A Case of Vineyard Poison (15 page)

I told him about finding Kathy Ellis's bank statement, then about Denise Vale's bank account. I could almost see his ears prick up. “First Zee had a hundred thou for a couple of days,” I said. “Then there was Kathy's hundred thou, and then there was Denise Vale's hundred thou. That's a lot of hundred thous.”

“It sure is,” said Tony. “I don't make that much in a week, including overtime. You still have that bank statement, I think you should bring it down to the station. It sounds like maybe it's evidence. I wish I knew what it was evidence for, though.”

I told him I'd bring it down, hung up, and dialed the number he'd given me. I didn't expect anybody to answer, since it was a beautiful day and the college kids on the island would probably be on the beach if they weren't working. To my surprise, a female voice said, “Hello?”

I told her who I was and asked to speak with Beth Goodwin.

“This is Beth. I remember you. What can I do for you, Mr. Jackson?”

“I'd like to come by and talk to you. About Kathy Ellis.”

After a moment she said, “Sure. Why not?”

I went into town and left the bank statement at the
police station, then hooked back up the Vineyard Haven Road till I found the turnoff that led to the house Beth Goodwin and her friends had rented for the summer. It was an old house in the middle of a new development west of the road that had never quite developed as much as its developers had planned. Like a lot of people, they had presumed that the land boom in the early eighties would last forever, and had overextended themselves so that mostly they had nice curvy roads that were lined with empty lots and only a scattering of large, new houses. Beth Goodwin's house had been there long before the paved roads had been punched through. It was an old farmhouse that was not in great shape, but it brought its owners a lot of rental money during the summer.

There were similar failed developments all over the island, sad mementos of greed and shortsightedness. A lot of money had been gambled and lost during the boom period, further evidence that the wheeler-dealer types and the bankers who financed them were probably as dumb about economics as the rest of us. Somehow that notion always heartened me, since it suggested that my own admitted ignorance about money might be shared by the supposed professionals in the field. Why is it that we like to see the pros go down? The banker go bankrupt, the psychologist go dotty, the priest get nailed by the vice squad?

Don't ask me.

I parked the Land Cruiser and walked to the house. Beth Goodwin met me at the door. She was wearing a robe and carrying a portable phone.

“I'm out back, catching some rays. I have to go to work in an hour, so I didn't have time for the beach. Come on through.”

We walked through the house and out into the backyard. There was a rusty table there, topped by an umbrella that had seen better days. The table was surrounded by plastic chairs, the kind you can buy in the A & P for about six bucks. There were two aluminum lounge chairs. Beth Goodwin went to the one facing the sun, took dark glasses out of a pocket of the robe, then took off the robe and lay down. She was wearing a one-piece bathing suit slightly larger than a dishcloth, and had a very nice tan. She looked at me.

“You don't mind, do you? I can talk and tan at the same time.”

I didn't mind at all. I could talk and stare at the same time.

“I've told the police everything I know,” she said. “I don't know what I can tell you that I didn't tell them.”

“Officer D'Agostine tells me that you have no idea where Kathy might have gotten the water hemlock.”

“That's right. When I think about that, it scares me. If Peter and I were vegetarians, we might be dead, too! Poor Kathy.”

“She bought her own food and prepared it for herself. Is that right?”

“Yes. Even in college, she liked to fix her own food. It was hard for her to find the kind of food she liked in the cafeterias, so mostly she preferred to do her own cooking. The thing that just breaks my heart is that she was the healthiest person I know. She was very conscientious about her diet, and about exercising. And then this had to happen. It makes you wonder.”

I thought that Beth looked in pretty good shape herself, but didn't say so. “Where did she shop?” I asked.

“In the A & P, and at the health food stores.”

“I heard that she liked wild food. Fiddleheads, and that sort of thing.”

