Nantucket Sawbuck (10 page)

Jared perked up. “You read my blog?”

I smiled. “I liked what you said last week about the superintendent's hiring practices. Let me get this right. Oh yeah. ‘No wonder they're flat on their faces. They set the bar so low they tripped over it.' In September you said Bissell's assurances about curriculum changes were ‘as meaningless as the nutrition facts on a candy bar wrapper.' Good one.”

Jared shook his head, looking down. Was he blushing a little? “You sure know how to get on writer's good side, Chief Kennis,” he said. “Direct quotations.”

I hooked a chair and sat down. “The last time our paths crossed, you called in a complaint about a beach party that was going on in front of your family's house. Nonantum Avenue, right?”

“Why would you remember that?” Charlie asked.

“I was driving around that night. I took the call. I wound up doing a little bullfight number with one of those kids. Toby Grimes, that's his name. Jack Grimes' boy. He wound up face first in the ocean. I never had to touch him. Funny thing is, he wasn't mad at me.”

“Even Toby's not dumb enough to go off on the police chief,” Jared pointed out.

“My point is, Toby was mad at you, not me. That's all he talked about on the way in to the station.”

“Well, he's even madder at me now.”

“Care to discuss that?”

“Not really.”

“It's common knowledge around the school that Toby is selling drugs, Chief,” Charlie put in. “He should be sitting in here with you now, not Jared.”

“Is that true, Jared?”

The boy shrugged.

“Did you write a
Veritas
article about this?”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because the other editor is Heather Logan and her last couple of editorials were about the poor showing at the last pep rally and a passionate defense of dress codes.”

Jared laughed. “'We're being pressured painfully into a predatory pressure cooker of peer group pressure.' She's so right. Not to mention…alarmingly alliterative. I wish she could have used the word ‘pressure' one more time in that sentence.”

“Can I see a copy of your editorial?”

“Sure. I'll bring it by the station tomorrow.”

I let a little silence settle between us.

“So. You leave your car unlocked?”

“Like everyone else.”

“Which means anyone could reach in and pop the trunk.”

“But that's not the interesting question, Chief. Anyone could…and we both know who did. The motivation's obvious. That covers who, what, where, and why. The interesting question is when. Because on any other day, it wouldn't have really mattered.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“It's like the Spanish General, Golz, tells Robert Jordan in
For Whom the Bell Tolls:
To blow the bridge is nothing.'”

We all looked at each other. The only sound was the big electric clock on the wall ticking. I stood up. Jared Bromley had gotten my mind working. I looked down at the boy. “So you're not selling crack.”

“No.”

“Well, that's good. Keep walking that straight and narrow, Jared. And get out of here. You're late for AP English.”

I walked them out of the station and watched them drive away. Something was bothering me.

Jared had picked one of my favorite books to quote from, and the rest of Golz's speech was banging around in my head.
Merely to blow the bridge is a failure. To blow the bridge at the stated hour, on the time set for the attack is how it should be done.

What had Bissell said? “He chose to do that on a day when the school system's drug illegal substances canine force was conducting a surprise inspection.”

To blow the bridge is nothing.

For Toby Grimes' plan to work, he had to know the exact time of the task force inspection. And no one had that information except the police. Which meant that David Trezize was right—cops were involved. Even Jared Bromley knew it, if his article was as sensational as Bissell seemed to think. Once again, everybody on the island knew more about what was going on than I did. Maybe I hadn't been looking closely enough. Well that time was over. No more secrets in the locker room, no more small-time criminals in the blue uniform I loved.

Things were about to get nasty. That was fine with me.

Chapter Eleven

The Editorial

David Trezize wrote:

“Last week, Preston Lomax, one of the new owners of our island, choked a waiter at Topper's in front of almost a dozen witnesses.”

He paused. The cursor blinked at him. He was right on the brink of something uncontrollably bad. He knew he should delete Lomax's name. People would know who he was talking about, anyway. Did he really want to declare war so openly? Yes…he did. Besides, the incident had happened. That much of the piece was news. It was the least he could do for the devoted readers of
The Nantucket Shoals.
David grinned and went on.

