A Fatal Vineyard Season (4 page)

The visitors would have white wine, just like the ladies, the good ones at least, always have in the soap operas. I played host and brought out smoked bluefish pâté, cheese, and crackers, along with the drinks. By the time I'd done that, the women were in seemingly happy conversation. I sat in my favorite chair and listened.

It reminded me of hearing a conversation in the Confessional. Not the one in the Catholic church; the one in the Fireside bar in Oak Bluffs. The owners of the Fireside, which was often crowded with both the high and the low life of the Vineyard, had recently added some booths against the back wall, and it was soon discovered that whoever was talking in the last booth in the row could be clearly heard in the booth next door. This inexplicable auditory phenomenon quickly gave the last booth its name: the Confessional. None of the regulars would sit there unless they wanted their conversation to be totally public, but strangers were never informed of the Confessional's peculiar auditory characteristic and sometimes gave the lucky occupants of the next booth, known sardonically as priests, very satisfactory entertainment.

I had been tipped off to this by Bonzo, who swept the Fireside's floors and cleaned its tables. Bonzo had once been a bright lad, I'd been told, but some bad acid had done him in years before I met him, and now he was only a gentle child.

“It's like in church, J.W.,” he'd said in his wide-eyed way. “It's like you was the priest, you know? They talk and you listen. Sometimes the people listening even give them a penance, just like Father Joe does. I think it's sort of funny, but maybe it isn't. What do you think, J.W.?”

“I think I won't sit in the Confessional,” I'd said.

Bonzo had nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. Yeah, I think that might be a good idea, maybe. You're smart, J.W., you know that?”

Good old Bonzo.

Half listening now to the three women talking together made me wonder what real priests must hear in the pursuit of their spiritual duties as they listened to confessions. I doubted whether the most experienced of police officers were told more tales of the dark and quirky side of life than were priests.

I was glad I had gone into another trade.

I became aware that the women were talking about the stalker and began to listen.

“He can't be out of prison already,” said Zee. “The man's a killer!”

“Oh, he's still in prison,” said Julia. “He won't be out for a long time. But he still writes to Ivy! I don't know how he does it, but he does!”

“I give the letters to my lawyer whenever I get them,” said Ivy. “He says there's no law against writing letters.”

“It's maddening!” said Julia. “You can't imagine the things that man says. He wants to marry Ivy. And he tells her what they'll do afterward. It's obscene.” Julia looked at Ivy. “I don't know how you even read them anymore. I'd just pass them on.” She shivered.

“Mackenzie Reed's in prison,” said Zee in her soothing nurse's voice. “He can't hurt anyone again.”

Julia leaned forward. “But maybe it's not just him. I think he's got a friend who's not in jail. Who's outside!”

Zee gave her a sharp look. “Who?”

Julia and Ivy exchanged glances. “We don't know,” said Ivy.

“But we know he's there,” said Julia.

“How do you know?”

Julia's face was joyless. “Because somebody's mailing
those letters.” She hesitated. “And because of what happened to Jane Freed and Dick Hawkins.”

“Who are Jane Freed and Dick Hawkins? And what happened to them?”

“Jane was my therapist,” said Ivy. “After Mackenzie Reed killed Dawn, I needed one.” Ivy looked quickly at Julia. “She was Julia's therapist first, and Julia told me about her, and I went to her. She was just what I needed. I could tell her anything. Everything. It really helped.”

As I listened, I remembered more about the case, which had been greatly publicized because of its sensational elements: Hollywood, a stalker, a beautiful actress slain and mutilated, and another lovely actress, the intended victim, surviving by sheer chance. The story had irony, violence, and sensation enough for anyone.

They'd nailed Mackenzie Reed, still bloody, coming out of the apartment, inside of which Dawn Dawson's mutilated body was still warm. At the trial, an overwhelming case presented by the prosecution had forced the defense to put Reed on the stand. He'd admitted having phoned, written, and followed Ivy, and to loving her perhaps beyond measure. He'd admitted that he had, indeed, been in the apartment, after finding the door ajar, saying he'd gone inside because it was his first chance to actually get into a place where she lived. But he'd denied killing Dawn Dawson, saying he'd found her already dead and had gotten bloody from touching her to see if she were still alive. He said he'd tried to run away because he knew he'd be blamed for her killing because of his obsession with Ivy. He swore he was innocent of murder.

