Vineyard Stalker

by Philip R. Craig

  I was in about my fourth Edgartown bar when Chelsey Fisher came up to me, balancing a tray of dirty glasses on her shoulder.

  “Hey,” she said, “Marty Goldman tells me you’re looking for a couple of men in black. Didn’t they make a movie with that name?”

  “I don’t know about the movie,” I said, “but, yeah, I am looking for a couple of guys in dark clothes who may have been having a beer just before closing, three nights back. Did you see them?”

  She put the tray on the bar and the bartender took it and carried it toward the wash station. “I was on that night and I do remember a couple of guys who fit that description,” said Chelsey. “They came in late and sat right over there in that booth. Drank Rolling Rock. Left a good tip. Haven’t seen them since.”

  I pulled the photo from my pocket. “Is this one of them?”

  She turned the picture in the dim bar light until she could see it fairly well and nodded. “Yep. That looks like Angie, the younger one. The other guy was a bit older. Some gray around his ears.”

  “Any sense of their size? Weight? Height? Any distinguishing marks?”

  “They were sitting down, J.W. They looked about average.” She grinned. “The one in your picture asked me if I’d like to come up to Charlestown. Said he’d introduce me to his mother and we could get married right away. I said I couldn’t imagine trading Edgartown for Charlestown in the summer, but if his mother wanted to come down, I’d be glad to talk with her.”

  “You can’t blame a guy for trying. I imagine you get a lot of offers. Did you get the other guy’s name?”

  “Fred. Angie’s the young one. Fred wore a wedding ring. Yeah, when you sling drinks you get all kinds of offers and the wedding rings don’t always mean much, but Fred was only interested in having a beer. Kept looking at his watch.”

  “They mention where they were staying?”

  “Nope. If it wasn’t for those black clothes I probably wouldn’t have remembered them at all. Nobody much wears black clothes in the summertime. When I looked up a while later, they were gone.”

  “And you haven’t seen them since?”

  “No. I thought Angie might come back, but not so far. Haven’t seen his mother, either!” She laughed.

  “Where does Marty Goldman work?”

  “She’s at the Lighthouse. She wants to get off day shift so she can make better tips. I gotta go.” Chelsey headed back into the crowd.

  I was tired, but I went on to the Lighthouse to see if Fred and Angie has stopped there, too.

  No one remembered them, but I got a description of Marty Goldman and remembered asking her about the men in black. I wondered who else she’d told about my questions.

  I made two more local stops, in one of which I found Sergeant Tony d’Agostine of the Edgartown PD in civvies, working a special shift and asking the same questions I was.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Tony. “I heard about your adventures up in West Tiz, but Dom Agganis told me you were going to stay home from now on and take care of the cats. I should have known better.”

  “I have my reasons,” I said, and told him about the phone call I’d gotten.

  “Jesus,” he said. “That’s a good reason for you to pull in your head and stay in your shell. You recognize the voice?”

  “Maybe it was the guy who stun-gunned me,” I said, “but I’m not sure. He didn’t say much. Before you slap my wrist and send me packing, I’ll give you a little information that might mean something.” I told him what Chelsey had told me.

  He scribbled in his notebook. “Fred and Angie, eh? And maybe Angie lives in Charlestown. It’s not much, but it’s something. I’ll pass it along to Dom. You know anybody who knows the crooks in Charlestown?”

  As a matter of fact, I did. “I met Sonny Whelen a couple of times, but we’re not what you might call close.”

  He pursed his lips and raised his brows. “Sonny Whelen isn’t a guy you really want to be close to.”

  True. Sonny was the biggest wheel in the Charlestown mob. Our roads had crossed briefly years before, but we’d not been in contact since.

  It was late, so I went home to bed, where Oliver Underfoot and Velcro joined me in snuggling down. They were good company but no substitute for Zee.

  In the morning, after giving him time to recover from the night before, I phoned Quinn at his Boston Globe desk. Quinn and I went back a long way, to when he had been a young reporter and I had been a young Boston PD cop. He was groggy but not beyond speech.

