Vineyard Chill

by Philip R. Craig

  “It’s decadent in its own way,” I said, “but I’m not sure you’d call it wonderful.”

  “You came just to ask that question?”

  “Yes. Thanks for answering it.”

  “May I ask why?”

  I realized that I didn’t want to tell them my reason because it now embarrassed me. “Yes, you may,” I said. “I wondered if you knew Nadine Gibson. If you might have met her when she was working in the Fireside.”

  Justin and Genevieve looked at each other, raised their eyebrows, then looked at me.

  “Ah,” said Genevieve. “You thought one of us might be a murderer. Is that it?”

  “Somebody is,” I said, “but I’m taking you off my list of suspects. You weren’t on it for long, if that makes any difference to you.”

  “I don’t think we’ve ever been murder suspects before, have we, dear?” asked Justin Wyner.

  “Not that I know of. Mr. Jackson has a low opinion of the Marshall Lea Foundation and thinks my conservation ideas are idiotic, but I don’t believe even he ever thought of us previously as mad-dog killers. Am I right, Mr. Jackson?”

  “You’re right, but I haven’t changed my mind about the Marshall Lea Foundation.”

  “Or about my views of conservation?”

  “Or those.”

  “Have you changed your mind about having tea? I’m going to be making some because it’s time for Justin to take a break from his literary chore so he doesn’t wear out those two fingers he uses.”

  “I’d love to,” I said, surprising myself by meaning it.

  As she headed for the kitchen, she paused and turned. There was a thin smile on her thin lips. “Would you like yours with or without poison?”

  I was not Mithridates, so I returned her smile and said, “Without, please.”

  26

  Genevieve Geller served her tea in fine china cups. While we drank it, she and her husband asked me why I was so interested in the death of Nadine Gibson. I told them it was because of my fondness for Bonzo, and my concern that his already difficult life might be made worse by suspicions that he was somehow involved in the killing.

  “Gracious,” said Genevieve. “You sound quite sentimental. I never noticed that aspect of your character when you called me a fanatic at conservation meetings.”

  “I don’t have much tenderness in me, so I save it for special occasions.”

  “Probably a wise policy. Tell us about your investigation so far. Not about your arrival here, because we already know about that, but about what came before that.”

  “It’s a pretty dull story,” I said. “I’ve talked with people and they’ve told me next to nothing. You’d be bored.”

  “I don’t see why we should be,” said Justin. “Murder stories are always interesting. Besides, it may be good for you to tell your tale to a new audience. Maybe you’ll hear yourself say something you never paid any attention to before.”

  “Anyway,” said Genevieve, “you owe us for having put us on your suspect list.”

  “You weren’t on for long.”

  “Long enough for you to tell us about your sleuthing. We deserve payment.”

  I was unexpectedly comfortable with them and could think of no good reason not to describe my efforts on Bonzo’s behalf, so I said, “When the tedium gets too much for you, let me know,” and launched into my tale, beginning with the phone call I’d gotten from Bonzo’s mother and ending at Justin and Genevieve’s doorstep. It took longer to tell than I’d guessed it would, but they both listened with what seemed to be interest.

  When I finished, Genevieve went into the kitchen and came back with more tea and some cookies.

  “And there you have it,” I said, when she returned. “What do you think?”

  “What comes to mind,” said Justin, “is a list of questions: Who knew Nadine? Who knew where she worked and lived? Who knew the place where she was buried? Who knew all of those things? Who knew some of them? Who hated her? I think her killer did because of all the blows he struck. Why was she hated?”

  “I think she was probably hated because of fear,” said Genevieve. “Most hatred, to my thinking, is based on fear of one thing or another: fear of being hurt or having a loved one hurt; fear of being robbed of something treasured; fear of being betrayed; fear of having the very foundations of your world shattered. If you aren’t afraid, you don’t hate.”

  Justin sipped his tea and nibbled a cookie, then said, “The killer knew her, hated her, knew where to find her, knew how to kill her, and knew where to bury her. Find the man who knew all those things and who was deathly afraid of her and you’ll have your murderer.”

  “Goodness me,” said Genevieve. “You sound like one of those detectives who sits in his study and solves mysteries without leaving the house.”

  “To take your requirements one by one,” I said. “First, a lot of people knew Nadine and she didn’t lack for male admirers. Second, everybody who drank beer at the Fireside knew she worked there. Third, her landlord and neighbors and God knows how many of the men who were after her body knew where she lived. Fourth, probably half the birdwatchers on the Vineyard and half the members of the Marshall Lea Foundation, including you two, have been to the old Olmstead place.”

  I paused and Genevieve said, “Which, all in all, doesn’t cut the suspect list down much.”

  “Leaving us only hate as a differentiating factor,” said her husband. “Out of all of the people who knew her, who hated her? And why? Lovers are the first people to consider, I’d venture. Jealousy and all that.”

  “But none of the boyfriends and would-be boyfriends I talked to seemed to resent the others,” I said, running these ideas through my mind and feeling perplexed for the umpteenth time. “Nadine seemed to be a spell thrower. When she left an old lover for a new, she cast an enchantment that forbade both parties to be jealous. I didn’t talk to a single male who was resentful of her other beaus.”

