First Light

by Philip R. Craig

  Pinto did the talking. Their proposal was simple: They would give Sarah Fairchild a check for her two hundred acres, then deed it over to the township of West Tisbury with a variety of codicils, stipulations, conditions, and requirements, all of which amounted to the foundation’s retaining veto rights over any use of the property the township might consider. The beach and dunes, they felt, should be strictly off-limits to human use. Piping plovers nested there, not to mention several other less-threatened avian and aquatic species. The freshwater ponds, likewise, should be out-of-bounds. The MLF would bring in an army of biologists to take a census of the entire property. Any area where a single species of plant or animal they considered fragile, threatened, or endangered, or that might simply be unhappy if people were nearby, would be given sanctuary.

  The Fairchild parcel was, said Pinto, “an ecological treasure,” and should be preserved and protected from human abuse.

  I inferred that “abuse” and “use” were synonymous terms in the MLF lexicon.

  They would, of course, raze both the Fairchild house and the stone lodge at the beach. Pinto called them “eyesores.” Their aim was to restore the property to its “original unspoiled condition.”

  Their proposal was, they understood, subject to negotiation with both Sarah Fairchild and the township of West Tisbury.

  When Pinto was done, he looked at me. “Well, Mr. Coyne, there you have it. Do you have any questions?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll bring all this paperwork home with me and look at it with my lawyer’s eye. And, of course, I’ll have to explain it all to Mrs. Fairchild. Then we’ll see what she thinks.”

  “Of course, of course,” he harrumphed. He hesitated, then said, “We haven’t, um, discussed …”

  “Money,” I said.

  “We cannot match the Isle of Dreams offer, you understand.”

  “You know what they offered?”

  He cleared his throat. “Let’s say we have a pretty good idea.”

  “You don’t want to match it?” I said.

  Trip Warren, the baby-faced lawyer, reached across the table and put his hand on my arm. “Sir,” he said, “the Isle of Dreams is a private corporation. They envision a profit-making operation. It’s entirely different.”

  I shrugged. “We’ll see who wants it the most. The final decision, of course, is Sarah Fairchild’s.”

  “The price is negotiable, I hope,” said Pinto.

  The two ladies nodded vigorously.

  “At this point,” I said, “everything’s negotiable.”

  We had lunch at the Harborview, and then we all piled into Pinto’s van and drove out to the Fairchild property. We parked at the locked gate by the dirt roadway that wound through the meadow and scrubby oak and pine forest, over the dunes, and down to the beach. A big NO TRESPASSING sign was nailed to the gate.

  We got out, walked around the gate, and started strolling down the road. I was in front with Trip Warren. Millie and Roberta were right behind us, chattering animatedly, and Gregory Pinto was huffing along, bringing up the rear.

  We had just turned a corner by a grove of pines when Nate Fairchild stepped out of the woods into the roadway in front of us. “You again,” he snarled, glaring directly at me. “Get the hell outta here.” His eyes took in the others. “Goddam nature freaks. I mean all of you. Scram.”

  Nate was wearing his fore-and-aft fishing cap and a pair of overalls with no shirt underneath. With his bushy sun-bleached beard and scruffy work boots and menacing scowl, he looked like something out of Deliverance—particularly since he was holding a pump-action shotgun under his arm.

  Millie, the leather-faced old gal, walked right up to him. “Put that silly weapon away, young man,” she said. “We have every right to be here. We’re the Marshall Lea Foundation, and we’re here with the Fairchild family lawyer, and you don’t frighten us.”

  Trip Warren mumbled, “He frightens me.”

  Nate glowered at Millie. “I don’t give a shit who you are, lady,” he said. “You’re trespassing, and I’ll pepper your scrawny little ass if you don’t get the fuck off my property.”

  Millie turned to me. “Who is this terrible person?”

  “Meet Nathan Fairchild,” I said. “Sarah’s son.”

  “I’m out of here,” said Trip Warren.

