Vineyard Deceit

by Philip Craig

  17

  It was almost noon. Zee was safe at work, and I was beginning to loosen up a little. The sun was hot, and I gave some thought to driving out to the Jetties and trying for bonito. Iowa was no doubt out there pulling them in. On the other hand, Jake Spitz of the FBI was meeting with the Chief at one, and I wanted to be there. As I rode the ferry across to Edgartown I imagined myself easing out past the Edgartown lighthouse in Jeremy Fisher’s cat-boat. I didn’t look too bad. People on the beach watched me enviously. Then, for the second time in two days, I drove to the brand-new police station over by the fire station on Pease Point Way. This time I paid more attention to it. The station was a thing of beauty, with an interrogation room, the Chiefs new office, an armory, a lot more space than the old station had offered, and a computer with which Edgartown’s finest could keep track of their records and reports. Today it was lacking only one thing, the Chief, who was down on Main Street trying to keep traffic moving. I walked down to find him.

  Edgartown is a lovely village, but it wasn’t made for cars. Most of its narrow streets are one way, and cars, especially those driven by tourists ogling the sights and looking for parking places, tend to move slowly if at all. This snail’s pace is slowed even more by the notion visiting pedestrians apparently have that the streets are really just wide sidewalks and that the cars on them are make-believe. They pay no attention to the cars and look annoyed or at least surprised when one comes along and forces them to step onto a curb.

  I found the Chief at the Five Corners. He was leaning on the brick wall of the bank watching while a summer cop tried, not too badly, to sort out the walkers and drivers and keep all parties moving somewhere or other.

  The Chief gestured at the street. “Automotive cholesterol. It clogs the town’s arteries. The kid there is doing okay. When he came down here in June he couldn’t keep water running. Now look at him.”

  “All thanks to you, Chief,” I said. “It’s people like you who make America great.”

  “What do you want?”

  “What do you mean what do I want?”

  “You never come downtown unless you want something. The rest of the time you hide up there in the woods or on the beach until after Labor Day.”

  “Look at the walkers,” I said. “They think this place is Disneyland and that it’s all just a big playground. Nothing is real to them. I’m amazed that they don’t get run over by some car they probably think is just pretend.”

  “Fantasy Island,” nodded the Chief. “The only useful store left on Main Street is the hardware store. The drugstore doesn’t sell drugs, the post office is out of town, and the market, such as it is, is hidden behind a couple of places selling stuff for tourists. No wonder people are surprised that the cars are real. What do you want?”

  “I got hired by a guy named Jasper Cabot to nose around Blunt’s suicide and solve the mystery of the missing emerald necklace.”

  “I know. He phoned me from Boston. Just remember that if you use that badge, you’re working for me and the law, not for Jasper Cabot.”

  “I don’t plan on using the badge and I gave Manny Fonseca’s pistol back to him, so I’m just a normal civilian.”

  “I don’t know that I’d call you normal. I tell you, J.W., I’ve got more investigators around here than a dead fish has flies. There are feds and state cops and private cops and cops I probably don’t even know about. They’re crawling out from the woodwork. I just try to keep me and my people out of their way while they do their crime solving.”

  Sure. “How much have they solved so far?”

  “They’ve found a couple of college kids from Sarofim working here in town. Both children of upper-crust parents who want them to get an American education and to work summers. We get a lot of kids like that down here. Those two just happen to be from Sarofim. The state and federal guys grilled them for a while, but decided that neither one was a revolutionary or even knew any revolutionaries.”

  “Of course a member of the revolutionary underground would want you to believe exactly that.”

  “Of course. The point is that neither of the two kids they grilled gave anybody any reason at all to think they’re anything but what they seem. Besides, both of them were working the night of the Damon party.” He shrugged and flicked his eyes up and down the street the way cops do because they don’t like to miss things or be surprised. “Why do you think Blunt decided to kill himself way out there on Chappy instead of someplace else?”

  “Jasper Cabot thinks it might not have been suicide.”

