Vineyard Prey (25 page)

He nodded. “Back from the rez. One of Toni's Christmas presents will be a new car.”

“How's Kate doing?”

“Kate is doing better every day. We'll know she's back to normal when she gets a doctor in bed with her. I don't think it will be long.”

“Quite a girl.”

“She says she's getting out of the business. Going to settle down and raise a family.”

“She mentioned getting married and giving up the wild life. Good luck to her husband, I say, whoever he may be.”

We stared at the flames behind the glass-fronted stove.

“I thought you might be interested in the news and guesswork out of Washington,” said Begay. “Jake Spitz called this morning and gave me the latest facts and speculation.”

I said nothing, and he went on: “Stephen Harkness has been persuaded to talk. I didn't ask how,
and your guesses turn out to have been pretty good. When Melanie Harkness jumped, both he and her brother blamed the whole mission crew. Oakland got friendly with Susan, drugged her, and then shot her full of enough dope to kill a horse. Then he tried for Kate in Bethesda, but missed her. It wasn't hard for him to learn that I live on the Vineyard, so he came here to find me.” He gave me a humorless smile. “He even had you get his house ready for him.”

“Good grief,” I said, “that means I was almost an accessory before the fact to my own murder. We live in complicated days.”

Begay sipped his tea, licked his lips, and made a contented sound. “Good stuff. You helped him again when you phoned Spitz. Harkness listened in and did some thinking and then called Oakland and told him that Kate must be here, too.”

“Two for the price of one,” I said.

“It was just a matter of finding us, and it helped him out when some people in the DIA and other IC people, including some in my outfit, got it into their heads that the Easter Bunny was the hunter. That idea took attention away from other candidates long enough for Arbuckle to be sent up here to find Kate and watch her back.

“But it wasn't the Bunny who was after her, it was Oakland, and the current theory is that Oakland played hail-fellow-well-met with Arbuckle and arranged to meet him off on some empty side road to confer.”

“And when Arbuckle showed up, Oakland shotgunned
him, but Arbuckle got away as far as my place.”

“The shotgun is a problem,” said Begay, “because Oakland's piece was a Beretta nine millimeter.”

“I imagine that he didn't want to use his own gun to kill Arbuckle,” I said. “Besides, a shotgun wound was a lot better because it might make people think Arbuckle was a hunting accident.”

“Makes sense to me,” said Begay, nodding, “but they haven't found the shotgun, and if Arbuckle had seen one, he should have been less trusting.”

I'd been thinking about that. “Try looking in the glass-covered case in Oakland's library,” I said. “Have the shotgun barrel of that LeMat revolver tested. I'll bet it's been fired recently. Oakland couldn't hide a shotgun, but he could hide the LeMat in plain sight.”

Joe nodded. “I'll drop that idea into Dom Agganis's ear. He'd like to get as many loose ends as possible tied into a nice knot.”

Cops almost never got all the loose ends of a case tied into a nice knot, but they always tried.

As Oakland was pulling off Kate's nails, he'd enjoyed telling her how he'd found her, and I thought about how fate so often takes a hand in the games men play.

Her habits were pretty well known. She liked men and she liked bookstores. This time of year the bookstores were closed at night, but the bars were open, so he spent his evenings parked on the streets watching bar traffic. And fate had decreed that he was looking in the right direction when she went
into the Fireside. It wasn't just luck, but there was a lot of luck in it. If she'd gone to Edgartown that night, everything would have been different.

By the next morning he'd burned her clothes in the library fireplace and she'd told him everything she knew, including where to find Joe's house. Then he'd gone to Joe's house and wired the car he found there, but fate had again taken a hand and his effort had failed. By the time he came home and saw my truck in his driveway, the Norns had rewritten his script.

“Listen,” I said, “why don't you and Toni and the kids come for lunch tomorrow? Afterward, we're going out in the woods to cut our Christmas tree. The ladies and the kids can run around in the snow while I chop and you give advice.”

“Sounds good,” said Joe. He looked into the bottom of his mug. “You got any more of this stuff?”

I did, and he and I were still sampling it in front of the fire when Zee and the kids got home.

The next day, after a warm lunch, we all went out into the still-falling snow, I with my coil of rope and my sharp ax over a shoulder. The flakes were big and soft and light, and there was no wind. Silent snow, secret snow. It clung to the branches of the trees and turned the world into a white wonderland.

We scuffed our way out through the woods behind the house, kicking clouds of snow as we went, making snowballs and throwing them, planning a snowman for the front yard. In time, one child, then another, then all four of them flopped down and made snow angels with swinging arms
and legs. Toni and Zee, inspired, joined them, and finally Joe and I did, too. When we rose there was a family of snow angels beside our path.

A quarter of a mile from the house, we came to the clearing I was looking for. On its far side was the perfect fir tree I'd been watching grow for the last three years.

In the clearing I had the children follow me in making a large circle, then forming four straight spokes to the center of what was now a proper wagon wheel on which to play fox and the geese. Joshua elected to be the fox and the other children and their mothers were the geese. On my signal, the game was on, with the fox pursuing the geese around the rim and in and out of the spokes of the wheel in the latest edition of that ancient game of tag.

