The Bee Balm Murders

by Cynthia Riggs

  “All right,” said Victoria, but she yielded grudgingly.

  * * *

  On his way home—Orion realized he was already thinking of his temporary dwelling place at Victoria Trumbull’s as home—he stopped at the pie place on State Road and bought a rhubarb-strawberry pie. He set the cardboard box on a newspaper on the front seat, the pie still hot from the oven. Ruby-red juice oozed out between the interlaced strips of golden brown crust.

  Victoria was in the cookroom. She looked up from her typewriter when Orion entered. Orion opened the box and she peered in. “My favorite.” She pushed her typewriter aside and started to get up.

  “You sit still, Victoria,” said Orion, feeling very much at home. “I’ll serve us.”

  “How’s your back?”

  “Much better, as long as I don’t think about it.”

  Two or three bites into the warm pie with appropriate comments about flavor and flaky crust, Victoria told him about Casey’s insistence that she stay off the case. “She had no information on what the state police are doing. Have you spoken to Sergeant Smalley?”

  Orion nodded. “He understood my situation and drove me to the funeral parlor to ID the body.” He paused. “Why call them parlors? As though it’s a place to entertain.”

  “Denial,” said Victoria. “What happened?”

  “I attested that I recognized the deceased as Angelo Vulpone of Vulpone Construction, Brooklyn, New York, and Smalley drove me back to the state police barracks.”

  “Did he tell you anything about the investigation?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Identifying the body must have been unpleasant.”

  “I’d already seen the body at the ball field and knew who he was. They’d cleaned him up a bit.” Orion leaned back in his chair. “It’s been a full day. Yesterday afternoon, I called my partner, Casper, and we talked about needing another investor now that Vulpone’s dead. The problem is, we don’t have much time.”

  “What about Dorothy Roche?”

  Orion smiled. “The woman you think is egotistical, self-satisfied, and a social climber?”

  Victoria frowned. “Those weren’t my words.”

  “She’s agreed to purchase the Ditch Witch directional drill in return for a share in the company.”

  “I assume you asked a lawyer other than that fraud on Circuit Avenue to look over the agreement,” said Victoria.

  “You mean Parnell Alsop?”

  Victoria looked directly at Orion. “Surely you didn’t trust him to draft anything?” At Orion’s expression, she added, “Why didn’t you ask me about him first?”

  “I hadn’t met you at the time. Don’t look so stricken, Victoria. I work with legal documents and contracts all the time. The contract he drafted was boilerplate.”

  Victoria looked unconvinced.

  “More pie?” asked Orion.

  * * *

  Later that evening, Orion returned from supper and found Victoria in the garden as the light faded. She was kneeling on a device that had handles to lift herself up. Orion noticed that the ends of the handles had red glass reflectors, as though Victoria might want to take the kneeler out on the highway some dark evening.

  “I got a call from Dorothy Roche,” he said. “The drill is being shipped over day after tomorrow on Ralph Packer’s barge. Would you like to—”

  Victoria didn’t let him finish. “Of course I would.” She struggled to her feet. “What time?”

  * * *

  On Wednesday morning, Victoria dressed in clean gray corduroy trousers and a shirt printed with tiny rosebuds for the occasion of the arrival of the Ditch Witch drill. She plucked a straw hat from the selection hanging in the entry, made sure her police deputy hat was in her bag, just in case, and was ready before Orion had finished shaving.

  Orion held the passenger door of his fine vehicle for her and she swung her long legs in. He went around to the driver’s side, patted the car, and got in. The car was roomy, solid, and luxurious, not like today’s models. Victoria sighed and sat back to savor the ride.

  They drove to the end of Old County Road and turned toward Vineyard Haven. Along the way, Victoria pointed out the grove of beech trees. She’d written a poem, she told him. If she were to be turned into a tree, like Baucis and Philemon, she hoped it would be a beech. Orion listened with his pleasant expression, although he’d heard Victoria tell the very same story the last time they’d driven into Vineyard Haven together.

  He pulled into the Packer’s Marine parking area. In the distance, coming around the jetty, a tug was hauling a barge, and on the barge was a magnificent orange machine that glistened in the bright morning.

