Deadly Nightshade (14 page)

“I've got to drop off the laundry. I may be late, so keep your shirts on, girls.”

Victoria scowled.

When her appointment was over, Victoria strolled through the Commons until it was time for the van to arrive, then returned to the clinic entrance and sat on a bench under a tree. The shade felt good after the walk in the hot sun.

She took her pen and a pad of paper out of her pocketbook, intending to write. Before she put down the first word, she looked up and saw a stout man wearing sunglasses cross the street in front of her. At first, she thought it was Meatloaf, and for an instant she had a pang of fright. However, the man was no one she knew. Her heart was thumping. What was she afraid of?

Her poem vanished like the morning's mist. She thought about Meatloaf. He shouldn't be transporting a load of dirty hotel laundry in the same vehicle with elderly, possibly ailing, passengers. Surely, the health department would not approve. If he were engaged to drive the medi-van, it seemed unscrupulous to wring extra money out of the deal by combining it with a laundry run. Come to think of it, why drive the laundry off-Island, anyway? The commercial laundry had a regular Island route. She'd seen the truck in Vineyard Haven. She shook her head.

While she was musing, the van pulled to the curb next to her and Meatloaf opened the door. Victoria's was the last pickup. The three already in the backseat moved so she could take the same seat by the window that she'd had on the trip into town. Before she settled herself, she leaned over the backseat. The laundry carts now were loaded with cardboard boxes, taped shut. Clean laundry, she assumed. When she looked up, Meatloaf's sunglasses were reflected in the rearview mirror, lenses shining at her.

It must be the way the light reflects off his glasses, Victoria told herself.

During the trip to Woods Hole, she avoided looking toward the rearview mirror and Meatloaf's glassy stare. She wasn't one for chatter, especially about ailments, and after a few attempts, she gave up and looked out the window at the late-summer foliage. Whenever she glanced up, Meatloaf's bug-eyed sunglasses seemed to be aimed at her.

At the top of the hill approaching Woods Hole, where she could see the harbor and the islands beyond, she always felt a surge of pleasure. This time, she felt relief, as well.

The van continued down the hill, across the bridge, into the staging area for the ferry, and onto the waiting boat.

When they docked at Vineyard Haven, Victoria's head ached from tension, and she was glad to be out of the van. She went inside the terminal building to wait for Elizabeth. While she waited, she had an eerie, prickly sensation that someone was staring at her. She looked around, expecting to see Meatloaf standing behind a column, but no one was there.

“Sorry I'm late.”

Victoria started. She had been so preoccupied, she had not noticed her granddaughter come into the waiting room. When she looked up, she saw concern on Elizabeth's lean, freckled face.

“Are you okay, Gram? I didn't mean to frighten you.” She put her hand on her grandmother's back. “How was the appointment?”

“A lot of nonsense over a toe. It doesn't hurt and I have no trouble walking, now that you cut that hole in my shoe.”

“How did the day go otherwise?”

“I spent too much of it with Meatloaf.”

At Elizabeth's frown, Victoria told her about the trip.

As they walked to the parked car, Elizabeth said, “Domingo wants us to stop by. He's acting mysterious, as usual.”

“Maybe he's identified those slips in the checkbook we found washed up on the beach.”

When they entered the living room, Domingo stood.

“Did you find out whose checkbook it was?” Victoria asked immediately, going over to him.

“I know whose deposit slip it was. And how much money was deposited on a certain date. Sit down.” Domingo gestured to a chair, and when Victoria sat, he did, too. “Honey!” he shouted into the room off the kitchen. “Bring me the papers.”

Noreen bustled into the kitchen and down the single step to the living room, placed both fists on her hips, and leaned toward Domingo, her face six inches from his. “You can't even say 'please', can you?”

“Please, honey. Thank you. I'm sorry.” His eyes opened innocently. “Please, if you would bring me those papers?”

“Asshole.” She flounced out of the room and returned a few minutes later with the bank receipt and the deposit slip still enclosed in two pieces of glass. She set the glass on the table-top with a clink.

Victoria, who was in the chair, and Elizabeth, who was still standing, leaned over it.

“The numbers on the account are clear.” Domingo wiped the top piece of glass with a paper napkin. “The name is more difficult to read. We can't legally get the name that matches the account number without a court order.”

