Vineyard Stalker

by Philip R. Craig

  Who would want to terrorize a monk?

  Who would a monk want to terrorize?

  I ran murder possibilities through my mind. Was it Nunes’s voice that Chadwick had heard that night, arguing with a woman? Was Melissa the woman? It was a good guess that she was, since Nunes had reported that she’d left him after the late summer darkness had finally fallen.

  Maybe Nunes had changed his mind about being seduced and had gone after her only to discover that she’d also changed her mind about him. Maybe they’d argued and he’d killed her in a fit of rage. Such things had happened before.

  Or maybe she’d met the killer when she’d reached the road. It seemed unlikely that such a meeting would have been purely coincidental: Lone woman meets killer by chance and is murdered on the spot. Things like that also happen, of course, but rarely.

  Maybe she hadn’t been killed where her body had been found, but somewhere else, after which the body was placed where they’d found it. The police would know after they got the Medical Examiner’s report. Maybe they’d tell me. Maybe not.

  Would she have gotten into a stranger’s car and driven off with him? She was a woman who liked an adventure and wasn’t afraid of much, so maybe that’s what had happened. Then she’d been killed and the killer had dumped her where he’d found her and gotten well away in a hurry.

  I walked back to my truck, passing near Robert Chadwick’s wall, and looked around the scene of the crime just in case the police had missed a clue: a piece of paper containing the killer’s confession, for instance. I found nothing.

  Of course I didn’t actually know that Melissa had been murdered, so maybe I was wasting my time trying to solve a crime that hadn’t happened. But I didn’t think that was the case.

  I looked back down the ancient way, imagining that it was night and Melissa’s light was coming toward me, the murderer. Who am I? Why am I here, waiting? Do I know who’s coming toward me? Do I care? Am I going to kill whoever it is, because it’s that time of the moon?

  Or do I know it’s Melissa, and I’m here specifically to meet her and no one else?

  The light came nearer through the darkness and then, suddenly, I was standing in daylight again and I was alone, looking down the empty ancient way near yellow police tape that moved gently in the soft summer wind.

  16

  I sat in my truck and looked at Robert Chadwick’s wall. Above it, the second story of his house could be seen. I wondered if Chadwick had really heard the argument he’d described.

  Babs, Melissa, and Chadwick himself had hinted that Chadwick was interested in Babs, and certainly his actions since Melissa’s death supported that idea. But what if his overt interest in Babs hid a covert one for Melissa? The aging professor and the sultry student were characters in many a tale, after all; usually one leading to a bad end. Maybe Chadwick had been the man in the darkness, aflame with jealousy. Maybe he had killed his would-be mistress in a fit of rage. Chadwick was a big, powerful man, and she would have been no match for him. Then he’d left her there, knowing that Nunes would be the logical suspect, and had returned to his house, afterward playing the role of loving neighbor to the grieving mother.

  All good teachers have something of the thespian in them, but was Chadwick that good an actor? Good enough to fool everyone into believing he was incapable of murder? Certainly I was fairly confident that he was what he seemed. It was a conviction I’d have to keep watch over, lest it became a blinder; so when I pushed it to the back of my mind I made a note about where to find it again if I needed to.

  Since I was already in West Tisbury, I drove to the town library where, because I usually do business with the Edgartown library, I entered without getting recognized by the ladies at the front desk. I found a Who’s Who and looked up Alfred Cabot, then went to the computer and looked him up there, as well.

  Alfred had made his name by being very rich, by being a leading figure in large financial enterprises, and by belonging to clubs and organizations, philanthropic and otherwise, whose membership consisted of people much like himself, whose photos often appeared in the society pages. He had homes on Beacon Hill, in Aquinnah, and on Hilton Head, and he owned a ten-thousand-acre ranch outside Santa Fe, where he played on his private golf club, rode Arabian horses, and landed his jet at his own airport. My sister Margarite lived near Santa Fe but I doubted if she and Alfred were in the same social circle.

