Off Season (24 page)

She paused and thought. “And you're right. I got the albums and I knew there must be cameras and negatives, so I got them, too. It was very strange. I felt very cool and deliberate, and I took my time and made sure I had everything. I found a camera in the closet and another one up above that mirror on the ceiling. I knew there had to be one there because of some of the pictures in the albums. I had a hard time finding my way up there, and I ruined my panty hose. I put everything in a box and went out. I didn't have to try to wipe away my fingerprints because I was wearing winter gloves.” She brushed at something imaginary on her blouse. “I think that's all. I came home and emptied the cameras and burned everything I could. Then I took the cameras and threw them into the ocean down at South Beach.” She looked at me. “Then I seemed to fall all apart. Or maybe I was falling apart before that. I couldn't sleep all night. In the morning I drove to Vineyard Haven and called the police from a phone at the ferry parking lot. I put a handkerchief over my mouth like I've seen them do in the movies. I told them about Chug. Then I went to Mimi's . . . What shall I do? What are you going to do?”

I looked at her. Phyllis Manwaring, murderess.

“I don't know what's going to happen to you,” I said. “The police are on the case, and they're good at their work, so maybe someday they'll come knocking
at your door. If they do, I suggest you get a good lawyer.” I took the envelope from the table and handed it to her. “I imagine that if your husband got this stuff in a plain brown wrapper along with a blackmail note made out of letters cut from a newspaper, or some such thing, he might decide to quit the campaign. But whether that happens or not, this stuff is yours.”

She stared at me for what seemed a long time, but probably wasn't. “You're not going to the police?”

“No.”

Her face had a strange look to it, half hope, half doubt. “I don't know . . .”

“As you said, it's a crime to withhold evidence,” I said. “By giving this envelope to you, I'm giving you a hammer to hold over my head. If I turn you in, you can turn me in. Even Steven.”

She hesitated. “Those pictures are disgusting. I don't really know what Vince would do if he saw them.”

I shook my head. “I don't know if they're disgusting or not, because I think that what happens between grownups who agree about what they do to each other is their business. I also don't know what kind of a senator your husband might make, although the way you describe him doesn't make him sound too desirable. I don't live in Connecticut, so I don't have to deal with him. A good thing, too, because we've got enough problems with our own pols here in Massachusetts. I've got to go.”

I didn't really have to go, but I didn't want to stay.

She stood up, holding the envelope in both hands. “I . . . I really don't know what to say . . . , what to do . . .”

“Why don't you just say nothing. Your husband will be down in a couple of days. Between now and then
you can decide what to do. Maybe the two of you should go away together. A long trip. Around the world on an ocean liner, or something.” I went out of the room, then went back in. She was still standing there. “it's Christmas,” I said. “The Christians say that God sent his son so that we could be freed from our sins and be born again. They celebrate his arrival on earth about now. You might keep that in mind.”

I went out into the winter air.

I drove to Oak Bluffs, parked and went in to see Heather Manwaring. Harriet, her receptionist, recognized me, and said to have a seat, since Heather had a client with her. She lifted a phone and told her boss that I was in the waiting room. I read a copy of
National Geographic
while I sat there. One of the nice things about
National Geographic
is that you can read a copy that's two years old, as this one was, and it will still be interesting. In this edition I read about a city being excavated in Jordan. A place given passing mention in the Bible, but now of considerable interest to archaeologists. Just as I was getting interested myself, the door to Heather's office opened, and her client came out. He nodded to the receptionist, and left. I went in.

“Well?” Heather looked very professional in her woolen suit.

I got right to it. “I think I know who killed Chug Lovell, but I've decided not to tell you who did it.”

She stared at me with surprise. “That's a very
strange thing to say. I paid you to find out and tell me.”

“Actually, you just paid me to find out. I've done that, I think. But I still have the money you gave me, so you can have it back if you want it. You may need it for your lawyer.”

“My lawyer? Why? I didn't kill Chug!”

“We've been over this before. it's not what we do, but what people think we do. You were Chug's girlfriend for several months. Your fingerprints must be all over the place up there. Sooner or later, the police may trace you through them and come to see you.”

“But I didn't do it!”

“I know that, but they won't. On the other hand, I doubt if they'll be able to pin the hit on you. They may suspect you, but that's all they'll manage. Insufficient evidence.”

“I don't want to spend the rest of my life being a suspect for a murder I didn't commit! You've got to tell me—and the police—who did it!”

“I'm not going to do that.”

“Then when they come to see me, I'll tell them exactly what you've just told me! Then you'll have to tell them the truth! I'm not going to take blame for something I didn't do!”

“You won't like what I tell them. You'll wish I never told them a thing. I think that if you just keep your mouth shut, you'll be better off. Did you ever touch Chug's bow?”

“His bow? No. I don't know anything about bows and arrows.”

“In that case, I doubt if you'll even be much of a suspect. The bow was never wiped clean after the killing, and if your prints aren't on it, they can't stick you with the job. They'll look somewhere else.”

“But they'll never stop looking at me! I insist that you tell me what you know!”

“You'll remember that I warned you that I might find out something you would wish I hadn't found out. I think I've done that. I really don't think you want to know.”

“You have a lot of gall to think that you know what I want to know!” She sat back and gathered herself together. After a while, she said, “All right. Tell me why I don't want to know.”

“Because the person who killed Chug is someone you love very much, who killed him because he had pictures of you that he said he was going to sell to magazines and then spread around on the island, so all of the local men could see them. I've seen a couple of those pictures, myself, and I assure you that you wouldn't have wanted that done.”

“You've seen the pictures?”

“Some of them. But now most of the pictures have been destroyed. The negatives, too. The person who killed Chug burned them.”

