Deadly Nightshade (23 page)

By the time the storm passed, Allison owed Elizabeth more than she'd made in tips that afternoon.

The storm rumbled in the distance and the sun came out. Water dripped from the eaves of the shack and off the deck into the now-calm harbor. The yachters from Padanarum emerged and wiped off the brightwork and stainless-steel trim of their yachts and laughed and shouted to one another. Elizabeth smelled cigar smoke, heard men talk. The sun dipped behind the storm clouds beyond the osprey pole.

Allison stood up and took her tip money out of her pocket, counting out the bills she owed Elizabeth.

“Forget it,” Elizabeth said, waving the money aside. “That was a learning experience. Pick up the mail in town and we'll call it even.”

During the storm, the two had reached a sort of truce.

“Okay. I'll be back in ten minutes. Fifteen.”

“Get us a pizza, if the place is open. I think they cook with gas. Here's some money.” Elizabeth opened her wallet.

“It's on me this time,” Allison said. “I, like, owe you guys, you know?”

Elizabeth looked at her doubtfully.

“I'm sorry about that lawsuit, you know? I didn't want to file it. Mr. D. is okay.”

“Yeah?” Elizabeth took a couple of bills out of her pocket. “Pick up the mail. Take this money, not yours. Anything but anchovies for me. We'll talk about it later.”

Allison tossed her hair back from her face, left the shack, and disappeared around one of the gingerbread buildings that lined the harbor. Elizabeth wiped off the bench outside the shack and sat down. She watched the brilliant sunset fade. She thought about Domingo being taken to jail, about Dojan's war dance on Circuit Avenue, about her grandmother's hearing Bernie's scream, and their finding his body, about the whale-watch boat finding Meatloaf's body.

She watched the first stars come out in the evening sky. Then she stood, stretched her arms above her head, leaned over and touched her toes, yawned, and went into the shack. She set the battery lantern on the counter and was opening a drawer to see if she could find something she could work on until the electricity came back on, when someone knocked on the window frame, startling her. She turned abruptly, stumbled against one of the chairs in the dim lantern light, tripped, recovered herself, and opened the door.

No one was there.

She looked down the length of the catwalk, but it was so dark, she couldn't see anything. She stepped out onto the deck and looked. No one was there, either.

“Hello?” she called out into the night.

No answer.

She went back inside and locked the door. The window had been opened a crack for air during the storm. She started to slide it wide open, when she saw a folded paper wedged into the frame. She tugged it out. The corner, soaked from rainwater accumulated in the frame, ripped off as she worked the paper out.

She unfolded it under the lantern light. She could barely read the writing in the dim light, pencil on lined paper torn from a stenography notebook. Part of the message was on the corner that had torn off in the window. She unfolded it carefully, pieced it together, and smoothed it on the desktop.

“Tell your grandmother she better lay off,” the message said. “Or she knows what will happen.”

Elizabeth sat down abruptly. That sneaky Allison, she said to herself, just as I was beginning to think I'd misjudged her. What does she think she's doing? Why drag my grandmother into this? She put her elbows on the desk, her chin on her hands, and stared at the paper. It figures, she thought. A kid who wants the attention she'll get from the lawsuit will do anything.

She was so angered by what she figured was Allison's sick joke that she had to work off steam. She found another flashlight in one of the desk drawers, tested it to make sure it worked, slammed the door behind her, locked it, and went out into the night. There wasn't much she could do inside anyway. In the meantime, she could make her rounds of the harbor to see if the storm had caused any major damage.

She walked along the bulkhead and shone her light on the lines tied off on cleats. Candles and kerosene lamps flickered in the cabins of the boats. The Padanarum yachters, whose boats were tied up next to one another, bows out, squared-off sterns facing the bulkhead, were partying on one of the larger cruisers, and as she approached, the noise level grew. She heard drunken male banter, the words indistinct. She heard a woman laugh, and a man's response. Hope they don't decide to go for a ride, she thought. I need Domingo to deal with this.

A large sloop,
Clotho
, its home port Saint Croix, Virgin Islands, had tied up alongside the fuel dock. She could see a kerosene lamp through the porthole. A dock line had frayed, and she reached over the rail and rapped on the side of the cabin.

“Anyone aboard?”