  Gregory Pinto was already heading back to his van. Trip turned and started trotting after him. Roberta and Millie continued to stand there in the middle of the road glaring at Nate.

  “Come on, ladies,” I said. “I’ll get this straightened out and we’ll come back another time.”

  “I ain’t going away,” said Nate. “You come back, I’ll be here.”

  Millie stepped up to Nate. “You’re not going to shoot us.”

  He grinned. “Don’t count on it, you shriveled-up old witch.”

  I put my arm around Millie’s shoulders and gently pulled her away. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  When she and Roberta reluctantly started back to the van, I turned to Nate. “What the hell do you think you’re going to accomplish? Do this again and you’ll be arrested, I promise.”

  “Fuck you, lawyer,” he said. “It’s my property, and it’s posted, and that gate is locked.”

  “It’s Sarah’s property, not yours. I’ll straighten it out with her.”

  “I doubt that,” he said.

  I started to ask him what the hell he meant by that, but he just shrugged, turned, and disappeared into the woods.

  In the van on the way back to Edgartown, Gregory Pinto and the two ladies told young Trip Warren Nate Fairchild stories, how he was a local ne’er-do-well, a notoriously bad-tempered drunk and brawler well known to the local police, a fisherman and hunter who ignored closed seasons and bag limits and was known to sneak onto beaches that the EPA had declared off-limits. He was, they agreed, the Fairchild family’s bad seed. One of the benefits of buying up the property would be to rid the island of him.

  Warren wondered if the MLF ought to reconsider its offer to purchase the place. He envisioned Nate Fairchild haunting it, shooting buckshot at people who came to check on the plovers.

  I apologized for Nate and promised to speak to Sarah about him. We agreed to get together again at the end of the week.

  It was nearly five in the afternoon when I pulled into the turnaround in front of the Fairchild house. I’d been thinking about Molly Wood, wondering if she’d turned up. I’d call J.W. as soon as I got inside. He’d know.

  Patrick came onto the front porch as I was getting out of the car. I waved at him and started up the steps. Then I stopped. Patrick was biting his bottom lip and shaking his head.

  “What’s the matter?” I said.

  “It’s my grandmother,” he said.

  Chapter Eleven

  J.W.

  At the house I found Zee looking even more upset than when I’d left. “I called the Visiting Nurse Service. Molly missed work yesterday and didn’t come in this morning, either.”

  I had a sense of déjà vu. I’d been looking for one missing woman, and now Zee was fussing about another one.

  “It’s not like Molly to miss work,” she was saying. “She’s much too responsible. She would have called in if she was sick. I’m worried.”

  “Maybe she had to go off-island unexpectedly. An emergency of some kind. Do you have her mainland phone number or address?”

  “No. She’s staying with Edna Paul here in town, but all I know about where she lives in America is that it’s in Scituate.” She glanced at her watch. “I have to get to work.”

  I had a sudden sense of some cosmic decision-maker involving me in a drama not of my own choosing. “I tell you what I’ll do,” I said, feeling as if I were reading a script, “I’m already looking for Kathy Bannerman. While I’m at it, I’ll see if I can catch up with Molly Wood.”

  “Oh, good. Call me if you find out anything.” She picked up her purse and gave kisses to her lunch-chewing children.

 
I walked her out to her Jeep, where I got my own kiss. “Do you know anything that might help me get started? People Molly knows, places she goes? That sort of thing?”

  “Well, she knows the people at the Visiting Nurse Service, and she knows Sarah Fairchild and her family, and of course she knows Brady. There have been other people in and out of the Fairchild house when she’s been there. Those golf people and the Marshall Lea people. Maybe she knows some of them.”

  “Did she ever talk about the people she’s been dating? Do you remember any of their names?”

  She climbed into the Jeep. “I know she’s had a couple of dates, and maybe she mentioned some names, but the only one I remember is Shrink Williams.”