It had taken the jury only two hours to find him guilty, and no one thought they'd rushed to judgment.

“What happened to Jane Freed?” asked Zee.

“She was killed about a year after Ivy started seeing her,” said Julia. “They think some drug addict broke into her office and that Jane found him there and he killed her. They never found out who did it.”

“How awful,” said Zee.

Julia nodded. “For everyone. I guess Jane kept some medicines there, and this guy, whoever he was, was after them. He killed her with a paperweight she had there on her desk. They found her the next day.”

I said, “Who's Dick Hawkins?”

“It's really unbelievable,” said Ivy, looking at me. “Dick owns the apartment Julia and I have been sharing since . . . since Dawn was killed. He's not only been our landlord, he's been a good friend to us. A sort of father figure and protector. Then, last month, somebody stole Dick's car, and when Dick tried to stop him, the guy ran him down! Right there in front of our apartment building. He's still in the hospital and may never walk again.”

“They found the car,” said Julia, “but they never found the driver.” She and Ivy both had large eyes as they looked at me. “It's as though everybody we know is getting killed. Everyone we get close to. I know it's silly to say this, but it's like we have the kiss of death. If we like you or love you, you die.”

Ivy looked at me. “I know you were wondering why we wanted you to go around the house with us. We're being very careful.”

“All that happened in California,” I said, “and you're a long way from California right now. You're right to be careful, because we've got our share of wackos on the East Coast, but I don't think you're cursed with the fatal touch or anything like that, and I think that being three thousand miles from L.A. is probably good insulation against whatever happened out there.”

“But two people are dead,” said Ivy, studying me with those great dark eyes, “and another one almost died. Three of my friends. Three people who were close to me and tried to help me.”

“It's a rotten world sometimes,” I said. “But there's no pattern to the things that happened to your friends, so one
thing probably had nothing to do with any other. It was just the fickle finger of fate. Sometimes a lot of bad things happen at about the same time for no reason at all, and we get caught up in the mess. I think that's what's happened to you. I think you should both forget this notion that you have the touch of death, or that your friends are doomed, and try to have a vacation. I think you both need one.”

Julia sighed and sat back. “That's what we've been saying to ourselves. We know you're right, but . . .”

“No buts,” said Zee in a matronly tone that impressed me because she was barely older than her two guests. “You put those terrible things behind you and relax. It's September and you're on Martha's Vineyard. September is the best time to be anywhere north of the equator, and the Vineyard is no exception to the rule. Most of the tourists are gone, the water is still warm, we only have one hurricane left and it's way down south, so all is well. You should put California out of your minds.”

The two young women exchanged looks, then put smiles on their faces. “Yes,” said Julia. “You're right. We'll just be vacationers like everybody else.”

“We'd love to have you up for drinks before we go,” said Julia later as they got into their car.

“Tomorrow I'm off with the kids to see my mama over in America,” said Zee. “I'm afraid I won't be around for a while.”

“Too bad,” said Ivy. She looked at me. “Maybe you'll come by, J.W.”

“I've been known to have a cocktail,” I said.

The car drove away.

“She has great come-hither eyes, doesn't she?” said Zee.

“Who?”

“You know who.”

“Oh, her.”

Martha's Vineyard is a magic place that can isolate you from the real world for a while and cleanse your soul, and I
hoped that it would do that for Ivy Holiday and Julia Crandel. But as the old Indian medicine singer said when his spell failed, sometimes the best magic doesn't work. Two nights later, someone kicked in the front door of the Crandel house, took a knife from the kitchen, and went upstairs after Ivy and Julia.

