The Paperwhite Narcissus

by Cynthia Riggs

  “Ever since Colley wrote those reviews of Tom’s latest two books, Tom has had writer’s block. I think the obituaries were a way for Tom to get over the block and get even at the same time.”

  “Creative types are weird.” Casey shook her head.

  “But I think there’s a stronger reason. You know who Tom Dwyer’s wife is, don’t you?”

  “Phyl something. I don’t know her.”

  “Phyllis Jameson.”

  “Oh yeah? Any relation to Colley?”

  “Phyllis Dwyer is Colley’s third ex-wife.” Victoria braced herself against the console.

  Casey pulled back onto the blacktop. “No kidding!”

  “Tom Dwyer and Phyllis were high school classmates here on the Vineyard. They both went off Island to college and after she graduated from Columbia Journalism School, she met Colley, who was wifeless at the time.”

  “Oh yeah? Go on.”

  “A year into the marriage Phyllis became pregnant.”

  “Didn’t think Colley had it in him.”

  “Colley didn’t think so either. I understand they had a scene in which he accused her of infidelity.”

  “He should talk.”

  Victoria nodded. “Phyllis got a divorce, moved back to the Island, and after the baby was born, married Tom.”

  A hay truck turned onto the road and Casey slowed. Bits of hay flew up into the air, swirled in the truck’s wake, and patted against the Bronco’s windshield.

  “Wonderful smell,” said Victoria, sniffing the air.

  Casey sneezed. “Apparently that wasn’t the end of the story?” She sneezed again. “I gotta pass this guy.”

  “Phyllis asked for child support, but Colley attached so many strings, she refused to sign the papers Al Fox had drawn up.”

  The stripe in the middle of the road went from solid to dashed and Casey pulled around the hay truck. Victoria waved.

  “Who’s that?” asked Casey.

  “Ira Bodman. He lives in West Tisbury.” She looked thoughtfully at Casey. “He’s single. His wife left him. He has a daughter about the same age as your son.”

  “No thanks, Victoria.” Casey eased back into the right lane in front of the truck. “Keep talking.”

  “Colley’s daughter Lynn, Tom Dwyer’s stepdaughter, will be a senior at Hyannis Academy this fall. Tom approached Colley for help with college tuition and Colley refused.”

  “Doesn’t Colley’s family have money?”

  “Colley himself doesn’t. His father set up a trust fund, but Colley can’t touch the principal. After Colley’s death, the newspaper gets half of the money and his children split up the other half.”

  “What about his wife?”

  “The surviving wife gets half if there are no children. Otherwise, she gets a nice enough allowance.”

  “How much is in the fund?”

  “Around eight or nine million dollars.”

  Casey whistled. “Not bad. Colley’s daughter gets four million. Does Calpurnia know about the daughter?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t imagine so. Colley never has admitted he has a daughter.”

  They had reached the eastern edge of the State Forest. Acres of tall red pine snags stood out against the sky, skeletal branches contrasting with the new growth of scrub oak and jack pine below.

  “Pretty, those silvery trunks,” said Victoria, looking out at the dead red pines.

  “They’re a fire hazard,” said Casey. “One of these dry summers we’re going to have a big problem.”

  Sunday was the Fourth of July. The West Tisbury Fire Department held a cookout at the New Ag Hall in the afternoon. Anthony Rebello, the tall, bulky, black-bearded fire chief, seated Victoria at a round table under an umbrella, where she held court.

  Villagers milled around the smoky grills. Volunteer firefighters served up hot dogs and hamburgers and, paper plates in hand, the villagers moved on to tables piled with lobsters and ears of corn and roasted potatoes and salads and coleslaw. A knot of people hung around the beer keg, waiting until the pressure was pumped up enough to tease out more beer and less foam. Children and dogs ran around, getting underfoot, getting lost, getting into fights, crying or barking.

  Grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Victoria’s schoolmates brought her plates of coleslaw and salad, ears of corn, oysters on the half-shell, bowls of steamed clams and mussels, a lobster, a slice of watermelon, chocolate cake, Toll House cookies, brownies. Victoria ate all she could and surreptitiously fed what she couldn’t eat to John Milton, who had come to the picnic with William Botts and settled himself at Victoria’s feet.

