First Light

by Philip R. Craig

  We thanked him and drove away.

  “I don’t know about this plan,” I said. The afternoon was wearing on, and we were no wiser than we’d been when we’d left the house that morning.

  “There’s a place out near Mink Meadows,” said Zee. “I played out there a couple of times. It’s a private club, but nonmembers can play for a price.” She found Franklin Street and headed north.

  There were a lot of places on Martha’s Vineyard where I’d never been, and this tennis club was one of them. It was tucked back in the trees at the end of a narrow, sandy road. You’d never have known it was there unless you knew it was there.

  There was a handsome young man alone in the clubhouse. He gave me a very friendly smile. “Hi,” he said.

  “Maybe you can help me,” I said.

  “I certainly hope so. My name’s Larry. I’m the club pro.”

  “I’m J. W. Jackson.” I glanced at Zee. She was standing off to one side smiling a wide, amused smile. I showed Larry Molly’s photograph. “Have you seen this woman? She plays tennis.”

  His hand touched mine as he took the photo. “Why, yes,” he said. “I certainly have.”

  “Was she here with a partner?”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “When did you last see her?”

  “I don’t know. Five or six days ago, maybe. She was here more than once.”

  “Was she with a man?”

  He smiled a perfect white-toothed smile. “She certainly was. She has hair like the sun. Looked natural, too. They came together. He’s the reason I remember her, in fact. He’s a handsome fellow. On the other hand, he apparently prefers good-looking, fortyish blonde ladies. Worse luck, darn it.” He returned my photo.

  “Do you know the man’s name?” I asked, tucking the photo back in my pocket.

  “No, but I wish I did. He’s in his late twenties, early thirties, I’d say, and he has a sort of semi-Southern accent. You know, one of those accents a Northerner gets when he moves South and then comes back North again. I’ve heard him talking about golf and his beach and about Hilton Head. I was inspired to think I might go down there this winter and see if I can find some work.” He tilted his head to one side and smiled. “What would you advise?”

  “I’ve never been to Hilton Head,” I said, “but if you decide to go down there, I’ll bet things will work out for you. You said the man apparently likes fortyish blonde women. What do you mean?”

  “I’ve seen him before. He plays here every year.”

  I felt a little rush of excitement and handed him the photo of Kathy Bannerman. “This woman was on the island last year. Do you remember her?”

  “Sure,” said Larry. “He brought her here several times. How could I forget?”

  I was suddenly aware of the clean smell of him. “Is that Enchanté that you’re wearing?”

  He smiled. “Yes, it is. Do you like it?” He leaned forward so I could sniff.

  “It’s very nice, but not my style, I’m afraid.”

  “Too bad. Say, I’ll be back up here again next summer. Do you play?”

  “No, I don’t.” I nodded toward Zee. “But my wife does. Maybe you can give her lessons.”

  “I’d love to.” He smiled at Zee almost as broadly as she was smiling at me.

  “Is this man still around?” I asked.

  “He was around a few days ago.”

  “If he shows up again, try to get his name. If you can’t manage that, get the license-plate number of his car, and then give me a call.” I scribbled my name and number on a piece of paper and gave it to him.

  “What’s he done, Mr. Jackson?”

  “Maybe nothing. It’s the women I’m interested in.”

  Larry sighed. “I should have known. All right, I’ll give you a buzz if I see him.”

  The Jacksons got into the Jeep, and Zee drove west toward the Fairchild house.

  “I think you’re Larry’s type,” she said. “Maybe you should take up tennis. You need a safe sport.”

  “You’re my type, and I believe I’ll stick to fishing.”

  I sat back, thinking about what Larry had told me and feeling excited by the first solid link between the missing women. Both had played tennis with the same man. Dom Agganis was going to want to talk with Larry, that was for sure.

  I felt good. Answers seemed not far in the future.

  Zee drove fast and well over the still-damp asphalt as the setting sun broke through the clouds and painted the island with the lovely slanting light of late afternoon.

