A Deadly Vineyard Holiday (14 page)

“Any secret scuttlebutt you'd like to pass along?”

“Not a bit. Nobody ever tells me anything.”

One reason Kit had lasted so long at her job was precisely because she never gossiped about her work.

“I hear that when Joe Callahan is done being president, he's going to come back to Edgartown and try to get your job.”

“He's welcome to it,” said Kit. “When he does that, I'll run for president. I like the retirement plan.”

I walked down to the photography shop on Mayhew Lane, looking for the chief as I went, but not finding him. After dropping off the film, I peeked into the coffee shop to see if he was there, but he wasn't. I walked up Main, amazed as usual by the number of tourists who seemed to think the street was a sidewalk and paid no attention to the cars that crept among them.

I spotted the chief at the corner of Summer Street, where he stood in front of the Bickerton and Ripley Bookstore politely but firmly telling a group of bicyclists that they couldn't ride their machines on Main Street. They seemed astonished at this news, but followed the chief's fatherly but unbending command to park or push their bikes.

He watched them go off and shook his head. “As a social class, I don't think bikers can read,” he said. “They don't seem to be able to understand signs. We do have a ‘No Bicycles or Mopeds Allowed on Main Street' sign up there where they come in, don't we?”

“I do believe you do,” I said. “My own theory is that they never lift their eyes high enough to read the signs you put up for them. They just sort of look at the
ground in front of them. Maybe you should write the signs on the pavement.”

“And how about all those racing types who ride in the road right beside the bicycle path? The ones with the tight pants and the little helmets and the thousand-dollar bikes and the intense looks? You know the ones I mean. They pedal faster than most people can drive, but they won't use the bike paths. What's with them, anyway?”

“Bike paths aren't good enough for them,” I said. “Too slow. Too many walkers and Rollerbladers and out-of-shape bikers to get in their way. They need to speed to have healthy lifestyles. You can't expect them to mosey along like everybody else.”

“Next year for sure I'm going to retire and go to Nova Scotia for the summer,” said the chief. “I'll come back here after Labor Day.”

“When you start your talk about Nova Scotia, it's a sure sign that it must be getting toward the end of the summer. Just hang in there, Chief. It'll all be over in a couple of weeks.”

Another pair of bicyclists came down the street and looked surprised when he stopped them and sent them walking on their way.

“I could do nothing else but this all day long,” he said. “What's this about Big Mike Qasim threatening to thrash you for going after his wife? Do you know he's supposed to have one of those Middle East snickersnees in his boot? You might keep that in mind if you meet him. What'd you do to make him so mad?”

I told him about Dora fixing Cricket's hair.

He shook his head. “Terrific. And Mike being the blabbermouth that he is, nobody can tell him the truth because it'll be all over the island five minutes later.
How do you get yourself into these messes? Do you practice?”

“It's a natural talent.”

“I believe you. Well, you've tracked me down. What do you want?”

“Don't be snippy with me just because you're mad at these bicyclists. I'm being a good citizen and informing you of current events.”

“Like what?”

I told him about the blue car that had followed us, about finding the bugs in Zee's and Karen's cars, and about what Joe Begay's contacts had said. I also told him my theory about when the cars were bugged, but I didn't tell him about the film.

He listened while people went past us into the bookstore, which is Edgartown's finest. When I was through, he said, “So you think that dead guy, Phillips, may have seen somebody go down your driveway? And that somebody may have been the one who bugged your cars?”

“We call him Shadow. Or maybe it's a her. Yeah, I think maybe Burt Phillips saw Shadow going in and coming out.”

“So?”

“So it occurred to me that if Burt saw Shadow, Shadow probably saw Burt, too.”

“And?”

“It further occurred to me that maybe Burt met Shadow again, later, down the road to Felix Neck, and that Shadow may have killed him.”

The chief looked at me. “And how do you figure that?”

“I've been running it over in my mind, and it makes as much sense as anything else I can think of. Now let's suppose that Burt is just what he seems—a small-time stringer and photographer who's gotten word, someway or other, that the president's daughter is spending time down with the famous Jackson family. He posts himself and his telephoto camera—”

“How do you know he had a camera with a telephoto lens?” interrupted the chief.

