A Fatal Vineyard Season (23 page)

I went down Cooke Street, took a right onto Peases Point Way, and drove south to Katama. Already, a lot of cars were parked near the beach, as people checked out the rising surf. Such storm surfs are popular entertainment for coastal dwellers, and it's not at all unusual for swimmers to cavort in the waves or, occasionally, for some fun-seeking person to be drowned in them.

I eased along, looking for the car in which I'd first seen Mills and Jack Harley when they were parked in front of the Crandel house. I never found it, but in the parking lot at the Herring Creek end of the public beach, I found a large black Cadillac. Other cars were in the lot, as well, and people were walking to and from the beach, laughing and
talking the way they do when they know a big wind is coming but it hasn't affected them yet.

I peeked inside the Caddie and saw food containers, cigarette butts, and beer cans—the kind of mess that I'd come to expect from Alexandro. But no people were there. The doors were unlocked. Who would dare steal Alexandro Vegas's car, after all? I walked toward the surf on the far side of the dunes. The water was gray and the waves weren't too big yet, but swells were rolling in from the south, reaching far ahead of the winds that had created them. The sky was pale blue, made wan by high, thin clouds. Toward the horizon the clouds were thicker and darker.

Several dozen people, mostly on the youngish side, were on the beach, playing tag with the waves or just watching the white water of the surf. A few young men were out in the water, laughing and shouting. I had done that sort of thing myself at one time; but not now. I studied the crowd, but didn't see Alexandro, Mills, or Ivy Holiday. I walked among the people, asking them if anyone had seen them. I soon learned that Ivy's name was usually enough identification, and that I didn't need to give a description of her. But no one had seen her or anyone who looked like either of the men. I worked my way west, toward the distant haze that was Squibnocket, through a thinning crowd, asking everyone I met. Finally, well away from the area where most of the surf watchers had gathered, I got a possible ID.

A young man and woman seated on a blanket beside a break through the dunes that led from the beach to the parking lot had seen a girl who might have been Ivy, but she wasn't with a man who looked like Mills; she was with the biggest man either of them had ever seen. The girl had apparently been sick, because the man was helping her, almost carrying her, out to the parking lot. They had come from that way, over toward the west.

I got a feeling I didn't like and walked west. After a while, far ahead, I could see something awash in the surf, and I
began to run. Mills's body, still clothed, was rolling and slipping, first toward shore, then toward the sea. I got to him and with my good arm dragged him up away from the grasping waves. He was heavy, and his clothing was weighty with water. When I got him up onto dry sand, I yelled down the beach, but I knew the sound of the sea would prevent anyone from hearing me. I put a finger to Mills's throat and an ear to his chest. Nothing. I rolled him over and worked on him. Water came out of his mouth. I worked on him more, then shouted down the beach again, and then worked some more, knowing all the time that I was doing no good. It was too late for Mills; he had gone to some other place and wasn't coming back.

After a while I gave up and trotted back to the east. I paused at the blanket to ask the young couple to keep an eye on the body, then went to the Land Cruiser and phoned the police.

The sirens brought two cruisers and an ambulance, and a bit later, a rush of curious surf watchers, anxious to see what catastrophe warranted such interest by the authorities.

The young couple closest to the disaster quickly became experts whose opinions were greatly in demand.

I told Tony D'Agostine how I'd come to find the body. Tony had heard the missing-person story, but like most cops in prestorm time had been too busy to do much looking on his own. I showed him the Caddy. He took a look around the parking lot.

“The big guy and the girl must have taken off in Mills's car. Maybe somebody saw them go. You describe the car?”

I told him what it looked like and said he should call Jack Harley for particulars.

Tony nodded. “Mills here has a holster on his belt, but no piece.”

“I noticed that. Maybe it's in the surf.”

“Maybe. Alexandro is a convicted felon, so he can't own a piece of his own. Not legally anyway.”

“Maybe he doesn't have to buy one, now.”

