His pug, Dervish, met me at the door, barking furiously. I thought of the Harbor Fuel guy who had been called to repair Billy’s furnace a couple of years before. When Billy got home from work, the house was still cold. He called the company and the secretary pulled the work order. The guy had scrawled “No entry. Angry Pug.” Billy was still laughing about that one. Dervish was about as dangerous as Pressman’s Portuguese water dog. He twirled around my feet now and leapt up to have the back of his ears rubbed.
Inside, Billy was finishing work on a three-story Victorian dollhouse, complete with gingerbread trim. It looked more like Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard than anything you’d find on Nantucket.
When I pointed that out, he shrugged. “Santa doesn’t sweat the details.”
That’s right—Billy was playing Santa, too. Jane’s son, Sam, was seven, big for his age and eager to start Pee Wee football next year, but he still believed—warily, suspiciously—in Santa Claus. This Christmas was Jane’s last shot at keeping the dream alive. His questions last year, worthy of her heroine, Maddy Clark, revealed numerous suspicious inconsistencies: “Why do you and Santa use the same wrapping paper?” “Why does Daddy’s handwriting look like Santa’s?” “How do elves make video games?” “Deer don’t fly. How do reindeer fly?” Then there was the chimney issue, and my favorite, regarding those plates of cookies: “Is Santa diabetic? Is Januvia right for him?”
There were definitely too many pharmaceutical ads on TV, and this proved it.
To keep the thin filament of childish belief from fraying entirely, Jane commissioned her old friend Billy to make an authentic elf-based Christmas present. The dollhouse fit the bill, and Sam loved dollhouses, a predilection he had inherited from his mother. But the store-bought plastic items that survived from her childhood had nothing on Billy’s masterpiece. He was sanding the cherry-wood floors in advance of a final coat of urethane when I arrived.
He poured us two cups of coffee from his French press pot and we sat down in a pair of big canvas upholstered armchairs that faced the woodstove. Dervish jumped up and burrowed in beside me.
“Police business?” Billy asked.
“We never sleep.”
“You better not. We’re having a crime wave around here. Gas station hold-ups and all.”
“It was just a prank.”
He cocked his head at me. “Really? That’s not what I heard.”
“From who?”
“The surf grapevine, Chief. Everyone knows Stoller’s trying to score some drugs.”
“And he can’t afford Gary Pressman’s prices?”
“Oh, yeah. Pressman. That makes sense. I heard he was trying to sell in bulk, turn himself into a middle-man, get out of the day-to-day street stuff.”
“But Pressman’s clean. I just came from his house.”
“Pressman’s smart. He always was. Shrewd. Even back in grade school. He was the kind of kid who’d trade Lincoln Logs for treats and corner the market on snack time cookies. Those pills are out there somewhere, trust me.”
“Let’s say they are. Trying to buy up a shipment like that sounds like Stoller’s going into business for himself.”
“Well, someone is. Stoller’s not that ambitious. You should see him backing off a double overhead wave. I saw him go over the falls trying that last winter. I picked him out of the whitewater and told him, ‘You gotta commit, dude.’ He just gave me his all-purpose ‘Whatever’. No, if he’s making a drug buy, he’s doing it for someone else. That’s my take.”
“But who?
“I don’t know. Someone he respects. Someone he’s scared of. Someone he’s sucking up to.”
“Like his quarterback.”
Billy nodded. “Could be.”
I already suspected that Dave Prescott used other people to do his scut work. Like stealing the answer sheet for a test and planting it in my son’s locker.
We sat quietly for a while and sipped our coffee. Dervish squirmed his way onto my lap, and grumbled happily as I petted him.
“Dave Prescott,” Billy said, finally. “Dave Prescott.”
“He’ll be a local hero, if he can learn to throw outside the pocket.”
“He’s a useless little turd, Chief. You can tell a lot about a person by the way they behave in the water. Prescott drops in on people, cuts them off, runs them down. If he tried that shit at Malibu he’d get his ass kicked.”
“You should talk to him.”
“I have. He knows the rules. He just doesn’t give a shit. I’ll bet he’s a lousy driver, too. And a big talker whose idea of conversation is rehearsing his next line while he waits for you to shut up. Fuck him.”
“Wow. Tell me what you really feel, Billy. Don’t hold back.”
“I’d like to say he was sweet when he was little, but he’s always been a punk. I remember him telling some poor little kid, ‘Don’t even try to be popular. You’ll never be popular. Everyone hates you.’ I found the kid crying on the beach. Unbelievable. You don’t think of some eight-year-old as having such a strong personality. I felt like saying to Dave, ‘Stay unformed for a while! I liked you better when you were unformed.’ I’m just kidding myself, though. Truth is, he was probably born that way.”
I nodded. “They come out the way they come out.”
“I’ll tell you something about Dave, though. He’s never gonna be the engine. He’s strictly the caboose.”
“Come on—he’s a leader. He’s the quarterback.”
“Right. The quarterback who never argues with the coach, never changes up the playbook. The kid has never called an audible. Ever. That tells you something.”
