Murder at a Vineyard Mansion

by Philip R. Craig

  She hesitated, then stepped back and said, “I’ve told the police everything I know. You’d better go now.”

  She began to shut the door, but I put a hand on it. “I’d like to talk with Mr. Lupien before I leave.”

  “No. Not now. Please leave.” She pushed on the door but my arm was stronger than hers.

  I raised my voice. “Mr. Lupien, I’d like to speak with you for a few minutes.”

  He was there instantly. “Take your hand off of that door before I take it off for you!” He was a sturdy man about six feet tall, and his voice was hard and angry.

  I said, “You have a temper, Mr. Lupien. You don’t seem to be able to control it.”

  “You heard what I said. Take your hand away!”

  I took my hand away. “You tried to strangle Ollie Mattes not long ago and now I find you here with his wife. I’d like to talk with you about that.”

  Helga Mattes put her hand on his arm. “Don’t go out there, John. Just shut the door!”

  But John came out and shut the door behind him. “Have you no decency? Helga and the children are still in mourning.”

  I ignored his outrage. “Where were you when Ollie Mattes was killed?”

  The skin on his face seemed stretched to the breaking point. I almost expected it to split and reveal the bone beneath. I’d never seen anything like it. Then, when he heard my question, he suddenly relaxed.

  “I can prove I wasn’t on Chappaquiddick.”

  “Where were you?”

  “Right here. Right in this house. Helga can testify to that.” His voice changed tone. “I love Helga. She was getting a divorce, and we’re going to get married.”

  “If she loves you, she’s not a dependable witness. Women in love will swear their men were home in bed even when surveillance cameras and fingerprints and DNA evidence say they were killing somebody across town.”

  He was confident. “Then ask the children. They were here, too. And no one was in bed. We were watching television. We knew Ollie was at work, so I came over for the evening.”

  “Did the children approve of that?”

  “They knew about our plans. They want their mother to be happy.”

  Helga and John’s mutual alibi looked hard to shake, especially if her children backed them up. I shifted gears.

  “Did you know Harold Hobbes?”

  “No. Are you accusing me of murdering him, now?”

  “Did you?”

  “No. I didn’t even know the man. Besides, some of us, including me, were working late sorting mail when that happened and there are witnesses who can testify to that. You seem pretty anxious to make a murderer out of me, Jackson. I don’t like it!”

  “I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t like it either. Do you know if Ollie knew Harold?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Helga might. I’d like to ask her.”

  His anger came back. “You stay away from Helga, damn you!” His arms hung by his sides but his hands became fists.

  “Take it easy, John. She can answer here or at the station.” Then I softened that threat. “No one thinks she killed anyone and I have no reason to think you did, either. But if there have been two violent deaths, and if there was a link between the victims we need to know about it.”

  “Helga needs some peace and quiet, damn it!”

  I spoke soothingly. “She probably does. I’ll tell you what. I’ll ask her the one question. If she says yes, I’ll have to talk with her some more later and get the details. If she says no, that’s the end of it.”

  He took a breath and his fists loosened back into hands. “All right. But then you leave. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  We went back to the house and I asked the question. Helga said that she’d never heard Ollie speak of Harold Hobbes except to sneer at his letters to the editor. I took that as a no, apologized for my intrusion, thanked them for their help, and drove home wondering if one or both of them were lying.

  13

  It wasn’t even noon and I already felt like I’d put in a full day. And on the Sabbath, too, when I should have been resting. What must the Lord God of Hosts think of me?

  At home Diana was at the computer and Joshua was reading some printed material that had come with it. Zee was in the kitchen making a smoked bluefish salad for lunch. I put my hands on her shoulders and reminded her about my fishing date with Bonzo.

  “It’s nice of you to take him,” she said. “Bonzo loves to fish.”

  “How are things in Mongolia?”

  She threw me a smile. “They haven’t been so good since Genghis Khan stopped conquering the world. Ulaanbaatar has polluted air, it takes eleven hundred togrogs to buy one U.S. dollar, and the country suffers from dust storms, forest fires, drought, and zud.”

  “Oh, no! Not zud, too!”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “What’s zud?”

  “Those of us who speak Mongolian translate it into English as ‘harsh winter conditions.’ Also, the country’s landlocked, so there are no boats. I think you should think again about taking your vacation there.”

  “You’ve convinced me. Why the interest in Mongolia?”

  “What’s the greatest movie ever made?”

  “That’s easy. Citizen Kane.”

  “Right. The other night I got to wondering if Charles Foster Kane got his name from Genghis Khan, so this morning I looked Genghis up and one thing led to another and I looked up Mongolia while I still had my turn at the wheel.”

  “I thought it was Kubla Khan who built Xanadu.”

  “Genghis, Kubla, whatever. You’ve seen one Khan you’ve seen them all. You know what I mean? Besides, Coleridge was tripping when he wrote that poem, so how much can you trust him?” She put down her wooden tools and turned to me. “How about a kiss?”

  I gave her one and said, “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Was Charles Foster Kane named after Genghis Khan?”

  “Beats me. I know that Mongolia is just a hair smaller than Alaska, but I don’t know if Citizen Kane got his name from Genghis. Maybe if you look up Orson Welles on our snappy new computer you can find out.”

