Deadly Nightshade (25 page)

“Whom would Howie have reported the conversation to?” Victoria said.

“Probably Elmo, the jailer, who undoubtedly told the sheriff, who told the chief over coffee at Linda Jean's.”

Victoria took an envelope and pen out of her pocket. “What do we know so far?” She held the end of the pen to her mouth. “We suspect a drug ring might be operating out of the Oak Bluffs Harbor.”

“But we don't know that.”

“Has Howland said anything to you lately, Domingo?” Elizabeth said abruptly.

Victoria was startled by the change of subject. She noticed Domingo dart a quick look at Elizabeth and shake his head very slightly. She looked from her granddaughter to Domingo. Elizabeth studiously avoided her eyes.

Noreen didn't seem to have noticed the small exchange. “It fits with everything that's happened,” she said. “A drug ring.”

Victoria smoothed her trousers over her knees with the hand holding the pen. She thought about Domingo's oddly secret shake of the head. “It would explain everything if we assume Bernie Marble's murder was a drug deal gone wrong,” Victoria said finally. “We thought Meatloaf killed him, when it was actually Chief Medeiros who did. Over drugs.”

“Let me caution you.” Domingo stood and hiked up his trousers by his belt. “We have no evidence that drugs are involved. As yet.”

“We'll get that evidence,” Victoria said with assurance. “Chief Medeiros is obviously the ringleader of a drug-smuggling operation.”

“We don't know that, either,” Domingo said. “In fact, I don't believe he is the ringleader.”

“So who tried to kill Dojan?” Victoria put her envelope and pen next to her plate. “And who is sending the notes?”

“It would appear to be two different people,” Domingo said. “A killer and a blackmailer. The killer thinks Dojan knows something. I don't know what the blackmailer is after.”

“What about Liz Tate?” Victoria asked. “She certainly was acting strange that day we came back to the dock on Rocky's yacht, bawling out the chief for being there.”

“I wouldn't put it past the bitch,” said Noreen.

Chief Medeiros was standing on te steps of the town hall, staring off into space, unread mail in his hand, when Domingo, Victoria, and Howland pulled up in the white Rolls Royce.

The bright, clear morning, crisp and rare, was what Victoria called “typical Vineyard weather.” The sultry heat had moved off-island leaving everything clean and new.

The chief was in uniform: navy blue motorcycle pants with a light blue stripe on the sides, navy shirt with leather belt, a strap across his chest, his gun, radio, club, keys slung from the belt. His dark glasses touched the brin of his garrison cap. He shifted his gaze to the car and his mouth pursed.

Domingo stepped out of the car, slammed the door shut, and stood on the sidewalk, looking up at the chief, who was a t the top of the steps. Victoria waited in the front seat, Howland in back. Domingo hitched up his pants and walked toward the steps.

“You got some nerve showing up here, Mingo,” said the chief.

“My condolences on the passing of your son,” Domingo said and took his cap off. “I'm very sorry.”

“Yeah. I bet you are.” The chief shifted his gaze to the mail in his hand.

“I know this is a bad time for you, but we need to talk.”

“You can talk to me right here.” Without looking up, the chief shuffled the envelopes, top to bottom, the next, the next.

“In private.” Domingo stood still, hand in his pockets.

“I got nothing to say to you, public or private.”

“We have something to say to you. I think you're going to want a more private place,” Domingo said.

“What the hell do you have to say to me in private? I don't want to talk to you, period.”

“Have it your way.” Domingo shrugged. He put his cap back on and turned to the car. “Atherton?”

Howland unfolded himself from the backseat of the Corniche and walked deliberately up the brick steps. The chief inclined his head to look up at him. Howland reached into his back pocket, brought out his black leather folder, and flipped it open. Victoria saw a flash of reflected sunlight on a gold shield.

The chief took the folder from Howland and studied it.

Howland started to say something, but before he could, the chief said, “Where do you want to talk?”

“We can go to your office, if you'd like.” Howland waited.

The chief stared across the street. “No, not there.”

“The Harbor House?” Howland said. “Perhaps you have a private room, a small conference room there?”

“I don't think so.” The chief returned Howland's leather folder to him.