“Oh yes. She made sassafras tea from the sassafras trees that grow down near Sengekontacket, and she found lamb's-quarter growing in the old garden over there.” She pointed, and I saw that there was indeed an old garden behind a badly listing shed. Part of it was still wild, but some of it was newly cultivated. “Peter and Kathy put in that little garden as soon as we got down here in May. They have lettuce and radishes and things like that. Peter likes to garden.”

I remembered that she'd said that when she and Peter had come down my driveway.

“Could the water hemlock have been growing back there by the garden, or down where she got the sassafras?”

“I don't know. I think the police and somebody from the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary tried to find out, but I don't know if they found anything.”

Then I remembered something else Beth had said, and a little light flickered in the back of my brain.

I leaned forward. “When you were at my house, you wondered what people would say when they heard about Kathy's death.”

“It was awful. Peter and I had to tell her friends, and the people where she worked.” She sat up and I saw tears beginning to run down her cheeks. She took off her glasses and wiped at her eyes. “It's only been a week. Sometimes it feels like a day, and sometimes it seems like a year. I'm sorry.” She began to cry.

I waited and after a while her sobs lessened. She wiped at her face with the robe.

“I've got to get dressed for work,” she said.

“What did the people say when you told them?” I asked.

“They were shocked, just like us. Nobody could believe it.”

“How did Gordy react?”

“Oh, that was the worst of all. I didn't know how to get in touch with him, but that night he called Kathy and I had to tell him that she was dead. I think he was more devastated than the rest of us. He asked all kinds of questions and then he seemed to just break down. He couldn't talk and had to hang up.”

“Gordy was her boyfriend?”

She nodded. “Yes. Ever since she went to college.”

“NYU.”

“Yes. We all go to school there. That's where they met. She was a freshman and he was a senior, but they hit it off right away.”

“Does the name Cecil Jones mean anything to you? Did Kathy ever mention the name?”

She looked at me with her watery eyes. “No. I never heard of him. Who's he?”

“I don't know who he is. Where does Gordy live now? Where was he calling from?”

She got up and put on the robe. “I don't know exactly. He lives over on the Cape someplace. He'd come over to see Kathy here, or sometimes she'd go see him there. He came over the very next day after the accident and tried to help us get through it. I think he was the one who needed the help, if you want to know the truth.” She brushed at a strand of hair. “Look, I really have to get ready for work. I'm sorry.”

I got up. “You've been very helpful. When will Peter be home? I'd like to talk to him a bit, too.”

“He won't be home until late. He's working in a kitchen and he'll be there until the restaurant closes. You can probably call him late tomorrow morning. He gets up just before noon. You just missed him today.”

We walked back through the house. At the front door, I asked her one last question: “What's Gordy's real name?”

“Glen,” she said. “Glen Gordon. But everybody calls him Gordy.”

“A charming guy, eh?”

She nodded. “He really is. You just have to love Gordy. It almost killed him when Kathy died.”

Almost, but not quite. I thanked her for her help and drove away.

I still had a little time before getting gussied up to meet Zee and her mother, so I went home and looked up Miles Vale's telephone number. Miles lived in the Dark Woods, up behind the new post office. Feeling as achy as I did, I figured he probably felt worse and would either be at home or in the hospital. I dialed his number. Miles answered. I told him who I was. He hung up.

I dialed again and he let the phone ring quite a while before answering it. Again I told him who I was. This time he didn't hang up.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I want to talk about your daughter's boyfriend.”

“What about him?”

“Is his name Glen Gordon?”

“What of it?”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“Over on the Cape someplace.”

“Do you know his address?”

“If I knew the son of a bitch's address, I'd go over there and kick his ass.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because he's fucking around with my daughter, and he's a bastard, that's why.”

I didn't think it would do much good to point out that his daughter was a grown-up woman who probably didn't need or want Daddy protecting her from men.

“She never said where he lived? What town, maybe?”

“She doesn't talk to me much. Her mother poisoned her mind against me.”

