Vineyard Prey (19 page)

“Cute,” he said.

“Cute?”

“The snow was falling when he was here. He took a chance that it would keep falling and cover up his work. But it stopped.”

“And?”

“And so we step back into the trees a ways. Maybe we can turn this into something useful to us. It'll cost, but it might make him careless. Come on.”

I followed him into the woods for fifty yards, until we stopped under a barren oak.

“This should be far enough,” he said. “You know what this is?” He showed me a small black device taken from his pocket.

What a question. “No. I see ads in the
Globe
for gadgets that do high-tech things teenagers understand, but I don't know one from another.”

“You should try to get with the times, J.W. This really isn't anything new or high-tech; it's a fairly old gimmick. What it does is start your car from a distance, so it'll be warmed up by the time you get in.”

“You want Toni's car warmed up?”

“Not exactly,” said Joe. “In fact, I hope I'm wrong about this. Get behind that tree.”

I did and he pushed a button on the device.

The explosion tore a hole in the air. A few small
branches detached themselves from their trees and fell down around us.

I found that I had thrown myself flat onto the snowy earth. I pushed myself up. Joe brushed a twig off his shoulder.

“I was afraid of that,” he said. “Toni is going to be very angry.”

“Only after she knows you're still alive,” I said.

“I hope you're right,” said Joe. “Now we'll go back and sit in the woods awhile so we can see who shows up. That blast should have been heard for at least a couple of miles.”

We walked back until we could see the house and the flaming car. The front windows of the house had been blown in and a bench on the front porch had been ripped into two pieces.

We watched as Toni's car burned and melted the snow all around it. Broken branches and little piles of brown dirt were strewn over the remaining snow in the parking area. Seeing this, I remembered the flying pieces of trees and undergrowth and body parts that had been the result of the long-ago mortar barrage that had decimated my first and last wartime patrol, and I realized I was trembling.

“Now, we wait,” said Joe, sitting on his heels.

I knelt beside him.

Time passed.

The explosion had been so loud it seemed that half the citizens of Aquinnah should have heard it and come to investigate, but no one came.

More time passed. The car burned silently, sending smoke into the misty air.

It started to snow again. Who can fathom Mother Nature's moods?

The snow fell and fell, and we waited and waited.

The snow began to fill the car tracks and footprints, but the fiery car melted anything that fell near it.

Then a car came down the driveway. It was Mercedes Benz's pricy contribution to the SUV market. Half the people on Martha's Vineyard had fourwheel drive vehicles, but not many of them owned a Mercedes-Benz. The SUV stopped well back from the flaming ruins of Toni's car, and the driver stepped out and stared, then hurried as close as he could get and peered into the flames.

I didn't recognize him, and Joe said nothing. The man pulled a cell phone from his pocket, dialed a number and spoke, then went back to his car and pulled it to one side of the driveway before returning to the site of the explosion. He looked hard into the remains of the car, then went to the house and looked in through the broken windows. Over the sound of the fire I heard his voice: “Hello! Anybody in there? Hello!”

Joe Begay sat as unmoving and silent as a stone.

Then, in the distance, I heard the sound of a siren, and not much later a fire truck came into the yard, followed by two pickups that were quickly joined by another. Aquinnah's volunteer firemen went quickly to work.

Joe touched my arm and nodded back toward the direction we had come, and the two of us scuttled away through the woods. Halfway to Uncle Bill
Vanderbeck's house, Joe said, “We'll take your truck and drive in as though we just came home and saw the commotion. Do you know the guy in the Mercedes?”

“No. Do you?”

“No, but I got the license plate number.”

So had I. “We can ask who he is when we get there,” I said. “Where have we been driving?”

“We were out looking for Kate.”

When we got to my old Land Cruiser we drove toward Joe's house but, to prevent anyone tracing our tracks back to Uncle Bill's place, drove up and around the loop leading to the cliffs and came back to Joe's driveway. We pulled in and stopped behind the last of the half dozen pickups and trucks that were now on the scene.

Joe walked in front of me, looking this way and that. When he came to the first of the firemen, he said, “What's going on?”

“Car fire, Joe. Pretty much under control now.”

The fire chief came to us. “Anybody home here, Joe? Toni or the kids?”

Joe shook his head. “No. They're away. What happened?”

“Too soon to say.” He gestured toward the driver of the Mercedes. “This fella says he heard what sounded like an explosion then saw smoke and came here and called us.”

Joe looked at the man. “Explosion?”

“That's what he says. Says he was up on the cliffs, on the lookout there, when he heard the sound and saw the smoke. Near as we can tell, Joe, there was
nobody in the car. You have a gasoline leak or anything?”

“No. Anybody else hear an explosion?”

“A couple of the guys here say they might have, but didn't think much of it, being as how it's hunting season and guns are going off in the woods. Happened about a half hour ago, near as I can figure.”

“Who's the guy?”

The chief got out a notebook. “Name's Stuart Oakland. Here for the holidays. Got a house down in Oak Bluffs. You don't know him, I take it.”

“No.”

“Well, he did the right thing. If we'd had a north wind, the fire might have touched off the house. We haven't been in there yet, by the way. You want to let us in? Just to make sure no sparks made it inside.”