  Victoria held out until after the fireworks and then her eyes started to close. She awoke with a start and a small snort. Anthony offered her his arm and escorted her to Elizabeth’s battered convertible, which was parked in front of the hall. Elizabeth drove home with the top down and Victoria watched distant fireworks over Edgartown to the east and Oak Bluffs to the north.

  “I won’t need to eat for a week,” said Elizabeth, once she’d parked under the Norway maple and put the duct-tape-mended top back up. She patted her stomach.

  Victoria sighed. “Another grand Fourth. I hope Colley’s all right.”

  Victoria slept late the next morning and awakened to the smell of coffee and rum-raisin muffins. She dressed hurriedly in her gray corduroy trousers and a turtleneck shirt printed with small rosebuds.

  “Morning, Gram. It’s supposed to be hot today. You’ll be too warm in that outfit.”

  “I don’t pay attention to weather reports.” Victoria helped herself to her usual shredded wheat with sliced banana, then looked up at her granddaughter. “You may need a sweater later.”

  Elizabeth laughed. “Want me to drop you off at the Grackle on my way to work? The harbor’s crazy busy this whole week.”

  “Thank you.”

  After they’d washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen, Elizabeth drove her grandmother to the Grackle office. Victoria waved good-bye and climbed the stairs to the loft. Botts was hunched over his Underwood. He looked up, the bags underneath his eyes more pronounced than ever.

  “One hundred and fifty-two subscriptions now. My wife hasn’t been able to use the phone for her own calls.”

  “I thought you got an answering machine.”

  “Yes, but no sooner does one person hang up than another would-be subscriber gets on the line.”

  Victoria patted John Milton, who wagged his tail and looked up with eyes less baggy than Botts’s. “Wonderful!”

  “I don’t want to publish a big city daily, Victoria. I keep telling you I don’t want to compete with the Enquirer. I liked what I had before. One page of West Tisbury news. Printed on the library copier. Subscribers I knew. Nice small-town stuff.”

  Victoria shook out the bright serape that covered the easy chair’s bare spring, put it back on the chair, and sat down. “You can’t halt progress.”

  “I don’t call this progress. Now I have a hundred and fifty-two subscribers and a staff of four to worry about.”

  “Four?”

  Botts nodded. “Matt Pease joined us.”

  “Good.”

  “He’s a photographer, not a writer. That means we have to run pictures. We’re going from four pages to eight this week.” Botts sighed and tapped his pencil on his desk. “This is not what I want out of life, Victoria.”

  “That reminds me, Matt has some photographs he wants me to see.”

  “Photographs? Of what?”

  “He didn’t say.” Victoria made a note to herself. “The subscriptions will cover staff salaries, now that I’m no longer on retainer to Colley.”

  “That’s another thing. With Colley’s money dried up, subscriptions won’t cover our costs. I’ll have to accept ads. Which means I have to get someone to sell ads.”

  “Good.”

  “Not good, Victoria. Where am I going to put all these staff people?” Botts gestured around the loft. His desk was in the middle of the f
loor. The trap door through which he raised and lowered John Milton’s basket was immediately behind his desk. On either side of his desk, the roof sloped down toward the floor, meeting it at a sharp angle. Light streamed through the big, open hay window at the back of the loft. In the one small space where another desk conceivably could be squeezed, a black area on the roof boards and a matching area on the floor beneath indicated a serious leak.

  “The library copier can’t handle the new eight-page format, nor can it handle the volume I now have to print, so I’ve had to work out a deal with Tisbury Printer.”

  “They’ll advertise.”

  “They’ve already agreed. Their ad is running this week.” Botts flipped his pencil onto a pile of papers on his desk. “I don’t have a spare moment to write.”

  “You need a business manager.”

  Botts groaned. John Milton looked up and thumped his tail. The telephone rang and Botts answered. His entire end of the conversation was a series of grunts.

