Murder at a Vineyard Mansion (13 page)

I loathe overpowered motorboats but the daysailer looked good. As I admired it a young woman came out of the house and gave me a questioning look.

“May I help you?”

She was in her midtwenties and had a smooth tan. She wore casual rich girl clothes and her eyes assessed me down to the last ounce.

“My name is Jackson,” I said. “I'm looking for Glenda Harper.”

She smiled. “I'm Glenda Harper.”

I smiled back and made a sweeping gesture with my hand. “Nice place you have here, Miss Harper.”

“It's Mrs. Harper. Yes, we like it. What can I do for you, Mr. Jackson?”

I turned back to her and noticed for the first time the small rounding of her belly. “I may want to speak to your husband, too, Mrs. Harper. Is he in?”

Her smile became artificial. “I hope you're not another of those people looking to buy real estate, Mr. Jackson, because if you are, you can leave right now. Our place isn't for sale, and my husband would tell you the same thing if he was here.”

“It's just as well that he isn't,” I said, maintaining my own fraudulent smile. “I don't want to talk about real estate; I want to talk about Harold Hobbes.”

Her smile disappeared a fraction of a second before mine did, and she seemed to pale a shade or two beneath her tan. Her hand touched her throat.

“I don't know what you mean.”

“I just came from talking with Maud Mayhew,” I said. “I think you know what I mean.”

There was a bench overlooking the beach and the bay. I gestured toward it. “Let's sit down over here where we can be comfortable.” I walked to it and sat down. The bright sun was on my left shoulder. Out in the bay small boats were frolicking in the gentle wind. On the far side of the bay, across from the Katama boat landing, I could see people digging for clams and raking for quahogs. It was a classic Vineyard morning, just the sort that greatly pleases the chamber of commerce.

For a minute I thought that Glenda Harper was going to ignore my invitation to join me, but then I heard her approach. She sat on the far end of the bench.

“What do you want?” Her voice darted at me like the tongue of a snake. “If you're after money, you won't get it!”

“I don't want money, I want information. Does your husband know about you and Harold Hobbes?”

“There's nothing to know about Harold Hobbes and me.”

I looked at her and saw fury and fear in her face. “You don't have to lie to me,” I said. “I don't care about your private life. It's none of my business. I'm investigating the death of Harold Hobbes. You were lovers. I want to talk to you about some times you might have been together.”

“We were never lovers! We were never together!”

“Harold told his mother otherwise.”

“He lied!”

“Is that his child you're carrying?”

“How dare you! Go away!”

But though her voice ordered me gone, she didn't stand or gesture. Instead, she sat and stared wide-eyed at the bay. I could almost see energy slipping away from her.

I changed gears. “I need your help,” I said. “I'm trying to find out where Harold Hobbes was the evening Ollie Mattes was killed. I thought he might have been with you.”

“Are you going to tell my husband about this?” Her voice had become almost unnaturally calm. It reminded me somehow of that odd, breathless air and the peculiar yellow sky that you sometimes experience before the arrival of a hurricane.

“I don't plan to,” I said. “Was Harold with you that evening?”

She seemed to have fallen into a dream. Her anger was gone and her face was peaceful. “No. We were through with each other months ago. The flame didn't burn long. It started because Jim, that's my husband, spent a lot of time away on business and I was angry with him for going and Harold was here and interested.” She shrugged. “I think it was a kind of revenge for me.”

I nodded. “Since he kept leaving you for money, you got even by taking a lover?”

“Yes. And at first being with Harold made me feel excited and more alive, but that didn't last long. Jim came home and told me that he'd decided to cut down on his traveling and stay closer to home. He was so innocent and decent that all my deceptions and lies got to be too much. Harold and I tired of each other about the same time and then it was just over. And I was glad.” She looked at me with distant eyes. “Before long it was as though it had never happened. I should have known that Harold would tell someone.”

“He told his mother, at least, and she told me.”

“Yes. And now you'll tell someone. I wonder what Jim will do when he learns.”

