A Vineyard Killing

by Philip R. Craig

  By the time the chili was done and I had put together a cherry tart for dessert, much of the afternoon was gone and Paul Fox had not returned my call. Crime solving would go a lot faster if people would stop making the crime solvers wait hours or days for information. Ask any detective.

  He called at six, just as my family was sitting down at the supper table. I told him I wanted to talk with him about Saberfox’s proclivity to employing ex-athletes, fencers in particular, and about Albert Kirkland in particular. I also told him I was sitting down to supper and asked if we could meet later in the evening. He said we could.

  “Have you ever been to the Fireside?” I asked.

  “Isn’t that where Al got killed?”

  “He got killed in the parking lot, not in the bar. Any objections to going there?”

  He hesitated, then said, “No, I guess not.”

  “I’ll pick you up at eight and we’ll have a beer while we chat.”

  When I sat down at the table, Zee asked, “What was that all about?”

  I told her I was going to have a talk with Paul Fox about the people who worked for Saberfox.

  She frowned. “This isn’t going to be dangerous, is it?”

  “Not a chance. We’re going to have a beer and talk and then we’ll both go home. I’m through with doing dangerous things.”

  She chewed and swallowed and had a sip of the house red, then got up and walked to the gun case. She got the key off the top and opened the case and saw that my .38 was right there where it belonged. She locked the case and came back to the table.

  “All right,” she said.

  “Ma, what were you doing?” asked nosy Diana.

  “Nothing, dear,” said her mother.

  “When are you going to show Joshua and me how to shoot, Ma?”

  Zee was by far the best shot in the family, as attested to by the pistol-shooting trophies accumulating in the guest room closet. She hated the idea of guns but loved shooting them at targets. She was what her shooting instructor, Manny Fonseca, called a natural. Life is full of ironies.

  “You’re still too little,” I said to Diana. “When the time comes, we’ll teach you. Until then, you know the rules.”

  Both children nodded and spoke in unison: “Don’t touch a gun. Don’t get in front of one. If you see one where it doesn’t belong, tell a policeman or your parents.”

  “For that you get an extra piece of dessert,” I said.

  Zee and I washed and rinsed the dishes and watched the news on our tiny black-and-white TV. Nothing in the world had changed very much. At seven-thirty I got into my down coat, kissed Zee, and went out.

  “Be careful,” said Zee.

  I drove to Oak Bluffs and pulled up in front of the Martin’s Vineyard Hotel, aka Saberfox Central. Paul must have been watching for me because he was in the car almost as soon as I stopped.

  “I’m not much of a drinker,” he said, “but I guess I can handle a beer in a bar.”

  “Maria will probably be glad to know that, and so will her mom if she ever decides to stop hating you. Neither one of them is heavy on the sauce as far as I know.”

  We drove to the Fireside. Because it was a cold night and the regulars were warming their innards with Max’s finest, we had to drive a ways up Circuit Avenue to find a parking place. We walked back and found an empty booth against the far wall.

  Bonzo was wiping down a table across the room. He smiled and came over.

  “Hi, J.W. Can I get you something?”

  “A couple of Sam Adams, Bonzo.” I aimed a thumb toward Paul Fox. “You know this guy? Name’s Paul. Paul, this is Bonzo.”

  Bonzo put out a thin, pale hand, which Paul Fox accepted. “Glad to know ya, Paul.”

  “Same here.”

  Bonzo went away and Paul looked at me, then at Bonzo’s retreating back, then at me again.

  “Bad acid,” I said.

  “Too bad.”

  Bonzo returned with two beers and we sampled them. Delish. You can’t beat a cold Sam Adams.

  “What is it that you want to know?” asked Paul.

  “Saberfox is known for hiring ex-fencers. You know why?”

  His answer suggested that he’d asked himself the same question. “I think there are two reasons. The first is that the people Donald knows best are fencers. Fencing was his life for many years, and most of the people he met were fencers. They don’t drag their knuckles on the ground, if you know what I mean. They’re smart and usually well educated. They’re sophisticated. They can read. They think.”

  “Are they all snobs?”

  He looked at me, then grinned. “You mean me, I guess. Well, yes, maybe a lot of them are. The ones I knew when I was fencing were a pretty proud lot. They thought of themselves as a bit above the crowd. They were fencers, not barbarians. They were gentlemen and ladies.”

  “Your brother never had that kind of reputation.”

  “He was a champion. He didn’t have time for lesser men. He was a competitor. You have to have a lot of vanity to be the best at anything.”

  I wasn’t sure he was right about that, but let it go. “So when he established Saberfox, he hired fencers because they were smart and competitive. That makes sense. Brad Hillborough fenced, you fenced, Donald, of course, fenced. Who else fenced? How about Peter Wall and Chris Reston?”

  He shook his head. “No, they’re my people. I brought them into the firm. They weren’t fencers, but they were athletes at college. Wrestlers. Another esoteric sport, like fencing, that most people have never heard of and no one who hasn’t competed can understand. Donald took my word that they’d be good employees.”

  “Does he still think so? The last time I saw him, he was after their scalps.”

