Third Strike

by Philip R. Craig

  “When you’re a big person,” I said. “Not before.”

  “Pa?” said Joshua.

  “What?”

  “Can we have a dog?”

  “No. No dogs. We have cats.”

  The kids both giggled loud giggles. I’d been set up. They’d known the answer before they’d asked the question.

  Zee sat close to me. “How are you feeling?”

  I put an arm around her. “Good. I feel good.”

  Three days later, the strike was over. Joe Callahan had proved to be the magician everyone had hoped he’d be, and the big boats were running again, making extra trips to carry everyone who wanted to go back to the mainland.

  Not much had appeared in the papers regarding the attempt on Callahan’s life, but there were already rumors, because too many people knew something about it, and eventually there’d be trials.

  “Will you and Brady have to testify?” Zee asked.

  “Maybe. Prosecution witnesses.”

  “Will Brady face charges?”

  “I’m sure they’ll be dropped if they’re ever brought at all. After all, he not only saved Joe Callahan’s life, he saved everyone on that plane. They should give him a medal.”

  “They should give you one, too.”

  “I already have enough medals,” I said, reminded of the old ones from Vietnam, in the bottom drawer of our bedroom dresser. “Besides, you know what they say about awards.”

  “Yes, I do,” she said. “You’ve told that joke more than once.”

  “You’re sure you don’t want to hear it again?”

  “I’m very sure.”

  The children were off at a neighbor’s house for the afternoon.

  “Say,” I said to Zee. “How’d you like to go fishing? We have a couple hours before we have to pick up the kids.”

  “An excellent thought,” said Zee, getting up immediately. “The tide is wrong, and it’s the wrong time of day, but what the hell? Let’s do it!”

  As I was taking the rods and tackle box out to the Land Cruiser, the phone rang. When I got back into the house, Zee was holding the receiver in her hand. She looked at me. “Are you busy tomorrow night?”

  “No.”

  She spoke into the phone. “We’ll be glad to come. Thanks. See you then.”

  “Who was that?”

  “That was Joe Callahan’s right-hand man inviting us to dinner with the Callahans tomorrow night. Apparently the prez thinks he owes you something.”

  “What’s he serving?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “We can take him some bluefish pâté. I doubt if he has any of that on hand.”

  “If he thinks he’s grateful now,” said Zee, “he’ll really be grateful for that.”

  “As well he should be.”

  Then we strapped the rods on the roof of the Land Cruiser and headed for the beach.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Brady

  On the drive up from Woods Hole I plugged my cell phone into the jack in my car and tried calling Evie at her office, but her secretary said she was in a meeting and didn’t know how long she’d be. I asked her to tell Evie that I was back in America, heading home, and would see her when I got there.

  A half hour or so later, just as I was crossing the Sagamore Bridge, my cell phone jangled.

  “Are you all right?” Evie said when I answered.

  “Why wouldn’t I be all right?”

  “There are stories coming out of Martha’s Vineyard,” she said.

  “What kind of stories?”

  “About President Callahan flying in during a storm. About a terrorist roundup.”

  “Terrorists, huh?”

  “Alleged terrorists,” she said. “That’s how they say it. An alleged terrorist plot. There are no details. It seems to be in the realm of rumor. No official person says anything except ‘no comment.’” She hesitated. “I don’t suppose you know anything about such things.”

  “Why would I know?”

  She chuckled. “Because I know you and I know J.W., and you told me about Larry Bucyck getting murdered, and I just bet you do, that’s all.”

  “What time do you expect to be home?”

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  “Not really,” I said. “I’m just thinking that the proper way to tell you about my adventures would be on our patio with gin and tonics, not over the phone while I’m trying to negotiate the traffic on the Sagamore Bridge.”

  “Six,” she said. “I’ll be home around six. I’ll make a point of it.”

  “Meet me on the patio,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “It will be very good to see you.”

