Deadly Nightshade (18 page)

There was a general movement of people toward the galley.

The boat headed toward Cape Poge, a recurved spit at the tip of Chappaquiddick, an island connected to the Vineyard by a narrow sandbar with a lighthouse on the point. The boat's engine thrummed; the wake curled behind them. A trail of seagulls followed, diving after small fish stirred up by the boat's passing, arguing raucously over their catch.

A cluster of children in orange life vests stood on tiptoe on the anchor in the bow so they could look over the railing.

The bow dipped into a wave and sent a spray of salt water high into the air, and a bright rainbow sparkled, then faded.

“Mama! I see a whale!” a small girl with a baseball cap on backward called out.

“A whale, a whale!” The children pointed and looked around for their parents.

The skipper had already slowed the boat. Ahead and off to port, barely visible to the naked eye, was a large floating object. It dipped beneath the surface for several seconds and rose again, turning slowly in the current.

“Ladies and gentlemen, there is something to the port, or left side, of the boat,” the announcer said over the loudspeaker. “It's unusual to see a whale this close to the Island, but maybe today's our lucky day.”

The boat eased closer and whitecaps slapped against the bow.

“That's no whale,” a man in a purple-and-green windbreaker growled. “Looks more like a dead cow.”

The children stood on tiptoe on the anchor, holding the flat varnished railing to lift themselves higher.

The bow rose toward the sky, then slapped a wave, and the boat shuddered.

The cowlike object sank beneath the surface again, and the skipper slowed the boat to bare headway as they neared the place they had last seen it. Suddenly, it popped to the surface again, close by, and revolved slowly.

A woman screamed.

“Holy shit!” A man leaned over the rail. “A corpse!”

“Get back, kids. Get away from the bow.” The mate scrambled down from the pilothouse and herded the children into the galley. “Come on, kids, free soda, on the house.”

The floating corpse turned slowly in the current. Protruding from its swollen belly was the shaft of a harpoon. The corpse was bloated and green, barely recognizable as once human. Fishes, gulls, and crabs had eaten away at its flesh. An almost-intact windbreaker drifted around it like a translucent caul. As the waves washed over it, the windbreaker wafted gently, making the hideous corpse seem to have a vestige of life.

The captain's voice came over the loudspeaker.

“Ladies and gentlemen. My apologies for the delay. The Coast Guard is on its way, and we will resume the whale watch as soon as they get here.”

“I wanna go home!” a little girl in pink-and-lavender jeans and matching T-shirt wailed.

The whale-watch boat, idling broadside near the floating corpse, pitched and heaved with an oily circular roll.

“I feel sick, Mommy!” a small boy with his jeans hiked up almost to his chest cried.

In a short time, the flashing blue strobe lights of a Coast Guard cutter appeared in the distance from the direction of Woods Hole, and within minutes, it pulled alongside.

The radio in the pilothouse crackled with instructions. The blue light on the Coast Guard cutter rotated. One vessel rose on the crest of a wave; the other dropped into a trough. The sky was the only stable fix, and that seemed to move in a crazy circle.

“Do we have a consensus in favor of returning to Vineyard Haven?” the student observer announced.

Passengers lined up at the rail to watch the Coast Guard crew, in orange life vests, bring the corpse next to the cutter.

“Complimentary passes for another day's trip will be available at the office when you disembark,” the voice on the loudspeaker said.

The boat rolled from side to side. Its bow dipped toward the whitecaps and cycled toward the sky.

“I'm gonna throw up, Daddy!” cried a boy in tan shorts and green T-shirt printed with LLAMAS ARE LLOVELY.

The port side rolled into a wave trough, lifted, rolled toward the sky. A deck chair skidded to one side, then back to the other with a metallic scrape.

“I don't feel so good, Mommy!” a boy with greenish freckles on an even greener face said.

“Get over to the other side of the boat, quick!”

The railing lifted toward the sky, dropped toward the water. The boat rolled; its bow corkscrewed.

“Jesus, I just had these pants cleaned.”

When the whale-watch boat returned to the harbor, earlier than scheduled, Victoria was walking along the beach near the harbor entrance, flicking over mats of seaweed with her walking stick, looking for shells and lucky stones. She glanced up in surprise. It was too nice a day for the trip to have been canceled because of weather. None of the passengers seemed to be smiling. Instead of laughter, or at least the sound of voices over the engine noise, there was an uneasy silence.

