Vineyard Prey

by Philip R. Craig

  Just those four words, and then he left his body behind and went wherever the dead go next.

  I looked down at him. His still-open eyes were blue, I now saw, and his hair was brown and cut fairly short. A nice-looking guy in an average sort of way. He wore a wedding ring and a gold wristwatch that had cost a lot more than mine. You should never pay more than nine dollars for a wristwatch. The expensive ones don’t keep time any better and they get lost or broken just as often.

  I unzipped his coat, then went into the house, washed the blood off my hands, and put on a pair of the disposable rubber gloves we keep in a box under the sink. Back at the body I avoided as much of the blood as possible while I found the man’s wallet in a breast pocket and a flat black semiautomatic pistol in a belt holster. The wallet held money, credit cards, a photo of a young woman and two children, a driver’s license, and some business cards. The license had his photo and his name and address. Samuel Arbuckle had lived in Alexandria, just outside Washington. The business cards gave his name, phone number, e-mail address, and profession. According to the cards, Sam had worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency.

  Hmmmmm.

  I had read about the DIA. It was the Pentagon’s private spy outfit, meant to provide it with better intelligence than it was getting from the CIA. It not only conducted its own analysis of data, it had its own agents, including spies, counterspies, and other human assets.

  I went through Sam’s pockets but found only the usual stuff. No magic decoding ring or cyanide pill. In an inside coat pocket I did find his official DIA ID card.

  I kept one of the business cards but put everything else back where I found it. Then I zipped up Sam’s coat and went to the car and shut off the engine. A window sticker identified it as a rental car from an island agency. There was a smear of blood on the side of the car just behind the driver’s door.

  I went inside the house, buried the gloves in the trash container under the sink, and called 911.

  The EMs, the Edgartown Police, and an ambulance got there almost at the same time. Tony D’Agostine of the Edgartown PD spoke to me, looked at the body, and called Sergeant Dom Agganis of the state police, because in Massachusetts, except for Boston, which has its own homicide detectives, the state cops are in charge of all murder investigations.

  Dom arrived with Officer Olive Otero, with whom I did not get along and who didn’t like me either.

  “I should have known you’d be involved,” she said as she looked at me. “Covered with blood and standing over a dead body. At least we don’t have to figure out who did it. I’ll take that pistol.”

  I’d forgotten the pistol in my belt. I dug it out and handed it to her.

  “My gun hasn’t been fired, and the man died in my arms,” I said to Dom, ignoring Olive. “I’d like to take a shower and get into some clean clothes.”

  “Later,” said Dom.

  “We’ll need the medical examiner to make it official,” said an EM, coming up to us, “but I’d say the deceased died from an acute case of lead poisoning.”

  Dom nodded and looked at me. “Who is he?”

  “I don’t know,” I lied. “I was inside when he drove down here. He tried to make it into the house but this is as far as he got. He died pretty fast. I turned the car engine off and called nine-one-one. The car’s a local rental, so he’s probably from off-island.”

  Another police car came down the driveway and parked. Policemen with cameras and evidence bags got out. They said hello to Dom and began to look around and take pictures.

  “See if he’s got any ID on him,” said Dom to Olive. “Wear a pair of rubber gloves.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Olive.

  “And put that gun in an evidence bag.”

  “Yes, sir.” Olive was all business.

  “Now,” said Dom, “if you don’t know this guy, why do you suppose he drove down here so he could die in your front yard?”

  10

  “I don’t know why he came here,” I said.

  “He say anything?”

  “Yes. Four words. He said, ‘Not the Bunny. Tailgate.’”

  Dom stared at me. “That’s all? ‘Not the Bunny. Tailgate.’ What in hell does that mean?”

  “It’s what he said. He didn’t tell me what it meant.”

  “What’s a tailgate got to do with anything?”

  “I don’t know that either.”

  “You don’t know much, do you?” said Olive. “Well, well. Look at this, Dom. Our man here was a Fed.” She turned and held out Sam’s wallet and ID card. Agganis took them. I feigned a peek at them, but he frowned and waved me back.

