A Fatal Vineyard Season (14 page)

Cute.

Something up the driveway caught my eye, and I walked up there and found my own two-foot crowbar. I guessed that my assailant had tossed it there as he retreated. He (she? they?) had gotten it out of the back shed and had used it to break my arm. My own crowbar.

Cute, again. The red-eyed demon showed his face. I ordered him back into his lair.

I gathered up the shell casings from the ground and tossed them into a rubbish barrel.

Oliver Underfoot and Velcro were hanging around, supervising. They liked watching their people do the strange things they did. They were very social cats.

“You're in charge,” I said to them. “Keep an eye on things. Catch some mousies.”

Then I drove to the Oak Bluffs police station.

A lot of police cars were parked there, and I knew why. A local cop had been beaten half to death, and cops look after their own. Even some off-island state police had come down and joined the investigation, and cops were there from other island towns.

It's one example of Vineyard nonsense (born of town rivalries) that ten separate police forces are on an island that has a winter population of only twelve thousand, but this time I didn't mind the absurdity. The more cops, the better, as long as they didn't get under one another's feet. Maybe the Vegas boys had finally gone a step too far and had gotten too many people mad at them.

I went in, carrying the sack and the crowbar, gave my name to the kid at the desk, and asked to see Lisa Goldman.

“She's busy.” The kid was just a tad too conscious of being in a position to influence my life.

“She may not be too busy to see these.” I held up my wares.

“Wait here, please.” He went away and came back. “You can go on in.”

I went into Lisa's office. A half dozen people were there, including Corporal Dominic Agganis and Officer Olive Otero, the island's state-police representatives, and Tony D'Agostine, of the Edgartown PD.

I put the crowbar and the canvas sack on Lisa's desk. She looked at them and at my sling.

“What happened to you?”

I told her, then said, “My prints will be on the crowbar, I don't know about his. I don't know if you can get prints off of the bag, but mine will be on there, too, if you can.”

“You should have called 911,” said Tony D'Agostine.

“You're right. But I didn't.”

“We'd better get a detective to the crime scene,” said Tony. “Maybe we can learn something. I'll use the phone at the desk.” He went out.

“We'll send these to the lab,” said Lisa. “Maybe we'll get lucky. Probably not. We didn't get any prints at Larry's place. Guy probably wore gloves.”

Agganis said, “How do you fit into all this, J.W.? Why would somebody be this mad at you and Larry both?”

“If the somebody is one or both of the Vegas brothers, it might be because Larry and I both pissed off Alexandro Vegas up there at the Crandel place, and because Alexandro doesn't like being pissed off.”

“How did he know who you were? Where you live?”

It was confession time. I told them about my visits to Alberto's office and to Eddie Francis's pizza place, about the
phone call I'd gotten for John Appleseed, and about my theory that Eddie had given Alberto my name.

“Jesus,” said Olive Otero, with whom I'd never gotten along too well, “you should probably be in jail. Interfering with a police investigation is a crime, as you damned well know.”

She irked me, as usual. “What police investigation? I didn't interfere with any police investigation!”

“Well, if there was a law against stupidity, you'd be in the hoosegow for sure,” said Agganis, shaking his head. “Johnny Appleseed, for God's sake. Couldn't you come up with a better moniker than that? Even Alberto Vegas and his wife must have smelled something funny when you gave them that name.”

“It was the first name that came to mind. It just popped out.”

“And just what were you doing in Alberto's office?” asked Olive, speaking with a curled lip. “What were you planning to do? Make your own investigation? Get the goods on the Vegas boys all by yourself since the cops are too dumb to do it, like in the movies? Is that it?”

I sneered back at her. “I was afraid they'd put you in charge of the investigation, Olive. I knew I had to do something before you screwed things up so badly they'd stay screwed forever.”

“Oh, you did, eh?” Olive stepped toward me.

“Now, hold on,” said Agganis, putting a thick arm out between us. “Don't let him get to you, Olive.”

