She glanced at them and nodded. “Yes, they’re lovely. Did you come to talk to me about flowers, Mr. Jackson?”
“No. I want to talk with you about the letters that have been threatening Cricket Callahan. I just came from talking with Kenneth Eppers.”
“May I see your identification, please?”
“I don’t work for anybody, Mrs. Miller, but here’s my driver’s license.”
She looked at it and handed it back. “I don’t think I have anything to say to you, Mr. Jackson.”
“I’m sort of a cousin of Cricket’s,” I said. “This is a personal thing, nothing official.”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you. So, if you’ll excuse me . . .”
“I presume you know about the letters. There have been several of them. They seem to be tied to that last overseas operation that you headed.”
“I’m retired from the agency,” said Barbara Miller. “I’m forbidden by law from discussing agency activities. So, good-bye, Mr. Jackson.”
“You retired abruptly and under duress, Mrs. Miller. You had a promising career and you were very good at your work. And you liked it, too, I’m sure—”
“Did I?” she interrupted. “What makes you think so?”
Intuition spoke. “Because you’re not the sort of woman who would devote her life to something she didn’t like doing. You spent years at the IRS. You wouldn’t have done that if you didn’t enjoy it.”
“Wouldn’t I? There is such a thing as duty to country.”
I nodded. “Kenneth Eppers has a strong dose of that in his veins, and maybe you do, too. But you can serve your country in a lot of ways. You chose to work with the IRS. Are you telling me that you didn’t enjoy the work?”
Her horsey face momentarily revealed its big teeth. “No, I’m not telling you that.”
“And because you’re not, it’s reasonable to presume that when you lost your job, you’d be mad at the guy who fired you. The president of the United States, in this case.”
Again the big teeth appeared in her quick, horsey, ironic smile. “I wasn’t fired. I resigned.”
“Whatever. You have the motive and expertise to write and deliver those letters and probably to make good on the threat. Did you write the letters? And if you didn’t, do you know who did?”
She pulled off her gloves and shook her head, still smiling that ironic smile. “If you’re giving thought to a career in politics, Mr. Jackson, I believe you should reconsider your plans.”
“Though it will probably break dear Grandmother’s heart, I’ll take your advice. Do you know who wrote those letters?”
“Tell me what Ken told you.”
“Did he call you after I left him?”
“Do you always answer questions with questions?”
“Do you always ignore questions?”
“Actually, when I first went to work in Washington, a very good teacher trained me to avoid answering them if they were embarrassing, and to answer them expansively if it was to my benefit to do so. Surely you’ve observed the evening news bits: the very professional dancing and weaving that takes place during congressional hearings and investigations. Tell me what Ken told you.”
“You can phone him and ask him, if he hasn’t already phoned you.”
“Of course I can. I’m interested in your version right now. I can get his later, if I need it.” She gestured toward a bench shaded by a large oak. “Shall we sit while you talk?”
I could think of no reason not to tell her what she wanted to know. “I think I’m being outployed,” I said. “But, yes, let’s sit while I talk. Afterwards, if I’m lucky, maybe you’ll talk.”
“Maybe. You first.”
Me first. We sat, I talked, and she listened. She was a good listener, which was probably one of the characteristics that had made her competent at her job. When I was through, she thought for a moment, then nodded.
“Yes. That sounds like what Ken would say. He really was ready to retire anyway, I think. If it hadn’t been that last operation, it would have been something else.”
“But that wasn’t the case with you, was it?”
“You are a persistent fellow, Mr. Jackson. But, no, it wasn’t the case with me.” She glanced at my left hand. “I see that you’re married. Do you have children?”
I was caught off-guard. “No.” I thought of Zee’s expression when she’d looked at Toni Begay’s expanding belly. “Not yet, anyway.”
