A Deadly Vineyard Holiday (21 page)

About a half-mile down the road a car pulled out of a
driveway and began following us. Shadow or the Secret Service? I drove steadily, slowing but not stopping at the stop sign at the V where the Oak Bluffs and Vineyard Haven roads meet, and going on into town past the empty A & P parking lot.

Karen looked back at the car, then at me. “What are you going to do about that?”

“I'm going to stay ahead of him.”

“I think that's one of our cars.”

“I'm still going to stay ahead of him.”

I took the right fork at Cannonball Park and followed Cooke Street to Pease's Point Way, slowing but not stopping, as the law requires, at the corner of West Tisbury Road. The following car didn't stop, either. Another outlaw. Where were the cops when you needed one?

At the police station on Pease's Point Way, probably. I thought of stopping there, but figured that the car would just drive on by and thus get between me and where I wanted to go, so I went on, ignoring yet another stop sign when I got to Clevelandtown Road and heading on to Katama.

We went by the white rail fence that marks the estate of the only man in Edgartown with cannons on his front lawn, set, apparently, to repel an attack from the harbor. I stepped on the gas and the old Land Cruiser gained speed. But the car behind us lost no ground at all. In fact, it got closer.

“If that's a Secret Service car, why are you trying to stay ahead of it?” asked Debby.

“Never mind that, dear,” said Karen. “It isn't important. We can talk about it later, if you want.”

Debby was silent for a while. But then she spoke in a voice that started low and cool and then rose in both volume and heat. “I'm sixteen years old. My dad is president
of the United States. I live in the White House. I go to one of the best schools in the country. I've been to five continents. If I lived in some of the places I've seen, I'd probably be a married woman by now. I'd probably have babies and a house to take care of! But you're both keeping things from me, just like I was a little kid who'll have nightmares or something if I know the truth! I'm tired of being treated this way! You tell me what's going on or you can stop right here and let me out of this damned car!”

“Now, Cricket . . . ,” said Karen soothingly.

“Don't ‘Now, Cricket' me!” cried Debby. “Stop the car, J.W.! Stop it right now.”

“I'm not going to stop the car,” I said.

“If you don't stop the car, it's kidnapping!”

“See those lights ahead?” I asked. “Those are condominiums. South Beach is just the other side of them. When we get there, we'll lose the car behind us, because we can drive on the sand and they can't. We'll go down the beach a way and then we'll talk. And if you still want to get out of the car, I'll take you back to the compound and leave you there. Meanwhile, be quiet and let Karen try to keep you alive!”

“Keep me alive? What are you talking about?”

The car behind us was getting closer, and it was clear that the old Land Cruiser wasn't up to maintaining any kind of lead. I tried an ancient ploy.

“Hang on,” I said. I slowed imperceptibly, then, as the following car got very close, slammed on the brakes. The Land Cruiser slued and skidded, and behind us the car did the same, braking and sliding to avoid ramming us astern. As it slithered sideways, its nose toward the bike path that paralleled the pavement, I accelerated away. The car recovered and came after us, but I had gained
just enough of a lead for us to fetch the Katama entrance to the Norton Point Beach, shift into four-wheel drive, and head east over the sands toward Chappaquiddick, leaving our pursuers behind on the pavement.

A half-mile down the beach, I stopped. To our left, Katama Bay shimmered under the brightening sky. Beyond its northern end, on the far side of the narrows, the white buildings of Edgartown could be seen. To our right, the waves of the Atlantic Ocean slapped against the beach. Beyond them, the sea reached to the south. I guessed that you could sail two thousand miles in that direction before reaching the nearest landfall. To the southeast I could see the buoy lights that marked Muskeget Channel, and immediately north of them the sky was glowing where the sun hovered just under the horizon.

I turned off the engine and the headlights.

“Time to talk,” I said.

“Past time,” said Debby.

“You're probably right,” I said.

“I'm not sure about this,” said Karen.

“I want to know everything,” said Debby. “I'm not a child.”

