A Deadly Vineyard Holiday (24 page)

“She will certainly try.”

We shook hands and I left the house. At the turn of the drive that would lead me out of sight, I turned and waved. Horrors Eppers and his wife were on the porch looking after me. They waved back, and I went on down the driveway.

Zee was glad to see me. “I was almost ready to phone the cops, my dear.”

“No need.” I slid into the passenger seat and gave her a kiss. Lips sweeter than wine.

“Well?”

“Wind up the machine, and we'll talk while we drive.”

“Where away, Captain?”

“Lambert's Cove Road. The Miller residence, if you please, Jeeves.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” She started the engine and we drove up to Beetlebung Corner, took a sharp right toward Menemsha, then another right onto North Road. As we headed back down-island, I told her about my conversation with Eppers.

“And do you believe him?” asked Zee, when I was done.

I had been wondering about that myself. “I think I do,” I said. “But I've believed liars before.”

“Mmmm, me, too. But sometimes you've got to trust your instincts.”

“Yes,” I said. Sometimes, I thought.

We drove east till we got to the upper end of Lambert's Cove Road, and took the left turn onto that lovely, narrow, wandering lane. Lambert's Cove Road and the Middle Road are two of the Vineyard's prettiest byways, and I wondered if there was some irony involved in Horrors Eppers and Barbara Miller having chosen such lovely sites for their homes. I suspected that there might be some Beauty and the Beast metaphor involved, but couldn't make it out. Did beasts love beauty? Did beauties love beasts? Were beauty and the beast one and the same? I gave up.

There are a lot of houses pretty close to Lambert's Cove Road, but a lot more that are off at the ends of narrow dirt roads fronted by lines of mailboxes. The island's most famous pop singer lived up there somewhere, as did a lot of other celebrity types who liked their privacy. Since I like mine, too, we all got along very well.

“Here we are,” said Zee, slowing. “Joe Begay gives good directions. I still wonder how he knows the things he knows.”

“He's a manly man, like me. We manly men know all kinds of stuff.”

“Save me, Lord!”

We were passing one of the dirt roads, this one fronted by four mailboxes, one of which was adorned with the name Miller.

“Same process as before,” I said. “We'll find a place to pull off the road, and I'll walk up to the house.”

We found a place to pull off. “Same process as before,” said Zee. “If you're not back in an hour, I'm calling the cops, then driving up to find you.”

“Make it an hour and a half,” I said. “That might be a long dirt road.”

“One hour,” said Zee.

“Give me a kiss.”

She did that, and I got out and trotted back to the driveway. As I did, it occurred to me that some such kisses are the last that partners ever exchange. They casually kiss each other good-bye, and later that day he looks the wrong way and steps in front of a car, or she feels an unexpected chest pain and falls before she can reach a phone.

Such thoughts made me want to forget Barbara Miller and go back to Zee and take her in my arms and never leave her.

But I kept going.

About a quarter of a mile up the winding driveway, a little hand-painted sign saying
MILLER
pointed to a side road. I followed along and soon came to the house.

It was a large wooden building with several wings, about twice as big as Eppers's place, all in all. There was a three-car garage and a small barn, and everything was new in spite of its attempts to look old. I thought it looked just like a summer place for an international banker, although I couldn't remember having seen any bankers' summer places before. Everything was neat and tidy.

There was a flower garden beside the house, and a woman wearing a straw hat and cotton gloves was working in it. She was on her knees, and there was a basket beside her containing hand tools for digging and cultivating. She looked about forty years old. Not far from my own age. The prime of life.

She looked up as I approached.

“My name is J. W. Jackson,” I said. “I'm looking for Barbara Miller.”

She got to her feet. “I'm Barbara Miller.”

Her face was just shy of horsey, but she had the sharp, ironic eyes that homely women sometimes have, indicating that they know perfectly well that they're not beautiful, but have decided that they're going to live busy, active, interesting lives anyway, and do just that.

