A Deadly Vineyard Holiday (10 page)

The gun went off and a hole appeared in the upper left corner of the target.

“Again,” said Manny. “Same as before. Line up the sights on the bull's-eye and squeeze the trigger. Don't yank it.”

She shot the cylinder empty and got one into an inner circle.

“Not bad,” said Manny. “We'll do it again.” He showed her how to reload, and she fired another six shots, getting most of the bullets inside the outer circle this time.

She shot up a box of bullets, first shooting single action, then double, and noting correctly how much more difficult it was to hit anything when shooting double action.

When she was done, she was delighted. “It's fun! How'd I do?”

“You did okay,” said Manny. He handed her the bullet-punctured target. “Here. Take that back to Virginia and show it to your daddy.”

“I will!”

Manny looked at Ted. “You want to try your hand, Ted?”

Ted almost smiled. “Another time.”

Manny looked at Karen. “You?”

“No,” said Karen.

“Well, I guess we're done, then,” said Manny. He put his hand on Zee's shoulder. “Friday morning?”

“That'll be fine,” said Zee.

Back at the house, Ted looked meditatively at Debby. “That guy can shoot some,” he said. “And he's a good teacher. You try to remember everything he told you.”

He got into his car and drove away. I looked at my watch. Four hours till low tide. Plenty of time to try to find Joe Begay.

“I'm going up to Gay Head,” I said. “Anybody want to come along?”

Everybody decided to go, so we all got into Zee's Jeep, a much more comfortable machine than my trusty but rusty Land Cruiser, and headed west, with Debby full of talk about the shooting lesson. We hadn't gone too far before I was pretty sure that a car about a quarter of a mile back was following us.

I took a left at the blinkers and drove along Barnes Road. Sure enough, the car made the turn, too, staying a quarter of a mile or so behind. Not too close, but close enough. When I took a right on West Tisbury Road, the car followed along.

I turned into the airport entrance.

“Why does it say ‘The County of Dukes County Airport' and not just ‘Dukes County Airport'?” asked Debby.

“It's a long story,” I said.

“I thought we were going to Gay Head,” said Zee.

“We are,” I said, “but I want to see if that guy behind me is actually tailing us, or whether I'm just paranoid.”

My passengers turned and looked back as the car turned into the airport entrance road.

“That blue car,” I said. “Anybody recognize it?”

“How long has it been following us?” asked Karen.

“Since we left home. Maybe he's just a guy trying to catch a plane.”

“And maybe I'm the queen of Siam,” said Karen.

I drove up to the terminal and took a left around to the temporary parking spots, where folks load and unload their cars while waiting for airplanes to come or go. I kept driving around the circle and came back to the entrance road just as the blue car should have been coming by.

It wasn't.

It could have been in any one of several places beside or off the entrance road: at the auto repair shop, at the Steamship Authority office, where you can sometimes actually get tickets to or from the island on the day you want to travel, at the Laundromat, or at one or another of the businesses that are out there.

The car turned out to be at the auto repair shop, which is at the end of a short side road near the air terminal. I didn't actually see it there, but I did see it reappear behind us after we passed the side road on our way out.

I took a right and headed for West Tisbury. The blue car stayed well back, but followed along.

“Good guy? Bad guy? Nosy writer looking for a scoop?” I listed the possibilities to my passengers.

“Can you lose him?” asked Karen.

“Probably, if he stays that far back,” I said. “But do you want to lose him? Wouldn't it be better to find out who he is?”

“Better, maybe, but not necessarily safer, and that's what I've got to think about first. Lose him.”

There are some winding roads up in West Tisbury, and unless you're close you can lose contact with a car in front of you. I drove along at a sedate pace until I was almost to the millpond, then hit the gas and sped out of our shadow's sight just long enough to hang a sharp left on New Lane and disappear.

