Vineyard Blues

by Philip R. Craig

  It wasn’t until the next morning, as I made breakfast and listened to the radio news, that I learned I was wrong about no one being hurt. A body, as yet unidentified, had been found in the ruined remains of the house.

  — 10 —

  Is there a worse death than death by fire? According to what I’d read, most victims in fires died not from flames but of suffocation, often while they slept, so maybe it was quicker and less painful than other deaths. Maybe the real horror of fire was experienced by those who survived the flames. I, at least, could imagine no more dismaying fate. My acrophobia and claustrophobia shrank to nothing by comparison. Better by far to fall or even smother to death than to be maimed by fire. My father’s life as a fireman in Somerville had never inspired me to follow in his professional footsteps; another career course, that of a policeman, had seemed a much safer one to me.

  Of course, policemen run risks, too, and my five years on the Boston PD had ended abruptly in the shooting that had left me with a bullet that still snuggled against my spine. But somehow even now, years later, being shot didn’t seem nearly as frightening as being burned to death.

  Zee and I listened to the radio for details but got few: a fire, the body of a person whose identity was being withheld until relatives could be informed, the building a total loss.

  I poured Zee’s coffee and she looked up at me and said, “You say the sirens sounded like they were headed toward the house where Corrie was staying.”

  I thought that’s what the scanner had said. “I can’t be sure,” I said. The morning wind was from the southwest and I wondered if I was imagining the smell of smoke floating down our long driveway.

  “I think we should go and see,” said Zee. “If that boy Adam got burned out, we can put him up for a few days until he gets his feet back on the ground.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t even his house,” I said. “There are a lot of houses in that area.”

  “We should go see,” said Zee. “Maybe we can help.” She put her cup aside and got to her feet.

  “Maybe one of us should stay here with the kids.”

  “They’ll be fine. They’ll stay in the car.”

  She rose and we cleared the table and stacked the morning dishes in the sink. We put Joshua and Diana in the old Land Cruiser and drove to the house where Corrie had been staying.

  It was a blackened ruin smoldering amid scorched trees and piles of water-soaked rubble. Firemen played hoses on the fallen walls while smoke drifted away downwind. There were several disheveled young people sitting or standing, looking at the remains of what had once been their summerhouse. I recognized a few faces I’d seen when I’d brought Corrie home. One of them was the boy who’d told us about Adam being missing. I also saw Ben Krane circling the ruin, his face dark and angry.

  I parked and went over to the boy. “Have you seen Adam Washington?”

  He gave me a vague look. “Adam? Yeah. He’s around here somewhere. Maybe he went to work, come to think of it. I’m not sure.”

  “How could he go to work when all his clothes are cinders?”

  An ironic smile flitted over his face. “Adam works on a garbage truck. He doesn’t need clean clothes. Most of the rest of us do.”

  I felt a small flicker of approval for Adam Washington, a college kid who was willing to work on a garbage truck.

  We looked at the smoking house for a moment, then I said, “Were you here when they found the body in there?”

  He shrugged. “I guess so. We were all here watching our stuff go up in flames after the firemen came. Nobody told us when they found the body, but we saw them bring something out on a stretcher and put it in the ambulance. I guess that was it.”

  “Did you see who it was?”

  “Jesus, no! It was in a bag.”

  From some recess of my mind a closed door opened and I saw once again the boxer pose of that long-ago charred victim who had burned himself to death in his own bed. I again smelled boiled hot dogs and nearly retched. Was it a real smell from this site or the memory of that one I’d smelled in Boston long ago?

  Frank Costa, looking tired as death, was drinking a cup of coffee by a fire truck. I went over.

  “I’ve had enough fires for a while,” he said. “They better catch this torcher quick.”

  “You should go home and let some of the other guys manage this.”

  He shrugged. “Everybody’s in the same boat.”

  “So you think it was arson.”

  “Two fires in two of Ben Krane’s houses in the same week? What do you think?”

  “I think you’re probably right.”

  “I ain’t a fire marshal or an arson investigator,” said Frank. “I’m only a gardener who volunteers for this work, so I could be wrong.”

  “So could I, but I don’t think so. Did you see the body they found?”

  “Hell, I was the one who saw it first. First one I ever seen. Had them bent arms you read about. Like a boxer, you know. Fire contracts the muscles or something like that; I forget.” He drank his coffee, his sooty face lined with fatigue and his red eyes weary and vague.

  “Was it a man or a woman?”

  “Hell, don’t ask me. I couldn’t tell by looking at it.”

  “Big or small? Tall or short?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t look too close.”

  “I guess I wouldn’t either.” Frank yawned. “I need about twenty-four hours of sleep, J.W., or I ain’t gonna be worth a damn when I go back to work. Maybe I’m getting too old for this firefighting stuff.”

  “Nah,” I said, “you’re good for another twenty years.”

  Frank had been with Edgartown’s volunteer fire department as long as I could remember. When I’d been just a kid, he’d been a fireman, and he, a small-town, amateur fireman, and my dad, a big-city professional fireman, had enjoyed a summer friendship whenever my father and my sister and I had come to the island for a holiday. Right now, he was about as old as my father had been when that warehouse wall had fallen on him.

