Vineyard Prey (14 page)

“Are you going to invite me in? In case you didn't notice, it's snowing.”

“Sure,” I said. She smiled up at me as she passed, and I sensed a siren in my presence and understood why Odysseus had himself lashed to the mast. I followed her into the house.

The first thing that caught her eye was the framed gun magazine cover on the wall that pictured Zee at one of her early pistol competitions. She hadn't won that one but her looks had made her a cover girl anyway.

“Your wife?” asked Kate.

“Yes.”

“She's very beautiful.”

“Yes. And a crack shot, too.”

Kate looked around. “How cozy. I like the way you have your fishing poles hanging across the ceiling.”

“On Martha's Vineyard, we call them rods, not poles,” I said, going to the stove and sticking in a
couple more pieces of wood. “We keep them in here because this is the only room big enough to hold them.”

“I don't suppose you have some coffee.”

“It won't take long to make some.”

“I'd love a cup. Do you mind if I walk around and look at things?”

“Not at all. Take off your coat.” I took off my own, then made coffee and carried two cups back into the living room.

She came out of the guest room and took one of the cups. She was wearing slacks and a loose winter sweater that hid her pistol but did little to disguise her body. Her eyes were warm.

“I love your house.”

“It's an old hunting camp my father bought a long time ago when land on the island was still cheap.”

“It's exactly the kind of house I imagined you'd have.”

She sat at one end of the couch and looked down at the locks and lockpicks I kept on the coffee table. “My, are you a locksmith, too?”

“I got the picks at a yard sale from a woman who didn't know what they were. I practice picking when I'm in the mood.”

I sat down in Archie Bunker's chair. Every house has an Archie Bunker's chair. Mine was, like all of them, old and comfortable. I'd gotten it from the town dump in the golden years before the environmentalists changed dumps into landfills where you could no longer shop for good, free, used stuff you needed.

“Isn't lock-picking illegal?” Her tone suggested that she didn't care if it was.

“I don't think it's illegal to pick your own,” I said.

“Are those the only ones you pick?” Her smile curled up the corners of her mouth and her eyes were dancing and hungry.

Out of some dusty mental cranny came the words of a nearly forgotten Elizabethan ballad:

“What brings you here, Kate?” I asked.

She wound a lock of her hair around a finger. “I'm nervous. I'm not getting much comfort from Joe. He wants me to stay in that house and do nothing while he goes out and takes care of the Easter Bunny. I've been away from home for a long time. I need distraction.” She looked at me with her hot eyes. “I need a man.”

I felt a little of that heat inside myself. “It's not safe for you to be distracted,” I said. “There's a killer on the island and he seems to be after you.”

“I don't have a choice. I'm one of those women who need a man every now and then. I don't want one for a husband or a longtime relationship, at least not yet. I just need one for right now.”

“I'm afraid I can't help you.”

“It's been weeks. Since before the Bunny spiked
Susan Bancroft's scotch then shot her full of enough dope to kill an elephant.” She paused, then said almost dreamily, “The Bunny just missed getting me at the same time, you know. If he'd come a day earlier, he would have.”

My ears went up. “You were with Susan the day before she died?”

“Why not? We were friends and her boyfriend was out of town. Your wife isn't here today. Come and sit beside me. It'll be good for us both. And don't worry, because your wife will never know; I don't break up marriages.” She patted the couch with one hand and touched her tongue to her lips.

“I'm tempted but taken,” I said, showing her my wedding ring to emphasize the point.

“I won't take you anywhere you don't want to go.” She started to rise but something in my face stopped her. “Don't be so damned righteous. And for God's sake, take that look of sympathy off your face!” She sank down again. “What is it about you damned islanders? First Joe and now you!”

“There are plenty of island men who'll bed you in a second,” I said. “And I wouldn't blame them. Ten years ago I'd have been first in line.”

She picked up her coffee cup and drank. “Sure. But not now. Jesus, I'm going crazy. You have no idea!”

But she was wrong about that; though I had read the Fire Sermon, I had never achieved the cessation of desire.

“Before you start manhunting,” I said, “I want you to tell me something. It's important.”

“I've already told you what's important to me and you've dusted me off.”

“My wife is all the woman I want or can handle,” I said. “Do you know a man named Samuel Arbuckle?”

She looked surprised. “I know the name. I met him once, in fact. He's a friend of a friend. Why?”

“Was he one of your lovers?”

Her lips tightened. “I don't talk about my lovers. They're no one's business but mine.”

“I don't think he was, because you'd have recognized him in Vineyard Haven when you saw him. But it will help if I know for sure.”

She studied me. “The answer is no. Are you telling me that was Sam Arbuckle who followed me out of the bookstore?”

“Yes. And who followed me later. What do you know about him?”