“There’s no not-yet for me, Mr. Jackson. I can’t have children, and I’ve known it since I was a girl. My husband and I considered adopting, but decided against it. Instead, we’ve devoted ourselves to each other and to our work. I cannot imagine anything worse than losing a child, but when I lost this job, after devoting almost half of my life to it, it was something akin to that sort of loss, I think. Or at least to losing a part of myself. It was a very terrible experience for me.”
The calm tone of her speech was in direct contrast to its content. Her face, too, was without any particular expression. It was as though she were talking about someone else, perhaps someone in a movie or a novel.
She went on: “Had anyone told me that a woman like myself, a mature woman who had made decisions affecting nations, would suffer such malaise at the loss of a job, I’d not have believed it. I thought my life had ended, and perhaps it would have, except for my husband. Ben saw me through it. I was depressed for months, and Ben stayed with me, putting his own work on hold, or farming it out to people less capable than himself, hiding every pill he could find in the house, suffering with me, taking the suffering onto himself, never letting me be alone with my despair until, finally, I began to be better. Until, later, I really was well, and knew that my work had to be seen as just that, my work. Not as my life.”
She smiled her equine smile. “And so you find me now, Mr. Jackson, a woman with neither job nor children, but with a loving husband and a more or less happy life.”
“And no impulse for vengeance.”
“None. I headed the field operations for that last project. Shall I avenge myself on a president who only okayed it on the advice of his director of intelligence?”
“You say you’re more or less happy. What do you mean?”
“Are you perfectly happy?”
“No. Do you know the contents of the letters to Cricket Callahan?”
She nodded. “Yes. I know about the letters because I’ve been interviewed by the Secret Service and others who harbor suspicions like your own. But to answer your question, you remember the pictures of that poor little girl, don’t you? Do you think I can ever be perfectly happy, having seen that face and knowing that I was in part responsible for it? I think I’ve gotten over the loss of my work, but I don’t ever expect to get over the picture of that little face.”
I sat there and looked at the lovely flower garden and thought that, as usual, old Will was right: Life’s a walking shadow. For some of us, at least.
I said, “Time will help you,” hoping that it would.
“Thank you.”
We sat a while longer. Then I said, “If it’s not you and it’s not Kenneth Eppers, who is it?”
Barbara Miller shook her head. “I don’t know. Someone who’s very angry. Very angry indeed.”
I thought about that, then looked at my watch and stood up. “My wife is waiting for me, and your husband is probably wondering what we’re talking about. You can assure him I haven’t succeeded in selling you another vacuum cleaner.”
“My husband is in Cairo, Mr. Jackson. He flew over two days ago and won’t be back until tomorrow. His business keeps him on the go.” She put out her hand, and I shook it. “Well, good-bye, Mr. Jackson.”
As I was turning toward the driveway, I heard the sound of an automobile engine and saw a Volvo station wagon come into the yard. It stopped, and a woman got out. Her smile was filled with large teeth.
She looked not unlike an older Barbara Miller, which turned out not to be surprising.
/> “I thought I heard voices.” Her smile was filled with large teeth.
Barbara Miller said, “Mr. Jackson, this is my sister, Margaret. She’s keeping me company while Ben is abroad. Margaret, this is Mr. Jackson.”
“How do you do, Mr. Jackson.”
We shook hands.
“You’re not driving me away,” I said. “But I do have to leave.”
As I walked down to the road, I ran things through my mind. They ran out the other side without pausing, as often happens to me. I wondered why Margaret’s face was familiar to me.
Zee was waiting impatiently.
“Well?”
I told her what had passed between Barbara Miller and me. When I was done, Zee put a hand on my knee. “The whole thing’s as fuzzy as ever to me.”
“Me, too.”
“Now what?”
“Now you take me to the safe house you’ve found, so I can use my wonderful powers of investigation to check it out before we stay there for the night.”
“Oh, you won’t have to do that,” said Zee. “You’ve been there before.”
“I have?”