The shadow, probably coming past the youth hostel by this time, had several choices to consider. We were gone, but gone where? Along Old Country Road to the right? Along New Lane to the left? Past the millpond and its swans, then right toward North Tisbury? Past the millpond and then left, going by Alley's Store and on toward Chilmark?

And if north, then what should he do at the Scotchman's Lane intersection? Go left? Go right? Go straight ahead to the North Road intersection? Then what? Left on North Road, or straight on State Road?

And if he turned south, should he go straight on South Road? Or had we taken a right on Music Street, another onto the panhandle, and gone straight on? Or had we gone left onto Middle Road and headed on up-island?

Or had we turned into one of the many private drives that leave the paved roads?

Shadow had problems. I wondered if he knew that Music Street, so named, they say, for the piano purchased by some culturally inclined guy who lived there long ago, had previously been known as Cow Turd Lane? I doubted it, because I didn't think Shadow was too familiar with the island; otherwise he'd have gotten closer to us when we came to West Tisbury village, so he'd know which turn we took.

Down New Lane a little way, I pulled into a driveway, turned around, and parked. If Shadow happened to pass by, I wanted to be facing him.

“We'll wait awhile,” I said, “and give this guy a chance to give up on us before we go on.” I offered my passengers my theory about Shadow's relative ignorance of the island and its roads.

“You know anything about surveillance?” asked Karen.

“Not much,” I admitted.

“Well, for one thing, there may be more than one car involved. The first guy goes away for a while, and another car takes over. You notice any other cars sort of staying with us in front or behind?”

“No. But that doesn't mean there wasn't another one. I was watching the blue one. Is that one of your outfit's cars, by the way?”

“No, it's not,” said Karen. “If you wanted to intercept somebody headed up-island, where would you do it? Beetlebung Corner, right? All the up-island roads converge there. You don't have to trail anybody all the way from Edgartown. All you have to do is go ahead to Beetlebung Corner and wait for them to come by.”

“You're smarter than the average bear,” I said, turning to look back at her. “How did you, a mere off-islander, come up with that bit of wisdom?”

“I have a map,” said Karen. “And I studied it, just like I was told to do at one of our earliest briefings. We all have maps.”

“You almost make one have confidence in one's government,” I said. “Well, you're right, unless whoever you're tailing stops somewhere this side of Beetlebung Corner. In which case, you'll wait a long time up there. But we aren't stopping this side, so if Shadow is waiting for us, he'll find us. My plan is to give him time to give up and go home and then we'll go on.”

“And while you're waiting,” said Karen, opening her ever-present handbag and taking out her radio, “I'll make a call and find out if that car is one of ours that nobody's told me about.”

She got out of the car, crossed the road, and made her call. Ever the secretive Secret Service person.

I looked at Debby. “How you doing, kid? Pain in the you-know-where, isn't it?”

“To tell you the truth,” said Debby, “I like it better this way than the way it usually is. Usually, I don't get to move around at all unless there's security everywhere. It's like living in a glass cage. I don't ever want to be a movie star or a politician, I can tell you. My dad likes his job enough to put up with it, and I can do it, too, as long as I have to, because of his career. But as soon as I can,
I'm going to get out of the light. Right now, here with you and Zee, it's better because nobody, not even the person in that car, probably really knows I'm here. They may think it, but they don't know for sure. So it's like being free, in a way.”

“You're not scared, then?” asked Zee.

“After a while,” said Debby, quite calmly, “you stop being scared. As long as I can remember, I've known there are some sick people out there who might try to do something; but it doesn't do any good to be scared about it. You just have to put them out of your mind and be careful at the same time.”

Zee looked at her, then nodded. “Yes. That's what you've got to do. You're a brave cousin, Debby Jackson.”

“Not always,” said Debby.

Karen came back, not looking happy. “Definitely not one of ours,” she said, getting in. “I think we should go back.”

I'd been considering that possibility. “We were picked up at my place,” I said. “If I was Shadow and if I'd lost us like I hope he has, I'd go back and wait until we came home. We do have to go there eventually, but in the meantime, I think we can go on up to Gay Head.”

