Indian Pipes (3 page)

Hiram shook his head. “I walked a quarter mile or so along the beach to the foot of the cliffs, but I never saw him. Or anyone else. The fog had come in, thick. I waited until six, then left. I figured Burkhardt got held up for some reason, and would get in touch if he needed me.”

“That must have been about two hours before I saw him on the cliff,” said Victoria.

“About that. You brought the chair by before supper.”

“And we stayed an hour or so. We were at your house roughly from six-thirty to seven-thirty.”

Hiram started to say something, then stopped. He began again. “We’re so focused on that damned casino, you’d think nothing else was happening in the world.”

Victoria watched him, her eyes half-closed.

“I must tell you something, get it off my chest.”

“Of course.”

Elizabeth got up. “I’ll make my bed,” she said.

Hiram clasped his hands on the table again. “I have a friend, Victoria, a close friend, Tad Nordstrom. A banker, lives in Omaha. Married, nice home, two teenage kids.” Hiram shifted in his seat. “He’s greatly respected in his community. A fine human being.”

“I gather you and he are more than friends?”

Hiram nodded.

“How did you meet?”

“We were both stranded in the Chicago airport for two days during a snowstorm six years ago. We’ve kept in touch.”

“Everyone who knows you, certainly, understands you’re, um, not the marrying type,” said Victoria. “So I assume it’s your friend who has the problem, not you?”

Hiram glanced out the window. “He visits me every year. Tells the family he’s going on retreat.”

“I suppose that’s close to the truth,” said Victoria.

“His wife thinks she’s to blame for the disintegration of their relationship. He feels guilty and angry.”

“Why doesn’t he simply come out and tell her he’s gay and suggest a divorce?”

“Money, kids, church, family, position in the community. He lives in Nebraska, not Martha’s Vineyard.”

“This is the twenty-first century,” said Victoria. “People recognize that so-called lifestyles are not a matter of choice.”

“Not where he lives.”

“Wherever he lives, he’d better do something soon, while his wife can still make a new life for herself.”

“We’ve talked about that-”

Victoria interrupted. “I have no patience with a man whose priorities are money and position in the community.”

“Children…” Hiram began.

“Does he think he’s helping his children by pretending he’s something he’s not?” Victoria started to get up.

“Wait, Victoria. I haven’t told you the problem.”

“The problem is that your friend is a hypocrite,” said Victoria, “and you’re not helping his family by covering for him.”

“Please, sit down and listen to me.”

“I’ve heard more than I want,” Victoria said, but sat again. “I take it Jube figures in this in some way?”

“When Burkhardt came to see me the other night with the faked soil tests, I said I couldn’t sign them. At that, he brought out an undated copy of a letter he had written.”

“About your friend Tad?”

Hiram nodded. “To Tad’s bank, with copies to the local paper. And to his wife.”

“I hope you told Jube what he could do with it?”

“I signed the certificate.”

Victoria pushed her chair away from the table and stood up again. “Hiram, I’m ashamed of you.” She leaned on the table. “I never expected
you
to give in to blackmail.”

“Victoria, listen to me-”

“I’ve listened to you and told you what I think.”

“There’s more.” Hiram swallowed hard. “Burkhardt and I were lovers before I met Tad.”

Victoria turned and looked down at him. When she saw his expression, she sat down abruptly and took a deep breath. “Hiram,” she said, “you didn’t kill Jube Burkhardt, did you?”

C
HAPTER
3

Hiram sat up abruptly. “Of course I didn’t kill Burkhardt!”

“When the police learn that you were to meet him on the beach
below
the cliffs around the time he died,” Victoria said, “they’re going to wonder how he could have fallen to his death from the
top
of the cliffs.”

“That’s right.” Hiram tugged at his short beard. “However, the police are calling his death an accident. A fall from the cliffs. They’re about to close the case.”

Victoria studied her fingernails, short and ridged with a line of gardening dirt she hadn’t been able to scrub clean. “That decision must be a relief to you. You’d be a likely suspect otherwise.”

“No, it’s not a relief at all. Burkhardt’s death was no accident. Someone killed him. Who? And why?”

Victoria looked up. “Then explain that to the police.”

“So the police can arrest me? Even
you
think I might have killed him.”