Victoria hustled back to the harbormaster's shack as fast as she could move, along the beach, up the steep wooden steps that led to the top of the low bluff, holding the railing tightly. She walked through the parking lot, lifting her feet so she wouldn't trip, and stepped onto the catwalk that led to the shack.

By the time she reached the shack, the whale-watch boat was tied up to the bulkhead where the passenger ferry usually docked.

Elizabeth was standing on the deck outside the shack, looking toward the boat, her hands in the pockets of her shorts, her feet slightly apart.

She greeted Victoria. “Did you hear what happened?”

Passengers were walking slowly down the gangplank, not looking around the way debarking passengers usually did.

“Something serious, from the look of it,” Victoria said.

“They found a body.”

Victoria sat down on the bench to catch her breath. “In the Sound?” she asked. “Anybody local?”

“Nobody knows yet. The body has been in the water a couple of days. They know it was a man, but that's about all.”

“Was it a fisherman?”

“I don't think they can tell, Gram.”

“I suppose he wasn't wearing a life jacket.” Victoria shook her head. “Accidents happen so quickly on a boat.”

“This wasn't an accident.” Elizabeth looked down at her feet and thrust her hands more deeply into her pockets. “Somebody killed him.”

“How could they tell?” Victoria continued to shade her eyes with her hand as she studied Elizabeth.

“The weapon was still in the body,” Elizabeth said.

“Weapon?” Victoria said blankly.

“A harpoon,” Elizabeth replied finally. “He was harpooned.”

Victoria stood up abruptly, and the bench fell against the side of the shack. “Harpooned? Are you sure?”

“I listened to the whole thing on the marine radio. The whale-watch boat found the body and called the Coast Guard. I heard the whole thing in detail.”

“I've got to call Domingo.” Victoria stepped over the high sill into the shack and reached for the wall phone. “I've got to let him know immediately.”

“He probably knows already,” Elizabeth said, following her grandmother into the shack. “He and Noreen have a scanner.”

“Not a marine radio, though,” Victoria said as she dialed. “I don't believe they can pick up ship-to-ship transmissions.”

It took several rings before Domingo answered sleepily. “Yas,” he said.

“You were napping,” Victoria said.

Domingo yawned. “What is it, sweetheart?”

“They found your harpoon,” Victoria said.

“What are you talking about?” Domingo's voice was instantly alert. “Where? Who's 'they'?”

Victoria told him what Elizabeth had said.

“I'll be right there. No idea whose body it is?”

“Elizabeth said it had been in the water several days.”

By the time Domingo arrived at the harbor in Ernesto's truck, the passengers from the whale-watch boat had left. Elizabeth repeated what she'd heard on the marine VHF radio. Domingo paced back and forth on the deck in front of the shack.

“The Coast Guard will take the body to Falmouth,” he said almost to himself. “I'll find out from the state police whose body it is, when they identify it. Two killings in two weeks.”

“You think they're related?” Victoria was sitting on the bench again, her back to the shingled wall, wearing her straw hat. The yellow ribbons drifted around her. She pulled down the brim to shade her eyes, then rubbed her neck.

Domingo paced back and forth before he answered. “I don't like to speculate,” he said.

“Mingo. You don't mind if I come in.” A statement, not a question. Police Chief Medeiros, creased motorcycle pants tucked into polished leather boots, a shiny Sam Browne belt across his slightly bulging uniform shirt, slid the door open and strolled in, a uniformed patrolman behind him. The visor of the chief's garrison cap was pulled low on his brow, touching the rims of his reflective sunglasses, its flat top bent sharply up in front. His glance stopped at the display rack.

“I see you're missing one of your harpoons.” The chief set his knuckles on his hips near the gun on his belt, arms akimbo.

“Yas.” Domingo had come from the kitchen when the chief entered. He stood at the top of the step and waited.

The patrolman slid the door shut behind him.

“Hate to do this, Mingo, but I'm taking you in.”

“May I ask why?”

“You know why.” The chief moved his feet apart with a thump.

“Why don't you tell me.”

