“That would undoubtedly be prudent,” I said.
“Well, good.”
I shook my head. “Prudence was never my strong suit.”
“Just wait till I get home tonight,” he said. “We’ll go there together. Why don’t you spend a quiet day here, read my books, drink my beer, find a golf match or something on my television, have a nap, just relax? That’s what you’re supposed to do on the Vineyard in August.”
“That would be prudent, all right.”
He put his hand on my arm. “That Duval,” he said. “He comes across as this holy man. But he’s got these bodyguards all around him. They’re all big and tough and quick and utterly loyal. Duval calls them Simon Peters. I don’t think they’d hesitate to cut off somebody’s ear.”
“You trying to scare me?”
“Why, sure,” said J.W. “So what do you say?”
I shrugged. “I say okay.”
“Okay, meaning you’ll wait for me?”
“Okay, meaning maybe you scared me. But you know me. I’m not much good at lying around watching golf on TV when there’s something I need to do. I’m even worse at patience than I am at prudence.”
“You telling me you’re going to ignore my excellent advice?” he said.
I nodded. “I’m going to that ashram today, and I’m going to do whatever needs to be done to talk to Christa. If I’m not back here by martini time and you haven’t heard from me, call the cops.”
He looked at me for a minute, then shrugged. “Zee made me do it. She worries about you. I told her you’d ignore me, but she insisted.” He stood up. “Being careful is a good idea, you know.”
“I may be impatient and imprudent, but I’m not stupid.”
“There are those who’d debate that,” said J.W. “Here. I assume you want the sports page.”
I had a bagel with the family at the kitchen table, then retreated to the balcony to get the hell out of everybody’s way. That’s where I spent the morning, drinking coffee and reading J.W.’s newspaper and thinking about what I should do and how I should do it. Cars drove in and out of the driveway. At one point Zee brought Evangeline up to meet me, and I decided I agreed with J.W.: She was as beautiful in person as she was in the magazines. But Zee had her beat.
After a while Zee and the kids and Evangeline and her daughter all headed off to the beach.
By then I figured I’d thought about as hard and long as I was capable of, so I went to the guest room and changed into my Coop’s Bait and Tackle T-shirt, a pair of walking shorts, and sneakers. I found a Red Sox cap in J.W.’s front closet. It was an old one, predating the kind with the adjustable plastic band in back, but it fit just fine. It was faded and sweat-stained—or maybe that was bluefish blood. I suspected it was J.W.’s favorite fishing cap. I hoped he wouldn’t mind.
My little tape recorder wasn’t much bigger than a pack of cigarettes. I put a fresh tape in it, checked to see that the batteries were working, and slid it into my pants pocket. Then I looped my binoculars around my neck and checked myself in the mirror.
Brady Coyne, Boston barrister, your basic island tourist, a pale-skinned, middle-aged, bird-watching Summer Person. Innocence personified.
I found a travel mug in the kitchen cabinet, filled it up, switched off the coffeepot, grabbed my briefcase, and went out to the old Land Cruiser. It was around noontime.
I didn’t even try to retrace the cross-island maze of back roads J.W. had driven the previous night, and with all the midday traffic clogging the main roads I was familiar with, it took nearly three-quarters of an hour to drive from the Jacksons’ house in Edgartown to Indian Hill Road in West Tisbury.
I crept past the end of the driveway marked by the sign that read EXETER. I saw no sentry, no gate—nothing to indicate that anything unusual lay over the hill at the other end.
I continued along Indian Hill Road, with its NO TRES-PASSING signs tacked to tree trunks every fifty feet or so, and a couple hundred yards along it crested and abruptly ended. I pulled over, got out, and scanned the area with my binoculars. A quarter of a mile away, beyond a stand of low-growing pine and scrub oak, I glimpsed a cluster of white buildings.