  Victoria held the brim of her floppy hat against the breeze, examining the Ditch Witch drill as the barge drew near. “Isn’t Dorothy going to be here?”

  “She’s supposed to be,” said Orion, looking behind him down Beach Road. “This must be her car now.”

  “A Mercedes roadster,” murmured Victoria.

  The woman who got out of the car was, as Victoria knew, fiftyish, fleshy, and a bit over five feet tall. Victoria stood as straight as she could, pushing against her lilac-wood stick to give herself added height.

  The woman was enveloped in an aura of musky perfume. She was dressed in a Lilly-something outfit, too young for her, big splashy pink flowers with chartreuse leaves. Her shoes, scarf, and hat, all a horrid shade of pink, matched everything else she was wearing, including the frames of her sunglasses.

  Victoria glanced at Orion and knew he was smitten.

  The woman’s hair, an aggressive metallic auburn, clashed with all that pink. She ignored Victoria, and thrust her small arms out to Orion, who responded with a warm embrace. “Darling!” she cried. “Isn’t this exciting! Our very own Ditch Witch drilling unit!”

  Orion disentangled himself, apparently recalling that this was not one of Victoria’s favorite people. “Dorothy,” he said. “You know Mrs. Trumbull, don’t you?”

  “Of course, darling! Everybody, just everybody knows Mrs. Trumbull. Hello, dear. How nice to see you.” She looked up at Victoria and held out a small hand. Victoria took it in her large gnarled one, only slightly concerned that she might crush it.

  There was sudden activity at the Packer barge ramp, the sound of powerful engines reversing and churning an awful lot of water. The tug maneuvered the barge next to the ramp with a soft thump. The vehicle aboard wobbled against its wooden chocks. As if by magic, the machine—the Ditch Witch drill and all its accoutrements—was off-loaded onto a flatbed trailer, and without ceremony, the truck attached to the trailer drove off, heading up Island.

  “That’s it,” said Orion, smiling down at Dorothy Roche.

  CHAPTER 6

  That evening, Elizabeth made supper: lamb chops, Swiss chard from the garden, and tiny new potatoes dug out from under the potato plants. Victoria was unusually quiet.

  “How was the arrival of the drilling machine, Gram?”

  Victoria set her napkin down beside her barely touched food. “Anticlimactic. Packer’s tugboat brought the Ditch Witch drill over. A couple of men winched it off the barge onto a trailer; the men got into the truck and drove off.”

  “Where to?” Elizabeth finished the last of her lamb.

  “Behind Trip Barnes’s moving and storage place.” Victoria rearranged her knife and fork on her plate.

  “Did Dorothy Roche show up for the launching? I guess you’d call it a reverse launching.”

  “Yes.”

  “No champagne smashed over its hood?”

  Victoria smiled weakly.

  “Was she being obnoxious?” asked Elizabeth.

  “No. Not at all.”

  “Are you okay, Gram? You’ve hardly touched your food.”

  “Everything looks delicious, but I don’t have much appetite tonight,” Victoria said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I hope you’re not coming down with something.”

  “I hope not, too. A week ago I pull
ed a tick off my middle. I didn’t notice until it itched, and by then the tick was well entrenched.”

  “A deer tick?”

  “A tiny one, at any rate.”

  “Do you want to show me where it bit you?”

  Victoria lifted her shirt and pulled down the waistband of her corduroys.

  Elizabeth put her hand on a hot red circle on Victoria’s side, the diameter of an orange slice. “Here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, Gram. It looks like the classic sign of Lyme disease. A bull’s-eye with a dot in the middle.”

  Victoria tucked her shirt back into her trousers.

  Elizabeth remained standing. “We’d better go to the emergency room. You don’t want to mess with Lyme disease.”

  “Tomorrow I read to the elderly at the hospital,” said Victoria. “Doc Jeffers is next to the nursing-home wing.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.” Victoria got up slowly and carried her plate into the kitchen.

  “Leave the dishes. I’ll do them,” said Elizabeth.

  “Thank you.” Victoria climbed up the stairs to bed.

