A Vineyard Killing (5 page)

I talked with people in the town halls of all of the Vineyard's six villages. It took quite a while, and when I was through I knew that John Reilley paid no local taxes on the island and was not registered to vote.

I tried the registry of motor vehicles. John didn't own a car. No surprise there; you don't need a license to drive a moped.

I tried the post offices in the various towns and finally learned something. John had a box in the Vineyard Haven PO. That was helpful because in order to get a PO box you have to have an address that the post office people can verify. The problem was that the PO won't give you the address of one of its customers unless you have a legit reason to get it, such as a warrant or a summons. I had neither, of course, but I had something even better: a PO employee for whom I'd once done an invaluable favor. I had taken her fishing and she'd nailed a thirty-pound bass. She owed me a lot, and paid me with the address.

I didn't have high expectations of benefiting from this information because, according to my source, John had gotten his box years before. But sometimes things work out, so I got into a heavy sweater and my foul-weather gear and drove to Vineyard Haven. I needed the sweater because the heater in my old Land Cruiser doesn't work too well.

The address John had given the PO was an upstairs apartment just off State Road in one of the village's less attractive neighborhoods. I climbed the outside staircase, ducking against the rain, and knocked at the door.

After a while, a woman peeked at me through the window and decided I was trusty-looking enough to risk opening the door. She looked tired, and behind her I could hear a baby crying. I told her I was looking for John Reilley. She said she had never heard of him. I asked her how long she'd lived there and she said since last fall. I asked her if it was a winter rental and she said yes and that she and her family had to get out by June. When she said that, her voice was sad and angry but resigned.

It was a familiar situation on the island. You can get a winter rental fairly cheaply, but you have to leave in late spring so the landlord can rent the place for a fortune during the summer, when people will pay anything to stay on Martha's Vineyard. This place looked like the kind that college kids would rent while they worked and played between semesters. Three or four of them would officially rent the apartment, then another dozen would move in and share the expenses. They would all find jobs and promise to stay at them until Labor Day, but in mid-August they would quit so they could spend the last two weeks of the summer enjoying sun, surf, sand, and sex before heading back to school.

I asked her for the landlord's name and address.

She gave me a curious look. “You going to rent this dump?”

“No. I'm just trying to find John Reilley.”

“He in some kind of trouble? You some kind of cop?”

“He isn't in any trouble that I know of. He used to live here, and I'd like to find him. It's just a personal matter.”

She gave me the landlord's name and address and I walked back down the stairs through the rain.

The landlord was a realtor who had an office on Main Street. Since it was March I actually found a parking space not far away.

In the office I learned that John Reilley hadn't lived in the apartment for years. He'd rented it for one winter then moved out in June. The people in the office had no idea where he lived now.

I walked up to the Vineyard Haven National Bank and went into Hazel Fine's office. Hazel was wearing bankers' clothes adorned with a simple lapel pin in the shape of a scallop shell. Her dark hair looked newly cut and shaped. She rose, smiling, when I peeked in her door.

“J.W.! Come in. How's the family?”

“Everybody's fine. Both kids are in school, Zee's at the hospital, and I'm the only one with time to wander around and interrupt bankers at work. I can see that you're doing well. How's Mary?”

Hazel and Mary Coffin had lived together for years in a house within walking distance of the bank. They were a happy, creative pair who had played Baroque music at Zee's and my wedding. Hazel was my contact with the world of banking and finance, about which I knew next to nothing and would never know more, being afflicted with the equivalency of color blindness with regard to money. I just didn't get it.

Hazel waved me to a chair. “Mary's just fine and you always were good at avoiding steady work. So Joshua and Diana are both in school. Boy, time does fly, doesn't it? What brings you out in this weather? You need a loan?”

“No, I'm too cheap to need a loan. I never buy anything that costs enough for me to have to borrow money. What I want is an opinion and some information.”

“I'm strong on opinion. Let's start there.”

“What do you think of this business with Donald Fox? Is he actually going to be able to get his hands on island properties by doing what he's doing?”

She put her slender fingers together. “Did he make an offer on your place?”

“His agent did. Albert Kirkland, the guy who got himself killed behind the Fireside a couple of days back.”

