Little Voices

by Lillie, Vanessa

  Sounds like that dead woman never had any real friends.

  She probably never saw you coming.

  Selfish bitch like you just blended right in.

  “Why’d she drop out?” I ask.

  She shrugs again, eyes me suspiciously. “You go to college?”

  I shake my head, sharing the half lie. “My parents wouldn’t pay for it. I did just fine.”

  “That’s what I told her. Lots of ways to make it in this world.” She gestures as if we are standing in one of the mansions, and she’s a tour guide for the social climber.

  “What did she tell you about her time at Venantius Ventures?” I ask.

  She turns from my question and becomes very interested in packing a drawer. “Not much.” My patience wanes with each paper clip, old coupon, and rubber band she moves into a beat-up box.

  “Belina left her day planner with me the day she died.” I pause as Tina’s gaze snaps in my direction. “You’re not in it anywhere.”

  Trying to break her heart too?

  As if she hasn’t suffered enough.

  Her thin red lips form an O. She doesn’t look happy about it. “Well, who she got in there?”

  “Code names,” I say. “CF and A with a circle around it.”

  Her watery eyes go wide, but then she snaps back into her too-relaxed stare. “Don’t mean nothing to me,” she says, and I’m sure she knows that CF is Stefano.

  “What about the place she met CF. She called it CCH?” I ask.

  The same recognition widens her eyes, but she shakes her head. Before I can press her on that point, a truck door slams outside.

  “Shit, Lee’s back already.” Tina stashes the empty bottle behind a small table. “Come help me dump these drawers into the trash bags. I was supposed to be done by now.”

  I hold the bag while she empties one drawer, and the back door flies open.

  “Goddamn it, Tina,” says a short but wide-shouldered man with a long face and intense, bulging eyes. He’s wearing a ratty Narragansett Beer T-shirt, even though it may snow tonight. His jeans are tight and paint spattered. “Who the hell are you?”

  Tina shrinks at his words, batting her goopy eyelashes. “She’s working with that black reporter to find out who killed my Belina.”

  He snickers. “Good luck with that.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “I been Tina’s boyfriend off and on for a whole year, and I hardly met that stuck-up girl,” he says. “She came to Tina’s birthday for about five minutes. A real bitch move.”

  “She was my daughter,” Tina says softly but with some heat. “I won’t have you talking trash—”

  Lee steps toward Tina and me. “I ain’t saying nothing worse than you did. Now she got herself killed she’s Saint Belina.”

  Tina shows no response to the accusation. “How’d she get herself killed?” I ask.

  “Meeting some guy in a cemetery?” He shakes his head, scoffing as if I’ve just fallen off the proverbial turnip truck. “Asking for it.”

  “You sonofabitch,” Tina says in a slur of words, smashing her coffee cup into the ground. “If you got such a problem with her, don’t spend her goddamn money.”

  Rage flares the veins of his neck like wires being pulled by the fists clenched at his side. “Don’t you test me, Tina. I’m in no mood.”

  I take Tina’s arm. “Belina left you money?”

  “About a hundred grand,” Lee says. “We deserve every penny.”

  The tempers are good. I see my angle. “You paying estate taxes on it?” I ask.

  “It’s not like that,” Lee says.

  “Where did the money come from?” I ask. “The truth.”

  “Give me a cigarette, Lee,” Tina says. “We’re not getting the deposit to this dump back anyway.”

  She lights two and steps around the broken mug in her gold heels. She hands the second one to Lee and remains next to him.

  “It was a gift from an admirer,” she says.

  “That big fish,” I guess.

  “You don’t want to mess with this guy,” Tina says on an exhale.

  “You don’t want to mess with a federal audit,” I say. “If you don’t pay estate taxes. Probably forty percent between Uncle Sam and Rhode Island. You haven’t spent it all?”

  “He dumped it right in my account,” she says. “Belina worked for him. It was some kinda policy he had.”

  “We went through enough with that girl.” Lee points the cigarette at me, and ash falls on the floor. “This government ain’t seeing a lick. Say what you want and get out.”

