Death on a Vineyard Beach (4 page)

We went north over the Bourne Bridge up to 495, took a right onto 24, another onto 128, and a left onto the Southeast Expressway, and so on into the city. From my Boston cop days I had a little local knowledge, so we managed to find a fairly cheap hotel not too far from the Wang Center that provided a decent room for us and a parking place for our car, which I had no intention of using while we were in town. It was Saturday morning, so the traffic hadn't been bad, but not even I was such an idiot as to drive in downtown Boston when I didn't have to. Better by far to take the T, or grab a cab. Or, better yet, to walk, since Boston is a very walkable city. Like London, someone once told
me, although I wouldn't know, never having been to London.

Boston was hot and full of exhaust fumes, but Fenway Park would be better. Under a pale blue sky, we walked across the Common and through the Garden, stopping briefly on the bridge to watch the swan boats in the pond, then strolled up Newbury Street, window-shopping. Zee picked out several extremely expensive items that she said she would accept from me as tokens of my esteem, and I promised her we'd get them all on our way back to the hotel. She held my arm and smiled at passersby.

The far end of Newbury is shabbier than the Garden end, but it leads toward baseball, so we didn't care. We crossed the Muddy River, and then, without getting killed by Sox fans looking for parking places, made it to the old ballpark, America's finest and quirkiest.

You never know quite what a ball will do when it's hit down either line or off the left field wall in Fenway Park. It can take crazy bounces that will drive outfielders mad, and turn a routine play into something quite bizarre. Oh, for the days when Yaz and Dewey were still out there in left and right, playing the angles with grace and winging the ball back in. The golden days of yesteryear.

But this was this year, and Yaz and Dewey and Jim Rice and the rest of the old Sox sluggers were only distant memories.

But they still had Roger, if not a lot else, and they were playing almost .500 ball, in spite of their usual shaky infield, limp bull pen, and sore-kneed, bingle-hitting outfielders.

We managed two pretty good tickets behind third, where we could see everything but the left field corner, and bought beer, hot dogs and popcorn, the necessities.

“Home at last,” said Zee, sitting down and looking at her program. “Warm beer and cold hot dogs, instead of the other way around. It must be Fenway.”

“Pennant fever,” I said, looking at the noisy, midsummer lazy, shirtsleeved crowd.

The wind barely moved the flags, and it was warm. The teams and the crowd stood for the national anthem, and the Sox took the field.

“Our team,” said Zee, clapping.

Our team, indeed. For better or for worse. Like marriage.

“Go get 'em!” yelled Zee, as the pitcher put one down the middle and the first batter popped up.

More beer, more hot dogs, more popcorn. Not too much scoring, but just enough for the local guys to win. We were carried out of the park by a happy crowd.

“How long is our winning streak?” asked Zee.

“One game. This one.”

“The pennant for sure. Nobody can stop us now!”

Across the street from Fenway is the Boston Beer Works, where they make and serve their own beer. We shouldered our way in and actually found seats in the back.

Their Amber Ale is good. Maybe not quite up to Commonwealth Brewery standards, but good. One of the really positive signs of good health in America is the increasing number of micro-breweries across the country. Boston alone has a half dozen or so, and there are others everywhere, all making good, local, English-style beers.

I said all this to Zee and smiled a masculine smile. “It makes a man proud to be an Amurican.”

“I think that's American, with an
e.”

“I'm pronouncing it with the Ollie North accent, which is the truly Amurican one.”

“As in ‘Amurica the Beautiful.' ”

“That's it. Spoken like a truly Amurican woman.”

“The kind that made our nation great.”

“The very kind.”

Later, as darkness fell, we walked back downtown, and were not mugged, held up, or otherwise assaulted on the mean streets.

“Dinner at Jake Wirth's?”

“Nothing could be finer.”

Jake's dark beer, wurst, and sauerkraut were delish, as always. We wandered home through the dark streets, sated and happy.

“Not a bad first day in the big city,” said Zee later, sleepily wrapping her arms around me.

“Not bad at all.”

We breakfasted at McDonald's, a treat to folk such as
us, who live on a McDonaldless island, thanks to a successful effort by our Vineyard neighbors to repulse a Big Mac attack intended to establish a place in Vineyard Haven. The successful defenders of the blessed isle hold that it is too classy a place to want or need an off-island fast-food joint. Personally, I think that Mac's or its equivalent is exactly what the island needs—a place to get cheap, dependable, high-cholesterol, all-American food. But nobody has yet asked me my opinion on the issue. At any rate, now being in America, Zee and I feasted on Egg McMuffins and coffee, and called them good.

“Mac's in Paris, you know,” said Zee, munching. “A guy told me a while back that the trash containers in Luxembourg Gardens are stuffed with empty McDonald food containers. So if it's good enough for a Parisian, it's good enough for me.”

“Fried food without guilt.”

We walked up to the MFA and had a look at things, then walked back downtown just in time to have a beer and sandwich before hitting the Wang for the matinee.

The Wang Center is just a few seats smaller than Fenway Park, but our tickets were front and center, so we had a good view of everything. Zee was pleased to note that our fellow opera lovers were not dressed too much differently than we were, in slacks and shirts, sans formal garb. There were exceptions, of course, including an elderly man and his younger companion who were seated a row in front of us. They, unlike most of the men in the audience, wore neckties and suits. No doubt there were others of their ilk scattered here and there, lending an aura of civilization to an otherwise casual-looking crowd.

