Deadly Nightshade (31 page)

“What kept you?” Domingo said crossly.

“Nothing kept us.” Noreen looked around. “Jesus, this is like a commuter bus.”

Victoria wiped moisture off her face with a napkin from her pocket and sat down. “Will they still have the fireworks?”

“It's on the president's schedule. It will take more than fog for them to cancel,” Domingo answered.

“You guys hanging around all night?” Noreen asked the agent leaning against the desk.

“Yep.”

Elizabeth scowled at him.

The phone rang. Elizabeth pawed people aside to answer it. The agent's beeper went off. He looked at the number on it.

“Let me have the phone,” he said to Elizabeth, who was taking a reservation. “Hang up.”

Elizabeth glared at him, excused herself to the caller, and handed the phone to the agent. A customer had come up to the window, and she pushed past the state trooper, who, in stepping aside, bumped into her.

“Sorry, ma'am.”

Elizabeth snapped. “Clear out, all of you! You.” She pointed to the agent, who had hung up the phone. “Outside. Guard the president from that bench out there. Out!”

The shack cleared, and Domingo looked at Elizabeth with respect.

A powerboat entered the harbor, cruised around slowly, and departed again.

“Who let them in?” Elizabeth said. “I thought someone was keeping boats out of the harbor.”

“That's a police cruiser making its rounds,” Domingo told her. “As we speak, divers are checking the harbor for anything out of the ordinary.”

“Like explosive devices stuck on boats,” Victoria said.

The radio on the Coast Guard cutter came on with a crackle of static and an announcement that consisted mostly of numbers.

Elizabeth put her hands over her ears. “I'll be glad when this day is over.”

Domingo went out onto the deck, and Elizabeth heard the click of his Zippo. He took a few puffs and tossed his cigarette over the railing, then went back inside. On his way, he patted the shoulder of the Secret Service agent, who was sitting outside on the bench, his collar turned up against the steady drip of condensed fog spilling off the eaves onto his back.

Darkness crept in, filtered by the fog. As soon as Elizabeth hung up the phone from one call, it rang again. The scanning radio locked onto channel 16, then channel 22. Somewhere out in the foggy night, the Coast Guard was trying to assist a disabled vessel and an injured crew member.

“There seem to be a lot of people gathering,” Victoria said. “You can hear them, even if you can't see them.”

Elizabeth was aware of the soft murmur of voices, heard an occasional word she could almost identify.

By 8:30, the activity on the radio had quieted, and a half hour later, they heard the opening salvo of the fireworks.

Each time a rocket was shot off, the entire sky lighted up with a glow that lingered for a few seconds before the next was set off. Fog droplets reflected and refracted the light in a milky way that left no shadows and lit up the night softly. It was more magical than the displays would have been on a clear night.

Victoria turned to Elizabeth and gestured to the Secret Service agent sitting on the bench outside. “He looks miserable. He's welcome to have my seat.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes, then invited the agent back into the shack. He rose from the bench and shambled inside. The back of his jacket was wet.

With each detonation, the shack shuddered. No one talked over the noise. The display went on and on, lighting up the fog, blue, yellow, red, gold, green. Combinations of color were enhanced by the eerie drifting fog. It was difficult to tell where the explosions came from. Sound seemed to surround them; color engulfed them in swirls and eddies, the inside of a light-bulb, the inside of a milk bottle.

“This must be the finale,” Victoria said as the fog was pierced with galaxies of light, explosions of color and sound, a tattoo of quick reports, a thunderous blast, a series of pops like firecrackers, the smell of gunpowder. Then everything seemed to be detonated at once. Red and orange flashed in the fog to the west, yellow and green overhead, blue and purple to the south. A rainbow of soft colors shimmered in the opalescent sky. And then it was over.

Victoria applauded. So did the Secret Service agent.

“My name's Joshua.” He offered Victoria his large hand, which she shook firmly. Elizabeth stared in astonishment as he stood and politely told Victoria, “It was real nice meeting you, ma'am. I'm afraid I've got to get back to the boss. He'll be leaving before the crowd does.”

Car horns and boat horns honked, and boaters blasted their canned air horns. Hundreds of footsteps swished on the bulkhead. Elizabeth heard the single voice of a pleased crowd.

