Nantucket Sawbuck (4 page)

“The house cleaners?”

We stared at each other for a second.

“Sorry, Chief.”

“No, you're right, Charlie. Thanks.”

It was true. I was going to have to investigate Fiona Donovan. I was going to have to grill her about her whereabouts and her alibi and her motives. Either that or let the state police do it. But I wasn't alone. This crime and the waves of suspicion and animosity it generated were going to touch everyone on the island: all the friends and families of all the suspects and the victims and the police. The contamination would linger after everyone had moved on, like the faint tang of smoke damage in a newly painted house.

I stared down at the body, pulling a small jar of Vick's VapoRub out of my jacket pocket. It was an essential tool for this kind of crime scene work. I unscrewed the cap, got a dollop on my finger and smoothed it under my nose. The sharp smell of menthol didn't do much to clear my sinuses, but it cut the smell from the corpse. Charlie was watching me. I gestured toward the young detective with the jar, and he grabbed it, slathered himself with the pungent goop. “Thanks, Chief.”

“No trick, no trade.” We studied the body for another few seconds. “Notice anything unusual about the money?” I said.

“You mean besides the fact that it's stuffed in his mouth?”

I rubbed a palm over my forehead. “Besides that, yeah.”

Charlie squinted down at Lomax. “Well, there's a lot of it.”

“True. How about the denominations?”

“Nantucket sawbucks.”

“Excuse me?”

“It's what the rich stingy Yankees around here call hundred dollar bills, Chief. I moved some furniture for one of these old ladies once. She pays me in cash. ‘Take a Nantucket sawbuck,' she says. Like I was overcharging her, like the job was worth ten bucks anywhere else. Everyone's out to rip you off on Nantucket. That's the basic idea.”

I studied the bulge of currency. “Nice way to get back at a cheapskate. There's probably close to a grand in there. Whoever did this wanted to make a statement. Twenties would have choked him just as well. No, they hated this guy.”

“So you're saying—we should print the bills?”

“It's worth a try. Maybe they got careless.”

We heard the front door open.

“That'll be Lonnie. Stay up here while I talk to him.”

I left the room and trotted downstairs. Lonnie Fraker was standing in the foyer with two burly sergeants. The crew cuts and gun belts made them look like storm troopers. Lonnie himself was bulky and imposing, with a full head of black hair. It was too black; he probably colored it, not realizing that a little gray at the temples would add a note of wisdom and experience to his persona. He moved like had once been in good shape, but not recently, and he needed a new uniform. He bulged out of this one in all the wrong places. I thought irrationally of those chubby teenage girls wearing belly shirts and showing off their flab. Lonnie's face was wide and pointed. He didn't look quite real; more like a cartoon, some dark authority figure inked with a few clean lines in a Frank Miller graphic novel. He nodded at me.

“Chief Kennis. Glad you could be here.”

The voice was startling. You expected a baritone rumble, but it was pitched much higher, with a Boston accent that flattened the vowels.

I nodded. “Captain.”

He gave me a brisk salute.” I see you've secured the scene. May I ask what you're doing with those red trash cans?”

“They're for police litter.”

“The state police don't litter.”

I met the steady gaze. “It's just a convenience.”

“You can take them with you when you go.”

“Fine. If the scene is compromised you'll know it wasn't us.”

“Assuming your people actually used them.”

“If that's an accusation, you should make it in writing.”

“If I have to, I will.”

Neither of us said a word for twenty seconds or so. It seemed like longer.

“All right,” he said, finally. “The primary crime scene units will be getting here on the first plane. I'll need you to coordinate local police work so we don't step on each other's toes. For now, tape off the driveway and the front lawn. My men are taking casts of the foot prints and tire tracks down there.”

I started to tell him I'd sent an officer back to the station for our own equipment, but just let the words out as a sigh. There was no way to get ahead of Lonnie on this one. I should have had the kit with me; he did. As he would have been delighted to point out. Anyway, he was still talking. “And you'll be doing the liaison work with the press. They'll be all over this story like black on beans. The networks, the cable channels, all the newspapers, NPR, you name it. Make 'em happy and keep 'em out of my hair.”