She was and she wasn't. But I nodded. “We don't know everything. A lot of it's just suspicion.”

“Tell me all of it. What you think and what you suspect. And what you're not sure of, too, while you're at it.”

I remembered just a little of what it was like to be a kid who couldn't get grown-ups to take me seriously. The memory was pretty distant, but it was still there.

“I really don't know if this is a good idea.” Karen's voice was filled with discontent.

“You're insulting me,” said Debby. “Do you realize that?”

“I'm not trying to insult you,” said Karen.

“She's trying to protect you,” I said. “She doesn't want you to worry over things you can't do anything about. She's just being a big sister.”

“I don't need that kind of protection! I need to be told the truth.”

“You're right,” I said. “From the beginning?”

“Yes. From the beginning. Everything.”

I nodded. “Okay, cousin.”

As I talked, the sun peeked over the sea, then rose, bright and life-giving, into the sky, tinting the clouds on the horizon with brilliant color, and dancing on the lips of the waves. I talked for a long time and told her everything.

Well, almost everything.

When I was done, I said, “That's it, kid. Now it's up to you. You can go on over to Chappy with me, or I'll take you back to the compound. Maybe your folks would rather have you there with them, even if Walt Pomerlieu wouldn't.”

She thought about that for a while, then said, “It makes a difference, but I think I'll stay with you.”

“You're sure?”

“I'm sure.”

I doubted that either Karen or I was quite so sure, but I started the engine anyway, and we drove into the rising sun.

Acey Doucette lived down toward Pocha Pond, off the dirt road that goes that way after Chappaquiddick's lone paved road ends. I'd originally met him fishing at Wasque Point, and had made the mistake of admiring his then almost brand-new Land Rover. Later, remembering my flattering remarks (mostly devoted to the aluminum body of his truck, which, unlike the metal of my own rusty Land Cruiser, would not corrode), he had begun a campaign to sell the truck to me.

This campaign, I learned from mutual fishing friends and acquaintances, was due to Acey's need for money as the result of his divorce from Nina, the wealthy woman who had, in fact, bought him the Land Rover as a wedding present. Acey, it seemed, was not only an English teacher at the high school, but also an aspiring novelist whose lifestyle, living alone in a large old house on Chappaquiddick while he typed away at his book, had struck his wife-to-be as incredibly romantic. He had done nothing to dissuade her of this view, probably since he held it himself, as his penchant for wearing a beret and a literary air indicated. The consequence was a marriage that lasted a few years and ended when Nina finally realized that Acey was probably never actually going to finish his book.

“Acey is a good guy,” George Martin had told me, “but he reminds me of that character Grand in
The Plague.
You ever read that book?”

“Yeah. Grand was the guy who spent his whole life trying to write a sentence so perfect that people would tip their hats to him. Or something like that.”

“That's Grand, all right. He never gave up working on that sentence, but he never got it right, either, and somewhere along the line his wife left him. Acey is like that. The way I hear it, he's been working on chapter one for years, trying to get it perfect before he goes on to chapter two. I guess that Nina finally got tired of being a writer's wife and took off.”

“Another idyllic vision down the tubes.”

“So Acey needs to sell the Land Rover so he can keep on eating until he finishes chapter one.”

We pulled into Acey's yard, parked beside the Land Rover, and met Acey at the door.

“You're up and around pretty early,” said Acey.

“Worm hunting,” I said, and introduced my cousins from Virginia.

Acey was a good-looking guy with soft eyes and a ready smile. Although he was about my age, there was something eternally youthful about him, as though he had managed a Dorian Gray deal of some sort in his mid-twenties that kept him from growing any older. He had the look of someone who should be living in the Latin Quarter in Paris, in a loft, probably, with canvases stacked everywhere and a girl to look after him. His face was without guile and had a kind of passionate yet innocent sensitivity to it that, according to Zee, made him almost irresistible to women.

“Including you?” I'd asked.

“I have eyes for only you,” she'd replied, looking up at me and fluttering her lashes.

