Vineyard Deceit (9 page)

In the library I found Ms. Johanson looking exquisite in an evening dress of blue, which set off her blond hair nicely. Gold gleamed from her wrists and throat. She would fit right in with the evening's crowd. She was reading something on a clipboard. Just as good pilots, before taking off, do not depend on their memories but on checklists, so Miss Johanson was checking off her duties. Having forgotten a lot of things myself, from time to time, I approved. She looked up. I raised a friendly hand. She stared, then looked down at her clipboard and up again.

“Jackson, yes?”

Alas. She'd had to read my name to remember it. On the other hand, she
had
remembered it after reading it.

“Jackson. Yes.”

She looked me over and nodded. “Very good. Are you an island policeman, Jackson?”

“Only a special officer. I've retired from real work.”

“Indeed?” She glanced at her clipboard and turned a page. “Ah, yes. You were once on the Boston PD, I see.”

“Long ago.”

“You were shot and you retired on a disability pension.”

“I could never keep secrets from a woman like you.”

“You are to be on duty in the ballroom, principally. Should anyone speak to you, be casual. Smile, move off as soon as you can. Keep alert to anything unusual. Drink only soda water. After the guests leave there will be food in the kitchen for you, should you want it.” She glanced at a small golden watch on her left wrist. “The guests should begin arriving about six. Have you any questions?”

“Only one. Your first name.”

She looked at me the way women look whenever some man is impertinent and stupid. “My subordinates address me as Ms. Johanson.”

I waited. She frowned and looked down at her clipboard.

“Helga,” she said after a moment, touching a hand to her hair. “My name is Helga. Now go to work, please, Mr. Jackson.”

I went.

A few minutes before six, Edward C. Damon, his wife by his side, their daughter and her husband close behind, all gloriously yet tastefully attired and bejeweled, descended from their rooms upstairs. As they did, the front door opened and Amelia Muleto was bowed in by the butler. There were embraces between the members of the two parties, those careful kinds that occur when no one wants tulle crushed or makeup smudged. I was standing in the ballroom, half hidden by a marble statue of Nimuë that stood at one side of the doorway. No one saw me or my glass of soda with lemon peel. And I did not see Zee.

Amelia wore a dress of silver gray silk which was both elegant and simple. The gray sash at her waist matched her hair, and I saw her suddenly as a lady of high caste,
quite a change from the vegetable and flower gardener I'd come to know over the years.

I stepped away from Nimuë, which was more than Merlin had been able to manage, and walked across the hall. Amelia looked up and saw me and smiled. She gave me her hand and lifted her head for a kiss which I, caught off guard but ever suave, gave her.

“You look splendid,” I said. “But where is your lovely niece?”

She looked distressed. “Oh, dear. I tried to call you, but you weren't in. There was an emergency at the hospital. Zee had to fly to Boston with a patient. The hospital phoned me about noon. Poor Zee didn't even have time to phone me herself. She may not get back until Monday.”

The front door opened, and the first of the guests was announced. Amelia and I were looking at each other. Suddenly Emily Damon was at Amelia's side, taking her arm, smiling vaguely at me. “Amelia, dear, do come and meet our very good friends the Leaches and the Alexanders. You'll excuse us, I'm sure, young man . . .”

I was distracted. “Of course,” my voice said.

Amelia gave me a gentle look, briefly gripped my arm, and was gone.

8

Zee in Boston for the whole weekend. And I had a date to take her home after the party, too. Rats! I leaned against the wall while black-uniformed waitresses carrying trays of exotic appetizers brushed by me on their way to the celebration. I snagged a crabmeat canapé as it passed. Not bad. I felt lonesome. Then I felt sorry for Zee. It was going to be quite a party from the looks of things, and
she was going to miss it. I decided to do my duty and enjoy myself too. It's a nice combination when you can pull it off. I wandered around a bit, trying to look unobtrusive. I seemed to be good at it. Nobody paid any attention to me. They were all busy discussing and looking at More Important People, of whom there were apparently quite a few.

By six-thirty, everyone was there awaiting the descent of the Padishah's party down the great stairway. The liquor had begun to flow freely. The guests were gathered in knots in the entrance hall, on the veranda, and in the ballroom and library. Among them I recognized the grandfatherly figure of a famous retired television newsman, two famous once-married but now divorced pop singers from up island, an actor who had become a star after his film portrayal of a comic-book hero, and a famous but secretive painter who preferred the fishing at Wasque Point and Lobsterville to the New York gallery scene and with whom I had shared coffee a few times during Bass and Bluefish Derby time when the winds were raw. I heard talk and saw sidelong looks that indicated that other celebrated folk were among the crowd, but since I did not own a television set and did not like or listen to popular music, most of the names and faces were unknown to me.

There were readily identifiable reporters and camera people circulating and recording the events of the evening while they liberally partook of champagne and hors d'oeuvres. All of them wore formal evening dress, I was glad to see. The reporters I know are not normally so properly attired. It was not hard to keep track of the hired security people: they were the only ones not drinking. The guests, like the reporters, were keeping the bartenders busy and were primarily there, I guessed, to see the famous emeralds. Until the emeralds appeared, they were still interested in seeing who else of importance was there and in having those important people see them. They took no heed of the dozen busy-eyed soda sippers who moved
through and about the crowd trying to notice everything and hoping that no one was noticing them.

