The Bee Balm Murders (30 page)

Dorothy groaned. Victoria started to get up.

“Sit still, Auntie Vic. She’ll be okay. She’ll feel pretty rotten for a while, but if she hasn’t abused her body too much in the past, she’ll recover.”

Dorothy mumbled, “I can’t do it. I can’t do it.”

Hope looked quizzically at Victoria. “Know what she’s talking about?”

“Yes,” said Victoria. “I’m afraid I do.”

*   *   *

Early the next morning, three of the organizers of the auction met with Maria Rosa, winner of the Ditch Witch item, at Maria Rosa’s second-floor suite at the Harbor View. Her suite overlooked Edgartown Harbor and the lighthouse. Last night, after the auction, she and Bill Williams had again walked down the sandy path, hand in hand, and she was still caught up in the magic of the evening, in fact, of the entire day.

She turned politely to the man sitting to her right, who introduced himself as president of the local bank, and the two women with him as treasurer of the auction and a columnist with the local newspaper.

The bank president wore a blue blazer and white duck trousers, had snow white hair, and was healthily tanned.

“Thank you for your extraordinary contribution to the auction,” he began.

Maria Rosa nodded. “It was my pleasure.” And it was, too, she thought. A pleasure.

He looked down at his papers. “Unfortunately, the woman offering the item, the ride on the Ditch Witch drill rig, is in the hospital. She’s expected to be there for several days.”

Maria Rosa put her hand to her throat and stroked the emerald necklace. “I’m so sorry. Was it a heart attack?”

“The hospital isn’t releasing information, naturally. We assume her collapse was brought on by stress.”

Maria Rosa looked out across the harbor to Chappaquiddick, enticingly green in the morning light. Sailboats were leaving the harbor, perhaps for the day, perhaps bound for faraway places.

“The committee felt it was only right to credit your account with the money you so graciously donated.”

The treasurer and newspaper columnist nodded.

Maria Rosa stood. “I don’t need to ride the Witch. Keep the money.”

“My dear Mrs. Vulpone!”

Maria Rosa smiled. “But I accept the luncheon. I’ve already invited a group of fifty.”

“Friends from New York?” asked the columnist.

“Not at all,” said Maria Rosa. “Fifty patients from your nursing home.”

“Windemere?” asked the treasurer. “Walkers and wheelchairs?”

“Certainly,” said Maria Rosa. “Those things can be managed.”

C
HAPTER
39

On Monday, Primo drove Victoria home from the hospital, where she’d visited Dorothy. “How’s she doing?” He glanced in the rearview mirror.

“Physically, she’s recovering, but I think she’s having some mental problems. I don’t feel sorry for her.” Victoria paused. “I suppose I should, even though she brought this on herself.” She met his eyes in the mirror. “I need to talk to you and Umberto. The girls, too.”

“I’ll pick them up. The girls are shopping and Umberto’s at the beach.”

He dropped her off and went to fetch the others. She was still standing at the top of the steps when Sean, the beekeeper, arrived.

“Our friend Sandy has information for you, Mrs. Trumbull.” He turned back to the truck. “Out, kid.”

The eight-year-old slid out of the passenger seat and pushed his sandy-red hair out of his eyes. He scuffed toward Victoria, a plume of dust rising behind him.

“Pick up your feet,” said Sean.

They sat in the cookroom, the boy’s large eyes watching her. His freckles stood out like green dots on his sunburned face. His sneakered feet swung nervously.

“What sort of news do you have, Sandy?”

“Nothin’ much.”

“Ma’am,” said Sean.

“Yes, ma’am. You asked if anyone seen that big fat man from New York on the Island, and I seen, saw him.”

“You recognized him from my description?”

“Well,” Sandy swung his feet, “he’s not tall, like you. He wears sunglasses most of the times I seen him…”

“Most of the times? How often have you seen the man?”

“Well, I hang out at the airport. Sometimes one of the pilots gives me a ride in a plane, ma’am.” He glanced at Sean. “I seen him five or six times at Cape Air.”

“Are you sure this is the man I’m talking about?”

“I guess. He’s pretty fat and he has kind of a yellow face and he wears a belt with a green buckle shaped like a dollar sign.” He drew the shape of an S in the air. “He’s got a belly so you can’t always see the buckle.”

“Did he notice you?”

“No, ma’am. Nobody sees me if I don’t want.”

“Go on,” said Victoria.