  The Chief glanced at his watch. “There’s something funny about it, that’s for sure. Pistol he used. Made for the Sarofimian army.”

  “I didn’t know Sarofim had an army.”

  “Every country has an army.”

  “Blunt was stationed over there in the Second World War. Maybe the pistol was a souvenir.”

  “He did have a souvenir pistol, but he didn’t shoot himself with it. He used a gun that wasn’t even made back in the forties. His souvenir pistol was a Webley .455 revolver. Gun in his hand was a Beretta 7.65 mm semiautomatic. Modern pistol. Special order for the Sarofimian army.”

  “You know a lot about it for a guy who hasn’t even got the coroner’s report.”

  “That phone call from your boss Jasper Cabot. He was stationed overseas with Blunt when they were both kids. He knew the gun Blunt brought home. Went over Blunt’s apartment. No pistol. Told me that he tried to call you before he called me, but you weren’t home.”

  “I was over on Chappy.”

  “Thing is, the revolver’s missing. Did Blunt bring it down here with him? And if he did, why did he use a Sarofimian pistol when he had his trusty Webley? And where did he get the Beretta?”

  “Maybe he used the Beretta because he didn’t have the Webley anymore.”

  “Maybe.” The Chief sighed. “And then there’s the other possibility . . .”

  “That somebody else shot him with the Beretta?”

  “Let’s head for the office. Otherwise Spitz’ll be there before we are.” The Chief gave his young summer cop a final evaluative look before we headed up Main. “Thing about the Beretta is that it’s too obvious.”

  I thought so too. Blunt, a suspect in the theft of the necklace, shot to death by a weapon made for the Sarofimian military. Obvious conclusion: he was shot by some Sarofimian military man. Who else but Colonel Ahmed Nagy? Motivation: revenge upon the man who robbed his king and country of its rightful jewels.

  “Yeah,” I said. “But if Nagy did it, wouldn’t he have been smart enough to take the gun away with him?”

  “If you thought of that,” said the Chief, “I’m pretty sure Nagy would have thought of it too.”

  We found a cruiser parked in front of the courthouse and drove to the station.

  “Tell me,” I said. “Why is every police cruiser in New England a Ford LTD?”

  “Because they won’t give us Ferraris,” said the Chief.

  “Oh.”

  Jake Spitz came into the office at one o’clock sharp. He was a nondescript sort of guy, about forty or so, wearing neither snap-brim hat nor suit and tie, but chinos and a polo shirt. He did sport dark glasses, but who doesn’t on Martha’s Vineyard in August? I recognized him as one of the men I’d seen in the Damon library early Sunday morning.

  The Chief introduced us and told Spitz why I was there and who I was working for. Spitz did not seem put out by talking with a civilian. He had a firm handshake.

  “I know who Jasper Cabot is. I’ve talked to him about this last weekend’s crimes. He’s been helpful.”

  “Jake, here, has talked to lots of people,” said the Chief. “He’s the one who told me about the Beretta.”

  “Funny business, that,” said Spitz. He raised an eyebrow and gave a sidewise look at the Chief.

  “J.W. knows about it,” said the Chief, digging out his pipe. “He works for me too.”

  “I thought I saw you at the party,” said Spitz. �
�On guard at the door.”

  “I didn’t see you.”

  “Yes you did. You just didn’t notice me. I take that as a compliment.”

  “Remind me not to play Sherlock Holmes for the next couple of days. I’m obviously out of practice.”

  “The only reason I’ve got a job is because I’m invisible,” smiled Spitz. “It’s God’s compensation to me for being totally mediocre. What’s this business about a kidnapping?”

  I decided I would not bet the farm on his being mediocre. I told him everything I knew about Zee’s abduction. He listened attentively.

  “So,” he said, “they grabbed her, kept her, and then let her go. No damage to her, no sex, no threats, no ransom, no nothing. They took her on Friday night and let her go on Tuesday morning.”

  “That’s it.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think it’s interesting that nobody ever said a word to her. Nobody asked her if she wanted to eat or drink or go to the toilet or answered her if she said anything. They tended to her, but they never talked to her.”

