Dead in Vineyard Sand (8 page)

“She gave me the name of her optometrist and I
called him. He says all she needs to read are those drugstore specs and that her distance vision is fine.”

“Was she sober?”

“As a judge.” Then he seemed to remember some of the judges with whom he'd had dealings, and added, “I'm speaking figuratively, of course.”

“Was she high on something?”

“No.”

“Had she forgotten her medication?”

“No.”

“In that case, she's either lying or imagining things or there's another truck that looks like mine here on the island. I imagine there are several.”

He stared at me. “You ever hear of Occam's razor?”

I couldn't resist gesturing toward Olive. “Everybody but Olive, here, has heard of Occam's razor. You're pushing the notion that the simplest explanation that's consistent with the facts is probably the truth.”

He nodded. “It usually works out that way.”

I smiled at Olive and saw that she was seething, then looked back at Dom. “In this case one fact doesn't fit: I was home with the cats and my truck was with me.” I had a thought. “Say, Joanne Homlish isn't one of those plover people, is she? The ones who think I'm Satan himself when I complain about the Norton Point Beach being closed every summer so the plover chicks can fledge?”

“Easy, Olive,” said Dom. “No, J.W., she's not one of those people. In fact, when your name came up, she said she'd never heard of you.”

So much for revenge as a motive for lying about me and my truck. Of course, Joanne might have had her own reasons for doing it, but I remembered Zee saying that she believed the woman who'd seen the accident.

Olive could restrain herself no longer. “Why don't
you save us a lot of time and effort and come clean, Jackson? We know it was you!”

I didn't look at her. “You don't even know how to spell your name, Olive. Now be quiet before Dom has to send you to your room.”

“You . . . !”

“Stop it!” said Dom. “Both of you!”

“Sure,” I said, and smiled again at Olive, who was pushing her lips together so hard they looked like they hurt, while her eyes blazed at me.

“Just so you'll know where you stand,” said Dom, “I showed her a picture of you, but she didn't recognize you.”

“Because I wasn't there.”

“Because all she saw was the back of the driver's head. The reason I'm not pushing this harder is because Abigail Highsmith insisted that nobody drove her off the road, that she just had an accident.”

We stared at each other. Then I said, “But you don't believe her.”

He shrugged.

I said, “You don't believe her, but you do believe Joanne Homlish.”

“And we don't believe you, either,” snapped Olive, unable to hold her tongue another moment.

“Which brings me to my earlier question,” said Dom, waving a silencing forefinger at Olive. “What have you got against Abigail Highsmith? I know that you and her husband had a scuffle, but what's that got to do with Abigail?”

“Yeah,” said Olive, ignoring the forefinger. “Were you so sore about her husband that you decided to take it out on her? That sounds like something you might do!”

“Dom,” I said. “You should keep your attack dog
here caged at least until you feed her. Loose and hungry like this, she's liable to bite herself to death.”

“I said to stop it!” said Dom, this time in his I-don't-want-to-say-this-again voice.

“Sure,” I said. “No problem. Back to your question, I don't have anything against Abigail. Like I said, I've never even met her. For that matter, I only saw her husband that one time in the fish market, and I wouldn't have known who he was if somebody hadn't identified him.”

“You saw him again in the sand trap.”

True. “You're right. I was there when you dug him up. That's twice, I guess.”

“Tell me again about the scuffle in the fish market,” said Dom.

Police often have people tell them about events several times, in case details change. And they often do, because the people remember things they'd forgotten or forget things they'd remembered before. Or, if they're lying, they lie differently, adding or subtracting or changing what they'd said before. Out of all this, the police hope to find out what really happened.

I told him what happened. When I was done, he said, “That's not how Annie Duarte saw it. She says you started it and would probably have killed Highsmith if you hadn't had witnesses.”

I was already annoyed with Annie Duarte. I said, “Annie Duarte and Joanne Homlish aren't sisters, are they? Neither one of them seems to know what she's looking at.”

