Vineyard Shadows

by Philip R. Craig

  “How's he doing?” asked the young cop.

  “As well as can be expected. The helicopter should be here soon.” I walked away.

  Around a corner in the hall I leaned the clipboard against a wall where someone would find it, and went on to Zee's room, arriving just as she was closing the book that told the tale of The Cat in the Hat.

  “Perfect timing.” Zee smiled a beautiful battered smile.

  “We should leave you alone so you can get some rest,” I said.

  “I'm fine,” said Zee.

  “We'll give the docs twenty-four hours to make sure you're right about that,” I said. “We'll be back in the morning.”

  “Bring me some clean clothes.”

  “Only if you promise to take them off later.”

  “Deal.”

  I kissed her, collected the kids, and went home. On the way, Diana gave us her version of what had happened:

  The bad men had come and one of them had grabbed her and scared her and hurt her with a knife. It wasn't really a bad hurt, though, because it didn't even take a stitch. But one of the bad men had hurt Ma a lot, and Diana was more scared than ever. The bad man hit Ma, and knocked her down. Diana had kicked and tried to get away, but the bad man with the knife was too strong. Then Ma got her pistol and shot the bad men and Diana got away and Ma had put a Band-Aid on her boo-boo, and the police came and then the ambulance had taken them to the hospital with the siren blowing.

  “I hope you're not scared anymore,” I said. “It's all over. The bad guys lost and they won't be back.”

  “I know,” said Diana. “One of them is dead and the other one is almost dead, and Ma and I are good.” She nodded her little head. Things had worked out as they were supposed to. I remembered Chesterton's observation that children, being innocent, prefer justice, while, adults, being sinful, prefer mercy.

  I felt a tug on my elbow. It was Joshua. “Pa,” he said. “I'm hungry.”

  I looked at my wristwatch. Holy smoke! It was noon. A lot had happened that morning.

  “What do you say we go down to the Dock Street Coffee Shop for lunch?” I asked. “You can have whatever you want.”

  “Yes! Yes!”

  “Can we have ice cream afterward?”

  “Sure.”

  So we drove down into Edgartown and found a parking place on Summer Street. The dreaded summer meter maids were not hard at work yet, so we stood a good chance of not getting a ticket. We walked over to Main Street, took a left toward the harbor, and another left on Dock Street. At the far end of the Coffee Shop counter there were three stools in a row, and we took them. The waitress came and we ordered and then watched the cook at work. He was a thing of beauty, never wasting a motion. The food came and it was good. Afterward, up on North Water Street, we got ice cream. It was a lovely June day, and the streets and shops were full of tourists who knew nothing of the bloody business that had taken place at my house only hours before.

  “That was good, Pa.” The kids licked their fingers.

  We went back up Main Street. At the corner of Summer and Main, the Chief of the Edgartown Police was teaching a young summer cop how to direct traffic. I waved and the Chief gave me a sour look as he lifted a hand in reply. His student was not a fast learner, apparently.

  At home, the children played in the yard while I worked to wash away the last signs of the blood on the grass. When it was as gone as I could get it, I did some weeding in the garden.

  About three o'clock I heard the phone ring and I thought, not for the first time, that I should make a habit of bringing the phone outside when I was working there, because about half the time I didn't get inside before the rings stopped. This time, however, the caller was patient. I got to the phone and lifted the receiver.

  It was a reporter calling about the shooting. The grapevine was alive and well. I told him we weren't giving interviews and hung up. The phone rang again. I looked at it then picked it up.

  A man's voice. “Mr. J. W. Jackson?”

  “Yes.”

  “My name is Tom Rimini. I need your help.”

  — 4 —

  “Carla sent me,” said Rimini's voice. “Can we meet? I have your address, but I thought I should call first.”

  Several emotions, anger among them, tried to grip my tongue. I pushed them away. “Where are you?”

  “I just got off the boat. I'm in Vineyard Haven.”

  “You have a car?”

