A Case of Vineyard Poison

by Philip R. Craig

  Things didn’t look too bad. Good food, good drink, Quinn, who, if he wished, could charm the ladies, and the world’s champion pianist to provide entertainment. I went into the kitchen to attend to the final details: first, the bread. I put it in the oven. If all else failed, the smell of fresh cooked bread should win Maria’s heart.

  While the loaves baked, I opened the littlenecks and cherrystones and prepared the casinos. I finished just as the bread was done. Perfect timing.

  Quinn, Dave, and I ate most of a loaf as soon as the bread was out of the oven. We cut thick slices and slathered them with butter, and wolfed them down. Yum! We had some more, and washed them down with beer.

  “How many of those have you had?” asked Quinn, looking at my Sam Adams. “You don’t want Maria to think you’re a boozer.”

  “Just the right number,” I said. I felt good.

  I brushed my teeth one last time, and slid into another shirt. In the mirror I looked as passable as I ever get. I put martini glasses in the freezer to chill, and looked at my watch. Waiting time. I noticed that I was nervous.

  Right on schedule, Zee’s little Jeep came down my driveway. Dave and Quinn, decked out even more nicely than I was, went out with me to greet Zee and Maria.

  Quinn and I got kisses from Zee. Then I introduced Maria to Quinn.

  “Just Quinn?” she asked with a little smile. “No first name? Like in Shane?”

  “I always thought Shane was his first name,” said Quinn. “Quinn is a last name, like Spenser.”

  “I always thought Spenser was his first name,” said Dave. “That’s what inspired me to be only Dave.” He gave Maria a small bow. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Dave.”

  “No you’re not,” she said, pointing a finger at him. “I know who you are. You’re David Greenstein. Zeolinda gave me a tape of yours and there was a picture of you on the case. Besides, your face has been all over the Boston papers. You’re a missing person!”

  He spread his hands. “Not for long, I’m afraid. I’m headed back to civilization in a couple of days. Then it’s back to work.”

  Maria studied him approvingly, and I saw some deviltry in her eye. “You are a wonderful pianist. Are you married?”

  Dave looked surprised. “No, I’m afraid not.”

  Maria turned to Zee. “There you are, dear. Another eligible man. Jefferson isn’t the only one left, after all, in spite of what you’ve been telling me.”

  “Mom!” said Zee.

  “What do you say, David?” asked Maria. “My daughter here wants to get married. Are you interested?”

  “Gosh, Zee,” said Dave. “This is so sudden.”

  “She’s a great find, Dave,” I said. “Beautiful, a steady job, has a sweetheart of a mother. You could do a lot worse.”

  Zee tugged at my hand. “You do have my triple vodka martini waiting for me inside, of course.”

  “This may be your last chance, Dave,” said Maria. “Once he wraps that martini around her, I’m afraid she’ll never be able to leave him.”

  “Actually,” said Dave, running his eyes over her from face to foot and back again, “I’ve always been attracted to more mature women. Let me see your left hand. Rats. Still married, I see. Is there any chance of winning you away from whoever it is who has you now?”

  “You don’t want to marry a musician,” said Quinn, stepping in. “I know he seems like a romantic figure, but he’s away in some foreign country most of the time, being chased by dark-eyed beauties such as yourself. What you want is an honest, hard-working member of the fourth estate like me. I’m adoring and absolutely dependable, exactly the kind of man you really need. I’d like the two of us to get off to a proper start, so what can I get you to drink?”

  “White wine,” said Maria, flicking her dark eyes at first one of the men and then the other.

  Dave took her arm. “You get the drinks,” he said to Quinn. “I’ll escort Maria up to the balcony. Come along, madam. We’ll let the servants attend us.”

  “I think this evening may work out all right,” whispered Zee, her smile flashing.

  And it did. At the end of the evening, after the drinks and the food and the music and the talk, I got my first kiss from Maria as she and Zee were leaving for home. When they were gone, I poured three last glasses of cognac, and Dave, Quinn, and I sat in the living room. Dave was back to the keyboard and let his hands run over the instrument. Some gentle air I’d never heard. It sounded just right.

