Vineyard Enigma

by Philip R. Craig

  She stared at him. “Miguel, what are you doing?”

  “Trust me,” he said. “Just do what I say. I’ll explain everything.”

  “I’ll bet you will,” I said. The muzzle of his pistol looked like the entrance to a tunnel.

  “Shut up. Rose, do what I say. He may be armed. He’s a dangerous man.”

  Rose hesitated.

  “I think he killed Matthew,” said Miguel. “And he may have killed Brownington. Do as I say, or he may kill us, too.”

  Rose’s eyes grew wide. She sidled around behind me.

  “Be careful,” said Miguel.

  Rose’s hands floated around my waist and took the revolver from my belt.

  Miguel’s voice was that of a hypnotist. “That’s good, darling. Now step away from him and come over here. Then we can call the police.”

  Rose walked to the desk. Her face was full of fear.

  “Good,” he said. He rose and came around to the front of the desk. “Now we don’t have to worry about him hurting us.”

  “Two guns to none makes that pretty sure,” I said.

  “Shut up,” said Miguel.

  “I don’t think Miguel’s going to call the police,” I said to Rose. “I think you should do it yourself. Right now.”

  “No, don’t do that,” said Miguel. “I have a better idea. I’ll take him to them myself.”

  I shook my head. “No, you won’t. I’ll wait right here.” I looked at Rose. “Your boyfriend here has already killed at least one man, and if he gets me alone in his car, I’ll be shot trying to escape, sure as the world. Isn’t that right, Miguel?”

  “I’ve never killed anyone,” said Miguel. “I may have hauled some freight for Matthew and I may have trucked those birds up to Mauch after he bought them, but that’s all I ever did. Rose, honey, there’s some duct tape over on that shelf. Bring it here. We’ll bundle J.W. up so he can’t cause a fuss.”

  My mouth felt like the Gobi Desert. I said, “Call the cops, Rose. If you let this guy take me out of here it’ll be the last time you see me alive.”

  “Shut your mouth!” Miguel’s voice was commanding. “Rose, get that tape!”

  “I don’t know what I should do.” Rose’s eyes were wide and her hands were twisting each other.

  “Just bring me the tape, sweetheart. This man is a killer and we have to tie him up so he can’t hurt anyone else.”

  She went to the shelf and returned with the tape. He took it. “I’m going to tie him up. If he tries to escape or hurt me, shoot him!”

  My arms were aching. “It’s going to be harder for you this time,” I said to Miguel. “You’ve got a witness and I don’t plan on turning my back on you like Matthew did.” I flicked a glance at Rose. “Miguel probably used this very pistol to kill Matthew and take a shot at me. It was you who put that hole in my windshield and blew Matthew away, isn’t that right, Miguel?”

  His face filled with anger and frustration. “Don’t believe a word of it, Rose! J.W. killed Matthew and now he’s trying to turn you against me!” He lifted the pistol. “You shut your lying mouth or I’ll shut it for you!”

  I knew I was going to die, and in that surety all my fear was suddenly gone, but my voice sounded far away, as though it were coming from another room.

  “I didn’t even know Matthew,” I said, speaking to Rose but watching Miguel. “But Miguel knew that Matthew was taking you away from him and he couldn’t stand it. So last Tuesday, before he caught the morning boat to America, he went to Matthew’s house. He knew Matthew would be alone because Connie was over on Nantucket. He shot Matthew and then went about his normal business.

  “It’s getting easier, isn’t it, Miguel? First you make a deal with Matthew to transport illegal goods, then you go another step and help him out by using your refrigerated truck to haul Brownington’s head and hands off to some Dumpster in America, then you kill Matthew, and now you’re going to have another crack at killing me. And when you finish with me, are you going to kill Rose, too? You were slime as a kid and you’re still slime.”

  Miguel pointed the pistol at my head. His voice was tight. “I warned Matthew. I told him to break off from Rose, but he just laughed, and now I’ve warned you but you won’t shut your mouth either. Well, I stopped his laugh and I’m stopping your talk.” With perfect clarity I watched his finger tighten on the trigger.

