INDIAN PIPES

by Cynthia Riggs

  They walked along the beach until they came to a log that had washed up on shore, and sat on it.

  Directly across from them they could see three or four cabins on the opposite shore of the pond, a half mile or more away, partially hidden by scrub oak. The buildings were weathered to a soft gray that blended into the gray background of oaks and lichens and mosses and stones.

  To their left, spray occasionally flew over the long slender bar at the south end of the pond, making shimmering rainbows. A fish jumped. Circular ripples spread out on the calm surface until the circles became so wide they faded away. A slight breeze riffled the water into a cat’s-paw that died out as quickly as it had appeared.

  “My sister had a room on the second floor next to Uncle Jube’s.” Harley spoke so softly Toby had to bend his head to hear. “I slept in a little room in the attic. It had a sloping ceiling and funny little angular closets tucked under the eaves. All night long I could hear the ocean. It was like a heartbeat, so steady and regular. Sometimes it was loud and frightening, sometimes soft and gentle, but always steady. In the morning, I could look out my window and see the ocean.”

  A gull flew over, its wings beating steadily. The air smelled of salt and sun-released pine resin.

  Toby put his arm around her.

  “If I tell you something, you won’t laugh at me?”

  He shook his head. His dreadlocks swayed back and forth across his shoulders with a clicking sound of beads.

  “When I was a little girl, I used to dream about my prince riding up to my uncle’s house on a white charger.”

  Toby nodded.

  “I used to pretend he would toss the reins over the horse’s back so it wouldn’t step on them, you know?”

  Toby nodded.

  “He’d slide off the horse, and I’d run to him. I was always wearing a gauzy white dress and flowers in my hair. Then we would walk on the beach, this beach, looking for lucky stones. His horse would crop the grass around the house. You know the sound?” She looked up into his black face, and he nodded. “This place hasn’t changed a bit since I was a little girl. Except the house is gone. That’s so sad.”

  “Now the white charger is a purple Harley, and your prince is black.” Toby held his arm around her more firmly. Harley put her hand on his thigh.

  “Mother and Uncle Jube had an awful fight about ten years ago. It had to do with my sister, who was twelve or thirteen at the time. She was much prettier than me. We never came back after the fight. My mother died two years ago. I never found out what the fight was about.”

  “But you can guess,” Toby said.

  “I can guess. I never talked to my sister about Uncle Jube and the fight with our mother.”

  Toby gazed across the pond, but his eyes were focused far beyond the opposite shore.

  “What happened between Uncle Jube and you?” he asked after they’d been silent for a long time.

  “He always had a scheme going, some way to make money or get at somebody for something they did to him. He was always like that. But he was beginning to get too friendly with me, you know what I mean?”

  Toby nodded.

  “I didn’t want to get too cozy with him. He kept telling me I was his heir, that I would own the house and land when he was gone. It was getting to me, you know?”

  “So you took up with the most unacceptable person you could find to get Uncle Jube off your back.”

  “I got to be honest with you, Toby. It started that way. It’s not that way now.”

  “Bugs has a point, sugar. You said it right when you told him Toby loves you. I do. But where will it lead? Would you want to spend your life with me? Would you want to have my kids? Some white— with purple hair.” He mussed her hair gently. “Some black as me. Some in between?”

  “How many kids we talking about?” Harley smiled for the first time.

  “Dozens,” Toby said.

  “Let’s shake on it.” Harley held out her hand, and Toby lifted it to his wide lips.

  “We got to think about it, sugar. You go to the grocery store with one of our black babies in the cart, and all the nosy ladies peer at our baby and peer at you, and they don’t say anything, but you know what they’re thinking.”

  “I can handle it.”

  “Where do we live, in some white suburb where people stare at me when I go past to my white-collar job? Or in some black ghetto where people stare at you and think, what’s he doing with that honky? Ain’t there a black girl good enough for him?”

  “The world is changing. It won’t be like that.”

