Vineyard Deceit (14 page)

“Jeff. It's me.”

Zee! My heart soared. “Where are you? Are you all right?”

“I'm home. Can you come up right away?”

“Yes. Are you all right? Is anybody there with you?”

“I . . . Yes, I guess so . . . No nobody's here . . .”

“Stay there! I'm on my way!”

I drove through the night. The dark trees whipped by. Left on Barnes Road, right past the airport. The old Toyota rattled through West Tisbury toward Chilmark, found Zee's driveway, and roared in.

The front door of her house opened as I braked to a stop, and there she was. I took her in my arms and wept. Then I was furious, then not furious. I held her and held her and then slowly let her go and looked down at her face. She had a crooked little smile and was very pale. I pulled her inside and shut the door.

I held her at arm's length. She brushed aside a strand of hair and let me examine her. She looked fragile. She was wearing the clothes she'd been wearing when I'd left her at Amelia's on Friday. They were dirty and wrinkled.

Where in the hell have you been? I raged inside. “Where have you been?” I asked.

“I don't know.” She touched her forehead. “I've got to wash my hair. I'm a mess . . .”

“Yes. Let's get you out of those clothes.”

I took her into her bedroom and got the shower going while she undressed. Then I put her in the shower.

After a minute, I stripped and got in with her. She stood under the stream of warm water and let it wash over her. I found soap and a sponge and washed and rinsed her down fore and aft, high and low, then I found shampoo and washed and rinsed her wonderful long thick black hair until it squeaked. Then she watched me wash myself off and did my back and then kissed me and put her arms around me and her wet head on my chest. I held on to her. Sometime later, the water began to grow cold.

“Jeez,” said Zee. “It stays hot in the movies.” I looked down at her and she was grinning. Not her greatest grin, but a grin. “I think I'm going to live,” she said. “Hey, it's getting cold. Let's get out of here!”

I found two big beach towels, and we rubbed ourselves down. Zee wrapped her hair in another towel and found a robe for herself and the spare one I keep at her place.

The sky was brightening. I was starving. I went into the kitchen and fried up bacon and eggs and made toast and coffee.

“Cholesterol City,” said Zee, sitting down at the table. “Let's eat!”

We did. I felt terrific. When the meal was eaten, I pushed back the dishes and looked at beautiful Zee while I drank another cup of coffee. I put down the cup, and words began to pour out of my mouth.

“Where have you been? I want to know. I know you don't have to tell me a thing, but I insist that you do. I won't let you not tell me. I won't let you out of the house until you tell me. And it had better be good, because if it isn't I think I'll wring your neck . . .”

“Stop.” She smiled. “I want to tell you. You don't need to ask.” Then her smile went away and she put her hand
on my wrist. “I was kidnapped. I know that sounds strange, but it's the truth. And I don't even know who did it or why. Or why they let me go again.”

Kidnapped? “How? When? Did they hurt you?”

“No, I'm fine. I was never . . . I was treated as well as a kidnapped person can be treated, I suppose . . . I mean, I got dirty, but . . .” She pursed her lips and shook her head. I saw a glint of the old humor in her eyes. “You'd be surprised, Jefferson, to know how hard it is to talk about your recent kidnapping in a way that gives your audience the slightest idea of what it's like!”

A red anger flickered somewhere inside me, and I felt a simultaneous coldness of heart toward whoever had done this to her. Cold heart, red anger; a bad combination. I thought I might later enjoy seeing where it led. I took her hands in mine. “Tell me what happened.”

“All right, but there's not much I can really tell you. It happened Friday night. Willard Blunt brought me home from Aunt Amelia's. I'd only been inside for a minute when I heard a knock on my door. I thought it was him, come back for some reason, so I opened the door, and somebody yanked a sack down over my head before I could see a thing. I yelled, but I doubt if anybody could have heard me. Then I swung a couple of elbows—I think I hit somebody—and I tried to yank the sack off, but just then somebody grabbed me around the knees. I reached down to whack whoever it was, and somebody else grabbed me around the waist and pinned my arms. Then we all sort of fell over onto the ground, and in no time at all they had me taped up. Duct tape. I still had some wrapped around me when they brought me back here this morning. It's strong! They taped my hands behind me and taped them to my waist and they taped my legs and then they carried me off and put me in a car and took me someplace.” She looked at me. “I don't know where we went, but when they got there they eased the sack off
of my head and taped my eyes before I could see anything. They kept me there until this morning. Then they brought me here and cut some of the tape off so I could get loose and drove away. I haven't the slightest idea what it was all about or who did it!”

“Nobody hurt you?”

“No. The worst part was not being able to see or move. They kept me blindfolded and all taped up. At night they put me on a bed. And when I had to go to the bathroom, someone took me there and helped me because I didn't have any hands. I hope it was a woman, but I don't know. It was pretty awful. I lost track of time. I didn't even know what day it was when I called you this morning.”

“So there were several people involved.”

“Yes. There were four or five at least, I think. Enough to tie me up in a rush, anyway.”

“And you think one of them might have been a woman.”

“I'm not sure. But I think so. Maybe there was more than one woman. Whoever it was knew what to do for me in the bathroom. I thought it was a woman. Maybe it was a perfume or something . . .”

“What did they say to you?”