She frowned. “Does that put you on the suspect list?”

I shrugged. “I think everybody's on the list right now.”

“Did Kirkland make the usual pitch? An offer to buy your place for a quarter of what it's worth and a threat to take it for even less if you don't sell?”

“That's the normal Saberfox MO, as I understand it. Is it a legit business practice?”

She allowed herself a thin smile. “Legit business practices are any practices that work, as far as the businessmen who practice them are concerned. Sometimes the courts take a different view, but as far as I know Donald Fox is doing just fine. He's got more high-powered lawyers than the federal government and they've fended off everybody who's had the nerve to think about suing Fox.”

“My impression is that he always bluffs first.”

“I think that's right. He stays away from people with as much money and as many lawyers as he has, but he comes on strong and tries to scare normal people into selling. When that works, it saves him both money and time. But if it doesn't work, he puts his people to work on old land-sale records. Sometimes they find enough mistakes to get their hands on property, and in a place like this island, where land is worth more than gold, he's going to make some money. He's smart.”

“And legal.”

She shrugged. “So far nobody's been able to prove that he isn't. I hope for your sake that your deeds are good.”

Me, too. Maybe I should get in touch with Brady Coyne, up in Boston, I mused. Paperwork for rich clients was his specialty. I wasn't rich, but I could probably tempt him to check out my deeds by offering him a fishing weekend in late May, when the bluefish would be in. Brady had an incurable addiction to fly-fishing.

I said, “The information I need is about a guy named John Reilley. I'd like to know if he has a bank account on the island.”

She looked at me, then shook her head. “Would you want a bank to tell people if you had an account there? Then what would be next, your account number?”

“I know there's a way to find out,” I said. “I just don't know what it is.” I felt a smile on my face. “I take it you're not it.”

She smiled back. “Sorry, J.W. I will tell you this, though, just for old times' sake. John Reilley doesn't have an account at Vineyard Haven National. I know who John is, and I've never seen him in here.”

“Well, that narrows the field a little, anyway.”

“Try some of your shady friends. One of them might know somebody with that sort of information.”

“I don't have any shady friends. I only have some friends who don't talk much about what they do.”

“Like me, in this case.” She laughed and I left.

It was past noon and I was hungry, so I walked through the windy rain down to the E and E Deli for lunch. The boy behind the counter was the same one who'd been there when Paul Fox had gotten himself shot. He gave me a nervous look and an excellent sandwich.

While I ate it I wondered if John Reilley came in here often, and if so, why. Did he live nearby? When I finished the sandwich I went back to the counter and asked the boy if John Reilley was a steady customer.

“Who's John Reilley?” he asked.

I described John and said that he'd been there the day of the shooting. The kid didn't remember him.

I drove to Edgartown, my windshield wipers slapping time just like in “Bobby McGee.” I parked right in front of the courthouse and went inside. John Reilley had never been arrested or done anything else to get his name on official records.

Saint John.

I drove to the police station and went into the Chief's office. He was busy with papers. I pointed at his computer. “I thought those things were going to eliminate the need for paper and file cabinets and all that sort of thing.”

“Ha! I have more paperwork now than I did before. I have to keep backup records of everything in case the computer goes down. If the damned computer goes down, the whole world stops. You're smart not to have one in spite of what people say about your brain.”

I sat down across from him. “I'm trying to find out where John Reilley lives. You ever do any business with him?”

“You're dripping on my floor. I know who John Reilley is. He rides that moped everywhere, summer and winter. But he's never come to our attention, as the papers sometimes say. He must live somewhere, but I don't know where. Doesn't he work for Connell and Carlson, building some of these castles people are putting up nowadays?”

“I guess I'll try to catch him at work.”

“That's more than anybody will ever be able to do if they're looking for you. How's the family?”

“The family is fine, including the cats. John Reilley is a hard guy to find.”

“I wish I was,” said the Chief, giving me a steady look. “People interrupt me here all the time. Please don't tell me that you've got your nose in this Saberfox affair, because we already have some company vigilantes telling us how to do our business. A couple of them know for sure that Rick Black took that shot at Paul Fox and they're mad as wet hens because we haven't already arrested him. They don't think we've even got him on the suspect list. I swear I'm going to quit this job and move to Nova Scotia.”