  * * *

  The next morning, Casper Martin called Orion.

  “How’re things in the city, Casper?” Orion selected a working pen from the jelly jar on his desk and turned to a clean sheet on his yellow legal pad.

  “I’ve got a line on a potential investor.”

  “Oh?”

  “A car distributor with a place on the Vineyard wants to communicate fast from the Island with off Island dealerships. He’s willing to invest, but he wants a share in the company.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Paulson. Roger Paulson.”

  “I’ve heard of him.” Orion noted it on his yellow pad.

  “Also, I’ve located a buddy of Angelo Vulpone’s who has a line on a couple of venture capital firms. Says he can come up with eight million within six months.”

  “What does that mean?” said Orion. “That the guy has contacts? That’s no good, Casper.” Orion looked down to see the maroon SUV drive up and the same man get out and go into the house. Orion checked his watch. Ten-thirty. What was the guy doing home this time of day?

  Casper said, “He’s got a track record.”

  “I don’t like it, Casper. Have you met the guy?”

  “His name’s Finney Solomon, and yeah, I’ve met him. He claims he was mentored by Angelo Vulpone. Want me to set up a meeting with the three of us?”

  “I thought you said Angelo didn’t work with anyone other than his sons.”

  “I didn’t know about Finney Solomon at the time.”

  “Sounds as though he’s nothing but a broker.”

  “Claims he encouraged Angelo to invest with us.”

  Orion sighed. “Set up the meeting, then. Here at the office at his and your convenience, any time this week or next. I suppose he expects us to pay travel and expenses?”

  The man next door came out of the house carrying another Cronig’s bag, again slung it into the backseat, got in, and reversed out of the drive.

  “He pays his own way, he says.”

  “Well, that’s something,” said Orion. “Call me on my cell when you’ve got it set up. I’ll be in the field most of today and tomorrow.”

  * * *

  After lunch, Casey helped Victoria stow poetry books in her cloth bag, and carried it out to the Bronco.

  “What are you reading today, Victoria?” Casey asked when they were heading toward the hospital.

  “It doesn’t matter what I read. They’re glad to have anything to break the monotony. A voice, a face. I’ll read bits and pieces until they fall asleep, then stop.”

  “You seem down, Victoria. Are you okay?”

  “I feel a bit peaked.” She pronounced the word peak-ed the way Vineyarders always had. Stripe-ed bass and feeling peak-ed. “Elizabeth thinks I might have Lyme disease and wants me to see Doc Jeffers.”

  They passed the airport, busy with aircraft landing and taking off. Beyond the entrance, Casey turned onto Barnes Road. A small plane took off over their heads.

  * * *

  Victoria didn’t feel up to reading for the full hour. Besides, most of her elderly listeners were asleep. Even on her usually optimistic days, she’d leave depressed after her weekly reading. Today was worse. She put her books back into her cloth bag, shook hands with those who were still awake, said good-bye to the nurses on her way out, and trudged down the long hallway to Doc Jeffers’s office.

  She slumped into one of the chairs in the waiting area and dozed until she was called.

  Doc Jeffers’s office was the very essence of machismo. A huge desk made from a thick slice of some forest giant, overblown photos on all four walls of Jeffers with his Harley, Jeffers with his cigarette boat, Jeffers holding a fishing rod standing next to an upside-down shark, Jeffers surrounded by a bevy of women in scanty bathing suits …

  Jeffers was a large man. He stood when she entered his office and shook hands. Victoria felt almost dainty.

  “I don’t see you often professionally, Victoria. Sit down.” He, too, sat. “What’s the problem?” He leaned backward in his massive chair and looked at her over the top of his tortoiseshell reading glasses.

  “I’m feeling a bit peaked,” said Victoria.

  Before she could explain about the tick bite, he said, “After all, you are ninety-two, and you can expect—”

  “Don’t start that,” Victoria said sharply. “I was bitten by a tick last week.” She got to her feet in the most sprightly manner she could muster, lifted her shirt, and turned so he could see the red patch on her side.