“Apparently there wasn't enough ice in the master's ice water. No one in the restaurant came to the young man's aid, and he knew better than to expect them to. A few days later he did what a peasant would have done in Europe four hundred years ago, to protect his family from a rogue prince's
droit de seigneur
: he fled.

He wasn't the only one. People are leaving every day.

My friend Richard came to Nantucket in 1983, intending to stay for the weekend. He's been here ever since. He's leaving now, too. He can't afford to stay, but he's no longer even sure that he wants to.

He's been complaining for years, summer complaints mostly. The old familiar litany: the mopeds, the crowds, the fleas, the ticks and the parking tickets; the traffic, the prices, the noise. But in the last few years a new gripe has started to overshadow all the others, the sum of all his other complaints.

The rich people.

They've been driving him crazy. “Leather pants!” he'll say out of nowhere one day. “Why are they wearing leather pants in July?”

“They just wander around…eating ice cream,” he told me last summer, so comically aghast that I had to laugh. But I know how he felt. I've felt the same way. Part of it is simple envy. I'm no Marxist. I want their stuff, their Mercedes and their house and most of all their leisure, their free time—their freedom. They flaunt the things I may never have, so I'd be nuts not to resent them.

But there's more to it than that. I look at developments where ugly houses have been plunked down on every little rise in the moors, spoiling land that should have been wild forever. I look at the boutiques and specialty shops that are opening on every corner, I look at the lunatic real estate prices, and it seems to me to be entirely the fault of the rich people. They decided they liked Nantucket. They made it into their new toy. The force of their money rolled across the island very much the way it does on their own properties when bulldozers and backhoes and fifty trucks of dirt and dozens of landscapers sweep into the beach plum and scrub oak and obliterate it, burying it under five acres of perfect lawn, hot house trees and flower beds, a state-of-the-art sprinkler system and a couple of tons of raked crushed shell driveway. The lawns are beautiful, but the plant food and weed killers are contaminating our harbor and our aquifer.

Perhaps Richard is lucky in a way. He's moving back to the land of highways and fast food and shopping malls. There will be no dissonance between what he sees around him and the way he lives, no constant sense of loss and disillusion. It may be easier, after all, living in a place that never had a chance to be paradise, a place that will never be paradise lost.”

David pushed his chair back. It was done. Now, if he only had the guts to run it. He recalled once again the conversation he'd had with Lomax at a fundraiser a few days after the shoving incident at Topper's. Although the waiter had threatened to press charges, when David went to interview him for a story the following day, he discovered that the kid had already left the island. David asked Lomax straight out what he knew about the boy's sudden departure.

Sucking an oyster from the raw bar into his mouth, Lomax said simply, “He was afraid of my money.” Swallowing, he added with a grin, “If you write about this, you'll find out why.”

David hit the save button and stood up.

What the hell. For once he was happy about his little paper's small circulation. Lomax might never even see the editorial. He probably sneered at the local newspapers. He was a
Wall Street Journal
kind of guy.

David took a last look around, turned out the lights and went home.

Unfortunately for David Trezize, Preston Lomax read the
Nantucket Shoals
every week, from cover to cover. He subscribed to it so that he never missed an issue, even when he was in the city.

And he especially enjoyed the editorial page.

Chapter Twelve

Betrayals

I spent the morning interviewing everyone on the police force about a drug connection. No one knew anything; most of them seemed offended that I'd even ask. I had begun to think that Jared Bromley had been making trouble in his
Veritas
article. Maybe Bissell was right to spike it. Jared wouldn't name names and, short of my actually arresting him for a crime he obviously hadn't committed, there was no way I could put any real pressure on the boy. It was absurd. Was there some shadowy drug cartel operating out of this small town police station? It seemed more and more dubious. But Jared had been scared. That stuck with me.

Driving by the VFW Hall on my way out of town an hour later, waiting for a crowd of pedestrians outside the auction to push back onto the sidewalk, it occurred to me that I didn't need to be accepted by the community. Perhaps I shouldn't be. Maybe I could see more clearly from the outside.

Fiona Donovan understood that. She was well-versed in the small advantages and dry comforts of exile. She would be amused by my dogged, stumbling progress. We were both relentless. That was part of what drew us together.