I listen to a good deal of opera, but I had never attended a performance. I thought it was terrific, the perfect first opera for anyone who'd not seen one before. Carmen was slinky and beautiful, Don José was perhaps a tad overweight, but in good voice, and Escamillo both looked and sang well. There was passion and dancing, a lot of good music, and just enough violence. We gave everyone several good rounds of applause, and I was happy.

“‘The Toreador Song' was good enough to make one
consider becoming a baritone instead of a tenor,” I said to Zee as we jostled our way out of the auditorium.

“Surely you're not giving up the idea of singing ‘Nessun dorma' some day?”

“Well, no. But I don't see why I can't do both.”

“Along with learning how to play ‘Amazing Grace' on the bagpipes. You're a musically ambitious man, Jefferson.”

“It's true that I aspire to great things.”

“As for me, I think I can see myself doing the habanera.”

“Perfect casting. Dark-eyed Portuguese beauty that you are, doing the flamenco bit.”

“Gee,” said Zee, “with our musical drive, it's really too bad that neither one of us can actually sing very well.”

“Maybe we could become musical scholars. For instance, did you know that the habanera came from Cuba and isn't really Spanish at all?”

“Neither was Bizet, for that matter.”

“It's so swell to be smart. I really love it.”

We came out into the afternoon sunlight, and the crowd, chatting and cheerful, moved away in both directions along Tremont Street, seeking food or transportation home.

There was an old, well-maintained black Cadillac at the curb. It had those dark windows that prevent you from seeing who's inside, but the driver's side window was rolled down and there was a young guy sitting there, looking at the people coming out of the theater. He saw who he was looking for, got out, and opened the rear door. I noted that his party consisted of the older man and younger companion who had been seated in front of us, decked out in ties and suits. The two of them moved toward the car, with Zee and me only a step or two behind.

Then a car that had been double-parked down the street to the right moved up and stopped beside the Caddy. A shapeless figure wearing a long, unzipped, hooded sweatshirt, baggy pants, and high-top sneakers stepped out and came around behind the Cadillac. This popular inner-city attire caught my eye, since it was a warm day for a sweatshirt, however fashionable such garb might be.

As the older man reached the car, the hooded figure spoke one word: “Marcus.”

The older man paused and looked at him, and the hooded figure brought out a sawed-off shotgun from beneath his sweatshirt.

As the shotgun came level with the older man's chest, his younger companion, half a step behind, lurched forward, too late, to protect him.

Closer, and ignored by the shootist, I took one step and knocked the muzzle of the gun into the air as it went off.

I was aware of the sound of breaking glass as the shot hit some window or streetlight, then I had both hands on the gun and had spun my body between it and its owner. For a moment we struggled for possession, then I slid a hand down, found the little finger of the shootist's trigger hand, yanked it back and broke it. There was a cry of pain from behind me, and a sudden release of the shotgun. I turned in time to see the hooded figure race around behind the Caddy. I grabbed, but caught only the sweatshirt, which its owner slipped out of like an eel. He cast one look at me, then dived through the window of the car beyond the Cadillac. The car's engine roared, its spinning tires squealed, and it tore away up Tremont.

Turning back, I found myself looking into the wild eyes of the older man's companion. There was a large pistol in his hand, and it was pointed at me. I was aware of the shotgun in my own hands. For an instant he seemed poised on the brink of decision: Was I friend or another foe? Should he shoot or not?

“Get out of here,” I said. “That guy might not have been alone.”

Perhaps a second passed. Then he nodded. “Yeah.” He pushed the older man into the car. “Get us out of here, Vinnie,” he said to the driver, whose face was white and tense. He and Vinnie got into the Cadillac and drove away.

All around us, shocked theatergoers were staring or cowering away. Who could blame them? I thumbed on the safety, then held the shotgun close to my thigh, where it was less conspicuous.

“Come on,” I said to Zee, taking her arm. “We'll go inside and call the cops.”

She was pale as snow. “Are you all right?”

“I'm fine,” I said, but I felt pretty pale myself.

We went back into the theater and made our phone call. It took Boston's finest about five minutes to get there. They weren't used to shootings at opera matinees.

  
4
  

The uniforms who showed up first felt better when they'd separated me from the shotgun. They didn't trust the safety any more than I did, and they didn't trust me, either. We were all glad when the lab boys took the gun away.

Meanwhile, some detectives had arrived and taken turns asking us questions. They did the same of some other people who had hung around long enough to be nailed as witnesses. As might be expected, not all stories corresponded in detail. A couple of people even testified that I was the shootist, which didn't surprise me or the cops, but which made Zee angry.

“What kind of klutzes are those people? Don't they even understand what they see with their own eyes? My God!”

“Now, take it easy, Mrs. Jackson,” said detective Gordon R. Sullivan, who was going over things with us one last time. I wondered what the
R
stood for and how many Sullivans were on the Boston PD these days. Detective Sullivan had a soothing voice. “Eyewitnesses are notorious for getting things messed up. We'll get this all sorted out. So you don't know the guy who seems to have been the intended victim?”