Bad Men

She noticed that Barron had gone quiet. She saw him looking across the bar, and the expression on his face was so hostile that she immediately wanted to leave him there, to get as far away from him as possible, even though his eyes were not on her. Instead, he was watching a man of slightly more than medium height talking to the bartender. He was kind of cute, thought Macy, in a brooding way. He flashed some form of ID, asked a couple of questions, then prepared to move on. He barely paused when he spotted Barron, but it was enough. He held the cop’s eyes until Barron looked away, then left the bar. Macy watched him climb into an old Mustang and drive toward the Franklin Arterial.

“Who was that?” she asked.

“Nobody. A fuckup.”

He excused himself to go to the john and told the bartender to rack up two more beers. Macy was barely halfway through her first and she wasn’t pla

“End of your six,” he said. “Congratulations.”

She shrugged and smiled. “Hey, you know who that guy was, the one who was talking to the bartender a couple of minutes ago? Drives a Mustang.”

Odell nodded. “Charlie Parker.”

“The PI?” As an investigator, she knew Parker had managed to track down some bad guys. He had quite a reputation, even if it was a mixed one. She had heard talk that Parker was nosing about in the department. She was curious to know why.

“The very same.”

“I got the impression that Barron doesn’t like him.”

“There aren’t a whole lot of people Eric Barron does like, and Parker isn’t the kind of guy to top that list. They had a run-in a couple of years back. Parker was looking into the death of a woman, Rita Ferris. She’d been hooking a little to make ends meet. After the case was closed, Barron saw Parker at Old Port Billiards and made some comments about the woman.”

“And?”

“Barron went to the men’s room. Couple of minutes later Parker followed him in. Only Parker came out. Barron never spoke about what happened in there, but he’s got a scar at the right side of his mouth”-Odell pointed with his finger to his own mouth-“that maybe I wouldn’t mention to him, you see what I mean?”

“People who mess with cops don’t usually walk away from it so easily.”

“You see anyone rushing to defend Barron’s honor?”

“I guess not. I hear Parker’s been asking about cops.”

“Cops, rent-a-cops, private security. He’s pissing off all the wrong people.”

“You know why?”

“Case a couple of months back. Someone tried to pull a boy from the street, over in Gorham. Kid was huffing lighter fuel and was pretty much off his head to begin with, so he couldn’t recall much, but he claimed the guy was wearing a uniform under his jacket, and he thought he could see a gun. His parents have money and they’ve hired Parker to ask some questions. They’re afraid the guy might make a play again, either on their kid or someone else’s.”

Barron returned from the men’s room, and nodded a curt greeting to Odell.

“See you ’round, I guess,” Odell said to Macy. He nodded at Barron-“Eric”-then went back to his buddies

“What did he want?” asked Barron.

“Nothing, just wanted to congratulate me on finishing my six.” She could sense Barron simmering beside her. He had a short fuse, and it seemed a good idea to try to stamp it out before the powder keg ignited.

“Tell me more about the island,” she said.

Barron told her that Dutch Island, or Sanctuary as it was sometimes known, was within the jurisdiction of the Portland Police Department, despite its status as the most remote of the inhabited islands on Casco Bay. Dutch wasn’t the only island that required a police presence of this kind, but it was the least hospitable. Most Portland cops never had to spend time there. It had one resident policeman, and a couple of others who traveled out on a rotation system. On the other island policed by the Portland PD, Peaks Island, two officers headed out on a boat every day. But when the boat left for Dutch, there was often only one cop on board.

“Why has it got two names?”

“To make it sound interesting,” said Barron. “But believe me, it isn’t. What more do you want to know?”

“What’s he like?” asked Macy.

“Who?”

“You know, Dupree.”

Barron clicked his tongue in disgust. “Melancholy Joe? He’s a freak.”

“They say he’s a giant. I mean, a real giant. Like in the circus, or like that wrestler guy, the one who died.”

“Andre the Giant. No, Joe ain’t as big as Andre. Still a big son of a bitch, though. Strong, too. Nobody fucks with Melancholy Joe.”

“Why do they call him that?”

“Because he’s a miserable bastard, that’s why. Doesn’t say much, keeps to himself. You better take some books out to Dutch Island, because you sure ain’t going to be kept up nights talking to Joe.”

“You spend time out there?”

“Just once, when flu took out half of the regular guys. Didn’t care much for it. Didn’t care much for Joe Dupree, either.”

I bet it was mutual, thought Macy.

“I suppose nothing much happens out there.”

“Not a whole lot. Bored kids stealing cars, breaking into summer houses. The occasional DUI. It’s community policing, mainly.”

“But not always?”

“What do you know?” asked Barron.

“Someone said-”

“Who?”

“Just someone. He said Joe Dupree once killed a man out on the island.”

Barron made that clicking sound again. “Yeah, he killed one of the Lubey brothers. Ro

“Snowman?”

“Yeah, dumb fucking name for a dumb guy. If he’d taken the buckshot in the head, it probably would have done him less damage. Anyway, Dupree and him arrive, Snowman gets shot, and Dupree kills Ro

Barron paused. He felt dumb saying what he was about to say, as if Macy was going to laugh at him or call him a liar, but when he’d joined the force, his first partner, Tom Huyler, had sat him down over a beer and told him pretty much what he was about to tell Macy, and old Huyler wasn’t the type to joke around. He was Dutch Protestant, and when those people cracked a smile, it was like watching Arctic ice break, but Huyler knew his history. After all, they were some of his people that went out there in the begi

His people who were slaughtered.

Because, sure, Dutch Island was quiet, most of the time. There was the odd domestic dispute, the occasional drunk that tried to drive up a tree. But he recalled Huyler telling him the story of the first settlers on the island, how they’d retreated out there after skirmishes with the local Indians in the late 1600s.

Then, according to the history books, there was some internal dispute among the islanders, and somebody had been banished. He’d come back, though, and he brought others with him. The entire population-ten, twelve families, all with children-had been slaughtered. It was only in the last hundred, hundred and fifty years that people had started returning to Dutch in numbers, and now the community was large enough to need full-time cops out there.

And sometimes, people went missing. They were the bad ones, mostly. That was the odd thing about it. They were the ones that were no use to anybody, not even to their own families. They were the fighters, the abusers, the wife beaters. True, not all of them went that way, and Dutch still had its share of bad sorts, but they tended to be pretty careful about where they walked and what they did. They didn’t stray too far from their homes and they stayed away from the woods at the center of the island, and far away from what was known as the Site, the burial place of the original settlers.