  They say you never hear the shot that kills you. Could be, although there are, no doubt, plenty of exceptions to the rule. Whether Miguel heard the one that killed him I’ll never know, because he didn’t say a word about it but simply plunged forward onto the floor, probably dead before he hit it. His pistol did go off, but the bullet went into a wall and not into me.

  I let my aching arms fall and looked at Rose, who was holding my revolver in both of her hands and looking dazedly down at Miguel’s body.

  I stepped around the body and took the pistol from her and put it on the desk.

  “Thank you,” I said. “You saved my life.”

  “He really was going to kill you, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes. He was desperate and wasn’t thinking clearly.”

  “He killed Matthew because of me?”

  “You were leaving him, and he blamed Matthew. I think he might have shot you next, then himself. It’s a common pattern.”

  “My God! I can’t believe it.” She sagged, and I put her in a chair before calling the police.

  Sergeant Dom Agganis, having taken my statement, clicked off the tape recorder on his desk, and our conversation became informal.

  “I thought I asked you not to bring me any Sabbath crises.”

  “I figured the ball game was over by the time I went up to see Miguel. Who won?”

  “Pedro mowed them down. Too bad the Sox don’t have another pitcher.”

  “They need Pedro and four days of rain.”

  “You’re going to succeed in getting yourself killed someday,” he said. “You know that.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m giving up this investigating business for good. It’s back to surf casting for me.”

  “The Wild East is wilder than the Wild West, you know.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Speaking of the Wild West, tell me again about that six-shooter up-island.”

  “It’s in Brent Hall’s den, hanging on a wall. A forty-one-caliber Colt, model 1889. Matthew Duarte sold it to Georgie Hall as a weapon that once belonged to Jesse James. But that was a lie because Jesse James was killed in 1882. My guess is that it’s the gun that killed Brownington, and that Duarte got rid of it by palming it off on Georgie, who doesn’t know a thing about guns or Jesse James. If she hadn’t hung that little tag on it, it probably never would have caught my eye.”

  “Did I tell you that the DNA results are in and that the Horseman is Brownington? Good guess on your part.”

  “It makes sense. Brownington probably threatened Matthew but underestimated him and Matthew dropped him. Or maybe Miguel did it. Whoever did it, Matthew knew that if the body was found and identified, it could lead the cops back to him, so he stripped him and cut off his head and hands. No clothes, no face, no fingerprints, and nobody looking for the victim. Pretty good thinking. He probably burned Brownington’s ID. That’s what I’d have done, at least.”

  “Maybe I should be taking notes so in case we get the same MO again, we can come straight to you and you can solve the crime for us.”

  “That might be smart, Dom. Anyway, after he kacked Brownington, Matthew had to get rid of the body and the body parts. Miguel took care of the parts and Matthew probably packed the body out into the woods on a horse. I hadn’t known that Matthew was a rider until I saw that tack room in the barn. If your lab boys run tests on the saddles out there, you might even come up with some traces of bloodstains or something. A lot of people up-island are riders. Mauch is one of them, I think, because I saw horses in the pasture behind his house.”

  “If Matthew was alive, he could probably charge you w
ith breaking and entering. How do you know about Jesse James? You a frontier fan?”

  “Every red-blooded American male is a frontier fan. The Wild West is the great myth of America, and we can’t get enough of it. That’s why John Wayne is still a top-ten movie star even though he’s been dead for twenty years.”

  “Why, sure. I’m a Wayne fan myself.”

  “Of course you are. The forensic people thought the bullet they found in the Horseman was a thirty-eight- or forty-caliber slug, but forty-one is close enough to cause confusion. I think you should check that pistol out. If I’m wrong, no harm done. If I’m right, you have what they call a clue in the mystery novels, and in either case, Georgie Hall will have just the sort of exciting story she loves to tell or hear.”