“That's not my job. I have men canvassing the area right now, talking to the neighbors, running down names and checking the—”

“We'll handle all that.”

“Not on my case.”

“This isn't your case, Chief. Not anymore.”

“It's my jurisdiction.”

“Not for capital crimes. Listen, we appreciate your cooperation. You take care of the reporters and the lookie-loos, and work on the big bakeshop cookie heist. Leave murder to the professionals. That makes everybody look good.” Lonnie's troops chuckled. The local cops were always good for a laugh.

I let out a long breath. “Lonnie, could we talk alone for a second?”

I walked to the big French doors at the other side of the room. They opened out onto the deck but there was almost a foot of untouched snow out there, luminous dark blue in the moonlight. The wind made the house shake. The storm door jittered in its frame.

“Hell of a winter,” I said.

“I've seen worse. When I was a kid the harbor would freeze up for weeks at a time. That was wild.”

“Yeah, well. I've still got that thin California blood. This is cold enough for me.”

“You'll get used to it.”

I turned to face him. “Let me tell you something the divorce lawyer told me when my marriage broke up. Miranda and I were arguing about custody. He said, two years from now you'll be fighting about who
doesn't
want the kids. ‘I had them last weekend, you said you could take them for an extra week.' We were both offended. He said, ‘This is your first divorce, right? Well, it's my four hundred and tenth.' Turned out he was right on the money.”

“So what's the point?”

“Come on. It's the same thing here, Lonnie. I saw it in L.A. all the time when the FBI started big-footing an investigation. We can fence and mark our territory all we want, but this is a huge case. A week from now, you'll be wishing we had twice as many guys on the job and I'll be begging for more help, waiting for the forensics on the evidence I turned up—”

Lonnie raised his chin a little, glanced sideways at me with his thumbs tucked into his belt. “You found some evidence?

I had to give him credit—he had picked the one significant piece of information out of all that amiable chatter, as he might pluck a shell casing from a gravel driveway.

“Just this.” I pulled the plastic evidence bag out of my pocket and handed it over. “We found a butt just like it at a robbery in 'Sconset last week. Camel Light, smoked down to the same point. I've been waiting for the DNA results. You guys could speed things up.”

“Oh yeah, we could. Middle of the week at the latest. Anything stolen here?”

“A desk by the front door. Maybe some other stuff, too. The daughter can help with that.”

Lonnie slipped the bag into his pocket. “Nice work. Thanks, Henry.”

“Any time. Let's just catch these guys.”

Lonnie shook his head, gazing out at the snow. “It doesn't seem like Nantucket, you know? Not the Nantucket where I grew up.”

I shrugged. “Welcome to the real world.”

“Easy for you to say, city boy. But if your real world keeps on coming, the big shots are gonna take off like rats in a DPW dump burn. And when that happens this place turns into a ghost town. That's why I want to turn these fuckers into a cautionary tale. Like an episode of
Cops
. ‘These drunken joy-riders have learned a lesson tonight: they can run but they can't hide.' I like that guy on
Cops.
I
like his attitude.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“No one gets away on
Cops
.”

“Yeah.”

We stood quietly contemplating a world of hapless scofflaws and relentless infallible peace officers. I broke the spell. “See you tomorrow, Lonnie. Get some sleep. You're going to need it.”

We shook hands. I told my guys to stick around and be friendly and help. Then I walked out of the warm house into the night. The cold was dense and penetrating. It soaked through your clothes like ice water. Barnaby Toll was just pulling in to the driveway, stopped short at the yellow crime scene tape. I walked over, and he rolled down his window. “Oops,” he said.

“The job's getting done. That's what matters.”

I opened the door, pulled the corrugated plastic equipment case from the seat and told Barnaby head back to the station. I stowed the equipment in the trunk of my Crown Vic: I was never going to get caught without it again. I climbed in behind the wheel chilled to the bone, but the heat came on fast and by the time I got back to Cliff Road the car was nice and toasty. That's part of the trifecta that make the big Fords perfect for police work: heat, A/C and acceleration. Our turbo charged models can go from zero to sixty in eight point seven seconds—I know because I tested them myself, drag-racing Haden Krakauer at midnight on Milestone Road. Hey, there has to be some fun in this job

I drove along now, just under the speed limit, thinking about Lonnie Fraker and
Cops
. Maybe this case would be like one of the TV chases he liked so much, the criminals overpowered and rounded up quickly. But I felt a superstitious dread in the pit of my stomach, where ulcers start. The longer this took, the worse it was going to get. And if it dragged on long enough, there wouldn't be anything left when it was over.