  “What was the relationship between Stefano and Belina?” I ask Tina.

  “Her business,” she says.

  “You should leave him out of it,” Lee says. “He did right by her as far as I’m concerned. Most men would have tapped it and run.”

  “Cool it, Lee,” Tina snaps.

  “What do you mean?” I say to him.

  He looks Tina over, as if wanting to see the hurt he’s about to inflict. “Belina stalked Stefano for a while.”

  “You got no right,” Tina says.

  Lee continues his antagonizing stare. “There was a restraining order.”

  How did you miss that?

  I didn’t think to look at Belina’s record. “When?” I say.

  “Right before she took that job at his boatyard,” Lee says. “Guess they made up.”

  Tina heads over to the metal sink, ashing into it. “Few years ago.”

  “Why did he give you this money?” I ask. “Their relationship?”

  “He’s married,” Lee says. “Doubt divorce would be cheap if it got out.”

  “You don’t know shit,” Tina says, swallowing thickly, her too-tight face giving way to wrinkles down her neck. “Stefano sent a condolence note that said he transferred money and hoped it helped. He’s a good man.”

  Lee starts to laugh. “You gotta crush on him, Tina. Think he’d want the mom after he had the daughter.”

  “What the fuck do you know?” Tina screams.

  Lee takes a step toward her, and she backs up nearer to me. “I know that having that money means a lot more to us than having her around.”

  Tina pivots away from him and finds my eyes. There’s a lot of shame beneath the anger, and I head over to a dirty window to give her some space. My car is still running, and I see Gillian’s shape in the passenger window. After another few seconds of quiet, I approach Tina. “Did you save any of your daughter’s things?” I ask softly.

  Tina sniffs, and there are tears in the corners of her eyes. It could be the smoke, but there are circles too. Grief lines around her eyes and mouth made prominent in her thick makeup.

  “Anything left in her room?” I ask.

  Lee steps close to me. “Couple boxes,” he says. “We’re not bringing her stuff with us. No point. Want me to take you back there?”

  “I’ll do it,” Tina says, shoving him back.

  Lee nods toward a closed door. “Be quick about it.”

  It’s easy to be quick about it because there are only two plastic tubs. No jewelry box with “Once Upon a Dream” playing as the blonde ballerina twirls. No posters of boy bands or celeb crushes. No trophies or medals or artwork or science projects.

  It’s mostly books, different than my collection growing up. I read classics and literary fiction, anything that would make me East Coast smarter and set me apart from my classmates.

  What good that did.

  You’re still just stupid trash.

  I flip the first lid and see some clothes and cheap necklaces but mostly books and brochures, a mix of local information—from guidebooks to hotels and restaurants—then accounting books, and a few romance novels. The second tub is a lot of magical realism, authors like Jorge Luis Borges, Isabel Allende, and Toni Morrison.

  I grab One Hundred Years of Solitude because I’ve never read it but always meant to, and it looks well worn. There’re scribbles and underlined passages.
/>
  After putting the book in my bag, I begin to flip through other volumes. There are a few more with inscriptions, and I take photos of them on my phone. The handwriting looks the same, and I start to see the chart I’ll make from this data when I’m home. My guess is they’re gifts from Stefano, but I’ll use the contract from Alec’s office to compare the handwriting.

  There are a few folders at the bottom with pay stubs and tax information. I see two different bank accounts listed and stuff the papers in the book I plan to take.

  “Find anything?” Tina asks from the doorway. She’s got her coffee mug again, which explains why they left me alone for so long.

  “Not much,” I say. “Did the police take anything?”

  “Naw,” she says. “I didn’t even tell them about these boxes. Think they’re better than me ’cause they got a badge. Fuck the police.”

  Tina digs into the first box to find a glittery top. “I’m taking this one. Bought it for her one Christmas with the last twenty bucks I had.” She runs a shiny red nail along the cheap-looking fabric and pulls out a faded tag. “She never wanted to be like me. Don’t know how a daughter can hate a mother like that.”