  He had been married twice and divorced twice. No children. His photo showed a tall, attractive, middle-aged man who didn’t look like the blah person Babs and Melissa had agreed that he was. I wondered if, like Chadwick, he’d been taken for a lot of money by his previous wives and if he’d proposed to Melissa because she already had money and wouldn’t need his if they ever split up. Maybe I’d ask him if I ever met him.

  When I returned to the Land Cruiser, I left the book on the table instead of returning it to its shelf myself, so the librarian could put it back and be confident that it was where it belonged instead of worrying about whether I’d put it on some shelf where it would be lost forever. Librarians don’t need any more problems; they have enough already.

  I drove down to Edgartown and finally found a parking place at the far end of School Street. Parking spots are not always easy to find in the summertime and the dreaded parking police cheerfully distribute tickets to any car parked for more than an hour, so I hustled right to the County of Dukes County Courthouse. It took most of my hour to track down the deed for Alfred Cabot’s land in Aquinnah, but I was back in my truck and on my way, a map in hand, while the young summer cop who was writing tickets was still walking past the historical society. Sometimes God is on your side.

  Aquinnah is the westernmost village on the island, and is the site of many beautiful houses. It’s a lovely place, best known for its multicolored clay cliffs, its fine beaches, and its excellent fishing. It’s also the home of the local tribe of Wampanoag Indians, which seems to be in constant confrontation with the town selectmen, and it is infamous for the no-parking signs that line the roads next to the beaches where once people freely parked so they could swim or sun or pursue the wily blues and bass. Nowadays you have to pay big money to park in the town lot before hoofing it to the shore. Worse yet, you have to pay fifty cents to use its public toilets, a policy I find offensive to both man and God.

  Because of Wampanoag/selectmen arguments and the town’s seemingly endless inability to get its finances or other business practices in order, Aquinnah’s politics are second only to those of Oak Bluffs as a subject of laughter for the citizens of the island’s other towns. Of course Aquinnah’s people are, like Queen Victoria and the citizens of Oak Bluffs, not amused by this humor.

  My friends Joe and Toni Begay live with their children in a small house at the north end of the cliffs, and Toni owns one of the shops at the top of the cliffs where the tour buses stop and unload hundreds of sightseers and souvenir hunters every day. When I want to fish in Aquinnah, I often park in the Begays’ yard to save my children’s inheritance from the parking-lot attendants. Today, however, I wasn’t planning to visit the Begays. I was after richer game.

  Alfred Cabot owned just under a hundred acres of land overlooking both Menemsha Pond and Vineyard Sound. I could see what I thought was the top of his house from the road, but his driveway was closed by one of those electronic gates that open only to a properly coded switch in your car or by the attendant in the small gatehouse under the trees. The gate and gatehouse were sure indications that Cabot was relatively new to the Vineyard. Old island money is never displayed so overtly; the driveways to the homes of the longtime aristocrats are usually plain, sandy lanes winding bumpily out of sight. No gates or gatehouses for them.

  I parked in front of the gate and waited, but was not surprised when the attendant declined to open it, instead coming out of the gatehouse, eyeing my rusty truck suspiciously, and asking my business.

  “My name’s Jackson,” I said, “I’m here to look at the tree.”

>   He frowned. “What tree?”

  “The one with blight. I got a call.”

  “Wait here.” He stepped away and pulled out a cell phone. As he spoke, his frown got deeper. When he rang off, he came back and said, “Nobody called about a tree, mister.”

  It was my turn to frown. “Is this the Cabot place, or not?”

  “It’s the Cabot place, but they never called anybody about a tree. You’ve made a mistake, buddy.”

  “You got any jokers up there at the house? Somebody called me and told me there was an elm up there with blight and they wanted me to take a look at it and maybe take it down.”

  “Sorry, pal. Somebody pulled a fast one on you. The joker is probably some friend of yours. You’ve made a trip for nothing.”