  “My contribution to island gossip, eh?” Agganis rubbed his thick head of hair. “You do get yourself into the damnedest situations. All this because you were looking for a couple of stone birds from Africa.”

  “And now I know where they are. I’m sort of hoping that maybe all this shooting will encourage Mauch to fess up.”

  “The birds are none of my business,” said Agganis. “I’ve got real crimes to tend to. Go home and try to stay out of trouble.”

  “You’re late,” said Zee when I got home. “The kids and I have already eaten. You should have called.” She spoke in that slightly irritated tone that wives use when their husbands fail to observe common courtesies and thereby cause wifely worry.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Something came up.”

  “I’ll warm a plate for you.”

  “I’ll take a drink on the balcony first.”

  She saw something in my face. “I’ll come up, too.”

  “Good. I’ll tell you about my trip to Vineyard Haven.”

  I got myself a glass and put in ice, two green olives, and a double slug of Luksosowa, and went up to the balcony. Zee was waiting, looking out over the garden and Sengekontacket Pond toward Nantucket Sound. The light of the sinking sun cast a glow on the barrier beach between the pond and the sound, where cars were moving along the highway headed for Edgartown or Oak Bluffs.

  I sipped my icy drink and then, because the story would soon be public anyway, told her about the bullet hole in my windshield and my experience at Periera Food Service.

  For a while, then, there was only the sound of the wind sighing through the trees. Finally Zee said, “I’m so glad she was there and that she had a gun.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I know what she’s feeling. I’ll go talk with her.” She looked at me. “Do you remember telling me over and over that I’d done the right thing when I killed that terrible man, and that you could never thank me enough for saving your wife and daughter?”

  “I remember. I still thank you.”

  “I’ve never been able to accept that, but I think I finally understand. I’ll never be able to thank Rose enough. Never!” She looked at me, then reached for me and began to cry.

  28

  The next morning I phoned Charles Mauch and told him about my final encounter with Miguel Periera. He responded by expressing surprise at learning of Miguel’s and Matthew Duarte’s criminal activities and skepticism about the veracity of reports by such men.

  “Are you denying that you possess the eagles?” I asked.

  “I am denying that I possess any art objects than can be certified as belonging to someone else.”

  “A completely honest reply, I’m sure. I think, though, that you should give consideration to the fact that four men associated with the birds have died violently within the past year, and that agents, perhaps from law enforcement groups or perhaps from less official organizations, are still looking for them right now, right here on our beloved isle.”

  His voice remained cool. “What has that to do with me?”

  “Perhaps nothing; perhaps very much. Please feel free to contact me or Mr. Mahsimba if you have any further thoughts on the matter.” I gave him John Skye’s phone number and my own and rang off.

  The Boston papers duly recorded the death of Miguel Periera in their Monday editions, but even though the killing had taken place on romantic Martha’s Vineyard, the reporters hadn’t known enough to make much of what initially seemed to them to be just another domestic tragedy of a girlfriend killing her lover. The Tuesday edition of the Vineyard Gazette had more detail, and by the end of the week, after public revelation that DNA tests had proven the Headless Horseman to be David Brownington, the story had gotten much bigger.

  On that first Monday I’d received a call from my Boston reporter friend, Quinn, telling me he was on his way down and expected an exclusive interview with me. Quinn and I had met years before when I was on the Boston PD, and we’d remained close ever since. I told him to come ahead, and that he could stay in our guest room, where he had stayed before. I got calls from other papers and electronic-media people and told them I had no comment.

  When Quinn got to the house, he gave Zee a huge kiss and said he was sure I wouldn’t mind sleeping on the couch while he showed her the benefits of a relationship with a real man. She thanked him but said she was saving that long-anticipated delight until the children were grown and she could give him her full attention. He sighed.

  I gave him my report of recent criminal events and a list of the names of people I thought he might want to interview.

  “Ah,” he said, looking at it. “Twice the usual suspects. This should keep me down here for at least a week!”