She thought for a moment. “Not much. He works out of the Pentagon. A guy I was seeing talked about him sometimes. The two of them had been on some project together, I think. I remember that Arbuckle and his wife came by our booth one time when Stephen and I were having dinner. Arbuckle is a good-looking guy. We all had one of those little tableside chats before they went on their way. Why? Is he here because of me?”

She had an eye for men, all right. She'd met him once and remembered his looks. “He's not watching you any longer,” I said. “He's dead.”

“What?” Her eyes widened.

I gestured toward the yard where her car was parked. “Somebody shotgunned him this morning, but he was tough and drove here before he died. Does the word
tailgate
mean anything to you?”

  15 

Her coffee cup was still in her hand. She carefully put it down on the table. “What are you talking about? As far as I know, when you tailgate somebody, it means you're driving too close behind.”

“You don't know of a place by that name, or maybe a project with that code name?”

“No. Why do you ask?”

I told her about what had happened that morning, and repeated Arbuckle's last words. “What do you think he meant?” I asked. “Was his bunny our Bunny? And what did he mean by tailgate?”

She was impatient. “Of course he was talking about the Easter Bunny! There aren't any other bunnies in the picture!” Then she seemed to slow her thoughts. “Tailgate? I can't imagine what that means, but if it's not the Easter Bunny, maybe Arbuckle was telling you that we're wrong in thinking that it was.” She looked at me. “Maybe it's someone else who's doing the killing.”

And when she said that, I no longer saw through a glass, darkly. “He didn't say ‘tailgate,'” said my voice. “He said, ‘Tell Kate,' but he was on his last breath and I heard him wrong. He said, ‘Tell Kate.'” I looked at her, full of certainty. “And now he has told you, and you've understood. It's not the Easter Bunny; it's someone else who's doing the killing.”

Her brow furrowed, and my own thoughts raced through the many reasons people have for killing other people.

Some of those reasons are so whimsical as to be incomprehensible: people kill just to see what it feels like; they kill to experience power or joy or sorrow or some other emotion that life doesn't otherwise provide. They kill because God or Satan tells them to, or to save the world from aliens from outer space; they kill out of patriotic or religious or tribal fervor.

But mostly they kill for simple motives such as greed, fear, sex or its lack, and revenge. They kill to get what someone else has, to defend themselves, to get love or destroy the lover who's left them, or to get even.

Books have been written about why people kill. One thing they agree about is that every murder involves several stories: the story of the killer, the story of the victim, the story of the two participants coming fatally together through time and space, and, if efforts are made to solve the crime, the story of the detective.

“How many lovers have you had?” I asked Kate. “How many men? How many women?”

Her dark eyes flashed. “I told you to leave my lovers out of this conversation. My private life is my own business!”

I put up a hand. “I personally don't care if you sleep with baboons three times a day, but whoever
killed Arbuckle and Susan Bancroft has a history that links him with them and with you and Joe Begay. The list of such people can't be too long, but it might include your boyfriends past and present. How many are there?”

She lifted her chin and her voice was defiant. “A thousand!”

That was a different man every week for more than twenty years. She annoyed me. “We don't have time for lies. How many?”

She tossed her long, dark hair. “I'm thirty-five. I had my first boy when I was fourteen and my first schoolteacher a month later. I've been sexually active all my life.”

“No husbands along the way?”

“None of my own. I've had offers but I wasn't interested.”

“Maybe it's just as well.”

Anger only made her more attractive, and I could see why she could have almost any man she wanted.

Then she surprised me by saying, “I'm about ready to give up this kind of life and to get married. And when I do, I'm going to be monogamous. There'll be no more lovers in hotel rooms. We'll have a house and a family and we'll live normal lives.”

She must have seen something in my face as I listened, because she pushed her hair back with both hands and smiled an ironic smile. “Yes, yes. I know that you're thinking about me and Joe and about me and you. All I can say is that I'm not married yet.”

“Not counting Joe and me,” I said, “how many men and women have you had?”

“I'm not interested in bedding women.”

“Stop dancing. How many men, then?”

“I don't notch a tally stick.”

“Narrow it down. How many were unhappy when you left them?”

She smiled her shining smile. “All of them, I hope.”

Earlier she had resented my intrusion into her private life, but now she seemed to be almost enjoying it.

“How many of them were really angry?”

She arched a brow. “Not many. All of them knew it was just one of those things.”

“But some weren't satisfied with a trip to the moon on gossamer wings?”

“A few. I eased their feelings when I could, and broke the relationships off when they wouldn't be eased.” A small frown appeared on her face. “Are you thinking that some lover of mine is doing all this killing? I don't think so.”

“You're in the spook business and you must know people who know how to kill people.”

The frown remained. “I don't know any who would want to do something like this!”

“Don't look back too far. Just, say, the past four or five years. Anyone there who didn't want it to be just one of those fabulous flights?”

“I can't think of any.”

“How about the people who worked with you? How about Edo and Francis and Susan, for instance? Did you bed them?”