Fairstein, Linda - Final Jeopardy (9 page)

“Chilmark.” The place on earth where I was most at peace, the place that I thought had more physical beauty than any place in the world I had ever visited. Its rolling hills and countryside are very evocative of the English countryside. The landscape is dotted with gray-shingled farmhouses, simple and functional in their beauty; and rambling throughout the houses and fields of sheep and horses are miles of ancient stone walls, built by the early settlers and farmers to mark the boundaries of their property. I like those walls best in winter and early spring when you can see the amazing combinations of rocks that have been fitted together to form their spines, before the wild roses and bittersweet of summer climb out and over to dress them in green and pink and scarlet.

And most of all what I love about Chilmark is that wherever you are in the midst of this glorious countryside, you are never very far from the sight and the sound of the water.

Miles of perfectly white sand beaches on the south shore, rocky beaches both south and north, enormous ponds with clams and oysters you can dig out and take home for dinner, and ever-changing vistas of ocean currents from hilltops at every turn, of waves that could carry you anywhere you wanted to go in a real or imaginary world.

Last town beyond that is Gay Head, the westernmost tip of the island.
Much smaller in territory than Chilmark, it is also flatter and rimmed with dunes around its shorelines.

But it builds to a spectacular sight at its furthest point: dramatic cliffs of multicolored clay which plunge to the sea at the junction of the Vineyard Sound and the Atlantic Ocean.

By the time we began our descent into the Boston area, Mike was up-to-speed on the island history and description, most intrigued by the fact that only two of the towns Edgartown and Oak Bluffs were wet, and that you couldn’t buy liquor in any of the stores or restaurants up-island.

“Sounds fuckin‘ weird to me can’t even have a beer with lunch.”

“Don’t worry, there’s a full supply at the house. You’ll make it.”

From the shuttle terminal we walked across the drop-off area to a small counter at the end of a row of commuter airline desks, none of which looked as if it had been in business for more than a week and each of which served two or three places you’d never heard of in New Hampshire and Maine.

“Good morning,” I said to the girl she looked about eighteen who was standing below the Cape Air logo.

“We’ve got reservations on the nine forty-five to the Vineyard. Names are Cooper and Chapman.” I handed her my credit card and she pulled up the computer list for the flight.

“Okay. Got ‘em Alexandra and Michael, right? What are your weights, please?”

“Excuse me?” Michael asked.

“I’m one twenty-two and he’s… what are you these days? And please tell the truth, Mike, my life may depend on it.”

“What do you need my weight for?”

“Like it’s a Cessna 402. We’ve got a weight limit, so we have to know like what the passengers weigh, and the baggage, so we can like distribute it and stuff.”

“What are we flying in, Coop, a rowboat? I can’t do this.”

“You’ll be fine. It’s only half an hour you’ll be up and down before you have time to think about it.”

“Two-ten,” he murmured, clearly miserable as he looked out the window and noticed the tiny nine-seater parked near the exit door.

Picking up on his discomfort, the counter girl chimed in, “Like you can sit up front next to me, in the copilot’s seat. I brought her in from Nantucket an hour ago and it’s a perfect day for flying. There’s no fog and like very little wind it’s really awesome.”

The kid was playing with Mike and he didn’t get it yet.

I watched the exchange, and could see she was attracted to him, which got me to thinking about him in a way I hadn’t done for years: as a guy, and not just a working partner.

Today, even at moments like this when his wonderful smile wasn’t working for him, he was handsome and lean, and a standout in most crowds. Dressed in his navy blazer, striped shirt with white collar and cuffs, jeans and loafers, he looked like any other yuppie headed for a fall weekend at a country inn.

“Thanks, but the pilot might get jealous,” Mike responded to her.

“I know you’re a very good investigator, Chapman,” I said as I nudged him with my elbow, ‘but she is the pilot.“

“What? You gotta be kidding me. She’s an infant, she’s gotta be in junior high school, she’s…”

“Trust me. She’s ”like“ the pilot, Mike.”

As soon as the three other reservations arrived, the counter girl announced the flight, helped an older man in overalls carry the luggage of the other passengers out to the tarmac, and then gave her clipboard to him and climbed up onto the wing of the plane and into the window-door of the pilot’s seat.

We started to board the Cessna, with Mike doing a soliloquy under his breath.

