Dead in Vineyard Sand (22 page)

“Is that why you came over here? To get me to grease the skids for you?”

“Do you mind?”

He thought about that for almost no time. “No. That's what friends are for: to help each other out if they can.” He glanced at his Rolex. “I'll give Jasper a call. Tomorrow, okay?”

“The sooner the better. I'll fly over and take a taxi to his place.”

Glen allowed himself the first smile I'd seen for a while. It was an ironic one. “You must really want to talk with those guys, J.W. You're usually pretty tight with your pennies, but here you are ready to shell out flying and taxi money. Wait here. I'll be right back.” He walked into the house.

When he came out, he had good news for me. “Jasper says he and the boy will see you tomorrow
morning. And you don't have to take that taxi. He'll meet you at the airport when you come in. Just give him a call when you know what flight you'll be on. You ever seen the new terminal at Nantucket?”

“I've never even seen the Nantucket airport.”

“It's pretty snazzy. Let me know what you find out. You've got me wanting to know the real story.”

I shook his hand. “I'll let you know. It's the least I can do. Meanwhile, find yourself a quiet beach and practice your wedge shots until you feel good enough to get back to the auld game.”

I drove home and got to the end of our driveway just in time to see Joshua at our mailbox, pulling out envelopes and a newspaper. I offered him a ride down to the house.

“Did you see that guy, Pa?” he asked.

“What guy is that?”

“The guy at our mailbox. When I got up here to the road, he was parked there and was looking at the mail. When he saw me, he pushed the mail back in the box and drove away fast. Did you see him? It's against the law to steal mail!”

“Maybe he didn't steal anything, Josh. What did he look like?”

“He wasn't as old as you, but he was old.”

Old, to anyone Joshua's age, could mean anyone between middle school age and the grave.

“What kind of a car was he driving?”

“An old one sort of like this one, only yellow.”

“Yellow?”

“Yeah. You know. Sort of like a school bus only not quite. Why was he reading our mail?”

“I don't know. Maybe he was just at the wrong box.”

“I think we should call the police!”

“I don't think the police can catch him now,” I said. “Have any of those envelopes been opened?”

Joshua fingered through them. “Nope.”

“What are they?”

He fingered again. “Two bills and a letter from Aunt Margarite and another one from Nana.”

If the stranger had stolen anything, I couldn't imagine what it might have been. But I didn't think he was trying to steal anything, I thought he was verifying that the mailbox was mine and that I lived at the end of the driveway. I didn't like that at all.

I caught the early Cape Air flight to Nantucket about the same time that Zee and Mattie and their offspring headed for New Bedford. I was glad that Zee and the kids would be safely away all day. My flight time was only about twenty minutes, which meant that I could get to Nantucket quicker than I could drive to Aquinnah, and a lot faster than the shoppers would reach America.

There are many people on Martha's Vineyard who have been around the world but have never been to Nantucket, and vice versa, because they can see no reason to visit a neighboring island inferior to their own. I had been to Nantucket on my honeymoon, when Zee and I had sailed the
Shirley J.
over there after our wedding, but I hadn't seen much of the island on that occasion and knew little about it other than that it was even more pricey than the Vineyard and was longer on fog and shorter on trees.

I only knew one guy who lived there. He was a painter who long ago had bought a house and studio for what at that time had seemed an impossibly high price but now seemed like theft. Better yet, he'd managed to make enough money from his paintings to pay off his mortgage, so now he nestled comfortably on the outskirts of the village, painting and selling his work to castle builders, who didn't bat an eye at the prices he charged. What more could an artist ask?

Two centuries earlier, Nantucket had been a famous port for whaling ships, but then the canny Quaker boat owners, anxious for even more money, built ships too large to cross over the bar at the entrance to their harbor and thereby put Nantucket out of the whaling business. Thereafter, Edgartown and New Bedford, with their deep harbors, had become homes to the whaling ships and Nantucket had disappeared into the fog until its resurrection as a summer resort.