I couldn't imagine him not knowing, since so many other people probably did, but all I said was, “He won't learn anything from me. Who did Harold go to after he left you? Do you know?”

She nodded and gave me a crooked smile. “Oh, yes. Anthea Burns was next. She told me so herself. He was a conquest, and some women like to talk about such things. Of course that was before he left her, too. He was a traveling man, as they say. The last I heard he was with some woman up in Chilmark.”

“He told his mother about Anthea, too. And about at least three other women.”

“What a nice son. He told his mother everything.”

Her irony lacked the bitterness I would have expected. Her tone was almost one of amusement. I liked her for her total lack of self-pity.

I asked, “Where were you and your husband the night Ollie Mattes was killed?”

She looked pleasantly puzzled. “Why, right here. I remember it very well. It was a nice night and there was a gentle wind. We sat here on this bench and I told him about the baby. He was surprised and we were both happy. Why do you ask?”

“I hoped that you might have been somewhere else; out on North Neck, for instance.”

She appeared honestly surprised rather than offended. “You think one of us might have killed Ollie Mattes? Why would either of us do a thing like that? We didn't even know him!”

“I hoped you might have seen something or someone out there.”

“Well, we didn't. We were here.”

“Can you prove it?” I asked.

Her amusement went away. “No, Mr. Jackson, there were no witnesses. I don't like that question!”

“You won't like this one either, but I have to ask you, because both you and your husband have reason to dislike Harold Hobbes. Where were you two the night Harold was killed?”

She was still angry, but confident this time. “We have about thirty witnesses to where we were that night, and one of them is Maud Mayhew! We were at a CHOA meeting. Anthea Burns was there as well, in case you plan to browbeat her, too.”

I had been giving that possibility thought, in fact.

“What was the meeting about?”

“It was about stopping the building of the Pierson house, if you must know.”

“Did anybody have any ideas that hadn't already been tried?”

“No! And don't start thinking that somebody at CHOA killed Ollie Mattes, because that didn't happen!”

“Harold Hobbes trashed the windows in Pierson's house, and he was a CHOA member.”

“If he did, he did it on his own. CHOA would never do such a thing!”

“Do you have any idea why Harold wasn't at the meeting?”

“No.” She lifted her chin. “But knowing Harold, I'd guess he was with a woman somewhere.”

“If he was, why didn't he tell his mother? He told her about his other women, including you.”

She brushed at her hair and frowned and looked out over the bay. “I don't know.”

I got up. “If the police haven't already been here, it's possible that they'll come to ask you questions like the ones I've asked. Don't be afraid, because if what you've told me is true, it seems to me that you and your husband are in the clear.”

“It's true. Everything I told you is true.”

I left her there and drove away, hoping that I wasn't as cruel a person as I suspected I could be.

I drove to Pocha Road, and not far after the pavement ended and the road became dirt I found Anthea Burns's mailbox. There was a huge new house being built nearby and its owner had cut down a swath of trees to improve his view of the sea. It was exactly the sort of home that CHOA people didn't want built on their sometimes island and was so close to the road that it couldn't be overlooked. Being one who is often astounded but rarely if ever offended by large houses, I saw it more as a curiosity than a blight on the landscape. But then I wasn't a CHOA person.

Anthea Burns lived in a separate apartment in her parents' house. Her mother, wearing gardening gloves, came into view when I knocked on her door and told me that Anthea was at work in Vineyard Haven.

She squinted up at me. “I'll tell her you came by, Mr….?”

“Jackson. My friends call me J.W.”

“Are you the Jackson who doesn't think plovers should be allowed to fledge on Norton's Point Beach?”

Uh, oh. Trouble at River City. “I'm a Jackson who doesn't think off-road vehicles are any danger to the plover population and that the beach should stay open all summer.”

She surprised me by smiling. “I agree with you, Mr. Jackson.”

“I thought you CHOA people all thought the other way.”

“I'm not a member of CHOA. Anthea is, but I'm not. I think the CHOAs are a bunch of rich NIMBYs who aren't worth the time of day. Of course Anthea disagrees with me. Do you have a message you'd like to leave for her, Mr. Jackson?”

