Indian Pipes (25 page)

“I don’t suppose I can help?” Victoria asked.

“I’ll show you how to use the computer if you’d like,” Howland murmured with a faint smile. “It’s simple.”

Victoria moved a chair close to the desk where Howland was working. “Never mind.”

Elizabeth stood behind Howland, watching him work.

“He was well organized, I’ll say that for him,” Howland said when the screen finally showed lists of files and directories. “This is his word-processing program, an old one. Not many people use it these days.” He stood up. Elizabeth sat down and read off the list of files.

“Correspondence, Finances,” she said. “Legal, Personal, X. Shall I check the X-file?”

“We need to start somewhere. X is as good as any.”

Elizabeth tapped keys, and a list showed on the screen.

“It doesn’t make sense.” Elizabeth scrolled down. There were about fifty items on the list.

Howland leaned over and looked. “It’s coded,” he said. “Burkhardt probably encrypted those files. Try to get one up on the screen.”

Elizabeth tapped keys.
PASSWORD
, the screen demanded.

“Well, well, well.” Howland leaned over Elizabeth and tried another item on the list.
PASSWORD
, the screen read.

Victoria leaned forward to see the screen. “Is there any way to get around that?”

“There are three or four decoding methods I can try. If they don’t work, I can go to my Washington DEA experts, but that will take time.”

“Perhaps we can guess his password,” Victoria said.

Howland shrugged. “We can try. Most people use something simple, like their names or birth dates. Mother’s maiden name. Any thoughts, Victoria? An eight- or fewer-letter word.” He turned back to Elizabeth. “Try Burkhard, without the t. Or Jube. Try Engineer.”

Elizabeth typed the words into the space for
PASSWORD
. The computer beeped, and each time, the screen read:
THIS ISN’T THE CORRECT PASSWORD
.”

Howland straightened up and put his hands in his pockets. “We’re wasting time. Let’s check the other files. He could have used anything for a password.”

“Try ‘Mitchell,'“ Victoria said. “That was his mother’s maiden name, his house was the Mitchell place, and it’s eight letters.”

Elizabeth typed
MITCHELL
. A file popped up on the screen. She scrolled down, then back up again. “It’s nothing but gibberish.”

“He was certainly protecting whatever he’s got here.” Howland frowned. “That entry looks like a name. This,” he pointed, “is probably an address and phone number.”

“That might be a dollar amount,” said Victoria.

“I bet this is his blackmail list.” Elizabeth scrolled down. “There are a half-dozen entries with figures next to them.”

“He probably used a simple code he could access easily,” How-land
said. “Print the entire file, Elizabeth. Two copies. One for Chief O’Neill, and we can attempt to decode the other.”

When the printing was finished, Elizabeth set the hard-copy pages of the X-file to one side.

“Now start from the beginning of the directory.” Howland pulled a chair next to Elizabeth. “We can make a quick run-through, then check everything later in detail.”

“Is there a file where he’d have stored his will?” Victoria said, examining the list of directories. “Or at least his attorney’s name. She or he would have the original executed will, I imagine.”

“Unless he drew it up himself,” Howland said.

They checked Correspondence. Letters to Sears, to a plumbing supply company. Nothing stood out except for a sizable file of letters to Smith College.

The directory titled Finances listed banks and financial institutions and was cross-referenced to an accounting program. They went on to Legal.

Elizabeth felt a surge of anticipation as she brought up the files in the legal directory. It was not a long list, perhaps a dozen files in all. Three lawyers’ names were listed, and in each file were letters of inquiry about real estate, fees, and Wampanoag rights.

One of the letters in the legal file, dated three years earlier, was to Montgomery Mausz, the attorney for the tribe. Burkhardt had asked his fee for preparing a will. Letters to other attorneys also requested their fees for preparing a will. Elizabeth printed the letters.

“Shopping around for a lawyer, all right,” Howland said. “But no will. Try Personal.”

Elizabeth brought up the directory labeled Personal and scrolled through the files. Letters to his nieces, mail orders for clothing, hardware, computer supplies, and at the end of the files Wills. “We got it!” Elizabeth tapped
ENTER
and the file appeared.

Victoria leaned forward.

“The first entry is dated two years ago,” said Elizabeth.

