“Larry went in there with his own key and took every lightship basket before Mom’s body was cold. He was late for the funeral—that was why! He claimed she wanted him to have them and there’s nothing in the will, so…but it wasn’t right. Ransacking the place like that. Do you know what my sister, Joyce, said? She swore, I won’t quote her, I don’t use language like that. She was furious she let him get there first! That was all. He beat her to the punch! The idea of actually sharing…of sitting down together and talking things out…not in my family. It’s every man for himself with the Thayer clan. Or woman. Especially woman. My sister is a devious, meanspirited harpy. But she’s no arsonist. She’s afraid of fire. Always fretting that the chimneys are going catch and burn the house down.”
“Could that have happened?”
He shook his head. “Not out there. No one has built a fire in that cottage for a decade. The flue was closed up in ’07. Largely due to Joyce’s badgering.”
I spun around once in my chair, and caught the edge of the desk to set myself facing him again. “Have you heard any rumors about the house?”
“Rumors?”
“For instance, that it was being used as a sort of studio for making films.”
“What sort of films?”
“You tell me.”
“I have no idea.”
“Pornographic films?”
“That’s ludicrous.”
“How many people had keys?”
“Just the family. And the caretaker—Billy Delavane. He’s family now.”
“You never noticed anything odd out there? Film equipment? Lights?”
He cocked his head in thought. “Well, Chick Crosby has been storing some equipment at the place. He’s making a documentary about bird migrations or something. Saves him hauling everything out to the moors and he’s a good friend of Larry’s. I don’t see anything sinister there.”
“No.”
“Are you sure it was even arson at all?”
“They suspect a propellant was used. We don’t have the lab work back yet.”
“This is awful. Just awful. I simply can’t believe it.”
That was number eleven. I decided to get him out of my office before he tried for a record-breaking twelve. But he hit it at the door: “This is just so…unbelievable. I can’t believe it. I just can’t.”
I gave him the benefit of the doubt on the variation in usage and silently awarded him a very small trophy for his thirteen repetitions. I’m not overly superstitious, but in retrospect that seemed like bad luck.
Once Andrew was gone, I called a meeting with Haden Krakauer, Kyle Donnelly, and Charlie Boyce. I hated to delegate but there was too much for one person to do, and according to the Selectmen, I wasn’t supposed to do anything but push papers, attend administrative meetings, and talk to the newspaper when we had a blizzard. That would have been a nice, easy sinecure, but I get bored too easily, and my staff was still learning on the job.
You learn police work by doing it, so I gave them their marching orders.
I wanted every house within a mile of the Thayer cottage canvassed. I wanted statements from anyone who might have heard or seen anything. It was still shotgun deer-hunting season, so I wanted every license pulled and every hunter who’d bagged a deer that day interviewed, whether they lived on-island or not, and most of them didn’t. That would mean getting the cooperation of various other local jurisdictions and I left that to Haden. If any of those hunters were anywhere near the Pout Ponds, they might have heard or seen something. I wanted them debriefed before their memories faded.
Next on the list: copies of the State Police arson report and the ballistics report on the bullet I dug out of the moors. Those documents needed to be analyzed, point by point.
Then there were the family members—both Macy’s family and Thayer’s. Unfortunately, statistically, despite Andrew’s protestations, they were the most likely perpetrators. The random act of destruction and the wraith-like hit man were staples of crime fiction, but as rare in real life as Bigfoot.
I also set my detectives poking into the victims’ business dealings, social activities, friends, romantic involvements, social media—everything they could dig up without a court order or a search warrant.
My first mission: I wanted another visit with Andrew Thayer, to see him in his own space. Our interview felt incomplete. Lonnie Fraker called me as I was on my way out the door, with news on the propellant—it was jet fuel. That made no sense to me, but Thayer might know something. He might own a jet, or know someone who did.
I drove over to Andrew’s house on Union Street. As a day trader who had left his big firm to work alone, he spent most days in his attic office working three computers, the NASDAC, and NYSE, and the NIKKEI simultaneously. He was also short-selling commodities futures this afternoon, and apologized for being distracted.
“Multi-tasking is my specialty.”
I glanced at the three Apple desktop monitors as he sat down in front of the middle one, and sipped from his mug of coffee.
“Good thing,” I said.
“Crap. I have to do this. Hold on.” He typed furiously for a few seconds, then spun his ergonomic desk chair around to face me. “I quit because I was working too hard. Now I’m working harder than ever.”
“But you get to keep all the money.”
He nodded. “And no office politics. Unless you count Buster. And he’s very demanding.” Andrew was referring to his black Lab, who had followed us up the stairs and was pawing Andrew’s knee at every break in the petting. “Great dog. If there was a Nantucket flag, the black Lab would be on it. Maybe not this black Lab—” The dog cocked his head, sensing the change in tone. “Just kidding, buddy.” The dog’s tail thumped on the floor. I gave him a pat myself, while Andrew attacked the computer keyboard. “So how can I help you, Chief?”