“No, but I'd like to talk to her for a few minutes. Can you tell me where she works?”

She could and she did. “You mind telling me why you want to see her, Mr. Jackson?”

“I don't mind, but she might. When you were her age, did you want your mother to know everything you talked about, or everyone you knew, or everything you did?”

She laughed and stood back. “No, I guess not. You've gotten me curious, though.”

“That killed the cat, but I don't think you're in any danger. I'll leave it up to her to tell you if she wants to. Maybe you should ask her when she gets home.”

“Ha!”

I drove back to the ferry. The line of cars on the far side was long. The line on the Chappy side was short. When I got on board I asked the captain if she remembered Harold Hobbes's car. She said sure, he drove a blue Cherokee. Too bad about Harold.

It was a bit after noon, so I went home and had a Sam Adams and a bluefish salad sandwich. Then, since nature never stops for murder, I went out and weeded our gardens for a couple of hours. While I weeded I thought things over. Just before three I washed up and drove to Vineyard Haven.

Anthea Burns worked in the office of a building supplies place on Beach Road. The office doors were open as such doors always seem to be at places that sell the stuff it takes to build a house. I thought it ironic that she, who actively opposed development on Chappaquiddick, worked in such a business. But maybe she only sold lumber to up-islanders.

I asked the guy at the counter if I could speak to her and before turning to his next customer he waved me into the office and called, “Anthea, there's a guy here who wants to see you!”

Anthea Burns turned out to be a pretty young woman sitting behind a computer and surrounded by invoices and other pieces of paper. She wore no rings on her left hand but she did wear large glasses that would never prevent passes. Behind them, her eyes were long-lashed and blue. She smiled up at me.

“May I help you?”

She was alone in the office and the guy outside was busy with his customer, so I stepped close to her desk and spoke quietly and quickly.

“My name is Jackson. I'm investigating the death of Harold Hobbes. Your name came up as someone who knew him fairly well. I know you were at a CHOA meeting the night he was killed, so you're nota suspect in his murder, but if you know of any enemies he might have had I'd like to know their names.”

She flicked a glance at the door, then back at me. Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “I don't know what you mean. I'm working. I don't have time to talk to you now!”

I leaned toward her and lowered my own voice still more but made it hard. “I'm working, too. You and Harold Hobbes were lovers and lovers often confide in each other. All I want from you are the names of any enemies he might have mentioned, any people who might have wished him harm. Give me those names and I'll be happy and gone. Give me grief and I'll talk louder.”

She threw another look at the office door, beyond which the counterman was still involved with his customer. She closed those long-lashed eyes and took a moment to decide, then looked at me as her voice came in a rush, like water from an opened sluice. I had the impression that she had been saving her words for a long time and was glad to let them pour out.

“He never mentioned any enemies but he had them. You can start with the women he left in his wake. I'm one of them. And you might try the husbands and boyfriends. None of them had a reason to wish Harold well! Harold used everyone he met. If he had any friends at all, I don't know who they were! I didn't kill him, but I didn't cry when I got the news that someone else had.”

“Give me some names.”

“Sure. Try Glenda and Jim Harper for two. Glenda was my predecessor.”

“They were both at the CHOA meeting that night.”

“Maybe they hired a hit man.”

“Maybe you did.”

Her mouth twisted into a sort of smile. “Where do you find a hit man, anyway? I'm afraid I don't know any.”

“I doubt if the Harpers do, either.”

“All right, why don't you talk to Maria Danawa or Kristen Kolle or Anita Pereira?”

They were the other three names Maud Mayhew had given me. “Doesn't Anita Pereira run Black Pony Farm?”

“That's Anita, all right.”

“Who's Kristen Kolle, and where can I find her?”

“Harold left me for Maria Danawa, then went from her to Kristen, and then left Kristen for Anita. Harold was quite a lady-killer. Maria's single and Kristen's divorced, but Anita has a husband who may have decided he didn't like sharing his wife with Harold.” She told me where Kristen Kolle lived. “You'll find both ladies up there in Chilmark,” she said. “Chilmark was Harold's new hunting grounds after he'd gone through all the game over on Chappy and down-island.”