She put a hand to her mouth and stared at her desk. I leaned forward. “The person who burned those photographs did a brave and dangerous thing. And did it for you. That person is the one who is in real danger if I tell the police what I know. You're a pretty tough woman, I think. I hope you're tough enough to keep your mouth shut about this if the cops come.”

She stared at me with hard, watery eyes. “You ask a lot! You ask a damned lot! You tell me this and ask me to trust you! Why should I believe you? Tell me that!”

“Because I have told you this. It would have been a lot easier to have told you that I didn't know anything.
Maybe that's what I should have done. Maybe I was wrong to tell you the truth. Maybe you should pick up that phone and call the cops right now.”

She glared at me.

I stepped away from the desk. “I'll return your money,” I said. “That way we'll be shed of each other.” I started toward the door.

“Wait.” I turned. She was standing behind her desk. “Keep the money. I don't want us to be shed of each other. We're in this together. I got you into it, so both of us are in it.” She leaned on the desk. “Someday will you tell me who?”

I went out of the office without answering.

At 7
A.M.
the next day my phone rang. It was Zee.

“Hi,” she said. “Come for supper. it's time we planned the Christmas feast.”

“It usually takes me all night to plan the Christmas feast,” I said, panting heavily into the phone.

“I know! See you at my place when I get home. I've got to run! Bye.”

It was beginning to snow again when I drove through West Tisbury, past Alley's store, and past the field where the statues were dancing cheerfully in spite of the midwinter dusk, until I found Zee's driveway. The snowflakes falling slowly out of the dark sky gave renewed promise of a white Christmas after all.

I got a fire going in Zee's fireplace, and put some mulled cider to warm on her stove. I'd add the rum I'd brought when she had her shoes off and was sitting in front of the fire.

She had enough odds and ends of veggies and meats to make up a good refrigerator soup, so I did that. Later, I'd mix up some cornbread to go with it. A meal fit for a queen.

By the time Zee got home from the hospital, it was
dark, and the snow was falling faster. She came right into my arms and stayed there awhile. Then she looked at the fire, and said, “There's only one way to make this better. Wait right here.”

She went into her bedroom and soon reappeared wearing her woolly robe and her slippers. She came back into my arms. “There,” she said. “Now it's perfect.”

I could not but agree, for under the robe was nothing else but Zee herself. After appreciating this for a time, I sent her to the couch in front of the fireplace while I got her a rummy mulled cider, and mixed up the cornbread and put it in the oven. Then I got my own cider and joined her.

She leaned against me and we looked into the fire, as our ancestors had surely done ten thousand years before, when the winter winds blew beyond the opening of their cave and they wondered if the moon goddess would answer their prayers before they perished from the cold, and would make the sun shine longer each day until it was summer once again.

“What's new in the emergency ward?”

“No mopeds, so no moped accidents. A man with chest pains. Indigestion, we think. The usual. What's new in the sleuthing biz?”

I had been thinking about how to answer that question, for she was sure to ask it. We would be getting married in a few months, and I had theorized that once she was my wife it would be a good idea to always tell her everything. It seemed as if that was a good idea, but I didn't know if I would ever actually do it, because there would always probably be things—such as, maybe, a chance meeting with Angie Bettencourt—that would only annoy her. Maybe it was better for husbands and wives to keep a few things to
themselves. Had I been more successful as a husband when I'd been one before, I would have had more confidence in my thoughts.

Meanwhile, Zee wasn't my wife, yet, and I wasn't sure what to tell her. Not because I couldn't trust her with secrets, but because being trusted with them might make her life more difficult. She and I didn't walk quite the same moral paths, and what might be ethically acceptable for me could be unacceptable to her.

On the other hand, I thought that thought seemed pretty condescending.

So I told her about finding the pictures and negatives, and about my talk with Phyllis Manwaring, and when I was through, Zee didn't say anything. She just looked into the fire.

My nose told me that the cornbread was ready, so I left Zee and went into the kitchen, and got two trays ready: soup, cornbread and mulled cider. A little salt and pepper and some butter on the side. I brought Zee's tray to her and then got my own. We put them on the coffee table and began to eat. Nobody said anything for a while.

“You never know, do you?” said Zee, finally. “You just never know about people. What they'll do. It never fails to mystify me. So you're not going to tell the police?”

“No. What good would it do?”

“It would give them a killer.”

“I don't think that Phyllis Manwaring is a killer. I think she's just a woman who killed somebody who was lucky nobody ever did it to him sooner. What do you think?”

She was a healer by both profession and temperament. “I don't think anybody deserves to get killed.”

“I didn't say he deserved it, I just said he was lucky nobody did it to him sooner. Do you think Phyllis should be turned in?”

“No. I don't know. I guess I don't.”

“Are you sorry I told you about all this?”

This time she was sure. “No. No, I want you to tell me things. I always want you to tell me.”

I pushed my tray off to one side and put my feet on the coffee table. “In that case,” I said, “I have another confession.”

She flicked her great, dark eyes at me, and stuffed a last bit of cornbread into her mouth. “What?”

“I already planned the Christmas feast. I came here under false pretenses.”

She pushed her tray to one side, and put her feet up beside mine. “Oh, dear, what could they be?”

“Allow me to help you out of that robe, and I'll try to explain myself as I go along.”

“Gracious me, what can you possibly mean?” Her eyes floated to the clock on the mantel. “Oh, oh! Sorry, Jefferson! The explanation will have to wait. it's time for the Grinch!”

Unlike me, Zee has a television set. So first we watched the Grinch steal Christmas yet again, and then I illustrated my true intentions.

In the morning I made cranberry pancakes for us before Zee went off to work. As I washed up the dishes and made the bed, the idea of being married to Zee, always a good one, was seeming better and better. I was happy.