“Yeah,” said Lisa, raising a hand in a gesture of peace. “Let's all hold on. We don't need any fighting among ourselves.”

“He's not one of ourselves,” said mad Olive. “I know he was a cop once, but now he's just a civilian. Get him out of here!”

Lisa looked at her. “Now, Olive,” she said in her gentle voice. “Somebody attacked J.W. last night just like
somebody attacked Larry. And J.W. is working for the women living in the Crandel house. And there may be a tie-in between what happened at the house and the assaults on Larry and J.W. So J.W. is involved even if he's not a policeman. Now, the more we all cooperate, the better off we'll be.”

The sweet voice of reason didn't seem to have much effect on Olive. “I don't like his being involved,” she said.

“But he is involved,” said Agganis, “and that's that, Officer Otero.” He had a small smile on his face as he spoke, but Olive got the message and shut her mouth.

I looked back at Lisa. “You know about the two bodyguards over at the Crandel place?”

She nodded. “Harley and Mills. They came by and introduced themselves so there wouldn't be any misunderstandings. All they're doing here is guarding the two women. They're not involved in any investigations.”

“These guys may not be, but Thornberry Security is digging into the stalker case out on the Coast: the killings and the letters that are still coming even though Mackenzie Reed is in jail. Did you ever find out if there might be a tie-in between Reed and the Vegas boys?”

Lisa shook her head. “There's no indication that they had any contact or even knew about one another. Do you have reason to think there might be a tie-in? Anything we didn't talk about before?”

“No, but I talked to some people out there.” I summarized my conversations with Glick, Brown, and Calhoun.

“I think the California stuff and our problems here are separate things,” said Lisa. “But if they're not, I guess we shouldn't be surprised.”

Very little in the way of crime surprises police officers.

Tony D'Agostine came back into the office. “J.W., you want to go back to your place and show us what happened where? We'll meet the detectives there.”

“Sure.”

Tony looked at Lisa. “Anything we can do to help, Chief,
you let us know. You need some extra hands, anything like that. You tell Larry that there's people praying for him.”

“Thanks,” said Lisa. “We'll stay in touch.”

Tony and I went out, and I followed his cruiser back to my place. Another cruiser was already there, and Tom Flynn and Joy Look were standing beside it. There had been Flynns and Looks on the island for centuries, and these two current models were Edgartown's detectives.

Tony put his cruiser beside theirs, and I parked the Land Cruiser where I'd parked it the night before.

I told my tale once again and showed what had happened.

“Maybe you hit him when you shot,” said Joy. “How many rounds did you use.”

“I found five shell casings this morning.”

“Where are they?”

“In the rubbish.”

“Jesus, J.W., you know better than that.”

I decided not to tell them that I'd given thought to not involving the police, but taking care of the Vegas boys on my own.

“I wasn't thinking very straight,” I said.

“Ah, no matter,” said Joy. “But dig them up for us, will you, and we'll put them into one of our little evidence bags. You think you may have hit the guy?”

“I couldn't see anything, so I don't know if I ever even got one near him.”

“Well, we'll check things out as best we can. Maybe he dropped a matchbook with his name and address on it. Ha, ha!”

“Maybe he's in the hospital right now with a bullet in him,” said Tom. “Maybe this will be an easy one.”

Joy allowed herself another laugh.

I went to dig the shell casings out of the rubbish.

By noon, after the cops were gone, I was out of zip, in pain, and feeling sorry for myself. I wished Zee were there, but immediately was glad she wasn't. The rest of that day I lay naked out in the yard in the fall sunlight and gave nature a chance to burn away some of the hurt and self-pity that I was paying too much attention to. Between dozes I thought about the Vegas boys and their violent ways.

That night, I heard a fire horn blowing, calling the volunteers to their dangerous work. The sound lifted me out of my dreams and I stared at the dark ceiling of the bedroom and listened. Sure enough, the horn blew again, and I found myself thinking of the fire in Eddie Francis's kitchen. I had an impulse to get dressed and go find what was burning, but I knew the firemen didn't need any civilians hanging around getting in their way, so I stayed where I was.

