Stone Cove Island by Suzanne Myers Page B

could see through the office window. He had his back to me, his feet up on a chair, while he watched football on TV and drank a beer. I leaned my bike against a dock piling and rapped gently on the door as I opened it. There was no one else here, and I didn’t want to startle him.
    Paul turned to glare at me but kept one eye on the game.
    “Yeah?” he said. He said it like he wasn’t particularly interested in what I might say.
    “Hi,” I started, realizing I had come with no plan. I didn’t know Paul, except by sight. I was here to ask him about his niece’s murder twenty-five years ago. For all I knew, he was a suspect at the time. For all I knew, he was the one who had killed her. Wasn’t it true that most violent crimes took place between people who knew each other, and even more often, people who were related? There was no tactful way to start the conversation.
    “Hi,” I started over. I decided to go with a lie. “I’m doing a research paper for school about island history. I know your family has been on Stone Cove a long time, and your, uh, business has been really important to the island?” Why was I making it a question? Paul grunted. It could have meant “go on” or “get out.” I really couldn’t tell.
    “Your family’s owned the marina boatyard for a long time?”
    He stood up now, staggering a little and I realized he was drunk. He lumbered toward me, just a step or two, and glared harder. “What do you want?” he said. His question didn’t sound like a question.
    “I’m a senior at Stone Cove High and—”
    “I know who you are,” he said. I didn’t know if that was true. “You got some nerve, coming here to ask about my family, our business, when you know they took it and your family’s part of them that did.”
    “Do you mean, now that the town runs it? My family’s not part of the town council.”
    “It was my brother’s. They wanted it and they made sure they got it.” His eyes were bloodshot. I’d always assumed that Grant had gone bankrupt before he’d died, and that was why the marina ended up being taken over by the town. Paul obviously felt that things hadn’t worked out fairly, whatever had gone on. “So what are you here for? You got an anchor for me, too?”
    For a moment, I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. I wanted to ask him to repeat himself. But the rage radiating off him made me change tactics instead. “Well, it’s not so much the business I wanted to ask about. For my report, I want to write about notable women from the island. I’ve been reading about your niece, Bess Linsky and—”
    Now he lunged toward me, yelling. His words were garbled and furious and the only thing I could decipher was “Get out!”
    In a panic, I backed away as fast as I could, through the jangling glass door and past the stacks of fishing rods and lures. Paul kept coming. My bike was about fifteen yardsbehind me, on the dock. I could turn and run, I thought. He was in bad shape, and I was probably faster. But I was too scared to turn my back on him. I felt my way backward, one hand guiding me along the railing that edged the water. I took big, awkward steps, keeping my eyes on him but picturing in my mind how much farther it would be to my bike. Damn. Why hadn’t I parked it facing the road? Now I would have to turn it around before I could get out. It was stupid to come out here alone, at night, without telling anyone where I was. On the other hand, why should I have been worried? Stone Cove Island was safe. Nothing bad ever happened here. Or, almost nothing.
    Paul was getting closer. He was ranting less in favor of moving faster, which seemed to take some effort through his beer haze. Every few steps, he would lose balance and I would make up a little ground. It was three, big, backward steps, I guessed, maybe four, until I got to my bike. If I went any faster I might overshoot the end of the railing and end up in the water. When I got to the place the railing