He shrugged, the big shoulders going up and down once under the windbreaker. "Probably I get fired. I got two points on a sheet in Boston already. One was a guy with a fish cooler. The other one, I let a delivery van in the main gate because it was raining." He almost laughed. "This one, I think, they don't need a point. They just go straight to the end."
"Then why?"
He was quiet for a long moment, looking out past the bow at the harbor, at the whitecaps marching down from the bridge.
"My son was on a scallop boat out of New Bedford," he said. "Twelve years ago. The captain ran them thirty hours straight on a trip because the price was good. My son put his hand in the winch. Lost three fingers. The boat's owner wrote it up that it happened at the start of the watch, and my son was careless, and the insurance didn't pay half what it should have, and everybody on that boat knew the truth and nobody said nothing, because they all wanted to go out again next trip." He turned the drive over again. "I was one of them. I was on that boat. I said nothing. My son doesn't talk to me much. I don't blame him." He held the drive out farther. "That kid brought me coffee. Hamish. Most days. He's going to be lying in a bed in Providence and somebody's going to write down that he was careless at half past seven. I watched it, ma'am. He wasn't careless. He was tired. They were both tired. I'm not going to say nothing twice."
She took the drive. It was warm from his hand.
"And this morning," he said, more quietly, looking at the deck, "I sent you round the dumpsters. I'm sorry for that. I looked at you, and I saw a shirt and a bag, and I didn't see nothing else. I thought I was being nice. That's the worst part. I thought I was being nice."
"I came through that gate for the first time nineteen years ago," Octavia said. "When it was chain-link. I scrubbed this marina's boats for four summers. You weren't wrong about what I was, Silvino. You were just wrong about what I am."
He nodded, slowly, taking that in.
"I'm going to write to your company," she said. "Today. On Keelhaven letterhead, as the Designated Person Ashore for this vessel, formally requesting any recordings relevant to a serious marine casualty under investigation, for transmission to the flag state and the U.S. Coast Guard. I'll date it this morning. That makes it a request from me, and you complied with it. It may not be enough. I can't promise you it'll be enough."