Vineyard Shadows

by Philip R. Craig

  How about Willard Graham?

  How about Willard Graham. He had the expertise and the experience and the contacts. All he had to do was kill Ralph, and he'd be in the driver's seat.

  But Ralph would never let anybody he didn't know into his car.

  Unless the guy had a badge. If Graham no longer had his old shield, he sure knew where to get one that looked real. And Graham had the further advantage of looking and acting like a cop because that's what he'd been. A corrupt cop, admittedly, but a cop nevertheless, and any perp can tell you that most cops smell like cops before they ever show their shields. Hell, even I was still mistaken for the law sometimes, and I hadn't been in uniform for fifteen years.

  So nervous Ralph might have let Graham into his car because he didn't want trouble with a narc.

  On the other hand, if he saw Graham or any other guy who looked like a cop coming close, he'd probably just have put the pedal to the metal and gotten out of there in the time-honored way of avoiding trouble with the fuzz.

  So maybe Graham hadn't hit Ralph, although he remained on the short list. If not Graham, then who?

  Grace.

  Ralph might be too nervous to let Graham into his car, but he would have welcomed his wife. In fact, she was probably the one person he never would have expected to kill him. After all, they were married and lived together, and she'd never killed him yet although she no doubt had had plenty of chances, just as all wives have.

  But why would she have done it?

  A fit of pique? Maybe. People killed in bursts of rage, often ruing the act the moment it was done.

  But Grace hadn't struck me as the burst-of-rage type. She was nothing if not cool. If she killed her husband, it wasn't because of uncontrollable anger.

  Why, then? Perhaps because he stood between her and something she wanted.

  What? Not money, supposedly, because he was making good money and they were living well, as suggested by her almost new Explorer.

  Another man?

  Tom Rimini?

  Why not? Tom was bored with his wife, and Grace was bored with her husband. They had met at the gun club and hit it off. One thing leads to another. If Carla gets wise, all she can do is get a divorce, but unlike Carla, Ralph carries a gun, so Grace and Tom can't afford to have him catch them while they cavort. Fortunately for them, Ralph is in a profession where sudden death is not an unexpected event. So one night Ralph is parked in his usual spot and who is he surprised to see but Grace. She smiles and waves and gets into the car.

  “What are you doing here, sweetie?” he asks, probably not too happy to have her there on the street where he's working.

  “This,” she says, and shoots him in the head.

  Then she gets out and walks away into the dark.

  She gets the apartment, the Explorer, the insurance, and Tom Rimini. Not bad. I could see it happening.

  She also gets more attention from Sonny Whelen. They play around and Sonny is serious about her. That means he doesn't like having Tom Rimini sharing Grace's bed. Tom keeps it up and Sonny gets more put out. He sends his people after Tom, and Carla, having been fed a line about Tom's gambling problem, sends her husband to the first safe place she can think of: my house. But Sonny's thugs pressure Carla and she talks, so Sonny phones Logan and Trucker, who are already on the island, and has them go get Tom. But they find Zee instead of Tom and the rest is history. Now Sonny is really pissed, and when he learns where Tom is, he comes after him in person.

  How did he learn? From blabby Tom? Maybe, but maybe not.

  Anyway, that explains Tom and Grace and Sonny being here, but it doesn't explain Graham.

  “Pa.”

  “What?”

  “Diana can't throw straight. You come and throw.”

  “He's mean, Pa, he won't let me play!”

  “You two see that sign there above the door?”

  “Yes, Pa.”

  “What does it say?”

  Diana stared at the sign, then shook her head. “I don't know, Pa. I can't read.”

  Joshua sounded the letters: “N . . . O . . . S . . . N . . . I . . . V . . . E . . . L . . . I . . . N . . . G.”

  “That's right. It says NO SNIVELING. That means we don't snivel in this house. Unless we absolutely have to, that is.”

  Diana's mouth and eyes turned down. “But I have to, Pa. Josh won't let me play. He's mean.”