  Shrink Williams again. “Shrink Williams must date every single woman on Martha’s Vineyard. He dated Kathy Bannerman last year. What do women see in that guy, anyway?”

  “Well, he’s got some money, and he’s a good dancer.”

  “Except for the part about money and dancing, that’s a perfect description of me.”

  She patted my cheek. “Women don’t stick to Shrink for long. You’ve got me for life, though I sometimes wonder why.”

  I had a thought. “Was Molly one of Shrink’s patients?”

  “I don’t know. It’s possible, I guess.”

  “Isn’t it unethical for a psychiatrist to date his patients?”

  “Who said psychiatrists are any more ethical than other people? But as far as I know, nobody’s brought charges against Shrink. I’ve never heard of any woman who thought he was exploiting her. I think most women just get bored with him.”

  She drove off, and I went in to clean up the lunch dishes. After that, the children and I worked on the tree house for a while. It was coming along nicely, in spite of the usual delays caused by dropped tools, continuous modifications in design, and pauses to admire our work.

  In midafternoon, I called a halt to construction and we drove into Edgartown. I wanted to talk with Edna Paul, who was Molly Wood’s landlady. Edna’s house was toward the southwest end of Summer Street. It was a modest place compared with some of its neighbors. Edna was a retired schoolteacher who stretched her pension by renting her spare bedroom to mature single ladies. No college students. Too noisy. Edna belonged to the Marshall Lea Foundation. I hoped she’d talk to me anyway. She liked children, so I was glad I had mine along when I knocked on her door.

  “Oh, it’s you,” said Edna when she opened the door. The smile on her face was replaced by a frown. Edna and I had clashed more than once over how preserved land should be used. She was a No-People person who favored limited human access to let land revert back to its natural state. I held out for traditional uses such as hunting, fishing, hiking, and picnicking.

  I got right to the point. “Molly Wood hasn’t been seen in two days. I hope you can tell me she’s here.”

  “Well, she isn’t. But, she’s paid up to the end of the month, so I assume she’ll be back.”

  “When did you last see her?”

  “Why should I tell you?”

  “Because my wife is her friend and she’s worried, and because if Molly stays missing, the cops are going to be looking for her. Did you see her yesterday?”

  She looked down at the children and almost smiled, but the smile went away when she looked back at me. “No, I can’t say I did, but I don’t stick my nose in other people’s business like some people I know.”

  “When did you last see her?”

  “Night before last. I was watching television. I heard her, but I didn’t see her. She’s got her own entrance.”

  “That would have been after she left our place. She had dinner with us. Where did she park her car?”

  “Right there in the driveway. First I heard her drive in, and then I heard her come in and go up the stairs.”

  “And you never heard her or saw her again.”

  “I didn’t say that. A while later I heard her telephone ring. She has a private line. Said she needed to be in touch with people in Scituate, where she comes from. Anyway, these walls aren’t too thick, so I heard the phone ring. Then a little later she went out and drove off. Probably to meet up with one of those men she’s been seeing.”

  One of those men. “Do you know which one?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know any of them or any of their names?”

  “Can’t say as I do. The girl goes out pretty often for a widow woman who just lost her husband, though. One of them brought her home a few days ago, and the two of them were outside for a long time, sitting in his car. I didn’t get a good look at him, but I don’t want any hanky-panky at my house, so I flicked the porch light a couple of times and they got the idea. He drove off and she came in and went up to her room.”

  “What kind of a car was it?”

  She shrugged. “They all look alike to me.”

  I have the same problem. “New or old?”

  “It looked pretty new.”

  “What color?”

  “It was night. I couldn’t tell.”

  “What did the man look like?”

  “Could have been young or old. I don’t stare at people, like some others I know.”

  “Would you recognize him if you saw him?”

  “Doubt it.”

  “Did you mention him to Molly afterward?”

  “I don’t pry.”

  “Did you ever see him again?”

  “Maybe he was here one other time. It was night again. I only saw the back of his car when he drove off.”

