A Beautiful Place to Die (6 page)

“What about Danny Sylvia? Susie says he's the one who got Billy started on dope in the first place. She saw them a week ago, arguing. She says Danny threatened him.”

She put her hands on her knees. “No, I can't imagine it. Maria and Fred Sylvia were just as horrified as I was when they learned that Danny was using drugs. They sent him off to some place in California for the cure. I remember how furious and determined they were, how they forced Danny into the toughest program they could find and made him stay there until he was absolutely freed from his addiction. I don't think that Danny would dare get involved with drugs again. He's in college out west somewhere, I think. No, I can't imagine Danny being so angry with Billy that he'd threaten him. Susie must have been mistaken.”

“Why did you stop playing tennis with Maria Sylvia?”

She looked at me with secret eyes.

I gave her a suggestion. “Was it because her son had corrupted yours?”

She tossed her head in a peculiarly youthful way, which allowed me to glimpse her daughter in her. “No. If you want to know the truth, it was because she likes young men too much. She's my age, but she surrounds herself with men half her age, with boys young enough to be her sons. She has one of them working in her house who doesn't do anything but drive her around or play tennis with her.
He's supposed to be her husband's bodyguard, I hear, but it's her body he's guarding. She likes the tennis pro at the club. After a while I decided I didn't care for it, so I broke off from her.”

“A lot of men prefer younger women.”

“That's different.”

“A lot of women prefer younger men. I'm told it's quite fashionable, in fact.”

“I'm not one of those women.”

“Did she have an eye for Billy?”

She gave me a cold look, then let it fade and shrugged. “You're astute. Yes, I thought she was more interested in him than she needed to be, and I didn't like it. I wanted him away from his old companions, so I took him and left.”

“And sent him off for a cure of his own.”

“Not right away. At first we deceived ourselves by thinking that he'd give up the drugs on his own. But of course he hadn't. He pretended to, but he hadn't. After that we sent him to a private hospital.”

“And he came back cured.”

“Yes. He was accepted at Brown and he's doing quite well.”

“And nobody he once knew might want him dead?”

“No.”

I got up and so did she. At the door she said, “I really think that Susie is quite wrong. All I can imagine is that she's in some kind of shock. She was very fond of Jim Norris, and she and Billy are close. The accident must have disturbed her very much indeed.”

We exchanged good-byes and I left. As I drove I wished I hadn't stopped smoking. There was a drug bust coming up and there was the explosion, and there was Susie
Martin saying there was a link between the explosion and drugs but the chief and Marge Martin saying there was no such link. Maybe the chief was lying just to keep me from nosing around and screwing up the impending bust, but then again maybe he wasn't. If Billy was a squealer, why didn't the chief just tell me? If he'd done that, I'd probably have agreed to keep my nose out of things until the bust was history, and then maybe he and I together could have looked into the theory that Billy had been set up for murder. But the chief didn't act like a man with a murder to solve. He was directing traffic and riding around in the cruiser and acting as normal as a policeman can who knows that the big state and federal guns are about to swoop down on his community. Ah, how I missed my old corncob pipe!

I went home and called Quinn in Boston, but he was out. So much for that angle. So much for every angle. I had just enough time to make Wasque Point. I got into the Landcruiser and headed for the fishing ground. I thought back five years and reminded myself that I'd left police work behind me quite consciously, quite deliberately, because I was tired of trouble and no longer believed that I could or should devote myself to curing society of its ills. Rather, I'd live within myself and seek the simple life, close to earth and sea, apart from human foible and folly. It seemed as good a plan now as it had then. I was glad when I got to the beach.

Zee's Jeep was gone from Wasque, but there were a dozen others with fish tossed in their shade. Three- or four-pounders. I watched for a while. There was more coffee drinking going on than fishing, so things must have slowed down. I got out and took my graphite and put on a three-ounce red-headed Roberts. I'd added about fifteen
yards to my cast when I'd gotten the graphite. It was a sweet rod. I walked down to the water, put a little muscle into the cast, and dropped the Roberts far out into the edge of the rip.

