Rough Justice

Judy watched in silence. She felt like an intruder, but was thrilled that her search was leading somewhere. She held her breath as Rasheed grabbed the shoe box from the shelf, plopped it on the bed, and lited off the lid. Dennell sat up and tried to peek in the shoe box, and his mother peered inside. 'God help me,' she said in a hushed tone, and Judy looked in the box.

A thick roll of money nestled in the corner of the shoe box, coiled like a snake. There was a twenty-dollar bill on the outside, but Judy had no way of knowing how much was on the inside. Where had all that come from? Underneath the money was a bright white notebook, and it caught Judy's eye. She was dying to know what it was. 'Rasheed,' Judy asked, 'is the white notebook yours or did that come from Darning, too?'

'He gave it to ME!' Dennell chirped up, sitting cross-legged on his bed. 'He tol' me to keep it. So it don't get stole.'

'Can I see it?' Judy asked, and Rasheed handed it to her. She opened the notebook. Its pages were filled with lists of numbers written in pencil. What did the numbers mean? Was the handwriting Darning's?

'There must be a hundred dollars here,' the mother said, astonished as she plucked the money roll from the box and flipped through it.

'Only eighty-two,' Rasheed corrected.

'Only eighty-two?' she repeated, shocked. 'You took eighty-two dollars from a man on the street?'

'I didn't, Dennell did.'

'He don't know better, you do,' she shot back as her surprise turned to anger. 'You don't take money from nobody on the street! You don't take money from nobody. You know what they want for their eighty-two dollars, boy?'

Rasheed looked down. 'The man didn't want nothin'.'

'I work for my money, son. So will you.'

'I work. I was gonna shovel—'

'You're damn right you're gonna shovel! You'll shovel all winter, for free. I'll loan you out. Then you'll remember. You don't take money from nobody. And you don't keep secrets from me.'

'What was I supposed to do? Tell you?'

'Yes, tell me.' Veins bulged in her slender neck. 'Tell me, so we could give it right back.'

'Give it back?' Rasheed started to laugh. 'Are you crazy?'

'Yes, I am. Watch this!' Suddenly the mother peeled a twenty from the roll, ripped it in two, and threw the pieces into the air.

'Mom!' Rasheed shouted. 'What are you doing?' He scrambled for the money as the pieces sailed to the bed and landed on his brother, who, incredibly, remained asleep. 'Stop!' Rasheed pleaded, but his mother was already ripping up another bill, then another, and the one after that, throwing them into the air, setting the pieces flying around the shabby bedroom like snowflakes.

'You think I'm crazy?' she grunted to tear a stack of ones. 'This is what I'll do if I ever, ever catch you taking money again!'

Dennell clapped in delight at his mother's adventure while Rasheed scurried to fetch the money falling to the carpet. The mother kept tearing until all the bills were gone and the room a blizzard of cash. 'Get the point, boy?' she shouted, her expression grim and satisfied.

'Wha?' asked the middle son, waking up. He rubbed his eyes in bewilderment as money floated around his bedroom. 'Is this a dream?'

The mother laughed, and Judy did, too. But Judy's smile was because of what she had in her hand. Eb Darning's notebook.

40

Marta shined her flashlight through the snowy cyclone fence at the LBI Marina, where Steere's bills had showed he docked his boat. The marina was tucked in a harbor on the bay side of the island, ringed by shuttered summer homes and protected from the brunt of the snowstorm at sea. Next to the fence sat a flat-topped wooden building, apparently a small office. On its wall was a faded JET SKI RENTALS sign. A frayed basketball hoop fluttered in the breeze.

Marta poked her fingers through the fence and leaned closer to get a better look. Snow fell steadily, but the bay was calmer than the ocean and rippled with choppy whitecaps that washed onto the docks at the ends. There were no boats in the water, which looked frozen in spots. Wooden slips covered with snow jutted into the empty water. Next to them stood a tall boat lift with a canvas sling. The marina was vacant, deserted, and dark except for a boxy security light on the outside of the office. Where were the boats?

Marta cast the flashlight through the snow flurries to her right, behind a covered section of the fence. Boats stood on dry land, in racks. There were motorboats and sailboats, their decks and awnings blanketed with snow. Marta estimated thirty hulking white outlines in the boatyard but didn't know if any of them were the Piratical. She had no idea what Steere's boat looked like even when it wasn't covered with snow. She'd have to get inside the marina to read the names.

Marta tucked the flashlight into her pocket and squinted up at the fence in the snow. It was tall, about eight feet high, and she tried to remember the last time she had climbed anything. The memories came back only reluctantly, they had been so long buried. She'd climbed oak trees in the woods, and rail fences. Onto a pony, bareback; even into her father's lap. Marta used to be a tomboy before she became a lawyer, a grown-up version of a hellion anyway. If she had to climb, she could climb.

She hoisted herself up and tried to wedge the tip of her boot into the cyclone fencing. Her boot was too large. Marta kicked the fence, driving her toe in. The fence jingled and shook. Snow tumbled onto her head. She brushed it off, pulled up her hood, and began to scale the slippery fence. Her parka weighed her down; her snowpants felt clumsy. She almost lost a boot but she made it halfway up and kept plugging.

When Marta reached the top she was panting. She threw a puffy leg over the bar and stopped to catch her breath. Wind gusted through her hair, freezing her ears. She blinked against the snow as she looked around her. No alarm began clanging and the marina wasn't ritzy enough to have a silent alarm. Marta felt safe.