Indian Pipes (8 page)

They continued to look at the rocks, but found nothing more than hairlike seaweed and bloodlike iron stains.

The chief sat back when they had finished. “If I were planning a killing, I would not take a chance on finding a deadly beach cobble. Unless, of course, this was a spur-of-the-moment killing.”

“It wasn’t.” Victoria put the stones back in her cloth bag. “Jube planned to meet someone on the beach.”

“In that case, if it were me,” the chief spread his chunky hand on his chest, “I would probably carry something with me, a tire iron comes to mind, or a handheld sledgehammer, something small with considerable weight.”

“Wouldn’t it be obvious to Jube that the person was carrying something suspicious?” Victoria asked.

“Not necessarily. The loose clothing we affect today conceals everything. Excess weight, for example.” He patted his own gut, cloaked in a brilliantly flowered Hawaiian shirt. “Dojan, can you take a small boat off the beach?”

“On a calm day.”

“The wind has shifted,” Victoria said, looking out the window at the tall cedars that were no longer swaying.

“Will you be able to see bottom?” asked the chief.

Dojan shrugged. “It is shallow as far as a man could throw a hammer, not even a fathom. The water is clear.”

“Who has a dinghy we can use?” Victoria turned from Dojan to the chief.

Dojan stood. “Obed has an inflatable.”

The chief lifted the phone and dialed. When he finished speaking, he set the phone down again and turned to Dojan. “Cell phones are a modern miracle. Obed is out on his boat now. He will bring his dinghy ashore and meet you near his grandmother’s house.”

Dojan grunted.

“And you, Victoria Trumbull, are you willing to stay onshore to keep Dojan in a straight line?”

Victoria nodded.

Twenty minutes later Dojan parked his van at the edge of Trudy
VanDyke’s property, and they waited for Obed, who rowed ashore in his dinghy from his anchored fishing boat.

“I got nothing better to do,” Obed said. “The fish aren’t biting. Almost a slick calm out there now.”

The waves now lapped on the shore, gentle swishes that hissed softly. A sandpiper scurried along the edge of the swash, dipping its long beak into the sand.

After Dojan showed Victoria where to stand, Obed shoved the rubber inflatable off the beach and took the oars. Victoria leaned on her stick and watched for signals. Dojan peered down into the water. Obed rowed out, fifty feet, Victoria guessed. Then they turned toward her. Each time they came in close to the beach, Dojan signaled Victoria, who moved three paces down the line. Her back ached from standing and shuffling along. When she reached a large rock, she was glad to sit. The water was so calm she could hear every word Do- jan said to Obed. “Go left.” “Stop.” “Keep going.”

The afternoon wore on. Three times Dojan dived to retrieve some object he’d seen. He was still wearing his mesh shirt and black jeans. Each time, the object turned out to be a false lead. The sun settled to Victoria’s left. She realized she hadn’t had lunch, and reached into her cloth bag for the candy bar she’d bought at Alley’s when she’d cashed a ten-dollar check this morning.

“Stop,” Dojan ordered for the fourth time.

Victoria looked up.

“My friend,” he called out to her. “We have found something this time.”

Victoria crumpled up the candy wrapper and put it in her bag, then drew out her notebook and pen.

Dojan again catapulted himself out of the dinghy with a splash. He stood, chest-high in the water, and wiped his hand across his face. Then he bent over in a surface dive, head and shoulders underwater, feet in the air, and resurfaced seconds later brandishing a tool. The tool had a foot-long handle that ended in a thick curved iron rod with a flat spadelike head.

Victoria shaded her eyes against the glare coming off the water. “That’s a weeding hook,” she called out. “Looks like a new one. I have a weeder just like that.”
“Want to keep looking?” Obed said to Dojan.

Dojan shook his head, spraying water from his wet hair like a black dog. He hefted the heavy tool from one hand to the other as he waded toward shore, his clothes dripping water.

“Don’t get your fingerprints on it!” Victoria called.

Dojan grunted, and held the tool by the leather thong that threaded through the handle.

“You could do some serious damage with that thing,” Obed said to Victoria.

“It’s certainly death on weeds,” said Victoria.

C
HAPTER
9

Chief Hawkbill had already closed his office door and was heading for the parking lot when Victoria and Dojan arrived.

