“How did you get these?”
“They were given to me,” said Garvey. “I’m not sure how they got them.”
“And you have a witness? That guy in the cabin? Out west?”
“I think so. And Colomb, if we can find them. We can make them testify.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, I don’t. Not for sure. But we have to try. We have to try.”
Collins sat there, not moving, pipe ticking up and down in his mouth like the pendulum of a clock. “And Brightly was directly involved.”
“He had to have been. He’s the director of Securities there, he had to have known. Maybe the whole board did, I don’t know.”
“But Brightly. You’re sure.”
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
Collins looked out onto the Murder office. Then he said, “Go home, Garvey.”
“But-”
“I know. I know. We’ll do something. We’ll do something soon. Tomorrow. Just go home for now. Where I can contact you. And we’ll do something. Okay?”
“Do you think we can win it? Make it stick?”
Collins sighed. “We’re already gearing up for this denner war, Garvey. You didn’t give me anything on the murders, and that’s what we’re concerned with. We got enough on our plate right now. But just go back home and come in tomorrow. All right?”
“All right,” said Garvey. He reached for the file.
“I’ll hold on to this,” said Collins sharply.
Garvey stopped. “Yeah,” he said. “Okay, that’s a good idea. That’s only half of it, though.”
“Half?”
“Yeah. I kept the rest. For security. I don’t like traveling with it.”
Collins looked down at the file. The paper flexed as he held it tighter. “Make sure you bring it, then. Tomorrow. Make sure you bring all of it.”
“All right.” Garvey stood and said, “Good night, sir.”
“I doubt that,” said Collins.
Collins sat in his office and watched Garvey walk away quickly. Weaving through the maze of desks as he’d done a thousand times. Then Collins strode out of his office and called for a phone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
By the time they reached the ferry landing it was nearly dark. Samantha could not tell if it was raining or if it was the wind bringing the sea haze onto them. She suspected it was still raining, very slightly. Perhaps it had never really stopped.
“How far west is this again?” Samantha asked.
“I’ve no idea,” Hayes said. “I’m assuming this is the excised facility from the budget files.”
“I suppose so.”
Samantha peered into the east, where the horizon was overtaken by smoke and the city. Not more than two miles away the bridge network started, beginning with the Kulahee, which reached across to Victoria. Hayes stood along the seawall, not looking at anything, fingers of water running down his face.
“I’m sorry you had to hear that,” Hayes said.
Samantha nodded.
“I was very young.”
“I thought you said she died because of a bastard,” she said.
“Did I?”
“Yes.”
“Well. Am I not a bastard, sometimes?” He was quiet for a bit. Then he said, “Do you believe we are made, Sam?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Made. Created. Do you believe that?”
“I believe in the Holy Maker, yes. Of course I do.”
He nodded. “Sometimes I wish I could meet Him. God, I suppose, or whoever made me. I’d probably ask them why they made me broken. Why nothing inside me works right, and how to fix it. Am I meant to be broken this way, perhaps? Does this serve a purpose? But even if I met my maker, I don’t think I’d get an answer. They wouldn’t know. I don’t think there’s any fixing anything. Not really. Not for long.” He took a breath and then hopped up to sit on the wall, balefully staring out at the sea. “Amazing, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“The sea. All that water. I still remember the first time I saw the sea. I was a young man, back in India. Barely more than a boy. I’d traveled to the coast, all by myself. I’d heard of the sea, yes, but hearing about it is different from seeing it. You can’t grasp something that big just from someone mentioning it to you. You have to see it. And when I did I didn’t know what to think. It stunned me, something that big. I wondered then if there was anything worth doing. You know?”
“Worth doing?”
“Yes. In the face of that. If there was anything you could do that could mean anything. Because it could always be swallowed up. Swallowed up and gone.” He was quiet, his pale face drawn and his mouth a thin line. “I thought all the bad things I’d done didn’t matter and all the good things I could do would never matter either,” he said. “It was all the same next to the ocean. Those waves. They don’t know anything about you. They just know how to sweep you away.”
The ferry arrived less than ten minutes later. It was a tiny thing and wouldn’t have been able to hold more than a dozen people very comfortably. For once Samantha let Hayes do the negotiating. When he pulled out his billfold the captain’s eyes bugged out and he agreed to do whatever Hayes told him.
The ride was short. Spinsie’s coordinates were almost exact. There was a nice little inlet on the shore where it would be perfect to dock a small boat. Hayes discussed how long the captain would stay, and after paying the man they stepped off onto the rocky shore.
They walked for several miles. As the light slowly faded the countryside was sunk into shadow. They did not know what they would do once they got to wherever they were going. They just knew they had to see.
“I’ve never been in the country here,” Samantha said. “What is this part called?”
“I have no idea,” Hayes said.
“You don’t?”
“No. I never really cared to learn.” He stopped. Then squatted to the ground. “Look,” he said softly.
“What?”
“There. Down the trees to the shore. You’ll need to get down.”
She did. It took some searching to find it. It was a small pier, the wood wet and shining, bobbing on the gentle waves.
“Boat’s long gone,” Hayes said. “But that’s probably where it started.”
They found a little gravel road that ran from the pier up into the hills. Hayes sifted through the gravel and pronounced it recently used, then squinted up to the countryside but could not see where it led. They followed it quietly, walking in the grass to cover the sound of their footsteps. They wound through the pines up into the hills until they came to a chain-link fence built behind a ring of the trees. A rusty gate hung slightly ajar, kept closed by a band of rusty chains. Hayes squatted and took out some picks and went to work on it. Somewhere in the lock’s heart the pins sank together, and he pulled the lock free and opened it up.
At first there were only trees beyond the fence, yet as they walked they saw flat white light shining across a large clearing ahead. They crept to the tree line and looked out. It looked like a bunker, small and flat and cement. Unmarked. Doors small and hidden. Hayes pulled out his spyglass and scanned the clearing. Then his eyes shot