I didn’t know what I was looking for, or exactly why I had needed an immediate follow-up to his interrogation at the cop shop. I had no specific questions—just a general one: who was this guy?
I glanced around the cramped office: floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a canvas-covered wing chair with a floor lamp, and one of Jane Stiles’ Madeline Clark mysteries on the end table next to it. An oval hooked rug on the wide-board floor held a scatter of newspapers and magazines and a plate that had obviously been licked clean by Buster. It struck me as odd: the downstairs was scrupulously neat, with the exception of the kitchen table, which had the look of a very temporary glitch in the clean machine. I would have guessed the office was Thayer’s sanctuary from the housekeeping tyranny of a more exigent wife or girlfriend. Having done my homework, I knew Thayer was divorced.
Suddenly the trip seemed worthwhile. “I’d like to talk to your girlfriend when she gets home.”
He flinched. “Girlfriend?”
“When does she get off work?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend. Currently.”
“Fine—roommate, then. I just need to double check some things with her—or him.”
“What are you talking about? I live alone.”
I sighed. “No you don’t.”
“How can you say that?”
“Well, there were two coffee mugs on the kitchen table when I came in.”
“I leave dishes for the maid.”
“One of them had coffee in it.”
“I’m absent-minded.”
“Coffee with milk.” I nodded toward the mug on his desk. “You drink it black.”
He stared at me. “You noticed that?”
“It’s my job description. Noticing stuff.”
“We walked past the kitchen door. The table was visible for two seconds! We didn’t even go in.”
“I’m a snoop.”
“This is ridiculous.”
I pushed on. “As we were walking upstairs I could have sworn I heard th
e back door open and close. And a minute or so later, I heard a car start. It’s probably just a coincidence, but your house backs onto the town parking lot. So the timing is good.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Who is she?”
“She’s no one.”
I smiled. “So, it is a she.”
“What does this have to do with my house burning down?”
“You tell me.”
He took a breath and let it out slowly, jammed his eyes shut and opened them as the carbon dioxide vented. “Okay. There is someone staying with me. Temporarily. But she’s not an—an arsonist. There’s no—it’s not possible. I don’t want her caught up with any more—with any trouble. She needs a break.”
“Who is she?”
“Just a friend.”
“A high school friend? A new friend?”
“She used to come here in the summer. She’s had a shitty life, and it’s—oh, I know what you’re thinking—poor little rich girl. Nantucket summer chick couldn’t find the right lipstick at Murray’s. Well, sorry, but rich people have problems too. Just not money problems. There’s lots of problems besides money problems. You’d know that if you ever had any money.”
“Father issues?”
He coughed out a humorless laugh. “Stepfather.”
“What happened?”
“Just about everything. I’d rather not talk about it and it’s not my place anyway. I’m on the sidelines here. Trying to help. And she has nothing to do with—” He cut himself off.
“With what?”
“With anything. With anything bad. She’s a victim, not a—what do you call it? What’s the word? A perpetrator. She couldn’t steal a penny candy from a dime store.”
“Maybe I could help her.”
“The police? Are you kidding? The police don’t help people. They make trouble. They think everyone’s a criminal because that’s all they see. Sorry, but it’s true. I dated a girl when I was in college, her father was on the Highway Patrol. He acted like I-95 was a fucking Mad Max movie. No, no, no. The last thing she wants is to get tangled up with the police. I mention the police and she’s gone.”
“Don’t mention the police. Just let me talk to her.”
“Is there some law? Do I have to do this?”
“No. Not right now. But eventually, under oath, you’d be required to—”
“Under oath? Wait—what? There’s going to be a trial?”
“I certainly hope so. That’s usually what happens, after we arrest someone.”
“Right, sure. Yeah, of course. A trial. But I mean—how do you know it wasn’t just an accident? It wouldn’t have to be from the fireplace—a chimney fire, like we said before. It could have been anything—a cigarette, kids smoking a joint. That place was a tinderbox.”
“The State Police investigators recovered traces of a propellant. Someone started the fire with jet fuel. Do you know anyone with access to a jet?”
He stared at me. “A jet?”
“That’s what the report says. The fire was started with jet fuel.”
“The jet set. Right. I don’t have that kind of money and neither does anyone I know. I hate those assholes anyway. I heard one of them say he has a separate plane for his dog.”
“It wouldn’t have to be an owner, Mr. Thayer. A pilot, someone on the ground crew, maintenance people, fuel delivery guys, airport security…”
He sniffed. “I don’t exactly hang out with those people, either. I guess that makes me middle-class. At least in this world. Where ten thousand dollars is a ‘Nantucket grand.’”
“Do you think you might have pissed any of them off?”
“Jet maintenance mechanics?”
I blew out a breath. “Working people. Tradesmen. House cleaners, gardeners. The support system that keeps this island running.”
“And required this island to build a police station roughly the size of Buckingham Palace.”
“Excuse me?”
