Vineyard Shadows

by Philip R. Craig

  Nothing. I realized I was very angry.

  How much did I owe Tom Rimini? He'd brought bad trouble to my house, and since then he'd lied and lied and lied, and so had his girlfriend. They were armed with guns they knew how to use, and their stories were crooked as a dog's hind leg.

  But if Sonny Whelen caught up with them, they were in trouble.

  “I can't get through to Rimini on the phone,” I said to Zee, “so I'm going out to see him. He should know that Sonny and his boys have gone missing.”

  “Let the police protect him!”

  “I don't know what the police will do, but I do know that if I was in Rimini's place I'd want to know about Sonny dropping out of sight.”

  I went out into the falling light and drove to the farm. When I entered the driveway I tapped my horn a couple of times so Rimini and Grace wouldn't be taken completely by surprise. It doesn't pay to startle armed people who are already nervous.

  Rimini's Honda and Grace Shepard's Explorer were parked in front of the house. Apparently Grace no longer felt the need to hide her car.

  I parked beside the Honda and looked around. There was no one in sight. The front door of the house was closed and there were no lights in the windows. The loft door above the big double barn doors was slightly ajar, but the barn doors behind which Grace Shepard had hidden her Explorer earlier were closed, as were the corral gates. Everything was quiet. I knocked on the door of the house, waited, then knocked again.

  “Oh, it's you,” said Rimini's voice behind me.

  I turned and saw him walking from the barn. Behind him, Grace was coming out of the now partially opened barn doors.

  “We were wandering around looking the place over,” said Rimini.

  “I phoned but nobody answered. So I came over. I just got some information I think you should have.”

  “Sorry about the phone. We must have been out of the house. What information?”

  “Sonny Whelen and some of his people have flown the coop. Nobody knows where they've gone. It's possible that they're coming here. It's possible that they're already here. I thought you should know.”

  Rimini came up to me and stared. “Are you sure? Who told you that?”

  “A reporter friend in Boston. He has a lot of sources.”

  Rimini rubbed his chin and looked around. “You say some of his people are gone, too. Who? How many?”

  “You know a guy called Sean? Sticks close to Sonny?”

  He nodded. “Yes, I know who he is. I think he's a bodyguard.”

  “Well, Sean is one. Todd is another. Pete McBride is another. McBride's buddy Bruno is another. There may be more, but those are the names I heard.”

  “Oh.” Rimini turned as Grace Shepard came up to us. “Grace, did you hear what J.W.'s been saying? Sonny and . . .”

  “I heard,” said Grace. She looked at me. “Are you sure about this, Mr. Jackson?”

  “I'm sure about what I heard. I can't be sure what's going on. I did think you people should have the news, for what it's worth.”

  She gave me a level stare. “And what do you think it is worth?”

  I wondered what to make of her. “I think it's worth at least as much as that story you two told me about not knowing much about guns. What a pair of sorry liars you are.”

  Rimini stepped away. “What . . . ?”

  The woman only smiled. “We should have told you the truth, but it seemed simpler at the time to fib. We didn't expect you to check up on us. I'm sorry.”

  “You're only sorry you got caught. You not only have a pistol, but you shoot at a gun club.”

  She made a little bow. “I underestimated your resourcefulness, Mr. Jackson. I'll not make that mistake again. Yes, it's true. I do have a pistol and I do know how to shoot it. I'm licensed to carry it, by the way, but of course you know that.”

  “Yes. And I know that Tom, here, met you at your gun club, which means that he's not the stranger to shooting that he pretended to be, either.”

  “Dear me, we have deceived you, haven't we? Yes, Tom and I can both shoot fairly well. That's why I brought the weapons down here.”

  “They're not just psychological props, then?”

  “No, although they do work in that regard, too.” She put her arm through Rimini's.

  “I'm afraid I'm the nervous one,” said Rimini, in a voice I had come to distrust.

  “You ought to be nervous,” I said. “In fact, you two should probably get out of here while the getting's good. If Whelen's coming to the island it's probably because he thinks he knows where you are.”

