A Deadly Vineyard Holiday (25 page)

“Oh, you won't have to do that,” said Zee. “You've been there before.”

“I have?”

“Sure. You know Bill Vanderbeck. It's his place, up in Gay Head. He's gone off-island for a few days with Angela Marcus, so his house is empty. Toni Begay arranged it for me.”

“Ah.”

Bill Vanderbeck was an uncle of Toni Begay, and
Angela Marcus was a very wealthy widow. Both lived in Gay Head and had parlayed a shared love of gardening into something more after the death of her husband. So now they were going off-island together, eh? More evidence that romance doesn't end when your hair turns gray. I liked both Bill and Angela, and was pleased that they were hitting it off. Particularly at the moment, because Bill's house was just what we needed: a pleasant, secluded house with plenty of room for all of us. Close to the Gay Head beaches, too. Debby and Karen might want to relax on the colored sands at the foot of the famous cliffs, a place where they were quite unlikely to encounter Shadow or his friends.

“Well,” said Zee, “since you don't have to use your famous skills to approve the safe house, that seems to leave us with some time of our very own, for the first time since Debby arrived. I think we should use it judiciously. What do you suggest we do?”

I leered.

“Not right here on Lambert's Cove Road in broad daylight,” said Zee. “How about heading for East Beach? We've got the fishing gear we need, so we can try for some Spanish mackerel or bonito at The Jetties.”

“Sounds good. You drive and I'll stimulate your primary and secondary erotic zones while we go. That way, we won't waste a moment.”

“You just leave my zones alone, or we'll end up in a ditch instead of at the beach.”

Zee started the Land Rover and we drove out the lower end of Lambert's Cove Road and took a left. At the T in Vineyard Haven, the third worst site for traffic backups on the island—trailing only the dread Five Corners down by the Vineyard Haven ferry landing
and Edgartown's infamous A & P traffic jam—we took a right and headed for Chappy.

If Shadow was abroad, he didn't seem to be paying any attention to us.

A half hour later, as we passed the Wasque bathing beach, I telephoned Karen and arranged to pick her and Debby up later in the afternoon.

“How are things going with cousin Debby?” I asked in closing.

“I think Debby has a beau. They're both acting a little dopey.”

“And how about you and Acey?”

“He has nice eyes.”

“Have you told him that?”

“Not yet.”

We drove to The Jetties and tried for every kind of fish we thought might be there. We caught nothing. The sun was warm, and the pale August sky curved softly down into the brownish haze on the horizon. The dark blue waters of Nantucket Sound reached eastward toward the sea. Shadow seemed far away. I thought about that, and something glimmered far back in the dark recesses of my mind.

The glimmer remained a glimmer, nothing more, but I was encouraged, since it was the only light I'd seen since I'd first become aware of Debby's problems. Both the light and Shadow were dim images, but they might become clearer. Sometimes that sort of thing happened.

A bit before five, we abandoned the fishless sea and drove to Acey Doucette's house. Cousins Karen and Debby were showered and clothed for land activities when we got there, and both seemed on good terms with their respective men. Debby, in fact, seemed a bit moony, as did Allen Freeman.

I walked up behind Debby, put my big hands on her shoulders, and said, “Say good-bye, Debby.”

“Good-bye, Debby.”

I looked at Allen. “Say good-bye, Allen.”

“Good-bye, Allen.”

Two semi-wise-guy kids.

“You can see each other later,” I said, and directed Debby into the Land Rover.

Meanwhile, Karen and Acey accomplished a less reluctant separation, but not without eyeing each other with interest and making noises of their own about seeing one another again.

When all my crew was aboard, we drove off over the beach to Katama, joining the other ORVs trailing homeward.

“Did you have fun?” asked Zee, looking back from the passenger seat.

“Lots,” said Debby. “I want to do it again tomorrow, in the afternoon. Allen gets through work at three and has the rest of the day off.”

“I imagine Acey Doucette can get off work anytime,” said Zee, flicking her eyes at Karen.

“He's a writer,” said Karen. “He can work whenever he wants to.”

