Vineyard Prey

by Philip R. Craig

  “Yeah, that was my thought, too. Sam was never cynical enough for the work he did. Well, I’ll be on my way. You can get in touch with me through Agganis’s office if you need to. I know how to find you.”

  He drove away. I went inside and locked the gun cabinet, then drove to John Skye’s farm. I was tired clear down to my bones.

  17

  Zee had picked Joshua and Diana up at school and she had a fire going in the living room fireplace. It felt good. Kisses from her and the kids felt even better, and a glass of Luksusowa on ice, adorned with a jalapeño-stuffed olive, improved things still more. She and I sat side by side on the big couch and looked at the fire. From the kitchen came the aroma of spaghetti sauce being warmed for supper.

  Diana, nose busy, approached. Whatever else she was doing, Diana was always food conscious. If she was lucky, she would inherit her mother’s genetic propensity to eat like a horse and never show it.

  “I like this house, Pa,” said our daughter.

  “So do I, Diana.”

  “John has even more books that you do. He has a whole library.”

  Our computer was in the library, sitting on the big table that served as John’s desk. Diana and Joshua used the rest of the table to do their nonelectric homework.

  “It’s my favorite room in the whole house,” I said.

  “Me, too. I like our computer, but I love books more.”

  Like father, like daughter.

  “Pa?”

  “What?”

  “Are we going to have our Christmas tree here? If we stay here, I think we should have our tree here, too. Christmas isn’t very far away, you know.”

  “I don’t think we need to have a tree here,” I said. “We’ll be in our own house very soon.”

  “How long, Pa?”

  “I’m not sure, but not long.”

  “Can Santa find us if we don’t have a tree?”

  “Absolutely. But by Christmas we’ll be back in our own house and we’ll have a tree for sure. I know just where to look for one in our woods.”

  “Pa?”

  “What?”

  “Christmas is my very favorite holiday!”

  “Mine, too. Now go finish your homework.” I sipped my vodka. Maybe I should leave a nip for Santa, in case it was a chilly night when he popped down the chimney. I didn’t like having the solstice season intruded upon by the Easter Bunny or whomever it was who had killed Samuel Arbuckle. Just as in Longfellow’s day, hate was strong and mocked the song of peace on earth, goodwill to men.

  “I heard about Samuel Arbuckle,” said Zee, staring into the fire after little Diana had gone back to the library. “I’m glad we moved the kids here before it happened. But all I got was gossip; what’s the real story?”

  The Edgartown hospital is one of the island’s greatest rumor mills, in part because when bad things happen on the Vineyard, the results turn up in the ER and word gets around fast. Fortunately, good news circulates almost as fast. If you want to know what’s happening, in reality or someone’s imagination, just talk to somebody who works at the hospital.

  I told Zee about everything but Kate’s hopes for a union with me. “By now,” I concluded, “the DIA guys, the state police, and all ten editions of the local cops are on the case.”

  “Which means that you can step away from it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. You’re getting too old for adventures.”

  “You’re right. No more adventures for me.”

  We watched the flames dance just as our cave-dwelling ancestors must have done tens of thousands of years before as they sat in front of their fires.

  “You have a cloud on your forehead,” said Zee after a while. “What are you thinking about?”

  I tried to evaporate the cloud. “Nothing,” I said. I gave her a smile.

  “You’d better stick to penny-ante poker,” she said, “or we’re liable to lose the farm.”

  “Nonsense. My face is stone.”

  “A less kindly person than I might say that you’ve confused your face with your brain. Why the brow?”

  “I was just wondering where the Bunny is staying between murders.”

  “I thought you just agreed to step away from whatever it is that’s going on. Besides, Arbuckle said it’s not the Easter Bunny.”

  “That’s right, but I have to call the killer by some name or other, so I’m going to keep calling him the Bunny. I’ll leave off the Easter part.”

  “Monty Python had a man-killing bunny in one of their shows.”

  “Wasn’t that the Holy Grail movie? Anyway, this is a different rabbit, and he has to be living someplace on the island while he goes around murdering people. I wonder where.”

  Zee thought for a while. “A lot of the B-and-Bs and hotels are closed for the season. If he’s staying in a place that’s still open, the police will probably find out pretty fast, don’t you think?”

  “I imagine they’ll give it a try. Any stranger will get their attention, for sure.”

  “And what about a car? If he’s from off-island, he either brought his own car or he’s rented one or stolen one since he got here.”

  Great minds. “The police are probably checking that out, too,” I said.

  “And what about a map?” asked Zee, getting into the spirit of the chase. “If he’s a stranger, how does he know his way around? This island isn’t very big, but it’s big enough to make it hard to find where people live. How does this guy know where to prowl and keep from being noticed while he prowls? Does he ask people where to find places and other people? It seems to me that if he does, the people he asked would remember him and could tell the police what he looked like.”

  I put my arm around her shoulders. “Maybe you should give up nursing and join the Edgartown PD. They need a keen investigative mind like yours to think of things they never would have come up with on their own.”

  She snugged closer. “I’m pretty sure the Chief and Tony D’Agostine and Dom Agganis and most of the other Vineyard cops have already thought about all the things I’ve come up with.”