I finished my coffee, set the mug down on the tile floor beside my chair. “So who’s the engine?”
Billy sat forward. “Ever hear of a kid called Maxwell Blum?”
“I was at his house this morning. Homer couldn’t do Santa this year, so I took over.”
“Did you see the Toys for Tots?”
“Why?”
“Just another rumor. Word was some of those toys were stuffed with more than goose down. Homer gives the right toy to the right kid and someone gets a big pay off.”
“So the Toys-for-Tots giveaway was rigged.”
“Maybe that’s why Homer crapped out. If he didn’t want to get involved.”
I stood and carried my coffee cup to the kitchen, rinsed it at the sink. “That’s crazy.”
“I thought so, too. That’s why I never mentioned it.”
“What was supposed to be in the toys?”
Billy joined me in the kitchen. “Heroin? Diamonds? Little gold lightship baskets? There were lots of theories going around. Rolled up hundred-dollar bills.”
“And who put the stuff in there?”
He held up his hands. “Hey, I have no idea. It’s just kid talk. Like when they decided that the Porter house on Candlestick Lane was haunted. But I was thinking…someone who wanted fast money to buy Pressman’s drugs might take the long shot and start cutting those stuffed animals open. Doesn’t matter if it’s true. It only matters if some knucklehead believes it.”
Cut-up stuffed animals—fur flying, that’s what Millie Graham had said after she cleaned Blum’s house. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the odd-looking marble I’d taken from the bowl on Max’s desk. Now it was clear. I turned the little glass ball over in my fingers, that cheesy song from Rocky III turning my breath staccato in a tuneless whistle.
Millie had cleaned up Max’s room, scrubbing and vacuuming and, thanks to her, every trace of his vandalism would have been tidied away—almost every trace.
Billy leaned against the counter and watched me thinking.
“Someone wants to take over Pressman’s drug business, or at least partner with him. But it’s not Dave Prescott.”
Billy nodded. “Okay.”
“It’s Max, but despite that fact that he comes from one of the richest families on the island, he’s vandalizing toys for imaginary contraband.”
“Okay.”
“Tell me about Max.”
“I can tell you this much. His father never lets him have a dime. He’s always broke, bumming cigarette money from his friends. So that explains the scavenger hunt. And he grew up with those kinds of games. His father organized an actual scavenger hunt on his birthday every year—you’d see groups of kids traipsing around the island, trying to figure out what he meant by ‘Go back to square one, and examine a significant milestone in your life’ —until one of them figured out that the next clue was buried under the first milestone after the rotary on Milestone Road. I remember gangs of kids digging up our lot on Paddlefish Row. Then one of them went to Fahey’s and asked for caviar. That kind of thing. They’re a tricky group, those Blums. They say the old man’s father won the store in a game of Liar’s Poker. Cheating comes natural to them. So selling drugs? The perfect occupation.”
“Maybe Max organized the gas station heist.”
“Right—he just sent it down the chain of command. Max was Dave’s mentor on the football squad, too. He was quarterback in his senior year. He loved those trick plays—the Statue of Liberty, the quarterback sneak. They could have named that one for him. It was fun to watch, though. Unlike now.”
It was cold in the kitchen and it was getting dark outside. Billy walked back to the stove and tossed in a couple of logs. I stood by the window, listening to the surf growl against the south shore.
“Any brothers or sisters?” I asked.
“One brother—Martin. He came out as gay and hasn’t come home since.”
“Sounds like one big happy family.”
“Norman Rockwell meets Edvard Munch.”
I walked over and sat down. The stove was kicking out a dense solid heat now. The wind wheezing around the eaves made it feel warmer.
“There’s girl problems, though,” Billy said. “I hear Dave stole Max’s girlfriend. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Lizza Coddington. That little triangle’s been going on for quite a while. It started out isosceles, went scalene, and now it’s all the way to obtuse, if you get what I’m saying.”
I had no idea what he was saying. “Hey, I flunked math, Billy.”
“Even geometry? Most poets do okay at geometry.”
“Not me.”
“Well, let’s just say their little Jules and Jim act has gone from bad to worse. It started when Dave was a sophomore and Max and Lizza were seniors. I heard she hooked up with him just to make Max jealous. It worked but the whole thing got out of control. They’ve switched partners a few times, and things slide a little more every time one of them cuts in.”
“So, if they really are in business that might be a weak spot.”
“Bigger businesses have broken up for less.”
I stood up. It was time to go. “Time to have a little chat with Maxwell Blum.”
“Good idea. But try to do it before Pressman sells all those drugs he doesn’t have out on Tuckernuck.”
“Right.”
I had one more question for him. “Say, do you remember what happened to your uncle Brandon? After he died but before the funeral.”
“Word was, Ed broke into the funeral home and grabbed the body. Gave the old boy the burial he wanted. It drove Aunt Betsy crazy. She tried to get Ed arrested but nothing came of it. She moved off-island the next year. ”
“Did you help Ed move the body?”
“No way, Chief. I never got involved with my brother’s hi-jinks.”