  “Come on,” I said. “He died in my arms. Who was he? Who’d he work for?”

  “I guess it won’t be a secret for long,” said Dom.

  “His name was Samuel Arbuckle, and he worked for the DIA. You ever heard of the DIA?”

  “It’s one of those alphabet agencies in Washington. I’ve read about it. What was a DIA agent doing on Martha’s Vineyard?”

  “Better yet, who killed him and why did he choose your yard to die in?”

  “Yeah,” said Olive, “how about that?”

  “Maybe because he needed help and it was the first place he came to. Can I change out of these clothes now? I’m getting stickier by the minute.”

  Agganis nodded. “Okay, but put them in an evidence bag, and let me get some pictures of you first. Hey, Wilber, bring that camera over here.”

  Wilber took photos of me in my bloody clothes, and then more photos of my hands. He squinted at the hands.

  “How come your hands aren’t as bloody as the rest of you?”

  “Because I washed them off before I called nine-one-one. I didn’t want blood all over my phone.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He glanced at Agganis, shrugged, and walked off.

  “You know what, Dom?” said Olive, still kneeling beside the body. “I think our man, here, got himself killed with a shotgun. He didn’t know it was coming, either, because his own piece is still on his belt and his coat was zipped.” She scowled at me. “Say, you probably have a shotgun. I think we’d better take a look at it. Maybe you blasted this guy yourself.”

  “You’re in a sweet mood, as usual,” I said to her. Then I turned to Dom. “Come on in with me and you can check out the gun cabinet while I clean up.”

  “I’ll do that.” He nodded at Olive. “Keep people away from the corpse and take a look in the guy’s car.”

  I took a big evidence bag with me when we went inside. I use the outdoor shower seven months of the year, but by November I’m back indoors. While Dom poked through the gun cabinet I emptied my pockets, went into the bathroom, stripped, and put my bloody clothes in the bag. On the floor of the shower the water was pink for a while but finally cleared. I got into clean clothes and carried the evidence bag back out to the living room.

  “Those long guns of yours are getting dusty,” said Agganis. “How long has it been since you fired them?”

  “Years. I keep them out of habit and in case the kids want to be hunters when they grow up.”

  “I thought your wife had a small pistol along with this forty-five she shoots in competition. It’s not here.”

  Dom had a long memory.

  “She took it with her.”

  He studied me. “Why? She doesn’t usually pack iron. You’re not telling me everything. Why is Zee carrying? Why were you carrying just now? What’s going on? You lied when you said you didn’t know that guy, didn’t you?”

  I put up my swearing hand. “I never met him until he died in my arms. I’ll take an oath on it.”

  “You ever talk to him? On the phone, maybe?”

  “Not until he was dying. I told him I was going to call nine-one-one and he said those four words.”

  He shut the gun cabinet doors and locked them. “Where do you keep the key?”

  “Put it up there on top, so I’ll know where to find it.”

  “You’re a burglar’s best frien
d.” He put his face close to mine. “Now stop this bullshit. You know more than you’re telling me and I want it all. A man’s been murdered. Worse yet, he’s a Fed. This place will be swarming with his buddies within hours and they aren’t going to be as nice to you as I am, so talk to me.”

  I had been considering the certain arrival of federal agents once Sam’s death came to their attention. I figured that they’d be pressing me pretty hard to find out what I had to do with Sam, but I wasn’t willing yet to put Joe Begay’s name in the picture.

  Instead, I said, “Okay, I’ll tell you everything I know about that guy. It’s not much.” And I told him about Green Coat being in the Bunch of Grapes while I was there, then about seeing him across the street from the store, then about noticing the car following me and my effort to prevent the driver, who was Green Coat, from getting my license plate number.

  “I think he got it anyway,” I said in conclusion. “Anyway, the next time I saw him was here, today. When the car came into my yard I recognized it and got my pistol before I saw that I wouldn’t need it.”

