A Fatal Vineyard Season (25 page)

We sat on the couch and I told Zee everything that had happened. When I was through, she shook her head. “I'm never going to be able to leave you home alone again, Jefferson!”

It seemed impolitic to tell her that I was glad she and the kids hadn't been here, since they'd have been just three more things for me to have worried about.

“Yes, dear,” I said. “You're absolutely right.”

“Don't ‘yes, dear' me, Jefferson. You're just saying that so I won't know that you're glad the kids and I weren't here because we'd just have been three more things for you to worry about!”

Smart Zee. I pulled her closer with my good arm. “Yes, dear. You're absolutely right.”

“I'll whack your bad arm if you don't stop that!”

I nuzzled her. “Yes, dear.”

“You're hopeless!” She turned toward me. “Oh, am I glad to be back!”

“Me, too. And I'm glad this business is all over.” My lips looked for hers and found them. Kisses sweeter than wine.

Bachelors are fools.

But as it turned out, the business wasn't quite over.

Pete Warner's wife didn't survive her heart attack. A week after they buried her, Pete, wearing a long coat, drove to Alberto Vegas's house and knocked on the door. When Alberto opened it, Pete emptied two barrels of buckshot into him, then drove to the police station and handed the gun to the kid at the desk.

A week after that, Ben Krane's office burned down. Arson. No clues.

Zee and I discussed the fire while we fished on East Beach. “Ben was the only one left for Cousin Henry to get at,” I said to her as I reeled in. My left arm still hurt, but you can't let a little hurt keep you from fishing. “Ben never did anything to the Crandels, but he was tied to the Vegas boys, and I guess that was enough for Henry. It's sort of like the Lord smiting evildoers unto the umpteenth generation.”

“Yeah. Or a plague on all their houses. Of course, Henry might not have had anything to do with it. A lot of people hate Ben Krane. How do you think a jury will handle Pete Warner?”

“With kid gloves.”

“I think so, too. Hey! Did you see that swirl!” She flipped her rod just a bit to make the lure jump. “There he is again. Hit it, fish!”

The fish tried but missed.

“Drat,” said Zee. “I don't think Henry would have done anything about it if what happened to Ivy had happened out in L.A., but it happened in OB, where he lives. Remind me never to make Cousin Henry mad at me.”

“No one could possibly be mad at you, sweets,” I said. “Well, blast and drat! Will you look at that! He takes a swipe at my plug and he hits yours!”

Her rod was bent and the fish was a good one.

“That's my fish!” I shook my fist at the sky. “I'm married to a fish thief!”

“No one could possibly be mad at me, sweets,” said Zee,
showing me her snow-white grin. “Just reel in so you don't tangle my line, and then go up and tend to the kiddies while their mom is busy doing woman's work.”

I did that and watched her land the biggest blue of the day and the third biggest in the whole Derby as things turned out. But we didn't know that then.

One thing we did know was that
Island of Emeralds
, starring Zeolinda Jackson and some other actors and actresses, would have its East Coast premiere on the island just before Christmas. Zee and I and other locals who had helped out when the film had been made were invited, along with various bigwigs and other island denizens deemed worthy of the honor.

Zee could hardly wait. When we'd gotten the news, she'd beamed at her son. “Will I be the face on the cutting-room floor? Or will I be a shining star? Afterwards, will I still speak to a mere mortal such as your dad? What do you think, Joshua?”

“Stay tuned,” I'd said to Diana, feeding her a sip of beer.

The best thing that happened was that Larry Curtis surprised everyone by coming out of his coma with only short-term memory loss. He had no recollection of being beaten and was past the worst of his healing pains before he even knew he needed fixing.

“It'll take a while, but we expect him to be back on the job before too long,” said Lisa Goldman.

Ivy Holiday was not so lucky. She never woke up and died two weeks after they airlifted her to Boston. Hollywood mourned; her friends mourned; even I mourned, but it didn't keep me from phoning William Peterson Calhoun and telling him what I thought.

“I can't prove anything, of course,” I said. “But you might be able to dig up enough to get your man another trial. Get in touch with a PI out there named Peter Brown. He knows a good deal about the case, and he may be able to help you out.”

Calhoun was careful. After all, he couldn't be sure I wasn't just setting his client up for a fall. “You think that if we dig into Ivy Holiday's past, we'll find a pattern of violence.”

“She was a hothead. She was passionate. She didn't like to be crossed. She did irrational things. That bare-breasted stunt, for instance. Her first husband hasn't been seen since they broke up. Her second one fell downstairs and killed himself. Her roommate, who started dating the guy who left Ivy, gets stabbed a dozen times. By your client, they say, but maybe not, because that many cuts strikes me as an act of passion, and he had no passion for the roommate. Ivy's shrink, the woman she talks to, confesses to, maybe, gets knocked off by somebody who didn't break into the office. Her fatherly old landlord, who likes to put his hands on the ladies who rent his apartments, gets run over by a car. I think there's a pattern there, but maybe you don't. It doesn't make any difference to me. Ivy's dead, and I don't plan on selling my story to the
National Planet.
”

“What about the letters? Somebody sent them to her.”

