Vineyard Fear (11 page)

“Okay, Hiawatha, slow down. The bad guys are gone. Was that car there when you went in?”

“Yeah, it was there. What the hell was going on back there, J.W.?”

I told him what had happened. I was shaking.

“Damn! We'd better get the cops!”

“An excellent suggestion.”

We drove to the almost new Edgartown police station beside the fire station. The chief was downtown looking after his summer cops, but after a radio call for him went out, he was in his office in five minutes. I told him my tale. I could hear a little tremble/ in my voice. He looked at my bandages.

“You okay? You look a little banged up.”

I had been thinking. “I got these scratches up at Weststock. There may be a tie-in.”

“You can tell me about it later. Right now we'll get some men up to John's place and see if we can nail this guy.” He sent cars out to the farm and called the communications center. He put out a description of the blue car and asked that its driver be held for questioning. He was very efficient.

“I'm going out to John's place,” he said, getting up and grabbing his hat. “You come along, J.W., so you can show me what happened. You may as well bring that shotgun so you can put it back where it belongs.”

“How about me?” wailed Manny, who constantly complained that he never got to do anything really interesting. AH the wars had been fought without him, and the wild West had long been tame before he'd been born, let alone before he had discovered that he was an official Wampanoag.

“He probably saved my neck,” I said to the chief. “When the guy heard Manny coming, he must have taken off.”

“Okay,” said the chief, heading for his car. “Come on. Now what about that tie-in between this and Weststock?”

As we drove, I told him about the hit-and-run accident. “A blue car something like the one outside John Skye's driveway. I don't know if it was the same one because I didn't get much of a look at it in Weststock.”

“So that's where you lost that skin. You file a report with the Weststock police?”

“I'm deeply hurt. I used to be a cop. Remember?”

“You act like a damned civilian.”

“I am a damned civilian.”

“I'll give them a call when we get back to the station. Maybe they know about the guy or the car . . .”

“This is probably just paranoia,” I said, “but there is one other thing.” I told him about the incident with the gas fireplace. As I talked, I began to calm down. Anger began to replace fear.

“You admit you were drunk,” said the chief. He put on the siren.

“I've been drunker. I walked home, got undressed, and went to sleep. I didn't close the windows and I didn't kick my sandal into the fireplace and I sure didn't stand in John Skye's flower bed.”

“Or so you say.”

“You bet so I say.”

“When we get to the house, stay in the car. We'll check the place out and then you can come in.”

“The guy's long gone, Chief.”

“Stay in the car.”

We came to John Skye's driveway. The blue car was gone. We drove down the driveway and found two more police cars ahead of us at the house. Cops were walking around looking at things. Two of them were looking at the outer cellar door. The chief got out, talked to his men, and went into the house. After a while, he came out again and beckoned. Manny and I got out of the car and joined him and the other cops.

“Show us what happened,” said the chief.

I told them what I'd done while I'd been waiting for
Manny and then took them to the cellar door and showed where I'd seen the red dot. I told them how I'd been thinking of Manny and recognized the dot and ducked, and how the wood blew up behind me. When I finished with the rest of it, the chief turned and surveyed the woods behind us. He looked at a middle-aged cop. “Morgan, you and Soames check out those woods. Any other deer hunters here? Okay, you two go, too. See what you can find.”

A State Police car came down the driveway and a corporal got out and came over. The chief filled him in. The corporal went over to the door and looked at the splintered corner.

“One explosive round? A burst? How many shots did you hear Jackson?”

“I don't know,” I said. “More than one, I think. Maybe just one. I wasn't counting. I know I heard the first one.”

The corporal grunted and looked back at the trees where the Edgartown men were starting their search. “Came from back there, all right.” He turned back and looked at the door and the granite foundation slabs. “Slugs should be about here.” He walked to the foundation and knelt and peered at the stone for a while. “Yep, here's where they hit. Not much left. Looks like about 9mm. A pistol, maybe? Quite a long shot for a pistol.”