Chapter Three

Nantucket Nocturne

It all began two weeks before, on the night of December 2nd.

One more ordinary winter night on Nantucket, or so it seemed. Much later it would feel like the overture to a musical—a medley of tunes you scarcely noticed until you bought the cast album. Then you heard every theme and motif, every song played in advance. All the secrets and revelations, all the players and their plans were in the air that night, if I had known enough to listen. But of course I didn't. Only weeks later, after the last chord was played, would I realize how eerily prophetic the events of that night had been.

It started with a fight at a bar called the Chicken Box.

Normally the chief of police wouldn't get involved with some bar-fly altercation, but I was on the prowl, cruising the island, waiting for trouble. The town was empty at eleven o'clock. The wharf houses, standing on their pilings, marched out into the still, black water. There were only a handful of boats moored at this time of year. The tide was high. I slowed down to look at the little dory floating just beyond the sea wall. The Killen family put a Christmas tree in it every year. The lights strung in the branches seemed brave and sad to me. Bruce Killen had started the tradition, but his family had kept it up since his death.

Fiona had been obsessing about mortality lately, thinking about Bruce and all the others who had died young, mapping every new wrinkle on her own face. She was thirty-five. “That's middle-aged, Henry,” she had told me sternly when I had foolishly insisted that she was still young. “There aren't many people that live past seventy.”

I had just shrugged it off, but coming back to the island on the fast boat two days ago I had spent the whole trip staring at the ship's wake. The moving water had held a message. I realized what it was now and pulled the cruiser over in front of the Whaling Museum.

The poem came quickly:

Watching the foam

Churning white off the hull of the ferry,

Against the green dimpled water of the bay

Leaping wild, falling behind

Gone and replaced by the next.

A simple text

On the cycle of life:

You are going to die.

But on this day

For this moment, for now

You are glittering spray, flying upward

From the bow.

I'd give it to Fiona tomorrow.

I pulled back into the empty street. The radio crackled to life. Someone was starting a fight at the Chicken Box.

I hit the flashers but not the siren. It was late and I had always hated cops who abused their power that way, uselessly waking up half the town to demonstrate the importance and urgency of their mission, which was more often than not the need to buy a sandwich or go to the bathroom. The two cars I saw pulled over for me. I got to the Box in less than three minutes.

I stepped inside and absorbed the whole situation in a single flashbulb blink of perception: the two men struggling in front of the bar, the beautiful blond young woman with her shirt un-tucked, jacket half off her shoulders and an angry red welt on her neck. A crowd had formed around this tableau, isolating the players in a tight ring on the splintery wood floor. The bartender looked on, happy for a break in the monotony. Beyond the crowd, Ed Delavane was shooting pool, a schooner of beer on the polished wood lip of the table. He made a shot, ignoring the ruckus.

There was another schooner next to his. I had a split second to wonder who was drinking it as I moved into the big room. The bouncer was a burly bald guy refereeing a fight between the Lomax brothers, Danny and Eric. Living on trust funds, spoiled, smug and useless, they presented themselves as a classic cautionary tale about the toxic effects of unlimited money and privilege. Delusional yuppy puppies were common as seagulls in the summer but these boys were a year-round nuisance. They were going at it hard, Danny applying a brutal choke hold on his brother as I touched his shoulder.

“That's enough, Dan.”

“Fuck you.”

He released Eric, who reeled backward choking and gasping. Then he squared off against the new opponent. It took him a second to realize it was the chief of police.

“Shit,” he said.

I lifted my hands in a pacifying gesture. “Don't make things worse with an assault charge against a police officer.”

“Afraid to fight me, pig?”