  “I agree. Anything else?”

  “I think the music was loud all of the time so she wouldn’t hear anything else. Maybe otherwise she’d have heard something familiar: a ferry whistle or a noon whistle or people going by.”

  “Yes. Anything else?”

  “She mentioned spices used in cooking that she didn’t recognize.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I don’t know. In general, I think they didn’t want her to hear their voices or outside sounds for fear she might be able to identify them later. I haven’t gotten much further than that.”

  “Except for the coincidences.” Spitz gave me a sidewise look such as he had earlier given the Chief. Apparently it was a habit he had when he made a statement that was really asking a question.

  The Chief had found his tobacco and matches and had lit up. I inhaled. Great smoke! Oh, for my pipe! “Coincidences,” I said. “Yeah. I’ve thought of a couple . . .”

  “The time she was held?” asked Spitz.

  “That. The fact that Blunt dropped her off only minutes before she was grabbed . . .”

  “That’s it. Blunt took her home on Friday night. Whoever grabbed her was waiting for her. The next night she was supposed to go with her aunt to the party where her aunt was to play a role—a small role, but a role—in the ceremony, but now the aunt would go alone. The necklace was stolen. The next night Blunt was shot. Suicide, apparently. The next morning, Monday, nothing happened. On Tuesday morning she was released.”

  “Somebody wanted her away for the weekend?”

  “Why would somebody want that?” asked Spitz.

  “Because she knew something? Because she’d get in the way?”

  “What did she know?”

  “I don’t know. Whose way would she get in?”

  “Whoever was going after the emeralds?”

  “The SDL?”

  Spitz raised a brow. “The SDL, maybe. Maybe somebody else.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is that when the weekend was over, they let her go.”

  “No they didn’t. They kept her until Tuesday morning. The jewels were stolen Saturday night. If they just wanted her out of the way until the theft was accomplished, they could have let her go earlier.”

  “Maybe the theft wasn’t the only thing,” said the Chief. We looked at him. “Maybe Blunt’s suicide is tied into this too.”

  “How?” asked Spitz. The Chief shook his head. “Okay,” said Spitz, “let’s say you’re right. If you are, why didn’t they release her Monday morning after he’d shot himself?”

  “Because they didn’t know he’d done it,” I said. “It didn’t become public knowledge until mid morning or later. Unless the kidnappers saw him shoot himself, they wouldn’t know he’d actually done it until it was too late in the day to return Zee. So they waited until early the next morning . . .”

  “We don’t know if it was suicide or not,” said the Chief.

  “Suicide, murder, whatever. The public didn’t know about it until it was daylight.”

  “Don’t get chippy,” said the Chief, blowing a smoke ring in my direction.

  “It starts with Blunt and it ends with Blunt,” said Spitz. “I think we’ve got ourselves a conundrum. Did I tell you that he and that Nagy fellow, the Padishah’s bodyguard, came by to see me Sunday night? Phoned me from Chappy and came over to my hotel to discuss the case. Turned out none of us knew much. Afterwards, Blunt went off to see a friend, and Nagy—funny fellow, Nagy—said he was going to take a turn around town and then walk home. Said he used to walk in the desert at home when he needed to think things through.”

  “Blunt visited Amelia Muleto,” I said. “Then I guess he went to Chappy.”

  “Anyhow, three hours later he was dead.”

  “I’ll be interested in getting the autopsy report,” said the Chief. “I think I know what it’ll say. Death by gunshot. But at least it’ll be official.”

  “If this really is all tied together, maybe it’ll all come untied together,” said Spitz.

  I got up. “I’ll let you know if I find out anything.”

  Spitz put out his hand. “Let’s keep in touch. Be careful.”

  Be careful. I thought about that advice as I drove home. I found a beer and phoned the Damon house on Chappy and asked for Helga. When she came on, I asked her who had catered the Damons’ party. She looked it up.

  “Katama Caterers. Are you onto something?”