  “He's not mean. He just wants somebody who can catch the ball and throw it back. Come on. I'll go outside with you and the three of us will play. Josh can throw it to me and I'll throw it to you and then you throw it to me and I'll throw it to Josh.”

  So we did that, because I didn't care if Diana caught it or threw it straight and because Joshua, in spite of his big brother airs, wasn't much better. For that matter, I never had a shot at the big leagues, either. Together, we tossed, caught, dropped, and chased the ball under the summer sun. While we did, I brooded about Graham.

  He was here and he was not alone. Who was with him? What did they all want?

  Something having to do with Rimini, but what?

  Drugs.

  Rimini was hot for the wife, later the widow, of Jamaica Plain's prime supplier. If I thought that Ralph would let Tom get into Ralph's car and if I thought that Tom had the backbone to do it, I'd have thought that Tom might have hit Ralph because of Grace. But I didn't think either of those possibilities was likely. Still, that didn't mean that Tom wasn't involved. Tom was smart and dishonest, a hazardous combination, and ambition would make him even more dangerous.

  Suppose Rimini's interests and Graham's interests were linked. Suppose Rimini wanted the woman, Grace wanted Rimini, and Graham wanted to control the drug supply in Jamaica Plain. With Ralph gone, all of them got what they wanted. Voilà! Just like that.

  A nice partnership, indeed. Maybe Grace and Tom were satisfied with just each other, but on the other hand maybe Graham shared some of his newly acquired drug money with them. Why not? Together they'd gotten rid of Ralph, so together they would apportion the rewards. Good friends sharing good times.

  On the ocean of my thought, something was hull down on the horizon. I could see its topmasts but the rest of it was out of sight. It made me curious and uneasy. It was something I should be able to bring into view, but could not.

  Back to the Graham/Rimini thesis.

  If Graham was Rimini's friend and partner, it made him Whelen's enemy. If that were the case, then Graham wouldn't be waiting for Whelen at Howie Trucker's house, but would more likely be visiting Rimini at John Skye's farm.

  Why?

  Not to enjoy a Vineyard vacation with his pals, certainly. Something else.

  The ship beyond the horizon sailed into view. It came closer and I clapped a telescope to my mind's eye. The ship had a blue hull and was named Abraham Lincoln, and when I saw her I suddenly knew what was going on.

  — 26 —

  It was a bloody scenario, if I was right, and there wasn't much time for me to verify my suspicions or to do anything about them.

  “Pa, get the ball!”

  “You kids play together for a few minutes.”

  I went into the house and phoned Helen Fonseca.

  “You're here more than my husband is,” she said. “Sure, bring the kids down.”

  “Thanks. It'll be the last time for a while.”

  “Nonsense. I love having them around. Keeps me young.”

  “Me, too, but I need a couple of hours without them.”

  I cleaned up the kids, grabbed a phone book, and drove to Helen's house. Josh and Diana were glad to go, having fond memories of her cookies and milk and her willingness to spoil them.

  “I'll be back,” I said to her. “I'm going up-island to Howie Trucker's house.”

  “Howie Trucker? I don't think I know him.”

  “He works out of Boston. Some of his business associates are staying up there and they need to talk with me.”

  That was true, although they didn't know it.
<
br />   I drove up the West Tisbury Road. A half mile past John Skye's driveway I pulled off to the side and parked. I got my field glasses, stuck my old .38 under my shirt, and went into the woods. After a while I could see John's south pasture in front of me. When he and his family were there, the twins' horses ran in that pasture. Now, the Skyes were out West and their horses were being boarded on a farm up-island.

  There was a stand of scrub oak and trees along the edge of the pasture leading up to the back of the barn and the corrals. I put the glasses on the yard and house. Rimini's green Honda was parked in its usual spot and beside it was the Ford Explorer.

  No people were in sight. I watched for a while and saw no one come out or go into the house. Then I moved back into the woods and worked my way toward the barn, pausing now and then to study it though the glasses. No eyes seemed to be upon me. I made it to a small storage shed, took a final peek around a corner, saw no one, and sprinted across a small corral to the back of the barn.