  “When he found out why they were after you, he calmed down a little. If they’d acted like fools, they’d acted that way because they were trying to help me. He gave them a tongue-lashing and then a drink from his private stock of bourbon.”

  “Have you heard the latest about Rick Black?”

  His ears went up. “No.”

  I told him about the planted pistol.

  “Well, well,” he said. “It sounds like somebody tried to set him up as a fall guy.”

  I watched his face and asked, “You know anybody who owns a Walther P-38?”

  His hand strayed to the bruise on his chest. “I don’t know much about guns. I’ve seen some, but not since I got here to the island. Doesn’t Mrs. Donawa have one? Was it the kind you just mentioned?”

  “No. That was a twenty-two that belonged to her husband.”

  I wondered if his honest-looking face was a countenance I should believe. Devils often pose as angels.

  “Tell me about Albert Kirkland,” I said.

  24

  “Brad Hillborough brought Al Kirkland to the firm,” said Paul. “They met when Al was trying out for the Olympic pentathlon team the year Donald won the gold and Brad was Donald’s private trainer. I was still in grade school, but I heard about it later.”

  “I understand that Kirkland didn’t make the pentathlon team.”

  Paul nodded.

  “Al was okay as a fencer, but was uncomfortable on a horse and only average as a swimmer and runner, so he never made the team. But he impressed Brad with his hard work and later Brad talked Donald into hiring him. Al was grateful and became as loyal to Brad as Brad is to Donald.”

  I remembered Kirkland’s thin face and metallic manner when he’d come to our house with an offer and left with a threat. There hadn’t seemed to be much warmth in him.

  “Was he a good employee?” I asked.

  Paul thought awhile, then said, “He was smart and dependable. He did what he was hired to do and earned his salary.”

  “Did anyone in the company dislike him?”

  “Enough to kill him, you mean?” Paul shook his head again. “Al wasn’t easy to like, but as far as I know nobody hated him. They worked with him but they didn’t socialize with him.”

 
; “Did he socialize with Brad Hillborough?”

  Paul pursed his lips. When he answered, his voice was strangely flat. “He and Brad may have gone out together now and then, but as far as I can tell Brad is really only interested in my brother’s success. He doesn’t have much of a social life outside of the business. His life consists of Donald and Saberfox. I believe he’d die for either one. Not much else interests him.”

  “How did you get along with Kirkland?”

  “It was always just business. I never saw him outside of the office.”

  “I’ve heard you’re in line to take over the company someday. Would you have kept him on?”

  He wasn’t sure. “If that happens and if he’d been as loyal to me as he was to Brad, I probably would have. I’m Donald’s only family, so I’m the logical person to take over the firm if Donald retires; but if the time comes when I do take over the company, even Donald knows that our MO is going to change. I don’t like this business of challenging the titles of property belonging to ordinary people. I’d stop that. Maybe Al wouldn’t have wanted to work for me.”

  “How about Brad Hillborough? Would you keep him on?”

  This time Paul knew the answer. “Brad wouldn’t ever work for me. He doesn’t approve of me taking over Saberfox, so if that happens he’ll leave and go where Donald goes if Donald will let him.”

  “Why is he opposed to you taking over the company?”

  He shrugged. “He was there at the beginning and he doesn’t think I have the fire to keep it going. Donald runs the company the same way he fenced, with total attention. He’s almost a monomaniac. Maybe that’s what it takes to be a champion or to run a business. Brad thinks I’m a wimp by comparison. Maybe he’s right.”

  I had been thinking about some of the people who worked for Saberfox. I said, “In spite of his reputation as a heartless, cold fish, your brother seems to have a knack for instilling loyalty in some people. Brad Hillborough and Dana Hvide come to mind. You, too.”

  Paul looked at his beer. “Loyalty is a funny thing. It can be a curse or a blessing. Saints and devils are probably equally loyal, only to different bosses.”

  I emptied my glass. “Come on,” I said. “I’ll take you home. We’re beginning to talk philosophy.”

  He grinned a crooked grin and finished his drink, and we left.

  The next morning the phone rang while I was putting the last of the rinsed breakfast dishes in the drying rack. It was Joe Begay.

  “I’ve got some information for you. You want it over the phone or do you fancy a ride out west to Indian country?”

  It was a sunny, crisp day, with a chill blue sky arcing over the brown land. A good day for a drive. It might clear my head. I’d been thinking about the case, but not too well.

  “I’ll come up,” I said.

  The wind was from the west. It was light but the waters off toward Block Island cooled it and made Aquinnah a few degrees colder than Edgartown, so I was glad when I got inside Joe’s little house with a cup of coffee in my hand.

  “You ask questions about interesting people,” said Joe. “A friend ran the prints on that cup and came up with a guy who hasn’t been seen in more than forty years.”

  “Who?”

  “Fella named Juan Diego Valentine. Name ring any bells?”

  “No.” But I instantly knew I was wrong. “Wait.” My hand flew up to my forehead.

  Begay waited without expression, looking like one of his ancestors watching from a rimrock as a band of Spanish conquistadors come riding north out of Mexico.