I had grabbed an impromptu picnic from Fast Forward on my way out of town. Fiona had told me we couldn't see each other for our usual Saturday lunch because she had to finish a big cleaning job in Madaket. Her sandwich was on the seat beside me—curried chicken salad, wrapped in plastic on a paper plate. This would be a nice surprise.

When I got to the house, a big rambling Victorian set in the dune grass only a few yards from the high tide line, Fiona's Opel wasn't in the driveway. I pulled up between a black Ranger and an old white Honda Civic filled with milk crates jammed with cleaning supplies, cut the engine, and climbed out of the cruiser. The driveway had been shoveled, snow piled up on either side. Even more was piled above me in the leaden clouds.

The house was open and Fiona's Irish girls were working downstairs. They didn't know where she was. She hadn't been in all day. I tried her cell phone but it was turned off. I got her voicemail without a ring.

I thanked the girls, stepped outside again to Madaket Road, looked past the Westender to the first curve. It was empty and silent. Where was she? Well, where would she be on a Saturday morning?

I walked back, the wind snapping at my coat. I climbed into the car, keyed the engine and put the heater on high. Something had touched my mind on the way out here, like a gnat on the surface of a pond, too light to break the surface tension. I rewound the drive, back past the dump, the Cliff Road intersection, the horse farms, the fresh white trim and raw shingles that marked Bruce Poor's new development near the Monument. Nothing came to mind.

I moved on, down Quaker across Milk Street where it turned into Prospect Street, past the old Mill, a left on York Street, a jig to the left on Orange then down West Dover. Then Union to Washington Street, running parallel to the harbor, back into town. I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, listening to the wheezing gale and the rumble of the surf.

Then I got it. It was obvious when I finally made the connection—the Osona auction at the VFW. Ten minutes later I parked illegally at the new bus depot across the street, shamelessly abusing the perks of authority, and slipped inside the overheated building.

It was the last auction of the year, and much later in the season than normal. But a combination of a
huge estate liquidation and the unusual crowds on the island in mid-December (parking on Main Street was scarce as August), had convinced Raphael Osona to try a late season event. The gamble had obviously paid off. The hall was packed.

On the block was an Elizabeth Saltonstall still life: driftwood and scallop boxes. The bidding was moving briskly at two hundred dollars. I eased up behind Rick Folger. He was standing with Alana Trikilis and Mason Taylor. The two younger kids were holding hands.

The bidding went up to three hundred and stayed there. Then it was going, going, gone.

Rick slumped a little, shaking his head.

Alana cocked her head at him. “I don't get it.”

“That picture was worth at least twelve hundred bucks. What a steal.”

“Wow,” Mason said “You really know about this stuff.”

“For all the good it does me.”

“Well, it could do you a lot of good, Rick,” Alana said. “If you had bought that picture you could have tripled your money tomorrow morning.”

Mason poked her. “I thought you hated materialism.”

“Yeah, but I love…material.”

I quartered the room, studying the sea of faces. It didn't take long to find Fiona. With her thick red hair and a green dress that picked up the color of her eyes. She had a paddle in her hand but she wasn't using it. A set of dining room chairs, some Tiffany silver, and a set of nesting lightship baskets all sold while I stood against the wall watching.

I controlled the desire to approach her.
What was going on?
Better to hang back and observe. She seemed to be alone, at least. When the bidding started on a piece of 19th century silver, she sat forward a little. I shifted position for a better view. Fiona had told me all about this.

Her great-great uncle, Thomas Donovan, had left Ireland in the 1830s and wound up as a silversmith on Nantucket. Silver was an approved form of ostentation in those days, when the Quakers who lived on the island did little to show off their wealth. No nice clothes, few jewels; but the competition was fierce when the dinner dishes came out of the cupboard. Quakers liked silver, whale ship captains could afford it; and their wives had a lot of time on their hands.

Thomas Donovan had apprenticed to Benjamin Bunker and later opened a shop of his own, which was destroyed in the great fire of 1846. Fiona had found a number of fine Donovan pieces over the years (he always put his TD mark on them somewhere), mostly commemorative spoons, plates, and tankards. Most of them were priced out of her range, but she had found several excellent spoons (one with a bluefish coiled around the handle) in a bread pan full of mismatched place settings at a yard sale in Polpis last summer. The whole pile of junk flatware was selling for a dollar. The spoon alone was worth at least five hundred. Fiona had argued the lady down to fifty cents with a cool poker face. A little bargaining was expected at a yard sale.