“This is unofficial, at least at this stage.” Howland put the folder with his shield and ID in his back pocket and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Mingo's place?” The chief turned to Domingo, who was facing away from them. A young man in splotched painter's overalls was walking toward him with an athlete's springy step.

“How ya doing, Mitch?” Domingo greeted him.

“Pretty good, Mr. D. And you?”

“Can't complain. How's the wife and baby? A boy, was it?”

“Yessir, Mr. D., both fine. Mitch junior, nine pounds two ounces.”

“All right!” Domingo jabbed an emphatic fist at the ground.

Mitch went up the steps of the Town Hall two at a time, brushed past Howland and the police chief. “Pardon me.” He pushed open the screen door, which slapped a couple of times before it shut.

“Your place, Domingo?” Howland said.

“Fine.” Domingo swung around to face them.

“We can talk over a cup of coffee,” Howland said to the chief, who gathered up a lot of something in his cheek and spit it into the privet hedge that surrounded the Town Hall.

“We'll see you there.” Domingo got back into the driver's seat. Howland seated himself again in back.

The chief flexed his legs one at a time, as though his muscles had stiffened, and clumped down the steps of the Town Hall. Victoria could hear his boots squeak.

Domingo parked in front of his house and left a space for the police cruiser. The chief pulled into it.

Once inside, Victoria lowered herself onto the couch, Domingo sat at the glass-topped table, and Howland and the chief stood.

“She sitting in on this?” The chief jerked his head at her.

“Yas.” Domingo lighted a cigarette, snapped his Zippo shut, and laid it on the table with a small clink.

“As I said, this is unofficial.” Howland indicated one of the wicker chairs around the table. “Won't you have a seat?”

The chief hesitated before he sat. “Where's the wife?”

“My wife has taken my grandson to see the fire station.”

Howland stepped up into the kitchen, and Victoria heard him open the cupboard where Noreen kept the coffee, heard him fill the pot with water, heard the clatter of mugs as Howland took them from the rack next to the stove.

While the coffee brewed, Howland returned to his seat at the table. Victoria attempted to break the awkward silence with small talk, but she gave up after a few tries. Chief Medeiros sat with his arms folded, staring sullenly at the tabletop in front of him. Domingo looked out the window. Howland toyed with the place mat. Victoria watched all three from her seat on the couch.

When the coffee had finished brewing, Howland went up into the kitchen and poured. “How does everyone take it?” he asked.

“Black, thank you,” Victoria said.

“Cream, milk. Double sugar,” the chief muttered.

Once Howland was seated again, Domingo spoke first, turning to the chief with an unsettling, calm stare. “We suggest you admit to the murder,” he said quietly, gazing at the chief.

The chief started, his eyes twitched. He stared back at Domingo, his mouth seeming to form words that never emerged.

“Murder,” he said in a choked voice. He brought the coffee mug to his mouth.

Domingo watched the chief steadily. After a pause, he said, “Of Meatloaf Staples.”

The chief, who had that moment taken a sip of coffee, spewed it across the table with a convulsive movement and got to his feet. Domingo blotted the tabletop with the paper napkin Howland had given him with his coffee.

“What in hell! You're crazy.” The chief rose out of his seat, grabbed his cap, which he had placed on the table, jammed it on his head, plucked his sunglasses out of his pocket, and strode toward the door. He turned. “You know goddamned well I had nothing to do with killing Meatloaf.” He slammed the door open, and it bounced on the track. “Trying to cover your own ass, are you? You're more of a fool than I thought, Mingo.”

Domingo sat serenely, his hands folded over his stomach, cigarette smoldering in the ashtray. “We know for a fact you didn't kill Meatloaf.”

Howland said nothing. He'd put his elbows on the table and had both hands around his coffee mug. He gazed absently through the hanging plants into the bright, sunny garden outside, where Baby Mingo's plastic toys lay where he'd left them. Victoria leaned back and watched through half-shut eyes.

“You're out of your minds.” The chief paused in the doorway. “I have nothing to say to you.”

“However,” Domingo said, “we know the person you did kill. And how you killed him.”

“Whaaat!”

“We have a witness to Bernie Marble's death.” Domingo said it softly. “An eyewitness.”

The chief froze and glanced at Victoria.

“Not her,” Howland said.

