Vineyard Chill (13 page)

“Maybe you should be thinking about what they'll do to
you,
” said Begay. “You haven't given me much to go on.” He looked at Clay. “You want to add anything to this story?”

“J.W. says he can trust you,” said Clay.

“Did he, now?” Joe lowered his cup from his lips. “He trusted me once in Nam and I led us right into a mortar attack. Got several men killed and damn near got us killed, too. He saved my ass. I'm the one who trusts him.”

“J.W. told me it was you who saved his ass.” Clay seemed amused, but Joe's remarks also seemed to lead him to a decision. He flicked a glance at me, then took a drink from his cup and told Joe everything he'd told me about his work with Mark and the events that had brought him to the Vineyard. He concluded by telling how he'd departed from Eleanor and her brother and where he was staying now.

“Now you know everything that I know,” he said.

Begay looked at him for what seemed a long time. Then he looked at me. “You want me to find out what's going on. I'm not sure I can, but I can probably find out a few things.” He turned his eyes to Clay. “I'll need the telephone numbers and the e-mail addresses and any other addresses you have and I'll see what I can do. No guarantees.” He paused, then added, “I'll try to keep you clear of things.”

Clay considered that, then nodded and dug a worn address book out of a buttoned shirt pocket. He tossed it onto the table in front of Joe. “When you're through with that, I want it back. It's got all the information you want and a lot more that you don't want. It's one of a kind. If I lose it, I'll be out of touch with everybody I know.”

Joe picked it up and thumbed through it. “This will help,” he said. “And don't worry; you'll get it back.”

When we finished our coffee and Clay and I were headed out the door, Joe said, “If you think of anything or learn anything else that I might use, let me know.”

“Will do.”

Clay and I went out to the truck and drove back down-island.

“Is this a typical March on Martha's Vineyard,” asked Clay, “or do you always have bodies and mob muscle turning up?”

“Atypical. Normally we have a lot of wind and rain, mud and cold weather, and some snow. It's usually too miserable for criminals to be out working.”

“I feel naked without my address book. Tell me more about Joe Begay, since I've just put my life in his hands.”

“You know about as much as I do,” I said, but told him how Joe grew up in Arizona near Second Mesa, in Oraibi or close by. That his people are mostly Hopi and Navajo and still live out there. How we'd been blown up in Nam when our patrol got hit with mortar fire. How, after we got out of the hospital, he'd disappeared from my life until he showed up on the Vineyard married to Toni Vanderbeck, of the Gay Head Vanderbecks, who was a friend of my wife, and how he was supposedly but not really retired from whatever he'd been doing in Washington and elsewhere. “That's about all I know about him,” I concluded. “I usually don't ask people much about their work.”

“Why not?”

“It lets me see them better if I don't know what they do for a living. If I know somebody's a doctor or a minister or a truck driver, I make assumptions that I shouldn't make. Actually, though, it doesn't make much difference whether or not I ask them what they do, because most people tell you that right away. They define themselves by their jobs.”

“‘Hi, my name is George Smith. I'm a diamond smuggler.' Like that?”

“Usually it's not quite that straightforward, but sooner or later it slips out, especially if the person is proud of himself. I prefer to talk to him awhile before finding out what he does.”

“What do you say if you don't say, ‘What do you do when you're not talking to me?'”

“Sex, politics, and religion are always good subjects of conversation.”

“Taboo topics are the best topics, but most people don't get to them until they know each other better.”

“Actually, I usually ask them where they live, how long they've been there, what they do when they're not working, that sort of thing. What people do for fun tells a lot about them.”

“So you're nosy even though you don't want to know their professions?”

“I'll make an exception for Jack and Mickey. I'd like to know more about their work.”

“Maybe Joe can find out about that. I don't think you'll get the information from Jack and Mickey.”

For variety I took Middle Road down to West Tisbury. It's my favorite island road, winding between fields and woods and stone fences, having fine views of the Atlantic off to the south, and passing the pasture that's home to the long-horned oxen who've been photographed almost as much as the rebuilt bridge on Chappaquiddick.