  “Background music,” said Quinn, sipping his drink. “Too bad we can’t have it all the time. Did I ever tell you my theory that the trouble with life is that there’s no background music?”

  “You mean the one about walking past some girl and not realizing that it’s a potentially romantic situation because there aren’t any violins playing, or not realizing that you’re about to get mugged because there’s no ominous music?”

  “Yeah. Well, did I ever tell you about my theory that the trouble with life is that there’s no plot?”

  “Is that like the telephone directory theory? That it has a tremendous cast, but no script?”

  “It’s nice to know that at least you’ve been listening,” said Quinn.

  Dave looked up from his keyboard. He smiled. “I saw that kiss from Maria,” he said. “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

  — 20 —

  I was up early to get started on smoking Dave’s and Quinn’s fish. I rinsed them to wash off whatever salt was on the surface of the fillets, then I set them to air-dry for an hour on racks. After that, I put the racks in the smoker that sits out behind my shed, beside the filleting table.

  My smoker is an old metal refrigerator salvaged from the town dump in the good old days before the environmentalists seized control of it and banished dump picking from the list of approved island activities, and I heat my hickory chips with an electric stove-top unit found, where else, in the dump of the golden age.

  I put the chips in an old cast-iron skillet (found guess where), put the skillet on the heating unit, and turned on just enough juice to smolder the chips. By that time, Dave and Quinn were up, and I told them how to keep the smoke roiling until the fish were done.

  “You should be done about noon,” I said. “Then take the racks out and let the fillets cool. Then take the skins off, wrap them in plastic wrap, and stick them in the fridge.”

  “After sampling them to make sure they’re okay, of course,” said Dave.

  “Of course.” Quinn nodded. “And we should still have time to hit the beach for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Ah, the Vineyard life.” He looked at Dave. “What do you think? Should we move down here permanently? You could probably get a job playing in a bar, and I could maybe go to work at the Gazette or the Times.”

  Dave arched a brow. “And I could woo Zee while I was here. That would probably make Maria very happy. This idea deserves some thought.”

  “Maybe you could woo Maria, too, while you’re at it,” said Quinn.

  “Good-bye, you bozos,” I said.

  I climbed into Quinn’s car and drove to the farmhouse where Beth Goodwin and Peter Dennison lived. Beth still had sleepy eyes when she came to the door. She hadn’t even been to the photo place to see if her film was ready. So things go. “I’ll come back tomorrow, just before noon,” I said, and drove on to Oak Bluffs.

  The Hy-line passenger ferries run between Oak Bluffs and Hyannis, and between Oak Bluffs and Nantucket. The Island Queen, another passenger ferry, runs between Oak Bluffs and Falmouth. Between them, they haul a lot of day tourists back and forth, and keep Oak Bluffs harbor pretty busy.

  I parked the car over on the beach side of the parking lot. I was early, so I sat and watched the harbor traffic. Oak Bluffs has a very small harbor, but there are usually interesting boats there, and like many other people, I never get tired of looking at boats and the sea. Today I particularly admired a nice little folkboat that sailed out of the harbor on a following wind. Sever
al folkboats have crossed the Atlantic and at least one was sailed around the world single-handed by a woman who had a lot more skill and courage than I have. There’s something in human beings that draws them to water. They build houses beside streams, rivers, lakes, and the sea. They like to look at water, wade in it, fish in it, swim in it. They like the way it sounds, and the way its appearance changes with the weather. They even like its fearful power, when flood or storm changes it into a great destroyer. They like to float leaves on it, and to make toy and real boats, and to build bridges over it. It fascinates them and that fascination never leaves them. No wonder that in the Koran, paradise is often described as a garden where lovely waters flow.

  “You are looking quite philosophical,” said Helen Fine, sitting down beside me.

  “Boats,” I said. “Just messing around with boats. There’s nothing like it, nothing at all.”

  “Rat said something like that, as I recall.”

  “I only know enough to misquote. You’re early.”

  “Not too early. There, I believe, is our boat.”

