The Bee Balm Murders (12 page)

“I’ve been over his resume and researched what I could on the Internet. He makes what are essentially clerical positions—and there are too many of them—sound as though he was project manager. He’s listed start-ups I can’t find any record of. I haven’t checked all his references and don’t intend to. I’m not even sure the guy knew Vulpone. As you, yourself, said, Vulpone worked only with his two sons.” Orion glanced outside. Light from his window reflected off the hood of the SUV. “Contact investors yourself, will you, Casper? Don’t go through Finney.”

Casper sighed. “I’ll see what I can scout out.”

“Tell you what,” said Orion. “I’ll talk to Paulson, see if he’ll give up his demand for voting shares.”

“Good luck with the bastard. Seems to me the prospectus you developed covers every possible question anyone can ask.”

“You signed that contract of Finney’s, right?”

“I didn’t see how we’d lose. But I’ll defer to you.”

“Let’s table the contract for a week,” said Orion. “Maybe things will sort themselves out by then.”

C
HAPTER
15

Victoria was writing her column for the
Island Enquirer
when the phone rang on Monday morning.

“Mrs. Trumbull, my name is Primo Vulpone—”

“One of Angelo Vulpone’s sons?”

“Yes, ma’am, the elder.”

“My condolences. I didn’t know your father, but I know how difficult it must be for you to have lost him.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Trumbull.”

“How can I help you?”

There was a long sigh at the other end of the line. Victoria waited. “I’m not sure where to start, Mrs. Trumbull. The police don’t seem to be doing anything about his murder, and I’m told you might be of assistance.”

“The police have very little to work with,” said Victoria. “How did you get my name?”

“Father was planning to invest in a fiber-optics project on Martha’s Vineyard, headed up by an Orion Nanopoulos. My brother and I got in touch with Mr. Nanopoulos and he suggested we talk to you.”

“To me?” Victoria asked, astonished.

“Mr. Nanopoulos said you’re associated with the police in some way, but are not restricted by their regulations.”

“Well,” said Victoria, not knowing what else to say.

“We understand you’re a deputy officer with access to the police, that you know everyone on the Island, are related to most of them, and are not afraid of anything.”

“Good heavens,” said Victoria.

“We’d like to talk to you, my brother and I. May we come by?”

“Are you calling from New York?”

“No, ma’am. We’re here on the Island, calling from Alley’s Store.”

“That’s only a short way from here.” Victoria looked at her watch. She had her column to finish, but that could wait. She was curious to know what the Vulpone brothers thought they could learn from her. “I’ll put fresh coffee on,” she said, and gave them directions to get to her house from Alley’s.

The coffee hadn’t finished dripping into the glass pot when a bright red sports car skidded to a stop in the drive, and two men, dressed entirely in black, unwound themselves from the low-slung vehicle. Victoria went to the door to greet them.

The driver, the shorter of the two, whipped off his wraparound sunglasses and smiled at her, a charming smile with dimples and white teeth set off by olive skin. He was a young man, probably in his early thirties.

“A Ferrari,” she said after she introduced herself. “Are you Primo?”

“I am. And this is my brother, Umberto.”

The extremely tall slender man who’d emerged from the passenger seat was an elongated version of his older brother. He’d already taken off his sunglasses. He bowed slightly.

“I didn’t realize…” Primo said, then started over again. “From everything we’ve learned about you, I expected a much younger woman.” He stopped, clearly uncomfortable. “In her twenties, perhaps. I didn’t expect to find an elegant woman in her sixties.”

Victoria smiled. “Thank you.”

“I see you know fine cars, Mrs. Trumbull,” said Umberto. His nose, in fact both of their noses, were every bit as large as Victoria’s own—great beaks that began at the level of their eyebrows and arched out regally.

“Please, come in,” said Victoria. She led the way into the parlor. Primo followed her, and Umberto trailed behind, ducking his head to clear the door frame.

The two waited until she’d seated herself and then they, too, sat, Primo on the sofa next to Victoria’s wing chair, Umberto on the rocker.

“I’m so sorry about your father. His death under such circumstances must be especially difficult for you.”

“Thank you,” said Primo. He sat forward on the stiff sofa, his hands clasped between his knees.

