Vineyard Prey (13 page)

“I don't know much about Kate,” I said. “What do you know?”

I thought his stony face became even stonier, but all he said was “Enough to trust her on jobs. She did good work during the trade mission.”

“Had you worked with her before?”

“Once. On an earlier job. She was good that time, too. Very professional.”

“You say she has an active social life. What do you know about that?”

He eyed me carefully over his coffee cup. “I've heard the scuttlebutt about her being a popular girl at home, and I believe it, but she never let her private life interfere when she was working with me. I don't investigate people's personal lives unless it's part of an assignment.”

That last sentence interested me. “One of the jobs you do is checking out people's private lives? I thought the FBI usually did that.”

“Other outfits do it, too.” His lips formed a cold smile. “There are a lot of rivalries among agencies. They don't always trust one another to give them the true scoop on something.”

“Would the DIA be interested in checking out Kate?” He glanced out the window. “Maybe.”

Why the glance? “Why would they be interested?”

His eyes came back and his smile faded. “I'll ask them when they come to see me. It shouldn't be too long before they're here.”

“Does Kate have a shotgun to go along with that pistol of hers?”

He studied me. “You think she may have blasted Arbuckle?”

“It's a thought.”

He shook his head. “In the first place, I don't think she has a shotgun. In the second, if she and Arbuckle were enemies he wouldn't have let her get close to him with a shotgun. And if they were friends she wouldn't have any reason to shoot him.”

“Unless he thought they were friends and she thought otherwise.”

“You're getting cynical in your old age, J.W. Where would she have gotten the gun?”

“Maybe she stole it. Half the houses on Martha's Vineyard have shotguns in them. With her training I imagine she could have gotten into some place without any trouble at all.”

“She could manage that, but I still don't make her for the shooter. She'd have had to steal the gun, then arrange to meet Arbuckle someplace private, then show up with the gun, and shoot him before he knew what was happening. And she'd have had to do all that very quickly. What time did Arbuckle come down your road?”

I told him. “It wasn't long after I got home from seeing you and Kate earlier today. I see what you
mean about
quickly
. She was here with you when I left.”

He nodded. “And she was still here when I left about fifteen minutes later to scout my house. Doesn't leave her much time to kill Arbuckle.”

“Unless she already had the gun and a date to meet him.”

“It would still be tight.”

“Maybe too tight. But she went somewhere.”

His mouth suggested annoyance. “Yeah, she went somewhere. I'll be glad when this is over and she's back home in Bethesda.”

I thought of Joe and Kate together here in this old house. He was an attractive man and she was an attractive woman. Five days was a long time, and Toni Begay was far away.

“Has she mentioned knowing any other men here?” I asked. “Say, a Washington suit with a house on the Vineyard? There are a lot of D.C. people with places here.”

He nodded. “If she knows anybody here, she hasn't mentioned his name.”

“Can you find out?”

Another nod. “I can ask her when I see her. Meanwhile, I can make some calls. Someone should know.”

“While you're calling, can you find out why the DIA is interested in her? Why was Arbuckle watching her?”

“I can try. Right now, though, we should decide what to tell the DIA people who'll be investigating his death. I think the best thing for you to do is fess up and tell them everything you know. That should get you off the hook.”

“What about you and Kate? If I talk, they'll know about both of you and about the Easter Bunny, too.”

“A lot of people know about the Easter Bunny, and I can handle the DIA.”

I sat for a moment and ran things through my mind. Then I looked at Joe and said, “Tell me something, Sarge, was the DIA involved in the trade mission?”

He said nothing.

“It occurs to me,” I said, “that maybe the hit on Rudolph and Scarecrow and the Bunny was a DIA caper, and that your boss contracted to do the job for them. Is that what happened?”

“I wouldn't know.”

But I thought he did know. “Because if that's the scenario, it explains a lot of things: the DIA knows all about the Bunny probably doing Susan in, at least, and now trying to do in you and Kate, too. That would explain why Arbuckle was here: he wasn't after Kate; he was trying to make sure the Bunny didn't get to her. She didn't know who he was, but he knew who she was. He was probably hoping to nail the Bunny, but apparently the Bunny nailed him first.” I looked at him. “What do you think of that scenario?”

“No comment.”

I noticed that my right forefinger was tapping the table all on its own, as if it had its own little metronome in its own little brain. “If I'm right,” I said, “maybe we should leave the Bunny to the DIA guys. There'll soon be a lot more of them here than there are of him.”

“You have a lot of confidence in government agencies,” said Joe.

“Tell me something else,” I said. “Does Kate date guys who work for the DIA?”

“I don't know who Kate dates.”

“With all the IC snoops in Washington watching each other, somebody must know.”

“Not necessarily. There were guys at the FBI who were spying for the other side for years before they finally got caught. Looking back, it's pretty clear that somebody should have noticed them, but nobody did.”

