A Deadly Vineyard Holiday

by Philip R. Craig

  “It’s Zee,” I said, having recognized the sound of her little Jeep’s engine.

  The car stopped, its headlights went out, and darkness flowed back into the yard. It occurred to me that although it was Zee’s car, it might not be Zee. Moreover, after looking at the headlights, I was now blinded by the night. I felt foolish and angry.

  But it was Zee. She came up onto the porch, and I said, “Hi.”

  She found me in the darkness and put her arms around me. I felt the old electricity from her touch. “How come the guards at the gates?” she asked. “And how come no lights?”

  “I guess we can have lights,” I said, and put them on. “How are things in the hospital biz?”

  “They were fine when I left, and now they’re somebody else’s responsibility, because I’m taking a few days off to prepare for the presidential visit.” Zee gave me a kiss, then looked at Karen, then back at me. “How come those guys are up at the head of the driveway?”

  I told her about the bugs and the bomb, and her eyes got huge.

  “A bomb? Under our house?”

  “It’s gone now. Everything is all right.”

  “All right? What do you mean, all right? It doesn’t sound all right to me!”

  “Anyway, maybe it wasn’t really a bomb. In any case, it’s gone and so are all the bugs.”

  Zee lifted her eyes to mine. “A Secret Service guy came into the ER and told me he’d looked for a bug on my Jeep but didn’t find one. Do you know about that?”

  “I had him go up there. He didn’t find one, you say?”

  “No.” Zee studied me. “You have that look on your face. What’s up?”

  “What look?”

  “That look. The one that says you think you know something or that you’ve decided to do something. What is it you think you know or you’ve decided to do?”

  “Are you telling me I should abandon my hopes for a career as a poker player?”

  “Not if I get to play against you. Talk.”

  So I told her about my plans for tomorrow.

  “I think that’s a good idea,” she said, when I was done. “You’re not the only one who’s getting a little tired of bombs and other people messing around with our lives whether we like it or not. Tell you what: You find an ORV for us to use, and I’ll get the portable phones we need. I know some people I can borrow them from. I’ll get them in the morning after I go shooting. I also know a place where we can stay for a couple of nights.”

  “You’re shooting with Manny tomorrow?”

  “At eight o’clock. We’ll be done by nine, so Manny can get back to the shop.”

  I ran times through my head.

  “Okay. I want the rest of us to get out of here about five. Shadow might be asleep by then, but even if he isn’t, it’ll be hard for him to follow us without being spotted.”

  “Where’ll you go at five o’clock in the morning?”

  “Out toward Wasque. I’ll take a couple of rods so it’ll look like we’re going fishing, just in case anybody’s looking. Shadow will need a four-by-four to follow us.”

  “And what if he has a four-by-four?”

  “I’ll lose him on Chappy. I know the place and he doesn’t. If he stays on the beach to keep us from getting past him, we’ll come home on the ferry. If he covers the ferry, we’ll come home on the beach.”

  “And if there’s two of him?”

  “You know Acey Doucette.”

  “What about him?”

  “He doesn’t know it yet, but Acey is going to loan me that Land Rover he’s been trying to sell me for the past year. He’ll be glad to let me test-drive it for a couple of days so I’ll know how wonderful it is compared to my old Land Cruiser. When we come off of Chappy, it’ll be in the Land Rover, and Shadow won’t even know it’s us. He’ll be looking for the Land Cruiser, if he’s there at all.”

  “All he’ll have to do to see you is look in through the windows.”

  “He might try, but Acey Doucette’s snappy Land Rover has those dark, tinted windows that let you look out but don’t let people look in. Very fashionable in some circles, and just what we need.”

  Zee nodded. “Okay.” She looked at Karen. “You agree to all this?”

  Karen nodded reluctantly. “For the time being, at least. If it doesn’t work, we can change our minds.”

  Pragmatic Zee nodded back. “You’d better pack us whatever you and Debby will need for a couple of days, then. The same goes for us, Jeff.”

