Vineyard Deceit

by Philip Craig

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I’m thinking that my husband probably wouldn’t approve of me right now.”

  Husband. Suddenly I was amused. “You can sleep in the room where you changed clothes,” I said. “There’s an alarm clock in there. Let’s not plan on being at the house until six. That way you can get a whole extra half hour of sleep. I want you wide awake in the morning.”

  “Well, shucks,” she said.

  “It’s not that you lack womanly charms, it’s just that I need to get some rest and I don’t think I’d get much with you in my bed.”

  “You’re right about that.” She grinned. I thought there was actually a note of relief in her voice. “Well, see you in the morning.” She went past me into the spare bedroom. I stood there for a moment then went to my own room and set the alarm for five. It took me a while to get to sleep.

  22

  I was awake before my alarm went off, so I turned it off and got up. There was a good deal of light outside already. I could hear Helga stirring. Had her alarm awakened me? I pulled on some clothes and phoned Zee. Being a nurse, Zee had developed the talent of being instantly awake when her phone rang. Phone calls at odd hours meant trouble for someone in need of her services, and she woke up with her brain already in gear. Besides, she had to go to work at eight and was probably about to get up anyway. I reminded her of that as soon as I heard her voice.

  “Thanks a lot, Jefferson. I could have slept another hour!”

  “Women of your caliber scoff at the idea of extra sleep. You work from dawn to setting sun with smiles on your faces and songs in your hearts. I think I’ve found the house you were kept in. I’m going to knock on the door at six. Do you want to be there?”

  “You’re damned right!”

  “Meet me on County Road at the corner of Ocean View Lane. That’s one of those dirt roads with a fancy name that they’re punching out through the oak brush.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Leave your shotgun at home.”

  “You leave your shotgun at home! I’ve got to get dressed. Goodbye.”

  I made instant coffee, toast, and scrambled eggs seasoned with just a bit of Szechuan sauce. By the time Helga emerged from the bathroom, the food was on the table.

  “Eat up. We’ve got to hit the road.”

  At twenty to six we were on our way. Zee’s little Jeep was parked at the corner of Ocean View Lane. Zee was wearing her white uniform. She and Helga exchanged looks. Zee looked again at the jeans and shirt Helga was wearing. Then she looked at me.

  “You’re right,” I said to Zee. “They’re your clothes. Mrs. Madieras, Mrs. Johanson. Mrs. Johanson, Mrs. Madieras. Zee, Helga. Helga, Zee.”

  They shook hands. They were like night and day, the moon and the sun. Dark-haired Zee, golden-haired Helga. There was a poem there somewhere, probably, but I suspected I should not try to write it.

  “I’m going to work in two hours,” said Zee, a bit testily. “I don’t imagine that it’ll take longer than that to decide whether this is the place or not.”

  “We may not manage it at all, but on the other hand, we might. Shock value may help. A knock on the door at six in the morning, a man with a badge, a woman with a badge at the back door, you standing there behind me. We’ll see. Any questions? No? Let’s go, then.”

  Zee followed us in her Jeep. We drove to the house and parked in the driveway. The place was absolutely quiet. No lights, no movement. “I have a pistol,” I said to Helga. “Do you want it?”

  “No. Sam Spade didn’t carry one and neither do I.”

  “Aha! So that’s how you managed to wear that slinky blue gown at the big Damon blast. No gat!”

  “Oh dear, my secret is out.”

  “It’s safe with me. Let’s go. You know how to look official?”

  “Trust me.”

  I did. We compared watch times, and she went around the side of the house and disappeared. Zee came up. At six o’clock I walked up onto the porch and banged on the door. “Open up!” I yelled. “Police! Open up this door right now! Police! Police!”

  I thought I sounded pretty good. I banged and banged on the door and rattled the knob. Lights flicked on inside. I could hear movement.

  “Open up!” I shouted. “It’s the police!

  Nothing happened. There was a confused conference going on inside. If they had any grass, maybe they were flushing it down the drain. I banged on the door and shouted lustily. I glanced back at Zee. She looked caught between laughter and tears. I banged some more.