  “Yes. I'd have been here sooner, but I got caught in traffic last night and missed the late boat. And then I got stuck in the standby line most of the morning.”

  “Consider yourself lucky.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Two goons with guns came looking for you. You weren't here, but my wife and daughter were.”

  “Oh, my God! Are they all right?”

  “They got banged around, but they'll be okay. You know how to get here from Vineyard Haven?”

  “Well, I have directions, but . . .”

  I told him how to do it. Pat and Howie had managed it on their own.

  “Thanks.”

  “Don't thank me yet.” I hung up, and went outside.

  “Another stranger is coming,” I said to the children. “Don't worry. He's not a bad guy. There won't be any more bad guys coming.”

  “I'm not scared,” said brave Diana.

  “Me neither,” said Joshua.

  “Good.”

  “Is it a man or a woman?”

  “A man.”

  “What's his name?”

  “Tom Rimini.”

  “I remember that name,” said Diana. “The bad guys were looking for him, but he wasn't here.”

  “Well, he'll be here pretty soon. He and I are going to have a talk.”

  “Okay, Pa. Pa, can we have a dog?”

  A dog? I didn't want a dog. We had two cats, Oliver Underfoot and Velcro, and that was enough animals.

  “No, we can't have a dog,” I said. “The cats wouldn't like one and I don't want to have to take care of one.”

  “We'll take care of it, Pa. Please?”

  “No. No dog.”

  “Please, please?”

  “No.”

  “All our friends have dogs.”

  “Fine. You can play with their dogs.”

  They put on their sniveling faces.

  “Save your crying for when your mother gets home,” I said. “It won't work with me.”

  “Can we have a fishpond with goldfish in it?”

  A fishpond. That sounded interesting. You don't have to walk a fish or keep it on a leash.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  Diana brightened. “Can I feed the goldfish, Pa?”

  “No,” said Joshua. “I want to feed the goldfish!”

  “You can probably take turns,” I said. “We won't decide until we build the pond and get the fish, and before we do that, we have to talk about it with your mother. She might not want to have a fishpond.”

  “Oh, she'll love one,” said Joshua. “Ma loves fish!”

  Zee certainly loved to catch and eat bluefish and bass and Spanish mackerel and other fish in Vineyard waters, but I didn't know if she'd love to have goldfish in a fishpond.

  “We'll ask her tomorrow, when she comes home from the hospital,” I said.

  “Pa, can we have a ferret?”

  “No ferrets! Now come and help me weed the garden. Be careful not to pull up any veggies.”

  We had just finished weeding when a green Honda came down the driveway and parked. A man got out. He was slender and looked pale and wan, as the poets used to say. He was about my age.

  “Mr. Jackson?”

  “Yes.” I brushed off some dirt, and went to him.

  He put out a clean hand. “I'm Tom Rimini.”

  It was a thin hand, and there were no calluses on it. A white-collar hand.

  “Thanks for seeing me. I'm sure you don't have any idea why I'm here.” He thought again. “Or maybe you do. Those men
you mentioned . . .”

  This was the man Carla had left me for. The sweet man who had a job that didn't require him to carry a gun or deal with the scum of the city. The man who, she could be sure, would come home to her safe and sound every night.

  “I'm going to have a beer,” I said. “You want one?”

  “No. I . . .”

  “We'll go up on the balcony,” I said. “We can talk there. It's reserved for grown-ups. Kids only get up with special permission.” I pointed him at the stairs and went into the house for a bottle of Sam Adams, still America's best bottled beer, although the microbreweries were making some real contenders.

  On the balcony I found Rimini looking out over the garden and Sengekontacket Pond to the barrier beach that ran between Edgartown and Oak Bluffs. There were cars parked along the beach road and beach umbrellas on their far side, where the waters of the sound slapped the shore. June people, trying to brown the meat in the Vineyard sun.

  Rimini nodded his head. “It's a beautiful view. Carla still talks about it.”