“Because I saw it in his car when I talked to him. Besides, guys like that always have cameras with telephoto lenses, don't they?”

“Maybe.”

“Anyway, it doesn't really make any difference whether he had a camera or not. The point is that he saw Shadow or somebody go down our driveway while all of us were gone. And either then or when the somebody came back out, after bugging the two cars he found down there—”

“And maybe the house, too,” said the chief in an offhand voice.

I stopped talking. That idea hadn't occurred to me. Good grief, I'd suffered an attack of dumbness and I hadn't even noticed it. A bug in the house seemed very possible, now that the chief had mentioned it.

I took a deep breath. “I'll check into that when I get home,” I said. “Anyway, as I was saying, the somebody sees Burt and knows he's been spotted, but it's too public a place to do anything about it, what with cars and bikers and Rollerbladers and walkers going by all the time, so he decides to wait for a better time.

“He drives past Burt's car, headed toward Vineyard Haven, acting like he's going on his way. But instead he goes into the first driveway he comes to, which happens to be the one going into Felix Neck. He parks in there a ways, and acts like a bird-watcher or something when people drive in and out, but the bird he's really watching is old Burt so he can maybe trail him home, or some such thing as that, and rub him out where it's safe.

“But as things turn out, Burt comes to him. . . .”

“Serendipity,” said the chief.

I gave him an admiring look. “I didn't know you knew big words like that. I thought you were just a small-town police chief who never read anything more complicated than the
Playboy
centerfold.”

“Omnia vincit amor,” said the chief. “Ipso facto. E pluribus unum. And I can do pig latin, too.”

“Mea culpa,” I said, “I've greatly misjudged you.”

“As you were saying . . .”

“To use your term . . . serendipity, indeed, for Shadow, if not for Burt. Burt makes his mistake when he decides not to accept my offer to use my telephone, probably because he recognizes me as the guy who walked over to talk to him earlier in the day. Since he doesn't know whether I'm friend or foe, he goes down the Felix Neck road instead, where, probably amazed at his good luck, Shadow, or whoever, meets him and breaks his neck, so Burt will never be able to ID him, then gets in his car and splits.”

The chief was silent for a while, then said, “We're trying to track down people who might have driven in or out of Felix Neck and may have seen something useful to us. Some person or a car or anything. So far, no luck.”

“I see Shadow as a smart guy, so I'm not surprised.”

“So you think he was in there just waiting to kill Burt?”

“Maybe not just that. Maybe he figured Burt would be out there in his car for a while, so he took a walk through the woods to my place, scouting the grounds so he could get in and out again if he wanted to. And afterwards, he went back to waiting for Burt to move.”

“You realize,” said the chief, “that if he was in there watching Burt, he was also watching you when you talked to Burt.”

“Yeah, I realize that.”

“If the guy knew who Burt was, why didn't Burt know who the guy was? How did he let himself get close enough so the guy could break his neck? Wouldn't he have been careful about not getting too close? He didn't want to get close to you, remember.”

“Maybe he never saw the guy. Maybe the guy saw Burt coming along the driveway and slipped up behind him. Joe Begay says there may be spooks involved in this business, and there are some spooks who could probably break our necks right here on Main Street before we knew it was happening.”

“A happy thought,” said the chief, putting a hand to his neck as if to assure himself that it was still intact.

“Which brings me to another bit of news I know you'll enjoy,” I said. “Cricket Callahan, aka my cousin Debby Jackson from Virginia, and Debby's sister, Karen, are here in town at this very moment, hanging out with the Skye twins while they scarf goodies from
the Dairy Queen. I'm meeting them down at the parking lot in about a half hour. Just thought you'd like to know.”

The chief's expression never changed, but he swept his eyes up and down the street. “Karen's the agent with her?”

“Yeah. Looks about nineteen right now. Dark hair in a ponytail, about five five, wearing shorts and a T-shirt with another shirt over that to hide the sidearm. Carries a big shoulder bag. You'll know her when the four of them come by.”

