A Deadly Vineyard Holiday

by Philip R. Craig

  I felt pretty good about letting Debby go off and act like a normal teenage girl for a while. Not only was she with a group of friends, but Karen was with her, keeping her eyes open.

  Besides, there was no way Shadow and his friends could even know that Debby was downtown, so the worst thing that could happen would be to have somebody actually recognize Cricket and make a big deal out of it.

  Then I remembered what the chief had said about a possible bug in our house, and I realized that Shadow might very well know exactly where Debby was. I threw some money on the table, went out the door, and ran toward the town dock.

  — 13 —

  They weren’t on the street level of the dock, where men and boys, standing or seated beside their bait buckets, fished for whatever might or might not be in the water below. I ran up the stairs to the walkway on the top. The harbor was filled with boats, and lots of people were admiring the view, but none of them were mine.

  Maybe they’d decided to take the On Time over to Chappy. I looked down at the crisscrossing ferries and across the channel to the far side. I didn’t see them. I looked back toward town and didn’t see them. I glanced at my watch. A half hour before our scheduled meeting time. They could be anywhere. I imagined my group of young men and women walking the tourist-filled streets of Edgartown, happy at being together, flirting and making jokes amid the crowds, but seeing only one another, not seeing a vial of acid in a gloved hand until it was too late. Then, in the chaos and confusion, as Debby screamed and scrubbed at her face and eyes, Shadow would slip away, unnoticed and full of vengeful joy.

  Where would teenagers go? I trotted down the steps and along the docks behind the Sea Food Shanty, behind Porky’s tackle shop, past the dock where Mad Max, the big catamaran, was moored between its daily cruises. To my right, boats were coming in for the night, and beyond them boats swung at their moorings. Beside the docks, there were people standing, sitting, walking, and watching the boats. But none of them were Debby or her friends.

  I cut across the parking lot and went up to North Water Street, my eyes flicking this way and that.

  No one.

  I walked down to the four corners and talked to the summer cop who was directing traffic. He was the right age to have noticed four pretty young women passing by. He hadn’t seen them.

  There was another young summer cop up the street. I described the group I was looking for. He held out a hand about chest high.

  “You say one of them was a girl about yay high, with big glasses and a blue hat?”

  “That’s one of them.”

  “Well, she wasn’t in a group. She was with a guy. They went up North Summer Street. I noticed her because I thought she looked like somebody I know, but I couldn’t think of who it was.”

  “A lot of people tell her that,” I said, and loped up North Summer Street.

  I got to the intersection of Summer and Winter streets. There was no Debby ahead of me, or to my left, so I took a right. Maybe she was in one of the stores between Summer and North Water. I went in and out of them.

  No Debby.

  Why hadn’t she stayed with the others? Who was the guy she was with? One of the boys I’d seen earlier, or someone else? Shadow?

  I looked at my watch. It was almost time for our scheduled rendezvous. I jogged to the parking lot, trying to see everything in every direction, listening for an outcry that might spell violence, kicking myself for having been so stupid as to have allowed my charges to go off with a bunch of people I didn’t know.

  At the parking lot I found Jill and Jen talking to three boys. Karen stood apart, her eyes looking everywhere, her face pale. She saw me and ran to meet me.

  “Did you find her?” Her voice was fearful.

  “No. How did she get separated from the rest of you?”

  “I don’t know. One minute she and Allen were with us, and the next they were gone!”

  “How long ago?”

  She looked at her watch. “Not long. Fifteen minutes, maybe.”

  “Where?”

  “Right on Main Street. After we ate, we walked along Dock Street and up Main. Window-shopping. Then she was just gone! I thought she might be with you. I’ve got to call this in!”

  “I guess so,” I said.

  But Karen never made her call.

  “Hi!” said Debby, and we turned to see her coming across Dock Street, leading a young man by the hand. “I hope we’re not late. Allen was showing me the thrift shop. What a neat place. They have some clothes that my parents would just hate! You all should have come!” Then she looked at Karen’s face. “Uh-oh.”

  “Your sister was worried,” I said, stepping between them. I looked at the boy. “You must be Allen.”

  He dropped Debby’s hand. “Uh, yes, sir. Allen Freeman.” He waved toward the harbor. “My folks have a place over on Chappy. If we’re late, it’s my fault. I was telling Debby about the thrift shop and she said she’d never seen one, so—”

  “No, it’s not his fault,” said Debby. “I was the one. I just wasn’t thinking.”

  “You can’t afford to stop thinking!” said Karen in a low voice full of anger.

  “I’m really sorry,” said Allen Freeman, looking understandably confused by the degree of outrage in Karen’s voice.

  “You’re not late,” I said, doing a dance step to keep casually between him and Karen, “so no harm done. It’s just that it’s been a long day and some of us are tired and need to go home. Right, cousins?”

  “Right, cousin Jeff,” said Debby, quick to try to defuse the bomb that was Karen. She turned to Allen. “Thanks. I had a lot of fun.”

  “Me, too,” said the boy. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, so he put them in his pockets.