“Women are terrific… they can do anything… I believe in feminism… equal work for equal pay. But this is bullshit… this is a little girl flying an airplane… They ought to call this thing Cape Fear, not Cape Air.”

“Calm down, buddy. Women fly combat missions now.

Think of them, think of Meryl Streep you know, Karen Blixen in Out of Africa, think of Sally Ride, the astronaut, think…“

The only one I can think of is Amelia Earhart, and the last I heard, blondie, she still hasn’t landed.“

I bent down to walk the short aisle of the plane and sit in the empty copilot’s seat, knowing how great the view would be as we soared over the island on a clear morning.

Mike was coming in next as the pilot reminded him that she needed his weight near the front, and he seated himself directly behind me.

We taxied out and took off, the light craft shaking mildly as she was steered to a smoother flying altitude of four thousand feet, above the low-lying winds. I could feel Mike’s hands clutched on my seat back, but there was too much noise from the busy propellers to say much along the way. About fifteen minutes out of Logan, the Massachusetts shoreline came into view, and the distinctive outline of Cape Cod spread out below. If you were familiar with the landscape, it was easy to pick out everything along the way, from New Bedford and Woods Hole, to Hyannis and Provincetown.

And then Martha’s Vineyard rose across the sound, still green in late fall, as we crossed over the whitecaps and watched the ferries plying their regular routes to and from the mainland. I tried to turn my head and point out some of the landmarks to Mike I always became so animated when we got close enough for me to recognize the places that were such an indelible part of my emotional life. The pilot banked and began her approach from the east, instead of from ‘my’ end of the island, but she came in low over the shore with its exquisite stretch of white beaches and a seemingly endless array of ponds, which looked like fingers reaching out to the ocean to hold it in place and keep it lapping onto the sand.

Mike didn’t relax his grip until the plane had come to a complete stop next to the small wooden terminal and the propellers were shut down.

The pilot unlatched her window and started to climb back out onto the wing.

“Thanks for flying with us… not that you have many choices,” she chuckled.

“Going back with us tonight?”

“Yes, thanks. See you later.”

“You, too, Mr. Chapman. Wasn’t it like awesome?”

“Yeah, awesome,” Mike responded.

“Looks like we’ve got a greeting committee the Homicide Welcome Wagon,”
I noted as I looked out my window, waiting for the other passengers to deplane down the narrow steps.
“That’s Wally Flanders and one of his guys on the right, looks like a state trooper in the uniform next to them but I don’t know him and-‘
”Who’s the one in the three-piece suit and the shades, thinks he’s going formal?“

“Don’t know him either, but I assume he’s FBI, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh no, federal sissies? I forgot we’d have to deal with them, too.
Only for you, blondie, a Cessna and a feeble in the same day. No wonder I feel so nauseous.”

“Hey, Alexandra, awful nice of you to come on up here,” Wally greeted me as Mike and I rounded the side of the terminal building.

“This here’s Eb May hew I think you know him works with me in the office.”

“Hi, Eb. I’m Alex Cooper, this is Mike Chapman. I’ve known your sister for years, Eb used to baby-sit for my brothers’ kids when they vacationed here every summer.

Detective Chapman’s with the Homicide Squad in New York the D.A. has him with me on the case.“

“Finest kind,” said Wally, with a cheeriness in his voice at this reunion which made it hard to focus on the fact that we were all together because of a murder.

“And this fella is Trooper Lumbert, he’s with the state police. Been real helpful up at your place. Keeps all them tourists away from Daggett’s Pond, all looking for souvenirs of Miss Lascar.

Finest kind. Then we got Special Agent Luther Waldron, sent up here by the Federal Bureau. Real lucky to get him, never had a special agent on one of my cases before.“

I was too far away to kick Mike in the shins, but he was humming the theme song from that old TV show and being fairly obnoxious: “Secret a-gent man, secret a-gent man, they’ve given you a number and taken ‘way your name.”

Typical meeting between fed and NYPD cop, which was likely to take a bit of the joy out of Wally’s day.

We all shook hands and exchanged greetings while I asked Wally what he had planned for the day.

“Actually, ma’am,” interrupted Agent Waldron, “I’m in charge at this point, so we’ll be talking about my plans for the day, if you don’t mind. I thought we’d all go up to your place. Show you the crime scene, then have you take us through the house, tell us how you left it and whether there are any changes, anything you might notice about the deceased’s habits or belongings. Will that be all right with you?”