  “I want to find out how they prepared that vegetable dish from Sarofim. It smelled terrific, but I never got any. I don’t suppose that any of your detectives managed to come up with the recipe.”

  “I’m afraid there are no recipes in our files, J.W. Now I really must go do some serious work.”

  “Our date is still on, I hope.”

  “Yes.”

  I phoned Katama Caterers and asked the voice that answered if they had prepared the vegetable dish for the Damon banquet. They had indeed.

  “Ah, you must mean the Sarofimian bhajji.”

  “Peas, beans, carrots, onions . . . ?”

  “Yes. That’s it.”

  “I’d like the recipe.”

  There was a silence. Then there was hemming and hawing.

  “I’m a cook myself,” I said. “I know that lots of cooks like to keep their secrets.”

  “Well, then you understand that . . .”

  “I’m also a police officer,” I said. “I’m asking unofficially, but I can make it official if you like. I’d appreciate your cooperation. As odd as this may sound, the recipe may help in an investigation.”

  “Really?” The voice perked up. And why not? After all, how many cooks can say that about their wares?

  “Really.” I asked if I could come down that afternoon and pick up the recipe. The voice said yes.

  I found leftover salad makings and some smoked blue-fish in the fridge. I mixed them together and slid the mixture into a piece of pita bread. Then I went outside with a second beer and sat in the sun and looked across Anthier’s Pond at the beachers at the Bend in the Road.

  The Bend in the Road is the first bit of sand you hit when you drive from Edgartown to Oak Bluffs along the beach road. It got its name because there’s a bend in the road right there, and some keen-thinking Vineyarder took note of that fact and named the spot accordingly. I also call it Mother’s Beach because there’s a lifeguard there and the mothers of small children like that and the fact that they can park their cars right next to the sand, that the water slopes gently away, and that there’s usually no surf, thanks to normally offshore winds.

  There’s a parking area at the bend which in summer months is usually filled by mid to late morning. Beyond it, all the way along the road to Oak Bluffs, other cars park by the side of the road next to the sand. It’s a great beach for owners of two-wheel-drive cars because they don’t have to lug all of their blankets a
nd umbrellas and children very far. The cars stay there until late in the afternoon, when their beached-out owners head for the barn. Edgartown has the state’s most convenient beaches. Unlike other towns on and off the island, it requires no special stickers and charges no parking fees for the use of its beaches. After you live in Edgartown you’re insulted if you have to pay to go to a beach.

  After thinking these provincial thoughts and finishing my lunch, I drove to Katama, found Katama Caterers, and got the recipe for Sarofimian bhajji. It looked pretty good. On the way home I stopped at the A & P and bought the ingredients. I phoned the hospital and left a message for Zee, who was busy helping bandage up another moped victim.

  “Come to supper,” I said.

  She did.

  18

  Zee was met with Absolut in a chilled glass. I guided her out to a lawn chair, pulled off her shoes, and put her feet on yet another chair. I put crackers, cheese, and bluefish pate on the table beside her drink.

  “This is the way it should be,” she said, leaning back. “Maybe I’ll arrange to have you travel around the country giving seminars on how men should greet their women in the evening.”

  “An excellent idea. You can travel with me and illustrate how the women can show their appreciation later that night.”

  “What are you, a professional man who wants to be paid for all services? All of a sudden I feel a headache coming on.”

  “No tit for tat, eh?”

  “Is that what you call this welcoming ceremony? A tat?”

  I hadn’t thought of that pun. “Ha, ha. Just relax. You’ve had a hard day at the office, but old J.W. knows how to fix you up. I will ply you with booze and food and send you home a new woman, able to face the world with a smile.”

  I got my own Absolut and we sat and watched the evening deepen. She told me about her day at the hospital emergency room. Three mopeders had bitten the Vineyard dust, someone had gotten a metal filing in his eye, the police had brought in a drunk who had fallen out of the bunk in his cell and broken his nose. A normal victim list for a Vineyard summer day.

  After a while I went in and finished the cooking: chicken baked in an orange sauce, white rice, and Sarofimian bhajji. I went out and invited Zee in.