“Sure. You know Bill Vanderbeck. It’s his place, up in Gay Head. He’s gone off-island for a few days with Angela Marcus, so his house is empty. Toni Begay arranged it for me.”
“Ah.”
Bill Vanderbeck was an uncle of Toni Begay, and Angela Marcus was a very wealthy widow. Both lived in Gay Head and had parlayed a shared love of gardening into something more after the death of her husband. So now they were going off-island together, eh? More evidence that romance doesn’t end when your hair turns gray. I liked both Bill and Angela, and was pleased that they were hitting it off. Particularly at the moment, because Bill’s house was just what we needed: a pleasant, secluded house with plenty of room for all of us. Close to the Gay Head beaches, too. Debby and Karen might want to relax on the colored sands at the foot of the famous cliffs, a place where they were quite unlikely to encounter Shadow or his friends.
“Well,” said Zee, “since you don’t have to use your famous skills to approve the safe house, that seems to leave us with some time of our very own, for the first time since Debby arrived. I think we should use it judiciously. What do you suggest we do?”
I leered.
“Not right here on Lambert’s Cove Road in broad daylight,” said Zee. “How about heading for East Beach? We’ve got the fishing gear we need, so we can try for some Spanish mackerel or bonito at The Jetties.”
“Sounds good. You drive and I’ll stimulate your primary and secondary erotic zones while we go. That way, we won’t waste a moment.”
“You just leave my zones alone, or we’ll end up in a ditch instead of at the beach.”
Zee started the Land Rover and we drove out the lower end of Lambert’s Cove Road and took a left. At the T in Vineyard Haven, the third worst site for traffic backups on the island—trailing only the dread Five Corners down by the Vineyard Haven ferry landing and Edgartown’s infamous A & P traffic jam—we took a right and headed for Chappy.
If Shadow was abroad, he didn’t seem to be paying any attention to us.
A half hour later, as we passed the Wasque bathing beach, I telephoned Karen and arranged to pick her and Debby up later in the afternoon.
“How are things going with cousin Debby?” I asked in closing.
“I think Debby has a beau. They’re both acting a little dopey.”
“And how about you and Acey?”
“He has nice eyes.”
“Have you told him that?”
“Not yet.”
We drove to The Jetties and tried for every kind of fish we thought might be there. We caught nothing. The sun was warm, and the pale August sky curved softly down into the brownish haze on the horizon. The dark blue waters of Nantucket Sound reached eastward toward the sea. Shadow seemed far away. I thought about that, and something glimmered far back in the dark recesses of my mind.
— 23 —
The glimmer remained a glimmer, nothing more, but I was encouraged, since it was the only light I’d seen since I’d first become aware of Debby’s problems. Both the light and Shadow were dim images, but they might become clearer. Sometimes that sort of thing happened.
A bit before five, we abandoned the fishless sea and drove to Acey Doucette’s house. Cousins Karen and Debby were showered and clothed for land activities when we got there, and both seemed on good terms with their respective men. Debby, in fact, seemed a bit moony, as did Allen Freeman.
I walked up behind Debby, put my big hands on her shoulders, and said, “Say good-bye, Debby.”
“Good-bye, Debby.”
I looked at Allen. “Say good-bye, Allen.”
“Good-bye, Allen.”
Two semi-wise-guy kids.
“You can see each other later,” I said, and directed Debby into the Land Rover.
Meanwhile, Karen and Acey accomplished a less reluctant separation, but not without eyeing each other with interest and making noises of their own about seeing one another again.
When all my crew was aboard, we drove off over the beach to Katama, joining the other ORVs trailing homeward.
“Did you have fun?” asked Zee, looking back from the passenger seat.
“Lots,” said Debby. “I want to do it again tomorrow, in the afternoon. Allen gets through work at three and has the rest of the day off.”
“I imagine Acey Doucette can get off work anytime,” said Zee, flicking her eyes at Karen.
“He’s a writer,” said Karen. “He can work whenever he wants to.”
