Indian Pipes (23 page)

Peter toyed with his paperweight, a heavy glass dome containing a chunk of clay from the cliffs.

“Mr. Philipopoulos is a fool. However, he does not work for fools. Has the money and its power corrupted you so much? Was it your cohorts, Peter, who kidnapped Mrs. Trumbull last night?”

Peter dropped the paperweight on his desk with a thump. “What about Mrs. Trumbull?”

“You needn’t pretend to be astonished. Everyone on this Island, with the possible exception of Mrs. Trumbull, has a scanner. You included. Where were you last night, Peter?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“You’re right, where you go at night does not concern me. However, the police are likely to be interested. I suggest you think up a credible alibi.”

Victoria refused to go to bed, but Elizabeth ran a warm bath for her. When Victoria emerged, pink and herbal-scented, wearing her gray corduroy trousers and a moss-colored turtleneck, Dojan helped her lift her feet up onto the couch. Within seconds she was snoring softly.

Elizabeth covered her grandmother with a blanket, and tiptoed into the kitchen, where Casey was stacking papers and Howland was rinsing dishes.

“Who would have kidnapped her?” Elizabeth was wiping the dishes. “Why my grandmother? They said they wanted Burkhardt’s computer. How many people are after it?”

“A lot.” Howland wiped his hands on a dish towel and put clean cups in the cupboard above the sink.

Dojan was sitting in the captain’s chair by the door, his eyes half- shut.

Casey, rumpled and tired-looking, her hair disheveled, stepped up from the cookroom. “I’m beat, you guys. I’m going home to bed. I’ll talk to you later.” Chuck shrugged into his linen jacket, and gathered up his notes. “Anything I can do before I leave?”

Elizabeth smiled at him. “Thank you for a nice evening.”

Dojan sat up abruptly and hooted. “First date?”

In the dining room, Victoria slept soundly, and Elizabeth, How- land, and Dojan tiptoed into the cookroom.

Howland scratched his unshaven chin. “An earthquake wouldn’t disturb her.”

“The kidnapping has to be tied to Burkhardt,” Elizabeth said. “Were they the killers? Were they bikers? Wampanoags? Casino financiers? Maybe Linda’s buddies?”

“Where is Linda, by the way?” Howland asked.

“I haven’t seen her since yesterday. I have no idea where she is.” Elizabeth looked around. “She didn’t come home last night. Did she?”

Dojan had moved from the captain’s chair in the kitchen to the bentwood armchair in the cookroom. He sat stolidly at the head of the table, his arms crossed over his chest, his bare feet flat on the floor, his eyes closed.

Howland took a pen and a lined pad of paper from the table below the wall phone. “I’ll make a list of facts and assumptions.” He drew two vertical lines on the paper and wrote in the first column.

“I’m too tired to think,” said Elizabeth.

“Right.” Howland tossed the pen aside and yawned.

Elizabeth pushed her chair away from the table. “Is anyone else hungry? I feel as if we’ve been eating all night, but I’m starved.”

Dojan opened his eyes and stood. “I will fix food. You talk.” He went into the kitchen, and Elizabeth heard the refrigerator door open. Soon she smelled bacon frying.

She sat back again, put her elbows on the table, and rested her chin in her hands. “You know the weeder my grandmother and Do- jan found?”

Howland nodded.

“My grandmother has one just like it. I tried breaking up quahog shells with it yesterday. Quahog shells are really, really heavy.”

Howland nodded again.

“I smashed the shells as though they were eggs.” Elizabeth shuddered. “It wouldn’t take a strong person to crush a skull.”

Howland leaned back in his chair and yawned again.

“Don’t let Victoria see you lean back like that.”

Howland set the chair down on all four legs.

In the kitchen, Dojan clattered dishes and utensils, and soon after, came in with a dish of Indian pudding—a kind of cornmeal spoon bread—a platter of bacon and sausage, and fried green tomatoes.

“I put some in the oven for my friend,” Dojan said. Elizabeth reached into her back pocket, took out pieces of broken clamshell, and set them on the table. “I was wondering what felt so uncomfortable.”

C
HAPTER
26

Howland was still yawning over the notes he was writing when Victoria awoke a little before noon. Elizabeth had set her grandfather’s slippers next to the couch, and Victoria eased her sore feet into the soft lamb’s wool.