Behind the buildings, a wide lawn sloped down to Vineyard Sound. A dozen or so people were at the beach. My binoculars weren’t powerful enough to make out their faces, but I could see that four men wearing long pants and skintight black T-shirts and dark glasses were spaced out along the beach with their backs to the ocean. They stood at parade rest looking watchful. The rest of the frolicking beachgoers were women in skimpy bathing suits. If one of them was Christa Doyle, I couldn’t tell, but they all looked young and vital.
I went back to the car, turned around, and headed back the way I’d come. I went slowly. I was looking for a turnoff where I could leave the car, walk through the woods and meadows to the edge of the ocean, and then follow it back to the beach behind Duval’s place—Brady Coyne, the innocent Summer Person, bumbling along with his bird-watching binoculars, hoping to spy on piping plovers and oyster catchers…and to see whether one of the bikini-clad maidens was Christa.
But Indian Hill Road was lined with KEEP OUT signs, and I found no inconspicuous place to leave the Land Cruiser. The last thing I needed was to get arrested for trespassing.
So much for Plan A.
Well, Plan B was more my style anyway.
So when I came to the driveway marked with the EXETER sign, I turned into it and started up the hill. I’d gone barely thirty yards when a man stepped out of the woods and stood in front of the Land Cruiser with his arms folded across his chest. He appeared to be in his mid-twenties. He was wearing dark pants, a dark T-shirt, and dark sunglasses. He had a crew cut, just like the men on the beach. He wasn’t particularly tall, but he had the broad chest and bulky shoulders and thick arms of a prizefighter. I saw no evidence that he was armed, although his body looked like a lethal weapon, and his expression suggested that he wouldn’t hesitate to use it.
I stopped the Land Cruiser, and an instant later another man, dressed the same as the first one and equally bulked up, appeared at my window. “Sir?” he said. “Do you have business here?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m here to see Mr. Duval.”
“Is he expecting you?”
“I don’t know. He might be.”
This answer didn’t seem to faze the man. “Your name, sir?”
“Brady Coyne. I’m a lawyer.”
Usually when I tell people I’m a lawyer, they react. People don’t like lawyers on principle, and even though I’m an uncommonly affable lawyer, some people don’t like me. Folks with something to feel guilty about are especially leery of lawyers. Folks who have trouble love lawyers until they get the bill. Nobody’s neutral.
But as far as I could tell, this guy had no feelings about my profession whatsoever. He just looked at me through his dark glasses and said, “What is your business with Mr. Duval, sir?”
“I’m here to talk to Christa Doyle.”
I watched his face closely, but Christa’s name aroused no reaction from the guy. “Please give me your car keys,” he said.
I did.
He pocketed them, then went over to the other guy, who had remained standing about ten feet from my front bumper with his arms folded. The two of them conferred for a minute, and then the one with my car keys took a cell phone from his pocket, pecked out a number, and held it to his ear.
The conversation lasted about thirty seconds. Then he came back to the car and opened my door. “Push over, please,” he said. “I’ll drive.”
I climbed over the console to the passenger seat, and he got in behind the wheel and turned on the ignition. The other guard stepped aside, and we went chugging to the top of the low hill and down the other side.
The layout was pretty much as J.W. had described it—a large, rambling, low-slung house with several ells built onto it, a garage that would house a couple of B-52s with room to spare, a wide, manicured lawn that sloped all t
he way down to the beach, well-tended gardens, curving fieldstone pathways. The place offered a spectacular view of Vineyard Sound and, out toward the horizon, the Elizabeth Islands.
My escort stopped in the paved parking area outside the garage. There were four other vehicles parked there—two identical dark green Range Rovers with tinted windows, a mint yellow Porsche, vintage 1975, I guessed, and a funky neon pink beach buggy on fat, oversize tires.
He took the keys from the ignition and pocketed them. “Stay there for a minute,” he said. He got out of the car, came around to my side, and opened the door. “All right. Step out, now, please.”
I stepped out.
“Face the vehicle and put your hands on the roof.”
I did, and he patted me down. When he felt my tape recorder, he reached gingerly into the pocket of my shorts, took it out, and slid it into his own pocket.
