Vineyard Enigma (16 page)

The next morning I phoned Charles Mauch and told him about my final encounter with Miguel Periera. He responded by expressing surprise at learning of Miguel’s and Matthew Duarte’s criminal activities and skepticism about the veracity of reports by such men.

“Are you denying that you possess the eagles?” I asked.

“I am denying that I possess any art objects than can be certified as belonging to someone else.”

“A completely honest reply, I’m sure. I think, though, that you should give consideration to the fact that four men associated with the birds have died violently within the past year, and that agents, perhaps from law enforcement groups or perhaps from less official organizations, are still looking for them right now, right here on our beloved isle.”

His voice remained cool. “What has that to do with me?”

“Perhaps nothing; perhaps very much. Please feel free to contact me or Mr. Mahsimba if you have any further thoughts on the matter.” I gave him John Skye’s phone number and my own and rang off.

The Boston papers duly recorded the death of Miguel Periera in their Monday editions, but even though the killing had taken place on romantic Martha’s Vineyard, the reporters hadn’t known enough to make much of what initially seemed to them to be just another domestic tragedy of a girlfriend killing her lover. The Tuesday edition of the
Vineyard Gazette
had more detail, and by the end of the week, after public revelation that DNA tests had proven the Headless Horseman to be David Brownington, the story had gotten much bigger.

On that first Monday I’d received a call from my Boston reporter friend, Quinn, telling me he was on his way down and expected an exclusive interview with me. Quinn and I had met years before when I was on the Boston PD, and we’d remained close ever since. I told him to come ahead, and that he could stay in our guest room, where he had stayed before. I got calls from other papers and electronic-media people and told them I had no comment.

When Quinn got to the house, he gave Zee a huge kiss and said he was sure I wouldn’t mind sleeping on the couch while he showed her the benefits of a relationship with a real man. She thanked him but said she was saving that long-anticipated delight until the children were grown and she could give him her full attention. He sighed.

I gave him my report of recent criminal events and a list of the names of people I thought he might want to interview.

“Ah,” he said, looking at it. “Twice the usual suspects. This should keep me down here for at least a week!”

“Oh no! Gimme back that list!” I said, reaching for it. But he snatched it away.

Good old Quinn.

Zee took time off from work and spent some of it with Rose Abrams and the rest with me, away from John and Mattie Skye and other friends. Away from Mahsimba. She and I avoided the beaches where we were sure to meet fellow fishermen, and walked up-island along the trails of Menemsha Hills, Fulling Mill Brook, Waskosims Rock, and the other tracks through the Vineyard’s beautiful wild places.

Ours was a curious relationship, somewhere between that of a long-married couple and a man and a woman discovering one another for the first time. We were cautious yet happy, careful with our feelings. Sometimes we talked, but we were often silent, as though listening to the beating of the earth’s heart in hopes that its rhythm was in time with our own. Sometimes we took our children with us; mostly we went alone.

It was a kind of courting, simpler for me because loving Zee was the easiest and most natural thing I’d ever done or would ever do; harder for her because she had been swept away at first sight of Mahsimba through no effort of his nor fault of hers, but simply because the gods, seeing her weakened by self-dismay over killing a man, had cast a glamour upon her, perhaps out of kindness, knowing that loving and feeling loved can make a sick soul well again.

Toward the end of the week we were looking out toward No Man’s Land from the slope of Prospect Hill. The dark blue sea was flat as a mirror and the leaves were totally still in windless air. It was warm and the sun was high in a pale blue sky that dipped toward misty horizons. Time seemed to have stopped.

“Swordfishing weather,” I said.

Zee took my hand. “I’ve finally, really gotten over killing that man, I think. Talking with Rose helped.”

“Good.” Any giving person can tell you that the giver always gets more than he or she gives.

“I think I’m getting over Mahsimba, too.”

“Do you want to get over him?”

“He’s a wonderful man.”

“Yes.”

“But I don’t want him between us.”

“You can’t just stop loving someone,” I said. “Love just happens. You have no choice.” I, at least, had none.

“I don’t think it’s love. For me, seeing him was like falling down stairs. There he was and suddenly I was picking myself up from the bottom step. I’d read about such things, but I thought it was just poets’ talk. But it isn’t.”

“No.”

“He’s never done a thing to encourage me. Never touched me other than shaking my hand when we first met or accepting my arm when I took his. Never said a flirting word. But from the moment I first saw him I felt like a fifteen-year-old girl high on champagne.”

“I’ve felt fifteen once or twice.”

“Have you? I think I really was fifteen the last time I felt that way. But for a while, lately, when I thought of Mahsimba it’s been as though Africa were calling to me.”

“A siren song.”

“Yes. I’ve felt like Odysseus. But I didn’t have anyone to tie me to the mast so I could listen but not respond. My rope has been loving you but my crew has been me, and it’s been mutinous. I wanted you to make me stay, but I knew you wouldn’t.”

“No.”

She smiled wanly and looked up at me. “No. I know you. You’d stop anyone from hurting me, but you’d never stop me from leaving you.”

“I don’t own slaves.”

“Sometimes a woman wants to be guarded. To feel owned.”

“I’ll protect you, but you have to be free to leave.”

“Free to go to Africa?”

“Free to go anywhere.”

“Free to go home with you?”

“That most of all.”

“I love you. Do you know that?”

“Yes.”

“Can you live with a wife who can become infatuated with other men?”

I said, “I don’t love often or well, or stop loving easily, but I do know this: you don’t have a finite amount of love that you have to divide into pieces and dole out in small portions. The more you love, the more you can love. Being infatuated with Mahsimba doesn’t mean you love me less.”