  So much for the direct approach. Fortunately for me, Cabot’s land wasn’t far from Uncle Bill Vanderbeck’s wife’s place, so I drove there.

  Uncle Bill always denied the belief of some of his fellow Wampanoags that he was a shaman who could, if he chose, be invisible and walk through walls; his explanation for why he was often unseen until he seemed to choose to be noticed was that he was so insignificant that people just overlooked him. There was no question, however, that he was a gardener par excellence whose every thumb and finger was figuratively green.

  It was this love of flowers and vegetables that had led him to friendship and then marriage with the widow Angela Marcus, whose Mafioso husband, Luciano, had left her a major-league estate next to the land recently purchased by Alfred Cabot. Both Uncle Bill’s and Angela’s great joy was in their gardens and each other; neither was entranced by Angela’s vast holdings although, being frugal, they were careful to maintain both land and buildings using Luciano’s careful-eyed staff to do the work and keep things quiet in case any of his old enemies showed up.

  I was a known person to the estate’s attendants, so when I encountered the young man who just happened to be standing beside the driveway as I drove up toward the house, I received a nod of recognition and a friendly wave before, in my rearview mirror, I saw him lift a cell phone to his ear.

  The house was a white slash built into the side of the hill, half underground, very modern, and filled with the best that Luciano’s money could buy. I found Uncle Bill and Angela in the vegetable garden, kneeling side by side before a row of peas and filling a basket with their finds.

  “How nice to see you,” said Angela, smiling from under her straw hat. “Is the rest of the family with you?” She peered around me.

  “Would you like some peas?” asked Uncle Bill. “We have more than enough for us and the crew.”

  I had plenty of peas in my own garden, but a few more wouldn’t hurt. I could make a meal of fresh peas alone.

  I explained where my family was and said I’d love some peas. “What I really want to do,” I said, “is snoop on your neighbor. Do you mind if I walk up to the top of the hill and have a look at his place?” I told them about being rebuffed by the guard at the gate.

  “There’s a new fence up there,” said Uncle Bill, whose tone indicated that it was the most natural thing in the world for me to want to spy on Alfred Cabot. “A hundred years ago there was a path running along the ridge, but he’s closed it off.”

  “I don’t need to go onto his land,” I said. “I just want to see if there’s a car in his yard.”

  “He drives a green Hummer,” said Uncle Bill. “I thought I saw it on the road a couple days back.”

  “I’m interested in a white Mercedes.”

  “Do you want to borrow some binoculars?” asked Angela. She had been married to Luciano for a long time and was used to odd comings and goings.

  “No,” I said. “I have my own.”

  “Well, we’ll be done here before you get back from your walk. Come into the kitchen and your peas will be waiting for you. Do you want someone to go up with you?”

  “No, I’ll find my way.”

  I walked up toward the hilltop through the trees. I could see Menemsha Pond on my right, and when I paused and looked back, I could see Squibnocket Pond and beyond Squibnocket beach to the misty horizon where the ocean met the sky. Far out, a trawler was spreading its wings like a tiny insect as it moved across the blue-gray water.

  When I reached the ridge I looked out over Vineyard Sound to the Elizabeth Islands, and on across Buzzards Bay to the mainland where a smoky haze hung over New Bedford. In the slanting, late afternoon light, the sound was still busy with boats.

  I turned left and started along the ridge, following an ancient track kept open by deer. Soon, I came to the fence Uncle Bill had mentioned. It was still bright with newness, a tall mesh of woven wire topped by two strands of barbed wire, more appropriate for a factory complex or power plant than for a house. A narrow path paralleled the fence on the other side. The trail I was following passed under the fence and faded into the trees on down the ridge. I didn’t think a deer could clear the fence. Maybe Alfred Cabot had a phobia about Santa Claus and wanted to keep him and Rudolph and the rest of the team off his land. Didn’t he remember that they could fly?