“He looks like a hopping toad. Big thick lips and when he takes his glasses off, his eyes stick out like a toad.”

“Did you ever hear his name? Did he give it to the person at the counter?”

“Sometimes he says Bruce, sometimes something else.”

“Could you hear any last name?”

“Volcano?”

“That’s close enough,” said Victoria. “What sort of luggage did he have?”

“Luggage?”

“Suitcase or briefcase or packages.”

“Well, sometimes when he comes here, he didn’t, doesn’t…?”

“That’s all right, I won’t correct your grammar. Just tell me what you remember.”

“Well, coming here he doesn’t have nothin’ with him. Maybe a briefcase. But when he leaves, he almost always has a package, a Cronig’s bag, you know?”

Victoria nodded.

“Tied with string, like it’s going UPS.”

“When did you first see this man?”

Sandy scratched his head. “Well, school let out in June and before then I only went to the airport weekends, and only when it was warm and I’d helped my dad planting.”

“Do you recall what flowers were in bloom then?”

“Your lilacs.”

“May,” said Victoria. “Excellent, Sandy. Did someone pick him up at the airport?”

“Mostly an old lady with dyed orange hair.”

Victoria smiled at the vivid description of the false Dorothy Roche. “What about the past two or three weeks? Did the man carry packages away as usual?”

Sandy kicked his feet “I don’t know. Maybe.”

Victoria heard the Ferrari drive up. Sandy looked out the window and his eyes widened. “I seen that car here before. That guy knows you?”

“Yes, he does. Would you like a ride in that car?”

“You mean it? You mean it?” Sandy sprang out of his chair. “Honest?”

“We’ll have to ask him,” said Victoria. “But when he hears what you’ve told me, I think it’s quite likely.”

Sean, who’d been leaning against the door frame, said, “When you get through joyriding, kid, you got a job to do. Getting those frames out of the hives.”

*   *   *

Fifteen minutes later, Primo returned with a deliriously happy Sandy, who rushed off to Sean and the bees. Orion showed up a few minutes later. Victoria, Orion, the two Vulpone sons, Ginny, and her actress sister crowded around the cookroom table. Umberto held Ginny’s hand under the table, presumably so no one would notice.

Victoria said, “I should tell you, Ginny, the police aren’t pleased with the way we collected our information.”

“You didn’t tell them that I…?”

“No, of course not. I couched our information in terms of educated guesses on my part. I simply wanted you to know you’re not likely to get the credit you deserve.”

“Thank goodness!”

“The police aren’t stupid. They know that you, by some means, have made it possible to narrow down the identity of Angelo’s killer. Trapping him is another matter and one the police would never condone.”

Orion folded his arms across his chest.

“With what Sandy told me, we may be able to tease loose some of the strands of this mess.”

“You know the killer?” asked Ginny.

Dorothy, the actress, brushed her hair away from her forehead. The others looked at Victoria.

“Primo was able to question your Uncle Basilio’s mistress. She calls herself Dorothy Roche.”

“Me?!” said the true Dorothy.

“She used your name so Uncle Basilio could charge her expenses to the television studio,” said Primo.

“That’s outrageous!” said the actress.

“That’s only the beginning,” said Victoria. “Your uncle and his mistress are involved in drug trafficking.”

“I should have guessed,” said Primo. “That’s where his money comes from.”

“Sandy, the beekeeper’s apprentice, gave me information that seems to confirm it.”

Primo nodded. “Sounds like the mob.”

“Your uncle may have been scouting for a pickup and transfer place for drugs. When your father told him he planned to invest in an Island-wide project, Basilio realized that would be a good cover.”

“Sure,” said Umberto, releasing Ginny’s hand and gesturing. “That makes sense.”

“He could make numerous trips to the Island, picking up deliveries that arrive by private boats,” said Victoria.

Orion leaned forward and set his elbows on the table. “He and the false Dorothy needed a courier. Tris Waverley?”

Victoria nodded. “That seems likely. They hired him to spy on you, but really to pick up and deliver drugs.”

“Did Uncle Basilio kill our father?” asked Umberto. “I know he hated him.”

“Your father’s interest in the fiber-optics project gave him an excuse to visit the Island,” said Victoria.

Primo and Umberto glanced at each other. “Perhaps we should mention…?” said Umberto.

Primo nodded. “Mrs. Trumbull and Mr. Nanopoulos. We’ve been going through our father’s papers. He had decided, a week before he died, that he would not invest in Universal Fiber Optics.”