  He hung up the phone with a decisive slap. “According to my wife, we’re now up to two hundred and three subscribers.”

  Victoria scribbled something else. “You’ll need to raise subscription rates. We’ll do more promotion. Perhaps an ad in the Enquirer. That would show Colley.”

  “No,” said Botts. “No, no.”

  The phone rang again. After a conversation that Victoria didn’t try to follow, Botts told the caller how to get to the Grackle office. “I’ll be here all afternoon, I’m afraid.” He hung up and folded his arms on his desk.

  “Who was that?” Victoria asked.

  “Two more job applicants. The high school kids.”

  “Tiffany and Wendy?”

  Botts nodded.

  “So they decided not to work for the Enquirer after all.”

  Botts tugged off his glasses, polished them, and put them back on. “I’m too old for this, Victoria.”

  “I think Wendy, the blond-haired girl, is interested in advertising. I’m sure Tiffany would like experience in the business end.”

  “High school kids?”

  Victoria looked up from her notebook. “You know, don’t you, that age discrimination applies to everyone?”

  “How do you expect me to pay them, Madam Reporter?”

  “The girls will work for room and board. They want the experience. Colley was foolish not to hire them.”

  “And just where are you going to find a place for them to live on Martha’s Vineyard in the height of the season?”

  “They can stay at my house,” said Victoria. “I’ve got plenty of room.”

  Botts leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head, and looked up at the slanted boards of the roof. “And what will we use for office space? There’s no room here.”

  “I’ll think of something,” said Victoria. “If you need a break, why don’t we drive up to Menemsha now and examine Fieldstone’s boat?”

  “I have to wait for my new staff members.”

  John Milton got unsteadily to his feet and put a large black paw on Botts’s knee.

  Botts patted the dog and stood. “Come on, boy.”

  John Milton climbed into his basket, which Botts then lowered to the barn’s ground floor, where the stalls still smelled of hay and horses.

  “Of course!” said Victoria.

  “‘Of course’ what?”

  “The horse stalls would make ideal office space.”

  “You’re talking money we don’t have.” Botts stopped. “Money I don’t have.”

  “Nonsense. All we need is a broom and dustpan. The barn has great character. Wendy and Tiffany can clean the stalls, and we can find furniture at the dump.”

  “When can we start?” Tiffany said.

  “Six staff members,” Botts muttered. “Six.”

  The girls were sitting on the loft floor with their backs angled to accommodate the slope of the roof.

  Wendy said, “You know, I bet, like, Lynn would love to work here. I mean, this place is awesome.”

  “Lynn?” said Botts.

  “She lives on the Island,” said Tiffany. “She’s in our class at Hyannis Academy.”

  “Lynn?” said Victoria.

  “Lynn Dwyer. You must know her, Mrs. Trumbull. Her dad, like, writes mysteries.”

  “Lynn Dwyer.” Victoria repeated.

  Wendy nodded. “She says everybody knows her dad. He’s a fisherman and a mystery writer.”

  “Well,” said Botts. “Well, well.”

  “Seven is a lucky number,” said Victoria.

  CHAPTER 18

  Victoria and Botts left the girls to clean the horse stalls with push brooms, trash can, window cleaner, and a heap of rags, and headed to Menemsha.

  They passed Chowder Kettle Lane and continued on to the small fishing village.

  “Have you eaten yet?” Botts asked.

  Victoria shook her head.

  “Neither have I. After lunch I’ll go up to the Coast Guard Station while you check Fieldstone’s boat.”

  They stopped at the small shack, newly opened for the season, that advertised the best quahog chowder on the Island and Botts went in to order. Victoria sat outside at a picnic table.

  The air smelled of honeysuckle, wild roses, and the ocean. A slight sea must have been running because Victoria heard the bell buoy on the other side of the jetty. Bees worked the honeysuckle on the fence behind her. She unzipped her sweater.

  Botts came out of the restaurant with two containers of chowder and packets of oyster crackers. They ate while the bees hummed, gulls mewed, and the buoy chimed.