Porringers—the little bowls with wide flat reticulated handles—had been a specialty of Thomas Donovan, and Fiona's father had collected more than a dozen before the prices spiked in the eighties. He used them, too: there were always coins in one and little hard lemon candies in another. Fiona and her mother kept the porringers polished and gleaming. Along with a lovely painting of Lough Inagh in Connemara County, Galway, by Fiona's grandfather, they were the only family heirlooms her parents had managed to preserve. That explained part of her interest. But Fiona also loved the silver itself, the gleam and density of it, the heft and texture of the beaten metal. She had always understood that trite image of misers gleefully running coins through their fingers.

They had started bidding on a porringer now. Several people showed interested. Every time the price hit a plateau, the same thing happened. Fiona brushed her hair off her forehead, and someone made another bid. I could feel a rhythm in it. I moved forward a little to get a better view of the room. One of the bidders was Preston Lomax, and I saw David Trezize against the far wall, studying the tycoon intently.

The bidding had come down to Lomax and one other man, Nathan Parrish. I recalled an erratic driving traffic stop on Polpis Road in October. Parrish had passed the Breathalyzer and promised to pay his overdue parking tickets. I remembered him as perfectly polite but insufferable. The incident had irritated him, the way you'd be irked if you got home and found you'd forgotten something at the grocery. A policeman he'd forgotten to purchase! He'd correct the oversight in the morning, put a check in the mail.

But no check had ever arrived; not even a donation to the Policemen's Benevolent Association. Maybe Nantucket cops weren't worth buying outright. You were better off with a time-share.

I knew much more than I ought to about Parrish. For instance, I knew what the developer was really doing when he told his wife he was working late. He was a cheater, in business and at home.

Fiona brushed her hair off her forehead again.

Parrish raised his paddle, just like a puppet.

“Twenty-five hundred,” Osona said. “Do I hear—thank you. Three thousand, from the gentleman on the right.”

The same ritual of swept hair and raised paddle: the price crept up again. And again. Lomax was determined to have the little silver bowl. Or maybe he just wanted to beat Parrish. I could understand that. At five thousand dollars, Fiona made her move, but Parrish didn't respond. She leaned forward, staring across the room. Even the back of her head looked angry.

Parrish shook his head.

“Five thousand dollars. Thank you, sir. Sold to the gentleman on the right.”

Fiona was still staring at Parrish. He shrugged.

The auction moved on. Fiona rocked back in her chair and I eased myself away toward the doors at the rear of the room. Other people were standing; I wanted bodies between me and Fiona.

People greeted me but I didn't want her to hear them. I didn't want any contact with anyone until I had time to figure out what I'd just seen. Was Parrish her sponsor? Her patron? Her partner? Did they work the auctions together? It would make sense: She had the knowledge and he had the money. There must be any number of similar arrangements in the world of estate sales. How much did Fiona understand about Parrish? Was he cheating her, too?

I put my palm to my forehead and pressed my temple hard. It felt like the pressure of my thumb and pinky were the only force keeping my head from bursting. The explanation was no good. It didn't explain why Fiona had lied to me. It didn't explain why a prominent local businessman was willing to spend—what was his last bid? Forty eight hundred dollars?—on some trinket for a woman who wasn't his wife. It looked like Fiona wasn't worth five thousand. No wonder she was pissed off.

Was I imagining all this? No—the intensity of that last silent exchange was unmistakable. They thought they were safe, unobserved in a crowded place with everyone looking elsewhere, absorbed with the always entertaining Raphael Osona show. But I had been watching them. And a man like Parrish doesn't drop four grand in afternoon for a friend, or even a partner. Fiona was tough. You'd have to put your money where your mouth was with her.

And just where had Nathan Parrish's mouth been, exactly? That was the question.

I knew how to get the answers I wanted from a stranger, in that little blank-walled interrogation room at police headquarters. How you did it in a quiet bedroom, in your own house with a woman you loved, I had no idea. But I would figure it out, because I had to know, and it had to be soon.