by James Tucker
PRAISE FOR JAMES TUCKER
“In Tucker’s impressive first novel and series launch, NYPD detective Buddy Lock . . . keeps the excitement level high throughout. The surprise ending will leave readers impatiently awaiting Buddy’s next outing.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Direct and fast-paced, Tucker’s debut takes readers on an adventurous ride.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Gripping from its opening lines, Next of Kin is a white-knuckle page-turner, where ruthless power, murder, and crimes hidden for generations create an intricate, utterly absorbing tale. The life of a vulnerable young boy hangs in the balance, and Detective Buddy Lock must find the killer before it’s too late. Simply a fantastic read.”
—Marya Hornbacher, Pulitzer Prize–nominated author of Wasted, The Center of Winter, and Madness
“Terrific plot! And Buddy Lock is a cop protagonist that’s a delightful departure from the norm. I’m wholeheartedly recommending Next of Kin.”
—Mike Lawson, author of the Joe DeMarco thrillers
ALSO BY JAMES TUCKER
Next of Kin
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2018 by James Tucker
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503903982
ISBN-10: 1503903982
Cover design by Ray Lundgren
for Megan
CONTENTS
DAY 1
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
DAY 2
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
DAY 3
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
DAY 4
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
DAY 5
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DAY 1
1
They saw the bodies when they opened the trawl net. Thousands of fish fell onto the deck, their silver scales flashing under the slate-colored skies. And together with the fish, the barely clothed figures of a man and a woman, a black medallion hanging loosely from his neck, her long graying hair threaded with fish still shaking with life.
Mack Berringer’s crew of two men looked at him, their puffs of breath visible in the late-January cold. Midmorning, the wind broke across the Atlantic’s rough swells and needled their faces, making their eyes water. They’d left the docks on the north side of the Shinnecock Inlet in Hampton Bays at half past three that morning. They were tired and cold, and they wanted to get back to land. To deliver the fish. To get warm. But now they had a delay and a problem.
Mack glowered at his men but didn’t speak. He moved toward the bodies, using his boots to nudge the flounder and the black sea bass out of his path. The body of the woman was closest to him, and he squatted beside her.
He could see that something wasn’t right. It wasn’t that she was Asian and maybe sixty years old, similar to the man lying a few feet from her. And it wasn’t her plain silver wedding band or her engagement ring with a diamond of more than a carat. He leaned over, nearer her face and hair. She stared, eyeless, out at him. Fish had eaten off her eyelids and the soft jelly of her eyeballs, and most of her lips were also missing. Leaning closer, he noticed the tip of her tongue was gone, chewed roughly and relentlessly by sea life. Her pale-blue blouse had compressed to a wreath around her neck, and fish had gnawed off her nipples and exposed tissue that was faintly pink with blood. Her body was bruised the length of her left side. Otherwise, she remained whole.
Mack Berringer pulled his blue knit cap more tightly over his ears. This doesn’t add up, he thought.
They were thirty-two miles from shore. The fish lived here and moved farther out every year due to the warming ocean. He knew that if these bodies had fallen into the Atlantic near land, by the time the currents had carried them dozens of miles from shore, they’d have been nearly devoured by sea life. After twenty-nine years working these waters, he knew that freshly dead human corpses were a delicacy—rare and, for many fish, delicious. Even if the sea life had ignored the bodies—an impossibility—it would have taken days for the currents to take them to the area he’d been midwater trawling. As he stood, he estimated that they’d been in the ocean no more than four hours.
Turning to his crew, he said, “Either of you see or hear another boat?”
The men shook their heads.
Clearing a path through the fish with his boots, he went around the body of the woman to that of the man, put his hands on his thighs, and bent over for a
better view.
This one was balding and also missing eyelids, eyeballs, lips. Bruises on the feet and legs. The dead man’s gray shirt was torn open, revealing a nearly hairless chest and the necklace with the black medallion.
The fisherman studied the necklace. The string was black leather, thick with water. From it dangled a round black stone containing a symbol and image he didn’t recognize. He patted the man’s pants pockets, rolling him sideways to check the side pockets, but he found nothing. No wallet, keys, money, or identification. No jewelry other than the leather string with the medallion. Once again he looked up at his crew.
One of them, the older man who was about thirty, slowly shook his head. “Give them back to the sea, Mack. This is nothing but trouble.”
The younger deckhand nodded and added, “But take the lady’s ring.”
He considered this idea. It had merit. He could wash his hands of the matter. These two people were already dead, and bringing them ashore wouldn’t solve anything. But then he realized they might have families: children, brothers and sisters, parents. The relatives would want to know, wouldn’t they? And one of the crew might talk, and then he’d be caught up in it anyway and blamed for not doing the right thing.