  Botts finished his chowder first. He folded the cardboard soup container in on itself and tossed it into the trash receptacle. “I’ll get a copy of the accident report, Victoria. I’m not sure what you’ll be able to tell from looking at the boat.”

  “I’m not either,” Victoria admitted. After she’d scraped out the last morsels of clams and potatoes from her own container they drove over to the boat launching ramp, a short distance from the galley shack. S’Putter was high off the ground on wooden cradles.

  “I shouldn’t be more than three-quarters of an hour,” Botts said when he dropped Victoria off.

  “I don’t mind waiting.”

  Victoria leaned on her stick and watched until the truck was out of sight. Then she walked around the boat, watching where she put her feet on the uneven ground. The bow faced in, pointing up toward the red-roofed Coast Guard Station on the hill overlooking Menemsha Basin.

  The air was full of seagulls, swooping at fish in the tidal waters that raced through the inlet into Menemsha Pond. Victoria stopped, shaded her eyes with a hand, and looked up. A steep ladder leaned against the port side of the boat. She stepped back to get a better overall view and still had to crane her neck to see the top of the boat’s tuna tower, where the lookout could watch for fish. The view of the water from there must have been spectacular. She was no great judge of height, but the tower must have been at least twenty feet above the waterline.

  Victoria had sudden misgivings. Who was she to think she could find something on or around the boat that the Coast Guard had missed? The Coast Guard was trained to do this sort of work. She wasn’t.

  But the Coast Guard investigators had seemed so young. The lieutenant in charge was no older than Elizabeth, her granddaughter, and his helpers seemed like high school children playing dress-up in their trim uniforms.

  She might, after all, have an edge of experience they lacked. Victoria turned back to the boat.

  She examined the ladder that leaned against the side of S’Putter. The rungs seemed far apart. She held the sides, put one foot on the bottom rung, and looked up. The ladder was shaky. She set her foot back on the ground.

  She walked slowly to the boat’s stern. The blades of the twin propellers were twisted, as she’d heard they were, and the starboard shaft was bent slightly. What had she expected to see?

  Beach grass rustled against the hull of an overturned dinghy
that lay in the sand next to the cradled boat. Behind the dinghy Victoria saw a beach plum bush with a great quantity of small green plums. She must remember to return in October, when the plums ripened, and pick them for jelly. She brushed dried seaweed from the hull of the dinghy and sat down to think.

  The Coast Guard had concluded that Fieldstone had fallen off the bow, had been swept under the boat, and been sliced by the propellers. The Coast Guard was forever warning boaters against bow riding for this very reason.

  Victoria drew circles in the sand with her stick while she thought. The boat’s engines must have been engaged and the boat moving forward. Why would Fieldstone leave the wheel with the boat moving like that? He was an experienced boater and would probably have disengaged the engines before he went forward. Victoria shook her head. There was no way he could have fallen accidentally. Certainly not over the bow. Had someone pushed him?

  Victoria rose from her seat on the overturned dinghy and continued to study Fieldstone’s boat. She could see faint marks along the smooth finish on the starboard side. Possibly marks from another boat’s fender?

  She moved toward the bow and looked up again, half-closing her eyes. She could imagine Fieldstone facing someone, perhaps arguing with him. She could picture that person shoving Fieldstone and Fieldstone toppling over the bow pulpit.

  She made a sketch in her notebook. In the seconds after Fieldstone went overboard, he’d have tried to twist to avoid the propellers. Instead of hitting his head, the props cut across his spine. Victoria shuddered. He must have died quickly. Even the most hardened killer would have been appalled at the slaughter that resulted.

  She was still thinking when Botts returned and parked his pickup next to the S’Putter.

  “I’ve got a copy of the accident report,” he said. “We can go over it on the way back to West Tisbury. Did you learn anything?”

  Victoria showed him her sketch of the stick man toppling into the water. “You can see how his backbone must have met the propellers.”

  Botts studied Victoria’s sketch. “Not pretty.”

  Victoria put her notebook back into her cloth bag. “Someone killed him. No question about it.”