  “Why was he so interested in you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What made you think you might need a gun when you saw it was him? Cars have driven down here before and you never pulled a gun on any of their drivers.”

  “People don’t usually follow me. I don’t like it. Yesterday I moved my wife and kids out of here and over to John Skye’s house till I can figure it out. That’s why Zee has her Beretta.”

  “But you never knew who the guy was?”

  “Not until just now.”

  “And you never talked to him?”

  “Not until he was dying.”

  “And you never shot him?”

  “You sound like Olive Otero. No, I never shot him, and I don’t know who did. I don’t even know for sure that he was shot, although he sure looked that way.”

  “You never heard a shot?”

  I thought about that, then said, “I might have, but if I did I didn’t think about it. This is deer season and you can hear guns go off sometimes.”

  “Yeah,” said Dom. “There are hunters all over the place. If I wanted to walk up to somebody with a shotgun and not have them give it much thought, I’d put on an orange camouflage jacket and do it during hunting season.”

  I nodded. It has been said that the best time to murder somebody is on a battleground when bullets are flying everywhere. Hunting season is almost as good.

  “You own an orange camouflage hunting jacket?” asked Dom.

  “I have one in a closet somewhere. You want me to find it for you?”

  He shook his head. “No. I have one, too, and so do about half the men on Martha’s Vineyard. You sure you don’t have any idea why Arbuckle came to die at your house?”

  It was my turn to shake my head. “I think the chances are that my driveway was the first one he found and he knew he needed help. If it wasn’t that, I’d say it was because he’d traced my plates and knew who I am and where I live, and that he came here on purpose, knowing that he was badly hurt and might not have much time to say what he had to say, and thinking that I was the best available person to get the message.”

  “Why would he think that?”

  I didn’t have to feign ignorance. “I have no idea.

  I don’t know why he did it and I don’t know the meaning of what he said. ‘Not the Bunny. Tailgate.’ Those are the words, but they mean nothing to me.”

  Dom rubbed his big hand on his big chin. “You know any Bunnies?”

  “A long time ago I knew a girl called Bunny Montoya. And there are Playboy Bunnies, but I don’t know any of them. And there’s the Easter Bunny.” I heard the pause in my voice before I went on. “And there is or was a terrorist overseas who is or was called the Easter Bunny because he blew things up on religious holidays. I read about him somewhere. But Arbuckle didn’t say it’s the Bunny, he said it’s not the Bunny.”

  “If it’s not the Bunny,” said Dom, “what is it? And what’s a tailgate got to do with it?”

  “Arbuckle was hurt badly. He may have been out of his mind.”

  “Did he sound like he was out of his mind?”

  “No. His voice was faint but it sounded pretty sane as long as it lasted.”

  Agganis grunted. “Maybe the Feds can make something of it.” He turned and went outside with me in his wake. Olive Otero was at the car. He walked over to her. “Anything interesting?”

  “Look here,” she said, pointing at the blood on the side of the car. “Looks like maybe it happened like this: Arbuckle gets out of the car and the perp blasts him immediately. He manages to get back into the car and drive away. He lived long enough to get here.” She looked at me. “Unless Mr. Jackson killed him right here, that is.”

  “Maybe you know so much about what happened to Arbuckle because you did it yourself, Olive,” I said. “Why don’t you snap cuffs on yourself and run yourself in?”

  “Why don’t both of you just shut up?” said Dom. “Okay, boys, I guess we’re about done here.” He looked at a medic. “You can take the body away. Make sure it gets to the ME.” Then he turned to me. “Now that you’re all fresh and shiny, I’ll need an official statement from you. You want to give it here or in my office?”

  We did it in my living room with both of us talking into Olive Otero’s tape recorder as he asked questions and I answered them. I left Joe Begay and Kate MacLeod out of my story, which shortened it a lot, but otherwise told the truth. Before I filled in the gaps I wanted to talk with Joe.