“Merton something.” Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at the glass-encased deposit slip. “The last name begins with 'St''

“Staples,” Victoria said promptly. “Meatloaf Staples.”

Domingo raised his eyebrows at her.

“It is Meatloaf, isn't it?” Victoria looked at him.

“It could be.”

“Is Meatloaf's real name Merton?” Elizabeth asked.

Domingo shrugged. “I've never heard him called anything but Meatloaf.”

“If it matters, we can look it up in the voter registration, I guess,” Elizabeth said.

Domingo turned to Victoria. “Tell me, sweetheart, why do you think these bank papers are Meatloaf's?”

“When I was in the van today, he wrote something on a slip of paper.” Victoria leaned closer to look at the papers under the glass. “It might have been checkbook entries.”

“As if he'd misplaced his checkbook.” Domingo extended his chunky hand to Victoria, who shook it gravely.

“How much did he deposit? And when?” Victoria leaned over the papers under glass.

“Look.” Domingo pointed to the figures on the receipt.

Elizabeth put her hands flat on the table and leaned over. 'Ten thousand dollars. Cash.'

“The same day Bernie Marble was killed,” Victoria said. “Did someone pay him to kill Bernie? Ten thousand down and the rest when he did the job?”

“I don't think so.” Domingo smiled. “But you'd have made a good cop, sweetheart.”

Victoria looked down at her skirt and smoothed it across her lap. She crossed her ankles, one shoe with the hole for her toe over the other shoe. Then she told him about the trip to Boston.

“Why do you suppose he's taking dirty laundry off-Island in the medi-van? There's no need to.”

“Laundry.” Domingo drummed his fingers on the table.

“He's hiding something in it, isn't he?” Victoria said. “And bringing something back in the clean laundry.”

Domingo lit a cigarette.

“What would he be hiding?” Victoria gazed beyond the plants hanging in the window. “A body. Stolen goods. Something he wants to sell off-Island.”

Domingo nodded as she ticked off each thought.

“Antiques. Books. Papers. Has to be something illegal. Stolen jewels.” She looked over at Domingo suddenly. “Drugs. That's what it is, isn't it? Drugs.”

Domingo looked at her with a slight smile. “Don't go jumping to conclusions.”

“Of course that's what it is,” she said. “It makes perfect sense. Something smallish and valuable.”

“Sweetheart, drug smuggling is big trouble.”

“Where do we go from here?” Victoria said.

Domingo stood at the window, his hands in his pockets, jingling coins. “Watch ourselves,” Domingo said. “And wait.”

The captain's white uniform was so sharply creased, it looked as if he had not moved after putting it on. Victoria looked with admiration at the black shoulder boards on he shirt, each with four glittering gold stripes. The shiny black visor of his cap was almost covered in gold thread with an intricate design of oak leaves and ivy. He stood at the foot of the wooden steps that led from the fuel dock to the deck of
Dawn Chorus.

“Captain Harold Jones, ma'am.” He touched his cap.

“How do you do. I'm Victoria Trumbull.” She nodded regally, tilting her floppy-brimmed straw hat to him. They went up the wide steps together,Victoria holding the captain's arm with one hand, the railing with the other. When she reached the deck, Rocky was waiting. 'Welcome aboard, Victoria Trumbull.”

Victoria leaned her head back to look up at him. “Thank you so much.” She took his extended hand and stepped over to the low rail. She gazed at the scrubbed teak deck, varnished railings and brightwork, polished brass, the neat coils of white line on deck, and the pennants fluttering from the masthead above her.

“How beautiful!” She held her hand on the top of her hat as she looked up at the rigging.

“I'm glad it pleases you.” Rocky was nautical in a blue blazer with gold buttons, white trousers, and white deck shoes. “It's such a fine day, I thought we might like to go for a sail.” He smiled at Victoria's expression of joy. “I invited Howard and Selectman Tate. Let me show you around before they arrive.

He opened a varnished wooden door and held out his hand for Victoria to go first. She descended the five steps that led into a saloon as wide as the yacht.

The interior of the yacht looked like one of the great liners she and Jonathan, her husband, had taken to Europe years ago. At one end, there was a fireplace, at the other a grand piano, its legs held in metal braces bolted to the deck. Around the edges of the polished wood floor were dark wood inlays of diving whales and porpoises. The floor (Victoria found it difficult to think of it as a deck) was covered with an Oriental rug in red, black, and gray.

