Deadly Nightshade (30 page)

“You could have told me,” Victoria said quietly.

“Yes, ma'am. I trusted you. I should have told you. I was ashamed.” He slapped his hands on his stomach. “There's been a thing growing inside me since that night. I tried to sweat it out. I tried drowning it out. I told Domingo.” He lowered his head. “I keep seeing that man fall into the water. I still remember that red-hot anger I felt. I hurt bad.”

“Who's the head of the tribal council now?” Victoria asked.

“Chief Hawkbill,” Dojan said.

“He's your father's second cousin, isn't he?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Go to him tomorrow and tell him what you told Domingo. The tribal council will deal out the punishment they believe is right. Will you do that?”

“Yes, ma'am.” Dojan bowed his head.

“We'd better go. The breeze is picking up.”

Dojan pulled the starter cord, the motor cut on smoothly, he steered the boat into the wind, and they headed home. The wind had stirred up whitecaps. Waves slapped the bow, spraying salt water over Victoria, whose back was to it. She blinked the spray out of her eyes. Her eyebrows and eyelashes were crusted with salt.

“We need to tell Domingo about those sailboats.” Victoria reached into the cabin for her warm clothes. She put on the down vest and Elizabeth's gray sweater over it. “It seems strange to have boats from such a distance clustered so far from anything.”

Dojan steered with the tiller tilted up so he could stand. His black beard, his hair, his eyebrows had turned white, rimed with salt. He had aged. Victoria laughed. She had not.

“Will you go with me?” Dojan asked.

“I will if you give me a ride and take me home again.”

Dojan nodded his white-tipped head.

They cut straight from Cape Poge to Oak Bluffs, crossing the wide-open bay that surrounded the beach. Whitecaps sparkled as far as they could see. Dojan stood straight, his shoulders thrown back, his head up, and began to sing a sea chanty that Victoria knew. She joined in the chorus with her strong voice: “Look away! Look away, you jolly, jolly boys, look away!”

When they reached the lee of East Chop, the water was calm. Dojan turned into the channel and slowed to bare headway.

Elizabeth came down the ramp to the floating dock. The long muscles in her slim tan legs flexed smoothly as she walked.

“See what I brought back for our supper.” Victoria held up two lobsters for her granddaughter's inspection.

“Did you have a good time, Gram? Was it rough out there? Were you warm enough?”

“I was glad I was prepared. You never know, on the water.”

Elizabeth helped her grandmother out of the boat, and Dojan took off again toward the liquor store. He turned to Victoria as he left the dock. “Tomorrow morning.” He held up his hand to her, and she returned his salute.

“What was that all about?” Elizabeth asked.

“They buy his lobsters at the liquor store,” Victoria said.

“But—” Elizabeth started to say.

“Domingo!” Victoria interrupted. “I'm back.”

“So his boat didn't sink after all.” Domingo was waiting at the door of the shack.

“I'll be right back,” Elizabeth said, striding up the ramp. “I need to help that sailboat with lines.”

Victoria paused at the top of the ramp, out of breath, and watched Elizabeth run toward a boat that was pulling into a slip. Victoria carried the two lobsters by their backs; they flipped their tails and flailed the air with their unbound legs.

Once she had seated herself on the chair in the shack and had taken a couple of deep breaths, she turned to Domingo, who was leaning on the railing outside the shack.

“Before Elizabeth gets back, I wanted to tell you that Dojan is going to the tribal council tomorrow. It's poisoning him. He needs to get it out of his system.”

“You did the right thing, sweetheart. You're a better man than either Howland or me.”

“Something else,” Victoria said. “What would you say if someone told you there were seven boats anchored on the other side of Cape Poge, all big boats, all from the Caribbean?”

Domingo gazed at her.

“When the harbor is teeming with police of all kinds?”

“Sweetheart, I'd say you found another piece of the puzzle.” He reached around inside the door for the phone. “Atherton needs to know about this.”

Howland was walking his dogs on the beach below his house when his cell phone rang. It was Domingo, telling him about the sailboats off Cape Poge.

Howland immediately contacted DEA and the Coast Guard. They dispatched the two Coast Guard cutters from the Oak Bluffs Harbor to the far side of Cape Poge, along with two spotter planes and a DEA helicopter from Otis National Guard Base on Cape Cod.