Bingo!

In about ten seconds I was shoulder to shoulder with other fishermen. It's a well-known fact that there are fishermen living under the sand at Wasque. You can be down there all alone, and as soon as you catch a fish they all jump out and start casting right beside you. When the fish are gone, the people all disappear again.

Zee should be here, I found myself thinking. I got eleven fish on twice that many casts and then they were gone. Ten minutes later I got a final stray and called it a day. We all talked for a while.

“Hey, J.W., I hear you hauled George Martin off the beach yesterday. He okay?”

I said he was as good as could be expected. George was popular on the beach. He had more money than all of the rest of us together could ever hope to have, but he was just another fisherman as far as the regulars were concerned.

“Too damned bad about Jim Norris.”

“Yeah.”

“I hear he was leaving the island and going home. Never make it now except in a box.”

“George and Jim were good buddies. Fished together a lot when Jim wasn't working.”

“George going to make it, J.W.?”

“He says he'll be on the beach as soon as they let him out of bed.”

“That's George. He'd rather fish than fuck.”

“He'd rather fish
and
fuck.”

“Yeah, that's probably more like it.”

Everybody laughed. It came to me that Zee had said she'd gotten off work at two in the morning, which probably meant that she went to work at six in the evening.

“It's fish in the freezer time,” I said. I tossed my catch into the box, drove to Herring Creek and scaled them, then went home. I filleted them on the bench behind my storage shed, bagged them, and put all but one in the freezer. The one I put in the fridge. I like fresh bluefish a lot about three times each spring. After that I still eat it because that's what I have, but not because I particularly like it. But I never get tired of smoked bluefish, so I freeze it for that purpose. Down my driveway I'm famous for my smoked bluefish.

I went back and washed off the fish-cleaning bench and tossed the bluefish carcasses into the woods northeast of the house. In a week the bones would be bare; meanwhile, the prevailing southwesterlies would keep the stench away.

I mixed up some stuffing and layered it between the two fillets I'd put in the fridge and put the fish on an oiled cookie sheet. Stuffed bluefish! Yum. Too much for one meal for one man, but delicious again tomorrow, warmed over. I popped a Molson and took it out to the garden with me while I picked peas. Pods, actually. The sweet Chinese kind. Back inside I put them in a pan with salted water. While everything cooked, I finished the beer and got a sauterne out of the fridge. I like it better than drier stuff with bluefish. I took a swig. Good! I poured a glass for the cook. When the timer dinged, I put everything on the table and turned on the radio to listen to the news.

I have a tendency to eat fast when I'm alone, so I took my time, just as though I had company. I imagined Zee sitting across the table. It was a nice bit of imagining. The radio news seemed about the same as usual. Once I'd
experimented and hadn't listened to it for a month. When I listened again, nothing much had changed. Still, I kept on listening to it. A human voice at mealtime.

When I was through, I washed and stacked the dishes and called Quinn. He was still out. Probably in a bar somewhere doing newspaper work. Quinn was okay. I was okay, too. The wine bottle was empty and in the trash basket under the kitchen counter. I got into the Landcruiser and drove to Oak Bluffs. It was dusk and the beach was empty save for stragglers who hated to go home for supper. A lone surf-sailer was easing along in the dying wind and beyond him, out in the sound, sails were white against the darkening sky, trying for harbor before nightfall.

In the hospital parking lot I found Zee's Jeep. George's Wagoneer, too. Susie must still be visiting. Personally, I hate hospitals. They're unhealthy places. People die there all the time. I almost did myself. I went into the emergency ward and immediately saw Zee. She was saying good-night to a patient with a patch over his eye. Another Vineyard casualty of some sort. I decided to try the direct approach.

“Hello,” I said.

“Well, hello, Jeff.” She looked terrific in a newly pressed white uniform. The doctors in emergency often look like they just came in from the farm or the beach. An informal crew. Zee looked professional.

“Can I talk to you even though there's nothing wrong with me?”