It happened the second evening after I had put Zee and the children on the
Schamonchi
and seen them off to New Bedford. I was home alone late that night, reading and feeling wide-awake and lonesome in our double bed, when the phone rang. It was Julia Crandel.

“Come quick! There's a man with a knife!”

“Call 911,” I said, feeling cold and emotionless the way you sometimes do when there's a crisis. “I'm on my way. Are you both safe right now?”

“Yes! Yes! But hurry! Hurry!”

I got into shorts, Teva sandals, and a sweatshirt, then took Zee's little Beretta 84F out of the gun cabinet and slapped a magazine into it. It was less bulky than my old S and W police .38 and had more firepower to boot. Ten minutes later, after some illegal driving, I pulled up in front of the Crandel house.

There were lights in every window and police cruisers at the curb. It was just after midnight, but lights in neighboring houses were also going on, and people were beginning to come out onto their porches and into the street.

An Oak Bluffs police officer held up a hand as I walked across the lawn. “Sorry, sir. I'm afraid you'll have to go back to the street.”

I gave him my name and told him about the call I'd gotten. He listened without changing expression, then pulled out his radio and spoke into it. After a moment, he nodded
and put the radio back on his belt. “Okay, I guess you can go on in.”

I went up onto the porch, where I met another police officer. We both went in through the front door. It was a heavy door in a solid frame, but the frame was splintered where the lock had been. There was also a bolt lock on the door, but it hadn't been shot home. If it had been, the door wouldn't have been kicked open so easily. If they'd been in New York or in Los Angeles or in any other city, Ivy and Julia would have used that bolt lock, but in Oak Bluffs, in spite of the stalker, they hadn't felt the need. I could understand that feeling since I usually don't lock the doors of our house even though I know perfectly well that percentage-wise there are probably just as many housebreakers and other bad guys on the island as anywhere else.

In the living room I found Lisa Goldman, the chief of the OBPD, a couple of other police officers, and Ivy and Julia. The latter two were seated on a couch close together, looking paler than when last we'd been together.

Seeing me, Julia jumped up and hugged my arm. “I'm glad you're here. I'm sorry I called you. But . . .” She paused and brushed at her forehead with her hand. “I'm not making much sense, am I?”

“You're making enough,” I said. I looked over her head at Lisa Goldman. She and I had known each other for years, even though I'd never spent much time in OB, if you didn't count my mostly bachelor visits to the Fireside. “What happened?” I asked.

Lisa Goldman didn't look like a police chief. She had one of those faces that doesn't change much after junior high school. Although she was Zee's age, she still looked about fifteen years old. Her face had deceived many a perp, who mistook her for an innocent when she was anything but that, and her gentle manner gave no hint of her ability to handle herself in a scuffle quite nicely, thank you, if a scuffle was necessary. However, like most cops, Lisa preferred to
talk hard cases into accepting arrest, and she was quite good at it. She was, in fact, a savvy, experienced cop who only happened to look like a schoolgirl.

Now, she poked a thumb toward the door. “Intruder kicked the door in. Went into the kitchen and got a knife, then went upstairs and tried to get into Miss Holiday's room. She'd locked her door when she'd gone to bed and was reading when she heard the noise downstairs. Then the guy came up and put the knife blade right through a panel in her bedroom door. There's a connecting door between her room and Miss Crandel's room, so she ran in there, and the two of them jammed chairs under the doorknobs of the two doors leading to the room and called us. Maybe the guy heard the sirens, or maybe he got spooked for some other reason, but after he gave Miss Holiday's door a couple of kicks and did a little carving on it with the knife, he split. We found the knife out on the lawn. It looks like it was wiped clean. That's about it.”

“Any ideas about who it was?”

“Yeah,” said a young cop. “We got an idea, but having an idea ain't enough to arrest anybody.” He sounded angry.

“Who?” I asked Lisa.

She opened her mouth, but before she could speak, the young cop said, “Alexandro Vegas, that's who. The son of a bitch!”

“Now, Mickey,” said Lisa in her soothing voice, “we don't know that. Don't jump to conclusions.”