“I think I’m getting un-infatuated.”

“Good.”

“Don’t you have any jealous bones in your body?”

“Let’s not try to find out.”

“You’re a strange man, Jefferson.”

“At least.”

She held my hand as we walked on.

By the following weekend Quinn had sent in several stories and figured he had all the information he needed or was going to get about murder and smuggled art on Martha’s Vineyard.

“The only things that are missing are an official decision about who killed Brownington, and knowing what happened to the eagles. I don’t know if we’ll ever get either one.”

“Not all mysteries have tidy endings.”

“Well, if we can’t get the loose ends all knitted up, the least you can do is take me fishing before I have to go back to Boston.”

“Zee will catch a fish for you if you can’t catch one yourself.”

“Truly manly men don’t need women to catch their fish for them,” said Zee, clutching his arm and batting her lashes.

“You got that right, baby,” said Quinn, leering at her.

We fished East Beach and caught up with the blues just north of Leland’s Point. The fish weren’t thick but there were enough to keep us busy for half an hour before they went on their way. Nice seven- and eight-pounders.

“You can take home as many of these as you want,” I said to Quinn. “We’ll fillet them and loan you a cooler. When you get back to Boston you can feed them to your girlfriends and lie about how you caught them all.”

“I wish you wouldn’t talk about other women while Zee’s listening,” said Quinn in a theatrical whisper.

“Other women?” cried Zee. “Oh, woe, oh, woe! I thought I was the only one!”

“Damn you, Jackson,” hissed Quinn. “Now you’ve done it. You’ve broken the poor girl’s heart!”

At home, while Zee and Quinn drank lazy martinis on the balcony and watched the kids play with the cats in the yard below, I scaled and filleted the fish. I was putting the last of them into the fridge when the phone rang.

“This is Mahsimba,” said the familiar voice. “I have just received a telephone call from Charles Mauch. He wants to see me.”

I felt a little rush of emotion. “What about?”

“The Zimbabwe eagles. I thought you might want to come along.”

“When?”

“Now.”

“Where are you?”

“In John’s study.”

“I’m on my way.”

I reported the call to Zee, declined Quinn’s request to accompany me, said I expected to be home for supper, and drove to the Skyes’ farm. Mahsimba was waiting for me on the front porch. Together we headed up-island.

“Did Mauch give you any idea about why he wanted to see you?” I asked.

“Only that it concerned the birds.”

I found Mauch’s driveway and stopped in front of his large house. He opened the door when we knocked and looked first at me, then at Mahsimba.

“I didn’t expect Mr. Jackson.”

Mahsimba’s voice was gentle but firm. “I suspect that if it were not for Mr. Jackson, this meeting would not be taking place. I think it’s appropriate for him to hear whatever it is that you want to tell me.”

Mauch inclined his head. “As you wish. Follow me, please.”

He led us into the same room where we’d talked before, but there was a difference. On an ornate table stood two soapstone stelae, each fronted by a crocodile and topped by a stone bird.

Mauch stood to one side as Mahsimba and I approached and studied the sculptures. When at last we looked at him, he spoke.

“As you see, the eagles are here.”

“And were here before, no doubt,” said Mahsimba.

“Yes. But things have changed since our previous meetings. Brownington is dead, two Duartes are dead, and now Miguel Periera is dead. That is a considerable number of dead men, Mr. Mahsimba.”

“The deaths of Matthew Duarte and Miguel Periera really had nothing to do with the eagles, Mr. Mauch.”

“Not directly, certainly. But the pattern of violence impresses me, as does the ongoing search for the eagles by people who come from far lands. People such as you, sir.”

“You are in no danger from me, Mr. Mauch.”

“No? But what of Mr. Brownington’s successor?”

“I cannot speak for Brownington’s successor.”

Mauch nodded. “Precisely. I have no interest in being hunted down by secret agents. Better, I think, to separate myself publicly from these lovely, bloody birds. After due consideration, I’ve concluded that I should give the nation of Zimbabwe the first opportunity to purchase them.”

“Indeed,” said Mahsimba. “And what price do you have in mind?”

“Normally I expect to make a profit on all of my financial transactions,” said Mauch, “but in hopes of improving cultural relations between our nations, I’ll part with them for what I paid.” He adjusted the cuff of his shirt and named a figure that I pretended did not impress me. “My purchase of the eagles was, of course, completely legal, since the birds were exported from your nation before it was, in fact, the nation it has since become, and certainly before any laws prevented such exportation. I mention that only to indicate that I have a perfect right to sell the birds to other interested parties should your nation decline the opportunity to repossess them.”

He and Mahsimba wore politic expressions.

“I will contact my employers and inform them of your offer,” said Mahsimba. “I trust I may depend upon you not to enter negotiations with other parties before you hear from me?”

“You may.”

“And that you will properly secure the birds until such time as an agreement may be completed?”

“I have a vault.”

“Then, since time is always an important consideration in these matters, we will take our leave so I can make the necessary communications.” Mahsimba paused, then added, “I may presume, of course, that these birds are the actual ones and not something less?”

Mauch spread his hands. “But of course, sir. I am an honest man. I have an international reputation to maintain.”

Polite smiles were exchanged as we left.

“It seems,” said Mahsimba as we drove back to Edgartown, “that my work here is essentially over. I will advise Harare to take over negotiations with Mr. Mauch, and I will return to my home and my job with Interpol. I’ve enjoyed my visit to your country and to your lovely island. You and your friends have been most helpful and hospitable.”