In the morning, though, I phoned the emergency center. I recognized the voice at the other end as that of Sophie Fox, who was cheerful as usual.

“Oh, hi, J.W. What can I do for you?”

“I'm just calling to find out where the fire was last night.”

“Up in OB. Private home. Warner place, off Newton Avenue. Nobody hurt, but I guess the house is a total loss.”

The Warner place. “Pete Warner's place?”

“Yeah. You know him?”

I felt sick. “Yeah, I know him. Thanks, Sophie.”

“Say hi to Zee.”

“I will.”

I climbed into the Land Cruiser and drove to the blinker, then followed Barnes Road to Linden Avenue. A sharp left and then a right took me to Newton Avenue, and not much later I came to a mailbox that said Warner. A driveway led toward Lagoon Pond and I could see the blackened remains of a house down near the water. A fire truck was there, and a police car, and people were standing and talking. One of them, shoulders slumped, looked like Pete. A woman about his age had her arm around his waist. I drove by and went on to the police station.

“If you're going to live here,” said Lisa Goldman, “I'm going to have to start charging you rent.” She was red eyed and looked tired.

“I just came by Pete Warner's place.”

She leaned back in her chair. “Somebody torched his house last night.”

“Torched?”

“Yeah. Arson. Pretty obvious. Whoever did it didn't make any attempt to hide it. Left the gas cans right there, like he wanted people to know it was no accident. You don't look surprised. You know something I don't know?”

“Probably not. I do know that the last time I talked with Pete, Warner Electronics didn't have a contract with Enterprise Management.”

She put her fingertips together. “Are you telling me that the Vegas boys burned down Pete's house because he wouldn't do business with them? You'd better not say that in front of Ben Krane. He'll have your ass in court for slander.”

“Ben Krane's outfit does Eddie Francis's accounting. I wonder if they do the accounting for everybody who's contracted to Enterprise Management. And how about insurance? Does Krane handle all their insurance, too? What do you think? You're a cop so you might ask around. If you want to make a friendly wager on what you'll find out, I'll bet you a six of Sam Adams that Krane does a lot of business with the people who've signed on with Enterprise.”

“I won't take the bet, but I will ask around.” She sat forward and rubbed her neck. “You know anybody wants a job?”

I was struck by the uncharacteristic mixture of fatigue and bitterness in her voice. “What do you mean?”

“Couple of my people are talking about quitting the force. They don't want what happened to Larry happening to them. Can't really blame them, but I can't afford to lose them either. Especially not right now when I need everybody I've got.” She looked up at me. “I'll tell you something. If the Vegas boys don't get stopped pretty soon, this town is in trouble. Hell, we're already in trouble, and it's spreading to other towns.”

“All these extra cops down here, maybe they'll find something. Maybe things will change.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” She drew a deep breath and seemed to will her despair away. “You seen the new visitor over at the Crandel place? Got in last night from the West Coast. Fella named Buddy Crandel. Cousin of Julia Crandel. He had a hard time getting past those two Thornberry men, I hear. The Crandel girl had to ID him before they'd let him in.”

No wonder I hadn't gotten Crandel when I'd telephoned. He'd been on his way east. I looked at my watch.

“I'd like to talk with him,” I said. “I think I'll go over there.”

“Pretty early in the morning. Beauty sleep, and all that.”

“If nobody's up, I'll wait till they are.”

They weren't up, but I changed my mind about waiting. Instead, I drove down to the Edgartown police station. The chief was in his office, shuffling papers. He looked up at me.

“What do you want?”

I told him what Lisa Goldman had said about Oak Bluffs' troubles spreading to other towns. “I just wanted to know if any of that trouble had gotten this far.”

“It's a small island. Infections spread fast.”

“You mean the Vegas boys are selling protection in Edgartown, too?”

“ ‘Selling protection' isn't the phrase Alberto and Alexandro would use. I think they'd call it contracting with Enterprise Management.”