If that was true, the writer’s life seemed like a pretty good one. No wonder people wanted to be novelists. On the other hand, I thought I detected a note of irony in the voices of both women.
Having given some thought to where I could shop with the least possibility of being spotted by either Shadow or the Secret Service, I stopped at Jim’s Package Store in Oak Bluffs and got a two-day supply of booze and soft drinks, and at Cronig’s Market in Vineyard Haven for food. Then we drove on to Gay Head, where, as the evening sun slanted in from the west, we eventually arrived at Bill Vanderbeck’s very ordinary house.
I knew Bill was supposedly on the mainland with his widow friend, but with Bill you could never be sure. I looked around, then led the way into the house through his unlatched door. Bill, like me, didn’t believe very much in locks.
“Who lives here?” asked Debby.
Nobody seemed home. “Bill Vanderbeck,” I said. “He’s a friend. There are bedrooms upstairs. Take your choice.”
“Where is he?”
“Wandering in America for a few days.”
“What does he do?”
“Some people say he’s a shaman.”
She gave me a studious look. “A shaman? Isn’t a shaman a priest or a medicine man? Is he an Indian?”
“I never heard him say he was a shaman, or an Indian, either, but most people would say he’s a Wampanoag, and some of them think he’s a shaman.”
Karen had been listening. “Isn’t a shaman someone who’s supposed to be able to influence the spirits? Is that what this man does?”
“I don’t know what he does,” I said. “All I know about him is that lots of times, people don’t see him when he’s there. One minute he won’t be there, and the next one he will. He says it’s just because he’s so ordinary that nobody notices him. Anyway, he’s not here now, and we have the place to ourselves. Or, at least, I don’t think he’s here now. Go find yourselves some beds.”
“A safe house,” said Debby, slinging her bag over her shoulder and looking at the stairs. “Just like in the spy movies.”
“Yes,” I said. “A safe house. Nobody knows we’re here. Not Shadow and not Walt Pomerlieu. We should be able to get a good night’s sleep without worrying about defensive perimeters or any of that sort of thing.”
“I have to tell Walt where we are,” said Karen.
Debby and Zee stopped what they were doi
ng. The four of us seemed, suddenly, to have become a tableau.
“If you do that,” I said, “it’ll no longer be a safe house.”
“Of course it will be. I have to tell him. I’m responsible for Cricket’s . . . for Debby’s safety.”
“If he knows where we are, other people will know.”
“I have to report to him. It’s part of my job.”
“Look,” I said. “When we get unpacked and settled in, we’ll take Debby out for a drive, and she can call her folks and let them know she’s okay. She can tell them all about her day, and they won’t be able to trace the call. Afterwards you can talk with your boss. You can tell him I’m taking the two of you to a friend’s house up-island someplace, but you don’t know exactly where. That’ll be the truth, because you really don’t know exactly where you are right now, do you?”
“No, but I know we’re at Bill Vanderbeck’s house in Gay Head someplace.”
“You can tell him everything but the Bill Vanderbeck part.”
“I don’t like this.”
I pointed at Debby. “And I don’t like having Shadow knowing where we are, where Debby is. If Walt Pomerlieu tries to fire you for keeping your mouth shut, I’ll tell him I made you do it.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Oh, yeah? And how did you manage that?”
“How should I know? I’ll think of something. Maybe I tied you to your bed and tickled your feet with a feather until you were completely in my power. Maybe I threatened Debby myself, if you didn’t do as I said. Maybe I said I’d kill myself if you told him. . . .”
“I don’t think that last one would work,” said Zee.
“The point is,” I said to Karen, “that you trust Walt Pomerlieu and his people, but I want at least one night when nobody knows where we are. I need a little time when I don’t have to worry about Shadow.”
“Time? How much time?”
I wasn’t sure. “A day. Maybe two.”
“To do what?”
A Deadly Vineyard Holiday Page 19