“Righto!” The cabin door opened and a stocky man stepped out into the cockpit, dark against the light from below.

“I'm the assistant harbormaster. You need to replace one of your lines.” Elizabeth directed her flashlight at it. Several strands had chafed through.

The man swung his legs over the rail and leapt lightly onto the dock. He was several inches shorter than Elizabeth. She noticed he was barefoot and was wearing cutoff jeans and no shirt. She turned her light onto his face. He had sun-bleached hair and a full blond beard. He was in his early thirties, younger than she had first thought, about her age.

“Thanks, mate.” He pronounced the word mite. He took the light and examined the line. “She'll hold tonight. I'll take care of it in the morning. Is there a ship's store around?”

“There's a small one behind the butterfly exhibit,” Elizabeth said, waving the flashlight toward that side of the harbor. “It doesn't have everything. I'll run you down to the shipyard in Vineyard Haven tomorrow, if you'd like.”

“That's kind of you.” He handed the flashlight back to her and leaned his hand against the glossy white side of his boat. “Horace Chadwick's my name.” He pronounced it nime.

“I'm Elizabeth Trumbull.”

He stood up straight and held out a massive hand, twice the size of hers, and they shook.

“Trumbull,” Horace mused. “Good name.”

“Where are you from?”

“I'm a Kiwi. From New Zealand.”

“You're here for about a week, aren't you?”

“At least a week.” Horace nodded. “I have personal business to attend to. I've been searching for someone. I won't leave until I've found him.”

“Shouldn't be too difficult if he's on the Island,” Elizabeth said. “It's a pretty small place, actually.”

“He's here all right.”

Above them, the rigging of
Clotho
stood out against the Milky Way. The storm had washed the sky, and the night was clear and bright.

“Did you sail alone from New Zealand?”

“I've been batting around the world for a couple of years. With someone at first.” He paused. “Bought this in the Virgin Islands.” He gestured behind him at
Clotho
. “Came into a spot of money there. I single-handed it from there.”

“As long as you're staying, perhaps you'd like to come to my grandmother's for beans on Saturday night?” Elizabeth asked.

“Beans?” Horace said blankly.

“Boston baked beans for supper on Saturday night. A New England tradition. My grandmother likes to invite all sorts of interesting people.”

“That's kind of you.”

“She'll feel as if you're practically related. Her grandmother came from Australia.”

Horace nodded. “Same hemisphere as New Zealand.”

Elizabeth heard footsteps on the dock and turned. “Nice evening,” a man said. “Right,” said Horace. “Yes, beautiful,” said Elizabeth.

“I'd be delighted to come for beans on Saturday,” Horace said when the man had passed. “Shall I bring anything?”

“Bring wine, and I'll pick you up around six.”

Before she left to return to the shack, Elizabeth arranged to go with him to the shipyard the next day.

She walked lightly back to the shack, her anger washed away. She'd forgotten about Allison and the letter.

When she returned to the shack, Allison was sitting on the bench outside, a flat pizza box in her hand.

Allison looked up at her. “It's gotten cold. Where were you?”

Elizabeth returned to reality with a nasty thud. “Your note was not amusing.” She unlocked the door.

“What note?” Allison got to her feet and went inside, where she laid the box on the table.

“Don't play dumb. It wasn't funny.”

“I didn't leave a note, honest.” Allison sounded perplexed.

“Here. Let me switch on the lantern.” The note lay flat on the desk in a circle of weak light.

“That's not mine,” Allison said when she saw it. “It's not even my writing. It's not my paper. It's not mine, honest!”

“You didn't stick this in the window right after you left? You didn't knock on the side of the shack and then run?”

“No. Honest!”

Allison sounded genuinely baffled.

“Here, read it,” Elizabeth said.

“ Tell your grandmother she better lay off. Or she knows what will happen.' What's that all about?” Allison looked up at Elizabeth, whose cheekbones were highlighted by the lantern light below her.

“You have no idea what this is?”

“No. I don't know nothing about it.”

“Anything,” Elizabeth said, correcting her automatically. She lifted the phone off the wall. “Damn. I forgot the phones are out. I've got to talk to Domingo. Go ahead and eat the pizza before it gets any colder. I'm not hungry.”

“I bought us Cokes, too.”

“Thanks anyway.”