  “Oh no! Gimme back that list!” I said, reaching for it. But he snatched it away.

  Good old Quinn.

  Zee took time off from work and spent some of it with Rose Abrams and the rest with me, away from John and Mattie Skye and other friends. Away from Mahsimba. She and I avoided the beaches where we were sure to meet fellow fishermen, and walked up-island along the trails of Menemsha Hills, Fulling Mill Brook, Waskosims Rock, and the other tracks through the Vineyard’s beautiful wild places.

  Ours was a curious relationship, somewhere between that of a long-married couple and a man and a woman discovering one another for the first time. We were cautious yet happy, careful with our feelings. Sometimes we talked, but we were often silent, as though listening to the beating of the earth’s heart in hopes that its rhythm was in time with our own. Sometimes we took our children with us; mostly we went alone.

  It was a kind of courting, simpler for me because loving Zee was the easiest and most natural thing I’d ever done or would ever do; harder for her because she had been swept away at first sight of Mahsimba through no effort of his nor fault of hers, but simply because the gods, seeing her weakened by self-dismay over killing a man, had cast a glamour upon her, perhaps out of kindness, knowing that loving and feeling loved can make a sick soul well again.

  Toward the end of the week we were looking out toward No Man’s Land from the slope of Prospect Hill. The dark blue sea was flat as a mirror and the leaves were totally still in windless air. It was warm and the sun was high in a pale blue sky that dipped toward misty horizons. Time seemed to have stopped.

  “Swordfishing weather,” I said.

  Zee took my hand. “I’ve finally, really gotten over killing that man, I think. Talking with Rose helped.”

  “Good.” Any giving person can tell you that the giver always gets more than he or she gives.

  “I think I’m getting over Mahsimba, too.”

  “Do you want to get over him?”

  “He’s a wonderful man.”

  “Yes.”

  “But I don’t want him between us.”

  “You can’t just stop loving someone,” I said. “Love just happens. You have no choice.” I, at least, had none.

  “I don’t think it’s love. For me, seeing him was like falling down stairs. There he was and suddenly I was picking myself up from the bottom step. I’d read about such things, but I thought it was just poets’ talk. But it isn’t.”

  “No.”

  “He’s never done a t
hing to encourage me. Never touched me other than shaking my hand when we first met or accepting my arm when I took his. Never said a flirting word. But from the moment I first saw him I felt like a fifteen-year-old girl high on champagne.”

  “I’ve felt fifteen once or twice.”

  “Have you? I think I really was fifteen the last time I felt that way. But for a while, lately, when I thought of Mahsimba it’s been as though Africa were calling to me.”

  “A siren song.”

  “Yes. I’ve felt like Odysseus. But I didn’t have anyone to tie me to the mast so I could listen but not respond. My rope has been loving you but my crew has been me, and it’s been mutinous. I wanted you to make me stay, but I knew you wouldn’t.”

  “No.”

  She smiled wanly and looked up at me. “No. I know you. You’d stop anyone from hurting me, but you’d never stop me from leaving you.”

  “I don’t own slaves.”

  “Sometimes a woman wants to be guarded. To feel owned.”

  “I’ll protect you, but you have to be free to leave.”

  “Free to go to Africa?”

  “Free to go anywhere.”

  “Free to go home with you?”

  “That most of all.”

  “I love you. Do you know that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you live with a wife who can become infatuated with other men?”

  I said, “I don’t love often or well, or stop loving easily, but I do know this: you don’t have a finite amount of love that you have to divide into pieces and dole out in small portions. The more you love, the more you can love. Being infatuated with Mahsimba doesn’t mean you love me less.”

  “I think I’m getting un-infatuated.”

  “Good.”

  “Don’t you have any jealous bones in your body?”

  “Let’s not try to find out.”

  “You’re a strange man, Jefferson.”

  “At least.”

  She held my hand as we walked on.

  By the following weekend Quinn had sent in several stories and figured he had all the information he needed or was going to get about murder and smuggled art on Martha’s Vineyard.