Vineyard Shadows (15 page)

I picked up the kids and took them home, wishing that the rain would stop. It looked like it might, but not right now. The flowers and veggies and lawn and weeds loved it, but the Jacksons flourished more in sunshine. On the other hand, the dreary day was consistent with my dreary feelings about Tom Rimini.

With a rueful thought about the size of my next telephone bill, I called Quinn. Nobody was at the desk, but an answering machine asked me to leave a message. I left one asking Quinn if he could find out anything about Grace Shepard, then called Detective Gordon R. Sullivan. Gordon was out detecting. Everybody was out but me. I left Gordon the same message I'd left for Quinn. I hung up and thought awhile, then called the offices of the Boston School Committee. After a considerable runaround by various employees of that venerable and highly political institution, I was told that no one by the name of Grace Shepard was teaching in the system.

Hmmmm.

While I waited for somebody to call back, I made four loaves of white bread, using the recipe from my copy of Betty Crocker's old cookbook, which was held together by duct tape. While it was rising, I made a batch of my spaghetti sauce, of which there is no better, the secret ingredients being a can of cream of mushroom soup
and a good shot of Donna Flora's Bean Supreme, which, like onions, improves almost any dish that isn't dessert.

The loaves had just come out of the oven and I had cut three hot thick slices and slathered them with butter for me and the kids, when the phone rang.

Quinn or Sullivan?

Neither. “This is Norman Aylward,” said a voice. “I'd like to talk with Mrs. Zeolinda Jackson.”

“She's working.”

“Brady Coyne asked me to talk with her. I'm a lawyer. I worked with Brady on a few cases before I moved down here.”

“I'm J. W. Jackson,” I said. “Brady said he was going to put us in touch with an island lawyer.”

“That's me. My office is in Vineyard Haven. I think we should all get together as soon as possible so we can get to know one another. Then, if we think we can get along, we can discuss the D.A.'s interest in the incident involving your wife.”

“Zee works all day. Are you available in the evening?”

“I can be. Seven o'clock tonight sound okay? I imagine the D.A. is already considering his options.”

“Seven it is. Where's your office?”

He told me and we rang off.

It irked me that we even needed a lawyer, but I wasn't surprised. Very odd charges have been brought against people and institutions, and very odd decisions have been made by juries and courts. People who should be in jail aren't and people who shouldn't be are. Our most ancient ancestors, like us, probably noted that even when we think we know what justice is, it eludes us as often as not.

This being the case, lawyers like to remind us that as
much as we hate them in the abstract we like to have one on our side when we're headed for court.

I wiped melted butter from my chin and licked my fingers. Yum!

“It's good, Pa,” said buttery Diana.

“There's nothing better.”

“Yeah, Pa.” Joshua nodded.

Such bright children, agreeing with their father without reservation.

“More, Pa?”

“Sure. But we're having spaghetti for supper, so save some room for that.”

I cut and slathered another slice for each of us.

Divine! God was probably a baker.

Quinn called just before Zee was scheduled to come home from work.

“I checked our morgue and sure enough I found your girl Grace Shepard. Nothing much, though. Her husband, Ralph, got himself shot to death a while back. They found him sitting in the driver's seat of his own Caddie with a bullet hole above his ear. Shot from the suicide seat, apparently. No perp was ever charged, and the general opinion is that the killing was related, as the kids say.”

Related. A street term for “drug-related.” I remembered Sullivan mentioning Ralph Shepard.

Quinn went on: “He was a couple of steps up from the street dealers, but nobody seemed to really know for sure. The street wisdom was that he was working for our mutual friend Sonny Whelen, in spite of Sonny's well-known spiel that he has nothing to do with drugs, and that somebody else got rid of Ralph so the somebody could run the drug trade there in JP.”

“Jamaica Plain was Ralph's bailiwick?”

“Every town has its share of drugs, including JP.”

“Who took over for Shepard?”

“That, I cannot tell you. Maybe the cops know, but I don't. I can tell you for a fact, though, that JP has as good a supplier as ever.”

“Do you know anything more about Grace Shepard?”

“The morgue has her as the grieving widow, and that's about it.”

“Any children?”

“None mentioned. I didn't cover the story, and the guy who did is working out on the West Coast now. I can try to get in touch with him if you want.”

“Any other Shepards around town? Mom or Dad or sibs? Anybody who might know more about what happened?”

“They all expressed shock. Inconceivable that their boy Ralph could be mixed up with drugs. A wonderful man with a lovely wife. Used to be an altar boy. A terrible loss. And like that. You know the story.”

Indeed. Every time some slimy character gets himself killed, his family and friends weep and proclaim his sainthood.

I thanked Quinn and told him he could do no more for me at the moment. For this news he thanked me profusely in return on behalf of his bosses who could now hope that he would do some work for them for a change.

