Nantucket Grand (16 page)

Talk around the raw bar, turned to who had discovered which new vintages at the recently concluded wine festival, and I eased my way out of the group.

“Book festival, film festival, wine festival,” someone said, closing in on me from the side. It was David Trezize, the editor of our local alternative newspaper. “Dance festival, comedy festival, cranberry festival. You know what this island really needs, Chief? More festivals. We should have a festival festival, celebrating all the other festivals.”

I nodded. “Sounds festive.”

He took my arm and walked me over to the big fireplace, beside one of the white plaster mermaids that held up the mantel at either end. I noticed the matching smaller ones supporting the kitchen counter. They were a Grady Malone inspiration. David made a sour face, as if the creatures smelled bad, out of the ocean too long, unrefrigerated.

“What a genius. I asked Patty what makes Grady so wonderful and she said, ‘He's deep.' Deep. About as deep as a Disney movie. All he needs is a Jamaican lobster on the hearth, singing ‘Under the Sea.'”

“That would be a selling point, like those ten-thousand-dollar animated birthday cakes.”

Before David could answer, my phone went off.

It was the harbormaster, calling me to the scene of the crime.

Chapter Twenty-one

The Reid Technique

The next morning, I was interviewing Oscar Graham's family when I got the call from the State Police. They had a suspect in custody and a confession in hand, less than twenty-four hours after finding the body. Fifteen hours, to be precise, as Lonnie Fraker informed me, with a smirk in his voice I could hear through the bad cell phone connection.

“It looks like this one is all wrapped up,” he said, drawing out each of the last three words a little too long, with a little too much space between them, hitting the consonants with a guillotine precision.

“Who are we talking about?” I asked.

“Mason Taylor.”

I had talked Mason down from a suicide attempt a couple of years before. I hadn't been convinced he could kill anyone, even himself. But a couple of years can make a huge difference, when you're growing from fifteen to seventeen. I thought of the poem we wrote together that afternoon, him comparing Alana Trikilis to a Nantucket rose—not the odorless industrial blooms you could buy in the Stop&Shop, but the real thing, fresh and fragrant, twined into a 'Sconset trellis on an July afternoon. Call me prejudiced, but I couldn't imagine what private tragedies and upheavals could have accomplished such a grim transformation. From aspiring poet and love-smitten teenager to cold-blooded killer, between sophomore year and graduation?

His parents were still married, happily or not; his two older sisters remained in college. The sweet pit bull the family adopted continued to roam the island, chasing deer spoor and rabbits, but she was always found and returned. No one wanted to take a Selectman's dog to the pound.

Mason's romance with Alana had apparently cooled, but he was still willing to help her with her causes and crusades. Her testimony and Jared's concurred—Mason cared enough about Jill Phelan to confront the men who hurt her. He was willing to take brave, principled action to help Jill—I didn't see him turning around seven months later and killing her boyfriend. That was just crazy.

They were holding Mason at the State Police headquarters on North Liberty Street. “I'll be right over,” I said. “Don't do anything until I get there.”

“It's already done, Chief.”

“Good, then rest on your laurels for twenty minutes. Do not transfer him to Barnstable. Not until I sign off on this.”

“Wouldn't dream of it.”

I disconnected, and I could see Lonnie canceling the Barnstable flight ten seconds later. But maybe I misjudged him. Lonnie brought out the cynic in me.

“What's going on?” Sylvester Graham asked me.

I slipped the phone into my pocket. “There's been an arrest.”

Sylvester pulled Millie tighter on the old plaid couch. “They know who killed Oscar?” she said.

I pushed a breath out through my teeth. “They think they do. I don't know.”

“But they must have evidence.”

“They have a confession, Mrs. Graham.”

“Then it's over.”

“I hope so.”

“It had to do with his job,” Sylvester said. “I know it.”

I sat down. Fraker could wait. “His job?”

“On the docks. They had him working as a security guard. For the yachts. Walking the piers. Making sure no one trespassed into the private areas where the big boats were tied up.”

“Did he say anything to you?”

“He didn't talk much. Not to us. But he wasn't happy.”

Millie sat forward. “Two days ago he told me, ‘something's wrong and I have to fix it.' He wouldn't tell me what. Just that it was bad. I told him what his grandmother used to say—don't test the depth of a river with both feet. But Oscar never listened to his grandmother. Or me.”