  The door opened a notch. An eye peeked out. “Police!” I yelled and flashed my brand-new badge. “Open up!”

  The eye left me and focused on Zee. Voices chattered in a language I did not know. The eye disappeared. I gave the door a kick and it opened. I went in.

  Two young women and a young man stood there half-dressed. Across the room the back door swung open. I went over there and looked out. Helga Johanson had a come-along grip on a second young man and was walking him back into the house. He was groaning but doing what he was told, as I probably would have been doing too if I were in his place. Helga’s come-along hold was the one where she causes you great pain and makes you think she’s going to break your thumb unless you do what she says. And if you don’t do what she says, she will break your thumb. She and the young man came inside. I shut the door behind them. Zee shut the front door behind her.

  “Well, Mrs. Madieras?” I yelled. “You smell that?”

  Her fine nose sniffed. She nodded. “Coriander and cumin. That’s the smell, all right.”

  I glared at the four young people. “You’re all in deep shit,” I said. “Kidnapping is serious business. Your asses are in slings! Sit down!”

  They sat down. “You can’t just break in here . . .” said one of the women. “This is America . . . !”

  “Shut up!” I said. I pointed at Zee, who was looking around with more curiosity than anger. “You recognize that woman? She’s the one you kidnapped last Friday night. You’re all headed for a long stretch in jail. Or maybe we’ll ship you back to Gwatar and let the Padishah have you!”

  The man Helga had collared was brave. “You have no warrant, you have no authority to be here. Get out!” I wondered why he had tried to get away. He didn’t seem to be a coward. I ignored his words.

  “Look around,” I said to Zee. “Walk around. Go to the bathroom, look in the refrigerator, get the telephone number. You, Officer Johanson, search the house. I wouldn’t be surprised if you found some SDL literature around somewhere. Subversive organization. Seize it if you find it. Firearms too. Anything suspicious.”

  “You can’t—” said the brave young man.

  I pulled out my old .38. They sank deeper in their chairs. “You see this,” I said. “It says I can do anything I want.” I stuck my face in the face of one of the young women. She shrank back. “And what I want,” I said, “is a name. I get it, you all can walk. I don’t, you go to jail. It’s simple. Even a bunch of fucking foreigners like you can understand. I don’t give a damn about you. I want the guy who gave the order. Who told you to snatch the woman? Who?!”

  I thought I might have made a B-movie bad guy if I really wanted to. Something out of the thirties, maybe. A crooked cop in a Bogart movie, maybe? I grabbed the woman’s robe and yanked her up to me. “Talk!”

  She wept instead. “I don’t know, I don’t know!”

  “Hey, look at this,” said Helga. She waved some pamphlets and a book. “Sarofimian Democratic League stuff. Bad Padishah, good peasants, bad secret police, good Amnesty International. Standard shit. And this.” She handed me a copy of Free People by Dr. Hamdi Safwat. “More trash,” she said. I admired her. She was getting into the act.

  The brave young man stood up, afraid but furious. “That is not trash, you idiots, that is the work of a great man.”

  I shoved him down. “Sit, and shut up.” I looked at Zee. “What have you found, Mrs. Madieras?”

  She h
eld up a tape. “The Gits’ Starship Parade. I must have heard it a hundred times.”

  “That does it,” I said. I jerked the second young man to his feet, spun him, and locked his arm behind him. I twisted it and he groaned. One of the women came at me. I pushed her back. “You’re all going up. Make it easy on yourselves.”

  “No,” cried the girl. “He can’t go back. The police killed his father . . .”

  “Fuck him and his father,” I said. “Fuck you too. I want a name and you won’t give it to me. Okay, I’ll get it someplace else. But you’ll be in jail. Good riddance. Let’s go, Johanson. County jail for the lot of them.”

  “No,” said the second woman. “No! Not jail! Let Anwar go! It was—”

  “Be quiet!” Anwar groaned. “Don’t tell them anything!”