  The twins and their admirers came over, serenely untroubled by Debby’s temporary absence. Everyone said good-bye to everyone, and Debby, Karen, and I followed the twins to the parked Wagoneer, which was out toward Starbuck Neck on North Water Street.

  “What luck!” cried the driving twin. “No parking ticket!”

  Luck, indeed. Edgartown’s dreaded meter maids rarely miss the opportunity to ply their trade.

  Karen’s lips were tight together on the ride home. When the twins drove away from our house, and we were still in the yard, she shook her finger in Debby’s face.

  “You almost gave me a heart attack, young lady! I was just about to call Walt Pomerlieu when you showed up! Do I have to remind you that it’s not safe for you to go off by yourself? What if something had happened?”

  Debby seemed half chagrined and half angry. “Nothing happened! Why should something have happened? Allen was there all the time. He’s nice. He wouldn’t have let anything happen!”

  “You don’t even know Allen! You don’t know anything about him!”

  “I don’t know anything about you, either!” shouted Debby, suddenly furious.

  Karen’s jaw dropped. “What are you saying? You know me. You’ve known me for weeks!”

  “No! I don’t know anything about you!” cried Debby. “I don’t know anything about any of you people! You watch me and you watch my folks and you watch everybody, and you talk into your microphones and you wear those dark glasses and you’re always there, but I don’t know any of you! I know Allen better than I know you, Karen!” She whirled toward me. “I want to invite Allen to the clambake. Can I?”

  “No, you can’t,” said Karen.

  “I’m not asking you!” Debby almost shouted. “I’m asking J.W. Well, can I, J.W.?”

  “This clambake is getting bigger every day,” I said.

  “Can I ask Allen? I want him to come.”

  “No,” said Karen. “He can’t come.”

  I think it was that last no that tipped the scales, probably because I don’t like having other people tell me what to do. Zee says that it’s a major component of my nature, but that she’s not sure whether it’s a virtue or a fault.

  “Sure,” I said. “You can invite him.
But if he comes he’ll meet your folks, and he’s going to find out who you really are.”

  “I don’t care. It won’t make any difference to him.”

  I wondered if that was true. Allen Freeman hanging out with Debby Jackson was one thing. Allen Freeman dating Cricket Callahan might be something quite different.

  “How are you going to get in touch with him?” I asked.

  “You heard him,” she said. “He lives on Chappaquiddick. I’ll call him on the phone.”

  And when she said that, I thought of what the chief had said about the house.

  “He probably won’t be home for a while,” I said to Debby. “So why don’t you wait before you make your call.” I crooked a finger at Karen. Her face was still angry and disapproving, but she followed me out to the Land Cruiser.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Whoever bugged the cars may have bugged the house, too. I think we should have a look. If there’s a mike in there, whoever is tuned into it probably knows everything we plan to do before we do it.”

  The anger went right out of her face. She snapped a finger. “You’re right. I’ve been a dope. My brain must be turning to mush!”

  “Mine, too. Do you know how to find something like that, if it’s there? I’m not sure I can.”

  She nodded. “I can do it, but there’s a better way. I’ll call Walt Pomerlieu on the radio and have him bring in some people with the gear to sweep the house. If it’s there, they’ll find it.”

  “Do that,” I said. “Meanwhile, let’s not talk over any more plans when we’re in the house.” I gestured toward Debby. “For instance, let’s not have Debby make any phone calls until we know the house is clean.”

  She nodded and reached into her bag. As I walked away, she was already talking into her radio. I beckoned to Debby, who fell in beside me as I walked up the driveway.

  “What are you doing, cousin Jeff?”

  I don’t always tell people the truth, so I thought for three or four steps before deciding to do it this time.

  “It’s possible that our house has been bugged,” I said. “It probably hasn’t, but just in case it has, Karen is going to have it swept. She’s calling in some agents to do it. That’s why I don’t want you to call Allen for a while. If there is a bug in the house, whoever is out there listening will know that he’ll be coming to the clambake, and we don’t want that information to get out.”

  She walked beside me, then said, “But if there’s a bug in the house, the people who put it there already know about the clambake, so what difference would it make if they learn about Allen?”

  “Maybe it doesn’t. Still, the operating principle for all this security business seems to be that the fewer people who know what’s going to happen, the better. But you probably know more about that than I do.”

  She nodded. “I hate it. I know it has to be done, but I really hate it! Someday I’m not going to need any security, and there won’t be any secrets about my life. I’ll be like normal people.”

  “Not right now, though,” I said, thinking that Debby, bright and sophisticated as she was, knew little about the lives of normal people, who had no security agents surrounding them. The agents might not be there, but normal people also had secrets hidden from friends and neighbors. I knew that I, at least, had some that I kept locked within myself, and had no plans to share them. The old saw came forth from my memory: Two can keep a secret, if one of them is dead.

  “Here’s my security system,” I said, coming to the beginning of the thread that surrounded the house. “It’s high-tech stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree.” I told her what it was and why it was there.

  “I wouldn’t have thought of it,” said Debby, “and I’m sorry you had to. I think I must be more bother to you than I imagined. I guess Karen’s right. I should go back to the compound so you and Zee can live without all this trouble.”