He was obviously too drunk to care about my warning. He charged. I sidestepped, took his wrist and twisted his arm back into a simple hammer lock. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that I had caught Ed Delavane's attention. The big ex-Marine was watching the new turn in the action with a mean little smile. For people like Ed, it was all about who they could beat up and who they couldn't. Ed knew he could take the Lomax brothers, and the bouncer. I remained a question mark.

The girl on the barstool also looked amused by the proceedings. She had her shirt tucked in now, and her jacket back on. The bruise on her neck would be there for a while, though. I reached around, pulled Dan's other arm behind his back and cuffed him.

“Hey…come on, Chief!”

“You're under arrest, Dan. You have the right to remain silent. I suggest you use it.” I turned to Eric. “You, too, son. Let's go.” He followed us as we moved to the door. I turned back for a second, addressed the now restive crowd. “This is over. Drink responsibly.”

I could only have meant that last comment ironically, but no one smiled. A young cop named Jesse Coleman came out of the bathroom, headed for the pool table, and corrected course toward the bar. He did it smoothly, but he wasn't even close to smooth enough.

I pushed Danny out into the bitter night, pulled Eric after us. The icy air sobered them up a little.

“Come on man, don't do this to me,” Danny said.

“Dad'll be batshit,” Eric added.

Too little, too late, I thought. I said, “I'm taking you in tonight for disorderly conduct. I'm sure your Dad will take care of it in the morning, Until then you can discuss your folly in jail. Maybe by morning you'll come up with some real solutions. I'd suggest AA and an anger management class. And try to avoid chasing the same women.” I jammed them into the back seat of the cruiser. “I'll be right back. Fuck with my car in any way and I will personally kick both your asses and let Teddy take the credit.”

I slammed the door and walked back inside. Jesse Coleman was at the bar, without his drink.

I crooked a finger at the bartender. “That kid was underage. I could close you down right now. Next time I will. Watch these people. Because I'm watching you.”

“Sorry, Chief, you're right, I know, I should have, I will, I really will, thanks,” he sputtered.

But I had already turned to the girl. Just looking at her, I knew why there'd been trouble. Girls like this were always trouble. Everything in her posture and her chilly smile seemed to say “I'm out of your league and we both know it.”

She extended a hand. “Thanks, Chief. I'm Tanya Kriel. Good to meet you. You're a regular White Knight.”

I took the strong dry hand and shook it once. “This can be a rough place, Tanya. You should be more careful.”

“Don't worry. Danny was defending me from that terrible Eric.” She smiled. “Or was it the other way around? It's so hard to keep track. Anyway I wasn't the victim, I was the prize. The the extra portion of pie a la mode. Everyone likes pie a la mode, right Chief?”

I glanced at her neck. “If you want to press charges you should come down to the station tomorrow.”

She smiled as if we both knew that relying on the police was a joke. “I don't think so, Chief. But thanks anyway.”

Finally I turned to Jesse, my voice sharp but quiet. I didn't want anyone to hear us over the music. Someone had cranked the jukebox and the Decembrists were blaring out of the speakers.

“You should have handled this.”

“Hey, Chief, I was off-duty.”

“You're never off-duty, Jesse. Figure that out or get another job.”

I turned away, gave the bartender a last scary look, nodded at Tanya Kriel and walked back outside.

The Lomax boys didn't say a word on the way to the station. I handed them over to the watch officer and went back to my cruiser. I could organize the paperwork in the morning. I thought about going home. But I wasn't tired. I climbed into the warm car and continued on my rounds. I took Orange Street back, rolling past the sleeping hive of Marine Home Center, then down Washington Street into town. I turned up Main, bumping and undulating along the cobblestones toward the red brick Pacific National Bank building, I couldn't help smiling at the lines of small gaudy Christmas trees lit up on either side, decorated by school children.

There was something horrific about Christmas in Los Angeles, with the fake snow in the windows of Rodeo Drive stores air-conditioned against the eighty-degree heat. The season was boiled away to its mercenary bones, the grinning skeleton of commerce. Christmas was gentler here, or at least more picturesque.