“Follow me, please.”
I followed him into the house. It was quite grand. The front foyer opened into a front-to-back room with floorto-ceiling windows on the back wall looking out to the ocean. This room was bigger than my whole apartment back in Boston. A rectangular oak conference table sat on an earth-colored rug in the middle of the room, and about two dozen straight-backed wooden chairs were pushed in around it. The walls were lined with bookcases, and matching stone fireplaces faced each other on the left and right walls. Here and there along the walls were little pedestal tables with abstract sculptures perched atop them.
The guard touched my elbow. “This way, please.” He steered me to a doorway just inside the foyer, opened the door, and held it for me. “Wait in here, please.”
I went into the room. The door closed behind me, and I heard the click of the lock.
This room was small and square and furnished with a leather sofa, two matching leather chairs, a low table holding a couple of potted plants, and a television set. There was just one window, which looked out to the driveway. I tried to open it. It wouldn’t budge.
A small video camera was mounted in the corner where two walls met the ceiling. It had a little red light that was winking on and off like an eye.
Okay, so I was a prisoner.
I sat on a chair and tried to look casual and relaxed, on the assumption that I was being watched.
Forty-three minutes later by my watch I heard the latch click, and then the door opened. The same guy who had brought me here held the door, and a fortyish man stepped in. He wore sandals, white pants, a white shirt, a white jacket, and a friendly smile.
“Mr. Coyne,” he said, “welcome to my humble retreat.” His voice was deep and hypnotic. It reminded me of James Earl Jones’s. “I trust Simon Peter was cordial?”
Simon Peter had closed the door behind him. I assumed he was waiting on the other side.
“Aside from frisking me, taking my tape recorder and car keys, and locking me up here, yes, he was quite cordial. Although I was beginning to get thirsty.”
When he smiled, his blue eyes crinkled. “My apologies for our negligent hospitality, as well as any inconvenience we may have caused you. It is unfortunate that we must take such precautions. I’m sure you understand.”
“No problem,” I said.
He held out his hand. “My name is Alain Duval. It is good to meet you.”
I took his hand. His skin was soft and smooth, but his grip was firm. “Brady Coyne.”
He gestured to one of the chairs. “Sit, please.”
I sat.
Duval tapped on the door, and it opened. He whispered something to Simon Peter, and then the door closed.
He came over and sat in the leather chair beside me. “Now, Mr. Coyne, is there some way I can be of assistance to you?”
“I need to talk with Christa Doyle,” I said. “I believe she’s here.”
“Christa Doyle?” He frowned. “No, I don’t know any Christa Doyle.”
“She’s eighteen. Black hair, dark eyes. She has an Eye of Horus tattoo on her left hip.”
He shrugged. I detected no trace of reaction to any of this in his expression. “I’m very sorry. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
At that moment there was a soft tap on the door, and then it opened and the guard came in. He had a tray bearing a pitcher of iced tea and two tall glasses.
“Put it there, please,” said Duval, gesturing to the table with the potted plants.
Simon Peter set down the tray, left the room, and closed the door behind him.
Duval poured two glasses full of the iced tea. He picked one of them up and took a sip.
I did the same.
“Sweet enough?” he said.
I nodded. “Hits the spot.”
“Now,” he said, “was there something else I might help you with?”
“She might be called Raven,” I said.
He looked at me with what seemed to be genuine concern. “The Doyle woman?”
I nodded.
“Raven, hmm?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “I am truly sorry, Mr. Coyne. I have devoted my life to helping people. I wish I could help you.”
“Her father is dying, you see,” I said. “He has just a short time, and he’s desperate to reconcile with Christa.”
“They are estranged, then?”
“Christa left home over two years ago.”
“And you thought you’d find her here?”
I shrugged. “I did, yes.”
He leaned forward and looked at me with intense interest. “And why did you think that, Mr. Coyne?”