  True. We watched the Hy-line ferry grow larger as it churned toward us across Nantucket Sound. It came into harbor between the stone jetties, turned and made fast to its dock. Tourists wearing dark glasses and loaded with cameras and bags streamed off, and when they were all ashore, we and the other mainland-bound passengers went aboard. At eleven-fifteen, we were cast off and on our way.

  With only a gentle following wind to stir up the waves, we had a fast, smooth passage across the sound, and were soon tying up at Hyannis, which is famous for its Kennedys, among other things. In spite of its many attributes, Hyannis is not my favorite place. Too many people in too small a place. I wondered how long it would take Edgartown to get that way.

  More people had been going from the mainland to the island than from the island to the mainland, so there weren’t many of us to unload. The opposite condition would prevail on the evening boat, when the Vineyard day trippers came back to America and a few islanders headed back for home.

  We walked ashore at one, and a youngish-looking guy wearing a summer suit met us. Helen did the honors.

  “Matthew, this is J.W. Jackson; J.W., this is Matt Jung.”

  “Jung as in famous psychiatrist,” said Matt, “but I am a mere banker.” His hands were very clean, but his grip was firm. “Have you had lunch? No? Well, let’s do that. We can talk and eat at the same time. I’m starving.”

  There was a cafe not far from the dock, and we found a table in spite of the noon crowd. It took awhile for us to get sandwiches, beers for the guys, and white wine for Helen, but we didn’t waste the time.

  Matt Jung looked at me without unfriendliness, but without friendliness either. “Helen’s told me about your interest in this business. She says you’re a man who can be trusted.”

  “Not to add two and two and get four every time. That’s another reason why I’m not a banker. Balance is a word unknown to my checkbook.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about your abilities as a mathematician.”

  “I’m just telling you that I can’t always be trusted to be too bright. Still, you may have some information that will help us get to the bottom of whatever it is that’s going on. If you do, we’d like to have it. If you’re wondering whether you can trust me with it, maybe I should leave so you can talk to Helen alone. I don’t mind doing that.”

  He pursed his lips. “And later you can get it from Helen.”

  “If she wants to give it to me. I don’t plan on beating it out of her with a rubber hose.”

  Helen gave him her winning smile. “J.W. is just a little touchy because he’s hungry, dear. He’ll be much nicer when he gets his beer. I assure you that you can tell him anything you can tell me.”

  I looked at her. “Touchy? Me, touchy till I get my beer?”

  She patted my hand. “There, there, J.W. You probably just never noticed it. Who was it that said we are three people: the one we think we are, the one other people think we are, and the one we really are?”

  “Pogo?”

  “A Pogo fan, eh?” Matt Jung seemed to brighten, though he still looked neither unfriendly nor friendly. “The old Pogo or the new Pogo?”

  “The old Pogo, of course. I inherited my father’s collection of Pogo books—Pogo, I Go Pogo, The Pogo Papers, and all the rest.”

  Matt leaned forward. “This is a test,” he said. “If you pass, I’ll reveal all, since a true Pogo fan can be trusted with anything. What was the star in the wind?”

  “Piece of cake: a word of white.”

  Matt sat back and smiled first at Helen and then at me.

  Helen frowned at us both. “What is this? A secret code? Do you both belong to one of those men’s organizations or something? One of those clubs named after an animal, with passwords and handshakes?”

  “ ‘The star is a word of white, of white. The star in the wind is a word,’ ” I explained.

  “Exactly.” Matt nodded. “Well, what do you folks want to know?”

  “Everything you’ve found out,” said Helen. “J.W., I expect a full explanation of this star is a word stuff on the way home.”

  “It’s a literary allusion,” I said, looking at my nails.

  “It’s certainly eluded me.” She paused as our drinks and food arrived. “Ah. Now, gentlemen, let us devote our attentions to things I understand: vittles and banking.”

  My beer and sandwich were not bad. Being smarter than some presidents of the United States, Helen and I could eat and listen at the same time, and Matt Jung could eat and talk.