He'd been saying that for years. I left him to his pile of papers and went dripping back out into the wind and rain.

The weather was the kind that kept contractors from doing outside work, so my chances of spotting John Reilley before he spotted me were pretty slim. To find him I'd probably have to go inside whatever mansion he was helping to build and that would tip him off that I was snooping.

So I went home and phoned Connell and Carlson's office.

“I've just bought a piece of property on Edgartown harbor,” I said to the woman who answered. “I plan to take the place down and rebuild, and your firm has been recommended to me. If this weather ever clears I'd like to take a look at some of the projects you're working on. Nothing formal, just a look to get an idea about your work. If I like it, I'll get back to you. You have anything being built right now?”

Of course they did, and she told me where. In return, she got my name, Quincy Adams, a fictitious Connecticut phone number (I was only on the island for a couple of days this trip), and my reassurances that if I liked what I saw at the building site I'd be by to talk to someone in the office.

The quicker the better, advised the woman. Business was booming and more orders were coming in all the time. Did I want someone to meet me at the site?

I said no, because my schedule was tight and I didn't know yet when I'd be free, but if she'd advise the foreman that I hoped to come by in the next two days, I'd appreciate it.

She understood perfectly.

The house was being built on a Chilmark hill off Middle Road. I drove through the rain and found the lane leading up to the site. There were other large summer houses along the road, both below and above the new construction. I loafed past the parked pickups of the workmen and the Connell and Carlson trucks and vans and saw that the new house was going to be a beauty, with no expense spared. Just like the place Quincy Adams was going to build in Edgartown.

Better yet, I saw a moped with a box behind the seat leaning against a tree. Clearly a little rain did not stay John Reilley from using his bike to get to and from work.

I turned around in a driveway up the hill from the construction site and drove back. In a driveway near Middle Road I found a place where I could park and wait pretty much out of sight of anyone coming down the hill.

But not today. I had other duties to perform and drove home to do them. By the time the kids came sloshing down the driveway, kicking pools of water as they came, I had warm cocoa and cookies waiting and supper, a seafood casserole, ready for the oven.

I got them out of their rain gear and put them in front of the fire to warm up while they snacked and gave me their reports of their day. School didn't seem to have changed much from when I was a kid their age.

“Pa?”

“What?”

“Can we go out and play in the rain?”

“No, not today. Today you play inside.”

“Aw, Pa!”

I pointed to the sign above the kitchen door.

“What does that say?”

“‘No sniveling.' But we're not sniveling.”

“You're getting ready to. No, today is an indoor day. Do you have any homework?”

“No. Can we watch television?”

“What's on?”

“I don't know.”

“You can watch for one hour.”

As far as I knew, we had the only black-and-white TV on Martha's Vineyard, or maybe in the whole world. Zee and I watched Red Sox games sometimes, so I couldn't argue when Joshua and Diana wanted to watch something for an hour. I didn't care what they watched and rarely had to advise them that their hour was up, since they were usually bored by then.

They had abandoned the tube and the three of us were on the floor playing Crazy Eights by the time Zee came home, shrugged out of her raincoat, and gave her children and me kisses. After she changed into other clothes, she joined us in the game. Crazy Eights is one of those games that can be played just as well by kids as by grown-ups, and is far better entertainment than television. The cats lay on the rug watching us. It was quality family time.

After taking a beating from my children, I left the game, put the casserole in the oven, got the vodka out of the freezer, and filled two glasses. Two olives per glass, black ones for Zee, green ones stuffed with peppers for me, completed the drinks. She, too, then abandoned the game and while we sipped the drinks in front of the fire and watched Joshua and Diana battle it out on the floor, I told her what Maria Donawa had asked me to do and about my day since then.

“Well,” said Zee, “I suppose I might want to protect my mother, too. Do you really think John Reilley might be a gigolo or even dangerous?”

“He's never done anything to attract the attention of the local police. People who cause trouble usually do.”

“What are you going to do next?”

“I thought I might follow him home tomorrow, just to see where he lives. He has to live somewhere, but nobody knows where. So far, in fact, nobody knows much about him at all.”

“But he's been on the island for quite a while, hasn't he? Somebody must know about him. Why don't you just ask him about himself?”