  “Some things are probably best left unknown,” I said, but she’d given me an idea.

  “Call the kids to lunch,” said Zee.

  I did that and after we’d eaten I claimed a turn on the computer. Diana was kind enough to show me how to turn it on and Joshua directed me to the Internet. Before I could do more, I was interrupted by Oliver Underwood, who jumped up onto the desk and walked across the keyboard. Strange things immediately happened on the screen. I removed Oliver, but was filled with fear as I looked at what he had created.

  “What do I do now?”

  Diana laughed. “Cats like computers, Pa!”

  “But look at the screen!”

  “Don’t worry,” said Joshua. “We can fix it.”

  He did something with the mouse, and the cat mess went away. I was back on the Internet. Whew. “Show me how you did that.”

  He did, and I hoped I’d remember what he’d done.

  “Now,” I said in my calmest voice, “if I want to find out about somebody, how do I do it?”

  “There are lots of ways, Pa.”

  “What’s the easiest?”

  Joshua was a good teacher. “Use your mouse to move your little arrow to this place here and click.”

  My arrow went flying all around the screen, but I finally got it pointed at the right spot and clicked my mouse.

  “That’s good, Pa. Now just type in the person’s name. Good. Now you can put your arrow over here on ‘Search’ and click again.”

  I clicked my mouse and found myself looking at a list of sites all claiming to have something to do with Ronald Pierson.

  I got more instruction from my children on what to do next, and clicked the first site. Up came information about Ron. However, as I read it soon became clear that I was not reading about Ron the house bu
ilder but about his father, Ronald, Senior, who had served as CEO of Connell Aerospace and allied industries between the reigns of Benjamin Pierson and Ronald, Junior.

  Ron, Senior, had done a good job with his companies and had left Ron, Junior, with a healthy and expanding business empire, according to the writer of the article, whose tone made me suspect that he was a writer hired by the company.

  My professorial children showed me how to get out of the site I was in and into another one, this one having to do with Ron, Junior.

  Ron, Junior, had been born in Connecticut, had been schooled at Exeter and Yale, had served as a navy pilot in the first Gulf war, flying off of the Teddy Roosevelt, had married Jeanette Washburn of Shaker Heights, Ohio, with whom he had produced three children, and attended the Episcopal church. Upon his father’s retirement, he had, at age thirty-five, taken over the reins of Connell Aerospace and other family companies and had brought them, bloodied but unbowed, through the turn-of-the-century stock market crash. He was now in his forties, about my age but very much richer.

  The site included photos of handsome Ron and his handsome family at home, other photos of Ron’s gigantic industrial plants, and others of Ron at work with his managers and workers.

  I didn’t see any photo of Ethan Bradford.

  A third site consisted of an article on political speculation in which Ron, Junior, was mentioned as a possible candidate for Congress or even the presidency. He was a moderate Republican, fairly conservative in his financial views but liberal in his social ideas. He and his family were blessed by good looks, and he was considered a tough but fair employer by the unions whose men and women worked his industries. To the pundits who were quoted in the article, Ron seemed like a comer to be watched.

  A fourth site consisted of a statement made before the Joint Economic Committee by a scientist who had reported on weapons technologies, including some being developed by Connell Aerospace. I followed the report pretty well at first, but when I got to magnetically insulated linear oscillators, neutral particle beam sources, and the use of magneto cumulative generators as explosive-driven power supplies, I realized that the English I’d studied in college was poor preparation for understanding what I was reading. I abandoned the site without tears, wondering if Ron Pierson himself understood any of this stuff, or whether he depended on his scientists to grasp it. I guessed the latter.

  A fifth site was a paean to Benjamin Pierson and to the industrial empire he had built, including Connell Aerospace. I was working my way through the history of Pierson’s business successes when Diana tugged at my sleeve.

  “Pa?”

  “What?”

  “It’s my turn now. I’ve been waiting forever.”

  I looked at my watch. Good grief. Bonzo must be wondering what had happened to me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I lost track of time. Tell me how to get out of here.”

  She did so. The kid was a whiz.

  I stood up. “Sorry for being so long, sweetheart.”

  “That’s okay, Pa. Thanks, Pa.” She climbed up into Captain Kirk’s chair and began issuing commands to the computer. It obeyed with alacrity, knowing it was no longer dealing with an oaf.

  “Well, how’d it go?” asked Zee. “Did you learn anything useful? Or anything at all, for that matter?”

  “Enough to ask a question before I go fishing.” I found Ollie Mattes’s phone number in the book and called his widow.

  “I’m sorry to bother you again,” I said, “but I’d like to know if you’re related to Ronald Pierson’s wife.”

  There was a short silence; then she said, “She’s my cousin. How did you know that?”

  “You were a Washburn and so was she, and you’re both from Ohio. I’d been wondering how Ollie managed to land that job as watchman. Would I be right in thinking he got it because you suggested it to your cousin?” There was another silence, so I said, “It’s very understandable if you did. Ollie needed a job and Ron Pierson needed a watchman.” There was another silence, so I added, “We can find out by talking to your cousin.”