  I do know, but I just put the books back on top of the loose papers. “What did her room look like as a girl?”

  Tina lights another cigarette. “About like this. Never had much clutter or care.”

  It sounds a lot like my room growing up. Perhaps she also never considered this her home, just a way station until she was able to get out.

  But did you really leave it behind?

  Tina’s face softens, and her lips purse as if she’s remembered something. She steps toward the largest box and digs around. “She had this one since she was a girl.” She hands me the thin volume. “It meant a lot to her.”

  “Portuguese folktales,” I say, reading the cover. The title font is in thick scroll script over a turbulent ocean, a single boat trying to survive the waters. “Mind if I borrow it?”

  Tina tosses her head as if indifferent, as if I’m not asking for something her dead daughter loved. She holds tight to the sparkle sweater. “Like Lee said,” she says, blinking her clumpy, spider-leg lashes to hide the tears, her voice thick. “Better to leave it here.”

  If I had more time, I’d pick a few more things to remember Belina by. Learn about her by sorting through what little is left. But Miguel will be waiting, and finding her murderer seems like a much better tribute.

  Chapter 20

  I watch Gillian push Ester in the stroller after she made an excuse to find a cup of coffee while I use the car pump. I send Derek a photo of Belina’s tax and bank account information. The relief is sharp when he responds immediately, alive to hack another day.

  It’d be better if you were both dead.

  From the rearview mirror, I see Gillian and Ester go into a cozy tea shop. I move forward, mentally going over my next set of objectives as I put the pumped milk away. I’m a half hour early to meet Miguel Rossa at the mostly empty boatyard in Newport. I get out of the car and head toward the edge of the parking lot. The sun shimmers on the water like fish scales, and I shade my gaze until I find Miguel in front of a large fishing boat, yelling into his phone.

  “It’s another thirty grand?” He glares up at the pale-blue sky. “I’ll have to talk to my father. He’s not going to like it. Hello? Hello?”

  He curses a few times at the phone, then jams it into his pocket. Miguel circles the boat, staring down the vessel as if it had just hung up on him.

  I keep myself from falling into an old trap, watching secretly, and instead step onto the wooden dock. My boots echo, jeans tucked into them. I snap up the collar of my green maternity coat, my best coat, as I lower my head into the wind.

  You’ll never pull this off.

  Miguel is still muttering to himself as I walk up. “Boat giving you problems?” I ask, guessing the actual problem is Ricky and the boat he sold Miguel.

  His slouched posture rights, and he turns with a bright smile. “Early bird,” he says, reaching a black-gloved hand my way. “Let’s not worry about it. Life lesson on being careful who you trust.” We shake hands quickly, and he gestures farther down the dock. “The boat worth seeing is this way.”

  There aren’t many boats left, the season long past. Most are either covered in plastic and dry-docked or, in the case of the yachts worth millions, sailed toward warmer waters. All that remain are a few fishing boats, and we’re not talking New England charmers with engines guided by hand. These are year-round fishing boats, the souped-up 4x4 extended cabs of the sea. The one Miguel is guiding me toward is in the thirty-six-footer range, all nose, shining white like the ass of an angel, covered with steel rails and three stacked platforms over the main cabin with a large satellite on top. All Tony Soprano versus Moby Dick.

  I can tell he’s about to give me the hard sell: invest in a portion of this boat and get a percentage of the fishing net profits.

  “Here she is,” he says. “For a fifty-one percent stake, you can rename her.”

  It’s an expensive boat, something to show off to investors. I smirk at the blue letters painted on the side. “Flounder Pounder will be tough to top.”

  He laughs, and I see a bit of tension relax his shoulders beneath his navy cashmere coat. “The season starts in April.”

  “You want a dozen boats and captains,” I say, quoting the brochure. “Doesn’t that require each boat to have a fishing license for the quantity of fish they catch each day? Are there licenses available right now?” I ask, knowing the answer is no.