“Who told you there was nothing wrong with you?” She had fine teeth. Very even and white.

“I went fishing this afternoon. I noticed that you got your Jeep back from the beach.”

“You're not the only man that I know.” I could believe that. “A couple of friends went down and brought it to me.”

“It's good for a woman to know a number of manly four-wheel-drive driving men.”

“Like you.”

“Pardon my shy smile and my foot scuffing the floor.”

“You still have my rod and tacklebox.”

“And your waders, too.”

“Ah, yes. The ten-pound bag.”

“Everything's out in my manly FWD. I'll stick your gear in your Jeep when I leave. Say, how long are you going to be on this shift?”

“Two o'clock in the morning, just like yesterday. Why do you ask? she inquired coyly.”

“I thought I might invite you out to dinner so you could get to know me better and maybe I could get you drunk so you'd do something your mother would regret. Or, barring that, maybe I might just invite you out to dinner. But since you get off at two in the morning, maybe I should invite you to breakfast instead, or maybe to a snack or something. . . .”

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Well, do it. Invite me. But not to breakfast or a snack. I'm really wiped out and I expect to be more wiped out when I get through this shift. Try supper.”

“You mean I spent my teenage years wondering how to ask girls out and all I had to do was just come right out and ask?”

“What can you lose?”

“You might say no, and I'd be crushed. Beneath this brawny chest beats a sensitive heart.”

“How Hemingwayesque. Take a chance.”

“Okay. Will you go out to dinner with me?”

“Yes.”

“Golly.” I felt terrific. “When?”

“I'm off tomorrow night. The next morning I go on day shift again.”

“Where do you like to eat?”

“You decide. Be manly.”

“I can't help it most of the time, but the sight of you turns me into a child.”

“In that case I'll reconsider my answer.”

“I was lying. I'm more masculine than you can possibly imagine. You'll trust my choice of restaurants?”

“If you can't trust the man who teaches you how to cast, whom can you trust?”

She lived in West Tisbury. An up-islander. I got directions and also her telephone number. A double score. I told her I'd pick her up at six-thirty. About then a woman with torn clothes and a bloody knee was brought in.

“Moped accident number five for the day,” said Zee, and she was gone.

I walked back through the corridors of the hospital and found Billy's room. No armed guards. No guards of any kind. The chief obviously hadn't taken my suggestion about possible murder in the hospital very seriously. Neither had I, for that matter. Still, if I walked in with, say, a silenced .22, I could walk right out again without a soul to stop me. I went to the door and heard voices from inside. Billy's and a female's. I thought it was Susie's, but then I knew it wasn't. It was a jittery voice, a tight voice. I couldn't make out the words, but I recognized the tones. I'd heard voices like that in Boston long ago. I knocked on the door and walked in.

The girl jerked around. She'd been sitting on the bed, and now she jumped off. Her eyes were flickering, like those of a scared cat. Her hands leaped into a knot. Billy stared at me.

“Oops,” I said. “Gee, Billy, I didn't know you had company.”

“Well, I do,” he said after a moment.

“My name's Jackson,” I said, giving the girl a fast smile. “I'm a friend of the family.”

She nodded and put on a quick smile of her own.

“This . . . this is Julie,” said Billy. “She's my . . . a friend from college. She . . .”

“I heard about the accident,” she said in a startled-fawn way. “It was on the news. I came over to see him. I was so worried.” One hand rubbed the opposite arm, then found the other hand and knotted into it again. She looked quickly at Billy. “Well, maybe I should go. I guess I really should. I guess I will. I'll . . . I'll see you later, then, Billy. Okay?”

Julie went out. I smiled at Billy. “Just came by to see how you're doing, kid.”

“Fine,” he said, “I'm doing fine.”

“That's the way, kid. I'll see you later, then.”

“Yeah. Yeah, thanks for coming by.”

I went out and down the hall and out into the parking lot. A Mazda two-door was pulling out. Julie was in it. A teacher I knew in Boston told me that you could always tell the difference between the faculty cars and the student cars. The student cars were new.