Nowadays, the tidal wave of money that was washing across Martha's Vineyard was even higher on the Gray Lady. People who couldn't afford to live on Nantucket built their mansions on Martha's Vineyard instead, and Nantucket workmen lived on Cape Cod and flew daily to and from their island work sites because it was cheaper to do that than to try to live on the island.

Thus I was not surprised by the fact that Jasper Jernigan, who summered on Nantucket, had his own private jet, or to verify, when we landed, that the terminal at the island's airport was as snazzy as advertised.

Jasper met me at the door as I walked out into the sunlight. He was accompanied, of course, by Gabe Fuller. Gabe didn't have his golf bag but was instead wearing a loose, bright-colored summer shirt that pretty well hid the bulge on his right hip. I shook both of their hands.

“I hope this is important,” said Jasper. “I'd rather be playing golf than be here.”

“Glen Norton can't bring himself to risk getting into a sand trap,” I said. “He's still seeing that hand in the sand.”

“Glen is a nice guy, but he's got to get a hold on himself.”

We reached Jasper's car. It was a Hummer. Hummers were very fashionable that year. Gabe took the
wheel and I climbed into the backseat. It was my first time in a Hummer, and I felt just a little bit like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Jasper, who was sitting in the suicide seat, turned to me as Gabe drove out of the airport. “Now, what's on your mind, J.W.?”

There was no point in being coy. “Two things. If you don't want to help me out, just turn around and take me back to the airport and I'll catch the next plane home. First, who's Gabe, here, and why does he carry a rifle in his golf bag? I don't think he's a regular member of the office staff.”

Gabe, hearing these words, didn't swerve or speed up or slow down, but drove steadily and silently on.

Jasper looked me in the eye for a moment, then said, “When I was younger, my best friend was Carl Collins. He was married and had two little kids and a lot of money. Some people decided to kidnap him and collect a ransom. Things went wrong and Carl was killed. Do you know the story?”

“No, but I know you married a woman named Helen Collins who had two children.”

“Carl's widow. I didn't want to put Helen through that again, so I hired Gabe. He's ex-FBI. I gave him a cover job at the office.” He offered a slight smile. “His qualifications include being able to shoot straight and being willing to play a lot of golf.”

If Gabe was ex-FBI, it wouldn't be too hard to get a line on what sort of agent he'd been, but I didn't want to wait, so I said, “The three of us here are of interest to the police in regard to the Highsmith shootings, because you and I tangled with Highsmith before his death and because Gabe might be the triggerman in case you didn't do the job yourself. I didn't hit him or his wife, but some people probably think I did, and I want to prove them wrong. Highsmith was shot the
night before we found him. Where were you two when that happened?”

“You're pretty gutsy to ask a question like that of two guys who may be murderers,” said Gabe. “You're a long way from home and you could have an accident before you get back.” I lifted my eyes and saw his face grinning in the rearview mirror.

“Just call me Arnold,” I said. “Where were you?”

“We were at the house here on the island,” said Jasper. “We flew over to the Vineyard the next morning to play the round with you and Glen. My wife and the kids will tell you the same thing. I already told this to the cops.”

“Yeah, but they didn't know about Gabe's rifle then. They do now and they'll want to talk with you again.”

“And I'll tell them what I just told you. They can check everything: when we flew over that morning; whether my plane was on the ground the day before, and it was; whether I was playing golf here that previous afternoon, and I was; and whether my wife and children and I all had supper together that evening, and we did.”

“That takes care of you. Where was Gabe?”

Again I saw Gabe's grin in the mirror. “Sounds like
This Gun for Hire,”
he said. “You think maybe I'm Alan Ladd?”

Old movies seemed all the rage. First
Tarzan and the Leopard Woman
and now
This Gun for Hire
. What next, O Lord? “You're about a foot taller than Alan,” I said, “but I'd still like to know where you were.”

“Gabe has an apartment in the east wing of the house,” said Jasper. “He had supper with us.”

“Beef Stroganoff,” said Gabe. “Apple pie and ice cream for dessert.”