  I was sitting in one of our Adirondack chairs out on the patio with Henry, our dog, lying beside me, and a pitcher of gin and tonics full of ice cubes and lime slices on the table. Henry and I were watching the goldfinches peck thistle seed from the feeder.

  I couldn’t shake the memory of gripping the cold metal of that lethal Uzi in my hands and holding down the trigger and watching the red blotches blossom on Harry Doyle’s face and chest.

  When Evie came out the back door onto the patio, she said, “Hi, honey.”

  I turned and looked at her. She looked terrific. “Hi, babe,” I said.

  She started to come to me. Then she stopped. “Brady,” she said. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing’s the matter,” I said.

  She came over, sat on my lap, put an arm around my neck, and kissed my cheek. “You look so sad,” she said softly. She nuzzled my face and squirmed in my lap. “Oh, my dear man,” she whispered.

  “It’s okay,” I said. I pressed my face into her hair. “I’m not sad now.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Maybe later.”

  She picked up my hand and pressed it against her breast. I could feel her heart beating.

  She put her mouth against my ear. “We could…”

  I turned my face so that my nose touched hers. “Here?” I said.

  “I’ve really, really missed you,” she whispered. “I was so worried.” Her arm tightened around my neck, and her hand pressed hard against mine where I held her breast, and then she tilted her head and touched my lips with hers. Her eyes were wide with the question, and then her mouth opened against mine, and she said, “Oh,” deep in her throat, and then she shifted and lifted her skirt and moved to straddle me, and pretty soon there was nothing but Evie, and I felt whole again.

  I beat Julie to the office the next morning. I got the coffee going and shuffled through the mail and the messages she’d left on my desk, and I was happy to conclude that my presence would have been redundant if I’d been in my office on Friday and Monday instead of down on the Vineyard.

  When Julie came in and saw me sitting at her receptionist’s desk sipping coffee and reading e-mails off her computer, she said, “Oh, hello. How lovely that you could come to work today.”

  “The coffee’s ready,” I said. “May I pour a mug for you?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  I got up, filled Julie’s mug and topped mine off, and headed into my office.

  Julie followed me. We sat at the coffee table, Julie on the leather sofa, me in the leather chair.

  “What’s up?” she said.

  “What makes you think something’s up?”

  “You don’t get in early, make the coffee, and pour mine for me unless something’s up.”

  “I need to tell you some things,” I said, “and I need to leave some things out, and I want you not to ask me about the things I’m leaving out. Okay?”

  She shrugged. “You’re the lawyer,” she said. “I am merely your employee. I do what you say.”

  “Ha,” I said. “You are hardly mere, and mostly it’s I who do what you say.”

  “What’s up?” she said.

  “Larry Bucyck was killed while I was down on the Vineyard.”

  “Killed,” she said.

  �
�Murdered, actually,” I said.

  “Our client.”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, dear.” She looked at me over the rim of her coffee mug. “I want to ask what happened, and why, and what it means, and if it had anything to do with all the news coming from the Vineyard about President Callahan and the ferry strike and terrorists.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “But I won’t,” she said after a minute. “I won’t ask. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. “Here’s what I want you to do. Larry owned some property in Menemsha that I assume is worth quite a bit. I want you to check on the deed and title to that property, and I also want you to see if Larry had a legal will. I can’t even remember if we ever did one for him, or how his divorce affected the status of his estate.”

  Julie nodded. “I can do that. No problem.”

  “Also,” I said, “there’s a person named Sedona Blaisdell who lives there in Menemsha. See if you can find her number and get her on the phone for me.”

  “Sedona, huh?” She cocked her head and arched her eyebrows. “Pretty name. Somebody you, um, met down there?”

  I smiled. “Yes.”

  “Evie know about her?”

  “Evie knows about everything,” I said.

  “Oh, I’m sure.”

  She left the office, and a few minutes later the console on my desk buzzed. I picked up the phone, and Julie said, “I have Mrs. Blaisdell on line one.” She emphasized the “Mrs.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I poked the button for line one and said, “Sedona?”