  “There you are,” said a voice behind me. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  I turned and saw Ben Krane. His falcon face was gray with soot and his suit trousers and shoes were black from the ashes he’d been walking through as he’d circled and studied the ruins of his house. His dark eyes were narrow and hot. Beyond him, I could see Zee looking at us from the Land Cruiser.

  I said, “If this keeps up, you won’t have any houses left, Ben.”

  “You’re damned right about that! This is the third building I’ve lost since spring. Somebody is trying to burn me out of business!” He glared at Frank. “And nobody is doing anything about it! Not a damned thing. They haven’t got a clue about who’s doing it or why!”

  Frank was tired and irritable enough to tell the truth. “A lot of people wish you were out of business, Krane. You own half the slums on Martha’s Vineyard!” He put down his coffee cup and straightened. He was twenty years older than Krane, five inches shorter, and about forty pounds lighter. Krane, eyes ablaze, stepped toward him. I slipped between them.

  “What can I do for you, Ben?”

  His eyes were level with mine, and he almost put a hand on me to push me aside. But then he caught himself and stepped back.

  “I want you to find out who’s doing this. The fire people and the cops are doing nothing! If I leave it to them, I may as well burn my places down myself!”

  “Some people think you’re doing that already,” said Frank, trying to get around my outstretched arm.

  “Finish your coffee, Frank,” I said. “Let’s step away from here, Ben. Come on.”

  Ben hesitated, glaring at Frank, who, I imagined, was glaring back, then allowed me to walk him away from the fire truck.

  “I know what people think of me,” he said, when we stopped a distance away, “and I don’t give a damn. I pay my taxes and I give good service to the people who hire me. I play it straight as a realtor and as a lawyer and as a landlord. I don’t care whether
people like me or not. All I want is to be treated the same way as everybody else!” He glanced at Frank with angry eyes.

  The speech sounded rehearsed to me, but maybe it wasn’t. I thought that at least part of it was true: Ben really didn’t give a damn about what people thought of him.

  I hadn’t eased him away from Frank so we could discuss his proposal to hire me, because I thought that idea was nonsense; I’d done it to get him and Frank apart.

  “I know you must be frustrated,” I said, “but I don’t think I’m the guy you should be hiring. I don’t know a thing about arson or arsonists, and the cops and the arson investigators are professionals; you should leave it up to them to find this guy, whoever he is.”

  “I lost an office last year and three houses this year, and they haven’t found shit! I need somebody working for me!”

  “If you think you have to hire somebody, you should hire a professional investigator. Try Thornberry Security up in Boston. They’re about as good as you can get.”

  Krane shook his head. “What does a Boston outfit know about Martha’s Vineyard? No, I want somebody who knows his way around.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll work on it for a week. After that, you can find somebody else.” I named an outrageous fee, but instead of telling me to forget the whole thing, he surprised me by nodding.

  “Fine,” he said, and I had a job I didn’t want.

  — 11 —

  Krane put out his big hand and I automatically took it.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll put a check in the mail for the week’s work.”

  Beyond him, I saw Zee frown at the handshake.

  “Before you mail that check, there are some things you should consider,” I said. “You may find out something you don’t want to know, or I may find out something you don’t want other people to know.” Not long before, I’d said much the same thing to Susanna Quick. In reply, he said much the same thing that she had, but with a different tone.

  His eyes narrowed. “You’ll be working for me. You’ll report to me, not to anyone else.”

  “If I find out who did this, I don’t plan on keeping it a secret. The cops and the fire marshal will need to know.”

  He waved an impatient hand. “Fine. Tell them that. But don’t tell them anything they don’t need to know.”

  I pushed further. “I may find out something you don’t want me to know.”

  “I expect you to be discreet.”

  “Everybody has secrets,” I said. “You’re no different. I may have to pry around your life more than you want.”

  He frowned. “Leave me and my life out of this. Just find the guy who’s burning down my houses.”

  “Whoever you hire will be digging into your life. In fact, the cops and fire marshal probably already are.”

  His brows lowered. “What? Why?”

  “You’re a lawyer, you should know. When there’s a crime, there are always two stories involved: the criminal’s story and the victim’s story. When the two stories come together, the crime takes place. To find the connection, everybody working the case may want to know more about you than you want them to. The cops are probably already looking for the link, and I will be, too.”

  His face was hard. “I don’t like this.”

  He irked me. “We can call this deal off right now. But if you want me to work for you, I’ll need to know about the things you do that might have pissed somebody off enough to start burning down your houses. The guy may just think of himself as a humanitarian doing his bit to make the Vineyard a better place to live, but I doubt it. I think it’s probably personal. Unless you’re burning the places down yourself for the insurance money. That’s another possibility.”

  “That’s slander!”

  I’d had enough of him. “It’s a thought that’s probably crossed more minds than mine. It looks to me like we can’t do business. Find yourself another investigator.” I walked away.

  “Wait.”

  I turned back and saw him will his face free of rage.