I liked her immediately, in spite of an instant, simultaneous inner warning not to. I try not to trust my intuitions because even though they're usually pretty dependable, sometimes they're not.

Now she looked at me with those intelligent eyes, and waited.

“Nice flowers,” I said. “My main garden is mostly vegetables, but some of it's flowers, and I have flower boxes on the fence and hanging baskets and pots. At the moment I'm trying to get my new hydrangeas just the right shade of blue. I like those orange begonias over there.”

She glanced at them and nodded. “Yes, they're lovely. Did you come to talk to me about flowers, Mr. Jackson?”

“No. I want to talk with you about the letters that have been threatening Cricket Callahan. I just came from talking with Kenneth Eppers.”

“May I see your identification, please?”

“I don't work for anybody, Mrs. Miller, but here's my driver's license.”

She looked at it and handed it back. “I don't think I have anything to say to you, Mr. Jackson.”

“I'm sort of a cousin of Cricket's,” I said. “This is a personal thing, nothing official.”

“I'm afraid I can't help you. So, if you'll excuse me . . .”

“I presume you know about the letters. There have been several of them. They seem to be tied to that last overseas operation that you headed.”

“I'm retired from the agency,” said Barbara Miller. “I'm forbidden by law from discussing agency activities. So, good-bye, Mr. Jackson.”

“You retired abruptly and under duress, Mrs. Miller. You had a promising career and you were very good at your work. And you liked it, too, I'm sure—”

“Did I?” she interrupted. “What makes you think so?”

Intuition spoke. “Because you're not the sort of woman who would devote her life to something she didn't like doing. You spent years at the IRS. You wouldn't have done that if you didn't enjoy it.”

“Wouldn't I? There is such a thing as duty to country.”

I nodded. “Kenneth Eppers has a strong dose of that in his veins, and maybe you do, too. But you can serve your country in a lot of ways. You chose to work with the IRS. Are you telling me that you didn't enjoy the work?”

Her horsey face momentarily revealed its big teeth. “No, I'm not telling you that.”

“And because you're not, it's reasonable to presume that when you lost your job, you'd be mad at the guy who fired you. The president of the United States, in this case.”

Again the big teeth appeared in her quick, horsey, ironic smile. “I wasn't fired. I resigned.”

“Whatever. You have the motive and expertise to write and deliver those letters and probably to make good on the threat. Did you write the letters? And if you didn't, do you know who did?”

She pulled off her gloves and shook her head, still smiling that ironic smile. “If you're giving thought to a career in politics, Mr. Jackson, I believe you should reconsider your plans.”

“Though it will probably break dear Grandmother's heart, I'll take your advice. Do you know who wrote those letters?”

“Tell me what Ken told you.”

“Did he call you after I left him?”

“Do you always answer questions with questions?”

“Do you always ignore questions?”

“Actually, when I first went to work in Washington, a
very good teacher trained me to avoid answering them if they were embarrassing, and to answer them expansively if it was to my benefit to do so. Surely you've observed the evening news bits: the very professional dancing and weaving that takes place during congressional hearings and investigations. Tell me what Ken told you.”

“You can phone him and ask him, if he hasn't already phoned you.”

“Of course I can. I'm interested in your version right now. I can get his later, if I need it.” She gestured toward a bench shaded by a large oak. “Shall we sit while you talk?”

I could think of no reason not to tell her what she wanted to know. “I think I'm being outployed,” I said. “But, yes, let's sit while I talk. Afterwards, if I'm lucky, maybe you'll talk.”

“Maybe. You first.”

Me first. We sat, I talked, and she listened. She was a good listener, which was probably one of the characteristics that had made her competent at her job. When I was through, she thought for a moment, then nodded.

“Yes. That sounds like what Ken would say. He really was ready to retire anyway, I think. If it hadn't been that last operation, it would have been something else.”

“But that wasn't the case with you, was it?”

“You are a persistent fellow, Mr. Jackson. But, no, it wasn't the case with me.” She glanced at my left hand. “I see that you're married. Do you have children?”