I straightened. “You have a good jungle telegraph.”

She shrugged. “Word gets around.”

“Can you think of any other names?”

The counterman chose that moment to come in through the door. “Anthea, can you give me a copy of the invoice for the Joslyn job?”

“Sure,” she said. I stepped away from her desk and she dug through a stack of papers. “Here you go.” She gave him the invoice and he thanked her and went back to the counter.

“You want other names,” she said to me, “you talk with Harold's mother. They say he told her everything.”

“He wouldn't tell her where he was the night Ollie Mattes was killed, and he wasn't at the CHOA meeting that last night. Any idea where he might have been?”

“In some woman's bed?”

“Up in Chilmark?”

She spread her hands. “The home of his last known conquests, but maybe he'd moved on to greener pastures.”

“If he was with another woman, why didn't he tell Maud about her? He told her about all the others.”

She nodded. “Including me. Maybe he was with a pig in a sty and was ashamed to admit it. Everybody is ashamed of something. What are you ashamed of, Mr. Jackson?”

“I'll never tell,” I said. I thanked her for her time and left. I found myself hoping that she'd find herself a better man than Harold Hobbes. My watch told me that I had enough time for interviews with a couple more people before I headed home to cook supper. The closest one was Maria Danawa, the daughter of a friend and the only one of Harold Hobbes's women I actually knew fairly well.

Maria worked as a nurse in Oak Bluffs, down the hall from where Zee plied the same trade in the ER. As far as I knew, Marie was currently being wooed by Paul Fox, who was one of the island's many realtors. There are about fifteen thousand full-time residents on Martha's Vineyard, and nine out of ten of them are realtors who are busy selling properties to off-islanders, since not many of the remaining 10 percent of full-time residents can afford to buy land. Paul was not the first man in Maria's life, however. She was a slim young blonde who had no trouble being attractive to men, including me. I'm very married but not blind.

I drove to the hospital and found her.

“Hi, J.W.,” she said, smiling. “What brings you here? Are you sick?”

“Just nosy. Can I talk with you for a minute? In private?”

“You've roused my curiosity.” She glanced around. “Come on.” I followed her into an empty office. “How can I help you?”

“I'm trying to get a line on Harold Hobbes's past life. I know you two dated, and I'm wondering if he ever mentioned anyone who might have had a grudge against him.”

Her pretty face hardened. “I can tell you that I sure as hell did! He not only dumped me, he laughed when he did it!” Then she took a deep breath. “But if you think I killed him, you're wrong. I got over Harold pretty fast and called myself lucky.”

It was a healthy response. “I know you didn't kill him,” I said. “I'm just trying to get a name to chase. Someone who might actually have hated him enough to have done it. Did he ever say anything about anybody like that?”

Her smile was hard. “How about his other women? How about their brothers and fathers and boyfriends? I don't know many of their names, but you can probably get a list. You might start with Kristen Kolle. I understand that he shed her as fast as he shed me. Maybe she carried a grudge farther than I did.”

“I'll ask her,” I said. “How are things with Paul?”

She brightened. “Fine. Nothing like they were with Harold. Even my mother likes him. Look at this.”

I looked. A bigger diamond than any I could afford gleamed on the ring finger of her left hand. The real estate business was a good one, apparently.

Being one who approves of marriage, I offered her my sincere best wishes, accepted her thanks, and left.

Kristen Kolle lived off North Road not far from Tabor House Road. There'd been Tabors on the island in the 1600s, but I didn't know which member of the family had owned the house that had given the road its name. Would there ever be a Jackson House Road? Probably not.

There was no Kolle Road either, but there was a Kolle driveway. I wondered if a merry old soul lived at the end of it. When I got to the house the only person there was a teenaged boy pushing a lawn mower around the yard. He didn't look too merry and was glad to stop when I approached him and asked if Kristen was home.