“Yeah.” Tony got on the cruiser radio for a few minutes, then went out to the entrance to the parking lot to stop anyone who might have seen something from leaving. Soon more sirens came from Edgartown, and the parking lot became fairly well populated with cops, including members of the sheriff's department and Olive Otero of the state police.

Olive gave me a sour look. One of the reasons we don't get along is because she thinks fishing is a waste of time. How can you like someone like that?

“You,” she said. “I should have known. Jackson is just another word for trouble.”

“Now, Olive,” I said. “No snobbery, please. Just remember that I'm the public and you're my servant.”

She snarled and started up toward the beach as the deputies and the Edgartown cops gathered around Tony, then scattered to question everyone on hand as to what they had or hadn't seen.

I phoned the emergency ward at the hospital. No, no one resembling Ivy Holiday had come in. So much for wishful thinking. I hung up and phoned the Crandel house. Jack Harley answered in a professionally neutral voice. I told him what I'd been told and had seen on the beach. He swore.

“You be very careful,” I said. “Don't let Julia out of your sight!”

“Yes.” His voice was shaky, but calm. “I'll call Boston and get some more help down here right away. Jesus. Poor Willy.”

Willy. So Mills had a first name, too. I'd found out a little late.

I went over to Tony and told him about my calls. “I can't tell you any more about the situation here,” I said. “I'll come by the office later and give you a statement. Meanwhile, I'm going on the assumption that Alexandro has the
girl. He's just fool enough to do something like this and think he can get away with it. Somebody had better find him and do it fast. The guy's finally killed somebody!”

Tony nodded. “Yeah. I've called the chief and told him the same thing, and he's going to get on it. This is an island, so Alexandro can't just drive off of it. He's still here somewhere. We'll find him.”

“The quicker, the better. Maybe Alberto knows where he's gone.”

“Alberto Vegas hates cops!”

“Alberto loves Alberto, though. Maybe you can make a trade: Alexandro for taking some heat off of Alberto's business transactions.”

Tony grunted. “It ain't up to me to make any deals like that, but I'll send the idea along.”

“If the chief doesn't like that notion, maybe he'll like the one that Alberto loves Alexandro so much that he's hiding him and Ivy Holiday someplace. In his own house, maybe. Has anybody looked there?”

“Don't ask me. Ask the OBPD!”

I did that on my car phone before I left the parking lot, first telling Lisa Goldman about the body on the beach and what the young couple had reported to me. Lisa told me that since we'd last spoken she had persuaded Alberto that it was in his best interest to prove that Alexandro wasn't in Alberto's house and had been given a fast tour of the place to prove it.

“He wasn't happy about showing us his house, but he did it,” said Lisa. “Then I put an officer on watch to make sure Alexandro didn't slip in after we left. We're going to have to look for him and the woman someplace else.”

Where? “Did Alberto have any idea where little brother might be?”

“I asked him that, and he said he didn't.”

Honest Alberto.

I didn't think we had much time to find Ivy. My best hope
for her, in fact, was that Alexandro would want to do a lot of things to her before he killed her. For that, he'd need privacy.

Privacy.

I drove to Edgartown and parked in the lot at the foot of Main. People were still taping glass, fastening shutters, taking down swinging signs, and nailing plywood over windows. Over at Collins Beach men were still hauling boats. A wind was blowing.

Near the dock where Alberto had moored the Whaler, I found the car belonging to Mills and Harley. The Whaler and
Invictus
were gone.

I walked over to the harbormaster's shack on the town dock and stuck my head inside. The harbormaster was out, as might be expected what with Elmer on his way. Like the cops, he had enough to do under normal conditions; with a hurricane coming, he had even more. But one of his young assistants, Carl Duarte, was in the shack, talking into a radio. When he was through, he looked at me and I asked him who had gone aboard the
Invictus
. He shook his head.

“I don't know. She headed outside an hour or two ago, is all I can tell you. There's been a lot of coming and going on the water. People bringing in their boats, and whatnot.”

“I'd like to know who went aboard her.”

“I'll ask the boss. I don't think he's been home since yesterday morning, what with helping guys, and all.”