I was caught off-guard. “No.” I thought of Zee's expression when she'd looked at Toni Begay's expanding belly. “Not yet, anyway.”

“There's no not-yet for me, Mr. Jackson. I can't have children, and I've known it since I was a girl. My husband and I considered adopting, but decided against it.
Instead, we've devoted ourselves to each other and to our work. I cannot imagine anything worse than losing a child, but when I lost this job, after devoting almost half of my life to it, it was something akin to that sort of loss, I think. Or at least to losing a part of myself. It was a very terrible experience for me.”

The calm tone of her speech was in direct contrast to its content. Her face, too, was without any particular expression. It was as though she were talking about someone else, perhaps someone in a movie or a novel.

She went on: “Had anyone told me that a woman like myself, a mature woman who had made decisions affecting nations, would suffer such malaise at the loss of a job, I'd not have believed it. I thought my life had ended, and perhaps it would have, except for my husband. Ben saw me through it. I was depressed for months, and Ben stayed with me, putting his own work on hold, or farming it out to people less capable than himself, hiding every pill he could find in the house, suffering with me, taking the suffering onto himself, never letting me be alone with my despair until, finally, I began to be better. Until, later, I really was well, and knew that my work had to be seen as just that, my work. Not as my life.”

She smiled her equine smile. “And so you find me now, Mr. Jackson, a woman with neither job nor children, but with a loving husband and a more or less happy life.”

“And no impulse for vengeance.”

“None. I headed the field operations for that last project. Shall I avenge myself on a president who only okayed it on the advice of his director of intelligence?”

“You say you're more or less happy. What do you mean?”

“Are you perfectly happy?”

“No. Do you know the contents of the letters to Cricket Callahan?”

She nodded. “Yes. I know about the letters because I've been interviewed by the Secret Service and others who harbor suspicions like your own. But to answer your question, you remember the pictures of that poor little girl, don't you? Do you think I can ever be perfectly happy, having seen that face and knowing that I was in part responsible for it? I think I've gotten over the loss of my work, but I don't ever expect to get over the picture of that little face.”

I sat there and looked at the lovely flower garden and thought that, as usual, old Will was right: Life's a walking shadow. For some of us, at least.

I said, “Time will help you,” hoping that it would.

“Thank you.”

We sat a while longer. Then I said, “If it's not you and it's not Kenneth Eppers, who is it?”

Barbara Miller shook her head. “I don't know. Someone who's very angry. Very angry indeed.”

I thought about that, then looked at my watch and stood up. “My wife is waiting for me, and your husband is probably wondering what we're talking about. You can assure him I haven't succeeded in selling you another vacuum cleaner.”

“My husband is in Cairo, Mr. Jackson. He flew over two days ago and won't be back until tomorrow. His business keeps him on the go.” She put out her hand, and I shook it. “Well, good-bye, Mr. Jackson.”

As I was turning toward the driveway, I heard the sound of an automobile engine and saw a Volvo station wagon come into the yard. It stopped, and a woman got out. Her smile was filled with large teeth.

She looked not unlike an older Barbara Miller, which turned out not to be surprising.

“I thought I heard voices.” Her smile was filled with large teeth.

Barbara Miller said, “Mr. Jackson, this is my sister, Margaret. She's keeping me company while Ben is abroad. Margaret, this is Mr. Jackson.”

“How do you do, Mr. Jackson.”

We shook hands.

“You're not driving me away,” I said. “But I do have to leave.”

As I walked down to the road, I ran things through my mind. They ran out the other side without pausing, as often happens to me. I wondered why Margaret's face was familiar to me.

Zee was waiting impatiently.

“Well?”

I told her what had passed between Barbara Miller and me. When I was done, Zee put a hand on my knee. “The whole thing's as fuzzy as ever to me.”

“Me, too.”

“Now what?”

“Now you take me to the safe house you've found, so I can use my wonderful powers of investigation to check it out before we stay there for the night.”