  And as the light danced on the hood of the Jeep, a little memory also danced into view. When Frankie Bannerman had mentioned the man her mother was dating, she didn’t remember much, but she did remember that they’d gone to his beach and played tennis.

  His beach, she’d said.

  And Larry had just put the same words into the blond man’s mouth.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Brady

  Eliza combed her fingers through her hair, smoothed her gown over her hips, gave Nate and me a quick smile, and followed Patrick out of my bedroom.

  Nate was standing there, his thick arms folded across his chest, staring at the doorway. He sighed, then turned to me, and a smile spread across his face. “Maybe you oughta get dressed,” he said.

  Eliza had undressed me for my back rub. I was sitting there on the edge of my bed, stark naked.

  “Good idea,” I said.

  “I gotta get the hell outta here,” mumbled Nate, and he turned and left.

  I picked up my underwear, which Eliza had tossed onto the floor, found a clean pair of jeans and a flannel shirt, and took them across the hall to the bathroom. I still felt a bit light-headed, but aside from general stiffness in my joints and an assortment of aches and pains, I decided I was pretty much back to what passed as normal for me.

  I stood under the steamy shower for a long time, letting the wet heat seep into my pores, and I thought about what I had witnessed. “Family business,” Nate had called it, without a hint of irony.

  I gathered from Nate’s reaction that Patrick’s attack on Eliza wasn’t all that unusual. I remembered a few days earlier when she’d worn sunglasses to hide the discoloration around her eye.

  It had looked to me as if Patrick was trying to kill her.

  I decided to talk with Eliza, explain her options, offer to help her.

  She’d say it was none of my business, of course. Abuse victims generally did. They blamed themselves, defended their abusers, and believed that they deserved it.

  You could separate a woman from her husband or boyfriend. Dealing with a mother and her adult son would be trickier. But something should be done.

  I felt less achy after my shower. I toweled myself dry, wiped the steam off the mirror, dragged a razor across my face, got dressed, and went downstairs.

  I heard voices coming from the kitchen and followed them. J.W. and Zee and Diana and Joshua were all sitting around the table sipping hot chocolate. Eliza was leaning back against the counter talking with them. She had changed into a pair of blue jeans and a pink sweatshirt. She’d scrubbed her face and brushed her hair and redone her makeup, and now she was smiling and chatting as if nothing had happened.

  Hell, had I imagined it? Was all that another one of those weird morphine dreams?

  Then Eliza glanced over and saw me standing in the doorway, and the quick frown that passed across her face told me that what I’d seen had been real.

  She arched her eyebrows and held my eyes for a moment, and I knew she was begging me not to say anything.

  I nodded at her, then turned to the Jackson family. “Hi, gang,” I said. “What brings you around?”

  “We wanted to see how you were doing,” said Zee.

  “I’m okay,” I said. I turned to Eliza. “That hot chocolate smells good.”

  “Coming right up,” she said.

  I sat at the table.

  J.W. said, “We gotta talk.”

  I nodded.


  “Think you could drive me home a little later?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  He glanced at his watch, then turned to Zee. “Why don’t you take the kids back, honey? It’s getting on to their bedtime, and Brady and I have got some business to do.”

  “But, Pa,” said Diana.

  Zee stood up. “Come on, gang. You father will be right along.”

  “You said you’d sleep in our tree house with us,” said Joshua.

  “I don’t know about that,” said J.W. “It might rain some more.”

  “But you promised …”

  J.W. tucked his chin against his chest and gave his two kids a look that clearly said: “That’s enough.”

  Zee kissed my cheek, then herded the kids toward the front door. J.W. said, “Be right back,” and followed them.

  Then I was alone in the kitchen with Eliza.

  She put a mug of hot chocolate in front of me and sat down across the table. “Please don’t say anything,” she said.

  “We need to talk.”

  “No,” she said, “what I mean is, don’t say anything to me. Just forget it, okay?”

  “Eliza—”

  She reached across the table and put her hand on top of mine. “Please.”

  I shrugged. “Where’s Patrick?”

  “I don’t know. He went out. He’s upset.”