Duarte turned and spoke into his radio. The harbormaster's voice crackled back. “That's the Vegas boat. No, I don't know who's aboard her. I been busy down-harbor quite a while and wouldn't have seen anybody coming or going. Maybe you can raise her on the radio.”

“Will do.” Duarte put aside the speaker and rubbed his chin. “You want to contact the boat, J.W.?”

What could I lose? “Sure. Give it a try. Find out who's on board and where they're going.”

Duarte made his call, but got no answer. He tried several times, then looked at me and shrugged.

I looked out at the harbor, where the wind was now stirring the once flat waters.

“It's beginning to breeze up,” said Duarte.

It was beginning to breeze up in my psyche, too. I walked back to the Land Cruiser and drove over to the Reading Room dock, where I found a parking place amid other trucks. Maybe somebody there had seen something.

On Collins Beach, most of the dinghies normally tied alongside the dock were gone. The ones remaining had been carried up to the back of the beach and made fast to the fence there. With luck, the tides wouldn't get that high. Frank Goulart was hauling his ten-footer to his truck, so I gave him a hand loading it. He wiped his brow.

“You're getting old, Frank,” I said. “Come a storm warning, you're usually the first one out of here, not the last.”

“Yeah. Gettin' slow, I guess.”

“You see anybody go aboard the
Invictus
?”

“Yeah. In that Whaler. Guy was sober, but the girl looked drunk. Couldn't even stand up. Wouldn't want a drunk woman on a boat of mine. Not with this blow coming. Damned fools, if you ask me.”

But I was already turning away and heading for my truck.

If Lisa Goldman said that no one was in Alberto's house, then no one was in Alberto's house. But she hadn't said anything about the
Invictus
. Maybe because she didn't know the boat was there. After all, the dock was below the bluff and maybe out of sight of the house, and the last thing Lisa had heard about the boat was that she was on a mooring in Edgartown. Or maybe she'd gotten there after Lisa had searched the house. Or maybe the boat wasn't there at all. If she wasn't, where was she?

Through the rising wind and falling darkness, I drove along Barnes Road till I came to Alberto's driveway, where, as Lisa had said there would be, I saw a parked car with a police officer in it. Leaves and a few small branches were beginning to blow from the trees as I stopped, rolled down my window, and said, above the sound of the wind, “I'm J. W. Jackson. Is Alberto at home?”

“I know who you are,” she said. “I've seen you in the station. No, Alberto's back at his office. Nobody's here.”

A car was parked beside the house, at the head of the road leading down to the dock. I pointed at it.

“That's his wife's car,” she said. “But she's with him at the office. I'm telling you that there's nobody in the house.”

“I think I'll go knock on the door.”

“No. It's probably better if you don't. The place isn't actually a crime scene, but it'll be better for everyone if you don't go down there. You should leave this business to the police.”

“Are you going to arrest me if I go down there?”

“Look, I know you want to help, but you'll really be helping if you just go home and stay there until this is over.”

“Do you know if the
Invictus
is down at the dock?” As I spoke, I heard a low rumble. It sounded like distant, rolling thunder, and it came from beyond Alberto's house.

“The
Invictus
. That's Alberto's boat, isn't it? Well, as far as I know, the
Invictus
is in Edgartown.”

The wind sang through the trees, and the thunder rolled. I raised my voice. “She's not down there anymore. Alexandro took her out today and he had Ivy Holiday with him.”

“What!” She reached for her radio. “I'd better report that! Stay right there.”

But in that moment I knew what the thunder was.

“You hear those engines?” I shouted. “That's the
Invictus
! She's headed out of here!”

I slammed the Land Cruiser into gear and spun gravel as I sped down the driveway. Sylvia Vegas's car blocked the road that led down to the boathouse and dock, so I skidded to a stop beside the house, jumped out of the truck, and ran, limping, past the car and down the road.

The
Invictus
was moving away from the pier, with a giant figure at the controls on the flying bridge. I ran out on the dock as the boat cleared the last piling and made a wild leap just as Alexandro pushed his throttles forward and the rumble of the engines became a roar.