.

“That's it?” she said.

“That's it.”

“Are you serious? You think I'm going to sit on the sidelines? You think you're what, my
champion
? Do you even know me a little bit?”

“These are really dangerous people, Mona. I don't want you to get hurt.”

“Oh, please. Have you seen your face? Anyway, look in the glove compartment.”

He opened the compartment and found a semiautomatic. “Jesus. When did you get this?” he said.

“My father got it for me. After what happened to Diego.”

Finn took it out. It was a Heckler & Koch P7—a powerful, reliable, and easily concealed 9-mm. He popped the clip.