Victoria held up the weeding hook by its rawhide thong.

“What have we here, Victoria Trumbull?” The chief reopened his door, turned on the lights, offered Victoria a chair, and took his own seat behind his desk. Dojan stood, water still trickling from his clothes and hair, and dripping onto the rug.

“I don’t suppose there’ll be any fingerprints?” Victoria handed him the lethal-looking weapon. The chief took a clean handkerchief out of his pocket and held the tool gingerly.

“The forensic scientists can do miracles with microscopic evidence,” he said. “Yes, this should go to the police.” He peered over his glasses at Dojan, then at Victoria, whose face was pinkly sunburned. “I will recommend to the Aquinnah police that they keep this as possible evidence.”

“It’s more than possible evidence,” Victoria said. “There’s no reason for a nice shiny garden tool to end up in Vineyard Sound. I’m sure they can match Jube Burkhardt’s injuries with the curve of the hook.”

Chief Hawkbill nodded. “Although the police have closed the case, their minds are sometimes open.”

The following afternoon, Victoria was writing at the cookroom table, glancing out the window occasionally. Chief Hawkbill had called earlier to say he had given the weeding hook to the Aquinnah police, and would call when he had information.

In the meantime, Victoria wondered, where was Hiram? And where was his friend Tad? Had Tad killed Jube and then run off with Hiram? She was sure the stain on Jube’s floor was blood, but whose?
A person’s? Hiram’s? It was too fresh for Jube’s. And where was Jube Burkhardt’s car?

The hazy afternoon light touched the goldenrod and Queen Anne’s lace, the tall grass, the lacy yellow fern of the asparagus bed. Everything shimmered with a dusting of soft gold. She could see the old Agricultural Society Hall next to the church, and the new library this side of it.

Jube Burkhardt had met his killer on the beach below the cliffs. Of that, she was sure. If she had planned to kill someone, she thought, she’d have suggested they first meet someplace convenient to both of them, then go together in one car. In that way, she wouldn’t need to worry about two cars being at the scene of the crime. But where would she leave a car if she were the killer? Somewhere between Jube’s house and Gay Head. Victoria had trouble calling Aquinnah any name other than the one she’d known all her life, Gay Head, named for the brightly colored clay of the headland.

She continued to stare out at the golden rooftops. The trees had grown, of course. Maley’s Gallery was new, only forty years old or thereabouts, but his house was old. Next to Maley’s were three or four other houses, hidden, now, by trees.

Where would Jube have met his killer? A place where both would get into one car to drive up to Gay Head. The Ag Hall parking area would be too public, if the killer expected Burkhardt’s car to be left behind. The hiding place would have to be where a car could remain for a week or two weeks or even a month without anyone paying much attention to it. Someplace the police were not likely to check regularly. A place that wouldn’t make Jube Burkhardt suspicious if the killer were to suggest meeting there.

From where she sat, Victoria could see the roof of the garage across from the Ag Hall. Eighty years ago, the garage had been a blacksmith shop. She used to go there with her grandfather to have their horse Dolly shod.

The garage.

She got to her feet, holding the arms of her chair.

“Elizabeth,” she called to her granddaughter, who was putting books away in the living room.

“Yes, Gram?”

“I know where Jube Burkhardt’s car is.”

Elizabeth set the books she was holding onto the coffee table. “Where?”

“At the old blacksmith shop. Tiasquam Repairs. There’s that area in back where people leave cars to be worked on, or summer people store them until they return from vacation.”

“But why would Burkhardt leave his car there?”

“I imagine the killer told Jube he needed to leave his own car for some work, an oil change, something simple like that. He’d have said, ‘No point in taking two cars all the way to Aquinnah, besides my car needs some work.’ After he killed Jube, he drove Jube’s car to the lot and picked up his own.”

“His or her,” Elizabeth said. “Okay, Gram, let’s go. Do you know what kind of car Burkhardt drove?”

Victoria had already started out the door. “He drove a red Volvo 1985.” She gathered up her walking stick from the entry, marched down the steps ahead of Elizabeth, and got into the car.

They drove past the police station and the millpond, and slowed on Brandy Brow. Joe and the usual gang were sitting on the porch of Alley’s store. Taffy barked from the driver’s seat of Joe’s truck as they passed. Sarah waved.