  I gave her a kiss. “I’ll take one last look around, then see you inside,” I said.

  Outside, the sounds of night seemed normal: the sigh of the wind, the distant barking of a dog, the cry of a night bird. I walked fifty yards up the driveway and back, listening, then circled the yard, moving, then pausing to listen some more, then moved again. I saw and heard nothing unusual. Walt Pomerlieu’s agents were not showing themselves.

  Our bedroom light was on, but the curtains were drawn and I could see nothing inside. I stood beneath the big birch tree for a while longer, then went into the house. Zee was already in bed. She watched me undress and set the alarm, then held up her arms and pulled me down.

  “I’ll be glad when we’re alone again,” she whispered. “I miss making the loud noises.”

  “Me, too. But I’ll bet we can do this in mime. What do you think?”

  She flicked off the light. The last thing I saw were her dark, burning eyes. Then she came to me.

  The alarm went off at four, and by five I had rods and quahog rakes on the Land Cruiser’s roof rack, and our other fishing and personal gear packed inside. While I worked, I thought about Joe Begay’s advice and decided to take my old police .38, so I stuck it under the front seat. Just in case.

  Since Zee didn’t have to be anywhere until eight, she was cook, and produced the full-bloat breakfast: bacon and eggs, toast, juice, and coffee. Classic high-cholesterol morning cuisine. Whoever first thought of the combination should be enshrined in the chefs’ hall of fame.

  “I’ll meet you in front of Manny Fonseca’s shop,” said Zee.

  “Make sure you lose anybody who’s following you.”

  “I will. Be careful.”

  Wide-awake Karen, sleepy Debby, and I got into the old Land Cruiser and pulled out through the brightening, predawn morning. It had not been many days before, on such a morning, that I’d first seen Debby coming along South Beach, bent on escape from what she deemed excessive constraints on her liberty. And look at us now: fleeing both Shadow and the Secret Service. So much for the classic choice between freedom and security; we had both and neither.

  At the end of our driveway, the two agents peered into the truck.

  “We’re going fishing,” I said. “Last two hours of the falling tide.”

  The men frowned.

  “It’s okay,” said Karen, flashing her ID. “I’m going along, too.”

  “I’ll call in and let them know,” said one of the men. “Where are you going?”

  “South shore,” I said.

  “Well, okay.” He stepped back and his partner moved their car aside.

  We pulled out and turned toward Edgartown.

  Karen actually laughed. “South shore, eh? I thought you only used that one during derby time.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Debby.

  “They say that you hear it all the time during the bass and bluefish derby,” said Karen, smiling. “Somebody comes in with a giant fish and everybody wants to know where he got it, so he says ‘south shore’ or ‘north shore,’ which means absolutely nothing because each of them is about twenty miles long.”

  About a half-mile down the road a car pulled out of a driveway and began following us. Shadow or the Secret Service? I drove steadily, slowing but not stopping at the stop sign at the V where the Oak Bluffs and Vineyard Haven roads meet, and going on into town past the empty A & P parking lot.

  Karen looked back at the car, then at me. “What are you going to do about that?”<
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  “I’m going to stay ahead of him.”

  “I think that’s one of our cars.”

  “I’m still going to stay ahead of him.”

  I took the right fork at Cannonball Park and followed Cooke Street to Pease’s Point Way, slowing but not stopping, as the law requires, at the corner of West Tisbury Road. The following car didn’t stop, either. Another outlaw. Where were the cops when you needed one?

  At the police station on Pease’s Point Way, probably. I thought of stopping there, but figured that the car would just drive on by and thus get between me and where I wanted to go, so I went on, ignoring yet another stop sign when I got to Clevelandtown Road and heading on to Katama.

  We went by the white rail fence that marks the estate of the only man in Edgartown with cannons on his front lawn, set, apparently, to repel an attack from the harbor. I stepped on the gas and the old Land Cruiser gained speed. But the car behind us lost no ground at all. In fact, it got closer.

  “If that’s a Secret Service car, why are you trying to stay ahead of it?” asked Debby.

