Vineyard Shadows (17 page)

“We'll see.”

I took Barnes Road to the Vineyard's only blinker, crossed the highway and took Airport Road to the end, then took a left toward Edgartown. When I got to John Skye's driveway, I pulled off the road.

“Stay here. Don't get out of the truck. I'll be right back.”

“Okay, Pa.”

I walked down the driveway until I could see the buildings through the trees, and found myself a shady nook behind a scrub oak. Rimini's car and Grace Shepard's big Explorer were parked side by side.

Grace clearly hadn't taken an early boat back to America. While I was watching, she and Rimini came from the house and went to the Explorer. They looked around in that way people have when they don't want to be seen, then took some gear from the Explorer's rear compartment and carried it back to the house. Two of the items looked like cases for rifles or shotguns. After a while they came out again. Rimini walked down to the barn and opened the double doors. Grace Shepard drove the Explorer into the barn, then came out. She helped Rimini shut the doors and they both walked back to the house.

I didn't think I was going to see much else, so I went back to the Land Cruiser.

“Pa.”

“What?”

“Can we have some other kinds of fish, too? Like we saw today?”

“We'll see.”

I drove us home and fixed us some lunch. While I
did, I thought of the renewed promise I'd given to Carla to take care of her errant husband. A promise made is a promise kept, but Rimini was making this one hard. I felt tightened muscles in my jaw.

John Skye was an occasional shooter of ducks and geese. Sometimes he'd come down during bird season and spend some hours in a blind out on the Edgartown Great Pond. For several years I went with him, and we had gotten our share of game; but then our passion for shooting seemed to wane at about the same rate, and our last hunts had consisted mostly of sitting, freezing, in our blind, drinking coffee laced with brandy, munching sandwiches, gossiping, and watching ducks sail over us and our unfired guns.

I had no moral objection to hunting, holding as I did to the proposition that if you ate it you could shoot it, whether in season or out. If a man with a hungry family jacked a deer or potted himself an out-of-season duck or two, he wouldn't get reported by me. On the other hand, I, like John, rarely enjoyed even a good killing shot, so had pretty much given up hunting altogether.

But I still had my father's deer rifle and shotguns locked in our gun cabinet, and in the wintertime I kept John's long guns there as well, just in case some local thief broke into his house when I wasn't around.

Now, drinking Sam Adams beer, and sharing ham-and-cheese sandwiches made from yesterday's fresh-made bread, I watched my children eat and considered the sight I'd just seen in John Skye's yard.

One reading of it was that from the beginning Tom Rimini had been far more frightened than I'd thought. Not content to simply hide out until some resolution of his dilemma could be determined, he felt the need of weapons to protect himself. If that was the case, he must have been a lot more interested in John's gun cabinet than in the fine library I'd imagined he'd value when I first took him out to the farm. He must have perked right up when he'd first seen the cabinet, but been sorely let down when he found it to be unlocked and empty.

That might explain a desperate call to Grace Shepard. Her husband, having been in the dangerous business of supplying drugs, no doubt had weapons, and she, now Rimini's mistress, apparently had been willing to bring some of them down to her lover.

In this scenario, he'd called her because he wanted her with him and he wanted weapons, but he hadn't wanted me to know about any of that because he was still dependent on me to keep him safe and he knew I'd be angry with him if I discovered his betrayal of our agreement, to say nothing of his betrayal of his wife.

And he'd been right. I had been angry, but I'd been mollified by his promise to send Grace back home, and by my own disquieting realization that even after years of separation, and in spite of my marriage to Zee, I still found Carla attractive and still cared about what happened to her.

But he hadn't mentioned the guns, and he hadn't sent Grace back. He'd lied.

Why?

Because he loved Grace Shepard more than he loved Carla, and was more afraid of Sonny Whelen than he was of me?

Maybe.

What would I have done if I were in his predicament, feeling the way he did? Maybe the same thing.

But I wasn't him and never would have been.

“More, Pa?”

Diana the Huntress, licking her fingers, always after food.

I made another sandwich, cut it in two, and gave half to her and half to Joshua.

“Thank you, Pa.”

“You're welcome.”

Why had Grace brought long guns to Rimini instead of pistols? Because Rimini, like most men, wasn't a shortrange shootist and didn't know much about handguns? Even cops, who carry side arms and are trained to shoot, and whose jobs bring them up against society's most violent people, don't know a lot about handguns, are notorious for being bad shots when shoot they must, and usually retire without ever having fired their pistols anywhere except on a range. Most Americans don't shoot at all, and if they do it's because they're hunters, like John Skye, who shoot rifles and shotguns. If they have any training whatsoever, it's usually the rifle practice they got in the armed services. So, if Rimini was a normal guy who suddenly thought he needed a weapon, he'd go for a long gun, if he went for any gun at all.

But unless my eyes had deceived me, he and Grace had carried at least two gun cases into the house. Why the need for more than one weapon? Was Grace the loyal gun moll? Was she going to stand shoulder to shoulder with her man and blow the bad guys away as they came through the windows? And even if that was the plan, did they really expect Sonny Whelen to come busting in, guns blazing? Or Sonny's men, if not Sonny himself?

Or did Rimini fear someone else? Graham, maybe? Was Graham after his scalp for some reason? If so, why?

Or was it somebody else entirely? Pete McBride and his muscle, Bruno, maybe.

But if Pete McBride was after Sonny Whelen's throne, why would Pete come gunning for Tom Rimini, who was at best a very small cog in a very big machine?

I emptied my beer bottle.