  “It’s not changed that much, sugar. Suppose we have a fight over you spending too much money, or over me being out too late at night, or whatever. You going to throw in my face that you should’ve married one of your kind? Am I going to remember Jamesina Thompson, who was black as me, and wish I’d never tangled with some white chick?”

  “It won’t happen.”

  “Yes, it will, sugar, believe you me.” He gazed over the quiet surface of the Great Pond. “You see how peaceful this is? What’s it like in the winter? What’s it like underneath? Animals under that water are eating each other up. Even the oysters are sucking in little animals and digesting them. You hear that nice gentle ocean? You better not get caught in a rip current.”

  “Stop talking.” Harley put her finger against his lips. He took her hand away.

  “If we’re going to survive, you and me, we have to talk to each other. Don’t you ever hush me up. Don’t ever let me hush you up, you hear me, sugar?”

  “I love you, Toby.”

  CHAPTER 20

  As the tribal chairman walked past the closed door of Peter’s office that same afternoon, she heard his voice raised at the visitor. She couldn’t make out what the visitor said back, his voice was too low, but she could hear Peter distinctly.

  “That butterfly,” she heard Peter say, “that butterfly was supposed to stop any consideration of the property.”

  She stood in front of Peter’s closed door, wondering whether she should interrupt this or listen. Or move on and let them talk in private.

  She had seen the man come in, a big heavy bald man with a black beard. Peter had shut his door behind the man, and the two had been closeted for more than an hour.

  If it is tribal business, Patience thought, Peter should not be transacting it without me, the tribal chairman. She stood for a moment longer, undecided.

  “All the more reason to scratch that last property from consideration,” Peter said.

  Patience made her decision. She knocked on the door and opened it without being invited in. The bald man turned his head, and Peter, whose pale face was unusually flushed, stopped in what was obviously midsentence.

  “I beg your pardon,” Patience said with a polite smile. “I would like to see you in my office when you’re free, Peter.” She turned to the visitor, who stood up, a great tall hulk of a man, and held out her hand. “I’m Patience VanDyke, Peter’s boss. And you are?”

  The visitor bowed slightly. “Michael Jandrowicz at your service.” His voice was gruff.

  “Dr. Jandrowicz,” Peter said. “He’s a professor at Smith College.”

  “Delighted,” Patience said politely. Bugs took her hand in his great paw. “Are you here on tribal business, Dr. Jandrowicz?”

  Before Bugs could answer, Peter said, “He’s here to see me, Patience.”

  “On tribal business?” Patience said again.

  “Regarding the casino sites. Yes,” Bugs said in his raspy voice.

  “Then I will join you.” Patience moved one of Peter’s chairs to the side of his desk, where she could establish her right to authority.

  “Please sit,” she said to Bugs. “Would you care to fill me in, Peter? Or shall I ask Dr. Jandrowicz.”

  “This is none of your business, Patience.” Peter had to turn to look at her.

  “I think it is my business.” Patience smiled and turned to Bugs. “You undoubtedly have heard that the Wam
panoag Tribe of Gay Head, Aquinnah, is exploring the possibility of building a casino here on tribal lands.”

  Bugs nodded.

  “It is important that discussions not be carried on outside the tribe. I’m sure you can understand why.”

  Peter swiveled in his chair suddenly and looked out the window. An antique Indian Chief Blackhawk motorcycle was next to Chief Hawkbill’s Cadillac in the parking lot.

  “Why don’t you tell me about it, Dr. Jandrowicz. I’m sure Peter would prefer that you do the talking.” Patience crossed one leg over the other and smoothed her skirt.

  Peter kept his back to them.

  “Jube Burkhardt, a consulting engineer for the governor’s office, contacted me.” Bugs stopped and looked questioningly at Patience, who nodded. “I had published an article in a popular science magazine on the butterflies of Martha’s Vineyard, which Mr. Burkhardt had read.”

  Peter swiveled his chair until he faced them. “We don’t have to go through all this again.”

  “I think we do,” said Patience, and turned back to Bugs. “Go on, please, Dr. Jandrowicz.”