  “You should get married,” I said. “Your wife will tuck you under the covers at a reasonable hour and you can give up this dusk to dawn womanizing that’s aged you beyond your years.”

  “As soon as I can talk Zee into leaving you, I’ll do that in a New York second,” said Quinn. “Why are calling me in the middle of the night?”

  “Are you and Sonny Whelen still on speaking terms?”

  “No thanks to you.”

  “He and I have balanced our books and I don’t want to unbalance them, but I need a couple of IDs. Maybe he has them.”

  “Fat chance he’ll give them to you even if he has them. Sonny keeps things to himself.”

  “Use your interviewing skills as a member of the fourth estate.” I told him about my encounter with the two crooks, described them as best I could, and gave him the information I’d gotten from Chelsey. Then, as spice, I told him about the death of Melissa Carson. “I don’t know if there’s any link between the crooks and the killing, but maybe the stun gun will narrow things down. How many perps use stun guns these days?”

  I could almost see Quinn’s ears perk up. He was always interested in a crime story. “How soon do you need this information?”

  “Yesterday would be nice. Maybe you can tell Sonny you’re doing a story on some of his opposition. That might encourage him to say a few words.”

  “You’ll owe me. Are the bluefish still around?”

  “There are still a few.”

  “I want a fishing trip and I want first dibs on this story.”

  “I think the local papers already have the jump on you.”

  “I mean first major metropolitan newspaper dibs. I want you as my inside source and I’ll want to know everything you know. Deal?”

  “Sure,” I lied. “And maybe Zee will even smile at you when you come down. Of course that would be hard on your heart.”

  “The joy that kills. I’ll let you know what I find out, if I find out anything.”

  He rang off and I wondered how long Roland Nunes’s past would remain a secret once Quinn got involved in the story. Quinn was a deep digger and very good at his work.

  I phoned Dom Agganis and left a message on his machine, repeating the information I’d given to Tony d’Agostine and asking if the police were checking hotels and inns to see if they could find out where Fred and Angie were staying. I was pretty sure such inquiries would be made, but doubted if much had been done yet, since the names and descriptions, such as they were, were new information. Besides, the police had plenty of routine work to keep them busy and it would take time to shake free personnel to check with the clerks at hotels and inns, to say nothing of the island’s ever-increasing number of B and Bs.

  I didn’t think that Fred and Angie were the B-and-B type, but you never knew, so I prepared myself psychologically for a long day and stuck my .38 in my belt under my loosest shirt, where it wouldn’t be too noticeable. Then I told Oliver Underfoot and Velcro to be wary of strangers, and left.

  My first stop was at the hospital, where I learned that Babs Carson had been released and had been driven home by Rob Chadwick. I pondered driving up to talk with her but decided to give her more time to grieve before I saw her. Instead, because I had to start somewhere and I was already in Oak Bluffs, I spent the morning going to its inns and hotels in search of Fred and Angie.

  It was a learning experience. I had summered on the Vineyard since I’d been a child and had lived here full time since I’d left
the Boston PD for a quieter life, but though I knew where all of the island’s bars were, I now discovered that I was totally ignorant of the variety and number of establishments offering rooms for rent in Oak Bluffs alone. When I commented on this to a clerk a couple of hours after I’d begun my search for the men in black, she was not surprised.

  “It’s because you live here and don’t go to hotels. It’s the same with restaurants. When people ask my husband and me where to get an inexpensive place to stay or eat, we can’t tell them because we live in our house and don’t eat out much. I recommend this place, of course, but not because it’s inexpensive, because it isn’t, even by Vineyard standards.”

  “Not much is inexpensive by Vineyard standards.”

  She smiled a crooked smile. “Freight,” she said. “That’s why everything costs more. It has to come over on the boat.”

  “Absolutely.” Ask the owner of a liquor store why his bottle of booze costs several dollars more than the same bottle sold in Falmouth and he’ll tell you, “Freight.” The same is true for gasoline and everything else: “Freight.” Another name for monopoly capitalism. You’d think a Communist revolution might flourish on Martha’s Vineyard, but it doesn’t. The Communists here have too much money to revolt. They’re limousine liberals, like most of the island’s Pinks and Reds. The Vineyard’s working class, like most working classes, is too busy to rebel.