Dom smiled coldly. “They may make good witnesses in court.”

Court had not been mentioned before. “There were several people in the fish market,” I said. “Annie Duarte isn't the only one who saw what happened. Check out
some of the other witnesses before you decide what really went on.”

“You don't need to tell us how to do our job!” snapped Olive.

“This is the third time I've told you two to cut that crap,” said Dom in a mild voice that deceived no one. “I'm not going to say it again.” He looked at Olive and she seemed to shrink inside her uniform. Then he looked back at me.

“Officer Otero is correct,” he said. “I don't know yet what's going on here, but we have a probable murder and a possible assault that may be linked, and you've been tied to both victims. If I were you, I'd give thought to getting myself a lawyer. Meanwhile, stay out of our way and let us handle this.”

“Sure,” I said, hearing anger in my voice. “You already think I may be involved in both of these felonies, but you want me to trust you to do your jobs. I'd trust you a lot more if you hadn't already made up your minds!”

Dom's voice was intended to be soothing. “Nobody's mind has been made up, J.W.”

I stared at him and he stared back. I tried to push my anger and fear away, but only partially succeeded.

“Are we through here?” I asked.

Dom nodded. “For the time being, but don't take any long trips. I may want to talk with you again.”

“I live in paradise,” I said. “Why would I want to leave?” I got up and went to the door and stopped. “I had nothing to do with Highsmith's death or his wife's accident,” I said.

“So you say.”

I went out, feeling Dom's cold eyes and Olive's hot ones on my back.

As I drove home, I fought against both my fear and
my anger. I felt trapped. I didn't like it, and worked to control my emotions before I got back to the house.

There, Zee was preparing supper. She stopped and came to meet me. “What happened, Jeff?”

I put my arms around her. “Nothing, really. Dom just wanted to go over some old stuff again. You know how cops are. They like to be sure of things.”

“I phoned Norman Aylward. We have an appointment with him tomorrow afternoon.”

“Fine,” I said. “I'm sure we won't need his help, but it won't hurt to let him know what's going on.”

“Good. I'll feel a lot better if Norman's working for us.” Zee kissed me and went back to the stove.

I went into the bedroom and dug a phone book out of the drawer in the bedside table. There, right where it should be, was a telephone number and a West Tisbury address for Marty and Joanne Homlish. I then looked for Annie Duarte, but although there were a lot of Duartes on Martha's Vineyard, there was no Annie listed. No matter; I could find her when I needed to. While I was at it, I looked for a Henry Highsmith, and found only one. He had lived off Middle Road in Chilmark. Two hits in three tries. If the noose I felt around my neck didn't start loosening soon, I'd know where to begin unknotting it.

“Pa.”

“What, Joshua?”

Zee had already left for work, but the kids and I were still eating blueberry pancakes and maple syrup for breakfast.

“Have you decided about the rope bridge?”

The rope bridge. My mind might be filled with Highsmith thoughts, but my children were thinking about Tarzan's tree house. Which subject was most important? Actually, I'd spent some time planning a possible rope bridge. My musings about Highsmith's body had shunted those plans aside, but now Joshua and Diana had brought them back. What we adults consider real life often commands our attention, but sometimes children's fancy must reign.

In fact, my children's lives were as real to them as mine was to me, and their happiness was at least as important as mine. It was clear that my Highsmith worries and plans were intruding upon my parental pleasures and duties, so I pushed them away. They didn't go far or go easily, but they did withdraw a bit.

“Your mother and I have talked about it,” I said. “After breakfast we can take a look outside and I'll tell you what I have in mind.”

Diana licked syrup from her lips. “Good, Pa. If we have a rope bridge we can have fun all summer!”

“You have fun all summer anyway.”

“Yes, but this will be even funner!” She grinned her miniature Zee grin and stuffed another forkful of pancake into her sticky mouth.

So, after I'd washed and stacked the breakfast dishes, we went out into the warm summer morning.