“They were smart not to cancel it.” Victoria turned to one of the men next to her. “This was one of the most beautiful displays I've ever seen.”

“You must have seen quite a few, ma'am.”

“We used to burn punk sticks when I was a child. The only fireworks I remember were all white, like white rockets.”

“I'll make the rounds of the harbor,” Elizabeth said. “Where did you put the launch, Domingo?”

“Right there.” Domingo went outside and pointed to where he'd tied the launch to the piling. The boat was gone.

“I'm sure it was there. I saw it when we came back from the hospital.” Victoria was puzzled.

“Some watchdogs,” Elizabeth muttered. “Two Coast Guard cutters, the Secret Service, the marine police, the state police, a conservation officer, the Oak Bluffs police, and visiting firemen. And someone walks off with the harbormaster's launch. I hope you do a better job of watching the president.”

She looked up as she heard pounding footsteps on the catwalk, and one of the dock attendants stumbled into the shack.

“Liz Tate,” he gasped.

Domingo looked up. “What about Liz Tate?”

“She was parked,” the kid said in between gasps for air, “Harbor House.”

Domingo grabbed him by the arm. “What about it?”

“It's gone!”

“What are you talking about, the launch?”

“No, no,” the dock attendant said. “Liz Tate!”

“Out with it.” Domingo released his arm.

“Let him catch his breath, will you?” Elizabeth barked.

Domingo cut his eyes at Elizabeth. “You sound like my wife.”

“Sure, Domingo,” Noreen said from her seat on top of the desk, where she'd been sitting throughout the fireworks.

Domingo stepped back. He stared at the teenager. “Well?”

“She parked in front of the Harbor House.” He was shivering. “She was watching the fireworks from her car with Louie.”

“Who?” Domingo demanded.

“Louie, the dock attendant. The kid with green hair. I seen them sitting in the car, and the next second it disappeared.”

“What!”

“There ain't nothing left,” the kid said. “A hole is all.”

“It exploded?” Victoria asked.

“Yes, ma'am. It blew up. Like a fireball. I seen them sitting there, and I seen it blow up.”

“How long ago?”

“Right at the end. The finale. When the fireworks were going crazy. At the end. It vaporized.”

“Did you report it to the police?”

“Somebody musta. There was a cop car there before I left to come here.”

“You said Liz Tate and Louie were in the car when the explosion took place?”

The kid nodded.

Victoria stood up. “Let's go.”

When they reached the Harbor House, both lanes were blocked with cars and people leaving after the fireworks. No one seemed to be concerned about an explosion involving a car.

The fire truck was held up by the stream of cars flowing away from town. Someone had witnessed the blast; someone had called 911. A small crowd was gathered around the space between a truck and a rusty Volvo, but no one in the passing cars seemed to notice the space in the line of parked cars or the pit where a car had been, or the damaged cars on either side.

It made no difference that the equipment could not get through. There was nothing anyone could do. The dock attendant was right: The car had vanished, leaving strewn debris, a deep pothole, a blue pickup truck with its bed blackened, and a rust red Volvo with its snout skewed.

While Victoria and Domingo were standing to one side, Howland arrived, disheveled from running.

“Heard it on the scanner,” Howland said. “Who was it?”

“The dock attendant, Huey or Dewey, said it was Liz Tate's car. She was in it at the time of the explosion,” Domingo informed him. “With Louie.”

“Hell.” Howland slammed his hand against the blue truck. “There goes my case. My chief witness. All I've got now is Medeiros. I should have anticipated something like that. Goddamn!”

“Liz was still at your house, wasn't she, sweetheart?” While he spoke, Domingo stood with his feet slightly apart, hands in his pockets, staring down at the hole. To Victoria, the hole didn't seem big enough for what had happened.

“She was staying in the downstairs room.”

Howland paced. The small crowd of people looked and pointed and moved on, one by one or in groups of two or three.

“Should someone get yellow tape from the shack?” Victoria finally asked. “We need to keep sightseers away, don't we?”

Domingo shrugged. “It's not up to us. It's up to the police.”

“Are they likely to find enough to identify anyone?” Victoria asked.

Domingo gave a macabre grin, white teeth flashing against his dark skin.