  I knew John and Mattie's place well, having cared for it for years. There was a back door leading into the tack room, and I went to it and listened. No sounds. I eased the door open and slipped inside. The tack room smelled of oil and leather. There was harness on the walls and there were saddles and blankets and tools in their places. I crossed to another door and listened again. Nothing. I opened the door a crack and peeked through.

  There, where Grace Shepard's Explorer had once been secreted, was a blue Lincoln sedan.

  A ladder to the loft was to the right of the car. I waited and listened, then cat-footed across to the front of the barn. I put an eye to the crack between the big double doors. The yard between the house and barn was empty. I turned back and went up the ladder.

  There was still some baled hay in the loft, left over from last summer. I went to the loft door. There was a narrow mattress on the floor a yard back from the door. The door was slightly ajar, just as it had been when last I'd looked at it. Now I saw why: a new hook and eye held it that way. I looked through the opening and had a perfect view of the yard and the front of the house. I remembered the uneasy feeling I'd had when I'd last been down in that yard and now knew why I'd had it. Someone had been watching me from this very spot. Possibly over the sights of a rifle.

  Suddenly the door of the house opened and Rimini and a man I recognized as Graham came out and walked toward the barn. I didn't hesitate, but trotted back to the ladder, climbed down, and went back out through the tack room. When I thought the two men were near the front of the barn, I sprinted across the yard to the shed, then, ducking, moved away through the scrub oak and trees until I was well out of sight. There I turned and put the glasses on the barn. No one. I turned and walked through the woods until I reached the Land Cruiser.

  I was sweating and my hands were shaking, but I didn't have time for a case of nerves. I started the truck and drove to West Tisbury, then took South Road to Chilmark. When I got to Howie Trucker's driveway I stopped, put the .38 under the seat, then found Howie's telephone number and dialed it on the cell phone.

  A voice I didn't recognize said, “Yeah?”

  “This is J. W. Jackson. Tell Sonny that I'm coming up to the house in an old Toyota Land Cruiser. I have something to tell him, I'm alone, and I won't be armed.”

  “What . . . ?”

  But I'd rung off before he could finish the question. I put the phone away and turned up the driveway. I felt almost ethereal. I saw no one until I reached the grassy yard in front of the house, then I saw two men on the porch. One of them was Todd, and the other was the man who'd patted me down in the rest room of the Green Harp. Todd's hands were behind his back.

  I got out of the truck, spread my arms, and walked toward them.

  “That's far enough,” said Todd.

  I stopped and the other man came off the porch. “Just stand still, Mr. Jackson.” I did and he patted me down just as thoroughly as he had done before. “I see you still have that pocketknife, Mr. Jackson. Just leave it be. You can put down your hands.”

  I did that.

  “Go inside, Mr. Jackson.”

  I went up the stairs and into the house. Todd came after me. Sonny Whelen was in the living room.

  “So we meet again,” he said. “The last time it was on my ground. This time it's on yours, more or less. What was it you wanted to tell me, Mr. Jackson?”

  He didn't offer me a chair, so I stood.

  “You're walking into an ambush,” I said. “You think that you're going to surprise and nail Tom Rimini, but it's a setup.”

  Behind me, Todd made a primitive sound. Whelen studied me.

  “I don't know what you're talking about,” he said.

  “I'm talking about you and your men going to the place were Rimini is staying, thinking that you've got the element of surprise and the guns, and probably thinking that Rimini is a wimp to boot. I don't know how you found out where he is, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a call from Grace Shepard with some tale about needing to be saved from Tom Rimini's clutches.”

  His pale eyes hardened. “You're an imaginative man,” he said. “Go on.”

  “You know your reasons for coming here better than I do, but I'd guess they have a lot to do with the woman. I'd guess that you don't like her being down here with Rimini.”

  “You keep her name out of your fucking mouth!”

  White fire blazed in those eyes.