They were both so quiet, Victoria could hear the town clock ring in the church steeple. She looked at her watch. “Ten o’clock. I have to be somewhere at eleven.”

Hiram sighed. “Victoria, I’m worried. The killer must have known Burkhardt expected me to go with him.”

“What makes you say that?”

Hiram lifted his empty mug, then put it down. “After you left last night, I listened to my answering machine. Burkhardt had left a message saying he’d been delayed and would meet me an hour later. Same place.” Hiram toyed with his mug. “The killer may have overheard Burkhardt. Or perhaps Burkhardt told him I’d be there?”

“If Jube was so suspicious of the person he was meeting that he asked you to accompany him, why would he then go alone with him when you didn’t show up?”

“I don’t know what went through Burkhardt’s mind, Victoria. My first thought when he asked me to go with him was that it involved the blackmail letter. But that didn’t make sense. Why not simply meet at my house?” Hiram paused.

Outside the window, a blue jay tried to land on a small perch of the bird feeder and flew off with a flutter of wings and a squawk. The feeder swung back and forth, dropping seeds into the browning iris leaves.

“And who, on the Island, anyway, would care about Tad’s and my relationship? Then I thought the meeting might have to do with one of Burkhardt’s nieces. He’d been having some problems with one or both of them, you know.”

“Or they with him,” said Victoria.

“I imagined other scenarios. Burkhardt meeting with a motorcyclist. Talking to someone about casino plans, taxes, septic permits, the tribe. But nothing made sense. Why would anyone need to meet him on the beach?” Hiram ran both hands through his crew cut. “I believe now that the killer planned to lure Burkhardt to a secluded place to kill him.”

“Did Jube suspect the meeting was a trap?”

“Burkhardt was uneasy about the meeting, but I doubt if it occurred to him that anyone would have the temerity to attack him.”

“Where is your friend Tad now? Did he know that Jube was blackmailing you on his account?”

“Tad knew,” said Hiram, gazing out the window. “Tad has been visiting me for the past two weeks.”

“Is it possible that Tad was meeting with Jube?”

“Tad?” Hiram stared at her. “Good heavens, no.”

“Where is Tad now?” Victoria asked.

“On his way back to Omaha.”

“Is he driving?”

“Tad’s not a killer, Victoria.”

Victoria checked her hands again, tried to wedge dirt out from
under her thumbnail with a fingernail. “Under the right circumstances we can all be killers.”

Hiram looked at her in surprise.

“If someone threatened my family? Yes.”

Hiram stared at her.

She continued. “Suppose Tad contacted Jube, offered to buy the letter, asked to meet him somewhere private.”

“No, Victoria. No.”

Victoria looked up. “Jube, of course, contacted you to join them. When Tad realized you’d agreed, he put the meeting off an hour. That fits with the facts we have.”

“I spoke with Tad after he left yesterday morning. He was on the ferry, just about to dock in Woods Hole.”

“He called on a cell phone, didn’t he?”

Hiram groaned and tilted his chair backward.

“Don’t lean back in the chair,” said Victoria.

Hiram set the chair down.

Victoria said, “Do you have any idea what happened to the letter Jube wrote?”

“Once I signed the faked test results, he put the letter back in an inside pocket in his windbreaker. Last night when I reached Burkhardt on the cliff, he was still wearing the same jacket. I searched his pockets.”

“Did you find the letter?”

Hiram shook his head. “No.”

Victoria scowled. “If Tad will discuss his situation honestly with his wife, that letter will be toothless.”

“That won’t happen, Victoria. You don’t understand.”

Victoria’s face flushed. “Yes, I do. Perhaps the killer took the letter.”

Elizabeth returned from upstairs, running a comb through her damp hair. “Okay to come back?”

Hiram nodded, and Elizabeth joined them again at the table. “Are you still talking casinos?”

“Not exactly,” said Victoria.

Hiram reached for his pipe absentmindedly. “Patience claims a casino will bring in jobs for Aquinnah.”

“Go outside if you need to smoke,” said Elizabeth.

“I don’t
need
to,” said Hiram, stiffly.

“Once they build a casino, Aquinnah will sell liquor, and the town won’t be dry any longer,” Elizabeth said.

“Some members of the tribe think that would be a benefit,” said Hiram.