  “After we talked, Helen, I went over our files and found out that, yes, checks from your bank were deposited in our bank, in the account of the New Bedford, Woods Hole and Nantucket Salvage Company. The company address, by the way, is a P.O. box in Falmouth. The guy who opened the account is Cecil Jones, the company treasurer. He and his assistant, a woman named Marilyn Grimes, are authorized to make withdrawals. The account was opened in April with a five-hundred-dollar deposit, then stayed quiet until early June, when it began to get deposits mostly in nine-thousand-dollar amounts. Last week, though, it got a deposit of one hundred thousand dollars.

  “Since we’re required by law to report any transactions of ten thousand dollars or more to the government, we reported that last deposit.”

  “But not the smaller ones?” asked Helen.

  “No, because there wasn’t any reason to be suspicious of them. A deposit or a withdrawal of several thousand dollars by a corporation is not unusual, as you know.” Matt paused to wash down some sandwich with some beer. “Now here’s something more interesting. We’ve got bank branches in three other places on the Cape: Sandwich, Chatham, and Provincetown. About two weeks ago, the New Bedford, Woods Hole and Nantucket Salvage Company started making withdrawals from their account. The withdrawals were from the various branches of the bank, and sometimes were made on the same day. They were always for several thousand dollars—pretty close to nine thousand dollars one way or the other, and always for cash. But since there was always enough money to cover the withdrawals, and Cecil Jones or his assistant never made more than one at any branch of the bank in a given Week, they never attracted anybody’s attention. In fact, if you hadn’t called me, Helen, we still wouldn’t have any reason to pay any attention to the transactions.”

  “They may be innocent as doves,” said Helen.

  “Could be,” agreed Matt.

  “How much money is still in the company account?” I asked.

  “Of course that’s confidential information,” said Matt. “But since you know that the star is a word, I’ll tell you. About a thou over one hundred thousand dollars.”

  “And there was about a hundred thousand in the account before last week’s big hundred-thousand-dollar deposit . . .”

  “Correct. Which means that the hundred thousand that was deposited earlier has now been withdrawn.”

  “As cash.”

  Matt nodded.
“As cash.”

  “And where did it go?”

  “Who knows? To pay expenses for the New Bedford, Woods Hole and Nantucket Salvage Company, presumably.”

  “Do you know many corporations that pay their bills in cash?”

  Matt finished off his sandwich. “Not one.”

  “Laundered money,” said Helen, sipping her wine. “On the other hand, there’s nothing illegal about paying debts in cash.”

  “Nothing at all,” agreed Matt.

  “Unusual, though.”

  “What about the hundred thou that’s still in the account?” I asked.

  “What about it?”

  “It sounds to me like Cecil is pretty apt to make a big cash withdrawal pretty soon.”

  Matt shrugged. “It’s his company’s money. He can take it out whenever he wants to.”

  “Do you have a picture of Cecil?”

  “Better than that, I have him on video. We keep cameras going at all of our branches and they record all business transactions. A security precaution, in case somebody sticks up the joint. It’ll take me some time to go through the film, but since we know when and where deposits and withdrawals were made, we can correlate those places and times with the film we have.”

  “How soon do you think you can come up with a video?”

  “Video is not my specialty. Tomorrow? Later today, maybe? I’ll have to find somebody who knows more about video than I do.”

  “Don’t look at me,” I said. “I don’t even have a TV.”

  Helen finished her wine. “What have you found out about Frazier Information Systems?”

  “Perfectly respectable firm. Branches all over the Northeast. New England, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey. Good reputation. You should know, Helen. Your bank has been doing business with them.”

  “Yes, I know. Did you find out anything about the man named Glen Gordon?”

  Matt reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a small notebook. He thumbed through the pages until he found the one he sought. “Glen Gordon,” he read. “Twenty-six, graduate of NYU, BA in math and computers, been with FIS for five years, reputation of being a hard worker, likes beach days off in the summer, so sometimes works clear through the night to get the free day time, single, but has girlfriends, well liked and competent.” Matt looked up from the notebook. “I got that from a secretary and again from one of the VP’s. They both agree that Glen Gordon is just the kind of guy you’d want working for you. That work all night for a day off is the only thing that even looks half unusual, and even that works out well for the company because Gordon gets a lot done when he works alone.”