“You really think Cricket Callahan can walk through Edgartown without being recognized?” His voice told me that he didn't.

“The girls are looking for boys,” I said. “I think they might find some.”

“Just what I need.”

“On the other hand, maybe they won't find any. Cousin Debby is wearing big glasses and has her hair shoved up under a floppy hat with a fake blue flower on it. She looks cute, but she doesn't look like the pictures I've seen of Cricket Callahan. As far as I know, not even Jill and Jen know who she really is, although you never know about those two. They may be just playing along because they like cousin Debby and don't want to wreck her Roman holiday. Besides, if anybody does spot her, I imagine my cousins will laugh and say a lot of people think she looks like Cricket, and it's worse than usual now, because the president's on the island. That might do the job.”

“And it might not. What are the twins wearing?”

I told him. Up the street, a cruiser was inching our way behind a covey of bicyclists who were looking this way and that, seeing everything but the sign forbidding them to come farther.

“Okay,” said the chief. “I'll have my people keep an eye on them. It's nice to have the president vacation here, but it's also a pain in the ass. Did I tell you that one of my guys loaned the Secret Service guys his little portable TV? You know, the itsy-bitsy kind you can plug into your cigarette lighter? So now, up there in the woods at night, at least one of the guys supposedly guarding the president is really watching the late show. If it's not one damn thing, it's another.”

He started up the street. When the bicyclists came by, he ignored them and waved down the cruiser. It stopped and he got into the passenger seat and reached for the radio.

Behind me, business seemed good at Bick and Rip, as buyers of beach books went in and out. Up and down Main Street the August people were looking tanned and eager to shop as they moved along the sidewalk, ducked in and out of stores, and walked blithely across the street with barely a pause for the cars. Down at the four corners, a summer cop was doing a pretty good job of keeping traffic moving and pedestrians alive.

I try to avoid going downtown in the summer, but I like it in the spring and fall, when the weather is good, the people are mostly gone, and you can actually find a parking space on Main. In those bright days you know a lot of the people you see, the air seems fresher, and the essential stores are open. There are fewer of these essential stores every year, as the T-shirt shops and stores catering to tourists gradually push them out of their high-rent buildings. When my father first brought me to Edgartown, Main Street sported two grocery stores, two drugstores, two liquor stores, a stationery store, a hardware store, and a store that sold useful clothes for the townspeople. Now there are mostly souvenir shops, galleries,
jewelry shops, and tony clothing stores. The street is still as lovely as ever, but if you need something useful you have to go to Vineyard Haven to get it.

It was a refrain that had probably been sung for as long as there had been an Edgartown:
The good old days are gone, alas, alas.

I was becoming an old codger, and I wasn't even forty yet. An ill omen for my future. What would I be like when I really was a codger?

I walked down the crowded street, looking at the colorful August people in their various shapes and sizes, their clothes and packages and bags, their cameras and maps, their swiveling heads, their thrusting necks as they stared into windows. Their faces mostly smiling, sometimes discontent; their voices filling the air with plans to meet or eat or shop or sightsee, or with reports of what they'd eaten or bought or seen. Wives giving husbands advice, husbands protesting that they didn't need it, mothers hanging on to children, fathers carrying babies, prams being pushed, young men and women eyeing each other or laughing with one another as they walked, bicycles being ridden or pushed.

A street full of life and escape, full of people who did not guess that the daughter of the president of the United States was among them somewhere, or that Shadow and his friends were out there somewhere, too, full of venom, wishing her worse than dead.

I stood on the dock between the yacht club and the Navigator Room, and looked out at the
Shirley J.
as she swung on her stake about halfway across to the Reading Room. I had a strong impulse to go steal Zee away from the hospital, get the dinghy and row us out to the boat, and sail away for a while. Maybe over to Tarpaulin Cove or up to Cuttyhunk. We'd stay until the president and
his family went back to Washington and took their troubles with them, then we'd come back and settle into our own lives.