  “Mr. Burkhardt was quite knowledgeable about butterflies, for a layman. He asked me questions about endangered species found on the Island. He wanted to know if my students or I had made an inventory of butterflies in Aquinnah. I told him we had not, but my students had made a superficial survey of Island butterflies, covering every month of the year.”

  “Winter, too?” Patience was interested, even though she was not sure where this was leading. “You don’t mean to say you found butterflies during the cold months?”

  “Every month except January,” Bugs said.

  Peter sighed loudly and looked at his watch.

  Patience glanced at Peter, then at Bugs. “Why was Mr. Burkhardt interested in endangered butterflies? I think I can guess, but I’d like to hear what you have to say, Dr. Jandrowicz.”

  “He asked me if we had found any Compton tortoiseshells in Aquinnah. I told him it was unlikely. The habitat is not suitable. Then he asked if the habitat was suitable for variegated fritillaries. I told him it was, however, we had not found any in Aquinnah. They are quite rare throughout Massachusetts.” Bugs stopped and looked at Peter. “Do you want me to continue?” he asked.

  Patience answered. “Yes, please. I would like you to continue.” She smoothed her wide skirt over her lap.

  “Mr. Burkhardt e-mailed me last month to say he had found two variegated fritillaries on a twenty-five-acre site south of State Road.” Bugs looked at Patience. “You understand that would be a significant find.”

  “Enough to take that property out of consideration as a casino site, I gather,” Patience said.

  Peter stood. “This conversation is going nowhere.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve got another appointment.”

  “I think not,” said Patience. “I suggest you call to cancel your appointment. We’ll wait, Dr. Jandrowicz and I, while you do so.” She folded her arms over her ample bosom and Peter sat again.

  “Quite definitely,” Bugs said. “Finding an endangered species stops development until the state makes a survey.”

  “Did you follow up on the two butterflies?”

  “That’s one reason I’m here. Burkhardt’s alleged finding of the two fritillaries happened to coincide with a motorcycle rally here on the Island that I wanted to attend, a joint Indian and Harley- Davidson get-together.”

  “And you met with Mr. Burkhardt?” Patience asked.

  “He escorted me to the location and showed me two specimens of fritillaries on the ground, dead, obviously preserved, and obviously from someone’s collection.”

  “And what did you do?” Patience leaned forward.

  “I told him they were planted specimens, and left.”

  “Did Mr. Burkhardt tell you who had hired him to search that particular site?”

  “He said nothing to me.”

  Patience turned to Peter, who was doodling circles within circles on his desk calendar. “Did Mr. Burkhardt come to you, Peter, before that last tribal meeting?”

  Peter looked up defiantly. “Yes. He said he had found an endangered species on the property that seemed to be the only suitable site for the casino, and suggested we talk about it. We never got a chance to.”

  “Had he told you what kind of endangered animal or plant he’d found?” Patience asked.

  “Butterflies,” Peter answered sullenly.

  “Mr. Burkhardt knew you were lobbying for a floating casino, didn’t he?”

  Peter nodded.

  “Had Mr. Burkhardt proposed that money change hands if he was able to hold up or stop consideration of a site on tribal lands?” Patience asked.

  “I can’t answer that,” Peter said.

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  Bugs answered for him. “Mr. Burkhardt offered me a considerable sum of money, enough to fund a survey of the area, to verify that he had found the two specimens on the site. I refused.”

  Patience raised her eyebrows and looked from Peter to Bugs. “Where did Mr. Burkhardt get enough money to throw around in such a way?”

  Peter turned and stared out at the parking lot and the Indian parked by the white Cadillac. A ray of sunlight reflected off the Indian’s bright pipes and shone on Peter’s high cheekbones.

  “It’s a beautiful bike,” Peter said.

  “ ‘Other companies build motorcycles,’ “ Bugs quoted. “ ‘We manufacture dreams.’ That was the Indian Motocycle Company’s motto.”

  Victoria stood next to the dining room table, her back straight. “I am staying in my own house, Howland, and that’s final.”