Clay admired the longhorns. “Impressive. I haven't seen horns that long since I left Texas. Back when I had my own plane, I did some flying down around the border. I made pretty good money flying cargo through canyons under the radar. It was sort of like the job we had bringing the
Lisa
back to West Palm. Remember?”

“I remember.”

“If you don't know what's in a box, you can't testify about it if you get squeezed. So I rarely asked what I was carrying. Well, what next?”

“I've been thinking of escape routes. There are only two ways off the island: by sea or by air. You still have your pilot's license?”

“I do. Why?”

“If need be, you can rent a plane. I doubt that'll be necessary, but you should keep it in mind. Have you been to either of the airports since you got here? The big one, where the commercial planes land, is in West Tisbury—we came by it today—and the little one is at Katama—grass runways for small planes.”

“I haven't been to either one.”

“You might want to drop by and let the regulars see you a few times so they'll know who you are if you decide to rent a plane.”

“Good idea.”

“Nobody's at the Katama airport this time of year, so I'll take you to the big one now, if you want, so you can see what the place is like.”

“Forward the light brigade!”

The Dukes County Airport is right off the Edgartown–West Tisbury road, and is only a hop, skip, and a jump from the long driveway at the end of which then president Joe Callahan took his summer vacations. Huge cargo planes full of cars, Secret Service personnel, and other materials had landed there before, during, and after the presidential holidays, and the airport was getting busier every year as more and more mansion builders landed in their private jets. It was an attractive place, but I preferred the little Katama airport and enjoyed watching planes land and take off on the grass runway that paralleled Herring Creek Road. I had even given thought from time to time to getting a pilot's license of my own, but nothing had ever come of it because my days were already full of things I liked to do, such as fishing and sailing and hanging around with my wife and children.

We parked in the approved lot and walked into the Plane View restaurant, where the coffee is always hot and the food is good and also cheap by island standards. On the field there were many parked planes, including a couple of commercial jets. Not there were the glider and two biplanes, one white, one red, that flew out of the Katama airport during the tourist season.

All summer long, one or both of the planes could be seen flying around the island, carrying sight-seeing passengers. Sometimes the red one entertained with loops and slides and rolls and spins, and I wondered what it must be like to be in the cockpit while all that was going on. But I never wondered enough to hire the plane and pilot to take me up and do those things. I'm acrophobic enough to get the shakes on high buildings; I don't need to be upside down in an open-cockpit airplane.

We sat down and had coffee and chatted with the few people who were there. They were friendly to Clay when I introduced him but were mostly interested in talking about the girl with the strawberry hair.

“I hear the cops are saying it's murder.”

“I ain't heard that. All I heard is that they found the girl's body.”

“Well, she sure as hell didn't bury herself in that old cellar hole. Somebody else did that.”

“I hear the Oak Bluffs police and the state cops are asking all kinds of questions along Circuit Ave.”

“Well, they got a body now. They didn't have that before. All they had was a missing person, and people leave the island all the time without telling anybody.”

“I don't know about that. They may leave, but they tell somebody. They don't just run off.”

“This Gibson woman didn't tell nobody nothing. And now we know why.”

“You ever see her, up at the Fireside? Good-looker. All that long red hair. Nice, too. Always a smile.”

“I hear the cops are talking with that fella they call Bonzo. You know, the one that pushes a broom and cleans tables. Sort of a half-wit.”

“We got our share of those on this island.” Laughter and nodding heads.

“Yeah, well, I guess that this Bonzo is what the cops call ‘a person of interest.' That's somewhere between being innocent and being a suspect.”

“They don't have enough on him to arrest him, but they've got him under a magnifying glass. You know him, J.W.?”

“I know him,” I said. “He's a friend of mine.”

“Oh.” There was some quiet coffee drinking.

“Bonzo wouldn't hurt a fly,” I said.

“I don't think the cops are so sure of that,” said a gray-haired man, screwing his courage to the sticking point.

I felt a little flicker of anger. “The police are interested in anybody who might have known the girl. They might want to talk with you, for instance.”

“Me! What for?”

“You just said she was good-looking and you mentioned her long red hair and her smile. The police might wonder how you know she was nice and just how much she interested you.”

