Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) by Jack Lively (reading well TXT) 📕

minimal. As if in a perfect world all you had to do was say something once and folks would pay attention. For the remainder of the journey I told Guilfoyle about Hank and his mom. How he’d become an orphan today. Guilfoyle nodded through the story, whistling here, glancing at me there. When I had finished telling it, the Sea Foam was pulling into the dock at the Glen Cove Cannery and the sun had gone over the horizon.

Ellie was walking out to meet the boat.

Guilfoyle brought her in easy. Hank set the bumpers and I jumped off with the rope. I glanced at Ellie. She looked tired and serious, as if things were piling up on her, weighing her down. I noticed the shoulders, tight and high. She was hugging herself. First thing she said was, “Dave called. He’s got eyes on Chapman.”

“Where are they?”

“It was only ten minutes ago. He said that she was in a group. They got into a vehicle and he was following.”

I said, “Dave keeping you updated?”

“Yes, but I think we should be positioned close. We need to speak with her.”

I said, “Come on board.”

“We need to get going.”

I said, “We need to eat, and then we need to talk. Lack of nutrition is responsible for a whole lot of bad decision-making. Millions have died due to lack of the right minerals, vitamins, all the right fats. Brain food, Ellie. If Dave’s got eyes on them, we should let them roll. Maybe we’ll learn something new.”

She looked at me strangely but stepped onto the boat regardless.

By then Guilfoyle was on the barbecue, seasoning the steel before the fish hit the grill.

He threw me a couple of beer cans from the refrigerator. Two cans, arcing high through the air, one on the left, one on my right. I caught the cold and dense projectiles, underhanded one to Ellie. She held the cold can to her forehead. Hank was awake and Guilfoyle pushed a beer can across the table to him. I popped the tab and took a sip. Heavy on the hops.

While we had not been looking to catch fish, fish had nonetheless found their way into the net. Among them, a King Salmon. The King is the biggest species of Pacific salmon. Protected by law, with no commercial harvesting permitted. Guilfoyle said that he allowed one accidentally caught King to end up on his grill every season, and tonight was the night.

I watched Hank watching Guilfoyle as he filleted the big fish. Hank was gnawing at the beer can’s edge. I figured he wasn’t really seeing the knife slipping over bones and slicing off flesh, he was probably reflecting abstractly on the momentous day so far. The course of his life changed forever in a couple of seconds. Pretty much a random occurrence. Hard to get your mind around that. Hank caught me looking at him, held the gaze, and then looked out to sea. Ellie was staring into the darkness, unresponsive. I figured her brain chemistry needed replenishment. Luckily, that was coming right up.

Guilfoyle put the two sides of the salmon down on the grill and the pale flesh sizzled. Ellie raised her head, eyes narrowed. She said, “Oh my god, I’m starving.”

Guilfoyle said, “Five minutes on the meat side, five on the skin side. Then we eat.”

That’s how Guilfoyle did it. Freshest fish possible, squeeze of lemon, sprinkle of sea salt. Damn good. When we were done and satisfied, he came over and clapped a weathered hand on Hank’s shoulder. He said, “Hank, you were green as the hills when you came on board, but now you’re a real fisherman.”

Hank smiled weakly. “Thanks, captain.”

Guilfoyle put a pot of coffee on. He nodded to me and spoke to the boy. “Come on up to the wheelhouse with me, Hank. I have something to show you.”

When they had climbed the ladder, I looked at Ellie. She was fully alert, all systems refilled and replenished, raring to go. I was sitting in the galley. She swung her legs off the bench, came over and slid into the booth across from me.

“They’re going to clear the Beaver Falls murders. Zarembina and the two males. They’re expecting forensics to confirm.”

I said, “The same gun?”

“Yes, certainly not the teeth or the fingerprints.”

She placed both of her hands in front of her, flat down on the Formica surface. She looked at me and there was no sadness in her eyes, only a kind of burning anger. Ellie was tired, that was for sure. But it was the indignation that hurt. She said, “Tell me what you’ve got, Keeler.”

I told her all about the trip out to Bell Island. The men in the zodiac, and then the salvaged Russian submarine. She listened attentively. By the time I was finished, the coffee was ready. I got up and poured two cups. I slid back into the galley bench. Linked a couple of fingers through the cup handle and took a sip. The coffee was hot and strong and black.

Ellie said, “This confirms what we were thinking, that Zarembina was an investigator for the USNRC, just like she had been over at Energy.”

I said, “What isn’t clear is why she had to come up under a fake name, with a bunch of amateurs. The fact that nobody from any alphabet soup of a governmental agency has come forward for Zarembina, or to recover her body.”

“Are the Port Morris police making contact?”

She looked at me and nodded. “That’ll only take a few million years.”

Ellie looked at me for a while. Like an unseeing thousand-yard stare. She was thinking. Then she broke out of it. “People tend to rise to their level of incompetence. Zarembina was killed what, yesterday?” Ellie drum-rolled her fingers on the table. “Let’s talk this through a little more. I want to establish the basics.”

“Sure.”

Ellie said, “That submarine you found links Zarembina and Abrams to Bell Island, and by extension the mysterious Mister Lawrence.”

“Because Mister Lawrence owns the island now.”

“Correct.”

I