  True. “And maybe the Bunny has come up with them, too,” I said.

  She screwed her head around and looked up at me with those deep, dark eyes wherein I’d so often happily lost myself. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that if we can think of these things and the cops can think of them, the Bunny can think of them, too. In fact, he probably thought of them first, since he planned this business before putting the plan into action.”

  “Of course.” She paused. “But how did he make a plan for a place he’s never been? All he knew was that Joe Begay lived on Martha’s Vineyard. Even if he knew approximately where Joe and Toni live, he wouldn’t have known exactly.”

  “It isn’t a secret,” I said. “Kate found the house without any trouble. All she had to do was flutter her eyelashes and ask any Aquinnah cop.”

  “You never mentioned her eyelashes before.”

  Not for the first time, my mouth was right here and my common sense was way out yonder. I tightened my arm. “Hers are absolutely no challenge to yours, my sweet.”

  “Good. Is that how she found Joe’s house?”

  “Actually, I don’t know how she found it, but it probably wasn’t hard. And unlike the Bunny, she didn’t have any reason to care whether or not she was remembered because she wasn’t out to murder Joe. The Bunny would have to be more careful.”

  “Unless he planned to hit and run so fast that he’d be long gone before the police heard about him.” We sipped our drinks and then she said, “What else have you thought about since you agreed not to think about this anymore?”

  “The shotgun that killed Arbuckle. The Bunny had a shotgun. That makes me wonder if part of his plan was to take advantage of shotgun hunting season. It makes me wonder if he’s a deer hunter.”

  “Don’t they have a bow-and-arrow season first, then a shotgun season, and then a black-powder season? How long does the s
hotgun season last?”

  “Only a week or so. It’s almost over.”

  “Do you think he timed his arrival to correspond with the shotgun season?”

  “He got close enough to Arbuckle to kill him with a shotgun. I doubt if he could have done that outside of hunting season. It could be that he was wearing an orange hunting jacket and cap. Even so, Arbuckle must have been either unsuspecting or awfully careless. His own coat wasn’t even unbuttoned.”

  Zee thought some more, then said, “If he came down here pretending to be a hunter, do you think he bought a hunting license as part of his cover, just in case he got stopped by a warden for some reason?”

  “I doubt if he’d have used his real ID to get one, but if he had fake papers, maybe so.”

  “He’d have used the same fake ID to rent a room or a car, wouldn’t he?”

  “I imagine.” But I couldn’t really imagine the Bunny renting either a room or a car when he got to the island. It would be too easy for the now-swarming police to find him or at least get a description of him, fake name or not.

  “I think it’s time for me to cook the spag,” said Zee, rolling to her feet. “The water’s already boiling. Din’s in ten.”

  I followed her into Mattie Skye’s kitchen. The aroma of the spaghetti sauce filled my nostrils. The old family recipe. Delish. I got the Parmesan out of the fridge and put it on the table, which was already laid, and opened the red wine.

  “What I think,” said Zee, “is that this bad bunny planned a very quick kill and escape, but that something went wrong. I think that Arbuckle interrupted him and that after the Bunny killed him to shut him up, he may have abandoned his plan and already be off of the island. That would be sensible, wouldn’t it? Your cover is blown, so you abort the mission and save your own hide?”

  “That sounds like what I would do. The other possibility is that he’s still here and sticking to his plan.”

  She stirred the spaghetti sauce. “But where is he, then? Where’s he staying? What car is he driving? How does he know how to get around the island without being noticed?”

  Good questions.

  “I’ll call the kids,” I said, but that wasn’t necessary. Diana’s nose and ears had led her to supper, and her big second-grade brother was only a step behind.

  The spaghetti was excellent but my thoughts were on rabbit.

  18

  The next morning was cold and overcast. In downtown Edgartown initial preparations were being made for the Christmas-in-Edgartown celebration, which was only a week away. The stands for the lighted trees that would line Main Street were in place, ropes and wreaths of greenery adorned with red bows were appearing on fences and doors, and candles were being placed in windows.

  I cruised Main to take things in, then hooked back to Pease’s Point Way and drove to the police station. There was a green wreath on the window of the locked front door. In a bow to national security policies, the station’s door was now always locked in case international terrorists decided to attack. To get in, you had to push a button. I punched it and peeked through the wreath. Kit Goulart peered back from the desk and let me in.

  Kit was large and pleasant. She bade me happy holidays. I returned the wish and wondered if the Chief was on the other side of his closed office door.

  “He is,” said Kit, “and so are some other members of the department. I believe they’re organizing a hunt for the guy who shot the guy who died in your yard yesterday.”

  “The Chief never did like having people killed in his town,” I said. “You mind telling him I’m here?”

  “Not at all,” said Kit, picking up a phone.

  A moment later, the Chief ’s office door opened and a hand beckoned me in. I went in and shut the door behind me.

  The room was crowded and warm. Tony D’Agostine and a half dozen other Edgartown cops were there. They nodded hello but looked pretty serious.

  “We’re about to go back to checking more places that take guests and rent cars,” said the Chief. “You have any wise advice before we start?”