“No,” he said. “Mom drove Grandma to the codger game.”

“I hate to admit to my ignorance,” I said, “but what's the codger game?”

“Oh,” said the boy. “It's the old ladies' slow-pitch-softball game. You have to be sixty to play. Grandma plays second base for the Chilmark Crushers. They play once a week and today's the day.”

He told me where to find the field and I drove there and parked beside a familiar-looking SUV in a line of cars along the third-base line.

A baseball diamond with well-worn baselines and a high backstop for balls that got past the catcher occupied a flat green field. Elderly women wearing red baseball caps and baseball gloves were scattered around the infield and outfield. There were apparently six outfielders and six infielders along with a pitcher and catcher.

At bat was a lanky woman with white hair sticking out from under a blue cap. Other gray-haired women wearing red caps sat on a bench outside of the first-base line. Women with blue caps sat outside the third-base line.

There were no bleachers, but women and men stood behind the benches and beside cars. I stood behind the team with blue caps.

“Hit it, Blanche!”

“No-hitter! No-hitter!”

Blanche topped a fat pitch down the third-base line and beat out a throw by an infielder who had played too deep.

“Atta girl, Blanche! Come on, Sarah, knock her in!”

“Long ball! Long ball! Play back!”

The right fielders limped deeper and Sarah, carrying what looked like a brand-new bat, strolled to the plate. Clearly she was a feared slugger. It wasn't until she took her southpaw stance that I recognized her as Sarah Bradford. The last time I'd seen her she'd been dressed in riding togs. Now she sported a baseball cap and sneakers. Sarah the jock.

She took two pitches and hit the third one over the outermost outfielder, and two runs were home just like that. As the two runners were greeted by their teammates I saw that there was a red
C
on the front of each blue cap. I was standing behind the bench of the Chilmark Crushers, one of whom was the mother of Kristen Kolle. I looked around for Kristen.

I didn't know what she looked like, but there were several women in the crowd who seemed to be about the right age to be the daughter of a player and the mother of the kid with the lawn mower. I went to one of them and asked if she was Kristen. She wasn't but she pointed to the woman who was and I went over to her.

She was shouting at a woman carrying a bat to the plate. “Come on, Mom! Smack that ball!”

I watched while Mom fouled one pitch off, missed the next, and then smacked the third right into the pitcher's mitt. The pitcher looked surprised but pleased to find the ball in her possession.

“Oh, drat! Nice try. Next time!”

Mom tapped the ground with her bat and walked cheerfully back to the bench.

“Mrs. Kolle?”

I could see her boy's face in hers. They both had high cheekbones, firm jaws, and light brown eyes.

“Yes?”

“It's a game of inches,” I said. “A foot either way and the ball's past the pitcher and your mother's on first.”

“It's possible. She can't slug like Sarah Bradford, but she has a good glove and she can make the throw to first. Have we met?”

“No.” I told her my name. “Can I have a few words with you in private?”

She looked wary. “What about?”

I told her. When her face paled and anger entered her eyes, I said, “I won't take much of your time. Maybe we can talk over by your car, where we can be alone.”

Her firm jaw got firmer, but she nodded and led the way to a newish Chevy sedan parked not far from my own Land Cruiser.

“Harold and I split months ago,” she said. “I wish we'd never met at all.”

“You're not the first woman he charmed.”

“Nor the last. Looking back I can't imagine why I didn't see him for what he really was.”

“What was he?”

“A good-looking guy with some money, a smooth talker, a man who knew what women liked to hear, who knew how to touch them. I saw all that, all right. I just didn't see the meanness underneath. That came later.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“Not with his hands; with his mouth. And I don't think it was just me. I think he hated all women. He liked to use them and then make them feel like soiled clothes and drop them. At least that's what happened to me. I was a fool.”

“Has anyone asked you where you were the evening he was killed?”

Her brown eyes widened then narrowed. “Is that what this is about? Do you think I killed him? Well, I didn't. I'd gotten his stench off of me by then and I certainly wasn't going to dirty my hands again.”