A Shoot on Martha's Vineyard (20 page)

When we turned off North Road, Manny said, “Hey. This is Moonbeam Berube's driveway. I been here before, but not for a long time. You know Moonbeam?”

“Who doesn't know Moonbeam? I see him on the beach and I traded some scallops to him once, for a pig.”

“Old Moonbeam looks like he's got some pig in him, himself. You think it's true what they say about him? That he's the way he is because ever since the first Berube landed on the island, nobody but kin would marry anybody in the family?”

I'd heard that story, of course, and others like it. The most famous tradition of incest on the island was the subject of the well-known nineteenth-century investigation of deaf or partially deaf people up-island whose use of sign language caught the attention of scholars and resulted in a printed study of their hearing impairment and its causes.

“There are a lot of Berubes on this island,” I said, “and I don't think most of them are even related to Moonbeam. Besides, Moonbeam didn't marry any of his kin. Connie Berube's from someplace on the mainland.”

“I heard that story about him getting her out of a Kentucky whorehouse,” said Manny. “Maybe she's off-island kin. You know she's called the cops on him, don't you? Got a couple of restraining orders to keep him from beating up the kids, but always took him back afterward.”

Martha's Vineyard is famous for beauty and its wealthy and well-known visitors and landowners. Its movie stars,
politicians, writers, artists, and other celebrities have attracted thousands of less famous people to its shores. In the imaginations of its visitors and in the descriptions of the island in travel guides, the Vineyard is a fairyland of lovely vistas, yacht-filled harbors, quaint and beautiful villages, and golden sands. What few visitors apparently know is that the island's year-round population, the one still there after the summer people have gone home, is one of the poorest in Massachusetts, and that from this poverty comes all of the domestic violence, crimes, stupidities, and drug and alcohol problems associated with long-term economic deprivation. On the island, as in all small communities, certain people always know about these darker realities. Schoolteachers, doctors and nurses, social workers, ministers and rabbis, and the police know, because their work puts them in contact with poverty's consequences: beaten children and wives, lying parents and children, drunken adults and teenagers, incest, drug-dealing illiterates, whole lineages whose members have always been in one sort of trouble or another from generation to generation. As the chief once said to me, “If two or three families would move off this island, I'd only have half as much work to do.” It was a phrase that could have been said by the police in any small town.

Like Manny, I read the weekly records of court proceedings in the local papers and knew that Moonbeam had appeared there on occasion. Once, in fact, he'd been sent away to a mainland brig, but I couldn't remember why. He wasn't the only islander who had spent a few months in the calaboose and come back again with his reputation no worse than it had been before.

We passed Moonbeam's place and noted that the back-hoe and other clutter was about where it had been before. His pale-skinned, fine-boned children watched us pass, showing no expression on their faces.

“Look like their ma,” said Manny, as Connie appeared from the far side of the disintegrating house, put a pro
tective hand on the shoulder of her nearest child, and stared at us.

Their bones were hers, but their eyes were not. Hers were not empty of emotion as were those of her children, or dull and hooded like those of her husband. Connie's eyes were tired, maybe, but also fierce and bright. Looking back, I watched her watching us until the road turned and I could no longer see her.

“You ever seen these guns we're going to look at?” asked Manny.

“No,” I lied. Why complicate things unnecessarily?

We pulled up in front of the house and got out. To the north, between us and the Elizabeth Islands, sailboats were moving across the blue water of Vineyard Sound, and a trawler was headed toward Block Island and points west.

“Pretty,” said Manny, who, like most hunters and other outdoor types, had an eye for nature's beauties. But scenery was not his interest at the moment; big-game rifles were. He started toward the house, with me in his wake. As we got to the steps, the door opened and Barbara Singleton stepped out onto the roofed entranceway.

“I'm Barbara Singleton,” she said. “You must be Mr. Fonseca.”

“Yes, ma'am. Manny Fonseca. Nice of you to let us come by, what with the funeral being just yesterday and all.”

“That's quite all right.” She looked past him at me.