  “All right,” she said. “I did ask Jeanette to ask Ron to help Ollie. Ollie was having a hard time finding work and we needed the money and he pressed me to get Jeanette to help. He said families had an obligation to help their kin. He yelled at me. It wasn’t much of a favor from Ron’s point of view but it meant a lot to us. Are you blaming me for Ollie’s death? All I did was help him get a job that he needed.”

  “I’m not blaming you for anything,” I said. “You tried to help your husband. You didn’t know somebody would kill him while he was working.”

  “I’m glad you think that way. I was just trying to do him a favor.”

  “I’m sure you were.” She had also been doing herself and John Lupien a favor. With Ollie at work, the two of them could be together. But I didn’t say that. Instead, I apologized again for intruding into her life and hung up.

  I looked at the tide chart on the fridge, then kissed Zee, took two rods from their hangers on the ceiling of the living room, went out and put them on the roof rack of the Land Cruiser, and drove to Oak Bluffs.

  A half hour later Bonzo and I were on Daggett Street and I was pleased to find us third in the ferry line, which meant that we’d be on the first ferry across to Chappy. At this time of day, though, most people who were going to Chappy were already there. The line on the Chappy side of the gut was the long one, as many of those people were already coming back.

  There was a theory among some SUV drivers that there was collusion between the owners of the On Time ferry and the Fish and Wildlife people who closed Norton’s Point Beach. It maintained that the On Time carried a lot more traffic when the beach was closed, and that a percentage of the increased take was fed to the F and W people. Look for the money, the theorists would say, nodding wisely to one another.

  We drove to Dyke Road and followed it past the Japanese gardens and over the bridge onto East Beach. There we took a right and drove past parked SUVs and the families of sunbathers and swimmers, some of whom were now packing up to go home as the sun headed west. At the south end of the beach I parked among trucks belonging to people who were more interested in fishing than beaching.

  I saw no fish under any of the trucks, but people were making their casts instead of standing around drinking coffee and talking, so I knew that someone had recently bent a rod. I got my rod and gave the other to Bonzo and we went down to the water to join the other hopefuls. Bonzo was in heaven. He didn’t care if he actually caught anything, he just loved to fish. In this case he got to both fish and catch fish. Two hours later we had a dozen nice midsized blues in the fish box and I put my rod back on the rack.

  “That’s enough for me, Bonzo.”

  “How about maybe just one more cast?” he said, his big empty eyes shining and his happy mouth full of smiles.

  “Sure.”

  And his cast was a good one. There was a swirl of white water as he reeled in and then his rod was bent and the line was singing as the fish fought a wonderful losing battle to stay wild and free. But all things eat and all things are eaten and it was that fish’s turn to be devoured, just as it would be my turn one day. The fish leaped and battled, tossing spray and racing first to the left, then to the right, but all the time being reeled closer to the beach until, finally, it was thrashing on the sand. Bonzo put his foot on it, careful to avoid the knife-pointed fins, hooked his fingers through its gills, careful to avoid the needle-like teeth, and carried it up to the truck. I used my plug retriever to get the redheaded Roberts out of the fish’s dangerous mouth, cut its throat, and added it, still writhing even in death, to the fish box.

  I put Bonzo’s rod in the rack. Bonzo was happy. “Gee, J.W., I think that was the most excellent fishing I ever had!”

  Good old Bonzo.

  I felt tired but renewed. Most of the beachgoers had long since returned home, so the ferry line from Chappy was shorter than it had been when we’d come over. At th
e Sengekontacket landing off the boulevard, we scaled the fish and rinsed them clean. At my house, behind our shed, we filleted them, then buried the carcasses in the garden to fertilize the veggies and flowers. I packaged half the fillets for Bonzo’s mother and half for myself, then drove Bonzo and his catch back to his house in Oak Bluffs.

  He stood at the front of his mother’s flowered walk, his arms full of packaged fish. “Gee, J.W., we did real good! My mom will be proud of me! Maybe we can go again sometime!”

  “We’ll do it, Bonzo. Say hi to your mother.”

  I drove home thinking about the ferry lines and wondering if Ollie Mattes and Harold Hobbes would still be alive if the Fish and Wildlife people had closed Norton’s Point Beach two weeks earlier.

  14

  I’d barely gotten seated at the breakfast table the next day when my son spoke up.

  “Hey, Pa!”

  “What, Joshua?”

  “There’s this kids’ summer school, sort of, and it sounds neat. Can we go to it?”

  “Yeah, Pa,” Diana chimed in. “Can we? All our friends are going. And we can use our computer to help us study! Please!”

  A child’s “please” can be an annoying but powerful word. I looked at Zee. “Do you know anything about this?”

  She handed me a piece of mail. “This came a couple of days ago.”

  I opened the envelope and read. The advertised program seemed mostly to offer nature studies, including guided walks though the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary and to various beaches. A big adventure would be a trip to Woods Hole to see what the scientists were doing there.

  “It’s only for a couple of weeks,” said Zee. “I told the kids that I’d talk about it with you, but your son, there, jumped the gun.” She looked at my son, who smiled back at her, unashamed of his brashness.