The thing was that none of those guys were supposed to know where Rimini was hiding out. They knew that he was on the Vineyard somewhere, but even the Vineyard, small as it looks on maps, consists of something like 130 square miles of land, most of it still pretty undeveloped; finding Rimini would be like finding the proverbial needle.

Unless Rimini, frightened and alone, had somehow revealed his location.

I wouldn't put it past him to have done exactly that. He'd definitely called Grace, and maybe Grace really liked Sonny's attentions more than Rimini's. Maybe she'd tipped Sonny off, then come down to sucker Rimini into thinking she was on his side. She's have brought the guns he'd asked for, but maybe that was just to get him feeling good, so she could liquor him asleep, and then open the door to Sonny's men.

Or maybe he planned to shoot me.

There was a thought. Maybe I was the weak link as far as he was concerned. If he got rid of me, nobody would know where he'd gone. Nobody, that is, but Zee and the kids. And, of course, Dom Agganis; but Rimini didn't know about Agganis, so as far as he was concerned, only the Jacksons could lead Sonny to John Skye's farm. I tried but failed to see Tom Rimini as a mass murderer. I also tried and failed to see myself as always being right
about people. I had been fooled before and would no doubt be fooled again.

Whatever Rimini was up to, I didn't like those long guns, and I didn't like his lies. I called Helen Fonseca and asked if she could take the kids for an hour in exchange for some bluefish pâté. She said she'd take them for nothing, but would never say no to bluefish pâté since Manny was a hunter but not much of a fisherman.

I took the kids and the pâté to Manny's house, told Helen that I was forever in her debt, and drove to the police station. The Chief wasn't in; he was downtown directing traffic. Since it was a lovely, sunny day, Edgartown was only half as mobbed as it had been during the rain and I managed to find a parking place on Summer Street. The Chief was standing in front of the Bickerton and Ripley Bookstore, watching a summer cop try to keep traffic flowing and pedestrians from being run over. No easy task, but the girl was not doing too badly, all in all.

“Nobody's been killed since I got here,” said the Chief. “I'm a good teacher.”

“Some were born to lead,” I said.

“I know you want something. What is it?”

“I need to confess my sins, and since I don't go to church I decided to come to you as the closest thing to a priest, or a father figure, at least.”

“I don't think we have time to discuss all of your transgressions, so let's just talk about one or two of the worst of them.”

I told him about my talk with Agganis and what I'd seen since at John Skye's place.

“Rimini lied to me about Grace Shepard, and he never told me about those long guns. Maybe he lied about other stuff, too. I thought I knew what was going on, but now I'm not so sure.”

“This isn't the first time you've thought wrong.”

“Mea culpa, mea culpa. The thing is, so far the only crime Rimini's admitted committing has been taking bets in Boston. He hasn't broken any laws on Martha's Vineyard unless he isn't licensed to have those guns.”

“Maybe he lied to you about his gambling problems, just like he lied about this Shepard woman and the guns.”

I nodded. “Yeah, but why would he do that? He was running from Sonny Whelen for some reason, and Sonny was mad enough to send those goons to my house looking for him.”

“Too bad Sonny didn't take that job himself. Zee could have plugged the head of the mob instead of just a couple of soldiers.”

“Tsk, tsk, Chief. That's a very unlawmanlike sentiment.”

“I have a lot of unlawmanlike sentiments, several of them having to do with you. I'll check and see if Rimini has a firearms permit. If he doesn't, I suppose I can go up there and arrest him for illegal possession, but if he does, I don't think there's anything I can do about him, except let him know that the local law has its eye on him. If he has something illegal in mind, that may keep him from doing it.”

“Blessed are the peacekeepers.”

“I don't know how many people have advised you to step out of this affair and leave it to the pros, but you can add me to the list.”

“I think you're either number three or number four,” I said.

“You're going to accept our counsel, of course.”

“I probably should,” I said, and crossed the street barely fast enough to avoid being run over by a car driven by a lady who was admiring something in a store
window. The summer cop blew her whistle just in time to stop the car from hitting her. The driver looked embarrassed when the cop stared at her through the windshield then waved her on down Main. The Chief, watching all this, didn't change expression. Another triumph for law and order.

I found a phone and called John Skye's house. After three rings, Rimini picked up the receiver.

“Yes?”

I told him I was coming out.

“When?”

“In about two minutes.”

“Oh. Oh, all right.”

I hung up, found my truck, and drove to the farm. It took a lot longer than two minutes, but I hoped my lie would keep Grace Shepard from trying to drive away before I got there.

It did.

Rimini opened the door of the house when I drove into the yard, and stepped out onto the front porch. No rifles or shotguns were in sight. Neither was Grace Shepard, but a moment later she moved into view behind Rimini.

Rimini looked nervous, but Grace looked cool.

“I know what you're thinking,” said Rimini as I got to them. “I can explain.”

“You're Grace,” I said to the woman.

“Yes.” She put out her hand and smiled. “You're Mr. Jackson. How do you do?”

She wore Bermuda shorts, sandals, and a blouse that complemented her hair and complexion. Summer wear for Martha's Vineyard. She had a good figure and her face was smooth and well-featured. Her blue eyes were keen and, at that moment, inquisitive. It wasn't hard to
imagine why more than one man had found her attractive. She was the kind of woman who could have a man anytime she wanted, and probably any man she wanted.

“I heard that you were going to be back on the mainland by now,” I said.

“You were misinformed, I'm afraid. You aren't going to make an issue of it, are you?” She smiled a smile that could change a lot of minds.

“I'm not,” I said, “but Sonny Whelen might, if he finds out.”