I followed him into his bedroom. The bed was made and there was no clutter. His mother had taught him how to be neat and he had learned well. Along one wall was a bookshelf mostly holding tapes, bird books, and recording devices. He went to a bureau and brought me a round plastic container that had once held something from a local deli.
I took off the lid and looked inside.
There I saw a medium-sized cup nest. It was battered but mostly intact. At first I didn’t see anything unusual about it, but then I saw the hairs that had been incorporated into the nest by the bird that had built it. They were long, strawberry-colored hairs, too fine to be from a horse’s tail or mane, too long to have been from any animal but a human being. My mind leaped back to the previous March.
“Nadine has hair like that,” said Bonzo in an unhappy voice. “I never seen anybody else with hair like that. How did that bird get Nadine’s hair?”
8
When Nadine Gibson had disappeared, people—her boyfriend in particular—had been questioned and communications had been exchanged between the island police and her people on the mainland, but no clue had ever been discovered as to what had become of her. In early March, Nadine had walked out of the Fireside after her shift and had never been seen again, but like most people, I’d guessed that she’d just left the island and hadn’t bothered telling anyone where she’d gone or why.
Until now.
I stared down at the nest.
“Where did you find this, Bonzo?”
He fidgeted. “Up there where I told you I go. It was there on the ground at the edge of the meadow.”
“I think you’d better show this to the police.”
He looked very nervous. “I don’t know, J.W., I don’t know.”
“They’ll want to see where you found it.”
He twisted his hands together. “Gee, that’s what my mom said, but I didn’t like that idea, so then she said that I should talk to you and now you’re saying the same thing she did. Gee…”
“What’s the problem, Bonzo? What’s bothering you?”
“You aren’t going to be mad, are you?”
“No. Your mother wasn’t mad, was she?”
“No. But the police might be. I don’t like people to be mad at me.”
“Tell me why you’re worried.”
It came in a rush. “It’s because I was up there on that land that belongs to the Marshall Lea people! You know how they don’t like people being on their land and they put up all them No Trespassing signs? Well, I go there anyway and I never see anybody watching so I hide my bike and go past the sign and I go to see birds and get their songs! That’s where I found the nest, up there on Marshall Lea land, and the police won’t like it when they find out and they won’t let me go up there anymore!”
I nodded. The Marshall Lea Foundation was my least favorite island conservation group. They had so many restrictions on the use of their land that I called them the No Foundation. No fishing, no hunting, no picnics, no horseback riding, no walking, no this, no that. No trespassing at all. Except for their own members, of course.
“I don’t think the police will be mad at you,” I said. “I think they’ll be proud of you for finding this nest. I think it may be important. So don’t be afraid. I’ll go with you to the station.”
He looked doubtful but relieved. He’d been under quite a strain.
“You’re important,” I said. “You’re the only one who can tell them where you found the nest.”
He thought about that, then nodded. “You’re right, J.W. I’m the only one.”
“I think the state police are the ones to talk to,” I said. In Massachusetts the state police handle all homicides and unattended deaths outside of Boston, which has its own homicide people. I put the lid back on the plastic container. “Come on. We’ll go in my truck.”
The state police office is on Temahigan Avenue, in Oak Bluffs, about a city block from the hospital where Zee worked and a long mile from Bonzo’s house. Sergeant Dom Agganis and Officer Olive Otero were stationed there year-round, and additional cops came down during the tourist season. It wasn’t considered hardship duty to summer on the Vineyard.
I parked in the lot behind the office, and Bonzo and I went in. Dom was doing something on his computer, whacking the keys with his sausage-sized fingers. He looked relieved when we arrived and gave him an excuse to stop what he was doing.
“Are you working on your blog?” I asked.
“I don’t even know what a blog is,” he said, pushing his chair away from his desk. “What brings you two here?” He nodded pleasantly at Bonzo. “How are things at the Fireside?”
“They’re good,” said Bonzo, who had served Dom enough beer and burgers to recognize him as a friendly customer. “Gosh, I didn’t know you were a policeman, Dom. I never seen you in a uniform before.”
“Well, now you know,” said Dom. “I wear my civvies when I’m off duty.” He looked at the plastic container that I had placed on his desk. “What’s this?”
“It’s a robin’s nest that Bonzo found yesterday while he was out birding. We thought you should take a look at it.”
“I’m no birder,” he said. But he took the lid off the container and looked at the nest.
“It may not be anything at all,” I said, “but those red hairs look the same color as Nadine Gibson’s. The girl who went missing just a year ago.”
Dom was instantly all business. His friendly look went away and he tipped the container toward the light. “I never knew the woman,” he said, “but I take it that you did.” He put the cover back on the container.
“She worked at the Fireside,” I said. “I saw her there. Pretty girl with amazing red hair. This is the color I remember.”
“You agree?” asked Dom, looking at Bonzo. “You should know. You worked with her.”
Bonzo nodded. “Nadine was nice and she was pretty and she had this really good, pretty hair that was the color of fresh strawberries. You know what I mean? I never seen anybody else with hair like that.” He frowned. “I don’t know how that robin got her hair. I don’t like to think about it.”