  I reached back into my memory for the name but couldn’t quite find it. My hand came down. Why do we put our hands to our heads when we try to think?

  “Tell me what you know,” I said.

  Begay nodded. “Valentine was Spanish. His father and mother were both surgeons who worked for a world health organization and there was a younger daughter. The boy came to study at Tulane. Premed. Besides being a smart kid, he was a very fine athlete who seemed a sure bet for the 1960 Spanish Olympic team. He entered the United States in January of that year for his last semester at college but never showed up for his classes and hasn’t been seen since. Sound familiar?”

  “No. None of it.” Still, the name was niggling at me.

  Begay sipped his coffee. “I shall proceed, as they say in the navy. INS has his prints, but no new prints have showed up anywhere else since he disappeared. That’s quite a while between prints. How long have you had that coffee cup, anyway?”

  “Not long. What else do you have?”

  “Well, since my friend couldn’t find any information about Valentine that was newer than 1960, he talked to some people in Madrid to see if he could find out anything that happened before that.” Begay shook his head and his mouth curled up at one corner. “You probably won’t believe this, but on the morning of the day Juan Diego was scheduled to fly back to the United States for his last term at Tulane, he and another young hothead fought a duel over a girl. Yeah, just like in the movies. Swords at sunrise.

  “Juan Diego, being a good hand with an épée, won without raising a sweat, but had to get out of the country in a hurry. That, of course, was pretty easy because he already had his plane ticket and the others involved—friends of both parties and the girl—were slow to tell anyone what had happened. Honor and family pride and all that sort of thing. I see a little light in your eyes, my friend. You’ve remembered something.”

  “Yes. John Skye mentioned Valentine to me. Said he was supposedly the finest fencer of his day even though he’d never won a major championship of any kind.”

  “And you now have his coffee cup in your possession. Congratulations.”

  “What happened to the loser?”

  “He seemed dead for sure, but wasn’t. He recovered and he married the girl. How could she say no to a man who’d been willing to die for her? So much for the benefits of being the finest swordsman in Spain. As I recall, Cyrano didn’t get Roxanne, either. You want to tell me anything about where and how you got that coffee cup?”

  “I take it that when Valentine got to the United States he figured that the Spanish authorities would want him back to face homicide charges, so instead of going to Tulane, he decided to disappear.”

  “So it would seem. There are thousands of illegal immigrants in this country. It’s just that he’s been around longer than most. He is still alive, isn’t he?”

  “If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you. Do you fence?”

  “You mean with foils and sabers and like that?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “We must be the only two people in the world who don’t.”

  “I had a bayonet when I was in the army. Does that count?”

  When our families had partied on the beach together I’d seen a few scars on Joe’s body that hadn’t been there when I’d known him in that long-ago war where we’d met, so I had reason to believe that his current, unofficial work, whatever it was, obliged him to know more about cutting-edge weapons than he might admit.

  I said, “I don’t think a bayonet is quite the same thing. I’m surrounded by swordsmen. It’s weird. For years I only knew one, John Skye, and now I’ve got them coming out of my ears.”

  We drank our coffee.

  “You need any more information about anybody?” asked Joe.

  “Probably, but I don’t know what it is.”

  As I went out to my truck, Joe said, “Remember that Confucius say guns and swords are safest when you’re standing behind them and maybe a little bit to one side.”

  I thanked him for his wisdom and drove home, where I put a pair of latex gloves and some tape in my jacket pocket before driving to Oak Bluffs, where I found Paul Fox outside the Saberfox offices. He said he and Brad Hillborough were just going out to join Donald at the site of a prospective purchase.

  “Where was Al Kirkland staying before he met his maker?” I asked.

  Paul told me but added, “You can’t
go in the house because the police still have that yellow tape up. I guess the detectives don’t want anyone disturbing evidence.”

  My guess was that the detectives had probably already disturbed whatever evidence might have been there. I told Paul that all I wanted to do was check out how long it took to drive from Kirkland’s rooms to the Fireside parking lot. Paul wondered why that might be important. I told him I wasn’t sure it was, but it might be.

  In my rearview mirror I could see him watching me as I drove away.

  Al Kirkland had lived in a winterized cottage off Barnes Road, not far from where John Reilley lived in his underground home. I parked nearby and put on the latex gloves while I studied the neighborhood. There weren’t many people around. When there were none in sight I used my lock picks and slipped inside the house, neatly ducking under the yellow police tape. It was my third successful illegal entry in less than a week. Maybe I had a genuine talent for a career in crime. It was worth thinking about.

  25

  Kirkland’s place had that empty smell of uninhabited rooms and revealed little of his character or personality. The house had been rented furnished, and Kirkland had made no effort to personalize it in any way. His clothes still hung in a closet, his suitcase was still against a bedroom wall, and his razor and toothbrush were still in the cabinet over the wash-basin in the bathroom. A ballpoint pen and some sheets of notepaper were in the drawer of the bedside table, and a half-read paperback novel lay open and facedown on top of the table. When Kirkland had left home for the last time, he’d apparently had no reason to believe he’d not be coming back.