The street seemed wider than usual since there were no cars slant-parked against the curbs. I noticed that Nathan Parrish, our local real estate mogul, was working late again. The light shone in his second floor office. Parrish had some big deal going on, but no one seemed to know what it was. He spent a lot of extra time in the office, though. I found it hard to believe that even the most elaborate piece of Nantucket business could require such long hours. I had slowed almost to a stop as Parrish's silhouette appeared in front of the shade. A second later another shadow joined him: a woman. They embraced and the shadows merged.

Well, that explained it.

I hit the gas and turned up Orange Street. Parrish was married, but the woman in the office was at least three inches taller than Carla. It shouldn't have shocked me. “Everyone will be dishonest,” my assistant Chief Haden Krakauer had pointed out just this morning, adding, in a cruel mockery of earnest innocence, “You just have to give them a chance.”

He had a way of turning platitudes inside out.

I drove out past the rotary and along Milestone Road toward 'Sconset. I was moving fast when I came up behind a Range Rover going sixty and weaving. I called it in, hit the flashers and pulled them over onto the grass between the road and the bike path.

A woman in her forties with a lot of red-tinted hair was driving, with a twenty-year old boy in the passenger side. They were both flushed. It looked like they'd been arguing. The fight had started in the middle of something else: the kid had lipstick smeared on his mouth, cheeks and neck, his fly was half-unzipped and several buttons were loose on the woman's blouse. There was no smell of alcohol or marijuana. The woman was lucid when she handed over her license and registration.

“This car is registered to Preston Lomax,” I said, examining the registration with my flashlight. I glanced at the license. “You're his wife?”

“That's right. And this is Kevin Sloane. He's working on our house. He's a painter, he works for Mike Henderson. I'm just giving him a lift home.”

I leaned in.“Working late?”

“Big deadline,” Kevin deadpanned.

I addressed the woman. “I can see you're not drunk. But if you're stressed or upset—”

“I'm fine. We're fine,” Mrs. Lomax said.

I took a breath. “I arrested your sons Eric and Daniel less than hour ago, charged with drunk and disorderly. I also have Danny for resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. If the woman involved files charges, those boys could be looking at ten years for felony assault and sexual battery. I don't know what to tell you, Mrs. Lomax. There's a couple of twenty-somethings that still need your care and attention.” I bent down to get a better look at Kevin Sloane. “And neither of them are this kid.”

She studied the steering wheel. “I know that, Chief.”

“All right. Take this boy home and get off the road. You have a big day tomorrow.”

I walked back to my cruiser. I could feel the social claustrophobia of small town America—all the little scandals and drama rubbing up against each other. The real estate broker with his hanky-panky on Main Street, the troubled boys and their even more troubled mother, the bad marriages, the drinking and the bankruptcies, all over-lapping in piles like the clothes on a kid's floor. At least the city was anonymous. There was some separation between lives. No one knew what you were doing because no one cared.

I had met Preston Lomax the summer before, and watched on local TV when the tycoon was trying to get his house design approved by the Historical District Commission. Those hearings were often dull, but Lomax had brought them to the level of a cheesy reality TV show. They had initially refused his proposal. The structure was too tall, it had too many dormers, that kind of thing. Lomax said he was building it anyway and the town could sue him if they wanted to. “I have an entire law firm on retainer for the sole purpose of litigating small towns like this one into bankruptcy. I'm looking forward to it.”

He had gotten his permits. The commissioners could see he wasn't kidding. And I had thought, when I read about it in the paper the next week, there were definite advantages to being crazy. You scared people and you got what you wanted. Of course Lomax was rich too, but that was probably how he got to be rich in the first place.

I watched his wife's car's taillights disappear around a bend, then climbed back into the cruiser and took Nobadeer Farm Road toward the airport, then back to the station by Old South Road—circuit complete.

The lights were on at the office of
The Nantucket Shoals,
and I decided to stop for a cup of coffee. The editor, David Trezize, always worked late. He seemed to put out the little newspaper single-handed, and he always had a pot of Jamaica Blue Mountain going. David covered police business in
The
Shoals.
His writing was sharp-witted and he told the truth. His editorials were lucid, his tiny staff was dedicated but he could never seem to fill his ad pages and the paper was always on the brink of going under.