There was silence around the table. Victoria heard crows cawing in the distance, a signal of some kind. Nearby, another crow responded.

“Who knew about that?” asked Victoria, breaking the silence.

“We have no way of knowing,” said Primo.

Victoria traced the pattern in the checked tablecloth with her thumbnail.

“So Uncle Basilio might have killed him,” said Primo.

“Or the false Dorothy Roche. Or Roger Paulson, or Finney Solomon,” said Victoria.

“How does that woman figure in this, Mrs. Trumbull?” asked the real Dorothy.

“We knew her only as Dorothy Roche until we learned about you, then we called her the false Dorothy Roche. Her real name is Nora Rochester. This is what I think happened.” Victoria sat back in her chair, her elbows on the chair arms, her hands clasped on the table. “Nora Rochester was Angelo’s mistress.”

Umberto grunted.

“Your mother learned about the liaison and gave your father an ultimatum to drop the other woman, or else.”

Primo sighed. “I suspected something like that. Our father was not a saint, but he expected us to be.”

“Your uncle, to thumb his nose at your father, set her up as his own mistress. The mob had approached him about the drug business, but needed certain conditions met. One was that he have a trustworthy partner.”

“Trustworthy!” said the real Dorothy Roche.

“I suppose since she’d been our father’s mistress, the mob had already vetted her,” said Primo.

“Most likely,” said Victoria. “Then when your father decided to invest in the project on Martha’s Vineyard, your uncle realized this was the perfect opportunity for a drug trafficking scheme.”

Orion leaned forward. “With Basilio’s TV expense account, Dorothy—the false, that is—rented a house in Edgartown with all the trappings, then hired Tris Waverley, a mediocre electronics technician, to spy on me, but actually as a drug courier. That spy business seemed much too obvious, as though she wanted me to know about it.”

Victoria said, “It fits together, doesn’t it. Basilio wanted her to show interest in the project while she was monitoring Tris Waverley. But she knew the whole setup was likely to fall apart, and thought she could make more money by taking over Orion’s company, using Basilio’s money.”

Ginny laughed. “What a lot of double-crossing.”

Primo shuddered. “Nobody double-crosses my family.”

Orion said, “I suppose Tris Waverley got cold feet about the drug business and Basilio killed him.”

“Or greedy,” said Umberto.

“I’m not sure Basilio ever had any contact with Tris,” said Victoria.

“Then who killed our father?” asked Primo.

“I’m not sure,” said Victoria. “We need to set a trap, and the police are not going to be pleased.”

C
HAPTER
40

Victoria wanted to tell Casey what her Edgartown Road Irregulars had discussed. She hiked the quarter-mile to the police station, not waiting for her chauffeur. She’d have to wean herself away from the luxury of summoning a car and driver now that the killer was about to be nabbed.

As much as she enjoyed the Bentley, she’d missed the feel of the tarred road and earthen path beneath her feet and the smells and sounds the car had insulated her from.

She reached the police station out of breath, spoiled by that car, scattered crusts for the ducks and geese, folded the paper bag, and climbed the steps.

Casey greeted her warmly. “How’s it going, Victoria?”

Victoria plopped into her usual chair and fanned herself with her folded-up paper bag.

Casey picked up her stone paperweight and toyed with it while she listened to Victoria’s latest thinking on the murders.

Victoria finished by saying, “I need your help.”

Casey sat back. “Have you decided who the killer is?”

“I intend to set a trap.”

“Don’t even think about it, Victoria. You’ve narrowed down our list of suspects. The state police will do the rest, legally.”

Victoria leaned her hands on her stick. “If you don’t wish to get involved, I’ll go ahead anyway.”

“You’re supposed to be a police deputy, Victoria.”

“I’m also a citizen with rights.”

Casey flung down her stone.

Victoria looked at her. “Will you help me?”

“Lord help
me
!” said Casey, looking up at the ceiling.

“Thank you,” said Victoria.

*   *   *

Victoria’s plan was a book launch. She gathered her four young friends around her to discuss the logistics. Her latest poetry book was due out in a month and she had the advance reading copies in hand. The invitation list included an assortment of poets and writers, state police in plainclothes, Orion, Sean the beekeeper, Aunt Maria Rosa and her new friend, Basilio, Dorothy the false, Finney Solomon, and Roger Paulson.