He reached down and pulled the necklace and its pendant off the dead man. Then he returned to the woman, squatted beside her, and used his gloved hands to work the rings off the rigid fingers. He took off his gloves and put the pendant and rings in the inside pocket of his Carhartt work pants.
When he stood, the younger deckhand said, “What’s our share of the diamond?”
Mack Berringer laughed. “It’s going to the police.”
“Aw, come on!”
He didn’t respond, just said, “Wrap them in a tarp. I’ll take us in.”
A moment later he stood in the wheelhouse with the barely functional heater and thought about the police. He’d heard that another fisherman had found a body the year before. Far from shore, but not this far. He’d read about it in the Southampton Press and heard from other fishermen that, months later, the Long Island police still hadn’t figured out who it was. Unknown and unclaimed, the body had been buried in an unmarked grave. Mack Berringer thought that if he reported his discovery to the same police, the same thing would happen. But what if he contacted someone in the city?
He didn’t know anyone there. Hadn’t been to Manhattan in nine years and would never go back. As he surveyed the eastern rim of the overcast sky with no hint of land at its end, the wisp of a name ignited in his memory. He did, he realized, know of someone.
That cop—the police detective who’d handled the Death Clock Murders and then another big case a few weeks ago, the one involving the rich German family. He’d seen the guy on CNN. And in the Gazette’s articles. What was his name? Buddy something. Buddy Luke? No. Buddy Lock. Detective Lock. That was it. He thought Lock had seemed like a straight shooter. Maybe he should give Detective Lock a call. Wouldn’t hurt. Better than involving the Long Island police, who’d give the NYPD a call anyway. Pulling out his mobile phone, he confirmed what he already knew.
No reception.
He put the phone in his pocket, grabbed the steering wheel and throttle, and swung the boat around in the direction of Shinnecock Inlet.
2
Ben was afraid the judge would take him away from Buddy and Mei.
He watched Buddy, especially Buddy’s face. He liked the face. It was handsome but not refined. Dark, watchful eyes and short black hair. Tall, over six feet, with a powerful chest. But also the kindest man he’d ever met, much kinder than his own father. He really liked when Buddy smiled, although today Buddy only frowned. He saw the muscles on the sides of Buddy’s jaw tense.
Ben was sitting in Judge Sylvia Miles’s chambers in New York County Family Court at nine in the morning. At a hearing three weeks earlier, his aunt and uncle had argued that they should have custody of him. Today Judge Miles wanted to speak with him, but he didn’t want to speak with her. He wished she’d let him be, let him continue living with Buddy and Mei. He shifted uncomfortably in the big chair, the muscles of his right thigh hurting where a knife had been thrust weeks earlier. Mei put Aquaphor on the stitches every night to keep them from getting dried out and hurting worse. For a few days he’d been in a wheelchair, but now he walked with only a slight limp.
Mei Adams was in the chair to his right, holding his hand. To his left stood Buddy, in front of the windows showing a sky with clouds the color of pepper. Along the wall to Ben’s right, past Mei, stood a neatly dressed man in a suit and a red bow tie. This man was younger than Buddy, with thinning blond hair, and he wrote on a yellow legal pad whenever the judge spoke.
Judge Miles rested her elbows on her large wooden desk and leaned forward, peering down at him over her reading glasses. She said, “You’ve lost your parents at ten years old, and there’s a dispute about custody. About where you’ll live. With whom you’ll live.”
Ben didn’t know how to respond, so he kept his mouth closed. He didn’t like Judge Miles, didn’t like her pinched face, her mousy gray hair, or her shapeless brown sweater. He felt himself go hot and knew his forehead had turned sweaty. Letting go of Mei’s hand, he touched his forehead but found the skin dry. Then he set his hands in his lap and tried to look Judge Miles in the eye.
She said, “I’m required to make my decision based on your best interest. So I wanted to visit with you this morning. Do you understand?”
Ben clasped his hands so tightly his fingers hurt. He wished the judge couldn’t see or hear him. He wanted to be home with Mei and Buddy, and never have to see Judge Miles again. He looked up when he heard Buddy’s voice.