Sure. Zee and I were married to each other, but neither one of us was blind.

Now, I noticed that Karen was immediately interested in Acey. He and she shook hands a bit longer than was necessary, and seemed momentarily to forget Debby and me.

“We've come to take a test spin in the Land Rover,” I reminded him.

“Ah, yes,” he said, reluctantly turning away from Karen.

“I'll leave the Toyota as hostage.”

“Fine. Maybe I'll take it into town later.”

“How's the book coming along?”

He ran a hand through his thick hair and grinned boyishly. “Well, you know. I'm working on it.”

“Acey is a writer,” I said to Karen, who seemed to perk up at the news.

“Really?”

He gave her a private smile and a modest shrug. “Well, I'm trying.”

I began to transfer our gear into the Land Rover. Debby helped. Acey and Karen talked. When the transfer was completed, my cousins and I climbed into the newer truck.

“A couple of days,” I said to Acey. “I'll take this machine out on the beach, and I'll drive it around the island. Give it a workout. Okay?”

“Fair enough,” said Acey. “Afterwards, maybe we can make a deal.”

“Maybe so.”

I drove away, wondering how long it would be before Acey realized that the Toyota's keys were missing. “Forgotten” in my pocket, as a matter of fact. I didn't want Acey to drive the Toyota anywhere. Too many people knew it belonged to me, and some of them might ask Acey why he was driving it and learn that I was now
driving his Land Rover, which was exactly what I didn't want either Shadow or anyone else to know. It was better that Acey stayed at home with his novel and lived the lonely artist's life for a while.

We hadn't gotten too far when Debby suddenly said, “Stop!” I pulled over. “Look,” she said, pointing. There was a mailbox at the end of a driveway. On it was the name Freeman. “This must be where Allen lives!”

Serendipity. A revised plan for the day sprang from my head, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus. Maybe . . .

But I was cautious. “Allen's probably still in bed,” I said. “Anyway, he's got to go to work, most likely.”

“No,” said Debby. “It's his day off. He told me so when I called him on the phone.”

Maybe there was a God, after all. I sat for a moment and thought things through again. Well, why not? If this worked, my own day would be a lot simpler. Of course, Karen and Debby would have to agree to it. I broached my plan.

“Yes!” said Debby.

“I don't know,” said Karen.

“You might have a good time,” I said. “It's a perfect day for it.”

“Well . . . ,” said Karen.

“We'll need a phone,” I said. “There's one back at Acey's house.”

“Well . . . ,” said Karen.

“Let's do it!” said Debby.

I turned the Land Rover around and drove back to Acey's house. He came outside and brightened at the sight of Karen, who seemed to brighten back.

“Acey,” I said. “I need a favor. Now, just say no if you can't do it.”

He looked at Karen, then back at me. “Okay. Name it.”

“My cousins here don't get to the seashore much. I was going to take them to the bathing beach at Wasque today, but something's come up. I wonder if you can take time off from your writing to take them in my place. If you can, Debby wants to use your phone to call a friend of hers, to see if he can come along. Kid named Allen Freeman. Lives right up the road. You know him?”

“The Freemans? Sure, I know them. I know Allen. A day at the beach, eh?” He looked at Karen and smiled his boyish smile. “You like the beach, eh?”

“We don't get there much,” said Karen, almost smiling back.

“The phone's right inside,” Acey said to Debby. “Sure, J.W., I'll take your cousins to the beach. I could use a break from the typewriter.”

There was no hint of sarcasm or insincerity in his voice. He really did think he could use a break from his writing. Part of his charm, I guessed, was his earnestness.

Debby went into the house and came back out, smiling. “Allen can come, and he's got a truck! He says I should come over and help him pack the two of us a lunch. He wants me to meet his parents!”

“And you can stay here and help me pack the two of us a lunch,” said Acey to Karen.

Karen wavered.

“I'll take Debby over to the Freeman place,” I said, “and she and Allen will pick you two up as soon as they get their act together. Then the four of you can head off for the day. It'll be all right.”