  “Or maybe where you are, Mr. Jackson,” said the woman, almost flippantly.

  “I'm being more careful than you are,” I said, letting my irritation show. “Besides, I've no real reason to think he's after me or my family, but I know he's after Tom, and he may not like you being down here with him.”

  Rimini patted the woman's arm and seemed to gather his courage. “Look,” he said in a voice I thought was intended to persuade me of his moral fiber, “we appreciate everything you've done for us and we're sorry we lied about the guns, but we think this whole thing is going to work out. Until it does, we're safe here. Just give us another day or so. No one knows where we are. Even if Sonny comes looking for us, he won't find us. Please don't make us leave now. Besides, if we try to leave and if Sonny is watching the ferry lines, he'll see us.”

  There was something to that last argument. If Sonny had any reason to believe that Rimini and the woman planned to run, he had enough men to watch the ferry slips.

  I knew I should have sent Rimini on his way the first time he'd lied to me, but my promise to Carla had stopped me before, and, in conjunction with the real threat from Whelen, it stopped me again.

  “All right,” I said, not liking a thing about the situation I had allowed to develop, and as angry at myself as I was at Rimini, “two more days. Then you go. One more thing: are you willing to testify against Sonny, if the authorities decide to go after him?”

  He put his teeth over his lower lip, then nodded. “Yes, if it will get me out of all this.”

  “Okay, I'll see what I can do about getting you into a witness protection program. You and Carla may have to move out of state and make a clean start, but considering the mess you've made for yourself in Jamaica Plain that might not be a bad thing.”

  He nodded again. “You're right. Do it. I'll cooperate as long as I know my family's safe.”

  The caring family man acted as though his mistress wasn't standing right beside him. Her face was bland, but her eyes were bright.

  There was something odd about their attitudes. I stared at him. “Are you sure you haven't let it slip that you're here? That nobody knows?”

  “I swear. Nobody knows.”

  Ananias fell down and died, but Rimini stood and gave me stare for stare.

  “If you say so,” I said. “I don't know what you're up to, but I'll call you if I hear anything else that you should know. I'll let the phone ring four times, then hang up and call back. If you want to hear what I have to say, pick up the second time.”

  I turned and walked to the Land Cruiser, feeling eyes watching me through the evening light. I was surprised to find myself experiencing the prickly fear I'd felt long ago in that far-off war when my patrol crossed openings in the forest that were excellent sites for ambush. At the truck, I paused and glanced around but saw no one other than Grace Shepard and Tom Rimini in front of the house. Maybe Rimini's nerves were having an effect on mine. I drove away and the feeling disappeared.

  When I got home, Zee said, “Dom Agganis phoned. He wants you to call him back.”

  “What was it about?”

  “He didn't say. What happened up at the farm?”

  I told her. She was not happy.

  “They're a pair of liars, Jeff. You can't trust them.”

  “I know. But they'll be gone soon.”

  Long ago, before my father bought it, when our house was just a hunting cam
p for guys who probably sat around and drank and played cards more than they actually shot at anything, somebody had put a couple of pegs over the front door where you could hang a shotgun. I had never seen a gun there before, but one was there now. My father's 12-gauge pump.

  Zee's eyes followed mine. I said nothing.

  “The kids can't reach it,” she said in a flat voice, “but you and I can.”

  She was standing straight and firm. I put my big hand on her shoulder. “Yes. Good. I'll make that call, then I'll rustle up some supper.”

  “It's on the stove.”

  “Good, again.”

  I called the State Police office in Oak Bluffs.

  “J. W. Jackson on the box,” I said in my best Brit accent when Agganis answered.

  “I don't remember anybody using that phrase when I was in England,” said Agganis, unimpressed.

  “I've never been in England,” I said, “so I'm susceptible to making errors about British usage.”

  “And other things.”

  “Zee says you called.”