“I’d ask you to keep the situation here in mind,” Buddy said. He’d moved closer, so he was two feet from Judge Miles’s desk. He towered over her, his voice strong. He said, “Ray Sawyer is Ben’s guardian and has chosen to give custody of Ben to Mei Adams and to me.” Buddy pronounced Mei’s name clearly, like the fifth month of the year, to be sure the judge got it right. He continued, “We’ve willingly accepted that responsibility. We love Ben very much and he’s become the most important part of our lives. He’s family now. He has his own bedroom, and we can provide everything he needs. As Ray Sawyer noted during the recent custody hearing, Ben’s parents were clear about custody. They did not want him to live with any of his aunts and uncles.”
Judge Miles knit her brow and held up a hand. She said, “Quiet, please.”
Buddy stopped talking.
Judge Miles looked at Buddy and then at Mei. She said, “I’d like to speak privately with Ben. Would the two of you leave us for a few minutes?”
Buddy’s face reddened, but he nodded.
And when he nodded, Ben began to feel the fingers of panic wrap around his heart. He looked up at Buddy, who came over to him and knelt beside his chair.
Buddy said, “You’ll do great. Just tell the truth. Tell her what you want, all right?”
As always when he was with Buddy, Ben’s confidence rose. He said, “Can’t you stay?”
Buddy hugged him and said, “You’ll be in here alone, but I’ll be here, too. Because I’ll be thinking about you the whole time.” Separating from Ben, Buddy said, “Then it will be over and you can go to school or we’ll go home. Or out for pizza. Whatever you want.”
Ben wanted to leave now. He wanted to be like every other kid. He clasped his hands so they didn’t shake. “Is it okay if I go to school?”
Buddy touched his shoulder. “Sure it is.”
Mei had stood and now leaned over and kissed Ben’s cheek. She said, “Judge Miles will talk with you for a few minutes. We’ll be right outside her office, not far from you at all.” Mei smiled. “You’ll do well, Ben. I’m sure of it.”
He felt as if he’d lost his stomach, as if he’d just started down a roller coaster’s steepest drop and the ground was rushing toward him, making his body weightless. He couldn’t help but cry a little as he watched Buddy and Mei walk
out into the hallway, and the man with the thinning blond hair and the bow tie and the legal pad shut the door behind them. Slowly, Ben turned from the door and faced the large desk and the pale woman behind it.
Judge Miles removed her reading glasses and set them on her desk. She said, “Ben Brook, you’ve had a rough few weeks. Would you tell me why you don’t want to live with your surviving family?”
Ben felt his stomach churn. He thought he might throw up. He swallowed and tried to sit up straight. After he noticed his hands shaking, he clasped them together. He hoped Judge Miles and the young man with the red bow tie hadn’t noticed.
For a moment he was silent. He didn’t know how to answer the question. He didn’t want to anger his aunt and uncle, but he wouldn’t lie. He thought of Buddy and Mei and the love they’d shown him, the trust he had in them.
He opened his mouth and began to speak.
3
Buddy’s mobile phone rang.
He stopped his pacing outside Judge Miles’s chambers. He shook his head, angry at the interruption, and pounded his right fist into his open left palm. Again and again. He ignored Mei’s annoyed expression, ignored the ringing phone.
Nobody, not even Judge Miles, should find Ben’s aunt and uncle preferable to us, he thought. Nobody.
He recalled last Saturday afternoon, when he and Mei and Ben had braved the January chill and gone to the Wollman skating rink in Central Park. Buddy had tripped, fallen, and lain on the ice, assessing his arms and legs to be sure nothing was broken. Realizing he was unhurt, he’d looked around.
Ben, a devilish grin on his face, had skated over and jumped on top of him. Ben had giggled and then laughed loudly, happily.
Mei had approached and jumped on the pile. She’d leaned down and kissed them both.
Buddy had groaned in mock agony but had held them tightly, not wanting to let go, in that moment filled with more unbounded joy than any other in his life. Beneath their warm bodies and laughter, with the hard ice under him, he’d thought it was they rather than he who were holding him up. This is what I want, he’d said to himself. Nothing more. Now I’ve got it all.
Afterward, when they’d returned the rental skates, they’d gone to Starbucks for hot chocolate, with extra marshmallows for Ben. For those hours, they’d forgotten the tragedy that had brought them together, the brutal deaths of Ben’s parents and too many others. Since that terrible time a month earlier, they’d become a family. Buddy was surprised that he’d begun to think of Ben as his son. Maybe that was what happened when a ten-year-old boy needed you, and you discovered you needed him even more. You formed a bond out of need that rapidly evolved into love. Yeah, he’d thought over and over again. Love. How else to describe the feeling he had when Ben suffered nightmares and melancholy while thinking of his late parents and little sister? Love. But also anger at anyone or anything that threatened Ben or Ben’s place in Buddy’s world. The way Judge Miles was doing right now.