True. Two popular unanswerable questions are “Why didn't you see that?” and “Why didn't you think of that?” I've never known why I never thought of or noticed things that later seemed to have been perfectly obvious.

“It's something else to ask her when I see her,” said Begay. “But why do you want to know?”

I wasn't sure. “It's just that with her being in the spook business, I thought she might naturally gravitate to other spooks. The way cops have bars where they can hang out with other cops and not have to worry about being misunderstood by civilians.”

Begay shook his head. “Most people in the IC are just normal people who work in an office and go home to their families at night. Their friends aren't necessarily people in the business.”

I stood up. “I don't suppose you'll change your mind and tell me if I'm right about the DIA being behind the hit on the Bunny bunch.”

“No, I don't suppose I will.” He paused, then
said, “But I don't know if you should reject the idea.”

That was as much as I was going to get from Joe.

“Any sign of enemy activity down at your house?” I asked.

“None. But I'm a patient man. He has to come sooner or later.”

“Maybe he fell for your car-at-the-airport trick. Maybe he thinks you're really gone.”

“Those ‘he knows that I know that he knows that I know that he knows' games can go on forever, but I think the Bunny will bite my bait. Especially if he knows Kate is on the island.”

“How would he know that?”

“My guess would be that somebody told him.”

“Who?”

“I don't know. Yet.”

I stood up. “Be careful, Joe.”

“Yes. You go home and try to stay out of this if you can.”

“I will,” I said, but I thought it was too late for that.

I drove home on the gray road between the barren trees and past the steely water. It was a chilly day, with a north wind making it even colder. The gray clouds looked heavy and there was a feeling of snow in the air. The hunters would be wearing their down vests and wool shirts under their camouflage jackets. They'd like a little snow to muffle their steps and to show them the tracks of the deer. As if on demand, a few flakes began to blow across the road. They soon became thicker, and by the time I passed the airport I had to turn on my windshield wipers.

I wondered if the Bunny, thinking ahead, had brought his own winter hunting duds and shotgun to the island and whether he had bought his out of state hunting license so as to be legal and in the clear if some warden stopped him.

From time to time I checked my rearview mirror, but saw no one following me through the blowing snow. At the end of our driveway I stopped and picked up our mail from the mailbox. If anyone wanted to find me, all he had to do was look at the name on the box.

Perhaps that accounted for the car tracks leading into our driveway but not leading out again. A visitor had arrived since the snow had begun to fall and was still here.

I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather.

  14 

I drove a few yards down the driveway and parked between two large oak trees that grew close to the track. The trees and the battered old Land Cruiser made an excellent roadblock. No one would be driving away from the house unless I wanted them to.

I got out and walked directly into the woods. There I put my car keys on the top of a low branch of one of the big oak trees, on the off chance that my visitor might have occasion to search me and then use the keys to move the truck. I wanted his car to stay in my yard even if he managed to get the drop on me.

The chances were that the driver was a neighbor, or maybe even Zee herself.

But maybe not. The old comic definition of paranoia came to mind: two noia.

I went through the oak brush and between leafless trees, circling down toward the house. The snow flurries offered all the camouflage I'd have, but I'd be approaching from the back of my shed so my visitor would have to be looking in the right direction if he was to see me before I got a first look at him.

Beneath my feet the crackle of dry leaves was muffled by the snow, and I wished it was later in the day, when there would be less light. I also wished I had my old .38 that Olive Otero had been so quick to take into her possession.

Mr. Wishful.

I saw the house and shed ahead of me through the trees, darker shapes in the falling white snow. Then, beyond the corner of the house, I made out the rear end of a dark car parked in the yard. Was the driver in the car or somewhere else?

I circled farther out, then came back, keeping the shed between me and the house. The clasp that held the shed door shut was still closed, meaning that no one was inside. I peeked around the corner of the shed at the house and saw no signs of footprints in the snow by the back door or the movement of curtains in the rear windows.

I waited and listened and then trotted to the back door and looked through its window into the kitchen. No one was there. I don't lock my doors, so I was inside in only a moment. I walked to the door of the living room, avoiding the squeaky part of the floor and listening all the way.

No sound. I peeked through the door. Empty.

Making no sound myself, I moved through the rooms in the house. There aren't many and no one was in any of them. Oliver Underfoot and Velcro yawned hello from the guest room bed, and decided not to get up and join me. They seemed unconcerned with any visitor.

I saw no sign of melting snow on the living room floor. Was it possible that my visitor actually took closed doors seriously and hadn't tried the front doorknob?

I heard the car's motor start and looked out the front window. The car was Kate's and she was turning it around.

What was she doing here?

I went out through the screened porch and waved to her. She looked surprised and then smiled, stopped the car, and got out.

“Where did you come from?” she asked, walking toward me. “I knocked, but no one answered. Then I waited, but no one came down the driveway. And now, just as I was leaving, here you are.”

“I went for a walk,” I said.