“They never said anything to me. Not one word. And they never said a word to each other, either. At least not while I could hear them. I could hear them move around the room or house or whatever. You know, doors opening and shutting and that sort of noise, but never any voices. And they played pretty loud music all of the time. Rock and roll, heavy metal, that sort of thing. Maybe they talked when the music was playing so I couldn't hear them. They kept the music turned up. I tried to talk, to ask them who they were and what they wanted, but all I ever got was a spoonful of soup or a piece of pizza. Never a word.”

“What could you hear? Cars? Voices from outside? Surf? Anything?”

“Just that music. I'll tell you one thing, I never want to hear the Gits again in my life. I must have listened to that Gits tape ten dozen times.”

“The Gits?”

“You know. The Gits. The band. Rock and roll with some metal overtones.”

“I don't do rock and roll or metal,” I said. “I'm a classical and G-and-W man. Remember? I never heard of the Gits.”

“Yeah, well I don't care if I never hear of them again, either. I'm all Gitted out. I'd have died for some Eagles.”

“How long did they drive after they grabbed you? Could you tell?”

“No. Quite a while. The last part was over bumps. I think that means we went off of the main road, but I don't know where.”

You can't go too far on an island only twenty miles long, but even the Vineyard has a hundred square miles or so of land area, so it provides a lot of hiding space.

“How long to bring you back here?”

“Half an hour, I guess. I don't really know. It took a long time.”

The house where they kept her could be next door. They might have been driving in circles for twenty-five minutes. On the other hand, a half-hour drive could take you to any part of the island except Chappy.

“What did your nose tell you?”

“My nose?”

“You couldn't see, you couldn't hear. Could you smell anything? You mentioned perfume. Did you smell that? Or cologne, or dirty diapers? Anything?”

“Food. Pizza, when they fed it to me. Soup smells, when they made it. Some spices I didn't recognize. Let me think. I thought there was a woman there, so maybe it was perfume of some sort, but I can't think of what it was. I'm not being much help, am I?” She yawned.

I felt a surge of almost paternal love for her.

“You don't need to be of any more help. You're here and you're safe and that's all that's important. The rest of it doesn't matter now. I think you should get some sleep. Some rest will do you a lot of good. I doubt if you've slept too well for the past three days.” I stood and pulled her up. “I'll phone Amelia and the police and the hospital and tell them you're okay.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “Thank you, sir.” She leaned against me. “Why don't you come too?”

That seemed like a grand idea. I didn't want to be apart from her. “Go on in,” I said. “I'll be there as soon as I make those calls.”

I called the Chief and told him her story and that we'd see him later in the day. Then I called Amelia and told her that Zee was home safe and sound and was resting and that we'd tell her the whole story later. Amelia, I thought, had enough concerns at the moment and didn't need to worry about a kidnapping too.

When I finished telephoning and went into her bedroom, I found that Zee had closed the blinds to the bright morning sun and was fast asleep. She looked like an innocent child. Her hair made a black halo around her face. I got out of the robe and slid in beside her. She smiled and tucked herself against me, her body warm and smooth against mine. I put an arm around her and felt glad and good. For a while I lay balanced between gratitude for her return and deep anger at whoever had taken her. Finally I drifted away from the world of kidnapping, suicide, and thievery and was asleep.

When I woke up, Zee was leaning over me, her naked breasts grazing my chest. Her hands moved over me. “Hey,” she said as I opened my eyes. “I'm awake and so is part of you. How about the rest of you joining us?”

She no longer looked like a child, and I didn't feel the least bit paternal. I put my lips to her throat, right where she liked to be kissed. A little shudder went through her. I ran my hands over the smooth curve of
her hips, then cupped a breast to my mouth. Her breathing grew deeper.

Half an hour later we lay tangled in each other's arms, sweaty and satiated. “Not bad,” she said. “I believe I've almost recovered from the weekend. You're better than bluefishing, even.”

“Thanks a lot,” I said. “Bluefishing's been lousy lately and you know it.”

“Now don't fret,” she said. “A while back I read a book about how the Germans trained some of their spies in World War II. They were trained to use sex to get people to lust after their bodies and reveal state secrets in bed. You know . . .”

“No. Yes. I guess so.”

“No matter. The thing is that the spies were trained by these very scientific types in the tricks of the seduction trade, and I read all about how to do it. It's got nothing to do with feelings, it's all just a matter of properly stimulating your partner's primary and secondary erotic zones. You don't have to be emotionally involved at all. The scientists taught the spies how to do it. I thought it was a very Germanic approach.”

“Just a matter of properly stimulating the primary and secondary erotic zones, eh? Sounds pretty cold.”

“Doesn't make any difference. It works, that's what's important. So even though right now you look like you couldn't get it up with a crane, by properly stimulating your primary and secondary erotic zones I could soon have you rearing like a stallion. If I wanted to, that is.”

“I'll bet you can't do it,” I said.

It was a good bet. There were no losers.

It was early afternoon. We felt lazy and safe. Out of our second shower of the day, Zee rubbed her hair with a towel. “Let's complete the cure,” she said. “Let's go catch some fish.”

“First, the cops,” I said.

“Second, the cops,” she said. “First, the fish.”

“That's what I said,” I said, “First, the fish, second, the cops. Why do you have to argue about everything?”

“It's just my way. You have to learn to put up with it.” She kissed me.

“Well, all right . . .”

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