  “Wait,” he said again through gritted teeth. “You’re wrong, but you’re right. I didn’t torch these places, but I know that some people probably think I did. Maybe if I were my insurer or somebody in the fire marshal’s office, I’d suspect me of doing just that. But I didn’t do it. And I want to find out who did. I’ll work with you any way you want.”

  I doubted that, but it was a start. “All right. Tell the people in your office to talk to me when I come by.”

  “What have they got to do with anything?” He was instantly on guard again. Like a lot of bosses, I suspected, he liked to keep his workers in the dark about some things.

  “They may know something useful to me.”

  “Like what?”

  “How should I know? Maybe I’ll find out when I talk with them.” I studied him. “Are we going to tangle like this over everybody I want to talk to and everything I want to know?”

  He took a deep breath. “No.”

  “Good.”

  He wasn’t ready to drop control, though. “I’ll fire you if you go too far.”

  I nodded. “And I’ll quit if you don’t let me do my job.”

  A small, perhaps bitter smile sliced across his face. “The check for a week’s work will be in the mail.”

  “I’ll keep you informed about what I find out. But don’t get your hopes up. I’m no arson investigator. I still think you should leave this to the pros.” I turned and walked back to the Land Cruiser.

  “Just find out who did this and stop him,” he said from behind me.

  “What was that all about?” asked Zee as I reached the truck.

  I told her, and watched a scowl mar her beautiful face. “I don’t like you working for that man.”

  “We can use the money,” I said. “Besides, I don’t like the idea of an arsonist running around town. He might decide to burn us down next.”

  “Ben Krane is a scumbag.”

  I didn’t think she was going to change her mind, and I wasn’t going to change mine, so I changed the subject instead. “Have you seen Adam Washington?”

  “No.” Her voice was sharp.

  “Ma, what’s a scumbag?” asked Joshua from the backseat.

  “I think I’ll go look for Adam while you educate our son,” I said. I smiled down upon the inquisitive child’s angry mother and walked away.

  I found a college boy back among the trees, sitting beside the moped that Corrie Appleyard had ridden into our yard. He had the look of a battle-weary soldier: face lined and dirty, shoulders sagging. He looked up at me with vacant, guilty eyes.

  “Have you seen Adam Washington?” I asked.

  He shook his head. He looked as though he might cry but had no tears within him. “No.”

  “Have you seen Millicent Dowling?”

  The question seemed to make no sense to him. Finally, he gave a slight shrug. “She’s gone away someplace.”

  “Where?”

  He stared at me, then said, “I don’t know.”

  “Where were you when this started?”

  He considered the question as though it was of little interest, then waved a languid hand. “I was over at the party with everybody else. We were all over there. And while we were gone, this happened. Jesus, all they have in this town is fires. Every fucking house on the island is burning down.”

  “Was Adam at the party?”

  He nodded. “He was there for a while at least. I was drinking beer and not paying much attention.” He nodded toward the ruin. “I wonder if that was him they found in there. I keep thinking that if I’d stayed at home last night, I could have kept this from happening. I feel like it’s my fault.” He sounded like a penitent in a confessional admitting to some sin.

  But I was no priest and had no spiritual solace for him. “It probably wasn’t Adam in there” was all I could offer.

  “I think it was him,” he said. “It’s all my fault.”

  I didn’t think so, but
the boy did. As somebody said, man is the only animal that blushes or needs to. In this case, the boy was deep in guilt over something that he had nothing to do with. We are strange creatures.

  “You have a place to stay?” I asked.

  “No, but I’ll find some place or other.” He waved at the smoking walls. “All my stuff was in there, but it wasn’t much. I can get more.”

  I looked past him at the moped and saw what looked like the side of a guitar case that was leaning against the back of the same tree. I stepped around the tree and opened the case. Corrie’s old Martin was in there, and I knew when I saw it that Corrie was dead, because he’d never have left the guitar out there if he were alive.

  Feeling cold and clinical, I took out the guitar and looked through the case. I found some picks and a couple of capos and some scribbled notes of what looked like songs in the making. Nothing else.

  I put the guitar back into the case and carried it back to the boy.

  “This is Corrie Appleyard’s guitar,” I said. “It’ll go to his family. You know where I can get in touch with them?”

  He looked at me with his dull, guilt-stricken eyes. “No. How should I know that? I don’t know anything about his family.”

  “Adam Washington is the grandson of a friend of his.” I looked into my brain for the name and came out with it.

  “Ernie Washington. Did Adam ever mention Ernie Washington or Corrie’s family?”

  “I don’t remember ever hearing anything about those people.”

  There wasn’t anything more that either of us could give to the other. I looked at the ruin.

  “You didn’t do this,” I said. “It just happened. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “No,” he insisted, “it was my fault. If it hadn’t been for me, it wouldn’t have happened.”

  Some people refuse to be comforted. The boy seemed to be the type, and since I only have limited patience with people who like to feel guilty, I ended the conversation and went back to the Land Cruiser.

  Zee was stiff-faced as I put the guitar case in the back and climbed behind the wheel. I ignored her expression and told her where I’d found the case and what little the boy had told me.