“We let the riffraff in and we have to protect ourselves from them—that’s the attitude. That’s the dirty little secret. Think about it. When I was growing up, we had five police officers on this island, which worked for everyone because we also had no crime. But we also weren’t the premier gateway destination for illegal immigrants. Don’t get me wrong, Chief. I like change. I like a more diverse population. I like hearing Portugese and Lithuanian and Spanish and whatever else in the grocery store. Jamaican patois, Belarusian. This place was turning into an inbred nightmare. I voted against the police station at Town Meeting, but facts are facts. Even well-off people feel poor living here, cheek by jowl with billionaires. Get a crowd of actual poor people angry enough, rouse them up—you’ve got a rabble. People lose their heads when that shit goes down. Their actual heads. Ask Marie Antoinette. You thought ‘Let them eat cake’ was bad? Try ‘Let them eat Cumberland Farms donuts.’ That’s really adding insult to injury.”
“So the fire was an act of revolution?”
“A misplaced one. If it was.”
“So, no enemies, no grudges, no stalkers? No bad debts, no ongoing litigation? No squatters? No firebugs in the family?”
“Nothing. No one.”
“You have no idea why someone might have done this?”
“People do crazy things all the time, Chief Kennis. Maybe my house was built on an Indian graveyard. Maybe someone thought aliens were going to be using it for a landing pad. Why speculate? I’d rather look forward and rebuild. I may install some surveillance cameras this time around.”
I stood up. “Well, thanks. If you think of anything else, give me a call.”
“I certainly will.”
I doubted it. He had lied about almost everything else—at least that was my instinct, and I trusted it. But why? That was the question. Who was he protecting, beside the houseguest who ducked out when I arrived? Or maybe protecting her was enough.
I needed to find out who she was, without actually arresting Andrew Thayer. I could set one of the junior officers, maybe Barnaby Toll, to watch the house, and get another one to take down all the license plate numbers in the town parking lot. We might find something out if we ran them all, and it would give the young cops something to do besides writing out parking tickets and answering prank calls.
This mystery woman was my only lead. Without her, my interviews with Thayer were useless: one more set of evasions and half-truths delivered by one more venture capitalist with things to hide—most them, probably all of them, irrelevant.
For the moment, I let it go. My day’s work was done. I went home to take a shower and find some civilian clothes. Miranda had the kids that night and I actually had a social engagement, the first one in weeks.
Chapter Ten
At Emily Grimshaw’s Salon
I didn’t expect to find a clue in that cluttered, hothouse living room, crowded with would-be poets and authors, but until that night I never thought a poem could be a death threat.
Still, if anyone was going to compose such a document, the late Todd Macy’s son, Chris, was the guy. A spoiled brat with father issues, though the term probably applied just as well to Lord Byron or Ezra Pound, both of whom (it turned out) Chris used in the poetry workshop he ran at the Community School. Mason Taylor took Chris’ workshop and thought he was a genius. There was nothing I could do about that. Maybe he was a good influence when he was sober.
The poem was an odd piece of work, but so were most of the stories and poems people performed at Emily Grimshaw’s house. And almost all of them concerned some sort of tortured family relationship. One began: “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, why are your eyes so silent, why does your mouth refuse me, why are your broken hands fisted with grief?”
There was a limit to how much of that stuff you could listen to, but I still enjoyed attending these soirees. I liked the Bohemian atmosph
ere, the books and trinkets piled on every surface, the smell of incense. Emily made excellent hors d’oeuvres, and served good wine. She was proud of her little salon and always had a few young writers around that she was mentoring; most of them strapping twenty-year-old boys. They adored Emily and did most of the heavy work, moving furniture and setting up the little apartment for the art installations and readings. It looked like Chris Macy was one of them these days. He had the tormented look she preferred.
He was hauling the big lectern to the arched opening between the bedroom and the living room when I pushed inside out of the cold. Emily, bulky and intense, was talking to Jane Stiles, while Jane’s six-year-old son tugged at her pant leg.
“I expect a real poem to change my life,” Emily was saying. She stepped back from the door. “Oh, hello, Chief—you’re late. We’re about to start. Shut the door and introduce yourself to anyone you don’t know. We have some newbies tonight, and you need to assure them they won’t be arrested. I’m going to open more wine.”
She disappeared through the crowd, back toward the kitchen at the far side of the little apartment.
“Something had better change her life,” I said, “as soon as possible.”
Jane smiled. “You came.”
“I wouldn’t miss one of Emily’s evenings.”
“This is my first. I think she’s interesting. Until Emily, I’d never met anyone who wore black as a lifestyle before.”
“There must be more to her lifestyle than that.”
“You’re right. I’m being unfair. I shouldn’t leave out the self-help seminars, the nuisance lawsuits, and the continuous low-grade nervous breakdown. She feels the pain of the world—which makes her better than you. Just ask her. She calls it Weltshmertz, basically because things sound more important when you say them in German. She’s in court with her ex over custody of their Siamese cat. That’s been going on for six months. Last year she announced that she was the bride of Jesus. But apparently that marriage didn’t work out either.”
I smiled, unbuttoning my coat. Emily kept the heat cranked, regardless of the expense. It was one of her few luxuries, and she prided herself on having “thin blood.”
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