Miles was a sad case. There are other people like him, people who see themselves living in an evil, exploitive world. I think it's a kind of projection; they see other people being petty and vindictive the way they themselves are. On the other hand, Miles was a medic, and apparently a good one. People are more complex than we sometimes remember. He was not a happy man, though, and I thought he was not likely ever to be one. I decided the best way to deal with Miles was to appear sympathetic.

“Listen,” I said, “I want to find the son of a bitch myself. I know you thought I was just another guy after Denise, but you were wrong. I'm after this Glen Gordon character. You punched a friend, buddy, not an enemy. But let's forget about that. Anything you can tell me about Gordon, anything at all, might help me find him.”

Miles thought about that for a while, then he gave a grunting sort of laugh. “You banged me pretty good, pal. You hurting any yourself?”

Miles was apparently the sort who didn't mind hurting if he knew you hurt too.

A little flattery might grease the wheels. “I have some bruises I didn't have before. You pack a pretty good punch.”

“Yeah, I was going good for a while. Then I wasn't going so good.” I don't think he knew quite how things had turned around.

I gave him an out. “Hell, I have ten years on you. Besides, I think I got lucky. Let's just not do it again, okay? I think once was enough for me.”

He grunted some more. “Me too, buddy, me too. Next time we'll have a beer instead, eh?”

We manly men chuckled at each other.

“Say,” he said. “Why you after this guy?”

“Your daughter's not the only girl he's involved with,” I said. “I have my reasons. Let's leave it at that. You know what I mean?”

Miles thought he did. “Well, lemme see if I can come up with anything. Like I said, Denise doesn't talk much to me. Seems to me, though, that this Gordon son of a bitch lives over in Hyannis, or maybe Falmouth. She goes over there to meet him, and he comes over here to meet her. That's about all I know.”

“Would you know him if you saw him?”

“Never laid eyes on him.”

“Did you ever hear of a man named Cecil Jones?”

“That's a limey-sounding name. No. Who is he? Some other bastard who can't keep his pecker in his pants?”

Sweet Miles. “I don't know who he is. The name just came up.”

“Well, I never heard of the guy.”

“When Denise goes over to the Cape, does she take the ferry, or the
Island Queen,
or the Hy-line boat to Hyannis?”

I could almost hear him snap his fingers. “Say, that's right! She takes the
Queen!
That means the bastard lives in Falmouth.”

Maybe. Or maybe Gordon met her there in his car and they drove off to his place in some other town.

“Do you have a picture of your daughter? If you do, I'll take it up to the dock where the
Queen
comes in and see if anybody on the boat can tell me anything about her. Like if somebody met her on the other side.”

This notion seemed to please him. “Yeah. She sent me
this picture of her in her dorm in college. It's pretty good. You come by, you can take it, long as you don't lose it or anything like that.” Miles had gotten very friendly, it seemed. Compensation for having picked a fight with me?

“I'll be right over,” I said.

Miles met me at his door. He looked terrible. He was hunched over and moving very slowly, and his face was puffy and many-colored. He looked at me and grimaced.

“Yeah, we got to each other, all right. My mistake. I thought you were just another guy after my little girl.” He put out his hand. “No hard feelings.”

We shook hands. “I'm old enough to be her father,” I said. “Besides, I'm getting married in a couple of weeks, and one woman is all I can handle at a time.”

“Well, I wish you luck, buddy. I was married once and it turned sour. Here.”

He gave me a five-by-seven framed picture of a young woman. She was fresh-faced and smiling. Her hair was a light brown and curled down to her shoulders. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt emblazoned with the initials NYU, and was sitting at a desk. There were posters on the wall behind her, and a pile of books and papers on the desk.

“Don't you lose that,” said Miles. “I want it back.”

I assured him that I wouldn't, and drove to Oak Bluffs. I felt sorry for Miles, but I didn't think I'd ever warm to him.