She pressed her lips together. It pulled her whole face tight and I could see tears glistening in her eyes. But she obviously didn't want to cry in front of the police. She was a large sturdy woman, the perfect bookend to her muscular, potbellied husband, still in his plaster-specked work clothes. He levered himself off the couch. “I'll walk you out.”

At the front door he said, “We left Jamaica because it was dangerous. My brother's store in Kingston was robbed at gunpoint. Two weeks ago. And that scar on Millie's neck? Someone put a knife to her throat. Lucky she didn't know those men. If she had recognized them they would have killed her for sure. Cut her throat and left her in the road. So we came here. We wanted Oscar to grow up in a safe place.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. There was nothing else to say. I had no empty promises for him. Most murders go unsolved. “I'm so sorry.”

“Just find who did this, mon. Find them and leave them to me.”

I couldn't do that of course, but there was no point in telling Sylvester that. I could get him into the sentencing hearing, that was about the best he could hope for. I thought of Liam Phelan on his own private hunt for the people who had overdosed his daughter. A lot of angry fathers on Nantucket this summer. A lot of lost children. I didn't judge Liam or Sylvester. If someone had come after my kids I could easily join them, one more vigilante too full of rage and hate to wait for the sluggish workings of the law. That made my job pretty clear—speed things up. Get to work and do my job properly, before one of those wounded, grief stricken men went out and did it for me.

***

“What can I say? Where there's smoke, there's fire.”

I studied Lonnie Fraker's wide happy face, spread out in a toothy grin.

“Most of the time,” I said. “Sometimes, there's just a guy smoking, who should have quit years ago.”

“Speak for yourself, Mr. Nicorette. I never started. I don't drink, either. I try to lead by example. No vices.”

“Except pride.”

“Are you kidding?” he laughed. “I'm the most modest guy in the world. Nobody's more modest than me, Chief. Check out the cover of
Self-Effacement
magazine this month. I'm Man of the Year.”

I sometimes thought Lonnie had no sense of humor. I enjoyed the surprise, and made a note of it. Underestimating people could be dangerous as well as dumb.

“So do you wear that big crown they gave you?”

“Tough one, Chief. Tough line to walk. I wear it but I try to look undeserving. You know…‘What, this old thing? I hate it, but the magazine insists.'”

We both laughed. Then it was time to get down to business. “Okay, Lonnie. What have you got?”

“So much, Chief. So much more than I need. I have a confession on video and we printed the texts off the victim's phone for corroboration.”

“Let me see the video.”

“I have it all cued up. No popcorn or big candy bars, but nobody in the seat behind you talking on their cell phone, either. So it evens out. Come on back.”

He had a screen set up in one of the back rooms. The folding metal chairs ranked as marginally more comfortable than the ‘director's chairs' upstairs at the new Dreamland theater. I sat down while Lonnie killed the lights and slipped the DVD into the projector.

The screen brightened with the image of a rumpled Mason Taylor sitting alone at a folding table, hooked up to a lie-detector.

“Freeze it,” I said. “Where's his lawyer?”

“He waived, Chief. Nothing to hide. Asking for a lawyer just makes you look guilty.”

“And who gave him that idea?”

“Just a suggestion. We read him his rights and he signed off.”

“The kid is seventeen years old.”

“Actually, he turned eighteen on May tenth.”

“So he's on his own.”

“And he's your special protégé, Cyrano. Yeah, I know that story. Nobody cares. Mao wrote poems when he wasn't slaughtering anyone who looked at him sideways. And don't bother asking—the kid agreed to the polygraph. This is strictly by the book.”

I sighed. “Roll it.”

Off-screen, Lonnie says, “Your name is Mason Taylor.”

“Yes.”

“You live on Nantucket?”

“Yes.”

“Were you born here?”

“Yes.”

“Your father is a Selectman?”

“As you know.”

“We're just trying to set the parameters here, Mason, asking basic questions to get a level for the machine.”

“Okay.”

“So you attend Nantucket High School?”

“Yes.”

“And you knew Oscar Graham?”

“Everyone knows everyone at NHS.”

“Were you friends?”

“We were friendly. I wouldn't say friends.”

“He was Jamaican.”

“He came here when he was five years old.”

“He was black. Was that a problem for you?

“No.”

“Not even when he started chasing your friend Jill?”

“She chased him. And she caught him. I moved on.”

“No hard feelings?”