The chief moved back into the room.

“Shut the door, please.” Victoria looked over her shoulder. “You're letting in flies.”

The chief lifted the door back onto its track and slid it shut. He took off his sunglasses and glanced quickly at Victoria, then from Domingo to Howland and back again at Domingo.

“What in hell? Come out with it.”

Howland continued to stare out at the garden. “Why don't you sit,” he said. “You might want to hear what we have to say.”

The chief sat, took his cap off, and, after a few moments' silence, put it under the chair. He took his glasses off and put them back in his pocket, leaned forward, hands clasped on the table, and looked around.

“There's no one else here,” Domingo said.

“Yeah?” the chief said.

“We are not recording this,” Howland said. “Victoria Trumbull is here as an observer.”

“What's on your mind, Mingo?”

“We'll talk, if you don't mind,” Howland said politely.

The chief glared at him.

Victoria sneezed three times in a row.

“God bless you.” The chief glanced at her.

“Domingo?” Howland said. “Care to continue?”

“As I said, we think you might want to admit to killing Meatloaf Staples.”

“Jee-sus,” the chief said.

“Or, if you prefer, we can produce the individual who actually witnessed what happened to Bernie Marble.”

“What in hell is this?” The chief was beginning to sweat. Howland handed him a paper napkin, and the chief mopped his forehead with it.

“You'll say you killed Meatloaf in self-defense, of course,” Domingo continued. “Better than a charge of first-degree murder.”

The chief wiped his forehead again, crumpled up the napkin, and tossed it onto the table. “You're crazy, both of you.”

“I don't think so,” Howland said.

“What do you expect to get out of this?” The chief pushed his coffee mug away from him and stared at Domingo.

Domingo nodded his head at Howland. “Atherton, take over.”

“Once upon a time,” Howland said, “there was an elder son of a wealthy New England family, blue-blood stock. A difficult kid, brilliant, charming, and shifty. Summers on Martha's Vineyard, winters in the Caribbean, private boarding schools. Father was a great philanthropist, mother a patron of the arts, that sort of thing. The son dabbled in drugs during his preteen Caribbean winters, not as a user—he was too smart for that—but as a courier. By the time he entered college, he had built up his own network of sources, distributors, and dealers.”

From where Victoria sat, she could see the chief's profile. He sat motionless, his face expressionless.

“Are you still with me?” Howland asked.

The chief said nothing.

Victoria saw Domingo's dark eyes through a blue haze of cigarette smoke.

'To continue,” Howland said. “Daddy, who never did trust his son, got suspicious, hired a private investigator, found out what the son was up to, and disowned him. The son finished college on an academic scholarship, went on to graduate school on a fellowship, got a Ph.D. in astrophysics, and won a professorship at MIT. A professor's salary being what it is, he maintained his drug contacts at a low-key level, enough to support his lifestyle without arousing undue suspicion.”

The chief shifted in his seat. Domingo stubbed out his cigarette. Victoria saw a vein or artery pulsing in the chief's temple, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

“Our professor,” Howland went on, “developed a computer program under a university grant from the Defense Department to track electromagnetic pulses. He did much of his research in Puerto Rico, on the giant radio telescope. He believed, however, that the university was not giving him his share of the royalties for the very successful program. He felt he had a right to appropriate a portion of the grant money for his own purposes. When the university found out about what they considered his misuse of the grant money, they ousted him. Since much of his research had been in the Caribbean, he had, quite naturally, maintained his contacts there.

“To make up for his lost income, he switched into high gear with his drug business. Importing high-profit goods from South America by way of the Caribbean. Are you with me?”

Victoria sneezed again.

“God bless you,” the chief said. “Go on.”

Domingo watched the chief.

The chief stared at Howland, the throbbing in his temple the only sign that he was listening.

“He learned that vessels putting in at the Vineyard after a long sea voyage seldom go through U.S. Customs.” Howland took a sip of coffee, his eyes on the chief. “He knew he could enlist yachting adventurers heading north from the Caribbean, delighted to carry goods for him for a small fee. The Oak Bluffs Harbor was ideal for his purposes.”

“Where are you going with this?” the chief said finally. “What does this have to do with my 'killing' Meatloaf?”