  Late afternoon sun glistened in the imperfections and bubbles of the old glass panes of the west windows. Dust motes danced and sparkled in a beam of light that angled across the floor, spotlighting a worn place in the carpet.

  At her insistence, Dojan had taken Victoria home and was standing behind her, holding her cloth bag.

  “You’ve got to stay away for a couple of nights, at least.” Howland thrust his hands into his pockets.

  “You’re being ridiculous. The computer isn’t here—where is it, by the way?”

  “Locked in the back of my car with a blanket over it.”

  Victoria nodded. “And there’s nothing I know that everybody else on the Island doesn’t know.”

  “There’s a killer loose, Victoria. We don’t know who it is or why Burkhardt and Hiram were killed. Until we have some answers, you’re not safe.”

  “That’s absurd.” The wrinkles of Victoria’s face set stubbornly. She pulled out one of the side chairs at the table and sat. She smoothed the tablecloth absently.

  “Listen to me.” Howland’s eyes glittered. “The state police are on the case. They came in late and have to catch up. They haven’t identified the body from the fire yet.”

  “It was Hiram.”

  “You and I believe it was Hiram, but the police have to go through procedures. In the meantime-”

  Victoria interrupted. “Where’s Linda? I haven’t seen her all day. She hasn’t heard about our finding Hiram.”

  “Victoria…”

  “I will not leave my house, and that’s that.” Victoria turned to Do- jan and pointed imperiously to the cookroom. “Put my bag on the cookroom table, please, Dojan.”

  Dojan slipped past Howland and padded through the kitchen.

  “I don’t know where the hell Linda is, and I don’t care,” Howland snapped.

  “Would you like a glass of sherry?” Victoria asked. “It’s been a trying day. If you’ll reach into that door in the buffet, you’ll find a decanter and-”

  “No, thank you.” Howland’s cheekbones had a flush of red across them. He marched out of the dining room into the kitchen and stood by the entry door until Dojan joined him.

  “I’ll talk to you outside,” he barked at Dojan.

  Victoria had risen from her chair. “Don’t think you’re going to guard me, Howland, you and Doj
an. I’m quite capable of calling 911, and the police station is right down the road. Besides, Elizabeth is here.”

  Howland glanced through the dining room into the front hall, then turned toward the cookroom. “Where is she?”

  “She’s out. She has a dinner date.”

  “Kee-rist!” said Howland.

  A blue car pulled into the driveway. “Here’s Linda now,” Victoria said. “She’ll be here. You may leave now.”

  Linda stepped out of her car, a blue cardigan slung over her shoulders. “Hello, Mrs. Trumbull,” she called out. She looked curiously at the two tall men who had walked past her without a word.

  Victoria turned and gestured to Howland, who was seated in his station wagon—part wave, part dismissal, and part a regal acknowledgment that she was in command.

  Linda came into the house with both arms full of shopping bags and pulled the entry door shut with her foot. “Who are those strange men?”

  “Are they still there?” Victoria filled the teakettle and set it on the stove. As Linda moved close to her, Victoria smelled patchouli and sneezed.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Trumbull. I wasn’t thinking.” She set her purchases down on the captain’s chair. “I’ll wash my face and wrists.” She returned, scrubbed free of scent. Victoria asked, “Have you found your sister yet?”

  “She’s camping in a field not far from here. The police told her where to find me.”

  The teakettle whistled, and Victoria filled the teapot and carried it into the cookroom. Linda followed with the blue-flowered cups. “I thought I might see you at your uncle’s place today,” Victoria said.

  “I haven’t been on the Island for at least ten years. I went shopping in Edgartown and had lunch in Oak Bluffs. I met someone I knew in Vineyard Haven.” She finished vaguely, “To tell you the truth, I didn’t want to see the old place.”

  “Oh?” Victoria sipped her tea, narrowing her eyes in the steam. A cricket started to chirp. The sound seemed to come from all four corners of the room.

  Linda spoke into the cricket-loud silence. “When we were children, we stayed with my uncle every summer.” The cricket abruptly stopped chirping. “Then, I don’t know, things changed.”