  When he was done with his questions, Agganis rubbed his chin. “Any bright ideas about why the shooter didn’t give Arbuckle a couple more rounds while he was at it? Finish him off right there?”

  I shrugged. I’d wondered about that myself.

  11

  When the last police car had gone from my yard I wondered how long I could keep quiet about Joe and Kate.

  One of the advantages of always telling all of the truth is that you never have to remember what you said. I was well past that point now, and not for the first time, since it’s not unusual for me to keep some knowledge to myself. Usually it’s just because some information doesn’t seem important, but sometimes it’s because revealing the whole truth might not be in my best interests or in the interests of someone I value. I try to avoid out-and-out lies, but when I do lie I rarely feel guilty about it. I would have lied about knowing where Anne Frank was hiding and not have lost a wink of sleep.

  Most organizations, like most people, including me, tell mostly the truth most of the time. When the truth hurts, though, they ignore the issue, dance around it, tell half-truths and blatant lies, and attack their questioners to deflect attention from themselves. And there are certain organizations that will never tell you all of the truth unless they absolutely have to. Intelligence agencies, for instance. They hate bright lights.

  I dislike and distrust secret organizations and official secret keepers. Tell me that a meeting or a decision or a policy is secret and I immediately suspect that the odor eaters are covering up a bad smell.

  Still, right now I needed to know more about a couple of such agencies in particular and about U.S. intelligence operations in general. I knew that there were a lot of agencies and that the rivalries among them were legendary, but I needed to know more.

  One of the two that interested me was Joe Begay’s agency; but unfortunately for me Joe had never really told me where he worked, so I didn’t know its name, if indeed it even existed. However, I did know who Samuel Arbuckle had worked for: the Defense Intelligence Agency, so I could start there.

  All intelligence organizations being secretive by definition, I didn’t expect to get a lot of information about the DIA. However, one never knows until one noses, so I drove to John Skye’s house and sat down in front of our almost-brand-new computer. Zee was still at the hospital and the kids were at school, so I would have to do this on my own.

  Fortunately for me,
both Zee and the children were patient teachers, so even though I was a slow learner they had taught me how to take excursions into the Internet. I can’t do complex things there, but I can do simple ones, so when Google gave me the opportunity to search for a subject, I typed in “Defense Intelligence Agency” and hit “enter.”

  And, lo! Up came a lot of information about the DIA, such as its origins, its organization, its purposes, its relationship to other government groups, and the assertion that it employed over seven thousand people. Seven thousand people!? No wonder my taxes were so high!

  It didn’t mention Samuel Arbuckle as one of the seven thousand, however, so I wasn’t able to identify his role in the agency, and I wasn’t surprised when I failed to find anything that suggested that the DIA was ever involved with anything illegal. Heaven forbid.

  I thought about Sam. The fact that he had carried his ID with him suggested that he wasn’t doing a chore that required him to deny his affiliation with his employer. That didn’t tell me much, though.

  Did the DIA operate both at home and abroad? If it did, would it say so?

  I left the DIA’s website and went back to Google. There I entered a search for “intelligence agencies.”

  Bonanza again! There was so much information about intelligence agencies that I could have spent the rest of my life reading it. I gave it a couple of hours.

  First, I read newsmagazine and newspaper reports about general problems in the intelligence business: the separation between foreign and domestic intelligence and the relationships between the intelligence gatherers, the interpreters of that intelligence, and the policy makers who made decisions based upon those interpretations. I read about disagreements between agencies, about withheld information, about the consequences of good intelligence, bad intelligence, and improperly interpreted intelligence.

  I read about which agencies specialized in particular kinds of intelligence and of their fondness for acronyms. I read about SIGINT, HUMINT, and OSINT and learned that the first referred to signals intelligence, such as cryptography, that the second was an acronym for intelligence gained from human sources, and that the last referred to so-called open intelligence, gained from sources such as newspapers, books, radio, and television. Right now I was apparently involved in a bit of OSINT of my own.