The tree house we'd built up in our big beech was very popular with Joshua and Diana and most of their friends, and so far nobody had broken any bones falling out of it. There was a ladder leading up to it through a trapdoor in the floor of its porch, so if you were attacked you could shut the door and keep the bad guys out, and there was a rope you could use to swing down to the ground. The porch was in front of the main room and there were two smaller rooms on adjoining branches so the kids could have places of their own. It's important to have a room of one's own, as well as a common room for group activity.

Zee and I had occasionally accepted an invitation to spend a family night in the tree house, but even the main room was a bit too small for us to stretch out, and though we'd used air mattresses along with our sleeping bags, we didn't sleep well.

“First,” I said now, “we're not going to have a bridge that leads to the balcony. The balcony is for big people, and if we have that kind of bridge, you guys will use it even if you don't think you should because what good's a bridge unless you can use it?”

“We thought of another place it could go, Pa.”

“Where, Joshua?”

“There,” said Diana, pointing. “Over to that tree.”

“Yes,” said her brother, nodding. “Over to that tree right there.”

What smart children. That was exactly my own plan. Like father, like child!

“Good,” I said, admiring their choice of oak tree. “I
think that would be perfect. We can build a platform in that tree so you'll have a place to stand when you cross the bridge, and then we can make a trapdoor in the platform and a ladder leading down to another little rope bridge that leads down to the ground.”

“Excellent!” said Joshua.

“It will be like a back door,” said his sister. “Just like we have in our real house.”

“And we can lock the trapdoor if somebody tries to get in.”

“Yes, you two will have to check and make sure the trapdoor is locked if you don't want unexpected guests.”

“Like leopard men, Pa?”

“I think the leopard men were just make-believe people in the movie, Diana, but you can pretend there are real ones.”

We went out to the stockade-fence corral behind the house, where I keep materials that are too big to store inside. These include five-gallon plastic buckets, potentially useful scraps of lumber and plywood, ropes, rusty outdoor tools, and other stuff still too good to take to the dump.

Such collections are sure signs that their owners, like me, grew up without too much money, for poor people can never be sure when they might need something. In every poverty-stricken section of America from Maine to California, including some places on Martha's Vineyard, you can find yards full of such materials—broken box springs, rotting piles of unidentifiable rubbish, rusted cars up on blocks with their hoods open from the last time something was pirated from their engines, snowmobiles, old automobile axles and wheels, toys, and rotting pieces of wood.

I tried to make sure I didn't keep any really useless
stuff, and I hid my materials behind the fence, but as had my father before me, I had a collection that no person of means would even consider keeping

Now my children and I entered the corral and found just what we needed to start the bridge: a fifty-foot length of green three-inch hawser that I'd salvaged off the beach following a three-day gale years before. It was flotsam or jetsam off some oceangoing vessel, and I had lugged it home because you never know when you might need fifty feet of three-inch hawser. And now the time had come. It was perfect.

“I figure that oak tree is about twenty-five feet from the tree house,” I said, looking up into the trees. “After we build the platform, we can string this big hawser between there and the tree house, and we'll have enough left over to make the other little bridge down to the ground. It's so strong that we'll never have to worry about it breaking.”

“But we'll fall off, Pa,” said practical Diana.

“No, you won't,” I said, and pulled the lid off a fifty-gallon plastic garbage barrel. “Look here.” Inside, dry and as good as when I'd put them in there, were coils of rope that I'd picked up here and there in my travels. When you're a sailor and you live on an island, you can never have too much rope. “After we get the hawser strung up, we'll string some of these lighter ropes on both sides of it for handholds, and then we'll tie short pieces of rope between them and the big rope to make sort of a net, and then, look here—” I opened another garbage barrel and revealed the mass of old fishing nets I'd salvaged and carefully stored away just in case—“we'll string this netting over the hawser and tie it to the handholds so you can't fall through. And then I'll get some boards and fasten them to the hawser and make a walkway inside the netting.”