“A pistol is easier to hide than a long gun,” said the chief.

The corporal grunted assent. “There's a million different guns in this country. Some of the pistols you can buy have barrels ten, twelve inches long. Shoot straight at considerable distance. You know the difference between the sound of a pistol and a rifle, Jackson?”

I was feeling dumb and getting tired of it. “Somedays, maybe. Not today. I saw the red dot and ducked. All I wanted to do was get inside the house before the guy with the gun came up and tried again while I was down that
cellarway. I didn't try to figure out what kind of a gun he was using.”

“Why do you think it was a guy?”

“Because I do. Maybe it was a girl. Usually it's guys who shoot.”

“You got a girlfriend?”

“Yeah.”

“She mad at you?”

“She's up in New Hampshire. You can ask her yourself.”

“Maybe her hubby's the one who's mad at you.”

I put my face closer to his. “She doesn't have a hubby.”

He was beginning to enjoy himself. “Her boyfriend, then.”

“Take it easy,” said the chief. “I know the woman. You're barking up the wrong tree.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe so, maybe not. Somebody's sure as hell mad at this guy.” The corporal looked at me. “Unless, of course, you just made this up.”

“You're sharp,” I said. “I had everybody fooled but you.”

“How'd you get yourself all banged up?”

“Protecting a state trooper from a mad Brownie scout. He was trying to give her candy outside her schoolyard and she caught on to him. Guy looked a lot like you, in fact. I made her give his gun back to him.”

“You did, eh?” He bunched his shoulders. His face was red.

“Yeah.”

“Hold it,” said the chief, stepping between us. “Hold it right there. J.W., you take that shotgun inside and put it back where it belongs. Corporal, let's have a look back in the trees.”

The corporal and I exchanged glares. I felt suddenly childish and turned away and went into the house. I unloaded the Savage and returned it and the shells to their proper places. From an upstairs window I watched the
policemen move in and out among the trees and undergrowth.

There was a telephone beside John's bed. I looked at it, then sat down and phoned the fire department in Weststock. When the phone was answered, I gave my name and said, “The night before last you sent at least one truck to a house belonging to Dr. John Skye on Academy Row. Problem with a gas fireplace. I want to talk to the fireman in charge of the operation. I'm the guy who may have caused the problem.”

“Hold on. You want to talk to Scotty.” I heard hollow-sounding voices speaking. A minute later a new voice came on the phone.

“Scott Wenham.”

“J. W. Jackson. I'm the one John Skye hauled out of his guest room night before last. You guys came then and made sure everything was okay. I have one question. Did you or any of your men have occasion to go outside of the room where the fireplace is located? Did any of you stand outside of a window and maybe look in as part of your work?”

“No sir. Our work was all done in the house. Nobody went around back.”

“You're sure.”

“I'm sure. Dr. Skye had shut the valve and opened the windows and doors before we got there. We just made sure there were no leaks or fumes left. How are you feeling today?”

“Fine,” I lied. “Just fine. Thanks for your help.”

I rang off and thought about things. As the man said, “Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.”

I went downstairs and outside. The police were gathered around a clump of bushes. I found a space in the circle. In the center of the circle, grass was flattened where someone might have been lying down.

“If you lie down there,” said the chief, glancing up at
me, “you get a clear view of the house, but they can't see you. Back there in the woods we got some footprints coming in and going out. About a size nine shoe. Maybe a boot. We'll take casts. Guy came from a car parked out there and he went back to it. He came slow and went back fast. Figure it was the blue car you and Manny saw.”

The corporal opened a beefy hand. In it was a plastic bag holding three shells. “Found these,” he said. “You own a 9mm weapon?”

“No.”

“Maybe you borrowed one.”

“Maybe I borrowed a set of size nine feet at the same time.”