“There wasn't much mail in the harbor box,” Allison said. “Stuff for Mr. D., catalogs, ads, memos from the selectmen.”

“Put it on the counter. We can look at it later. Don't get pizza on it.”

When Domingo and Victoria came up the catwalk, Allison was eating pepperoni pizza, sipping a Coke, and selecting toys from a catalog to match the dock attendants' personalities, and Elizabeth was pacing back and forth inside the shack.

Allison opened the door for them.

“How's it going?” Domingo stepped into the shack behind Victoria.

“She got a note,” Allison said, nodding at Elizabeth.

“Note?” Domingo said. “What kind of note?”

Elizabeth moved to the desk. “Under the lantern.” She adjusted the light so the writing showed up better.

Domingo put on his glasses and leaned over it. He grunted.

“The same note?” Victoria asked.

“Same notebook paper. Same pencil writing. Says about the same thing,” Domingo said. “Slightly different wording.” He took off his glasses and looked at Elizabeth. “How did you get it?”

She told him.

“She thought I left it,” Allison said.

“Allison didn't write it,” Domingo said. “But I don't know who did.” He spotted the mail on the counter. “Anything in today's mail?” He shuffled through the envelopes.

“Memo from the chief about parking. Dated yesterday.”

“Before his son died,” Victoria said quietly.

“Died?” Allison said. “Fatso died? Are you kidding?”

“No.” Domingo folded his glasses and put them in his pocket.

“When? What happened?” Allison sat suddenly in the empty chair. “I just seen him day before yesterday.”

“ 'Saw.” Elizabeth said.

“Died this afternoon in jail,” Domingo said. “Friend of yours?”

“Nothing like that,” Allison said sullenly. “There wasn't nothing wrong with him two days ago.”

Allison glanced up at the three people in the shack, Victoria, who was seated on the edge of the table, and Domingo and Elizabeth, who were standing next to the lantern on the desk.

“He told me he was doing some security stuff he couldn't talk about. I thought he was just, you know, bullshittin'.”

Domingo studied her. “He was poisoned.”

Allison's face was hidden in the shadows. She put her hand up to her throat. “He runs—he used to run—messages for my aunt. He tried to make out with me couple of times, you know? Only he's not my type.”

“He was in jail for possession. Where did he get drugs?”

Allison shrugged.

“Do you know?”

“I don't know, honest. He tried to give me some stuff one time, but I don't, you know, touch dope.”

“What kind of messages did he deliver for your aunt?”

“Like he picked up packages from the Harbor House, delivered stuff there. You know.” She shrugged again.

“Do you know about a package Louie delivered to jail today?” Domingo stood as still as a post. Victoria watched silently.

“Yeah. Louie told me some old guy gave him a package to take to that crazy Indian in the jail. Gave him twenty bucks.”

“Do you have any idea who the old guy was?” Domingo said.

“No. Louie seen him around, but he didn't know him, neither.”

“Would Louie recognize him if he saw him again?”

“He said he was an old guy, you know, with greasy long gray hair and earrings and really, really filthy clothes.”

“Sounds like the guy who's always going through the Dumpsters to collect bottles,” Elizabeth said to Domingo.

“Leo Wolfe,” Domingo said. “Louie say anything else?”

“I don't think so,” Allison said.

“When does Louie come on duty next?” Domingo asked.

Elizabeth took a flashlight and shone it on the schedule posted on the wall. “First thing tomorrow morning.”

“We'll have to wait, then. We can't call until the phones are back in service.”

“Okay if I go now?”

Domingo nodded.

Allison went off into the night, past the darkened buildings, her flashlight making a cone of light in front of her.

Victoria awoke to the smell of coffee and to sunshine streaming through the skylights in Noreen's sewing room. It took her a moment to recall where she was. She got out of bed, dressed quickly, and found Domingo cooking bacon and scrambled eggs.

“Good morning, sweetheart.”

“I don't usually sleep so late. Any news?”

“Ive seen the lab report. It's a miracle both men didn't die. Coffee?”

“Yes, thank you. Did they find out what was in the fudge?”

“Atropine – nasty stuff. As Doc Erickson said, there's no known antidote.” Domingo lifted bacon slices out of the pan and laid them on a paper towel on the counter.