  “How about places that sell hunting licenses?” I gave him Zee’s theory about the Bunny being in the guise of deer hunter.

  “You’re a day late,” said the Chief. “We did that yesterday when we started checking hotels and inns.”

  “Aren’t there some people who unofficially rent rooms even though they don’t register with any board or organization?”

  “Mostly little old ladies who can use a few extra bucks. We’re checking them out.” He cocked an eye at me. “Anything else you can think of? No? Okay, people, off you go.” He held up a forefinger. “And be careful. If you find anything, call in; if you find anybody who looks out of place, get backup first and ask questions second.”

  Edgartown’s finest went out of the office.

  “All the towns doing this?” I asked.

  “That’s the master plan.”

  If the master plan was being followed, something good might actually come out of it because there are ten different police forces on Martha’s Vineyard: one for each of the six towns, a sheriff ’s department, the state police, the environmental police, and the Registry of Motor Vehicles cops. And now the DIA was here, too. If all of them were working together, for a change, they could cover a lot of ground.

  The Chief was eyeing me. “How you doing? It must have been bad to have Arbuckle die in your arms like that. How’s Zee taking it?”

  “We’re okay. I’d already moved her and the kids over to John Skye’s place, so Joshua and Diana never saw anything. They’ll probably know about it by tonight, though, because the news will be in the schools.”

  “Dom Agganis told us what’s going on.” He paused. “At least what he thinks is going on. He thinks that your friend Begay should go somewhere else until this is over. The woman, too. Kate MacLeod; isn’t that her name?”

  “I don’t see either one of them following that advice.”

  “Maybe all the law will scare the killer off.”

  I shrugged. “That would be swell, all right.”

  He dug in a pocket and brought out his pipe and stuck it in his mouth. I once smoked a pipe and still had a rack of them at home in case I caved into the urge again. Now I only stared in envy at his ancient briar. The Chief stared back. “I’m guessing that Zee hasn’t succeeded in convincing you that you can leave this business in the hands of the police,” he said. “You shouldn’t make promises you don’t keep, you know.”

  I held up a hand. “I didn’t make any promises. Not real ones, anyway. I may have sort of agreed that I should mind my own business, but I didn’t actually promise anything.”

  “Your wife deserves better than you,” he said. “Of course, my wife deserves better than me, too. That’s true of a lot of wives, in fact. What brings you down here, anyway? Something’s on your mind.”

  “You’re still pretty friendly with Jake Spitz, aren’t you? You and he got pretty close when he was down here during those summer holidays the president and his family used to make.”

  He chewed his pipe stem, then said, “Yeah, Jake and I still get along just fine. What about it?”

  “I’ve been thinking about the Bunny—”

  It was the Chief ’s turn to hold up a hand. “The Bunny? That being the Easter Bunny Agganis mentioned? Isn’t he supposed to be some sort of international terrorist? But didn’t Arbuckle say something to you about it not being the Bunny?”

  First Zee, and now the Chief. “It’s just a name I’ve fastened on the shooter,” I said. “I don’t know if the guy is the Easter Bunny, but I have to call him something, so I’m calling him the Bunny. Maybe I should call him George Washington or Captain Marvel, but I’m calling him the Bunny. Is that okay?”

  “Don’t get huffy,” said the Chief. “Call him whatever you damn please. Anyway, what about him?”

  “I’ve been thinking that maybe he isn’t staying in an inn or a hotel.”

  The Chief frowned. “Then where is he
staying? In a tent? In some house he broke into?”

  “It could be, but I don’t think so. I think he may be staying with a friend or even in his own house.”

  The Chief took his pipe out of his mouth and looked at it for a while. “Go on,” he said.

  “Here’s the thought,” I said. “There are a good many Washington people who have houses on this island, including old Yalies and other IC types. McNamara, Kennedy, and Johnson are names that come to mind. They all rented or bought land here at one time or another, and you probably know the names of other bigwigs that I don’t, what with national security being so popular these days and even you small-town cops being in on it.”

  “So far,” said the Chief, “all Washington has given us is more work for no more money. What’s your point?”

  “My point is this: What if Arbuckle was right? What if it isn’t the Easter Bunny or any other foreign agent who’s doing these killings? What if it’s somebody else, somebody with an agenda of his own? An American with a grudge.”

  Thr Chief poked at the bowl of his pipe, tamping down the remains of a previous smoke. “You think it might be somebody in the IC?”

  “It makes sense, since the dead people were all in that game and so are Joe Begay and Kate MacLeod, although they’ll both deny it officially.”

  He nodded. “Somebody in the IC who has a house on the Vineyard or has a friend who has one.”

  I nodded back. “Maybe a house with a car in the garage?”

  “A private house and car would make it a lot easier for him,” he said. “And if it’s his own house, it would explain why he knows his way around the island. If he’s a hunter, it might even explain where he got his shotgun.”

  The Chief opened a drawer, got out a package of tobacco, and filled his pipe bowl. I inhaled the scent of the tobacco. Mighty fine!

  “And if he was someone Arbuckle knew and trusted,” I said, “it would explain why he was able to get close with the shotgun.”