“I must have fallen asleep,” she said to Elizabeth, who had been sitting in the cookroom with Howland. “I didn’t mean to. Where’s Dojan?”

“Here, my friend.” Dojan rose from the captain’s chair, where he had been dozing.

“Something smells good.” Victoria’s eyes brightened when she saw what was on the plate Dojan set out for her. “I haven’t had Indian pudding for years.”

“Would you recognize any of the people who kidnapped you if you should see them again?” Howland asked after she had finished her late breakfast.

Victoria set her fork on the side of her plate. “I heard the driver call his boss ‘Mack.’ He had a voice I’d recognize.”

“The kidnappers worked together,” Howland said. “Were they tribal members?”

“I had no way of knowing. Mack was disguising his voice. He was tall and didn’t seem heavy, although it was hard to tell because of his loose clothing. The driver had muscular, hairy arms and was much shorter.” She thought some more. “One of the others was a woman. The fourth may also have been a woman or a smallish man.”

“Anything else you can recall?” Howland asked.

“When Mack leaned over me, he smelled of patchouli.”

“Patchouli?”

“It’s a perfume made from some East Indian plant,” Elizabeth explained. “It’s popular with touchy-feely types.”

“Could it have been his shaving lotion?”

Victoria shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Patchouli is a woman’s perfume,” said Elizabeth.

Victoria glanced around. “Where’s Linda? Did she come home last night?”

“Not while we were here,” said Howland, pushing his chair away from the table.

“I hope she’s all right.” Victoria frowned. “I was bothered by her reaction to her uncle’s death and the fire. Almost no reaction. Yet she was shocked, out of proportion, when she heard that we’d found a body in the house.”

“That
is
pretty shocking,” said Elizabeth.

“No more so than her uncle’s murder,” said Howland.

“She made quite a point of asking about the computer,” said Victoria. “She insists that it’s hers.”

“Burkhardt’s heir hasn’t been established yet,” said Howland. “The courts will have to establish whose it is. Unless, of course, someone finds a will.”

“Linda wants to see who gets the eighteen million. There’s bound to be a copy of his will on it. If her uncle didn’t leave his property to her…”

“She might do something about it?” Howland finished.

“Linda didn’t kill her uncle,” said Victoria.

Elizabeth snorted. “I wouldn’t put it past her. Money. Everything comes down to money.”

Victoria shifted her feet slightly and winced.

Elizabeth got up quickly. “Another footbath, Gram?”

“I’m fine, thank you,” said Victoria.

Elizabeth sat down again.

“What about Hiram’s friend?” Howland asked.

“Tad was more than just a friend,” said Victoria.

“I assumed so,” said Howland.

Victoria cleared her throat. “At some time in the past, before Tad came into the picture, Hiram and Jube Burkhardt were lovers.”

“Ah!” said Howland.

“You knew Burkhardt threatened to expose Tad if Hiram didn’t sign the phony noncompliance papers?”

“And Hiram went along with the scam,” said Howland. “Yes, I’d heard.”

“Where’s Tad now?” Elizabeth asked.

“On his way home to Nebraska,” Victoria replied. “He called Hiram on his cell phone from the ferry.”

“He could have been anywhere,” said Howland. “Tad had an excellent motive for killing Burkhardt. And opportunity, assuming he wasn’t calling from the ferry.”

“He was driving his car back to Nebraska,” said Victoria. “The Steamship Authority will have records.”

“Good point.” Howland jotted something in his notes.

“We told you about the ‘Fatal Error’ message on Burkhardt’s computer, didn’t we?”

“You did,” said Howland.

There was a loud snort from the end of the table, and all three looked at Dojan, who’d been so quiet they’d forgotten he was there. He had fallen asleep, his arms folded across his chest, his head bowed. The feather in his hair bobbed with his breathing.

“We should move into the other room,” Elizabeth whispered.

Howland yawned. “We’re not likely to disturb him.”

“Dojan had a rough night,” said Victoria.

Howland smiled. “So did almost everyone on the Island.”

Victoria continued in a low voice. “The morning after Jube’s murder the killer must have gone to Jube’s house to see what was on his computer.”

“Burkhardt’s computer was an antique,” said Howland. “If the killer tried to erase certain files, but didn’t know how, he would get that ‘Fatal Error’ message.”

“Hardly an antique,” said Victoria. “I don’t believe Jube had owned his computer for more than ten years.”