  “How about you?” I said. “Are you upset?”

  “I told you I didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “Right,” I said. “Sorry. Where’s Nate?”

  “Probably went fishing. What else does he do?”

  “He saves your ass.”

  “Brady,” said Eliza, “I mean it. Change the damn subject.”

  I shrugged. “Tell me how your mother’s doing.”

  Eliza looked down at the table. “Worse. They don’t know what’s going to happen. I—”

  At that moment, J.W. came back. He stood in the doorway. “Am I interrupting?”

  Eliza stood up. “No. You two guys go ahead, talk your manly talk. The water’s hot if you want some more cocoa or something. There’s leftover pizza in the fridge. Help yourselves.”

  “Thanks,” said J.W.

  Eliza ran her fingers across my cheek as she walked past me. “Umm,” she said. “You shaved.”

  When she was gone, I looked at J.W. He was grinning.

  “It’s not what you think,” I said.

  “I don’t care what it is,” he said. “So how are you really feeling?”

  “Not that bad. Like somebody stuffed me into a giant bowling ball and rolled a few games. I was drugged, you know.”

  “Yeah? You really were? You were mumbling something about needles, but I figured you’d banged your head. You weren’t making much sense.”

  “You saved my life,” I said.

  “Nate, actually. He saved both of us. So what happened down there?”

  I told him, as best as I could recall, how I’d been hit from behind and zapped with a needle and dragged out into the water and left to drown.

  “You sure you’re not making that up?” he said. “Looked to us like you waded out too far, got your line tangled around your legs, fell and hit your head.”

  I smiled. “I admit it all feels pretty hallucinatory. But the doctor said it was morphine, so I guess it happened.”

  “Don’t suppose you got a look at your assailant?”

  I shook my head. “He surprised me, got me from behind. It was dark.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “Yeah, seems to me he did. But not until after he hit me with the drug. All I remember is whispering. I’d never recognize his voice.”

  “You sure it was a guy?”

  “No, I’m not. But he—or she—dragged me out into the water. If it was a woman, she was a strong one.”

  “So who’d do something like that?” said J.W.

  “That’s the question, all right. My first thought would be Nate. He’s pretty jealous of his beach.”

  “Then he’d turn around and save your life?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe he would.”

  “Could’ve been anybody, when you think about it,” said J.W. “Somebody’s been hanging around that cottage. You might’ve surprised them.”

  I nodded. “Fishermen poaching on Nate’s beach, or maybe teenagers, drinking beer, getting laid.”

  “Doubt if teenagers or stray fishermen would bother padlocking the cellar door.” J.W. scratched his chin. “I want to take a look down there. But the reason I came over was I wanted to talk to you about Molly Wood.”

  “I thought you wanted to see how I was feeling.”

  “Right,” he said. “That, too. But Molly’s missing and you’re not, so now that I see you’re okay, I’m more concerned about her than you.”

  “So am I,” I said. “What can you tell me?”

  “I found out today that she’s been playing tennis with a good-looking blond-haired guy. Kathy Bannerman played tennis with the same guy.”

  I laughed sourly. “That narrows it down to what, about five thousand men on the island?” I said. “That’s good work.”

  He gave me a sarcastic smile. “Thanks. This might not be the bad guy. But if he dated these two women, he probably can tell us something. The fellow who saw them together thought he might’ve heard some mention of Hilton Head.”

  “That’s where the Isle of Dreams Development Corporation, the people who want to buy this land, are located,” I said. “Philip Fredrickson is one of their representatives. He’s blond.”

  J.W. nodded. “There was a golf glove in Molly’s car. It was made by the Mallet Company. The Isle of Dreams is a subsidiary of Mallet.”

  “Five thousand blond guys, five million golf gloves,” I said.

  J.W. nodded. “This Larry fellow I talked to said he thought he heard the blond guy mention a private beach to Molly. It sounded like they were setting up a rendezvous. Midnight swim or something.”