The corporal looked down at my twelves. “Well,” he said, “if it wasn't you, it must have been somebody else. You got any enemies?”

“Just two,” I said. “You and maybe a guy named Lloyd Cramer.”

“Who's this Cramer?”

“He's a guy with a sore knee and a busted face.”

“Cramer's the guy who beat up Dan Wiggins' niece,” said the chief. “J.W.'s the guy who, ah, held Cramer until the authorities could get there.”

“Oh, yeah?” said the corporal. “I think I heard that story.” He almost smiled. “Maybe I just changed my mind about you, Jackson.”

“To know me is to love me,” I said.

“I don't know you that fucking well. This look like Cramer's work to you”

“The chief says this shooter hurried back to his car. I don't think Cramer could manage that. In fact, I don't think Cramer can bend his leg enough to drive a car.”

“Maybe he hired somebody to do the job.”

“Maybe. But could you find yourself a hired gun if you were a stranger on Martha's Vineyard? Cramer's from Iowa, for God's sake.”

“Maybe he hired him in Boston,” said the chief. “After
all, Cramer got out of the hospital several days back. He had time to make some contacts.”

“Same problem,” I said. “Cramer may be a turd, but he's no professional criminal. I doubt if he knows any of the Boston pistoleers. If you were Cramer, could you find a shootist to come down here and pop me off?”

“I doubt it,” said the chief.

“I could,” said the corporal.

“That wouldn't surprise me,” I said. “But if this guy wanted to shoot me, why didn't he do it at my place? That makes more sense. If I was going to kill me, I'd scout my place when I was gone, maybe stand behind a tree until I got back and pot me at my leisure. I wouldn't have come sneaking through the woods to do it here.”

“Spread out, boys,” said the chief to his men. “See if you can find anything else.”

“There's something else,” I said to the chief, and I told him about my telephone call to the Weststock fire station.

The corporal frowned at us. “What are you two talking about?”

I told him my Weststock story.

“You mean you think this guy tried for you twice up there before he tried for you down here?”

“Somebody—stomped John Skye's flowers right under the window to his guest room. It wasn't a fireman and it wasn't me.”

“So you think it was this same guy. He came in through the window, saw you drunk in bed, and decided to let the gas fireplace do the job? Put your shoe over by the valve, left, and shut the window behind him. All without waking you up.”

“Maybe. It almost worked.”

“This guy must really want to kill you.”

I'd been wondering about that. “I don't think so,” I said. “I think he wants to kill John Skye.”

The chief looked at me quickly. Then, just as quickly, he raised a brow. “You could be right. It makes sense out of some of this.”

The corporal nodded. “Yeah. Could be. The guy's got it in for Skye, but doesn't know what he looks like. That's kind of odd, but it wouldn't be the first time a guy tried to hit somebody he'd never met. Guy finds out Skye's coming up to Weststock for a meeting and waits for him. Sees you pull up in Skye's car and go into Skye's house. Thinks you're Skye.”

“Yeah. Then he sees me walk down toward the college carrying a briefcase and decides to get me right there in the street. If it works, it's just an accident. But it doesn't work, so he tries again that night. Seems to me like he must have been inside Skye's house sometime before I got there.”

“Yeah,” said the chief. “He could have scouted the place out while John was down here and his family was out west. That would explain how he knew about that fireplace. Thing that saved you was that he didn't expect anyone else to come home later that night.”

“Maybe he was one of the people watching the firemen save the house,” said the corporal. “Anyway, yesterday morning he knows he didn't get you, so he follows you down here.”

“I made a lot of stops on the way,” I said, “and he must have seen a lot of me here and there. But he decided to wait until we got on the island. Probably figured to get me last night while I was asleep. But when I got the last place on the last boat last night, he had to wait until this morning to come over.”

The corporal grunted. “Guy knew or found out where Skye lives here on the island. Why didn't he just drive down and wait for you to show up?”

“Because he thought I was already here and would recognize his car?”