He walked me to the door. “So what do you think of the dollhouse?”
“It’s awesome, Billy. You’d make a fantastic elf.”
Chapter Twelve
Eye of the Tiger
Saturday evening, six-thirty, just before the family sits down to dinner—not the ideal time for a visit from the chief of police. As a lawman you get used to being an unwelcome sight. Sometimes a citizen wins the gamble of crossed paths and a cop saves them from a mugging or a murder; more often we catch them doing something they know is wrong and foolish. Driving drunk, most likely—at least around here. No one wants to see those flashers in the rearview and no one wants to see my face at their door after slipping unscathed through one more precarious day.
But I had taken Billy’s words to heart, and if bracing Max Blum could help me close down Pressman’s drug operation, it was worth a try.
Marjorie Blum opened the door, flooding the front porch with warm light and the smells of a roast chicken in the oven and a fire in the hearth. A blind man would have thought the house was a perfect holiday refuge. But that impression belied what a quick visual inventory showed. It wasn’t just the lack of Christmas decorations—no wreath on the door, no tree in the living room; people often left those details until later in December—what concerned me was the look on Marjorie’s face. She didn’t look as if she’d been crying—more like she had cried herself out a long time ago, and moved on to the immobility of exhaustion.
“Can I help you, Chief?” she said by way of greeting.
“I don’t know. Are you all right? Have you been sleeping?”
She stepped back. “What do you mean? Why would you say something like that?”
“Well…there was a pan of warm milk soaking in the sink this morning. That was my ex-wife’s trick when she couldn’t sleep.”
“I—it’s…yes. I have insomnia sometimes. It’s hard to turn the brain off. I don’t expect much sympathy. People assume when you’re rich that you don’t have any real problems.”
I let the loft of my shoulder tilt my head a little to one side in a gesture of fatalistic commiseration. “Different problems,” I said. “That’s all. No less real.”
“Thank you. I wish money was the answer to all our troubles. Sometimes it just makes everything worse.”
“It gives you more time to worry, anyway.”
She seemed to wake up, suddenly aware of my awkward physical placement. “I’m sorry. Please—come in. It’s freezing out there.”
“Thanks.”
I stepped inside and unzipped my jacket. The house was big and echoey, sparsely furnished, like a show house set up for the real estate brokers. Millie Graham had done her work well. The place was neat and spotless, now. I preferred the mess. At least the jumble made the place feel inhabited.
“How did the Santa day go? All the kids happy?”
She winced. “Oh, yes. Everyone was very happy. I’m sure they’re all going to have a wonderful Christmas. All the happy families.”
“Well, that’s the idea.”
“It looks like you resolved the gas station holdup.”
“Just a false alarm. Bad timing.”
“Yes. We missed you. And Homer Boyce. Poor Homer.”
“If you feel bad for the missing Santa, you might mention it to your husband.”
She laughed, a humorless little bleat. “I’ll be sure to do that. Did you want to talk to Mr. Blum?”
“I was hoping to see Max, actually.”
“He’s upstairs, working on his video games.”
“I had no idea they were work.”
“He doesn’t play them, He writes them. The…code…for them. Or so he says. I don’t understand any of it. Anyway. Go on up, it doesn’t matter. Just—we’re eating dinner in half an hour, so…”
“I’ll be quick.”
I found Max in his room, sitting on his bed with a Apple PowerBook on his lap. “Hey, Max,” I said. “I’ve got something of yours.”
He looked up and I threw the little glass ball I’d been carrying around in my pocket since the early morning. He grabbed for it, but it bounced off the heel of his hand and hit the keyboard. It must have hit the worst possible key. “Shit! You just
deleted two hours’ work.”
“Always save your material, Max. Even I know that.”
He looked at the little green sphere with the dark oval floating in the center. “What the hell—? This isn’t a marble. I’ve never seen this before.”
“Yeah, you have.”
“What?”
“When you were tearing apart the Toys-for-Tots stuffed animals. This looks like the eye of a Steiff tiger, to me.”
“I don’t understand. What are you—?”
“Millie Graham cleaned up your mess, but she thought the eye was a marble, and she put it away with the rest of them, in your bowl. That’s where I found it this morning.”
“How did you—what did you—what were you doing in my room?”
“Your father gave me the nickel tour this morning. You were in the shower.”
He closed the laptop and set it aside. “So, what are you saying?”
“You heard the idiotic rumor that something valuable was packed into those stuffed animals and tore them apart looking for whatever it was. Which was nothing. The question is why? That’s a desperation move and you’re one of the richest kids on the island.”
“I suppose you’ve figured that one out, too.”
“I asked around. Your parents keep you on a short leash. You never have spending money and you have a big expenditure coming up.”
“Really? And what would that be?”
“My guess is drugs.”
“Drugs, really? I’m trying to buy drugs?”
“Your friend is. And most people agree that Dave Prescott isn’t much of a go-getter.”
Max laughed. “Yeah, well. Two never made that claim.”
“Two?” The single syllable jarred me, like stepping off an unexpected curb.
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