“Can you show me where you found this nest?”
Bonzo looked at the floor.
“He can show you,” I said. “But he found it on Marshall Lea land and he had to go by a No Trespassing sign to get to the place. He’s worried that he might get in trouble for that.”
“You won’t get in trouble,” said Dom. He put the plastic container in a desk drawer and reached for his phone. “Tell me where you went and I’ll have a couple Marshall Lea people meet us there, just so their noses don’t get out of joint.”
The property was off Barnes Road and was, as Bonzo had said, adorned with a No Trespassing sign.
“See,” he said as we waited there for the Marshall Lea representatives to show up. “There’s that sign, just like I said. I put my bike across the road behind that bush so nobody will know when I sneak in.”
“Lemme show you something,” said Dom. “Look at the back of this sign. What does it say?”
“It don’t say anything,” said Bonzo, studying the blank wood.
“That’s right,” said Dom. “Keep that in mind.”
“I didn’t know you were a Woody Guthrie fan,” I said.
“There’s a lot you don’t know,” said Dom.
A Range Rover stopped behind Dom’s cruiser and my truck. A lean man and a leaner woman emerged, both gray-haired and both wearing the informal but expensive clothes favored by people known to their critics as limousine liberals. I recognized Justin Wyner and Genevieve Geller, dedicated conservationists.
Genevieve eyed me with disapproval. We’d met several times before at meetings where we’d disagreed about how much access normal human beings should have to conservation lands. I was for more; she was for less and took the disagreement personally.
“Well, Officer, tell us again what this is about, if you will.” Her husband shook Dom’s hand and looked at
tentive.
Dom told him and added, “I told Bonzo, here, that you’d be as pleased with him as I am. I’m sending the nest to the lab, but meanwhile I know we’ll all want to see where he found it. This could be a break in that case.”
“Of course, of course,” said Wyner. “Lead the way, Mr. Bonzo.”
So we all walked by the No Trespassing sign and went into the woods.
The ground was spongy and covered with last year’s leaves. The new leaves weren’t out yet, so we could see quite a ways on an overgrown dirt road through the trees. Scrub oak and other undergrowth clutched at us as we passed. After a bit we came to a small meadow that was slowly being infringed upon by trees. On one side, with a tree growing up through brown weeds and collapsed floors from what had once been a cellar, were the remains of a small house. Not much more than a stone foundation and some ancient, rotting timbers were recognizable.
“Old farmhouse,” said Wyner. “Used to belong to the Ormsteads. The foundation’s owned the place for the past ten years or so. We’re letting it revert back to its natural state.”
Its natural state was woodlands. Already there were more woodlands on the Vineyard than there had been for over a hundred years. A century earlier the island had been mostly open farm and grazing land, but that had been before the tourists had found it and transformed its economy. Among conservation groups on the Vineyard was some debate now about just how far back in time land should be allowed to revert. Some favored letting nature take its course but others preferred to select the landscapes they thought best. I knew of at least one woodland that had been cleared of trees to form a sand plain.
My thoughts on the subject mostly had to do with the constant and increasing loss of access to fishing spots and hunting areas. I had pretty much stopped hunting, myself, but I didn’t like having conservation groups and new landowners shutting their properties to gunners whose fathers had used them for generations during deer and bird seasons.
“Show me where you found the nest, Bonzo,” said Dom, and Bonzo dutifully pointed to the far end of the meadow.
“This used to be a hay field,” said Wyner as we walked. “When I was a kid, my pals and I used to come up here in the summer to hunt rabbits. It was a good deal bigger then. The trees are closing it in pretty fast.”
And the grass, too, covering all, doing its work. Hearing Justin Wyner tell about hunting here long ago made me like him better for some reason. I wondered if his wife was equally human. I hoped so.
“Right here,” said Bonzo, stopping and pointing first to the ground and then to a large oak whose barren limbs thrust out over the meadow. “I know because I remember looking up in this here tree and wondering if maybe that’s where it fell down from.”
We all looked at the tree and then swept the ground and the woods with our eyes, as if hoping we’d see something important.
“It’s a robin’s nest,” said Bonzo. “They build them in the spring when they’re mating. In May and June, lots of times. So this one is old. Last year, at least.” He paused and frowned and became silent, pressing his lips together.
“How far will a robin go to find material for its nest?” asked Dom.
“Not too far,” said Genevieve Geller. “Robins like a sheltered, secure place to build, like up in the crotch of this tree, for instance. And they build where they can find materials. The female does most of the building but the male helps out. It takes less than a week for them to make a nest.”
Bonzo gave her a pleased look. “That’s right, lady. I like robins because they stay here all year and they sing in the wintertime, not just in the summer. They’re very nice birds. They like worms, you know.”
“I do know that,” said Genevieve Geller in a kinder voice than I expected. “They like fruit, too, and berries.”
“So it’s safe to say that the birds that built this nest got their materials from close by,” said Dom. “Is that right?”
“Correct,” said Genevieve.