Because J.W. saw her here, I thought. Because Christa and Evangeline both have Eye of Horus tattoos on their left hips.
Nope. I wasn’t giving away anything for free.
“Well, to tell you the truth,” I said, trying very hard to appear as if I were in fact telling the truth, “it was pretty much a wild stab in the dark. I heard there were some young people staying here, so I thought I’d give it a shot.” I spread my hands and smiled. “Worth a try, huh?”
“I sympathize with your quest,” said Duval. “I shall pray for your success.” He stood up. “Unless there’s something else?”
I shook my head. “No, that’s it. Guess I’ll just keep banging around. I’m pretty sure she’s somewhere here on the Vineyard. If you should hear anything, maybe you’d give me a call? I’ve got a photo of Christa in the car. I’ll write a phone number on the back of it where I can be reached.”
He smiled. “Of course. It would please me to help. You can give the photo to Simon Peter.”
“Thanks a lot,” I said. “That would be great.”
Duval tapped on the door, and Simon Peter opened it immediately.
“Please escort Mr. Coyne to his vehicle,” Duval said. “He has a photograph for us. Please deliver it to me.”
Simon Peter dipped his head, then gestured for me to follow him.
As I left the room, Alain Duval said, “God be with you,” in that rumbling James Earl Jones voice of his.
“I really appreciate it,” I said. “Thanks a million.”
Simon Peter gave me back my car keys and tape recorder, and when I got to the Land Cruiser, I saw my binoculars and briefcase sitting on the front seat. I’d left them in back. So they’d searched the car. No surprise.
I wrote J.W.’s phone number and my name on the back of a photocopy of Christa’s picture and gave it to Simon Peter. Then I lifted my hand to him and drove up the driveway.
When I looked back, he was standing by the garage with his arms folded, watching me.
I turned left at the end of the driveway and again followed Indian Hill Road to where it ended at the top of the hill. Then I turned around and retraced my route.
I drove very slowly, and a few hundred yards past the EXETER sign heading back to the main road, I spotted what I’d missed earlier—a break in the stone wall that paralleled the road. There appeared to be an old, rutted cart path angling into the woods. It was overgrown with waist-high weeds and clusters of sapl
ings. Here, I thought, I could pull the solid, old four-wheel-drive Land Cruiser far enough off the road to hide it from traffic on Indian Hill Road.
But not now. Now they’d be watching for me.
I didn’t think for a minute that Alain Duval had bought my bumbling bull-in-a-china-shop routine, any more than I’d bought his sympathetic holiness. Maybe it was second sight of some kind on my part, but I felt with absolute certainty that the great white guru with the mesmerizing voice knew exactly where Christa Doyle was hiding.
The question was: Why wouldn’t he let me talk to her?
Chapter Seventeen
J.W.
Evangeline and I stood there knee-deep in the ocean, and I saw the truth in her eyes. I had been right: Alain Duval was Janie’s father. The warm August water suddenly seemed too cold for her. She shivered, turned, and thrashed toward shore. But I was in front of her.
“Get out of my way!” As intended, her whisper slapped against my ears but didn’t reach shore.
“I’ll get out of your way,” I said in my own low, tight voice. “I’ll get out of your life, if that’s what you want. You can find yourself another flunky to keep the wolves away.”
She paused and flashed a look at Janie, whose laughter was mixed with that of my children.
“But if I stay,” I continued, “you’ve got to level with me. I won’t play this game any longer unless you do. This is your only chance. You won’t get another one from me. I can’t afford the risk. Too many people are already dead.”
She was an excellent actress. She reached down and brought up her hands full of water and emptied them over her head as she laughed for the audience onshore.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you whatever I can. You can sell your story to the tabloids and make a fortune when this is over.”
“I’m not a story seller. Does Duval know that he’s Janie’s father?”
“I was going to tell him when you took me to him. I thought he deserved to know, but at the last second I couldn’t.”
“I thought there was more to that visit than just an apology for leaving him.”
Second Sight Page 16
