Клэр Донелли - Catch As Cat Can

He added some milk, took a sip, and blew out his cheeks. “Guess that’s what you need to bring you back to life if you’ve been out at sea in weather like this.”

Sunny followed his example, took a sip, and shuddered. “On my worst day in the office, leaving the pot on the coffeemaker heater too long, I never got it to taste like this.” She called the waitress over and ordered an English muffin.

“Sounds like a good idea,” Mike chimed in. “I’ll have one, too.” He leaned forward as the waitress headed to the kitchen. “Although I don’t think that will manage to cut the taste.”

There speaks the experience of forty years in drive-ins and greasy spoons, Sunny thought mournfully. She didn’t have much time to complain, though, because the door banged open and a guy in an orange dayglow outfit came strutting in. His parka was open to reveal a heavy sweater and bib-style pants, making him look bulkier than he really was.

Mike rose to his feet. “Hey, Charlie.”

Charlie Vane swaggered over to shake hands. He had to be about four inches shy of Mike’s six-foot height, but he acted as though he were the bigger man. “How’s it goin’, Mike?”

“This is my daughter, Sunny.” Mike made the introduction, and Sunny found her hand encased in a rough, calloused paw. Charlie Vane had a gaunt face with thin lips and eyes as colorless as ice cubes—about as warm as them, too. All of his visible skin looked as if it had been lightly sanded by the elements, with the exception of the pale white scar that traveled up his right cheek, continuing again above his eyebrow.

Charlie quirked that brow when he realized Sunny was staring at it. “Binding wire snapped and whipped right in my face. Another inch, and I’d be wearing a patch.”

Sunny managed to find her voice. “I guess that would make you like your famous ancestor—although it would probably make navigating a boat a lot more exciting.”

Vane grinned, exposing strong, yellowish teeth. “Good, so you aren’t going to faint.” He slipped into the booth on the opposite side from Sunny and Mike. The waitress was already there with a big, battered cup of sludge for him. Charlie took a long swallow and sighed.

“The taste takes some getting used to, but at least it warms your insides.” He turned those ice-cube eyes on Sunny. “So what does your boyfriend the cop want to know?”

“I’m trying to develop a story about local fishing,” Sunny began, but Vane cut her off, waving his hand.

“Yeah, yeah, Mike told me all that. I know you write for the Courier . But I know you also team up with that Price guy to tackle cases.” He grinned. “I actually read the Courier , besides using it to wrap fish. And while you’ve got a nice line there, Ken Howell will never run a story about me. I was supposed to give him an exclusive about a screwup by the government’s supposed fishery experts. But I had a chance to get it on TV, and I went with it.”

Considering that Ken’s paper only comes out once a week, I can see why he’d take that personally, Sunny thought.

“So ask me some questions.” Vane settled back in his seat. “I don’t guarantee you’ll get answers, but at least I’m here.”

Sunny couldn’t see any advantage to sticking with her cover story. So she decided not to circle around. “I’d like to know about your business dealings with Neil Garret.”

“Whoa, very fancy. ‘Business dealings,’” Vane said. “I did what any businessman tries to do—get more money for my product. Garret was willing to fork over above the fish market price for the better quality fish right out of the ocean. I took his money, and all I can say is too bad he couldn’t buy my whole catch. But he didn’t have the storage capacity for everything I brought in, and I couldn’t supply all the different kinds of fish he needed. Not that he didn’t try. He began making the rounds of the restaurants around here, checking into what kind of seafood they wanted. He figured on setting himself up as the local middleman, offering us fishermen better payment, charging his customers a below-market price, and still making money. Pretty ambitious.”

Ambitious—I guess that would be Nick Gatto’s middle name, Sunny thought.

Vane continued, “Of course sooner or later Deke Sweeney—you know about him?” When Sunny nodded, he went on. “Sweeney did his best to punish the guys who’d done deals with Garret.”

“Including you,” Sunny put in. “That must have been annoying.”

“Yeah, but I was more annoyed with Sweeney.” Vane glanced at her. “You think I was involved in what happened at the store? I still got two eyes, honey. No way would I mistake some out-of-towner for Neil. Mind you, I don’t blame him. If some bozo tried to climb aboard my boat, he’d get exactly what was coming to him.”

“Neil denies seeing the man before discovering him in the freezer,” Sunny said. “Where were you—”

“On the night of the murder?” Vane finished for her. He leaned back in his seat, enjoying her attention. “I was in the Gulf of Maine after a quick turnover to refuel and resupply, hoping to make a decent catch of plaice. We had almost nothing to show for our last trip, so we thought we’d try our luck off Cape Elizabeth.”

“That’s more than fifty miles up the coast,” Mike said.

Vane nodded. “A bit far to try sneaking back in a rowboat. And I had two crew with me—my boy Jack, and my son-in-law, Rennie Yates.”

Both family, and dependent on him for jobs, Sunny thought. That makes for a convenient alibi.

But even if Charlie Vane had been much closer and had managed to sneak back to Kittery Harbor, that still didn’t explain how he’d somehow mistaken Phil Treibholz for Neil Garret.

Unless we take the fifty-mile alibi at face value, and figure that Vane hired himself a killer. It was just bad luck that the killer found Treibholz on the premises and did the job on the wrong person.

The problem with that theory was that contract killings, even cheap ones, cost money. And Charlie Vane didn’t look as though he could rub two nickels together.

“Look, I really don’t know much about what happened with Neil. I was out fishing, all I heard was a little gossip over the radio. From what I heard, I figured maybe Deke Sweeney sent somebody over to lean on Neil ’cause he wasn’t rolling over and playing dead, and things got out of hand. Some leg-breaker getting what he had coming. But if Neil says he never saw the guy before, that he just turned up in the store’s freezer . . .” His voice trailed off as he frowned. “I wonder what kind of game Neil is playing.”

“What kind of game are you playing, Charlie?” Mike asked. “I hear Sweeney has you cut off in Portsmouth.”

“There are other places to sell fish besides Portsmouth,” Vane replied. “My family has been fishing these waters from the days when you baited hooks, threw lines over the side, and prayed you got lucky. No way am I going to let some pen pusher who’s never stuck his nose out of an office force me out of business—or some guy who calls himself a shark because he can scare a bunch of fish merchants.”

His voice sounded as if he had this already memorized, like a politician’s stump speech.

Except I think he’d have a mug of beer in his hand, rather than a coffee cup, Sunny thought. She glanced out the window at the lightening sky and then at her watch. “I appreciate your giving us this time, Mr. Vane. But I’m afraid I’ll have to be getting on with my day job soon. You may have to talk with Will Price, or even Sheriff Nesbit.”

Charlie Vane looked as if the coffee had turned to motor oil in his mouth. He forced a swallow, and then said, “If I have to,” with an ungracious look. “We already offloaded our catch, so we’ll probably take a few days. But when we try again, we’ll be gone for a while. I’ll be heading off the Jordan Basin.”