“Dodie asked him where he lives, but when Maria tried to check out the address, she couldn't find it. I don't think Maria wants her mother or him to know she's checking up on him. By tomorrow night I should know where he lives, at least.”

“I'll leave work early tomorrow, so I'll be here when the tots get home. That'll give you time to play detective.”

I put my arm around her. “What more can a man ask than the love of a good woman?”

“How about the love of a bad one?” she asked, putting a grasping hand in a delicate spot.

“You're right!” I said in falsetto.

“What did you say, Pa?”

“Nothing, Diana.”

The next day was cold but clear, and about four in the afternoon I made a fruitless stop at Dodie's house just in case John had stopped by for tea. He hadn't, and a half hour later I was parked in the hidden driveway in Chilmark reading Velikovsky, who had written my car book, and waiting for the work gang to leave the half-built house up the hill.

A dark green Range Rover went up the lane. Was that a Saberfox car, or was it carrying someone else who made more money than most of the carpenters on the job?

Just as I got to the part of Velikovsky's book where the Earth is first brushed by the tail of Venus, vehicles began to come down the lane. I put the book in the door pocket and started my engine.

After a few minutes John Reilley passed by on his moped and I let a pickup go by before easing out behind him. At the foot of the lane John and the pickup turned left and headed for West Tisbury. I trailed along with yet other trucks and cars behind me. The narrow, up-island roads are not conducive to passing, so we wound along head to tail like a mother duck and her ducklings.

In West Tisbury, John and the pickup headed toward Edgartown. That was interesting because John had told Dodie that he lived near the Vineyard Haven–West Tisbury line.

Maybe he was going shopping in Edgartown before he went home.

But instead of going to Edgartown, he turned left on Airport Road and putted along toward the blinker. The pickup that had been between us went straight on, but a line of oncoming cars from Edgartown kept me from turning left and following the moped. When I finally managed it, John was far ahead and there were several cars between us.

That would have been fine, but then one of the cars in front of me was held up by more oncoming traffic before making a left turn into the industrial park. By the time my line of cars got going again, John was out of sight.

Blad dast it! When I'm king of the world I'm banning all left turns.

When I finally got to the blinker John was still out of sight. I had three choices: right to Edgartown, where a cold-looking hitchhiker was trying to thumb a ride, left to Vineyard Haven, or straight ahead to Oak Bluffs. Since John could have gone to either Edgartown or Vineyard Haven by shorter routes than this one, I went toward Oak Bluffs, following Barnes Road.

With me hurrying and John on a moped, I figured I should catch up with him, but John did not come into view.

Hmmmm.

I turned around at the fire department and drove back to the blinker. The hitchhiker was still there, looking colder than ever. I pulled over to him and stopped. He opened the door and got in.

“Thanks, buddy. I thought I was going to freeze my ass off out there.”

“The first rule of hitching is that nobody owes you a ride. How long have you been here?”

“Half hour, maybe.”

“You see a moped go by, coming from the airport?”

“Nah. Too cold for mopeds. Summer is moped time.”

“Where you headed?”

“Edgartown. I got a room there. Got to clear out of it in June, but it's mine for now.”

“I'll take you to your door.”

“Well, thanks, buddy. I appreciate that.”

I drove him to his address, because I owed him that much, then went back to the blinker. Somewhere between there and the industrial park John Reilley had turned off. I turned into the Deer Run development and followed its various streets, seeing no sign of the moped. Then I drove back to Airport Road and drifted slowly along looking for driveways. There weren't too many, but when I found one I took it: houses but no mopeds.

A lot of the land was state forest that contained bicycle paths and fire lanes but few buildings of any kind. Had John driven off on one of those paths? I pulled over and stopped and looked down one as far as I could see.

No John was in sight.

Mysteriouser and mysteriouser.

I checked my rearview mirror to make sure I wouldn't get run over when I pulled back onto the road. Back there a quarter of a mile or so was what looked like a green Range Rover parked by the side of the road.

I drove toward the Edgartown–West Tisbury road. The green Range Rover pulled onto the highway and followed along. I turned toward Edgartown and a bit later saw that the Range Rover had done the same.

I had a tail.