  “Too bad she didn’t live long enough to write a book about how to accomplish that,” said Genevieve. “She could have made a fortune.”

  “Well, somebody certainly wasn’t charmed,” said Justin, helping himself to another cookie, which he waved at his wife. “These are very good, dear.”

  “Fattening, too,” said his wife, giving him the disapproving glance she’d often given to me at conservation meetings.

  “Wives are like that,” said Justin to me. “They bake delicious goodies, then criticize you for eating them.”

  “You both look pretty trim to me,” I said.

  “My only thought about this murder business,” said Genevieve, “is that you should go back and talk some more with that neighbor woman. What’s her name? Loretta Aldrich? She may have seen more than she told you. She just might not have wanted you to know how snoopy she really is.”

  Justin Wyner arched a brow. “That’s a cynical remark, my dear. Are you saying that all women are nosier than they want others to believe?”

  “I don’t know about all women,” said Genevieve, lifting her cup to her lips. “But I certainly am.”

  When I left the house I considered the possibility of minding my tongue more carefully in the future when Genevieve and I crossed ideological swords at public meetings. Had I really called her a fanatic? It was more than just possible. Perhaps I should be more politic in the future.

  Or maybe not, since the truth of the matter was that I still considered the Marshall Lea Foundation to be a sort of fundamentalist religion of conservatism insofar as it was totally dogmatic, had sacred texts and a hierarchy of saints, and was composed of true believers intent upon converting the world.

  So, on third thought, since such institutions and such proselytizers had irked me all my life, it seemed likely that I wouldn’t change my ways after all. Which suggested that I was just as stubborn and inflexible as Genevieve Geller, and that this was something I should think about, but not right then.

  Right then I was taking Genevieve’s advice and goin
g to revisit Loretta Aldrich.

  As I drove slowly through the narrow streets of the Camp Meeting Grounds I looked at the houses. Many of them were empty, without insulation or furnaces. When summer came, they’d be full of folk: families enjoying holidays, lovers escaping the prying eyes at home, kids running where there were few cars to endanger them. Now, as spring slowly approached, the working men and women who’d rented the few winterized houses would be leaving so the home owners could use the places themselves or rent them out at summer prices their winter clients couldn’t afford. Nadine Gibson had been one of the lucky ones. She’d managed to find a year-round rental she could afford. Or at least could afford with her boyfriend’s financial help.

  How had they managed that on a barmaid’s salary and that of an architecture student? Probably, I thought, Adam Andrews had a parental pension of some sort. He was, after all, going to Harvard, no doubt with financial help from his parents, and after his breakup with Nadine he had been taken by his mother out to Arizona to heal his broken heart.

  But when Adam had departed, Nadine had stayed on and given no indication that she needed to move on herself. Did she have some private income or store of cash that allowed her to stay in her house? Or was she depending on the next boyfriend to help pay the rent? Or was there some other explanation?

  I parked in front of Loretta Aldrich’s house and as I got out of the truck saw a window curtain move in Gordon Brown’s house just up the street. As I walked to Loretta Aldrich’s door I saw another curtain flutter in her front window. There were a lot of window watchers in this neck of the woods. Loretta Aldrich smiled at me when she waved me inside. “You’ve returned. Something you forgot to ask me when you were here before? I think I’ve told you all I know.”

  “I’ve been wondering how Nadine Gibson could afford to live in her house. Do you have any thoughts on the subject?”

  Her old eyes glittered. “Perhaps I do, but they’re only guesswork.”

  “Will you share them anyway?”

  “When I was younger and could get out more, I was too busy to wonder much about my neighbors. Nowadays, as I told you before, I like to keep track of things.”

  “In the summer I imagine there are too many people around for that, even if you wanted to,” I said.

  She nodded. “In the summer I put a rocker on my porch and sit out there. I love to watch the children and the young families. I’m sure they think of me as the old lady who’s lived across the street as long as anyone can remember.” She smiled. “Of course, I’ve been here since I was a young woman myself. I doubt if they even think of that possibility.”

  “In the winter there’s a lot less activity. Anyone with an interest in the community could probably keep track of what’s happening.”

  “If you’re talking about me, you’re absolutely right.” She crossed her thin hands on her chest in an almost theatrical gesture.

  “You,” I said. “And Gertrude Brown up the street. And probably other people in the neighborhood that I don’t know. I expect a lot of people look out of a lot of curtains whenever a car passes or a person walks by. It’s what I’d do and what most people would do. On Martha’s Vineyard in the wintertime we all notice things we wouldn’t necessarily notice in the summer.”

  “Gert,” she said, nodding. “You’re certainly right about her. She’s locked herself away in her house but she doesn’t miss a thing. I’ll bet you she keeps binoculars right there by her bedroom window. She probably sees more than she did when she was still walking around.”

  “Tell me your thoughts about Nadine,” I said. “You say you’re only guessing, but I’d like to know what those guesses are.”