Victoria served coffee to the two men—boys, really—and sat again.

Primo lifted his mug to her in a kind of salute. “Thank you for seeing us, Mrs. Trumbull.”

“Of course,” said Victoria.

“As I told you on the phone, my brother and I,” he nodded at Umberto, “are not at all pleased with the progress the police are making in their investigation of our father’s death.”

Umberto looked up. “They’ve made no progress at all.”

Victoria said, “It’s my understanding there were few, if any, clues. Your father’s body was found, entirely by chance, at the bottom of a six-foot-deep trench in a foot of water. It was raining when they found him, and had been raining all night, washing away any footprints.”

She looked from one brother to the other. Dark brown eyes looked back at her. The two seemed priestlike in their somber black slacks, tieless black shirts buttoned up to the throat, black blazers. Black, wavy hair, and intense dark eyes in gloomy faces. There’d been only that brief smile of Primo’s when she’d recognized their Ferrari, to see how handsome he was.

They waited politely for her to finish speaking.

“The police believe your father was assassinated. That his death was likely to have been mob related.”

Primo set his mug down on the coffee table. “Father had mob connections, of course. Everybody in the construction business does.”

“At least in Jersey and New York,” said Umberto.

“But this was not a mob killing,” said Primo. “First off, Father knew how to work with the mob. It’s like a union, you know, you pay your dues, obey the rules, and they’ll protect you.”

Umberto nodded.

Primo continued. “Secondly, the mob wouldn’t follow Father to some remote island to kill him. They’d have taken him out at his favorite restaurant or his business office. Not here.”

“What was your father doing here on the Vineyard?” asked Victoria.

Primo shrugged. “We have no idea. He was interested in this fiber-optics project of Mr. Nanopoulos’s.”

“But it wasn’t like him to go into the field like that,” said Umberto. “He’d have ordered someone else to do that for him. He wouldn’t travel if he didn’t have to.”

“The entire setup is wrong, Mrs. Trumbull,” said Primo. “We’d like to hire you to look into it.”

“I’m not an investigator,” said Victoria.

“We’ve investigated you,” said Umberto with his first smile, a delightful duplicate of his brother’s.

Primo said, “We need someone who knows the Island and its people.”

“What if the killer is not from the Island?” asked Victoria.

“We trust you’ll recognize the marks of a stranger,” said Primo. He reached into an inside pocket in his blazer and brought out a checkbook.

Victoria held up her hand. “Wait. I need to think about this.”

“We’ve already made out the check, Mrs. Trumbull. It’s for a thousand dollars, as a retainer. We’ll cover any expenses you incur and will pay for your time at five hundred dollars a day. Is that reasonable?”

“No, not at all!” said Victoria. “I can’t possibly accept—”

“Make it seven hundred and fifty, Primo,” said Umberto, sitting forward.

Primo flushed. “I didn’t mean to insult you, Mrs. Trumbull. We’ll pay your rate, whatever it is. Seven hundred and fifty? Eight hundred? Plus expenses, of course.”

“Let me think about this,” said Victoria.

“Nine hundred, Primo,” said Umberto, gesturing with his hands.

“Stop!” said Victoria. “This has nothing to do with money. I don’t have—”

“A secretary, Primo,” said Umberto. “Mrs. Trumbull should have a secretary.”

“Personal assistant,” said Primo. “Would that make it easier for you, Mrs. Trumbull? To have a personal assistant to handle the paperwork and phone calls?”

Victoria sat back in her chair. If she weren’t taking that doxycycline and feeling less energetic than usual, she’d be better able to tell these intense young men that she didn’t want their money, that she knew nothing about tracking down a killer, and didn’t wish to learn how to do so. They were watching her with dark eyes.

“Very well,” she said. “I’ll do what I can.”

Primo leapt to his feet, bent over her, and kissed her on both cheeks. “Thank you! We’ll put a car at your disposal.”

“I don’t drive,” said Victoria, lifting her nose into the air. She still resented losing her license simply because she’d backed into the Meals on Wheels van.

“Of course you don’t,” said Primo, stepping away in horror. “We’ll provide you with a driver, of course.” He tore the thousand-dollar check out of its leather binder, placed it on the coffee table, and set a nearby stone on top of it. Victoria had picked the stone up on the beach just the other day, a lucky stone with a broad white stripe around it.