  “What difference does it make?” she cried. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” She clutched at my arm. “It was a man named Blunt. Mr. Willard Blunt. He told us to kidnap Mrs. Madieras!”

  I let Anwar go and pushed him down onto a chair. He rubbed his shoulder, his dark eyes filled with fear and anger. I looked at Zee. Her eyes were wide.

  “Willard Blunt?” I asked the woman.

  “Yes. Blunt.”

  It was time for the good cop to take over. “All right,” I said. “A deal’s a deal. But I need it all. When did he set it up? What did he tell you?”

  “Friday night,” said the woman. “He telephoned around six. He told us to follow him to her house and to abduct and hold her, but not to “hurt her.”

  “Be quiet!” said the man who had tried to run. But the woman was through being quiet.

  “Hush yourself!” she cried. “Do you want to go to jail? Do you want to be sent back to Gwatar? We need you! Quiet your tongue! Blunt is dead. No one can question him.” She turned back to me. “He said he would tell us when to release her. But then we learned he was dead and we didn’t know what to do. We had a woman we didn’t want. We talked for a long time. No one wanted to kill her. We didn’t know what to do. So we took her back to her house.” She looked at Zee. “Oh, madam, I assure you that we never meant you harm. We were always sorry for your fear, but we had our orders . . .”

  “Do not apologize to an oppressor,” said the second woman.

  “I’m not an oppressor!” said Zee, with steel in her voice. “I never even heard of you people!”

  “You are a naive woman,” said the man who had run. “You are a part of a civilization that has supported the corrupt regime of the Rashad dynasty!”

  “And you are a foolish boy!” said Zee. “You mouth political platitudes and call them truth. God help the people of Sarofim if you ever become one of their leaders! You don’t know the difference between theories and people. You are a child in a man’s body. You are no wiser than that fool of a Padishah! I feel sorry for the people of Sarofim if they are doomed to be led by such as you!”

  I don’t think he looked any more shocked than I imagined I looked. Zee wasn’t through. “This girl here,” she said, pointing at the woman who had named Blunt, “has more compassion and common sense than a dozen of your kind! She is living in the real world, not in a land of political dreams where children like you can sit in circles and congratulate yourselves on understanding reality so much better than anyone else has ever understood it! You will do well, young man, to keep your mouth shut until you know a great deal more than you know now! You can start by listening to your women!”

  “Damn right!” I said, and suddenly realized that I still had the .38 in my hand. I tucked it away in a pocket, out of sight. “Why did Blunt want Mrs. Madieras kidnapped? She knows nothing of politics.”

  “I do too know something about politics!” flared Zee.

  “I don’t know,” said the woman. “He thought she knew too much . . .”

  “About what?”

  She looked at her friends. Her eyes flashed. She was done with concealment. “About the necklace. The emeralds. He was afraid she knew something . . .”

  “About the theft?”

  “We knew nothing of a theft. There was to be an embarrassment to the Padishah. That was all we knew.”

  “What?” said Zee. “I knew something about an embarrassment to the Padishah? That doesn’t make any sense. I knew nothing about any such thing. I didn’t even know anything had happened until three days later!”

  “Mr. Willard Blunt thought that you did. He wanted you kept quiet until after the work was done. He telephoned us and told us to take you. He stayed with you until we did that, so that you could tell no one of what you knew.”

  “But I didn’t know anything!”

  There were tears in the woman’s eyes. “But, madam, he said you did. How could we know otherwise? Can you understand?”

  “What did Blunt have to do with the SDL?” asked Helga.

  The man who had tried to run gave her a mocking look. “Madam, for forty years Mr. Willard Blunt was a chief American supporter of the political opposition to the Rashad dynasty. No one did more over those years to aid the SDL. Always in secret, of course. On Friday, when he needed us, we repaid him a part of the debt we owed.” He looked at me with ill-disguised contempt. “Even you, perhaps, can understand that sort of obligation.”

  “What did he think Mrs. Madieras knew?”

  He shrugged. The women shrugged. The other man shrugged.