“Now just a damned minute! What the hell are you saying?” He pushed himself away from his table.

I waved him back into his chair. “Take it easy, Rod. I thought she was pretty, too, and so did everybody else who saw her. The point is that the police are interested in anybody who might have known her, including you and me. They're not just interested in Bonzo. As for me, I know you didn't kill her and I know Bonzo didn't, either. Let's wait for an official statement about cause of death before we decide who did it.”

Rod sat down and drank some coffee.

“Hell of a note,” he said, almost to himself. “Man says something nice about a woman, next thing you know he's a damned murder suspect.”

“You're not a murder suspect, Rod,” said the man sitting across from him.

“Hell of a note,” said Rod.

“I seen her up there at the Fireside, myself,” said his companion. “She brought me and the wife beer and burgers where we was sitting in a booth. I thought she was pretty, too, and nice, but that don't mean I'm a suspect. You neither. Drink your coffee and take it easy.”

“Let's change the subject,” said someone. “How about them Sox?”

Normally that would have been a topic worthy of argument, but I had chilled the room and voices didn't rise again until I was shutting the door behind me as Clay and I left.

“If you don't mind some friendly advice,” said Clay as we drove away, “I think you should give up your plans to become a politician.”

“Wise words. I'll imitate Udall. If nominated, I'll run to Mexico. If elected, I'll fight extradition.”

“Smart. What's next on our agenda?”

“Let's drive by the Harbor View. The parking lot is out back. We can check and see if there's a yellow Mercedes convertible with California plates parked there.”

“Why should we do that?”

“Because if Jack and Mickey are at the hotel, they aren't someplace else. Like at Ted Overhill's house, for instance. So if you feel like going there and parking behind his barn so nobody can see your truck, you can probably get some work done on the boat without risking your neck. I advise you to avoid power tools, so you'll be able to hear a car if one drives in, and have time to scat.”

“I'm doing a lot of scatting lately, but I would like to get back to work on the boat. Another few weeks and she'll be ready to launch.”

“You're ahead of schedule.”

“Ted's got his arm back and works evenings after he gets home from landscaping. Two men get a lot more done than just one.”

We circled the Harbor View once just to make sure no yellow convertibles were parked in front of the hotel. None was, so I drove into the parking lot where, lo! the Mercedes, looking a bit garish amid staid New England vehicles, was right where I had hoped it would be.

I drove out the back way to Fuller Street, where I pointed out Manny Fonseca's woodworking shop. “You might get on with Manny when you finish the schooner,” I said. “He usually works alone, but if he sees what you can do, he might make an exception.”

“This is the same Manny Fonseca who's coaching Zee how to shoot and wants her to try out for the Olympics?”

“The very same. He can't get over how she took to pistol shooting. He says she's a natural and is getting even better than he is even though she doesn't have his experience and doesn't approve of guns.”

“I don't approve of them either, but when I was a kid out in Wichita, my dad made sure I knew how to shoot. Incidentally, while I was nosing around the house last night I found a box of shotgun shells but no shotgun.”

“That's because John's guns are in my gun cabinet so none of the local thieves will sneak into his house and steal them while I'm not looking.”

“You have local thieves?”

“We have all the perps you'll find anywhere else, in about the same population proportion. This may be Eden but it has rocks with snakes living under them.”

“My, my,” said Clay. “Does the Chamber of Commerce know about this?”

“I've never seen it advertised.”

We drove to John Skye's farm and Clay got out of my truck.

I opened my window. “Do you want a shotgun to go with those shells? Would that make you feel better?”

He hesitated. “No…yes…maybe. Sure. You know what the NRA says about it being better to have your trusty six-gun by your side and not need it than to need it and not have it.”

That phrase would probably be the NRA's principal contribution to the next edition of Bartlett's.

“Would you rather have a pistol?”

“No. Some gunslinging magazine I read a long time ago asked a bunch of shootists what weapon they'd choose if they could only have one. A shotgun won hands down. You can hunt big game or little birds, or you can shoot people with a fair chance of hitting them. They didn't have shotgun guards on stagecoaches for no reason, you know. Not many bad men liked the idea of going up against a double-barreled twelve-gauge. That's probably still true.”