  “I did. I had a chat with the Chief in Edgartown earlier in the day, then made a couple of calls to other people about this business of Sonny Whelen going missing. Your reporter friend has some good contacts, apparently, because what he told you was right on the money. You don't suppose he knows where Sonny's gone, do you?”

  “You can ask him.”

  “Somebody will probably do that if they haven't already. The point is that we don't know where any of those guys you mentioned, Whelen, McBride, and the other two, are, but we're keeping our eyes open for them and I thought you might like to know that at least one familiar face has arrived on our golden shores.”

  “Who?”

  “None other than Willard Graham, ex–DEA agent. The guy who hassled Rimini. You gave me a copy of his picture and I had some other copies printed up and spread around. One of our guys saw him drive off the boat earlier today.”

  “Where'd he go?”

  “We don't know. You know how things are there at the five corners. Graham took a right and a truck got in front of our guy. By the time our man got to the intersection with the Edgartown road, Graham was out of sight. One choice being as good as another, our guy headed for Chilmark but never saw Graham. He could have gone anywhere.”

  “You get a description of the car?”

  “A blue Lincoln sedan.” He gave me the license number.

  “Anybody else in the car?”

  “A couple of people, maybe, but our man only saw Graham. He was in the suicide seat.”

  “When was all this?”

  “About three hours ago.”

  Three hours. I told Agganis of my latest trip to the farm and of my conversation with Rimini and Grace Shepard. “If Graham knew where they were staying,” I said, “he'd have been there when I got there, but he wasn't.”

  “Maybe he didn't want to be there yet,” said Agganis. “Maybe he's waiting for reinforcements.”

  “Maybe he is.”

  “Your family may be the target,” said Agganis.

  “Thanks.”

  “Be careful.”

  “Yes.”

  — 23 —

  I dialed the farm, let the phone ring four times, hung up and called again. Rimini answered and I told him what I'd heard.

  “Graham?” His voice seemed to go away and then come back. “What's Graham doing here?”

  “Maybe he's just on vacation.”

  The voice firmed. “I deserved that.”

  “Did you ever see him with anyone else?”

  “No . . . no, he was always alone.”

  “So you don't know who else might be in that car?”

  “No. I can't imagine . . .”

  Was I so focused on past lies that I heard them whenever he spoke? I reminded myself that even liars tell the truth most of the time.

  “Well, he's got somebody with him, so be careful.”

  “Thank you. We will.”

  Hanging up the phone, I noticed for the first time that Zee had driven two spikes into the wall above the rear door and had hung John Skye's shotgun there.

  Cannons at both entrances to the house. Fort Jackson. I went and found Zee and helped her get supper on the table.

  Much later, I woke up in the dark. Zee lay curled against me, sweet and soft, one knee bent behind mine, the other thigh and calf hooked over my hip, one arm wrapped around my belly, her breath warm against my back. I listened for the sound that must have wakened me, but all I heard was the purr of a cat, Oliver Underfoot for certain, coming from the foot of the bed. Velcro, being made of sterner stuff, slept alone.

  I realized instantly that it hadn't been a sound but a thought that had intruded upon my dreams: Willard Graham was not linked to Zee and me at all; he probably had never heard of us. My family wasn't threatened by him; he was on the island for some other purpose.

  I didn't need the pistol I had secreted under my mattress when we went to bed; not, at least, as far as Graham and his companions were concerned.

  I shut my eyes but could not shut down my thoughts. If not me, then who interested Graham? Rimini, of course. And if for no other reason than that she was there, Grace Shepard, too, fell under his sights.

  But what was his intent? And who were those who accompanied him? Did they work for him, or he for them?

  Was he on his own? Or did he and those with him work for or with someone? If so, who?

  Sonny Whelen, perhaps?

  But if he worked for Sonny, why didn't he tell Rimini that he did? But he hadn't told him. Instead, he'd told Rimini that he was a cop interested in nailing Sonny on charges of illegal gambling. But that was a lie. Graham wasn't a cop, and when he had been he'd been with the DEA, not vice. On the other hand, if he lied about being a cop, he might have been lying about everything else. Maybe he was working for Sonny all along, and Sonny had reasons for misleading Rimini.