She looked disapproving but said nothing.

I went on. “Shadow has just been trailing us, but he hasn't tried to close. If he'd given any sign of getting close enough to do us some damage, I'd think differently. But he hasn't. He just seems to want to know where we are. And now he's lost us altogether.”

“Maybe,” said Karen.

“Yeah, maybe,” said Zee. “But if he's ahead of us, we should see him at least as soon as he sees us. And if he's gone back down-island, he really has lost us. I think Jeff's right, but you're the Secret Service agent, so you decide.”

Karen gave a rueful smile. “Maybe I should go into some other line of business. All right, we'll go on. What's so damned important up in Gay Head, anyway?”

“I want to see a friend. While I'm doing that, the rest of you might take a walk under the cliffs or something like that. Do you good.”

“Yes!” said Debby, with a real grin this time. “I've been at the top of the cliffs, but not at the bottom. The last time I was up there, you could see naked people down there! We could all take off our clothes!”

“Cricket Callahan!” Karen looked as if she was trying to appear more shocked than she really was.

“I think they're sort of frowning on naked people down there these days,” I said. “But I could be wrong. You can give me a report when you get back.”

I looked at my watch. It seemed as good a time as any to go, so I did. No blue car was in sight when we got out to the Edgartown–West Tisbury Road. I took a left and drove past the police station and the old millpond, whose swans were right where they were supposed to be. At the fork, I went left again, past Alley's Store and the field of dancing statues, then cut right onto Music Street, and left onto Middle Road, where the long-horned cattle lived behind their stone fence. Middle Road, narrow and winding, is one of the prettiest on the island, and I liked to take it when I went up-island.

No blue car appeared behind us as we entered Chilmark, and I was content that Shadow either had gone home or was waiting for us up at Beetlebung Corner.

I played tour guide, and pointed out stone fences and farms to my passengers.

“Damn,” said Karen, suddenly, as we were ending a rare straight stretch of road.

I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the blue car
coming over a hill behind us, at the beginning of the straight stretch.

Hmmmmmm.

Shadow, as if as surprised at seeing us as we were at seeing him, fell back out of sight as we rounded another of the road's many turnings.

“Where the hell did he come from?” asked Karen. “There was nobody there when we came out of West Tisbury.”

“Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,” I misquoted. “Now we know where he is, at least. And he's not coming any closer.”

“But how'd he find us?”

An interesting question. “If all he wants is to know where we're going,” I said, “it's okay with me. I don't expect to be there long, anyway. So we'll just drive on.”

We got to Beetlebung Corner and went on past Chilmark Center to Gay Head. Shadow stayed out of sight, but I didn't think he'd gone away.

Joe Begay's house isn't hard to find if you know where to look, which I do. The surprise was that he and Toni were both actually there, and not working. I introduced my cousins.

“Mom's looking after the shop, and Jimmy Souza's running the boat today,” explained Toni, who looked a proper seven months pregnant and had that slightly tired glow that some women wear as they get closer to their birthing days. “Joe and I are just loafing.”

“I didn't know you had cousins in Virginia,” said Joe, his dark eyes ironic in his craggy bronze face.

“Their first time on the island,” I said. “I thought maybe Toni could take them on a walk under the cliffs while you and I have a beer or two.”

Joe's private stock was Ipswich Ale, an excellent brew
put together up north of Boston and brought down to Joe by a friend. It was always nice to have an Ipswich Ale.

Joe looked at Toni. “How's that sound to you?”

“It sounds good,” said Toni. “I can use the exercise, and I won't have to stay here and listen to man talk.” She kissed him and Zee kissed me, and the women and the girl walked away down the path behind the house, toward the faint sound of surf, which was carried to us on the southwest wind.

Ipswich Ale came only in half-gallon bottles. Joe got one out of the fridge and brought two glasses. We sat down on the porch. He poured and we both drank. Delish!