  “I think you’re lying,” I said.

  “No,” said the woman. “I was the one to whom he spoke. He never explained. I assure you he did not.”

  “How did he know how to contact you?”

  “Be quiet,” said the other woman, but the first woman gestured her words away.

  “We knew about the necklace and the ceremony. We were told to cooperate in an effort to embarrass the Padishah. Two of us, with other friends, landed a boat at the Damon dock and made a great scene. Two others threw firecrackers over the Damon fence and then ran away through the woods. Mr. Willard Blunt coordinated our efforts.” She looked at me with bright, suddenly proud eyes. “And our efforts were rewarded beyond our wildest dreams! The necklace has been stolen!”

  “And you are accessories before and after the fact.”

  She stared at me and then put her hands over her face.

  “No,” said the man who had run. “We knew nothing of the theft until after it happened. We only knew we were to embarrass the Padishah in a certain way and at a certain time.”

  “And you were willing to abduct Mrs. Madieras.”

  He looked at the floor.

  “Give me your passports,” I said. “You first. Officer Johanson, go with him.”

  He and Helga went into a bedroom and came back with his purple Sarofimian passport. One by one, the others did the same. I copied names and addresses and then put the passports on a table. I saw a look of hope on their faces.

  “One more question,” I said, looking at the man who had run. “Who were you going to telephone after you escaped out the back door?”

  He glared at me. “No one. I was afraid. I ran.”

  “You are a poor liar,” I said. But I was tired of being a bully. “I have no further interest in any of you,” I said. “Mrs. Madieras, you may press charges if you wish.”

  Zee shook her head. “No,” she said.

  “If that’s the way you want it,” I said. I glared at the four young people. “I have your names, should I need them. If I were you, I would leave the island on an early boat.”

  The expressions on their faces were those of people afraid to feel joy. We went out and shut the door behind us.

  “Good grief,” said Zee. “Remind me to hire you if I ever want some child abused.”

  “I was pretty good, wasn’t I? I can tell you were impressed.”

  “I’m going to go to work, where all I have to deal with is damage to the flesh. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Johanson. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

  “Call me Helga,” said Helga.

  “See you later, Jefferson.” Zee got into her Jeep
and drove toward Oak Bluffs. Helga and I climbed into the LandCruiser.

  “She’s a beauty,” said Helga. “I don’t think she liked me wearing her clothes.”

  “I have a silver tongue,” I said. “I’ll explain everything. You’re a real actress. I was impressed. Officer Johanson, tougher than nails.”

  “The kid thought so when I tossed him on his ear and led him back inside.”

  “What do you think about his run?”

  “I think you were right. I think he wanted a phone. I think he wanted somebody to know that the kidnapping jig was up.”

  “I wonder who.”

  “Maybe we’ll find out. I can arrange for these kids to get some real pressure once they get back to Weststock. They’re all Weststock students, you know. Their rooms were full of Weststock stuff. Thornberry Security has worked with the college. We know people there. We can arrange for some squeezing if that’s what we need.”

  Back at my house Helga changed into her nice dress and handed me Zee’s clothes. “I’d wash these, if I were you. I may have left some of my smell on them.”

  “Your smell smells pretty good to me.”

  “To you, maybe, but not to Mrs. Madieras. You look funny.”

  “I don’t feel funny.”

  “Take me home.”

  We drove to the ferry. It was early and there was no line. The ferryman looked at me and at Helga in her party dress.

  “No comments,” I advised.

  We drove to the Damon house. “Your husband has a virtuous wife,” I said as she got out. “I’ll be glad to tell him in case he doesn’t know. Where is he, anyhow?”

  “Boston. I’m beginning to miss him.” She leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Don’t feel so bad. I know you were putting on an act. If you hadn’t done it, you never would have learned about Blunt. Tell your girlfriend everything.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She got out of the LandCruiser and walked toward the door. “Hey,” I said. She turned. “Thanks, Mrs. Johanson.”

  She smiled and raised a hand and went into the house.