  “She used to like to sit up here.” I found a chair across the table from his. “What can I do for you, Mr. Rimini?”

  “I'm in trouble.” He rubbed his white hands together.

  “I know. So are the people who know you. And some who don't.”

  “What do you mean? Oh. But you said your wife and daughter were all right. Your daughter looks fine. That's her down there, isn't it?”

  “My wife and daughter will be fine. How long has it been since you talked with Carla?”

  “Yesterday, just before I left to come down here. Why?”

  “Where do you live, anyway?”

  “Jamaica Plain. Why do you ask about Carla? Has something happened to her?” He put his upper teeth over his lower lip.

  “Sometime after you left, some thugs had a talk with her. She told them you were here at my house. A couple of them came here looking for you this morning, but you weren't around. It pissed them off. If you left Jamaica Plain yesterday, what took you so long to get down here?”

  “Is she all right? My God!” He stood up. “I need to use your phone!”

  “Sit down.” I had no sympathy for him. He hesitated, then sat. “Let's get to the issue,” I said. “What did you do to Sonny Whelen to make him so mad at you?”

  Rimini stared. “You know about Whelen?”

  “He was in the Charlestown rackets when I was a cop in Boston. When Carla and I were still married. I see his name in The Globe now and then. Numbers, gambling, drugs, you name it. Why's he after you?”

  Rimini looked down and rubbed his hands some more. “I owe him money. A lot of money. I don't have it.”

  It was a banal problem. Still, even gangsters normally didn't kill you if you owed them money. They might break your legs, or make you sell or sign over your property, but they preferred to keep you alive so you could pay them back. They were businessmen. Of course, they might kill you as a hint to other people who owed them money, but that wasn't the norm. You didn't kill the goose as long as it could still lay eggs.

  “How much do you owe?” I asked.

  He told me. I was impressed.

  “I thought you taught in the public schools. How did you manage to get that far in the hole?”

  “I do teach. We both do. We make enough money, but when we bought the house we bit off more than we could chew. We got behind in the mortgage payments and used credit cards. That made it worse. I took out some loans to pay off the cards and then couldn't pay back the loans. We were going to lose the house. One day I went over to Suffolk Downs. I'd never done that before, and I didn't know anything about racing, but I won. I liked it. I paid off some bills. It felt good. I went down to Rhode Island and played. I won some more for a while. You gamble, Mr. Jackson?”

  “No.” Although I like to play small-time poker and think I have a surefire method of winning at roulette, gambling mostly bores me.

  “You're lucky,” said Rimini. “It's just a way to have some fun for most people, but for others it's a sickness. I found out I'm one of the others. I couldn't stop. I bet on anything you can think of: sports, craps, anything. I found people who'd advance me money. When I lost it, I found somebody else who'd do it, and I'd pay back the first guy, or at least pay the interest. As long as they got the interest they didn't care.”

  “A one-man Ponzi scheme.”

  He nodded. “Yes. Carla didn't know for a long time, but finally I had to tell her. She told me to get help, but instead I went to a guy who, it turned out, works for Sonny Whelen. I had a hot streak and paid back most of what I owed, so this guy loaned me more when I asked for it. I had a tip on a race. A sure thing. All of it was to go on a long shot to show. The long shot tripped coming out of the gate.”

  “It must have been one hell of a tip for them to give that much dough to a schoolteacher.”

  “A lot of people lost a lot of money when that horse fell. It was a very hot tip. I was in serious debt. The house was mortgaged to the maximum. Whelen wanted his money and I didn't have it and couldn't raise it. I got an idea. I went to him and offered to work for him in my school. There's a lot of gambling in schools and the money can add up. I'd work for nothing. He'd get all of the profits. So I did that. A little bookie game that got bigger. Teachers and students both. You have any idea how much money schoolkids have these days? A lot! I expanded. Got some people working for me in other schools. Whelen was happy. I was holding my own, paying vigorish and more.”

  “Sounds good. What happened?”