“Is it possible there was some mistake?” she said. “That there really was no one in the car?”

“I don't think so, sweetheart.”

“I had invited her to supper this Saturday,” Victoria said. “Boston baked beans. I'd invited Rocky, too.”

“Didn't you think that might have been a bit awkward for them under the circumstances, Victoria?” Howland asked. He paced back and forth in front of the hole.

“I wouldn't do that,” Domingo said, stopping him. “You'll mess up whatever evidence the Crime Unit might find.”

Even in the darkness, Victoria could see Howland's scowl, the lines of his face heightened by the lights along the harbor.

“She loved him,” Victoria said. “She hadn't made up her mind to sign anything, and Howland couldn't force her. She wanted to be with Rocky at least one more time.”

The three stood silently for long moments. Cars streamed by slowly. An occasional passenger would lean out the window and look at the small knot of people still around the place where the car had been. Victoria could see the fire engine working its way slowly through the oncoming traffic, its red light flashing.

Howland spoke first. “When I heard it on my scanner, I called the Crime Unit. They should arrive on the next boat.” He looked at his watch. “By then, the traffic should have cleared.”

“What can they possibly find?” Victoria said.

“They'll vacuum up everything inside a wide circle, if our friend here”—Domingo slapped Howland on the arm— “hasn't trampled it into the ground. They'll examine every blade of grass, every grain of sand microscopically.”

“Surely you don't think Rocky had anything to do with this,” Victoria said, sweeping her arm around the area. “Do you?”

There was a long silence. Finally, Howland spoke. “This is the way Rocky works. We've been trying to get evidence and witnesses against him that will hold up in court, but every time we get close, witnesses disappear, evidence vanishes. This isn't the first time he's used explosives.”

“How can you destroy a car, every last bit of it, without damaging everything else around it?”

“Plastique,” Howland said. “You can be surgically precise with the stuff, mold it like modeling clay, and stick small pieces where you want it to go off.”

“Liz and Rocky were close.” Victoria wadded up the damp napkin she had been holding and put it back in her pocket. “She didn't have the least suspicion of him. Just this afternoon, he gave her a jewelry box.” Victoria sighed.

“A jewelry box?” Howland said.

“He was so romantic, she said. He told her not to open it until the grand finale of the fireworks.” Victoria suddenly realized what she had said, and she put a gnarled hand up to her mouth. “She thought it was an engagement ring and a necklace.”

“That's how he did it,” said Domingo.

“Thank goodness she didn't open the box in my house.”

“Nothing would have happened,” Howland said. “The box was only the detonator. The explosives were inside her car.”

“So when she opened the jewelry box, the detonator set it off.” Victoria stared thoughtfully at the hole. “Wonder why Louie was with her? What a pity he was killed, too.”

“Apparently, he and Liz had some kind of deal going,” Howland said. “She was siphoning off drugs for Louie to sell, according to my sources, and Rocky knew about it. He must have told Louie to deliver a message to Liz in her car, and to wait with her until after the fireworks were over.”

Victoria thought a minute. “I'm going ahead with the bean supper,” she said firmly. “He has to eat, even if he's grieving, and he won't suspect me. Perhaps he'll let something slip.”

Howland nodded.

“Would you like to join us for supper? Either of you?”

“No!” Howland and Domingo said together.

“Ah, wait!” Howland held up his hand. “I believe I'd like to accept. Who else will be there?”

“Rocky, Elizabeth, and me. Elizabeth invited someone she met at the harbor, so there'll be five of us, including him.”

Howland shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at the grassy strip between the road and the paved walk. There was not much to be seen in the dark. “A thousand damnations. I should have known. All we have now is the chief, and I'm not sure we've got a strong enough case with only his testimony. We have to go with it. Goddamn it to hell.”

“So kind of you to ask me to dine with you.” Rocky handed Victoria a large bouquet of late-summer roses. “This is a difficult time, as you can imagine.”

“I'm so sorry. I knew you and Liz were close.” She buried her nose in the velvety pink blossoms. “They're like the ones my grandmother used to grow. I haven't seen any like this for years.” She lifted the silver teapot from the corner cabinet.

“Our gardener taught me everything I know about roses. He could make anything grow.” He held out his hands. “I'll carry that. Where would you like it?”