I'd already put on a smile. “Just a friend along for the ride,” I said. “Hope you don't mind.”

“This here's J.W.,” said Manny. “An old pal. I'm teaching his wife how to shoot.”

“Zee's the gunner in our family,” I said, grinning. “I'm lucky to hit a barn from the inside. Sorry about Mr. Ingalls.”

“Thank you.” She stepped back and held open the door. “Come in, Mr. Fonseca.”

“Call me Manny, ma'am. I won't take up much of your time.”

“And I'm just plain J. W,” I said, as we stepped through the door.

“This way, please.” Barbara Singleton led the way into the large living area. She seemed to be about forty years old. Her skin and hair were smooth and clean, and she walked with the step of youth. She paused and gestured at the fireplace. “There are two rifles there above the mantel, as you can see. There's another fireplace in the master bedroom upstairs and a third in the basement. There are other rifles hanging above them, as well. Please look at these two first, and then I'll show you the others.”

I glanced at Manny and could almost see the drool on his chin as he looked at the rifles on their pegs. To me they seemed to be fairly normal, if rather old-fashioned, looking guns, but clearly they were more to him.

“Thank you, ma'am,” he said, and went toward the fireplace as though toward an altar.

Barbara Singleton stepped aside and gestured. “You, too, Mr. . . .”

“J.W., Mrs. Singleton, just J. W. But, no, I'm not particularly interested in guns. Manny's the one with that bug. I'm more interested in fishing rods.” I looked around the room. It looked the same as the last time I'd seen it. “Nice place you got here.”

“It is nice, but it's not my place, Mr. . . . J.W. It belonged to my ex-husband.” There was a wedding ring on her finger. She caught my glance at it, and added: “I'm a widow.”

“Oh.” I nodded, then frowned, then smiled, then frowned again.

She took a breath. “I'm afraid I've made things more confusing than need be. I was once married to Mr. Ingalls, who owned this house. Later, I remarried. My second husband died two years ago.” A small smile played across her face. “Thus, you see, I am a widow, but not the widow of Lawrence Ingalls, the man who owned this house. He was my ex-husband.”

“Ah.”

We stood there for a moment and watched Manny take down the first of the rifles and begin to examine it. I saw now that it was a double-barreled gun. Manny handled it lovingly.

In a quiet voice, I said, “I have a badge in my wallet, Mrs. Singleton. I'll show it to you, if you want, but I'm not here officially. I just bummed a ride with Manny in hopes you'd be able to answer some questions about Mr. Ingalls while Manny looks at those rifles.”

I actually did have my old Boston PD shield with me, but she didn't ask to see it. Instead, she gave me £ tired look and said, “I'm sure I can't tell you anything I haven't already told the other officers who've been here, and I couldn't tell them much at all. Larry and I were divorced almost twenty years ago, and I know very little about his life since then.”

“You may know something and not even know you do. You've remained close to his family, and it's clear that they trust you to serve their interests here at the house until the estate is settled. The relationship between you and the family is a little unusual, you'll have to admit. In the years since your divorce, you must have at least heard family conversations about your ex-husband's activities.”

“I'm afraid I've heard very little. Charles and Ethyl are sensitive people, and don't discuss Larry's life when I'm with them. They know how much the divorce distressed me.” She touched a hand to her head and smoothed an already smooth strand of yellow-brown hair.

We watched Manny replace the first rifle on its pegs and take down the second. It was like watching Galahad achieve the Grail.

I said, “You must have married Mr. Ingalls when you were very young, Mrs. Singleton. And you couldn't have been married long, if it's been twenty years since your divorce. What went wrong?”

She watched Manny. “That's not your business, Mr. . . .”

“Call me J.W. Everybody does. I know it's not my business, Mrs. Singleton, but it might help me understand
Lawrence Ingalls. Some people change a lot between when they're young and when they're older, but other people don't. If you can tell me what went wrong between you, maybe I'll get some information that'll help me figure out who might have killed him. You would like to know who did it, wouldn't you?”