  “Never mind that, dear,” said Karen. “It isn’t important. We can talk about it later, if you want.”

  Debby was silent for a while. But then she spoke in a voice that started low and cool and then rose in both volume and heat. “I’m sixteen years old. My dad is president of the United States. I live in the White House. I go to one of the best schools in the country. I’ve been to five continents. If I lived in some of the places I’ve seen, I’d probably be a married woman by now. I’d probably have babies and a house to take care of! But you’re both keeping things from me, just like I was a little kid who’ll have nightmares or something if I know the truth! I’m tired of being treated this way! You tell me what’s going on or you can stop right here and let me out of this damned car!”

  “Now, Cricket . . . ,” said Karen soothingly.

  “Don’t ‘Now, Cricket’ me!” cried Debby. “Stop the car, J.W.! Stop it right now.”

  “I’m not going to stop the car,” I said.

  “If you don’t stop the car, it’s kidnapping!”

  “See those lights ahead?” I asked. “Those are condominiums. South Beach is just the other side of them. When we get there, we’ll lose the car behind us, because we can drive on the sand and they can’t. We’ll go down the beach a way and then we’ll talk. And if you still want to get out of the car, I’ll take you back to the compound and leave you there. Meanwhile, be quiet and let Karen try to keep you alive!”

  “Keep me alive? What are you talking about?”

  The car behind us was getting closer, and it was clear that the old Land Cruiser wasn’t up to maintaining any kind of lead. I tried an ancient ploy.

  “Hang on,” I said. I slowed imperceptibly, then, as the following car got very close, slammed on the brakes. The Land Cruiser slued and skidded, and behind us the car did the same, braking and sliding to avoid ramming us astern. As it slithered sideways, its nose toward the bike path that paralleled the pavement, I accelerated away. The car recovered and came after us, but I had gained just enough of a lead for us to fetch the Katama entrance to the Norton Point Beach, shift into four-wheel drive, and head east over the sands toward Chappaquiddick, leaving our pursuers behind on the pavement.

  A half-mile down the beach, I stopped. To our left, Katama Bay shimmered under the brightening sky. Beyond its northern end, on the far side of the narrows, the white buildings of Edgartown could be seen. To our right, the waves of the Atlantic Ocean slapped against the beach. Beyond them, the sea reached to the south. I guessed that you could sail two thousand miles in that direction before reaching the nearest landfall. To the southeast I could see the buoy lights that marked Muskeget Channel, and immediately north of them the sky was glowing where the sun hovered just under the horizon.

  I turned off the engine and the headlights.

  “Time to talk,” I said.

  “Past time,” said Debby.

  “You’re probably right,” I said.

  “I’m not sure about this,” said Karen.

  “I want to know everything,” said Debby. “I’m not a child.”

  She was and she wasn’t. But I nodded. “We don’t know everything. A lot of it’s just suspicion.”

  “Tell me all of it. What you think and what you suspect. And what you’re not sure of, too, while you’re at it.”

  I remembered just a little of what it was like to be a kid who couldn’t get grown-ups to take me seriously. The memory was pretty distant, but it was still there.

  “I really don’t know if this is a good idea.” Karen’s voice was filled with discontent.

  “You’re insulting me,” said Debby. “Do you realize that?”

  “I’m not trying to insult you,” said Karen.

  “She’s trying to protect you,” I said. “She doesn’t want you to worry over things you can’t do anything about. She’s just being a big sister.”

  “I don’t need that kind of protection! I need to be told the truth.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “From the beginning?”

  “Yes. From the beginning. Everything.”

  I nodded. “Okay, cousin.”

  As I talked, the sun peeked over the sea, then rose, bright and life-giving, into the sky, tinting the clouds on the horizon with brilliant color, and dancing on the lips of the waves. I talked for a long time and told her everything.

  Well, almost everything.

  When I was done, I said, “That’s it, kid. Now it’s up to you. You can go on over to Chappy with me, or I’ll take you back to the compound. Maybe your folks would rather have you there with them, even if Walt Pomerlieu wouldn’t.”