Helga Johanson, of course,
was
watching them to make sure that they were on the job. She had emerged from the library and was a graceful and alert figure who captured the attention of more than one admiring man or envious woman, but who slipped charmingly away from invitations for drinks or extended conversations so that she could better do her double job of watching for the bad guys while checking on her own people. Her dress was form fitting. Where did she carry
her
trusty Colt .45?

I went away into various rooms and looked for suspicious people. I found none. The most suspicious-looking people at the party, I thought, were those hanging closest to Edward C. Damon. They were a shifty-looking crowd. In a corner, apart from other guests, I saw Amelia Muleto talking with a tall, cadaverous man whom I recognized as Willard Sergeant Blunt. Was he really her wooer, as Zee had theorized? His head was bent toward hers. Lovers wishing they were alone? Could be, I thought.

I heard a sigh rise collectively from the ballroom and returned in time to see an entourage descend toward the Damons awaiting below. The Padishah, wearing an extraordinary military uniform, led the way and was the principal focus of attention. He was followed by a less brilliantly attired party of five. All of the faces were familiar to me from the morning's briefing. Colonel Ahmed Nagy, his personal bodyguard; his elderly and frail-looking physician and political advisor; his secretary; his number one wife; and the curator of the National Museum of Sarofim. I gave Colonel Ahmed Nagy a good look. His face still looked like an axe, and his hooded eyes went everywhere. When they reached mine, they stopped. Mine stared back. Finally his moved on.

I thought (correctly, I was later informed) that the Padishah's uniform looked modeled after those worn by generals in Hollywood films about the nineteenth-century
British Empire. Medaled and feathered hat, very red coat very hung with braid and medals, very blue trousers with red stripes down the sides, very shiny black boots with spurs, and a very black belt and pistol holster.

The hat went to the secretary, and amid the flashes of photographs being taken, the guest of honor and his host and hostesses met.

There was no formal receiving line, but in the ballroom the Padishah took a position at the head of the room and accepted introductions of the guests, who were awed perhaps by their first sight of official royalty. The ladies curtsied; the men bowed and briefly shook the royal hand. The Padishah bestowed the kingly smile and made small talk. He had been educated in England, according to the gossip I had overheard in my wanderings, and knew how to murmur the right things. The wife of the Padishah was not included in the formal introductions, I noted.

When the handsome young man who had portrayed the comic-book hero in films was introduced, the Padishah, overcome by the appearance of a genuine movie star, welcomed him with even more enthusiasm than he had shown for some of the younger ladies, over whose hands his own had lingered longer than absolutely necessary. The young man only escaped after laughingly agreeing to consider making his next comic-book film in Sarofim. The Padishah seemed overjoyed by the prospect.

I discovered Helga Johanson beside me. She gestured toward the guest of honor. “Do you suppose he likes boys best?”

“I hear he has a collection of women.”

“People who collect women don't necessarily like women. Is everything going smoothly?”

I said that it was, and she was gone. Shortly afterward dinner was served. On time, too. Whoever was orchestrating this event was doing a good job of it.

I'd seen the work going on in the kitchen. No rubber
chicken was served. Instead, a delicate cold soup; a choice of lamb, shelled lobster, or a fragrant vegetable dish native to Sarofim; champagne and vintage wines to wash everything down; and a cordial-soaked tart for desert. Coffee and brandy and more cordials to end the meal.

If there were any dietary laws in Sarofim, they were not revealed by the Padishah, who ate and drank everything offered with regal gusto.

I had another soda with lemon at the bar so I wouldn't drool all over my shirt while everyone else was eating. As I sipped, I thought about cordial-soaked tarts. I'd known a few in my lifetime, and they were generally not bad women at all.

Thinking of this, I heard, over the drone of voices at the dining tables, the sound of distant shouts from down toward the Damons' dock. I walked out onto the veranda and found some diners standing and looking toward the water. Shadowy figures ran down the hill and joined other figures on the dock where the Damons' boats were tied. Shouts and yells floated up to the house. Some were in slurred English, but others were in a tongue I did not know.

“Drunks,” a man nearby said, sitting down. “College kids trying to crash a party.” He grinned. “Wrong party, guys.” The others at his table laughed.

I watched the figures outlined against the lights dancing on the water. Maybe it really was a bunch of college kids out for a night of late-summer fun. Maybe not. The voices rose and fell and then fell some more. Calmer voices sank from my hearing. Slowly some sort of order was restored. I heard an outboard motor start up and saw a boat, crammed with more people than it could safely hold, move away from the dock out into the narrows. From it, derisive voices again were suddenly raised just before the outboard roared and the boat blundered away into the night.

I stared down there awhile and saw figures slowly coming
back up over the silvery lawns. Then, as I turned to go back into the house, I heard a rattle of popping sounds off by the south fence of the estate.

“God,” said the man who had just sat himself down, “what next?”

“Firecrackers,” said the woman next to him. “These kids!”

I didn't wait to hear the rest of their theories, but moved into the shadow cast by the wall of the dining room and stared at the corner of the house beyond which the pops were popping. The figures that had been slowly returning to their posts from down near the water began moving faster, in a crouch, coming back uphill.