She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, the way some women do when they're getting stubborn. “Maybe it wasn't anything wrong with him. Maybe it was something wrong with me. I don't want to talk about it.”

Why so great a no? “I doubt if it was something wrong with you, Mrs. Singleton. You married again and had a happy life, didn't you?”

After a moment, she said, “Until Jack Singleton died, yes. But what does that prove? Larry and I just had bad chemistry, that's all. Jack and I were compatible.”

I thought of my own first marriage and how it had gone wrong even though it wasn't anyone's fault, and how my new marriage with Zee was so different.

“Your first parents-in-law didn't think there was anything wrong with you, Mrs. Singleton. They've remained your friends and protectors. Was Lawrence Ingalls cruel to you? Did he bully you? Was he unfaithful? What sort of man was he?”

Her voice was suddenly sharp. “What do you know about what Charles and Ethyl think about me? You don't know anything!”

Manny had returned the second rifle to its pegs and was now coming back to us, so I said nothing.

“Wonderful old weapons,” he said, his voice filled with excitement. “You know what you got there, ma'am? You got a matched pair of Holland and Rigby five hundred double express guns! I've read about 'em, but I never thought I'd ever see the real thing! You got a real treasure there, ma'am!”

His enthusiasm was infectious enough to thaw the ice that seemed to be forming in Barbara Singleton's soul.
“I'm sure I don't know what a Holland and whatever even is, Mr. Fonseca, but there are more rifles upstairs and others in the basement. Would you like to see them now?”

“Does a bear sh—!” Manny caught himself just in time, and instead exclaimed, “Yes, ma'am. I surely would!”

We went upstairs to the master bedroom. In addition to the huge bed, side tables, and dressers, it, like the study below, held bookshelves, a desk, and file cabinets. There was a walk-in closet with mirrored doors, a large TV set against the wall opposite the foot of the bed, and a fireplace faced with two comfortable chairs. Above the fireplace hung two more old rifles. An open door revealed a dressing room, which, in turn, led to a private bathroom, complete with bidet. All in all, the suite was almost as big as my whole house.

Manny went right to the guns, while I looked at everything else, including the books in the bookcases. More books on the environment and the Orient, and more classic and contemporary erotica. Some books on Mexico and the Caribbean. I went and stood beside Barbara Singleton. She gave me a cold look.

I gestured at the bookshelves and said, “I don't want to annoy you, Mrs. Singleton, and I'm sorry if I've already done that, because I need your help. Anything you can tell me about your ex-husband might be important. For instance, did you ever go off to China or wherever it was that he used to go when he was younger? I know he had a great interest in that part of the world.”

Her face paled and hardened even more. “I'm not going to discuss my marriage with Larry. I think that you should wait for your friend out in your car.”

I hesitated, then nodded. “I'm sorry to have offended you, Mrs. Singleton. That was not my intention. I'll find my own way out.”

She gave me a stiff nod, and I left the room. At the foot of the stairs I looked back. She wasn't there, watching me, so I went into the study.

The file cabinets and the desk drawers were still locked. I took a fast look at the bookshelves. The same books appeared to be there. Maybe that meant the same stuff was still in the locked drawers. I studied the room, taking in Oriental vases in crannies between bookshelves, and a dancing Siva on a pedestal beside a window. Since Ingalls had locks, it meant he had keys. He'd probably carried them with him when he was alive, but now that he was dead, where would they be?

Odds on, they were somewhere in the house, probably still on his key ring, since it made no sense for them to have been taken elsewhere. Barbara Singleton knew where they were, for sure, but she wasn't ever going to give them to me.

I peeked into and under the Chinese vases, but found no keys. Ditto for under the Siva and the papers and books on the desk.

I heard footsteps and voices on the stairs and flattened myself against the wall behind the open study door. Barbara Singleton and Manny went down other stairs into the basement.

I went back to the desk and cabinets and studied the locks. Like most locks, these were simple and would only serve as deterrents to honest people. They would pose no problems to anyone who really wanted to open them. Having assured myself of this, I slipped out the front door into the yard and waited for Manny.