“Don’t those guys ever work?” asked Elizabeth.

Victoria looked at her watch. “It’s after five.”

They turned in at the gas station and went down a bumpy dirt road to the garage, which was closed for the day. Behind the garage, a field of stored cars waited for owners to claim them. “There must be two dozen red Volvos here,” Elizabeth said in dismay. “We’ll never be able to single his car out, even if it is here.”

“We can eliminate any that have grass growing up around their tires. Also, any that have out-of-state license plates.”

After they had paced up and down the weedy aisles between cars, Elizabeth said, “We’re down to three red Volvos.”

“This one seems promising,” Victoria said. “Cardboard cartons, a couple of milk crates full of papers, and a couple of bags full of soda cans.” She moved to another car. “This one has a soccer ball, a child’s soccer shirt, candy wrappers, a copy of
Mad Magazine,
a doll.” Victoria crossed it off her list.

“Not this one either,” Elizabeth said.

Victoria cupped her hands against the windshield to look in. She set in motion a plastic grass-skirted hula dancer stuck to the dashboard with a suction cup. Next to the dancer were wadded-up tissues with lipstick smears.

“Back to the first of the three.” Victoria strode through the long grass to the car, opened the passenger door, and sat on the stained and worn seat.

“Should we be doing this?” Elizabeth looked around behind them, as if she expected someone to stop them.

Victoria opened the glove compartment. “Of course we should.” She lifted out a handful of papers, paper napkins, plastic ketchup containers, and white plastic spoons. She sorted through them and put everything back except an envelope from the Vineyard Insurance Agency. She opened the envelope and examined the policy. “It’s made out to Jubal M. Burkhardt.”

“Can we leave now?” Elizabeth asked.

Victoria nodded. “We’ll stop at the police station and report to Casey.”

Casey was coming down the steps as they parked in front of the station. She walked over to the passenger side, and Victoria rolled down the window.

“Good job, Deputy,” Casey said after Victoria told her about finding Jube’s car. “I’ll notify his nieces and the Aquinnah police.”

Elizabeth started to say something, but Victoria put her hand on her granddaughter’s knees. Elizabeth looked at her, surprised. Victoria had arranged her face into a warning, and Elizabeth stopped in midsentence.

As they pulled away from the police station, Elizabeth said, “Why did you stop me, Gram? I wanted to tell the chief that Dojan and you found the weapon.”

“She’ll know soon enough. Before they declare Jube’s house a crime scene, we need to look around again. We’re missing something.”

“You can’t do that, Gram. It’s trespassing or tampering with evidence or something.”

“It’s not tampering with evidence,” Victoria said. “The police have closed the case. Accidental death. Will you drive me there, or shall I walk?”

“I’ll drive you,” Elizabeth muttered. She backed out of the parking spot, oyster shells crunching beneath her tires, and retraced the route to Burkhardt’s house.

“We’ve got to find Hiram,” Victoria said. “And the key to finding him is in that house.”

The haze thickened as they drove toward Burkhardt’s place. They reached the open grassy area, where his house stood, desolate in the tall grass, and pulled up next to the barn.

A clammy fog was sifting in from the ocean, bringing with it the sulfurous smell of tidal flats and the iodine smell of seaweed. The windshield was beaded with droplets of mist. Elizabeth put the top back up on her convertible while Victoria walked over to the barn. The door was ajar, the way it had been when she had first seen the motorcycle tracks the day before. She pushed the door open. The hinges shrieked.

A seagull on the roof of the house raised its wings, opened its bill, and echoed the sound of the door, a long drawn-out mournful cry followed by a series of short calls. It lifted off the roof, followed by six other gulls, ghostly forms that dissolved along with their cries into the thin fog.

The surf rumbled on the other side of the barrier bar. A fish splashed in the pond. When she opened the barn door, something rushed by her head noiselessly. She had disturbed a barn owl. There were not many places left on the Island where barn owls could nest.

She looked down at the floor. There, in the dust, was a second set of motorcycle tracks, scuffed over by at least two, possibly three, sets of boot prints.

“What do you make of that?” Victoria said to Elizabeth, who had come up behind her. “These marks were made sometime after Casey and I were here yesterday afternoon.”

“Maybe Junior Norton made the prints when he came to check out the stain on the floor?”