  I glanced at her and was surprised to see a tear trickle down her cheek. The sight of that tear elicited a rush of sympathy in me, and an unexpected reaction. I put my arm around her shoulder and pulled her against me for a moment before letting her go.

  “Forget that stuff, kid. I’m like Sam Spade; I don’t mind a little trouble. And neither does Zee. Come on. We’ll follow this thread around and see if it’s still in one piece. Blow your nose and we’ll run a recon.”

  She found a tissue, wiped her eyes, and followed me. We walked the barely visible circle of thread. For the first fifty yards it was intact. Then we came to a broken spot.

  I held up a hand, and we both stopped.

  Between the trees, scrub oaks, and brambles, the ground was covered with leaves, twigs and branches, and browned needles from evergreen trees.

  I studied the ground, then knelt and studied it more closely.

  “What is it?” whispered Debby. “Can you see any footprints?”

  I brushed away a leaf and pointed at the fresh hoof-print.

  “Bambi.”

  “A deer!” Her whisper was gone. She smiled.

  I stood up and retied the broken thread. “There are hundreds of them here on the island, but most people never see them. Hunters do well during the hunting season, and some poachers do well all year round.”

  “Do you hunt?”

  “Not as much as I used to. But I like venison when I can get it.”

  “I think it’s cruel to hunt animals.”

  “We all kill something in order to stay alive. Fish, animals, plants, whatever. Only the carrion-eaters live on things they find already dead. Maybe you’d rather do that.”

  “Yuck!”

  “Yuck it is. Come on. This deer went in this way, but he went out another way, so we’re going to find another hole in this fence somewhere or other.”

  But the next break in the thread wasn’t caused by the deer. Some person had come walking from the north, had passed through the thread, and had moved in toward the house. I touched my lips with my finger, and gestured to Debby to kneel down.

  — 14 —

  Shadow had come. But had he gone? I put my mouth close to Debby’s ear. “Go back the way we came. Stay low and don’t make any noise. When you get to the driveway, wait. I’ll call you.”

  She nodded, her eyes wide behind her big glasses, then turned and moved swiftly back through the trees. I inwardly thanked the someone who had taught her that it was sometimes wise not to argue.

  When she was out of sight, I moved toward the house, following the disturbed leaves that marked Shadow’s path, keeping low, moving slowly, looking ahead, pausing to look side to side, then moving ahead again, hoping to see before I was seen.

  Hawkeye could no doubt have told to the minute when Shadow had passed here, and would have known his weight and height and maybe even the color of his eyes; but I wasn’t Hawkeye, nor much of a reader of country signs. All I knew was that someone had come down through the trees from the north, had broken my thread fence, and had gone on toward my house. I went after him.

  I came to a spot where I could see the shed behind the house. On its rear wall was the cutting table where I filleted my fish, and beside it the smoker I’d made of parts found in the Edgartown dump in the old days before the environmentalists seized control of it, when it was still the Big D, where you could often find just what you needed and there was an absolute money-back guarantee if you changed your mind, and you didn’t need a passport and visa to get in.

  Shadow had apparently paused where I was now pausing, for the leafy ground was more disturbed than usual. Like me, he had taken stock of what lay ahead of him before moving on.

  Now, I took a good look all around and saw no one, then sought the sign that would show where he had gone next.

  Straight ahead. I followed right up to the shed, where the trail disappeared. Shadow had apparently walked into the yard, where my limited tracking abilities failed me. Had he come and gone while we were down in Edgartown? Or was he still here? And if so, where? In the shed?

  I breathed
deep, eased open the door, and took a quick peek.

  Not there.

  In the stockade corral, where I store valuable stuff too bulky to go in the shed? I sidled over and had a look. Not there.

  That left the house itself. The doors were never locked, and I hadn’t gone inside since we’d gotten home, so he could be there. I thought of the gun cabinet in the living room, and was acutely conscious of being unarmed. I went back to the shed and got a fish knife. If knives and swords were better weapons than guns, we’d still have knights in armor fighting our wars, but the knife was better than nothing. I went into the house, into the kitchen.

  I heard movement in the living room and tiptoed in that direction. Karen appeared in the doorway. She looked at the knife. The little tablet of paper that we use to write shopping lists was on the table. I touched a finger to my lips, found a pencil, and wrote: Shadow may be here in the house. Debby’s safe.

  A pistol appeared in Karen’s hand. One moment it wasn’t there, and the next it was. Very quick.

  We went through the house. Every room, every closet.

  No one.

  We went outside and checked the cars. No one again. We swept the surrounding woods with our eyes. No Shadow.

  Karen put the pistol away. “What’s going on?”

  I told her.

  “Where’s Cricket?”

  “I told her to wait up by the driveway until I called her.”

  “Call her, then.”

  “I’ll walk up there and get her, just in case Shadow is between her and us.”

  Both of us went. Debby was hunkered down like a fawn, behind some ferns under an oak tree. She came out into the driveway.

  “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “We don’t really know,” said Karen. “Somebody came down through the woods to the house and then went away again. We don’t know who it was.”

  “But we wanted to check things out,” I said. “Whoever it was is gone.”