Elizabeth looked from her grandmother to Hiram. “What were you two discussing, anyway? Jube Burkhardt? You both seem really upset.”

Victoria looked out the window.

Hiram picked up his empty mug. “No one was quite sure where Burkhardt stood. If the tribe loses its case for sovereign immunity and can’t get permits in time, they’ll probably turn to private investors who’ve already shown interest in funding a tribal casino.”

“Could Jube have held up the application for six months? And would that have been long enough to give a private investor an opening?” Elizabeth asked.

“Absolutely.”

“I’ve heard you saying at some point, Hiram, that he was upset about motorcycles. Was it the noise?”

Victoria turned back to the table. “His house is more than a mile from the main road.”

“It wasn’t just the bikers,” said Hiram. “He was upset about his taxes going for a casino. The taxes on his property were more than he earned, he said.”

“He could hardly sell his family’s house,” Victoria said. “It would be like selling your child.”

“Did he have children?” Elizabeth asked.

“He had no family except for his nieces. At one time he planned to give his property to his younger niece, but night before last he seemed unsure.”

“The younger niece?” Victoria was surprised. “I would have thought he’d give his property to both equally.”

“The elder niece is fooling around with a biker.”

“Ah,” said Elizabeth. “So that’s it.”

“He figured he could get out of paying taxes,” Hiram said, “by giving the younger niece the property now, with a life tenancy for himself.”

“Does she have money to pay taxes?” asked Elizabeth.

“Burkhardt figured that was her problem, not his.”

Elizabeth made a face. “Nice guy.”

“During the tribal meeting, he thought about his taxes going to a casino, he told me. What right would a foreign nation have to fund a casino with U.S. taxpayers’ money?”

“Probably be an advantage to be a foreign nation,” said Victoria.

“A Native American tribal entity is hardly a foreign nation,” said Elizabeth. “Sovereign nation is different.” She got up, refilled Hiram’s coffee mug, and held the pot toward her grandmother.

“No, thank you,” Victoria said. “Jube’s house has a nice view. Right on Tisbury Great Pond, surrounded on three sides by water. You can see the ocean from there.”

“An expensive piece of property.” Hiram stirred milk and sugar into his coffee.

“What do you think it’s worth?” Elizabeth asked.

Hiram shrugged. “If you still have the taxpayers’ listing from the
Enquirer,
I can tell you.”

Victoria lifted herself out of the chair and went into the dining room, where she sorted through a heap of papers and magazines piled on the piano bench and on the floor next to it until she found the issue Hiram wanted.

Hiram paged through the tax supplement. “Burkhardt.” He scanned the columns. “Here it is. Burkhardt, Jubal. How does eighteen million dollars sound to you?”

“You must be joking.” Victoria was aghast. “It couldn’t possibly be worth that much.”

“He’s got thirty-two acres and waterfront.” Hiram peered at Victoria over the top of his glasses. “The real estate people would describe it as a charming, historic eighteenth-century Vineyard estate with water frontage.”

“I can’t believe it. The old Mitchell place? They must have misplaced a decimal point. If it were eighteen thousand dollars, I’d be surprised.”

“He was paying taxes on eighteen million.”

“No wonder he took bribes,” Elizabeth said.

Victoria looked at her watch. “I don’t know what you want of me,
Hiram. You don’t intend to go to the police, which is what I advise you to do. You don’t like my suspects.”

“I need your help, Victoria. Before I go to the police, we have to find the killer. It’s neither of your two suspects, believe me.”

“That’s the second time you’ve used the word
we,”
said Victoria.

“You’re the obvious person. You know everybody on this Island and who they’re related to. You know more history than anyone. In fact, you’ve lived much of it. And, you’ve gotten yourself a reputation as a sleuth.”

Victoria looked down at her hands.

“You know that Gram is a deputy police officer, don’t you?” Elizabeth asked.

Hiram smiled. “Everybody on the Island knows.”

“I can’t imagine what I can contribute this time.” Victoria studied him. “You’re holding something back, aren’t you, Hiram.” She waited.

Hiram sighed again. “When Elizabeth came to get me last night, I had a hunch that the person on the cliff was Burkhardt. When I got to him, he was still alive. He mumbled a few words I couldn’t make out. Then he said clearly, ‘Sibyl,’ before he went unconscious.”