  She hesitated, then made up her mind. “Well, the girl’s dead, so I guess it doesn’t make any difference, and I can’t prove it anyway, but if you ask me, I think Gordy was giving her a real break on her rent. I know what he used to get for the place in the summer because I’ve been living here a long time and I hear things, and I don’t think she could afford to stay there year-round on her salary. You ask me, I think he rented it to her cheap because he liked to have her around, and then he lied to Gert about doing it. You wanted to know what I guess. That’s it.”

  “You don’t think Nadine might have had some other income? Or that the boyfriend might have shared the rent?”

  “She didn’t act like a rich girl, and she worked hard, so I don’t think she had much money. I know she never hinted at anything like that when we talked. As far as Adam is concerned, he wasn’t making any money from that firm where he was working, but maybe his parents helped out. Still, after he left and the last time we talked, she wasn’t planning to move.”

  “Maybe she figured her next boyfriend would kick in for the rent.”

  “Maybe.”

  “What do you think Gordon Brown got out of his deal with the girl? Sex? Romance of some sort?”

  She gave a small, ladylike humph. “If there was any romance, it was all in Gordy’s mind. She was sweet to him, but the same way she was sweet to everybody. She wasn’t interested in being lovey-dovey with a man old enough to be her grandfather. She liked young men. I think Gordy just liked having her live nearby. He and Gert are twenty years past being man and wife, if you take my meaning, and Gordy is a man who likes to be with women, especially pretty ones.”

  “You told me before that he’s a Caspar Milquetoast. Do you think there might be another side to him?”

  “You mean a violent side? Violent enough for him to kill Nadine Gibson in a fit of pique?” She shook her old, white-haired head. “Not in a million years. Gert’s had him wrapped around her thumb since they were newlyweds almost fifty years ago. They both seemed to like it that way then and I think it’s still that way whether or not he likes it now.”

  I went to the front windows and looked out. I could see Gordon Brown’s house and the house Nadine Gibson had lived in. How many secrets could there be in such a small neighborhood? Someone must have noticed something on that fatal night a year ago. I tried to imagine the scene bathed in white moonlight. Nadine came walking up Clinton Avenue at midnight, wearing her loden coat and her winter cap. She passed through alternating patches of shadow and light, going home as she always did, not knowing that it would be her last such walk. Was someone following her? Or was someone waiting for her, blunt instrument in hand?

  Had she gotten home before her killer approached? Had he knocked on her door and struck his first blow when she opened it? Probably not, because her body had been found still wearing that loden coat. It had happened, therefore, either before she’d gotten home or after she’d gotten there and left again, outside in the silver moonlight. The weapon had smashed down again and again, and if she’d tried to cry out, no one had heard her.

  And then the killer had driven her corpse to Olmstead’s farm and covered her body with rubble in the farmhouse basement. But if that had happened, surely there would have been blood at the scene of the crime, but the police had found none. Why?

  Maybe her killer met her on the street before she got home and had taken her to the farm in his car and killed her there. But why would she have gone with him? Was he a lover who prevailed on her to go on a moonlit drive? If so, how had he known about the farm?

  I turned back to Loretta Aldrich and asked, “Were you up late the night Nadine disappeared?”

  She shook her head. “No. I’ve since wished that I had been. I might have seen something. I might even have been able to save her. But I was in bed, asleep, when she came home.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual the next day? A strange car on the street? Some person who normally isn’t around? Anything at all?”

  “No. I do remember that it looked like it was going to snow and that Gordy went to the landfill that next morning, but the only reason I remember is because he’d gone just a couple of days before and had asked me, like he always does, if I had anything I wanted him to take. That morning he didn’t ask.”

  “Did you attach any s
ignificance to that?”

  “No, but Gert seemed to. She watched him from her window while he loaded a rubbish bag into the van and kept watching until he drove out of sight.”

  “Just one rubbish bag?”

  “That’s all I saw. Gert’s usually not interested in trips to the dump. She’s a strange one.”

  I thought that Gertrude Brown was probably even stranger than Loretta Aldrich imagined.

  27

  When I left Loretta Aldrich’s porch I once again saw a window curtain move in Gordon Brown’s house. I felt eyes watching me and wondered if someday my private life would interest me so little that I’d be one of those people who constantly watch their neighbors.

  Were their internal lives worse—less rewarding or pleasurable—than their external ones? Was the outside world more real and important than the inside one, the private one that no one else could share?

  My own persuasion was that both were ultimately meaningless, but that didn’t prevent me from thinking about values and acting as though they mattered. It just prevented me from believing my life had any purpose other than the one I invented as I went along. I thought of people who had religion. Gordon Brown had described his wife as one such. Their biggest problems were trying to figure out what their gods wanted them to do (the worst believers were sure they knew), and explaining the existence of evil. Although I lacked the solace of faith, my agnosticism at least freed me from dealing with those two classic problems.

  I did, however, have similar ones having to do with how to live morally in an amoral world. Usually love was a good guide, but I had too little of that in me to be a saint, and I distrusted the concept of justice as an alternative.

  Thus, feeling neither loving nor just, motivated only by the idea that the island would be fractionally safer if Nadine’s killer was prevented from killing again, I walked to Gordon Brown’s house and, as I neared it, saw the window curtain fall.