Mike had been trying to hold back but wasn’t good for much longer.

“When are you going to bring us up to date on what you’ve got so far?
Leads, clues, evidence, theories?”

“Well, Mr. Chapman, my understanding is that you’re here in an unofficial capacity, sort of a shall-we-say hand holding function, for Ms. Cooper. I don’t think there’s much I can tell you in the way of evidentiary information.”

“Hey, Luther, let me tell you something. I’m here as a-‘ ”Forget it, Mike. Give it a rest. I’ll call Battaglia and we’ll straighten this out. I’m sure Agent Waldron has his orders, just like we do.“

Waldron turned to the three local investigators and suggested they go back into the terminal office with him to call their respective bases and inform the higher-ups of their next destination. I tried to smooth Mike over, but he and the fed were clearly off on the wrong foot.

“Isn’t Wally perfect?” I asked.

“You’d expect to see him working with Angela Lansbury in Cabot Cove, wouldn’t you?”

“How come he says ”finest kind“ after everything?”

“I don’t know it’s some kind of old New England expression Wally uses it all the time.”

“What do you guess Eb is short for?”

“Old Mayhew name, Mike. It’s Ebenezer.”

“Jeez, I feel like I’m in a time warp expect to see the Mayflower pull up any minute.”

“The Mayhews were the original island settlers. My house is part of one of the old Mayhew farms, built almost two hundred years ago.
They’ve got classic names, wonderful old names: Zachariah, Zephaniah, Experience, Caleb, Patience, Ransford…”

“What’s the matter? Didn’t they ever hear of John and Mary…?”

“And Michael and Kathleen and Joseph? They got a little farther than your people on the names, Mikey. Much more interesting.”

Over Mike’s shoulder I could see Special Agent Waldron emerging to rejoin us. I was determined to make the day as pleasant as it could be under the circumstances, and so I smiled and asked how long he had been on the island.

“Just twenty-four hours this trip, ma’am. But I was here a few years ago doing advance for the President on one of his vacations. Beautiful spot. First time for you, Chapman?”

I wasn’t at all surprised to hear Mike respond the way he often did when he felt insulted and wanted to get back into the game.

“No, Luther, actually not. It’s been a while, but I used to sail up here a lot Edgartown regatta spent some weekends with a girl whose old man kept a boat here.

Think he used to be in the Bureau. Found out the whole squad had been doing her decided to call it quits.“ He could bullshit with the best.

Luther ignored Mike and went right on talking to me.

I understand sex crimes is your specialty, Alex. At least that’s what Wally tells me. Why would a girl like you want to spend all her time thinking about things like that?

Beats me.“

It looked like I might have to admit Mike was right. The guy was on his way to proving what a schmuck he was.

“Did you hear the one about the woman who was raped by a man with a very little penis?” Luther went on, clearly thinking he was on a roll and would win me over with this one.

Before I could decide whether to say ‘no’ or a more strongly worded “I’m not interested,” Luther announced that the woman said to her assailant, ‘“Did anyone ever tell you what a small organ you have?” And the rapist looked back at her and answered, “Lady, I never knew I’d have to play it in such a large cathedral.”

I was silent. I had heard lousy, tasteless attempts at humor about rape before, but this was at a time and place to hit a new low.

“Mike, want to go over with me to the Hertz office?”

“We’ve checked that out already,” Luther broke in.

“It’s not the one Isabella used. She picked up the Mustang at the rental office in town, near the ferry terminal.”

“Thanks. But it’s not that. We’re clearly going to need our own car today, okay?”

“We’ll take you anywhere you need to go, Ms. Cooper.

I’ve got a government car… you can ride with me.“

“Not possible, Luther,” Mike said as he steered my elbow across the grass to the rental car area.

“She’s allergic to polyester. Five minutes in the car with you and she’s likely to lose it all over your best suit. Trust me, she’s hell on synthetics.”

We were fortunate to get one of the rental cars, since the annual Bluefish Derby, which attracted devotees from all over the Northeast, was in its last days and fishermen were everywhere. I pulled out of the parking lot and yelled to Wally that we would meet them all up on Daggett’s Pond Way. The airport is in the middle of the island, so we turned west and began the ride to my house, twenty minutes up-island, taking the South Road so I could point out my favorite sights along the way.