I looked at my watch. Time for one more call. I made it to Gordon R. Sullivan. He had just come in. I told him what I'd seen and been told about Grace Shepard.

“Oh, yeah,” said Sullivan. “I remember Grace. The weeping widow, though I don't really remember seeing many tears when they planted Ralph. And I don't think
she was ever a schoolteacher, either, although maybe she tells people that she is, so she'll have a respectable cover. She wasn't any kind of working wife as far as I know. She and Ralph had a place in the North End, and she's still there. I guess Ralph was well insured or had a nest egg stashed away because Grace hasn't worked since, either.”

“You seem to have kept pretty good tabs on her.”

“Well, she interests me. One of the rumors, you know, is that Sonny Whelen is sweet on her and that it was one of his boys that knocked off Ralph, so Sonny would have a clear field with Grace.”

“Maybe Sonny's paying her rent for her.”

“Maybe he is. He can afford it, for sure.”

“She must be the forgiving type if she's hanging around with the guy who knocked off her husband.”

“Maybe she's the one who shot Ralph, so she could go with Sonny. In happens in the best families. Actually, rumor has it that Sonny's hotter for her than she is for him. Maybe she likes younger men.”

“Quinn told me that Ralph ran drugs for Sonny and that afterward somebody else started running them. Do you know who the somebody is? Do you know if he works for Sonny, too?”

“I don't know who's supplying in JP now, but it isn't Sonny. I hear Sonny would like to get the territory back, but he doesn't confide in me very much, so I'm just guessing.”

“Does it strike you that there's a lot of coincidence in these tales I've been collecting? Rimini and his wife live in Jamaica Plain, Sonny Whelen used to run the drug market there until Ralph got himself killed there. Willard Graham puts the strong-arm on Rimini there, Pete McBride follows me there, and Ralph's widow is here
now with Rimini, who's hiding out from Sonny, and so forth.”

“Maybe Jamaica Plain is the real hub of the universe. Or maybe, like you say, it's all a coincidence.”

I tried a Bondism: “Once is coincidence, twice is happenstance, three times is enemy action.”

“You should read a better brand of literature. I admit that it does look like JP is a popular spot with some of the people you've gotten yourself mixed up with. But so what? If not JP, it'd be someplace else. Like the wife's lover said when the husband came home early and found him hiding in the chandelier, ‘Everybody's got to be somewhere.'”

“You should get a new joke book. Is Sonny still hot for Grace Shepard?”

“Sonny would tell you that he's a faithful and happily married man with a couple of grandchildren. I have it on pretty good authority, though, that he'd like to be very close to Grace. In fact, if Sonny has a weakness, I'd say it was her.”

Ah, the fatal femme. “Does she feel the same way about him?”

I could almost see his shrug. “Who knows? But diamonds are a girl's best friend, as they say. He takes her to fancy places, and somebody's paying for her apartment and that big car of hers.”

“Then what's she doing down here with Tom Rimini?”

“The first thing that comes to mind is that Sonny entertains Grace on the side, and Grace and Rimini entertain each other on the side.”

“Dangerous stuff. Sonny isn't a guy you want mad at you.”

“He's already pretty mad at Rimini. Probably madder
now than before those two thugs got themselves shot up in your front yard. Sonny's lost at least three soldiers in the past couple of years, if you count Ralph, and that can't make him happy.”

“Does he get hot or cold when things get tough?”

“Some of each. He didn't get where he is by being stupid, but while he was getting there nobody could tell what he'd do. It was one of the things that made him so scary. You cross him or get in his way and he might wait for months to set you up, or, if it was really personal, he was inclined to run right out and shoot you himself. He's done it both ways, although we can't prove it. Maybe he's psychotic or maybe he's just smart as hell. I don't know.”

“He seemed stable enough when I talked to him.”

“You weren't a threat. You want some advice?”

“Sure.”

“Down your way the state cops handle all homicides. I think you should get in touch with them and tell them what you've told me. What's the name of their head guy on the island?”

“Dom Agganis.”

“You talk with Agganis. Whatever's going on is tied to the shootings at your house. Tell him everything and give him my name and number. I'll get in touch with him and with some feds I know up here. Let us handle whatever it is that's happening. You drop out and go back to being a family man.”

“Good advice,” I said.

“You should take it.”

Probably. “I'll talk to Agganis,” I said.

I was barely off the phone when Zee came though the door. She looked tired and somber in spite of the split-lipped
smile she had put on for her entrance. I told her about the call I'd gotten from Norman Aylward and the appointment I'd made for us to see him.

“So we've finally got a lawyer,” she said. “I suppose it had to come sometime. Other people have lawyers, and now we do. All right, I'll go see him.”

“I'll go with you.”

“No. You stay here with the cubs. This is about me.”

I put my hands on her shoulders and looked down into those dark, deep eyes. “If it's about you, it's about me, too.”