The morning sun streamed through the south window, reflected off the papers stacked on the windowsill. Elizabeth shaded the screen with her hand. Howland got up and pulled the shade partway down. Victoria moved her chair closer.

“A lot of legal stuff,” said Elizabeth. “He leaves everything in equal shares to Harriet and Linda.”

“Is there a more recent will?” asked Victoria.

Elizabeth continued to scroll down. “The next is dated a year ago, and he leaves everything to his niece Harriet. The one everyone calls Harley.” She kept scrolling down. “Here’s one dated three months later, and he leaves everything to his niece Linda.”

“Nice guy,” muttered Howland.

“Here’s another. Looks like the last one, dated three weeks ago. He leaves all his property, house, barn, and land, to the Conservation Trust, with a hundred dollars to each of his nieces.”

“Well!” said Howland.

“That’s it,” said Elizabeth.

“I’m glad this isn’t my problem,” said Howland.

Elizabeth, Victoria, and Howland looked at one another.

“Someone needs to find a signed, witnessed, notarized copy. It’s likely his attorney has it on file,” Howland said. “He probably lists his attorney in there somewhere.”

“What if he didn’t use an attorney,” said Victoria. “Anyone could have written the wills on his computer.”

Howland shrugged. “Anyone who had access to his computer and his password.”

“Whoever caused the ‘Fatal Error’ message?”

“The computer will have the dates they were written. I’ll print out copies of the wills for Casey and us.”

While the files were printing out, three motorcycles roared into the driveway and parked under the maple tree. One carried two people. The bikers got off and started toward the house.

“Looks as though we have callers,” said Victoria.

C
HAPTER
29

“I’m fed up with all of you,” Bugs growled at the three bikers who stood before him in the shade of the pines at the field’s edge. The last Indian pipes had shriveled and turned black. “I’m sick of this whole nursery. Macho bikers? Horses’ asses, that’s what you all are.”

The tents behind them were dappled with circular spots of sunlight filtered through the trees.

“What happened to Mack and them?” Harley asked.

“They’re at the police station, doing one hell of a lot of explaining to Chief O’Neill, that’s what.”

Harley shifted her helmet from under her right arm to under her left. “You said you wanted to see me.”

Bugs took off his horn-rimmed glasses, put them in their case, and snapped it shut. He squinted at Harley while he took a pair of mirrored sunglasses out of his pocket and hooked the earpieces around his ears. Harley could see her reflection, her purple hair with metallic orange glints.

“You find your sister and talk to her, you understand?” Bugs said. “There’s stuff going on that you and she have to work out between you.”

“I tried to meet her, Bugs, honest I did. I hitched into Oak Bluffs early this morning to meet with her. She never showed.” Harley’s voice had a whiny edge. “She left me a message that she’d be at the Flying Horses.”

“How’d you get the message?” The bug-eyed mirrors turned on her. Wherever she looked, she saw her face, fat in the thick prescription lenses, with a halo of purple and orange.

“She left a note with somebody at Alley’s. He said he’d deliver it here to me, and he did.”

“All right. Go on.”

“That’s it, Bugs. Toby and I went by Victoria Trumbull’s house yesterday, you know, where my sister’s staying. Her car wasn’t there.”

Bugs stared down at her. “Put on your helmet and get on the back of my bike. We’re finding your sister if it takes us all day. Goddamned mother hen,” he muttered. “Mack doesn’t know where she is, and he’s got his own problems right now. He’ll spend eternity locked up in jail until someone straightens out that mess.” He put on his helmet. “What kind of car does she drive?” He fastened the strap under his chin as he spoke, one finger against his throat.

Harley swung her leather-trousered leg over the back of the Indian and seated herself behind Bugs. “A blue Ford. Small. I don’t know what kind it is.”

Bugs grunted. “Where’s she likely to be?”

“Who knows?”

“Did you know she had a thing going with Mack?” Bugs turned his head to look at her.

“No, I didn’t. Honest.” Harley sounded bitter. “Uncle Jube cuts me off for hanging around with a biker, and that sneak…”

“Would she go shopping? Bird-watching? The beach?”

“Shopping. Definitely.”

“We’ll try Vineyard Haven first. Then Oak Bluffs. Then Edgartown. Got your helmet fastened?” He kicked the motor into life and turned his head to check. The pipes spit out a puff of blue smoke.