While Zee and Toni and their children ran and slipped, and laughed and screamed, Joe and I went to the fir tree, shook the snow off it, and stomped the surrounding snow flat. On my knees I swung the sharp ax and felled the tree, feeling a familiar mix of guilt for killing it and happiness at the thought of the magical, ornamented wonder it would soon become: our Christmas tree. The tree of life renewed.

I tied our rope around its trunk and when the fox and the geese were all red-cheeked, exhausted, and happy, Joe and I teamed up and, half pulling, half carrying the tree, led our families back to the house through the endless, falling snow.

The next day Zee and I and the kids decorated the tree. My job, as always, was to put the star at the top and then to string the small white lights. After
that came the hanging of balls and other ornaments. This was done according to the height of the hanger. I hung the small ones that went nearest the star, Zee hung the middle branches, and Joshua and Diana handled the low ones. When we were done, it was the finest tree we'd ever seen, and Oliver Underfoot and Velcro crawled under it, purring, as if it were their very own.

That night as I was tucking Diana into bed, she looked up at me with sleepy eyes and said, “Pa, I'm glad we're back in our house, and I love Christmas more than almost anything, don't you?”

“More than anything but you and Joshua and your mother and Oliver and Velcro,” I said.

“Are we going to sing carols this year?”

“Absolutely. I'll play my guitar and we'll all sing. You can't have Christmas without carols.”

“Pa?”

“Yes.”

“I love you.”

“And I love you. Now go to sleep. Tomorrow is a school day.”

I went out and sat beside Zee in front of the glass-doored stove. I put my arm around her shoulders and felt good and wondered if, in spite of the Oaklands and Harknesses of the world, Longfellow had been right about the Christmas bells: that when they pealed loud and deep, they sang that wrong shall fail and right prevail, with peace on earth, goodwill to men.

Christmas was the right time for such hope, and I let myself feel it as I looked into the fire.

 
RECIPES
 

S
CALLOPS
T
IKKA

1 lb. bay scallops

Mix together about 4 tbsp. each of:

Tikka paste (available in Indian ethnic food section)

Sour cream or plain yogurt (amounts may be varied to your liking)

Crackers or buttered bread crumbs

Cajun seafood seasoning

Gently stir scallops into mixture. Remove scallops and spread in single layer in greased ovenproof pan. Sprinkle with buttered bread or cracker crumbs seasoned with a small amount of Cajun seafood seasoning.

Preheat the broiler. Broil 3 to 4 inches from heat for about 5 minutes.

Serves 4

S
CALLOPS IN
S
HERRY
-M
USTARD
S
AUCE

1 lb. bay scallops

4 tbsp. fresh thyme, chopped

Juice of 1 lemon

1 tsp. extra-virgin olive oil

2 tbsp. dry sherry

1 tbsp. Dijon-style mustard

Chopped Italian parsley

Mix scallops with thyme and lemon juice. Heat oil in skillet and sauté scallops for about 1 minute. Remove scallops to warm plate. Add sherry, mustard, and reserved marinade to skillet. Bring to a boil. Reduce slightly and pour over scallops. Sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Scallops may be served over rice or linguini.

Serves 6

S
CALLOPS IN
W
INE

2 lbs. scallops

1 ¼ c. dry white wine

¾ tsp. salt

⅛ tsp. pepper

1 bay leaf

1 celery stalk (with leaves)

¼ tsp. dried thyme leaves

2 tbsp. chopped pimiento

¾ c. water

½ c. butter

½ lb. fresh mushrooms, sliced

¼ c. chopped green onion

¼ c. chopped green bell pepper

¼ c. flour

2 egg yolks

¼ c. heavy cream

¼ c. buttered bread crumbs

¼ c. grated Parmesan cheese

In medium saucepan, combine scallops, wine, salt, pepper, bay leaf, celery, thyme, pimiento, and water. Bring to boil, reduce heat, and simmer, covered, for about 5 minutes. Drain scallops, reserving liquid. Discard bay leaf and celery.

In 4 tablespoons butter, sauté mushrooms 2 minutes. Add onion and green pepper and sauté 5 minutes more. Set aside.

Melt the rest of the butter, remove from heat, and stir in flour until smooth.

Gradually stir in reserved liquid from scallops. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, reduce heat, and simmer 1 minute.

In small bowl, mix egg yolks lightly with cream. Stir in some of hot mixture, then add egg mixture to sauce. Cook, stirring, over low heat, about 5 minutes or until thickened.

Combine all ingredients except the bread crumbs and grated cheese; pour into individual baking shells or into baking dish. Top with buttered crumbs and Parmesan cheese. Bake in a preheated 400-degree oven for 15 minutes or until brown and bubbly.

Serves 8

Philip R. Craig grew up on a small cattle ranch southeast of Durango, Colorado. He earned his MFA at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop and was for many years a professor of literature at Wheelock College in Boston. He and his wife live on Martha's Vineyard.