“It was mutual.”

“I see.”

“We were fine.”

“If you say so. Was Oscar a heavy drug user, to your knowledge?”

“No. He never used drugs at all. To my knowledge.”

“No Zohydro?”

“What's that?”

Lonnie laughs. “You've never heard of it?”

“Should I have?”

“Do you know the problem with Vicodin and oxycodone? Why people die when they OD?”

“No. Why should I?”

“They mix hydrocodone with acetaminophen or ibuprofen—Tylenol or Advil to you. So people die of liver failure. But Zohydrol is pure.”

“That sounds good.”

“Yeah, you think so? Well, twelve out of fourteen people on the FDA board didn't agree. But they cleared it anyway. Painkillers make big money and that's all anyone cares about these days. Except the cops on the street who have to deal with the roadkill.”

“So this Zo—this other stuff. It's bad?”

“It's like that new wine that doesn't give you a hangover. No rules, no limits. No consequences. So people take more, and the high is sweeter. And then they die from the hydrocodone itself. Like Oscar Graham. And your gal pal. Who remains in a coma. She's still alive, anyway—no thanks to you.”

“Me? What are you talking about? I didn't—”

“Where did you get the drugs? Which doctor was involved? You need a prescription for this shit.”

“I didn't. I never even—”

“The doctor told you the overdose amount. I blame him as much as you. More than you. You're just a kid. You were angry. You were confused. He manipulated you. He used you.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Oscar got Jill into the drugs—he might even wind up killing her if she doesn't come out of that coma soon. Giving him the Zohydrol was just poetic justice.”

“No, wait! I didn't—”

“But, see, it was the doctor's job, his civic duty, his moral imperative, to talk you out of that crazy plan. Not goad you on. Was he jealous too? Some kind of perv? Jill was a cute girl. Or was it just an experiment to him?”

“I don't know what you're—this is crazy.”

“Why did you put Oscar's body in the harbor?”

“What?”

“Did you think it would sink?”

“I never—”

“Because they don't. Even when you weigh them down, they bob up eventually.”

“Look, Mr. Fraker—”

“Captain Fraker.”

“Captain Fraker—”

“Where were you on the night of May twenty-fourth?”

“What?”

“Saturday, May twenty-fourth. Between midnight and five a.m. Where were you?”

“I—”

“Just tell the truth!”

“I was home, in bed. I was asleep.”

“That's your alibi.”

“Yes.”

“Your parents will back that up?”

“They were off-island for the weekend.”

“So they left you alone?”

“Sure, why not? They—”

“I would call that an error in judgment.”

“I didn't do anything.”

“When the cat's away.”

“Wait, stop. This doesn't make any sense.”

“We're done for the moment. Take him off the machine, Carol. We're going to analyze the results. You sit tight.”

Lonnie hit freeze frame and touched my shoulder. “We left him in there for three hours. Let him stew.”

He started the DVD again. The timecode at the bottom right of the screen indicated that nearly four hours had gone by. Mason was pacing the narrow room when Lonnie walked back in.

Lonnie: “Sit down.”

Mason slumps into the wooden chair.

“Want to hear the results?”

“Not especially.”

“You were lying, Mason. Every word after the test questions.”

“There must be something wrong with the machine.”

“It's state-of-the-art. Besides, we know you were dragging Oscar Graham's body along the town pier at two-fifteen in the morning. We have an eyewitness.”

“Who?”

“I'm asking the questions.”

“Why didn't they try to stop me if they saw me doing something like that?”

“So, you did do it.”

“I didn't say that! I just meant…if someone saw a guy dragging a person, a body…in the middle of the night—”

“They were frightened, Mason. They did the right thing. They went to the police.”

“They? You use ‘they' so you won't have to say if it was a man or a woman.”

“That's right. Witnesses need to be protected. They came down here today and identified you through the one-way mirror—on the wall over there. Not one second's hesitation.”

“But it was night. How could they—?”

“That pier is lit up bright as day. As you well know. You might as well have been on stage, kid. Time to take a bow.”

Lonnie throws a thick file folder onto the table. “It's all right there. All the evidence. Open and shut. So here's what happened. Oscar was moving in on your girlfriend, and it was making you crazy. I don't want to overplay the race angle but it was there. Your dad sponsored that warrant at Town Meeting three years ago mandating INS sweeps on the island. It got voted down and he's still bitter about it. The fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.”