Victoria took it all in—the fireplace, piano, couch and armchairs, the large mahogany table secured to the deck, the oil paintings in gilt frames fastened to the bulkhead, the inlaid designs on the floor, the rug. The polished brass portholes were the only indication that this was a boat.

She pulled her hat off and patted her white hair into place. The creases of her face formed a sunburst of pleasure.

They walked across the carpet toward the bow, and Rocky opened a door into a spotless galley with stainless-steel refrigerator, sink, and stove. He showed her the captain's quarters forward of the galley, a stateroom large enough to hold a tightly made bunk bed, a built-in bureau, and a small desk with a lamp fastened to the bulkhead above it.

“How tidy it all is.” Victoria ran her hand over the shiny fixtures and patted the neatly folded towels.

“Anyone living on a boat has to be tidy.” Rocky led the way back through the galley, through the elegant saloon, into the master stateroom in the stern. A king-size bed strewn with a dozen soft pillows in shades of green and rose took up most of the space. A row of windows on the slanted bulkhead above the bed ran the entire width of the stern. Standing on tiptoe, Victoria could look through the windows onto the harbor below.

Rocky turned at the sound of footsteps above them. “I hear our other guests.”

As they walked back across the dark green carpet into the saloon, Victoria asked, “Did you sail the boat here?”

“I sailed as far as Bermuda from Grand Turk, then flew from there. Captain Jones and the mate brought it the rest of the way.” Rocky ducked his head to go through the door.

On deck, he greeted Howland. “Good to see you,” he said genially.

Victoria noticed Howland's faintly superior expression.

“And our last guest, Selectperson Liz Tate.” Rocky stood by the steps as the captain escorted her on board.

“ 'Selectman' is fine.” Liz Tate smiled. “There can be too much sensitivity.”

Victoria had only seen Liz Tate from a distance. It was the first time she'd met her. Close-up, she was much younger than Victoria had thought, thirtyish, not much older than Elizabeth, and while her granddaughter usually dressed in jeans and T-shirts, Liz Tate could have been a
Vogue
model, thin, pale, with high cheekbones and a wide mouth with carmine lips. Her black hair glistened with blue highlights. Her sweater was the exact shade of her lipstick.

“Thrilled to meet you.” She took Victoria's hand in both of hers, left hand on top of Victoria's right in what Victoria felt was a too-familiar gesture. “I've known of you, of course.”

“Ready, sir?” the captain asked.

Rocky turned to his three guests. “If you sit on the deck chairs aft, you can see better.”

The starters for the diesel engines turned, and the pressure alarms rang, then cut off as the engines kicked in, first one, then the other. Deep inside her, Victoria felt the excitement she had always felt when starting on an adventure.

The mate, a college-age boy, clambered aboard, undid the lines, and tossed them down to the green-haired dock attendant, who stood by. The yacht eased smoothly away from the dock and turned into the fairway between the moored boats in the center of the harbor and the slips along the bulkhead. They glided through the channel slowly into the Sound.

Rocky, who was standing next to the wheel, turned to Howland.

Victoria saw that Howland's sweater, a nondescript greenish thing, had a moth hole in the back. Next to Rocky, Howland looked like what Victoria's grandmother had called “an unfortunate.”

“The channel has silted up,” Rocky said. “
Dawn Chorus
is at her depth limit. A few inches more on her keel and we'd have to anchor outside the harbor.”

Victoria stood by the rail as they passed the harbormaster's shack, and she waved when she saw her granddaughter on the deck.

From this angle, the shack looked especially small and rickety, projecting into the harbor on its slender pilings. She looked from the shack across the harbor to the East Chop dock, where they'd taken Bernie Marble's body the night they'd found it, less than a week ago. She noticed Rocky was watching her with an expression she couldn't decipher, a kind of wariness. He smiled suddenly when she looked at him. Such beautiful teeth, Victoria thought, set off so nicely by his dark, full mustache.

“I thought you might enjoy sailing across the Sound to Tarpaulin Cove. We can have lunch there, and be home by five.”

Liz Tate sat next to Victoria and asked her about her childhood. Victoria found herself telling the selectman how her grandfather had sailed to far places from the Vineyard.