“There are five of us here,” said Dom. “If you’re all willing, let’s get about twenty feet apart and walk in a big circle with this tree at the center. When we finish the circle we’ll go out to its edge and make another, bigger one. If we have to go farther, we’ll need to get more people. I don’t know what to tell you to look for, other than for anything that looks unusual: a mound of dirt, a piece of cloth, a sunken spot in the ground, anything like that. If you see anything, sing out and stay where you are.” He didn’t mention a skull or bones.
I was the last person in the line and had the farthest to walk. I’m not Daniel Boone, but I used to hunt and know how to move through the woods. I made the big circle, walking slowly and letting my eyes roam ahead and on either side of my path. I saw nothing, which wasn’t surprising considering the depth of the brown leaves that layered the ground. When I finished my circle, the others were waiting for me in the meadow.
No one had found anything so we all walked out farther from the oak tree and made another circle. When we gathered again in the meadow, again no one had seen anything of interest. Dom seemed neither surprised nor disappointed. Patience is a requisite if you’re to be a career police officer.
He looked at Justin and Genevieve. “If the lab tells me that it’s real human hair in the nest Bonzo found, I’m going to want to come up here with a bigger search party and go over these grounds with a fine-toothed comb. Do I have your permission to do that? If I have it, I won’t have to go to a judge.”
“You have it,” said Genevieve. “We’ll cooperate in any way we can.”
“Thank you. You can start by keeping this whole thing to yourselves. The fewer curiosity seekers we have up here, the better.”
Justin Wyner smiled a small smile and glanced at Bonzo. “Maybe we can put up a bigger sign.”
But Bonzo was thinking about something else and kept on thinking about it as we walked back to our cars. When we got there, Justin and Genevieve drove off first and Dom was about to leave when Bonzo made up his mind about what he should do and said, “I think you should know something, Dom. Once Nadine and me came up here together. She liked birds and we had a good time. It was last year, just before she went away.”
Dom frowned. “You brought her here?”
Bonzo nodded and looked up at Dom with his wide eyes. “Yeah, I did. Just that one time. She liked the old house and the meadow and the birds. She said she didn’t know you could be so alone on a crowded island like Martha’s Vineyard. I told her there was lots of places you can be alone and that I’d show them to her if she wanted to see them, and she said that would be good, but then she went away and I never did show her them places.”
Dom studied him. “Are you sure you never came here with her again?”
Bonzo seemed to shrivel before his gaze. “I never did. I was only here with her that once. You believe me, don’t you, J.W.?”
“Yes,” I said. “I believe you.”
But Dom was a cop and cops are careful about what they believe. They have to be, because they live in a land of liars.
Two days later I got a call from Dom as Clay and I were having morning coffee in my kitchen. “Just thought I’d call and see if you’re interested in being a member of a search party,” he said. “The lab confirms that those red hairs are human, so we’re going out this morning to see if we can find where they came from.”
“Can I bring a friend?”
“As long as he’s got good eyes. Be there in an hour.”
“Yes.”
I told Clay what was happening.
“I need a break from the boat,” he said. “I’ll be glad to join you.”
9
The skies were still clear, but there was a north wind bringing chilly air down from the mainland. When we got to the No Trespassing sign, we found the sides of Barnes Road lined with cars and had to park quite a ways from where we entered the woods.
There were forty or fifty people gathered in the meadow, including officers from many of the island’s
police departments. Because of ancient traditions and rivalries among the six island towns, Martha’s Vineyard has ten different police agencies, and it’s not unusual for them to view one another with scorn. Thus, the sight of them cooperating in this search was a little surprising and was due, I suspected, to Dom’s careful cultivation of good relations with all of the island’s other law enforcement agencies.
Other state cops were known to consider town officers to be a lesser breed and to cut them out of certain crime investigations, especially those whose profiles were high. This attitude naturally only encouraged the local cops to view the state cops with suspicion and hostility. Much valuable information and talent were thus never shared between agencies supposedly charged with common work.
These small rivalries and their consequences were, of course, only lesser examples of the larger and more famous and infuriating ones among the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and almost all of the other national and international criminal investigating and intelligence-gathering agencies, rivalries that were almost certainly responsible for the success of many criminal activities.
But Dom Agganis had, for today, managed to assuage island enmities and form a group of searchers who were, at least in part, trained in such work. He took the time to tell them what they were doing and why.
“There isn’t much to go on,” he concluded, “but the hair in the nest is long, red, and human, and it came from somewhere not too far from here. Work slowly and be patient. It’s easy to miss things in the woods, and it’s been almost a year since the girl disappeared, so it’s hard to guess what you might find. Let’s go.”
With so many searchers involved, we could work closer together and cover the area more thoroughly. We turned up our collars against the wind and moved slowly through the trees, alert to anything unusual. But the layer of brown, fallen leaves on the ground hid much, and though we discovered the sort of human debris that is found in the wildest of places—pieces of torn plastic, deflated balloons, unexplainable pieces of paper and cardboard, all stuff that escaped its origins and was carried away by the wind—we found no sign of Nadine Gibson.
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