  “One day a guy phoned me at my house. Said he wanted to see me in private. Said it was about Sonny Whelen.” He hesitated. “We met in a café and he showed me a badge . . .”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “He told you he'd had his eye on you for quite a while. He knew all about your bookie business. He told you he was really after Sonny Whelen, and he needed somebody on the inside as a snitch, and that he had you in mind. He said that if you didn't do what he wanted, he was going to arrest you. Your career would be gone, your family would be in disgrace, and you would be in jail where, probably, you couldn't expect to live too long because Sonny Whelen's got a long reach. How am I doing?”

  “You're doing all right.”

  “Then he told you that if you cooperated things would go better for you. Less publicity, no jail, maybe a chance to move someplace else and start again. Whelen would be in jail where he couldn't get at you, nobody could collect the debt you owed him because the debt was illegal, justice and righteousness would prevail, and everybody but Sonny Whelen would live happily ever after.”

  Rimini nodded. “Something like that.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “I told him I'd do it. And I did for most of this past year. Sonny got a kick out of having me working for him. He never got out of high school, and here he had a schoolteacher working for him. I was his pet pointy-headed intellectual. He even took Carla and me out to dinner a couple of times to show us off. The thing is, he was pretty casual about what he said to other people he was with, but they used names and terms I didn't know. Slang. I have a good memory, though, and afterward I wrote everything down, even if I didn't understand it, and gave it to Graham.”

  “Graham's the cop?”

  “Yes. The words didn't make sense to me, but maybe they did to him. Maybe they steered the detectives in directions they wouldn't have gone otherwise. Graham was always glad to get them.”

  “And then what happened?”

  Rimini rubbed his hands right on schedule. “And then somebody saw Graham talking with me and Sonny heard about it. Maybe Sonny was already beginning to have doubts about whether he could trust me. He didn't get where he is by trusting very many people, for sure. Anyway, a guy met me after school and took me to Sonny. I told him Graham was a gambler I owed money to. He said he'd never heard of a gambler by that name. I told him I didn't know if it was his real name. He said he didn't like me talking with Graham and to break it off. I we
nt home and told Carla. It was two weeks before school let out, so I couldn't leave without attracting a lot of attention to myself. I was a wreck. I'd heard what gangsters do to stool pigeons.”

  I could imagine how he felt. He was between Scylla and Charybdis. “What did you do?”

  “The next time Graham phoned I told him what had happened. He said to just be cool, but I didn't feel cool. Then I got the feeling somebody was watching me. Whenever I was out on the street, and sometimes when I was home. Somebody was out there in the shadows at night. I didn't know if I was imagining things or not. I finished the term, but I had to get away. Somewhere not too far away, where nobody knew me, where I could calm down and figure out what to do, where I'd be safe . . .”

  “Someplace like here, where Carla loved to be because it was a long way from Boston and all the things about my job that scared her.”

  He met my stare. “Yes. She said to come here. She said you'd understand. She said she'd call you and talk with you and that it would be all right. She said I could trust you, and that you could help me. But she never called, did she?”

  “No.”

  “They did something bad to her, didn't they? Otherwise, she'd have called. Otherwise, she never would have told them where I was going. Jesus.” He stood up. “I've got to go back.”

  It was a simple solution to my own problems. Rimini would be out of my hair and I wouldn't have to give another thought to Sonny Whelen. I should have said nothing. Instead, I said, “Wait a minute.”

  — 5 —

  He turned back to me.

  “Let me make some phone calls first,” I said. “You're as safe here as anyplace else for the moment, because they've already looked here and learned the hard way it was the wrong house.”

  “I'm not interested in being safe. I'm interested in Carla and the kids!” He started down the stairs. I went after him and caught him before he got to his car.

  “Look,” I said. “You're not going to do anybody any good by barging back up to Jamaica Plain. If Whelen really is after you, you'll be walking right into his arms. Carla and the kids don't need a dead dad, they need a live one.”