“Sure.” Joe led him to the door, unlocked it, and stepped inside. The fire chief followed.

I stayed where I was and took a good look at Stuart Oakland. He must be the son of Professor Buford Oakland, whose house I had opened a few days back in Oak Bluffs. He was a handsome man in his midthirties, clean-shaven and dressed in expensive looking winter clothing. I wondered if he'd been named after Lee's general. It seemed possible, given his father's enthusiasm for the Civil War.

  21 

I walked over to Oakland and put out my hand. He took it and I could feel restrained strength in his grip.

“I'm J. W. Jackson,” I said. “I opened up your house for your father a few days back. I hope everything is satisfactory.”

Close up, I could see that his face and hands were tanned from some recent time in a summer sun.

On the ring finger of his left hand was a golden ring studded with a single diamond only slightly smaller than my head. His eyes were blue beneath hooded lids. His lips formed a smile.

“Ah, so you're Mr. Jackson. My father gave me your name and phone number, in case something was wrong in the house. Nothing is, by the way. I'm Stuart Oakland.”

“My friends call me J.W.”

“And mine call me Stu. Quite a coincidence that we should meet under these circumstances. Are you a friend of the man who lives here?”

“Joe Begay and I have known each other a long time.”

“Have you?” He nodded toward the smoking car. “Quite a fire. Any idea what happened?”

“No. Joe and I just got here. The fire chief says you heard an explosion and saw the smoke from up on the cliffs. You see anybody around when you got here?”

He shook his head. “Not a soul. I phoned nine-one-one as soon as I saw the car. The firemen were here very quickly. I stayed in case they wanted to debrief me. So far nobody's asked me much, not that there's much to tell.”

“You're in the military?”

He cocked a brow. “What makes you ask?”

“Debrief isn't a usual civilian term.”

He laughed easily. “No, I'm not in the military. It's a term you hear around Washington, where I work. I guess I just picked it up somewhere along the line.”

I thrust my hands into the pockets of my coat. “It's a chilly time for a Southerner to be coming north for a holiday.”

He returned his own hands to his coat pockets. “I got used to New England weather when I was at Yale, and I have a friend here who keeps an iceboat on Squibnocket Pond. We plan to get out there if the ice is thick enough.”

The idea of being cold for fun didn't appeal to me. It was one of the reasons I'd given up duck shooting. Duck shooters love terrible weather. The worse it is, the more they like it. After shivering in blinds with my shotgun for several seasons, I'd finally realized that sitting in front of a warm fire with a glass of cognac and a good book was much more enjoyable. Nowadays when I wanted wild duck, I'd buy it from some hunter friend who still enjoyed freezing half to death between shots.

“Your folks coming up for Christmas?” I asked.

Another headshake. “Not this year. I've got the place to myself. Shall I let you know when I leave? I actually expect to pull out before Christmas. Friends in Georgetown have an annual solstice party that I hate to miss.”

In every nation north of the equator people celebrated and gave thanks for the end of lengthening nights and the slow growth of daylight. Thanks to the efforts of the priests and priestesses and to the gods who accepted their petitions, death by ice was averted once again and life was renewed. Christ was born; the New Year's baby replaced the bent old man; Osiris was made new; the old king was dead, long live the new king! Deck the halls.

“Give me a call when you're ready to pull out,” I said. “What sort of work do you do when you're not iceboating and celebrating the Yule? Are you an academic like your father?”

He gave me a studying look, then changed it to a smile. “No, I'm just a government paper shuffler, I'm afraid. I represent your tax dollars at work. How about you? I hear it's not easy to make a living here during the winter.”

“I'm a fisherman,” I said. “Right now I'm scalloping. And I look after a few houses like your father's.”

“Tough job, fishing. Must be cold out there on the water this time of year.”

“Cold enough, but that's where the scallops are.”

He made a sympathetic sound. “I don't mind having fun in the cold, but I prefer my nice warm office for work.”

“You sound like a duck hunter,” I said.

“I've popped a cap or two. How'd you guess?”

“They freeze for fun, just like you iceboaters. No surprise, I guess. I once heard a woman who took people on river-rafting trips say that people will pay a lot of money to be miserable.”

He laughed. “That's probably true, now that I think about it.”

Joe and the fire chief came out of the house. I put out my hand to Oakland once again. “Well, nice meeting you. Maybe we'll see each other again.”

“Under happier circumstances, I hope.” We smiled at each other and I went over to where Joe was looking at a broken window and saying to the chief, “I'll put some plywood over these until I can replace the glass.”

“I can go get it right now,” I said. “You don't need me here.”

As I drove to Cottle's lumberyard on Lambert's Cove Road, I thought things over. At the yard I tied sheets of half-inch plywood onto the top of the truck. On my way back to Aquinnah, I thought some more.

All communities are small communities. Their citizens, however different in social status or condition, know one another and share common problems and blessings. The Vineyard, diverse as it was in landscape and inhabitants, was at the same time a small community with shared conditions, concerns, conflicts, and interests. As was reflected in the letters to the editors of the island papers, not much happened that didn't inspire readers to write paeans of praise or diatribes of condemnation.