The pilots reported activity on the deck of one of the sailboats. The crews from all seven boats seemed to be baiting and setting a dozen or so lobster pots.

The aircraft pilot reported this back to her lieutenant, who reported back to Howland, who told them to photograph everything. He requested that the Coast Guard cutters circle the sailboats until the DEA paperwork and people were in place.

“They're not likely to run for it,” Howland said to the lieutenant. “Top speed for those sailboats is six or seven knots. They may try to jettison drug packages. Get the pilot to spot where they drift, if she can. They probably plan to hold the drugs in lobster pots until someone can retrieve them.”

“When you're ready, we'll escort the boats to the harbor,” the lieutenant told him, “and you guys can take over.”

“There are at least two dozen law-enforcement officers there. This will give them something to do.” Howland disconnected and headed for home with his dogs.

Elizabeth dropped her grandmother off at Domingo's on her way to work the next afternoon, and Victoria met with Domingo and Howland.

“Chief Medeiros is going to get away with committing Bernie's murder, isn't he?” Victoria asked Domingo. “I'm sorry for him, in a way, and somewhat sympathetic, but justice won't be served if he gets off.”

“Sweetheart, Chief Medeiros is going to have the worst-possible punishment.” Domingo gazed out the window. “He is going into the witness protection program. His daughter will go to live with her mother and the diesel salesman out west, and he may never see her again.” Domingo turned slightly, and Victoria examined his profile, curved nose, large lower lip, bright eyes. “He will lose his identity completely as a police officer. He'll lose his roots. He will never again be able to be with family on birthdays or Christmases. He will start a new life in a place he probably doesn't want to be. If he breaks free of the program, Rocky's people will get him. If they don't, the DEA will.”

“He didn't kill Meatloaf. Dojan did. I don't want to see Dojan put away somewhere, but ...” Victoria left the rest of her sentence unfinished.

“You went with him to the tribal council?” Domingo asked.

“This morning. He wanted me to go with him while he talked to Chief Hawkbill, and I did.”

Howland whistled. “Nice job, Victoria.”

“The tribal council knows how to deal with this.” Domingo took out a cigarette and lighted it.

“He's not as crazy as he appears,” Howland said.

“Of course not,” Victoria retorted. “He and I went to the tribal chief. Dojan told him everything, the murder he witnessed, his fight with Meatloaf. Dojan is wild with guilt. The chief is going to discuss it with the tribal elders.”

“I wonder what their idea of punishment is,” Howland murmured.

“I don't know.” Victoria looked down at her hands, green-streaked from pulling weeds. “Chief Hawkbill said something about sending Dojan to Washington as tribal representative.”

Howland put his hand on top of Victoria's, a strong square hand on top of her knobby one.

The fog bank held offshore for most of the day, a thick ominous gray mass that loomed on the horizon. Late in the afternoon, it began to move. From the beach, the fog looked as if it was rolling steadily toward the Island across the water, a woolly fleece, sucked inland by the rising warn air in the center of the Island. Tendrils and wisps of fog drifted across the sun, veiling it, making it a pinkish yellow disk.

On the beaches, the last of the sunbathers and swimmers tugged sweatshirts over their heads, wrapped towels or terrycloth robes around them, gathered up the remaining children, and headed back to rented cottages and hotel rooms.

In the Sound, foghorns intermittently wailed a mournful warning of shoals and rocks. The ferries sounded their higher-pitched whistles as they inched their way toward the island.

Streamers of fog wafted past the harbormaster's shack. A boater came to the window, his hair and yellow slicker beaded with moisture, and Elizabeth slid the window open.

The boater wiped his face with the back of his hand. “It's thick out there.” He unzipped his jacket and took his wallet from an inside pocket. “Any slips available?”

“The slips are all taken. There are a few moorings still.” Elizabeth waved a hand toward the center of the harbor, which neither of them could see. “Are you at the fuel dock now?”

He nodded.

Domingo was standing with his back to Elizabeth and the sailor. “There should be two or three places left. Four boats to a mooring.” He turned. “Think you can find it okay?”

“Yeah. We came over for the fireworks last year.” The sailor laughed and indicated the thick fog.

“It might clear a little by this evening.” Domingo shrugged. “You never know with Island weather.”

The sailor took a bill out of his wallet and handed it to Elizabeth. “One night.”