  “Yes?” she said.

  “It’s Brady Coyne, from—”

  “I remember you,” she said. “Of course. How are you?”

  “I’m fine. I was just wondering how you were making out with Larry Bucyck’s animals.”

  “No problem,” she said. “Rocket is living here with us, and my husband actually seems to like him. I’m feeding the pigs and the chickens, which I don’t mind at all, but eventually we’re going to have to figure out what to do about them.”

  “I should have an answer for you within a day or two,” I said. “That’s why I’m calling. Is that all right?”

  “No rush as far as I’m concerned.”

  “I appreciate it,” I said.

  “It’s the least I can do for Larry,” she said.

  After I disconnected with Sedona Blaisdell, I called the state-police station on the Vineyard. I asked for Dom Agganis or Olive Otero.

  Olive came on the line. “Mr. Coyne,” she said. “You again.”

  “I’m back in Boston,” I said. “Out of your hair.”

  “Good. What can you do for me?”

  “I’m wondering about Larry Bucyck’s body.”

  “The medical examiner has it right now. I expect he’ll be done with it pretty soon. We’ve solved that particular crime.”

  “Who did it?”

  She hesitated, then said, “I don’t see any harm in telling you. It was that man Harry Doyle. The man you killed. Several, um, witnesses independently told us about it. Mr. Bucyck saw things he shouldn’t have seen, and these witnesses saw him see them, so they sent Doyle to be sure that Mr. Bucyck couldn’t interfere with their plan. If they’d been smart, they would’ve sent somebody to take care of you and J.W. Jackson, too.”

  “So the ME is ready to release Larry’s body?”

  “As soon as he knows to whom he can release it.”

  “I’ll get back to you on that,” I said. “Please don’t let him do anything without checking with me.”

  “You ask a lot, Mr. Coyne.” She hesitated. “But I suppose all of us down here are indebted to you. You and J.W. Yes, I’ll talk to the medical examiner.”

  “I appreciate it,” I said.

  On Thursday came the news that President Callahan had successfully mediated a settlement to the ferry strike. When I talked to J.W. a couple days later, he said that finally things seemed to be returning to normal. Summer people were deserting the island like rats from a sinking ship, the bluefish were blitzing off South Beach and Cape Pogue and Lobsterville, and J.W. was laying in a winter’s supply of his famous bluefish pâté. He and Zee were looking forward to the autumn, he said, and maybe Evie and I would come down for a few days and compete in the Derby.

  He told me that he and Zee had been invited to dine with ex-President Callahan. “I bet I could wangle an invitation for you,” he said.

  “You kids go ahead, have fun,” I said. “Give the prez my regards.”

  J.W. asked me if any law enforcement or Homeland Security types had harassed me. I told him no. He said they probably would.

  And they did, on the following Monday, just a week after I returned to America. A female agent named Hanover, a no-nonsense blonde woman of about forty, and her partner, a bald guy named Keene with gray eyes and a gray suit, appeared in my office and said they wanted me to go with them.

  I asked if I should bring a lawyer with me.

  They assured me that I wasn’t being accused of anything. They were simply gathering information.

  I said okay.

  They escorted me to the FBI building in Government Center in their black Ford Taurus, led me into a room with no windows, sat me at a rectangular table, and proceeded to depose me. There was a stenographer there, and several other people to whom I wasn’t introduced.

  Agent Hanover asked all the questions. She didn’t seem very interested in the details about the man I’d shot to death, which was a relief. Her questions kept swinging back to Dr. Lundsberg, and pretty soon I caught onto the fact that he had eluded capture. They guessed that he’d slipped away from the island Sunday afternoon before President Callahan’s plane arrived and all hell broke loose, perhaps on the big boat that J.W. and I had seen at his dock on Saturday night, and they thought he might have made it to sanctuary in someplace like Guatemala or Nicaragua, where extradition would be difficult, if not impossible.