If that was true, the writer's life seemed like a pretty good one. No wonder people wanted to be novelists. On the other hand, I thought I detected a note of irony in the voices of both women.

Having given some thought to where I could shop with the least possibility of being spotted by either Shadow or the Secret Service, I stopped at Jim's Package Store in Oak Bluffs and got a two-day supply of booze and soft drinks, and at Cronig's Market in Vineyard Haven for food. Then we drove on to Gay Head, where, as the evening sun slanted in from the west, we eventually arrived at Bill Vanderbeck's very ordinary house.

I knew Bill was supposedly on the mainland with his widow friend, but with Bill you could never be sure. I looked around, then led the way into the house through his unlatched door. Bill, like me, didn't believe very much in locks.

“Who lives here?” asked Debby.

Nobody seemed home. “Bill Vanderbeck,” I said. “He's a friend. There are bedrooms upstairs. Take your choice.”

“Where is he?”

“Wandering in America for a few days.”

“What does he do?”

“Some people say he's a shaman.”

She gave me a studious look. “A shaman? Isn't a shaman a priest or a medicine man? Is he an Indian?”

“I never heard him say he was a shaman, or an Indian, either, but most people would say he's a Wampanoag, and some of them think he's a shaman.”

Karen had been listening. “Isn't a shaman someone who's supposed to be able to influence the spirits? Is that what this man does?”

“I don't know what he does,” I said. “All I know about him is that lots of times, people don't see him when he's there. One minute he won't be there, and the next one he will. He says it's just because he's so ordinary that nobody notices him. Anyway, he's not here now, and we have the place to ourselves. Or, at least, I don't think he's here now. Go find yourselves some beds.”

“A safe house,” said Debby, slinging her bag over her shoulder and looking at the stairs. “Just like in the spy movies.”

“Yes,” I said. “A safe house. Nobody knows we're here. Not Shadow and not Walt Pomerlieu. We should be able to get a good night's sleep without worrying about defensive perimeters or any of that sort of thing.”

“I have to tell Walt where we are,” said Karen.

Debby and Zee stopped what they were doing. The four of us seemed, suddenly, to have become a tableau.

“If you do that,” I said, “it'll no longer be a safe house.”

“Of course it will be. I have to tell him. I'm responsible for Cricket's . . . for Debby's safety.”

“If he knows where we are, other people will know.”

“I have to report to him. It's part of my job.”

“Look,” I said. “When we get unpacked and settled in, we'll take Debby out for a drive, and she can call her
folks and let them know she's okay. She can tell them all about her day, and they won't be able to trace the call. Afterwards you can talk with your boss. You can tell him I'm taking the two of you to a friend's house up-island someplace, but you don't know exactly where. That'll be the truth, because you really don't know exactly where you are right now, do you?”

“No, but I know we're at Bill Vanderbeck's house in Gay Head someplace.”

“You can tell him everything but the Bill Vanderbeck part.”

“I don't like this.”

I pointed at Debby. “And I don't like having Shadow knowing where we are, where Debby is. If Walt Pomerlieu tries to fire you for keeping your mouth shut, I'll tell him I made you do it.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Oh, yeah? And how did you manage that?”

“How should I know? I'll think of something. Maybe I tied you to your bed and tickled your feet with a feather until you were completely in my power. Maybe I threatened Debby myself, if you didn't do as I said. Maybe I said I'd kill myself if you told him. . . .”

“I don't think that last one would work,” said Zee.

“The point is,” I said to Karen, “that you trust Walt Pomerlieu and his people, but I want at least one night when nobody knows where we are. I need a little time when I don't have to worry about Shadow.”

“Time? How much time?”

I wasn't sure. “A day. Maybe two.”

“To do what?”

“To nail Shadow.”

Karen arched a brow. “Nail Shadow? Do you know who Shadow is?”