  Lots of ifs and maybes.

  Maybe Graham worked for Pete McBride. Pete wanted Sonny's crown, and maybe Graham was sucking Rimini dry for Pete in hopes of getting some kind of an edge on Sonny. Maybe, for instance, he was going to turn everything Rimini knew over to the real cops so they'd nail Sonny and save Pete the trouble.

  My maybes and ifs added up to zero.

  Maybe Graham was on his own. Ex–DEA cop squeezing schoolteacher in gambling trouble. Tell me everything you know and hear, or else.

  Why? I couldn't guess.

  And what about Tom and Grace? They were up to something they didn't want to talk about. What?

  A tangled web, indeed. Scott knew whereof he spoke; there was enough practiced deception here to go around. I had a sense of foreboding.

  I slept badly and woke foggy-brained and discontented. Coffee and juice helped but did not cure my malaise. Bagels with cream cheese, lox, and red onions helped some, however, and by the time I cleaned my plate I felt almost up to par. New Yorkers are wrong about a lot of things but not about that particular meal, which is a yummer.

  “You look more human than when you woke up,” said Zee, gathering up her shoulder bag and giving me a kiss. “See you later.”

  I held her face between my hands and looked down at her. Her split lip was mending and the bruises around her eyes were fading. She looked more like her old self every day.

  I kissed her and let her go, and she went off to work.

  She didn't ordinarily carry that shoulder bag, and I thought I knew why she had it now. I was sure when I went to the gun cabinet and saw that her little Beretta 84F was missing. Mrs. Jackson was packing iron.

  Good old Zee. The lioness was not about to let her family go unprotected, in spite of her fears that she was no longer the person she had once been. I thought of the impossibility of stepping in the same river twice, and how each of us is like that river: ever-changing, swirling atoms in endless new configurations, never quite the same persons that we were or will be, held together only by our odd sense of identity.

  I w
ashed up the breakfast dishes, stacked them in the drier beside the sink, and collected Joshua and Diana.

  “Come on, kids; we're going for a drive.”

  “Can I steer?”

  “No. You're too little.”

  “I'm bigger than Diana.”

  “But you're still not big enough. Besides, you don't have a driver's license. If a policeman caught you driving, he'd put you in jail.”

  “What's jail, Pa?”

  “It's a room with bars on the doors and windows and no toys. They put bad people there. You wouldn't like it.”

  We drove up to Chilmark and I found the town clerk's office. Chilmark is the prettiest township on the Vineyard. If I didn't live in Edgartown I'd live in Chilmark if I could afford it. It's got lovely winding roads, water on three sides, the island's only official nude beach, and rolling wooded topography including the highest point on the Vineyard, a whole three-hundred-plus feet above sea level. The Quitsa end of Menemsha Pond is the prettiest site on the whole island, and at the opposite end of the pond the village of Menemsha looks like Walt Disney's idea of what a fishing village should be. All in all, it's a beautiful town with only a single flaw: no liquor store. Chilmarkers have to go to Oak Bluffs or Edgartown to get their booze.

  The town clerk, like town clerks of most small towns, knew where everybody lived. There was no land registered to Willard Graham, but Howard Trucker's place was on the north side of South Road, not far from the town cemetery where faithful pilgrims still come to leave flowers, roaches, and empty beer bottles on the gravestone of John Belushi. Whether John is actually under there is widely debated, but his stone is the second most popular tourist site on the island, topped in attendance only by the Dyke Bridge on Chappaquiddick, which, decades after the accident that made it famous, still attracts the curious and the perverse. Tourists are often rather odd, but the island lives off them, so they and their money are always welcome to the Vineyard.

  I paused by the entrance to Trucker's driveway. There were two mailboxes there, one with a number and the other with a name I didn't know. The clerk's directions had been explicit, so I knew I was in the right spot. I turned in. If anybody was home, I'd use the lost traveler ploy. Two kids in the car would make me more believable.