“Ten years!” muttered Howland. “Even a computer nerd might not understand codes that ancient.”

“Ancient!” said Victoria.

“I bet Hiram went to Jube’s for the same reason,” said Elizabeth. “To delete whatever he could from the computer.”

Victoria started to say something, then stopped.

“What were you about to say, Victoria?” Howland asked.

“The killer must have been in the house when Hiram got there.”

“Go on,” said Howland.

“Hiram saw the computer running and suspected something was wrong. Jube wouldn’t have left it on. That was when Hiram called me. The killer undoubtedly heard Hiram leave that message on my answering machine.”

Howland nodded. “Hiram may have seen the killer.”

“I guess it was hopeless to think we could recover anything from the computer,” said Elizabeth. “I wish we could have known what was on it.”

“Be right back.” Howland went out to his car and returned with a disk in a plastic case. “Here you are.”

“You got it?” Elizabeth shouted.

Dojan woke up with a start and shook his head.

“Most of it,” said Howland. “Once I pried the case off, the insides were intact. I removed the hard drive and installed it in my own computer.”

Elizabeth picked up the disk gently.

“I made four copies,” said Howland. “One’s at my house, one’s in my safe deposit box at the bank, I gave one to Chief O’Neill, and this is the fourth.”

“Have you seen what’s on it?” Elizabeth asked.

Howland nodded. “Everything. Just like his house. He kept everything. Financial records, every e-mail sent to him, a database I haven’t deciphered yet, and file after file of who knows what. It’s going to take weeks to go through Burkhardt’s files.”

“Fools!” rasped Bugs. “You fools! You stupid shits! What in hell possessed you to do that? What in hell did you think you were doing?” He pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose.

The four bikers stood silently before him, scowling, three men and a woman.

Bugs loomed over them, his large hands clenched in hammy fists, muttering something with his lips that never came out as words. He stalked away from the shade into the sunlit field and kicked at a clod of earth.

The four, all dressed in black leather trousers, jackets, and boots,
glared at his back. The shortest man spat off to one side. Bugs walked into the field, sending a shower of dirt over goldenrod and Queen Anne’s lace. He circled back to them. The woman was cradling a black and white helmet. She lifted a tangle of hair off her neck with one hand.

“Sit!” Bugs ordered.

“Who you talking to?” said the redhead.

The girl snickered.

“Sit,” Bugs said again, much too quietly, and pointed to the bench attached to the picnic table.

They hesitated. Bugs moved a half step forward, and all three sat, backs to the picnic table. Bugs stood over them, working his mouth.

Finally he spoke. “I assume this was your idea, Mack?”

The three bikers looked at Mack.

“Yeah.”

“Why? Tell me why?”

“She surprised us. We didn’t expect her to come downstairs.”

“What in hell were you doing in her house?” Bugs’s heavy glasses slipped down his nose, and he pushed them back.

“We needed to get that computer.”

“And why, may I ask?” Bugs’s voice was tight with sarcasm. “I suppose you think it’s got nasty comments on bikers? Burkhardt had a right to his opinions. First Amendment, after all.” He stabbed a finger at Mack. “Free speech, in case you don’t remember.”

The girl, at the end of the bench, moved her helmet into her lap, and looked down at it. The chunky redhead shifted something in his mouth and continued to chew. The smallest man gazed beyond Bugs into the field, where yellow butterflies flitted over a patch of budding asters. Mack looked down at his hands.

“You look at me, not your hands,” Bugs ordered. “All of you. And you answer me.”

They slowly raised their eyes to his.

Mack cleared his throat. “It wasn’t about his biker complaints. It was something else.”

“Well?”

The girl straightened the strap on her helmet. The redhead chewed. Mack opened his mouth as if to say something and shut it again.

Bugs moved a step forward, closing in on them. All four leaned back against the table. A breeze passed through the trees above them, a soft sigh of rustling pine needles. “It was personal,” Mack said finally. “Nobody else’s business.”

“It’s not personal when you break and enter with intent to burgle. That’s against the law, in case you didn’t know. Did you think of that? Did you?”

They looked down at the ground.

“You think it’s a game when you kidnap an old lady, a ninety- two-year-old lady, for Christsake, in her nightgown and bare feet and rough her up?”

“We didn’t treat her rough,” the redhead said.