  The fishing boat licenses are notoriously difficult to acquire. Alec got a few of his through Uncle Cal’s connections and then later, based on the contract I found, more from Stefano. Even with the increases in profits from those licenses, Alec still often made two and three times what he should.

  “There will be more licenses on the market soon enough,” Miguel says too quickly. “I have it on good authority. At least a dozen.”

  He quotes the exact number that Alec and Ricky manage for Stefano, according to the grant paperwork Uncle Cal gave me. “You think you can get them all?” I ask.

  “I need twelve this year,” he says. “We prove our model and show that a Rossa business can succeed in this industry. Then we’ll expand even more. Now back to you, my early investor, called angel investors”—he pauses to wink—“you will have the first pick of the highest-profit boats and most senior captains.”

  “If I’m going to invest,” I say, not returning his grin, “I need more details. To understand if you’re market ready.”

  “Of course,” Miguel says. “Let’s get out of the wind. I’ll show you the nice accommodations below deck.”

  That’s where the good girls go.

  Down.

  Down.

  Down.

  Everyone will hear.

  No one will stop him.

  “I can’t,” I say, my heart spiking as my breath crystalizes into a heavy lump at the center of my chest. The boat around me is fading, and I see a small bed and dark-paneled walls and smell candy-sweet warm breath over me.

  I feel Miguel take my elbow, firm and steady, bringing me back. I breathe deep, the cold air loosening the weight on my chest. Bringing me back to this deck, my shoes, my coat. I am here. I am here with a purpose.

  “Small spaces . . . I can’t breathe there . . .”

  “Of course. You’re claustrophobic?” he says with sympathetic bravado.

  I nod quickly, relieved he’s supplied the lie because he’ll never get the truth. “Above deck is fine,” I whisper. “As long as I can see the sky.”

  He helps me aboard, lingering on my elbow as we walk the deck. “She goes twenty-eight knots,” he says finally, “which is—”

  “Thirty-two point two miles per hour,” I finish.

  He smiles as if it’s a parlor trick. As if I haven’t spent hours researching boats, the New England and Rhode Island fishing industries, and related marketpl
aces. I want to understand this business. Determine where Alec went wrong. And who helped get him there. “I need dollar amounts,” I say.

  He sighs, and some of the charm fades. “With each license, we can earn five hundred dollars per day after expenses,” he says. “You multiply that by seven days a week, fifty-two weeks per year, and you’ve got . . .” He pauses.

  “It’s one hundred eighty-two thousand dollars per boat per year,” I say. “Almost two point two million your first year.” I don’t subtract the estimated 40 to 60 percent that new fishing ventures usually lose their first year.

  “There’s weather and employee training and turnover, but yeah.” He pauses to grin. “It’s a good start.”

  “Are there other ways to make money?” I say with a half grin. “Not on the books?”

  Miguel looks me up and down. “We’re not doing anything like that,” he says. “My father built his business fairly. It’s hard enough to do this within the law. Being outside of it creates more problems than benefits.”

  “Good,” I say, impressed. “I wanted to check, since our main competitor has a reputation for working outside those laws.”

  A place you know well.

  He shrugs, another person not wanting to even say Stefano’s name.

  “Do you want to see what our captains will use?” Miguel opens two large benches filled with new-looking fishing gear. There are already fishing rods in the four holders on each corner of the boat. “This is my favorite,” he says. He pulls out a lure that’s as large as a crib mobile, but instead of planets or butterflies or fuzzy sheep, there are three layers of octopus-like tentacles, silver and reflective, with hooks on each end. It spins in the wind, catching the sunlight as he hooks it on to the closest pole. “This is better than chum,” he says. “Man’s outsmarted nature.”

  “Really?” I say. “And you can see the schools of fish as they pass by,” I say, referencing what I read. “Chartplotters, GPS, color sounder, and forty-eight-mile digital HD color radar?”

  He shrugs again, but I can tell he’s impressed.

  “You didn’t outsmart,” I say playfully. “You’re cheating.”