  I stared at J.W. for a minute. “Private beach,” I repeated. “And you’re thinking …”

  “We were on a private beach last night,” he said.

  “How many private beaches are there on the island?”

  “Dozens,” he said. “But there’s only one where you got drugged and dragged into the water and left to die.” He looked around. “Where’s Nate?”

  I shrugged. “Eliza thought he went fishing.”

  “Probably right back on his beach. You and I cost him a prime tide of fishing this morning. Whatever I might’ve thought of Nate Fairchild, he was pretty damned heroic. I think I’ll mosey along down there, talk to Nate, now that we’re on speaking terms. He spends a lot of time on that beach. Maybe he’s seen something.”

  “I’ll come with you,” I said.

  J.W. waved his hand. “You sit tight. I don’t want to be slowed down by some invalid just out of a sickbed. I can take care of this myself.”

  “Christ,” I said. “I’m fine. Let’s go.” I shoved myself back from the table and stood up … and a sudden wave of dizziness and nausea forced me to grab the back of the chair for balance. I sat back down.

  “Yep,” said J.W. “You’re fine, all right.” He stood up. “You take it easy. I won’t be long. You can drive me home when I get back, if you’re up to it.”

  “Give me a few minutes,” I said. “I just need to get something in my stomach.”

  “I want to get home in time to read to the kids before bed,” he said. “You just relax. You’re looking a little green around the gills.”

  The truth was, I felt a little green around the gills. I nodded. “Okay. You go ahead. I should be okay to drive you home. If I’m not, I’m sure Eliza would be happy to.”

  He grinned. “You better not leave me alone with that woman.”

  I flashed on the scene in my bedroom. “I’d never do that,” I said.

  I followed J.W. to the door, and as he was leaving, I said, “Look around the cottage for a hy
podermic needle, while you’re there.”

  He nodded. “You’re thinking of Molly’s medical bag?”

  “Yes. Visiting nurses keep needles in them.”

  “Well,” said J.W., “that’s the connection, isn’t it? Between what happened to you and Molly’s disappearance?”

  “Could be,” I said.

  After he left, I went back to the kitchen. I looked into the refrigerator, but the thought of warmed-up pizza gave my stomach a jolt, so I settled for the can of Progresso chicken soup that I found in a cabinet.

  I heated it in the microwave, and while I sat at the table slurping it off my spoon, I tried to figure out why Molly Wood’s abductor—or, for all we knew, her killer—would be hanging around the tumbledown stone cottage on the Fairchilds’ beach at five o’clock on a rainy morning, waiting to whack me across the back of my neck and zap me in the shoulder with a syringe full of morphine and drag me into the stormy sea and leave me to drown under the rising tide.

  The soup went down easily and seemed to settle comfortably in my stomach. When I finished it, I stood up from the table warily. I was pleased to observe that I felt steady and sturdy and clearheaded.

  I didn’t come up with any answers about Molly and needles and people who wanted to kill me, though.

  I glanced at my watch. J.W. had been gone about half an hour. I decided to walk down to the beach, see what he was doing. I agreed with him. That cottage might hold some answers. Anyway, a stroll in the salty evening air would feel good.

  I went upstairs, got a pack of cigarettes and a flashlight, fetched my jacket, and looked around for Eliza. She wasn’t up there. When I got back downstairs, I called for her. She didn’t answer, so I scribbled a note and left it on the kitchen table. “Went down to the beach,” it said. “Back soon.”

  Then I went outside.

  All the family cars were lined up in the turnaround in front—Sarah’s Range Rover, which I’d been using, Nate’s battered old pickup, Eliza’s Saab convertible, Patrick’s BMW. Warm orange lights glowed from the windows of the Fairchild family homestead.

  It looked homey as hell.

  Some home.

  A sharp, damp breeze was blowing in off the water, but the rain had stopped and wispy clouds were skidding across the new moon. I paused on the back lawn to light a cigarette, then drew the smoke experimentally into my lungs. Ah, nicotine! I’d been a long time without a hit, and I was delighted to observe that it didn’t make me feel dizzy or nauseated.