“Not your client, according to you. Check out Ivy's printer or typewriter or whatever she used to write.”

“But why would she keep writing them to herself?”

“You're the hotshot lawyer. You figure it out. Maybe she wanted to keep people thinking that your boy Mackenzie Reed was still after her, so they wouldn't have any second thoughts about him being guilty. Or maybe a shrink can explain it. I know one thing: Julia Crandel always seemed more nervous about the letter writer than Ivy did.”

Calhoun was still thinking about all that when I hung up.

In December,
Island of Emeralds
appeared on the screen of the new theater in Edgartown. The islanders who saw it spent most of their time noticing how a character would walk out of a house in Vineyard Haven and immediately be in a yard in Edgartown; how the hero would get in his car and drive a long distance to the house next door; how cute all the local children were; and how nice the island looked.

Kevin Turner and Kate Ballinger, the nominal stars of the film, were on hand and were interviewed by the
Gazette
and the
Times
and by the mainland papers, whose columnists were glad to have an excuse to go down to the Vineyard all expenses paid. The stars were quoted as saying how beautiful the island was and what fine folks the islanders were.

Zeolinda Jackson's face did not land on the cutting-room floor. During her minute or so on the screen, she spoke her one line and owned the camera. No wonder the
Boston Globe
interviewed her. No wonder she dazzled the reporter. No wonder the film's producer predicted that if she wanted a career in Hollywood, she could probably have it.

The wonder was that she didn't.

“I'm too busy right here,” she said to the
Globe
reporter. “I'm a nurse, I have two little kids, and I have a husband who gets into trouble whenever I'm gone.”

The reporter turned to me. “And what do you say to your wife about that, Mr. Jackson?”

I had Joshua on one knee and Diana on the other. I bounced them a bit and smiled at their mom. “I say, ‘Yes, dear. You're absolutely right.' ”

C
HRIS'S
B
EAN
D
IP

2 cans of kidney beans, drained and rinsed

¹
/
₃
medium onion, chopped fine

1 garlic clove, minced

¹
/
₃
cup mayonnaise

¹
/
₃
cup relish

dash of dry mustard

salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients together and refrigerate several hours. Serve with tortilla chips.

J.W. stole this recipe as he has stolen others and now considers it his own. It is, of course, delish!

B
LUEBARB
J
AM

1
¹
/
₂
cup rhubarb (about 1 lb., fresh)

¹
/
₄
cup water

4 cups blueberries, mashed

6
¹
/
₂
cups sugar

¹
/
₂
tsp. butter

¹
/
₂
bottle (3 oz.) Certo

Slice thinly (or chop) rhubarb (do not peel). Simmer in
¹
/
₄
cup water, covered, until soft (1–2 minutes). Crush blueberries and combine with rhubarb. Measure 3
¹
/
₂
cups combined fruit into a large saucepan and add sugar. Add
¹
/
₂
tsp. butter. Mix well.

Place over high heat, bring to a rolling boil, and boil hard for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and immediately stir in Certo. Skim off foam with a metal spoon. Stir and skim for five minutes to cool slightly and to prevent fruit from floating. Ladle into hot jars and seal.

Makes about eight 8-oz. jars of jam.

J.W. has this as part of his breakfast in this book. He loves it, and rightly so!

R
AISIN
B
RAN
M
UFFINS

IN A LARGE BOWL COMBINE:

5 cups sifted flour

2 tsp. salt

5 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. cinnamon

2
³
/
₄
cups sugar

ADD:

1 15-oz. package Kellogg's Raisin Bran cereal

MIX WELL WITH:

1 qt. buttermilk or yogurt

4 beaten eggs

1 cup cooking oil

ADD:

grated rind of 3 oranges (3 tbsp.)

1 cup chopped nuts

Refrigerate in container with tight lid. Keeps up to 6 weeks. Whenever you want fresh muffins, you bake as many as you need.

To bake: put dough in greased muffin tins, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar, bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.

J.W. mixes up a batch of this wonderful dough in this book. He considers the baked product to be the world's best bran muffins. And they are!

—P
HIL
C
RAIG

THE MARTHA'S VINEYARD MYSTERY SERIES BY PHILIP R. CRAIG

A Beautiful Place to Die

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #1)

Death in Vineyard Waters

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #2)

Vineyard Deceit

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #3)

Vineyard Fear

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #4)

Off Season

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #5)

A Case of Vineyard Poison

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #6)

Death on a Vineyard Beach

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #7)

A Deadly Vineyard Holiday

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #8)

A Shoot on Martha's Vineyard

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #9)

A Fatal Vineyard Season

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #10)

Vineyard Blues

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #11)

Vineyard Shadows

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #12)

Vineyard Enigma

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #13)

A Vineyard Killing

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #14)

Murder at a Vineyard Mansion

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #15)

Vineyard Prey

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #16)

Dead in Vineyard Sand

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #17)

Vineyard Stalker

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #18)

Vineyard Chill

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #19)