  I walked along the fence until it crossed a rock ledge above a steep slope that fell away to the west. Across a meadow at the foot of the slope were Cabot’s house and outbuildings. All were new and slightly oversized, as was the mode for the island’s current mansionizers. I guessed that Cabot had a grand view in three directions.

  A forest-green Hummer was parked on a circular drive in front of the house. One of the ubiquitous Mini Coopers was there, too. Maybe I was the only person left who didn’t own one or the other. I didn’t see a white Mercedes, but that didn’t mean much because there was a four-car garage attached to the near side of the house and a barn to boot, in either of which might have been several parked cars.

  I surveyed the scene with the trusty old WWI German field glasses I’d inherited from my father, who’d gotten them in an Army-Navy store before I was born. They were heavy and bulky, but the lenses were wonderful. I sat down and watched things for a while, not knowing exactly what I expected to see. What I finally did see was a flash of sunlight dancing off something. I looked harder and saw a scope looking back at me. In short order, a door in the barn opened and an ATV drove out. In a scabbard attached behind the driver was a black stick. The driver glanced up the hill in my direction and sped out of sight into the trees to my right.

  I thought the black stick looked a lot like a shotgun. I listened to the sound of the ATV coming up the ridge and decided that it was time to move. A hundred yards east of the rock ledge I lay motionless behind a fallen oak tree and watched through my binoculars while the ATV came along the path paralleling the fence and stopped near where I’d been. The black stick was definitely a shotgun, and I couldn’t think of any hunting season going on. The driver looked carefully around but his eyes passed over me without stopping. He studied the ledge and looked down at the house, then took a short drink from a canteen and sat in the shade. He didn’t seem to be going away, so I did.

  17

  “Here are your peas,” said Angela, handing me a paper bag.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll have them for supper.”

  “Did you see what you wanted to see?” asked Uncle Bill.

  “No Mercedes, but I did see a couple of other vehicles.” I told them about the ATV rider coming up the ridge to investigate.

  Angela and Uncle Bill looked at each other. “Maybe I should send Mario up there to take a look at things,” said Angela. “That’s probably what Luciano would do.”

  “Have any of us walked that fence since Cabot put it up?” asked Uncle Bill. “We probably should. Mario can do that.”

  I hadn’t mentioned the shotgun, but now I did and suggested that they tell Mario about it before he went fence walking.

  “Maybe I’ll send Sean along with Mario,” said Angela, frowning slightly.

  I knew I was the cause of the frown, and felt regret. “I’ve brought you a problem,” I said.

 
“Oh no,” said Uncle Bill. “No problem. Neighbors used to get together to walk the stone walls between them and make repairs. Sean and Mario will just be checking out the new fence. Maybe they’ll have a chance to chat with the man on the ATV. If he asks about you, we’ll tell him you were a guest out for a walk, looking for birds.”

  He smiled a shaman smile and I wondered if he was thinking about walking through the fence and on down to the Cabot place to see things close up. There were real benefits to being invisible, sometimes. Not for Claude Rains, of course, but it doesn’t snow on the Vineyard in the summertime.

  “I’ll be on my way before I cause more trouble,” I said.

  “You’re never any trouble, J.W.,” said Angela, giving me a kiss. “When Zee gets home, you’ve all got to come up for a cookout.”

  Uncle Bill walked me to my truck. “You be careful,” he said. “You said you gave your real name to the guard at the gate. It might have been smarter to have used another one.” He cocked his head to one side. “Unless, of course, you wanted Cabot to know you were there.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I said.

  I drove back home through the falling light, thinking about what I knew and didn’t know and hoping that Carole or Jordan Cohen would still be at Gull Realty. Jordan was, and I asked him if I could borrow his night glasses and camera. He gave them to me but was worried about Carole’s brother now that Melissa had been killed.

  “You don’t think they’ll be back at Roland’s place tonight, do you?”

  “Probably not,” I said. “But you never know.”

  “I don’t want you chasing them again. You could be the next to die.”