Harley put her feet up on the footrests behind Bugs and held onto the backrest in front of her.

The engine was quiet enough so that she could have heard Bugs above the noise, but neither of them said a word. The gang on Alley’s porch swiveled their heads in unison. Bugs snorted. A laugh, Harley guessed. They went past the Parsonage Pond and the cemetery, across the narrow bridge. Through Middletown. Down the hill past Tisbury Meadows, the Land Bank property. Into Vineyard Haven.

Bugs turned onto Main Street and cruised slowly past cars angled in to the curb. They looked up the streets that fed into Main Street—Center Street and Church Street. No small blue Ford. Bugs turned right onto Union Street toward the steamship wharf, and they wove
through a crowd of people in the parking lot. He turned again onto Water Street and cruised through the Stop & Shop lot. No blue Ford.

He turned onto Beach Road, and they skirted the Vineyard Haven harbor. Harley could see two ferries passing, the
Islander
arriving from Woods Hole, trailing a curving white wake, and the
Governor
taking off for the mainland. They crossed Lagoon Pond bridge over the steel grating that hummed under their wheels.

They passed the hospital and drove down New York Avenue into Oak Bluffs. The road had been named New York Avenue a hundred and fifty years ago, when ships from New York docked at the foot of the street. The docks were long gone. They passed the Oak Bluffs harbor, humming with boats—cabin cruisers, outboard motorboats, Scarabs, sailboats under power. The water shimmered in the noon light. They drove past the Camp Meeting Grounds. Pastel-colored gingerbread houses circled the wrought-iron Tabernacle where revival meetings were once held. Now it was rock concerts. They drove slowly up Circuit Avenue and around the streets behind it where there were more shops. No small blue Ford. They turned right before they got to the Flying Horses, and Bugs gunned the motor. Harley felt the puff of hot exhaust from the pipes beneath her legs. They raced along the road that led to Edgartown, following the sweep of Nantucket Sound.

A flight of Canada geese flew in a tidy
V
low over Sengekontack- ett Pond to their right. Harley could hear them honk over the sound of the Indian’s motor. To their left, a long line of cars had parked along the bathing beach. Beyond the cars, banks of rugosa roses blanketed the low dunes. Narrow sand paths led through the thorny roses to the beach. Red and white flowers dotted the low green bushes, mingled with bright orange rose hips, fruit of early summer blossoming. Beyond the roses sunbathers lay on bright towels. In the water, close to shore, swimmers’ heads were shiny black dots, like muskrats or otters. No small blue Fords were parked along the long stretch of beach.

Bugs leaned into the turn that led into the village, and slowed for the tourists who wandered from one side of Edgartown’s Main Street to the other. He drove to the harbor, and when he’d checked
for the blue Ford and found none, he swung back to North Water Street, slowly so they could look at every car. Nothing, nothing. Bugs went up one street and down another, past trim white houses with black shutters and rose vines climbing over white-painted picket fences. No blue Ford.

“What about lunch, Bugs?”

“This is not good. We’ve got to find her.”

“She’ll show up. She always does.”

“No lunch,” Bugs rasped. He skimmed through town and turned onto the West Tisbury Road, the same road that, in West Tisbury, was called the Edgartown Road.

He gunned the motor and they dodged between cars heading up-Island.

“Where to?” Harley shouted into the wind.

“Your uncle’s.” The wind blew his words back to her.

“You know the way?”

Bugs grunted.

They sped past Victoria’s house and turned onto New Lane. Bugs’s silence began to worry Harley, and she tightened her grip on the handhold behind his seat. On the rutted road they kept to the left-hand side. Grasses swished against her right leg, branches and shrubs whipped against her left. A branch deflected by Bugs’s jacket stung her cheek, and she felt a trickle of blood.

They came out of the woods into Burkhardt’s open area. The burned ruin faced them. A breeze stirred up a cat’s-paw on the pond, and wafted toward them the stink of half-burned plastic and wood. Harley felt a brief wave of nostalgia for her lost attic room. She could still feel that morning breeze that sifted through the screen, moving the curtains, the offshore breeze that blew every morning from land to sea until the land warmed in the sun and the wind shifted.

Bugs stopped the motorcycle, turned off the engine, kicked down the stand, and leaned the bike on it. Harley swung her leg over the back and stretched out the kinks in her arms and legs.