  Lundsberg, I inferred, was the mastermind of the assassination plan. The various agencies were quite sure they’d rounded up all the other conspirators—Mortison, Zapata, and a dozen or more others.

  But Lundsberg was the prize, and he’d gotten away.

  I couldn’t infer much else from the questions Agent Hanover asked me. They were all questions of fact. She didn’t ask for my opinion or analysis or judgment, which was okay by me.

  And when we were finished, she didn’t thank me, either for my forthrightness at answering her questions or for my small part in preventing Callahan’s airplane from being shot down with a Stinger missile.

  I guessed I wasn’t going to be given a commendation. That was all right. They weren’t going to prosecute me, either.

  It took me about three hours to drive from my townhouse on Mount Vernon Street on Beacon Hill in Boston to Marcia Bucyck’s log home on a hilltop in East Corinth, Vermont. I’d called the previous day, told her what had happened to Larry, and asked directions to her place.

  We sipped iced tea on her front porch, which looked down on the rooftops and the single white church spire of the village. She had a long blonde braid with streaks of gray in it, and she wore blue jeans and a pink T-shirt and sandals. A pretty middle-aged woman with a soft smile and intelligent blue eyes.

  She told me that her two children, hers and Larry’s, a boy named Blake and a girl named Summer, had both gone back to college. She’d been married to a man named Sullivan for a while after her divorce from Larry, but it didn’t last very long.

  I told her how Larry had carved out a little Walden for himself in a patch of woods on Martha’s Vineyard, how he raised chickens and pigs, how he made a tasty quahog chowder and a deadly apple-pear-and-rose-hip wine, how he built stone sculptures that I guessed would stand there for eons, the Stonehenge of future generations, and as Marcia listened, she gazed off toward the village and tears brimmed in her eyes.

  I told her that the ME was holding his body, and I gave her a number to call. And I told her that Larry’s will
bequeathed everything to her, or if she’d pre-deceased him, to his two children equally, and that I’d handle the legal end of it if she wanted.

  She smiled and said she’d appreciate it.

  I told her that two real estate appraisers had estimated the market value of his seven acres in Menemsha at around two and a half million dollars and that Larry’s five pigs and eleven hens and one mostly basset hound were being cared for by Sedona Blaisdell, and I gave her Sedona’s phone number in Menemsha.

  Marcia thought she’d sell the property. She could use the money to pay for Blake’s and Summer’s college expenses, and their graduate school, too, if that’s what they wanted to do. She’d give the animals to Sedona Blaisdell if she wanted them.

  Then while we sipped iced tea, we talked about Larry, our memories of him. Marcia said she supposed she’d never really stopped loving him.

  Now, with the kids off to school, she was alone. She had a vegetable garden and some good neighbors and plenty of books, and she guessed she was beginning to figure out what Larry was seeking down there in Menemsha.

  “It’s really what we all want,” she said. “Robert Frost called a poem ‘a momentary stay against confusion.’ That’s about the most we can hope for out of life, isn’t it? A good poem?”

  I nodded. “If we’re lucky, if it is a good poem, and a good life, it begins ‘in delight and ends in wisdom.’”

  “Also Frost,” said Marcia.

  I nodded, finished my iced tea, glanced at my watch, and stood up. “I better get going,” I said. “Long drive.”

  She followed me to my car, and when I held out my hand to her, she ignored it and hugged me.

  Then I got in my car and pointed it south, to my home in Boston, to Evie, and to my own stay against confusion, however momentary it might turn out to be.

  Recipes

  BRADY COYNE’S SLOW-COOKED BRUNSWICK CHILI

  Brunswick stew originated in the Appalachian south around two hundred years ago. Its main ingredient was squirrel, but it became a catch-all for whatever kinds of meat happened to be available—chicken, pork, beef, raccoon, deer, opossum, bear, turkey, partridge—and local vegetables such as okra, corn, and various kinds of beans. Bubbling over campfire coals in a big cast-iron kettle, Brunswick stew was a favorite of hunters and trappers as well as big families on small budgets.