  She thought about that for a while, then said, “It makes a difference, but I think I’ll stay with you.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  I doubted that either Karen or I was quite so sure, but I started the engine anyway, and we drove into the rising sun.

  — 19 —

  Acey Doucette lived down toward Pocha Pond, off the dirt road that goes that way after Chappaquiddick’s lone paved road ends. I’d originally met him fishing at Wasque Point, and had made the mistake of admiring his then almost brand-new Land Rover. Later, remembering my flattering remarks (mostly devoted to the aluminum body of his truck, which, unlike the metal of my own rusty Land Cruiser, would not corrode), he had begun a campaign to sell the truck to me.

  This campaign, I learned from mutual fishing friends and acquaintances, was due to Acey’s need for money as the result of his divorce from Nina, the wealthy woman who had, in fact, bought him the Land Rover as a wedding present. Acey, it seemed, was not only an English teacher at the high school, but also an aspiring novelist whose lifestyle, living alone in a large old house on Chappaquiddick while he typed away at his book, had struck his wife-to-be as incredibly romantic. He had done nothing to dissuade her of this view, probably since he held it himself, as his penchant for wearing a beret and a literary air indicated. The consequence was a marriage that lasted a few years and ended when Nina finally realized that Acey was probably never actually going to finish his book.

  “Acey is a good guy,” George Martin had told me, “but he reminds me of that character Grand in The Plague. You ever read that book?”

  “Yeah. Grand was the guy who spent his whole life trying to write a sentence so perfect that people would tip their hats to him. Or something like that.”

  “That’s Grand, all right. He never gave up working on that sentence, but he never got it right, either, and somewhere along the line his wife left him. Acey is like that. The way I hear it, he’s been working on chapter one for years, trying to get it perfect before he goes on to chapter two. I guess that Nina finally got tired of being a writer’s wife and took off.”

  “Another idyllic vision down the tubes.”

  “So Acey needs to sell the Land Rover so he can keep on eating until he finishes chapter one.
”

  We pulled into Acey’s yard, parked beside the Land Rover, and met Acey at the door.

  “You’re up and around pretty early,” said Acey.

  “Worm hunting,” I said, and introduced my cousins from Virginia.

  Acey was a good-looking guy with soft eyes and a ready smile. Although he was about my age, there was something eternally youthful about him, as though he had managed a Dorian Gray deal of some sort in his mid-twenties that kept him from growing any older. He had the look of someone who should be living in the Latin Quarter in Paris, in a loft, probably, with canvases stacked everywhere and a girl to look after him. His face was without guile and had a kind of passionate yet innocent sensitivity to it that, according to Zee, made him almost irresistible to women.

  “Including you?” I’d asked.

  “I have eyes for only you,” she’d replied, looking up at me and fluttering her lashes.

  Sure. Zee and I were married to each other, but neither one of us was blind.

  Now, I noticed that Karen was immediately interested in Acey. He and she shook hands a bit longer than was necessary, and seemed momentarily to forget Debby and me.

  “We’ve come to take a test spin in the Land Rover,” I reminded him.

  “Ah, yes,” he said, reluctantly turning away from Karen.

  “I’ll leave the Toyota as hostage.”

  “Fine. Maybe I’ll take it into town later.”

  “How’s the book coming along?”

  He ran a hand through his thick hair and grinned boyishly. “Well, you know. I’m working on it.”

  “Acey is a writer,” I said to Karen, who seemed to perk up at the news.

  “Really?”

  He gave her a private smile and a modest shrug. “Well, I’m trying.”

  I began to transfer our gear into the Land Rover. Debby helped. Acey and Karen talked. When the transfer was completed, my cousins and I climbed into the newer truck.

  “A couple of days,” I said to Acey. “I’ll take this machine out on the beach, and I’ll drive it around the island. Give it a workout. Okay?”

  “Fair enough,” said Acey. “Afterwards, maybe we can make a deal.”

  “Maybe so.”