“There are two hundred and fifty million people in the United States,” I said. “I think I've eliminated most of them. In the next day or so, I may get it down to one. But I need to know that Debby's someplace where Shadow won't find her, and the only way I know how to do that is to not tell anybody where she is. I figure we can sleep here, and tomorrow morning, you and Debby can go conch fishing out of Menemsha. Joe Begay keeps the
Matilda
there, and Jimmy Souza takes her out most mornings. I'll call Joe tonight and see if it's okay. You'll have fun, and you'll be doing something most people never get to do, and you'll be safe as long as nobody knows where you are.”

“You can trust Walt Pomerlieu,” insisted Karen.

“Probably. But—”

“I'm going up to find my bed,” said Debby rather decisively. “Then I want to tell Mom and Dad all about Allen.”

“All?” asked Zee.

“Well, almost all,” said Debby with a grin, and she headed upstairs. The rest of us exchanged glances and trailed after her. Zee and I found an only slightly saggy double bed in a room not too far from the lone upstairs bathroom and dumped our gear. Then I went down and brought the food and drink into the kitchen. By the time the women came back downstairs, I had a martini going and was wondering if Karen's feet really were ticklish. It was a question that probably would have interested Pushkin.

I drove up to the Gay Head Cliffs, where we actually managed to find a parking place. While Debby called her parents on the car phone, and Karen leaned on a fender, talking into her radio, Zee and I walked up between the souvenir shops and food shops to the
observation area and watched the sun go down over the western water. No green flash occurred.

“Do you really know who Shadow is?” asked Zee.

“Not quite. But I may know how to find out.”

“How?”

“If I can keep Debby out of circulation long enough, I'll go back to Edgartown and pick up the film that was in Burt Phillips's camera.”

“What do you expect to find?”

“I don't know. A picture of somebody going into our driveway or coming out? Somebody who wasn't supposed to be there at all, but was? Shadow, maybe?”

“The somebody who killed Burt Phillips?”

Nurses work with dead and damaged people all the time, but most of them somehow manage to remain gentle and kind anyway. I don't know how they do it, since I'd think that after a while you'd have to grow a protective shell of some kind, some sort of armor that would keep your emotions guarded from what your brain and hands were dealing with. Now I looked down at Zee, my wife, the professional healer, and wondered again how she could at once be so loving and so pragmatic.

“Yes,” I said. “The same someone who killed old Burt in the woods.”

We walked back down between the shops to the car. Karen was through with her call, and Debby was finishing hers as we got there.

We drove away, just in case Walt Pomerlieu had some way of zeroing in on our location, and went back to the house. Where Zee got to work on supper while I called Joe Begay.

Yes, said Joe, it would be fine if my Virginia cousins went out with Jimmy Souza in the morning, but they'd
have to be on the dock early, because Jimmy wasn't the kind to burn daylight. I told him I'd have them there at the appointed hour. I remembered what Debby had said about Allen getting off work in the middle of the afternoon, and asked when Jimmy usually got back. He said Jimmy liked to leave early and get back early. I said that was just what the doctor ordered.

He asked what else was new, and I told him I'd come by his place for coffee and a chat after dropping the cousins off in Menemsha. He said that would be fine. I told him I'd bring Zee along, and he said that would be even finer.

Supper was frozen pizzas, washed down with beer for the big people and soda for the younger cousin.

“You can have beer at the clambake, if your folks say it's okay,” I said, when she again mildly protested being denied access to our bottles of Sam Adams.

“How old were you when you had your first beer?” she challenged.

“My father says I liked it when I was a baby.”

“A lot of little kids like beer,” said nurse Zee.

“Then why can't I have some?” asked Debby with a fake whine.

“Because you're not a little kid,” I said. “You're not little enough to have it, and you're not big enough to have it. You're in that awkward stage, in between.”

“It's not fair.”

I leaned forward. “It's just that beer is for human beings, and you aren't one of them yet. You're a teenager, and a teenager is a humanoid who looks like a real human and has been programmed to think she's a real human, but actually isn't. With proper guidance from people like me and Zee and Karen and your parents and your teachers and other real humans, someday
you'll be a human, too. And then you can have beer.” I sat back. “Do you understand?”