She filled out a receipt, gave him change, and watched him disappear into the murky cloud. Another figure materialized.

“Damn, Domingo. Here's that arrogant Secret Service guy again.” She turned away from the window. “You deal with him.”

The agent came into the shack without knocking and propped himself against the edge of the desk, folded his arms across his chest, and stared sullenly at Elizabeth. He was a tall, hefty, dark-haired man.

Domingo started to say something to the agent, but Elizabeth interrupted, flushed with irritation. “Don't you guys believe in manners?”

“May I please come into the harbormaster's office, ma'am?” he said without unfolding his arms. “So I can guard the president of the United States, if you don't mind.”

“Funny,” Elizabeth said sourly.

He was there for only a few minutes when a state trooper came in. “Need to use the radio.” Domingo pointed to it. While the trooper was talking on the radio, a Coast Guardsman showed up at the door. “I'm supposed to check your radio against ours.”

“As soon as that guy gets off,” Domingo said.

Two women in yellow rain slickers came to the window. The phone rang. A voice on the radio asked to talk to the trooper. The Coast Guardsman picked up the mike and responded. The Secret Service agent crossed one ankle over the other, unfolded his arms long enough to take a pack of gum out of his pocket, unwrapped a stick, tossed the rolled-up wrapper toward the wastebasket, fed the stick into his mouth, and refolded his arms over his chest.

“You know, guys, we need to use our radio, too,” Elizabeth said. “Believe it or not.”

“Won't be a minute,” the Coast Guardsman said apologetically.

Elizabeth went over to the desk, where the Secret Service agent lolled. “Move out of my way, buster. I need to get into that drawer.”

He slid over, arms still folded. She opened the drawer, took the receipt book to the counter, and started to thumb through pages.

“Where's your grandmother?” Domingo asked her.

“Reading to the elderly at the hospital.... Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen...”

“Don't you think you should pick her up?” Domingo put his hands in his pockets and stared out at the grayness.

Elizabeth held her place in the book. “She'll be fine.” She went back to counting. “Twenty-five, twenty-six, twen—”

“It's hazardous driving.”

“She'll be fine, Domingo. Really. She's a big girl. Thirty-two, thirty-three ...”

“She going to watch the fireworks tonight?”

“Yes. Thirty-four, thirty-five .. .”

“With this pea soup, there won't be much to see. Only a lot of racket. We'll shoehorn her in with the boys.” Domingo nodded at the crowded shack.

Elizabeth slapped the book shut. “Damnation, Domingo. I lost count. Noreen's driving my grandmother here to the harbor. You, Domingo, are driving me crazy.” She looked around at the law-enforcement people cluttering the small office.

Domingo turned from the window. “When's she due here?”

Elizabeth sighed and looked at her watch. “She'll be here any minute.”

“I don't like her out alone.” Domingo stared at the fog.

“Come on, Domingo. She's with Noreen.”

Domingo stepped outside, lighted a cigarette, and paced. He tossed the cigarette overboard. “I'm going to look for them.”

“Give them another couple of minutes.”

The parking lot had disappeared. The catwalk seemed to be suspended in space over a bottomless void. The planks of the walk appeared and disappeared in eddies of fog.

“You there, Mike?” A second Coast Guardsman rapped on the door frame and entered the shack.

“Yes, sir. I'm waiting to use the radio.”

The trooper, who was speaking into the mike, held up his hand in acknowledgment.

Domingo checked his watch. “Something may have happened.”

A diver in a blue-and-black wetsuit with scuba tanks on his back and swim fins on his feet slapped into the shack.

“Why don't you guys have your own radios?” Elizabeth snapped.

“Ma'am, I wondered if you had a Band-Aid?” the diver asked.

Elizabeth opened the first-aid kit and handed a couple to the diver. He took off one of his swim fins and looked up sheepishly at her. “Blister.”

“Here they come now, Domingo.” Elizabeth straightened up and peered through the fog.

They could hear Noreen's high voice, Victoria's deeper one, and then the two women appeared out of the silvery mist. Victoria's white hair glistened with droplets of moisture.

Victoria leaned over the railing. “You can barely see the harbormaster's launch through the fog.” The launch was tied to the shack's pilings. Beyond it, Elizabeth could vaguely make out the shape of a Coast Guard cutter with its diagonal red slash across the bow.