  Fear ran up and down my spine, but I only nodded. “That'll be hard to do, but I'll try. I don't really know or care why you came, but I want no more bloodshed here where I live, and I can tell you for sure that if you go charging in after Rimini you won't come out alive.”

  His lip curled. “You know that, do you? Todd, here, is an army in himself. And Sean only looks mild and sweet. I don't think we have to worry about a womanizing schoolteacher.”

  I kept my voice level. “You may need more than two one-man armies. Your womanizing schoolteacher is an expert rifleman, and he's got an army of his own waiting for you: an ex–DEA agent named Willard Graham, your old pal Pete McBride, and that thug of his, Bruno. And there's a pistol-packing woman who brought Rimini a shotgun and a 30.06 when she moved in with him. Maybe that's not enough firepower to make you careful, but it would be enough for me.”

  Whelen studied me. “You told me once you didn't know where Rimini was. That was a lie. Maybe you're lying again.”

  “When we talked before, I thought Rimini was just a small-time gambler who deserved a break. If I still thought that, I wouldn't be here.”

  “If this bum lied once, he'll lie twice,” said Todd. “Let me have him.”

  Whelen ignored him. “How do you know all this you're telling me? Why should I believe you? Maybe you're working with them.”

  “Yeah,” said Todd.

  “A cop saw Graham come off the ferry in a blue Lincoln. I saw McBride in a car like that when I was talking with Rimini's wife just after I talked with you. Two and two equals four. I didn't know whether McBride was working for you or for Rimini or for himself, but just now I scouted the farm where Rimini's staying. Rimini's car and the woman's Explorer are parked in front of the house, right where you'd expect them to be. But the Lincoln is in the barn, out of sight. Upstairs in the loft, a door has been fastened open just a crack. There's a mattress on the floor just inside the door. A man with a rifle can lie there and have a clean shot at anybody in the yard or in front of the house. That's where you and your two-man army would park if you were after Rimini.”

  Ice replaced the fire in Whelen's eyes. I went on.

  “I figure that you've been suckered, Sonny. When you and Todd and Sean climb out of your car, you won't take ten steps before the three of you are Swiss cheese. And then Rimini and the others will all plead self-defense, because the cops will find your corpses with guns in your hands. You'll be dead and the shooters will all walk, and . . .” I paused.

  “And what?”

  “And Pete McBride will finally get to take over in Charle
stown. Graham will work with him and keep on supplying narcotics in Jamaica Plain, Rimini will get the woman and a chair at Pete's right hand, and everybody will live happily ever after. I think they've been planning this for a while. It was going to happen somewhere, but then Rimini ran to my place and I put him in a safe house that was perfect for them. All they had to do was get you to come down, and that wasn't too hard because you like to handle personal matters yourself. You're famous for it.”

  “Why that bitch,” said Whelen, almost to himself. “She set me up.” He thought for a while, then looked at me. “You know a problem I got? I got nobody to tell me when I'm being stupid. Nobody wants to tell me something they don't think I want to hear. Ain't that right, Todd?”

  “It ain't for me to tell you anything, Sonny.”

  “That's what I mean,” said Whelen. “I read somewhere once that every king needs a fool to keep him from being a fool himself. I got no fool. Somebody should have told me about Grace, Todd.”

  “You weren't gonna get it from me, boss.”

  “Would you have believed it if somebody'd told you?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Probably not.” Then he eyed me again. “I still don't get why you're talking to me about all this. We're not what you'd call friends. Especially not after Logan being stupid like he was.”

  “It's simple enough. This is a nice, quiet island most of the time. I want it to get that way again and stay that way. I don't want any gangland massacres here, and I especially don't want one on the farm where Rimini is staying. That farm belongs to a friend of mine, and when he comes back later this summer, I don't want him to find the house full of bullet holes and wrapped in yellow tape. Tomorrow I'll be going down there and moving Rimini out. I'll get help from the cops, if I need to, but he'll be leaving the island one way or another. After that, none of this is my problem.”