  I didn’t know whether Fred and Angie could afford that particular hotel, but according to the friendly clerk, they weren’t there, so I went on my way.

  Just before the twelve o’clock crowd came in, I went to the Fireside for a Reuben and a Sam Adams and got a booth in the back where I could keep an eye on the door in case the crooks happened to come in and I happened to recognize them. They didn’t; or if they did, I didn’t identify them. Instead, the room filled with working stiffs and a mostly young male vacationing crowd who were full of loud, cheerful talk of fishing, women, the Red Sox, and other familiar topics. Soon, the scent of marijuana floated across my nose, and at the dart board someone pinned a photo of George W. Bush on the target.

  When Bonzo wasn’t busy wiping tables, he was washing glasses behind the bar; wearing that studious expression he often wore when doing a job at the edge of his abilities. He took his Fireside job seriously, and had only had time to wave hello when I’d come in.

  When I finished my lunch, I went to the bar and managed to catch his eye again. I showed him the photo from my pocket.

  Bonzo’s hands were sudsy, but he leaned forward over the bar and peered at the picture. Then he beamed and nodded.

  “Sure, J.W. I seen that guy in here a couple times. He likes them black shirts like he’s got on there in your picture. I served him beer once and he left a good tip.” He leaned closer. “Not everybody does that, you know.” He straightened and smiled again, happy to have been of use.

  “Does he come in any particular time, Bonzo?”

  He frowned, thinking hard, then shook his head. “No time special, J.W. Just now and then. You know what I mean?”

  “I know what you mean. Say, if he comes in again, will you give me a call?”

  “I sure will! You can trust me, J.W.!”

  I left and went on to the Noepe Hotel, so called, I presumed, in honor of the original Wampanoag name for the Vineyard. It was not far from Ocean Park, and was one of those multicolored Victorian structures that make Oak Bluffs such a lovely, gingerbread town. A little bell rang in my brain as I walked into the lobby.

  14

  The lobby was nicely decorated with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century paintings of the sea, Victorian lamps, leather chairs, and oriental carpets. The woodwork was hand-carved and polished. On either side of the front door were stained-glass windows in the Pre-Raphaelite mode, and on one side of the front desk a curved staircase led up to a second-floor balcony. As I entered, a cleaning woman carrying the tools of her trade reached the top of the stairs and went silently out of sight down a hallway.

  From behind the desk, a clerk came through a doorway that was curtained with strings of Victorian beads. She smiled at me in spite of my clothes.

  “May I help you?”

  I smiled back. “I hope so. I just learned that a couple of friends of mine are on the island and I’m trying to track them down. You wouldn’t happen to have a couple of Boston guys staying here, would you? A young guy with dark hair and one a little older, beginning to gray? Fred and Angie? Been here maybe a week?”

  The smile stayed on her face. “I’m sorry, sir, but it’s our policy not to reveal the names of our guests. I hope you understand.”

  I nodded and looked around. “Sure. Privacy should come with a place like this. So this is Al’s Vineyard property, eh? He said it was nice and he was right. Small and personal with everything first class.”

  The clerk’s expression was slightly changed when I looked back at her.

  “You’re a friend of Mr. Cabot, sir?

  I grinned. “I like to think so, but you know what the old poem says: ‘The Lowells speak only to Cabots and the Cabots speak only to God.’”

  Her smile returned. “I take it that you’re denying that you’re God?”

  “You take it correctly. Well, when I see Al I’ll be sure to tell him that you’re defending the gates. Say, can I leave a message for Fred, just in case he happens to come by? Do you have a sheet of paper I can use?”

  She dimpled. “Of course, sir. Just in case he comes by.” We shared a jesting, conspiratorial smile as I took the paper.

  I wrote: “Fred, sorry to have missed you. I’ll catch up with you later.” I signed it “J.W.,” folded it, wrote “Fred” on the outside and handed it to her.