  “No long talks in the car that time?”

  “I couldn’t say. I was coming home from a meeting and I pulled in just as he drove off.”

  “Do you mind if I take a look at her room?”

  “I most certainly do.”

  “I won’t take anything. You can come with me to make sure.”

  “You can’t go in there. My guests have complete privacy.”

  “The police may want to look in there.”

  “They have a warrant, they can go in. They don’t, they can’t.”

  “Molly Wood is missing, Edna. We’re trying to find her.”

  “Well, you won’t find her here.”

  “If she comes home or calls, please tell the police.”

  She thought, then nodded. “Yes. I will.”

  I thanked her, and she shut the door in my face.

  I rewarded the kids with ice cream, and by the time it had been eaten and hands and faces had been wiped free of the overflow, I knew what I needed to do. So we drove to the police station, and I told the Chief about Molly Wood’s disappearance and what I’d learned from Edna Paul, which wasn’t much.

  “That’s because she doesn’t like you,” said the Chief, who had been scribbling notes while he listened.

  “I know,” I said. “I think she knows a lot more than she told me. She said the walls are thin, but that she doesn’t listen through them. I’ll bet she does. She said she doesn’t keep tabs on what her tenants do, but I doubt that. She claims she can’t describe the men Molly dated, but I’ll bet she can. I came by to ask you to wave your badge and a search warrant at her, so she’ll talk with you and give you a look at Molly’s room.”

  “Once again, your simpleminded police department is indebted to a citizen of the town, telling us how to do our work. I’ll send Tony D’Agostine down to have a chat with Edna. He won’t have a warrant, but I’ll bet he gets into Mrs. Wood’s room without one.”

  “If you learn anything, will you let me know?”

  “Maybe. How many more missing women do you expect to be looking for in the next day or two? If you tell me now, I can start looking for them right away.”

  “Two is two more than enough, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Amen. Now, if you don’t have any other earth-shaking ideas, why don’t you run along and let me do my work, which right now is making some calls around the island and to the mainland to see if your new missing lady is still here or went back to Sci
tuate.”

  As we left, he was frowning and reaching for the phone.

  Joshua and Diana wanted to go home and work on the tree house.

  “No,” I said. “We’re going for a drive. We’re looking for the red car that Molly was driving when she came to our house for supper. You two can help. If you see a red car, tell me.”

  “There’s one!”

  “That’s not the right one, but keep pointing them out.”

  “There’s another one!”

  It was going to be a long day. I hadn’t even gotten out of town before my bright-eyed children had proven that there were a lot of red cars around. Unfortunately, none of them was a Honda Civic belonging to Molly Wood.

  I figured that the island’s ten different police forces were probably cruising where they normally cruised, and that people living at the ends of private driveways would have reported any strange cars on their property, so I decided to cruise where the police didn’t usually go and to ignore private drives.

  I didn’t have much hope of finding Molly’s car, but you never know, so I spent the last of the afternoon driving the back roads that wander through Edgar-town’s forests and scouting every housing development I could find. There are a lot of these, and more in the making, thanks to the ever-increasing popularity of Vineyard living. I followed roads I’d never been on before and saw houses I’d never seen. I was both impressed and depressed, and I found myself waxing nostalgic for the good old days, before things had gotten so crowded. Of course, when my children were grown they would be nostalgic for days like this one, when life was simpler and there weren’t so many crowds.

  I didn’t find Molly’s car, and both children went to sleep in the backseat while I was searching. Nap time waits for no one.

  When I’d driven every back road I could find in Edgartown, I moved my search up to Oak Bluffs and repeated the process there. As in Edgartown, there were lots of roads, both paved and unpaved, to be explored, and a lot of new houses. I drove many miles but saw no sign of Molly’s car.

  Then I thought of the purloined letter. People could say a lot of things about me, but they couldn’t deny that I was slow. If you’re naked and you don’t want people to notice, you go to a nudist colony. If you want to hide a book, try a library.