  “Hmmmm,” he murmured, leaning over his desk to peer at the hot red spot through his glasses. “Typical bull’s-eye. Indicative of Lyme.” He sat back. “I’ll order blood tests, but I’m putting you on doxycycline right now.” He scribbled out a prescription and checked off items on a form and handed them to her, pointing toward the lab. “Blood tests. Don’t go out in the sun while you’re taking doxycycline, or you may get a wicked reaction.” He stood. Victoria stood. They shook hands again, and Victoria trudged back down the hall to the lab, each step a slog through soft sand.

  * * *

  On the way home Casey stopped at Conroy’s Apothecary to pick up Victoria’s prescription for doxycycline. At home, Victoria took the first of the small pinkish-orange pills and climbed up the stairs to bed, for the first nap she could remember taking, ever.

  She was awakened by the phone ringing and slipped out from under the comforter to answer.

  “Mrs. Trumbull? This is Dorothy Roche.”

  Victoria felt a surge of resentment at being awakened by this woman. “Hello, Dorothy.”

  “I hope I’m not getting you at a bad time?”

  “Not at all.” Victoria tried not to sound irritated.

  “I’d love to have you join me for an informal lunch on Saturday, a spur-of-the-moment thing, if you’re free.”

  “Thank you, but I don’t know where you live.” It was a weak excuse, but Victoria was feeling muzzy and couldn’t think of a good reason to say no decisively. She certainly wasn’t going to mention feeling ill.

  “I live in Edgartown. I’ll send my driver to pick you up. Would eleven-thirty be convenient?”

  CHAPTER 7

  When Orion came home that evening, Victoria was in the parlor reading with McCavity in her lap.

  “I hear you’ve got Lyme disease,” said Orion, easing himself down into the rocking chair. “How are you feeling?”

  Victoria smiled. “The Island grapevine’s been busy.” She stuck a bookmark in her book and set it down. “I’m achy and lack energy. How was your day?”

  “Productive,” said Orion. “The police released the crime scene shortly after noon, and we were able to lay cable to the end of the trench.”

  “Did the police give you any indication of how the investigation is proceeding?”

  “They’re not about to tell
me,” said Orion. “Starting next Friday, we’ll use the directional drill.”

  “Do you own the machine now, or does Dorothy Roche?”

  McCavity slid off Victoria’s lap and stalked over to Orion, who patted his lap. McCavity turned his back.

  Orion laughed. “Dorothy bought the drill, or is buying it, I should say, as her share in the company.”

  “Are you comfortable with that arrangement?”

  Orion paused. “I may have made a mistake in giving up voting shares in my company. But we drew up a contract and had it looked over…”

  “By her pal, Parnell Alsop, I suppose,” said Victoria.

  Orion smiled. “Now, Victoria. Have some faith in my judgment. Dorothy is a remarkable woman. To get where she is, she’s had to be smart, strong, and determined.”

  “The word is ruthless.”

  Orion shook his head. “You’re not being fair to her. She’s set up several businesses. She knows what she’s talking about.” Orion rocked back in the chair.

  There was a loud yowl.

  The cat had been cleaning himself next to Orion’s chair, tail under the rocker.

  Orion rocked forward. “Sorry, McCavity.”

  A yellow blur darted toward the kitchen, briefly glared over its shoulder at Orion, and disappeared.

  After McCavity’s cusswords had faded away, Victoria asked, “What sort of businesses has Dorothy set up?”

  “A limousine service, an office cleaning service, and a catering service.”

  “Not what I’d call sophisticated businesses,” said Victoria. “Does she know anything about fiber optics?”

  “She doesn’t need to, Victoria.” Orion checked behind his chair. “She understands business and finance.” He pointed his thumb at his chest. “I know the engineering.”

  Victoria said, “She’s invited me to lunch Saturday.”

  “Good for her. You may change your mind about her.”

  Victoria lifted herself slowly out of her chair. “Have you had supper yet? If not, you’re welcome to join me.”

  Orion, too, got up. “I’ve already eaten, but I’ll keep you company.” He looked closely at her. “If you’ll let me, I’ll cook one of the best omelets you’ve ever tasted.”