“Patsy, the cook, is Gabe's wife,” said Jasper, “and she
has a record of every meal she's cooked since she came to us with Gabe.” He pointed ahead at a driveway. “You can ask her yourself in a minute.”

We turned in and followed the winding drive to a huge house that overlooked Nantucket Sound. There was a practice green off to one side of the house and what looked like a tee and fairway just beyond it.

“Nine-hole, par-three course,” said Jasper, following my gaze. “Mine. I wanted to make it bigger but my neighbor wouldn't sell me the land I needed. One of those Saudi sheiks with so much money he makes me look like a pauper. I couldn't budge him. You want to talk to Patsy and Helen? They'll verify that Gabe and I were right here when Highsmith got himself shot. And when his wife got shot, for that matter, in case you think we might have done that too.”

I had come too far to say no, so I said yes, and he and Gabe took me to them and they did indeed verify that their husbands had been there on the fatal night.

It was possible, of course, that they'd gotten together on the story ahead of time just in case somebody like me showed up asking questions, but if so there'd be a record of Jasper's jet's arrivals and departures that would give the lie to the alibi, and I doubted if Jasper or Gabe was dumb enough to use a story that could be so easily disproved.

“You have any more questions about Gabe or me?” asked Jasper, good-humoredly. He didn't seem a bit put out by my inquiries, and my estimation of him went up accordingly.

“No,” I said, “but I'd like to ask Biff a few things.”

“Sure,” he said. “He was going to shoot a round while I went to get you at the airport. He can't be far. Come on. You don't have to tag along, Gabe. We're not leaving the grounds.”

“I can use the exercise,” said Gabe, and the three of us started for the little golf course. Gabe walked beside me and said, “Another thing. I don't shoot a twenty-two. I know that it's popular and that probably more people get killed with that caliber than any other, but I like something a little bigger, something with more stopping power. You know what I mean?”

“Maybe you borrowed a twenty-two.”

“I'd have borrowed, maybe, a forty-five.”

“The twenty-two was enough to do the job. You have any ideas about who might have done it?”

He shook his head and sent his eyes ahead of us, sweeping them to the left and right. “No,” he said, “I only know who didn't do it.”

We topped a hill and I saw a lone figure ahead of us on a green, preparing for a putt.

“Kid's a real jock,” said Jasper approvingly. “On the school swim team, the golf team, and the football team. He'd be on more teams, but the schedules overlap. He has school buddies out here sometimes to play this course and water-ski. Good student too, just like his sister.”

I thought but didn't say that Biff liked a party too. Ahead of us, the boy two-putted, then saw us and waited until we reached him. I was introduced and he gave me a strong teenage hand. He was slope-shouldered and muscular and very polite with me, but comfortable at the same time, as young people sometimes are when they're used to being around adults.

“How's the round?” asked his stepfather.

“Three over,” said the boy. “I missed some greens.”

“J.W. says he wants to ask you some questions.”

Biff looked at me with big blue eyes. “What about, Mr. Jackson?” Both his eyes and his voice were careful.

“Can we step away from you two,” I asked Jasper and Greg, “or do you want to hear what we say?”

“I don't think Biff has any secrets from me,” said Jasper, in a cooler voice than he'd been using.

“Everybody has secrets,” I said. “I can do this either way, with you listening or not listening.”

Jasper tried to be fair. “What do you prefer, Biff? You decide.”

But Biff hedged. “I don't know. I can't think of any secrets. What do you want to ask, Mr. Jackson? What do you want from me?”

“I want to ask you about Gregory and Belinda Highsmith and about what happened at the beach party that night.”

“Wait a minute, now,” said Jasper firmly. “The police have already talked with Biff about that night, and I don't want you bringing it up again or him thinking about it any more than he has to. I want him to put it behind him and move on.”

“That's sensible,” I said, “but the fact is that Biff may find himself a prime suspect in a murder case if he can't explain a few things.”

Jasper's voice was as flat as Gabe Fuller's stare. “Murder case? What murder case? What are you talking about?”