Umberto looked at his watch and stood up. “We have forty-five minutes to catch that ferry, Primo, and we need to be in line a half-hour before sailing time.”

Victoria struggled to her feet, feeling inadequate, put upon, and outmaneuvered. If it weren’t for that Lyme disease, she’d have straightened out those two young men.

Umberto, too, bent down and kissed her on both cheeks. He carried the tray with its empty coffee mugs back into the kitchen. Victoria followed. For one of the few times in her life, she had no idea what to say.

Both Primo and Umberto flashed her their identical charming smiles and headed outside toward their bright red car.

“We look forward to hearing from you, Mrs. Trumbull,” said Primo, blowing her another kiss. “
Cara mia!
” He thrust his arms into the air.

“
Ciao!
” said Umberto.

While Victoria watched from the top of the stone steps, hugging her arms around herself, the two slipped back on their wraparound sunglasses. Primo slid behind the wheel, Umberto folded himself into the passenger seat, and the Ferrari squealed out of Victoria’s drive in a spray of sand as though competing in some kind of Island grand prix.

C
HAPTER
16

After spending an uncomfortable weekend sleeping on his office cot, Orion awakened, groggy from working late. He met his crew at Five Corners, the busiest intersection on the Island, where five roads came together. Vehicles disembarking from the ferry met traffic heading in a snarl of different directions. For the most part, Island drivers waited their turns. Visitors from off Island plunged ahead into the mess, not understanding Vineyard traffic protocol.

This was the morning the Ditch Witch drill was to bore under that busy intersection.

Orion engaged the services of two off-duty Tisbury police officers to direct traffic, should the drilling hold things up at some point. Actually, it wasn’t the work that held up traffic, it was drivers slowing to ask why the cops were there.

Orion stood on the corner of State Road and Water Street, where drivers were likely to stop with questions. He was dressed, as usual, in jeans and a plaid shirt. He wore a hard hat and leaned on a shovel. A horn honked. A Subaru pulled over. The driver lowered the window and leaned over. “Say, buddy, what’s going on?”

Orion stepped over to the open window, his pleasant expression in place. “They’re laying a fiber-optic cable under the road, sir,” he said.

“Yeah? What’s it for?”

“Better communications.”

“About time. Tell the boss good luck.”

Orion touched the brim of his hard hat with two fingers. “I’ll do that.”

The driver gave him a thumbs-up and moved on.

By nine o’clock the drill head had crossed under State Road. The crew removed it, attached a device that grabbed onto the cable, and pulled it back through the hole that had been bored only a few minutes earlier. Orion dismissed the police with thanks, and went back to the drill. He and Mike spread out the map on the now mud-caked treads to recheck their next job site.

While they were studying the map, Orion’s cell phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket. “Nanopoulos.”

“Orion, it’s Amanda. We have a problem I don’t want to discuss on the phone.”

“I’m at a good stopping place,” said Orion. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Mike glanced up questioningly.

Orion shrugged. “My bookkeeper. I probably didn’t sign a check. Be back within the hour.”

*   *   *

After noon on Monday, while Orion headed to the bookkeeper’s office, Victoria and Casey made their rounds.

“Angelo Vulpone’s sons visited me this morning.”

“Yeah? What did they want?”

“They hired me to solve their father’s murder.”

“The police are working on it, Victoria.”

“Not fast enough, apparently. I was sympathetic.”

“A murder takes time to solve. You know that. Evidence has to be processed. Interviews.”

They passed the mill pond, turned toward the cemetery.

Victoria said, “I can’t understand why that man is so thick headed about that woman.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Orion Nanopoulos and that woman. I’ve only half-jokingly blamed his behavior on pheromones.”

“You’ve got bees in your—”

“Perfume is pheromones, scientifically concocted to make some man lust after a woman. Aftershave cologne, too. Pheromones designed to seduce some unsuspecting woman.”

“Wow!” said Casey, glancing away from the road with a smile. “You’re really steaming, Victoria.”

“Orion’s not stupid.”

Casey slowed around Dead Man’s Curve. “I gather ‘that woman’ is Dorothy Roche.”