  “No last name?” she asked.

  “If he comes by, just Fred will do.” I winked.

  “I’ll make sure he gets it.” She grinned. “If he comes by.”

  I thanked her and headed for the door, then turned and said, “Say, Al isn’t around, is he?”

  She beamed some more. “I’m afraid I can’t comment on who’s staying here.”

  I smiled in turn. “Of course.”

  I went out, then stepped quickly along the porch and peeked in through a window. The clerk had opened my note and was reaching toward a telephone on the counter. I walked on around to the back of the building, where I found the parking lot, the rear exit, and the narrow fire stairs leading down from the second and third floors. From the back, the hotel looked less smashing than from the front, but it still cut a good figure.

  There were four cars in the lot: a VW Rabbit, a forest-green Hummer in a private parking spot, a dark-windowed white Mercedes sedan, and a nondescript middle-aged Chevy pickup. I guessed that the pickup belonged to the cleaning lady and the VW belonged to the clerk. Of course I knew I might be wrong since there are more millionaire plumbers than doctors on the Vineyard these days and, for all I knew, cleaning ladies and desk clerks might be driving Cadillacs.

  I walked back to my truck and drove around a few of the many narrow, one-way streets that wind between Oak Bluffs’ lace-trimmed cottages until I found a parking spot where I could keep an eye on both the hotel’s front door and the parking lot exit.

  Nothing happened for a while, then the Mercedes came out of the lot and drove away. I followed it.

  The car moved slowly, which is the proper way to navigate in Oak Bluffs. In this case, hesitations at side roads and excessively long pauses at stop signs also suggested that the driver was unfamiliar with the town’s streets. I stayed well back until the Mercedes found its way to the Oak Bluffs–Edgartown Road and turned right toward the state beach. Then, to make sure I wouldn’t lose it in the heavy flow of traffic between the beach and Sengekontacket Pond, I moved closer.

  Under the high blue summer sky the beach was full of bright umbrellas. The beach side of the highway was lined with parked cars, while on the pond side the bike path was busy with walkers and bikers. The highway itself was a slow-moving parking lot, crowded with c
ars, motorcycles, scooters, and mopeds moving in both directions and slowed still more by people creeping along looking for parking places or trying to back their cars into those spaces when they found them. When we got to the big bridge, I found it crowded with the traditional laughing and screaming teenagers jumping off the railing into the water, and noted that the channel was, as usual, lined with fishermen who probably didn’t care whether or not they caught anything.

  The driver of the Mercedes moved cautiously along and I followed suit, careful to brake for street-crossing beachgoers and ever alert for children who might dart into the road. It was a cheerful picture, all in all. Very Vineyardish. I wondered if the person I was following appreciated the noisy innocence of the scene.

  Traffic picked up speed a bit after we crossed Crab Creek. The Mercedes drove into Edgartown, crept through the Stop & Shop/Al’s Package Store traffic jam, then turned right onto the West Tisbury road.

  I paused before turning onto the road to give the driver a good start, then followed. To my surprise, he wasn’t too far ahead of me and seemed to be loafing along.

  Hmmmm?

  He turned left onto Meshacket Road and I wondered briefly if he was going to do some shopping at Morning Glory Farm, but he kept on going. I turned after him and followed the winding road. He turned into the Island Grove housing development. I drove past the entrance, turned around and drove back to the farm’s parking lot.

  Island Grove has only one entrance, so unless the driver was really going to an address there, which I didn’t believe because I was pretty sure he’d spotted me and was double-checking to make sure he was right, he’d have to come back out the way he came in. Not seeing me on his tail any longer, he’d have to decide whether he’d been right about me and then he’d have to decide whether to return past the farm or go on along Meshacket to Clevelandtown Road and eventually on to where he actually wanted to go.

  My guess was that being unfamiliar with the island he’d come back past the farm where, if he’d noticed me at all, he might have been fooled into thinking I’d been after fresh veggies all the time. If he went the other way, of course, I’d lose him.