“We found your harpoon, Mingo.”

“Mind telling me where you found it?” Domingo said.

“Don't play dumb sith me.” The chief stepped closer to Domingo, hand still on his hips.

Domingo stared at the reflective lenses of the chief's sunglasses and saw himself.

“Funny guy, aren't you, Mingo.” the chief said. “The coast guard found it. Or rather, a bunch of whale watchers found it.”

“Oh?”

“Real pleasant thing for the kids to find. Real pleasant.” the Chief lowered his arms, held them slightly away from his sides. “Come along, Mingo.”

“You're not taking me anywhere until you tell me what you're talking about.”

“They found the body, Mingo. The body. With your harpoon stuck in its gut.”

Domingo stared at his reflection in the chief's glasses. “Whose body was it?”

“You know goddamned well who it was, Mingo.” The chief rocked onto his toes and loomed over the short, dark man.

“Tell me anyway.”

“Your good friend, Mingo. That's who it was.” The chief rocked from his toes to his heels and back to his toes. “Meatloaf.”

“Meatloaf,” Domingo said. “You think I had something to do with it.”

“Riiight. We think you had something to do with it.”

“And you're taking me to the Dukes County House of Corrections on suspicion, right?”

“Riiight again, Mingo,” the chief said. “You coming along of your own volition? Or do we take you in?”

“Let me tell my wife.”

“Go with him, Bobby.” The chief nodded to the patrolman, his sunglasses fixed on Domingo. “Don't try anything funny, Mingo.”

“Yeah, sure.” Domingo turned his back on the chief and went through the kitchen to find Noreen.

Elizabeth and Howland were working in the harbormaster's shack when the news came over the scanner that Chief Medeiros was taking Domingo into custody for Meatloaf's murder.

“So!” Howland looked up from the computer. “The whale-watch corpse was Meatloaf's. That figures.”

“What do you mean by that?” Elizabeth turned in her chair to stare at Howland. “Domingo couldn't have killed Meatloaf. He and Noreen were off-Island for Joe's funeral.”

“Joe?” Howland questioned.

“His partner when he was a New York cop.”

By now, everyone on the Island knew about the whale-watch discovery, and everyone knew about the harpoon. Before long, everyone would know whose body it was, and everyone would know Domingo had been arrested on suspicion of murder.

“They'll have him out soon enough.” Howland moved a pile of receipts next to him and began to enter data into the computer. “As soon as he can verify where he's been the past few days, they'll release him.”

The catwalk swayed, and Elizabeth looked up, to see the skipper of one of the fishing boats docked in the harbor. She went to the window, tugging down her shorts as she did.

“Here's my monthly dockage check.” The fisherman opened an atlas-size checkbook, signed a check with a flourish, tore it out of the book, and handed it to Elizabeth. “What's happening with the boss? Hear he harpooned Meatloaf.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “No way.”

“If he needs defense money, legal fees, you know, there are a bunch of us ready to contribute.”

“Thanks. I'll tell him.” Elizabeth stamped the back of the check and put it in the drawer.

“Tell him he's done the Island a service.” The fisherman gave her a kind of salute, fingertips touching the visor of his cap.

Elizabeth slapped the windowsill. “He didn't do it!”

The fisherman grinned at her. “Whatever you say, lady.”

She slammed the window shut and went back to the desk. “Ghoul,” she muttered.

“Who had access to the harpoons?” Howland asked her.

“Everyone. They don't lock their doors unless Domingo's taking a siesta.” She put away the receipt book. “By the way, do you know anything about the broken railing?”

“What broken railing?”

“On the far side of the shack. It's broken off, splintered.”

“Let's take a look.”

They stepped onto the deck and around to the side facing the Sound, where the railing was hidden by the shack.

“Someone could get hurt on those jagged ends.” Elizabeth braced her hands on either side of the gap in the railing and examined the fresh break.

“Looks as if someone's already been hurt.” Howland knelt on the deck and examined it. “Looks like blood on the broken end. As if someone grabbed at it and got a fistful of splinters.”

“I'll bet it was those dock attendants. They're like animals, always throwing punches and wrestling.”

“Strange. Very strange.” Howland leaned out over the water, holding the unbroken part of the railing for support as he examined the back side.