Murder at a Vineyard Mansion

by Philip R. Craig

  “Shouldn’t fish without proper gear,” said Maud. “There ought to be a law.”

  People often think there should be laws to stop others from doing what they themselves don’t do. “Maybe CHOA can talk Beacon Hill into establishing a Plug Police Force,” I said. “They can stop everybody going out onto East Beach and toss them in jail if their fishing gear isn’t up to snuff.”

  “Good idea,” said Maud, who, like Victoria, was often not amused. “If I wasn’t so busy I’d volunteer for the job myself.”

  “You’d be CHOA’s first choice,” I said.

  “I didn’t come here to talk about fishing,” said Maud. “I came here to hire you to find out who killed Ollie Mattes.”

  I put down the plug I was working on before I put a hook through a finger. “Ollie Mattes? I thought Ollie killed himself by falling off the bluff and mashing his head on a rock on the beach.”

  “Well, apparently you thought wrong. The Chief told me yesterday afternoon that they think now that Ollie got coshed with a blunt instrument before he went over the edge. They think it’s homicide.”

  Had I been in a comic strip, a lightbulb would have gone off in my head. “Ah,” I said, “and the suspect list is bound to include the Pierson haters, and you want someone to prove that none of the CHOA people did it.”

  “No, I want you to prove that my boy Harold didn’t do it.”

  I looked at her for about thirty seconds. Harold Hobbes was her son by her second husband. He was about my age and didn’t look a bit like his mother, being tall and handsome in an overweight way. He called himself a farmer because he lived on Maud’s farm but actually had no profession, and would have been an insignificant Chappy citizen except that he was Maud’s son and therefore rich. He had a reputation as a ladies’ man and a fondness for writing angry and loftily worded letters to the local papers protesting the invasion of Chappy by people who weren’t members of CHOA. He bored me.

  “What makes you think Harold needs help?”

  She leaned forward. “Because he was the window breaker. He confessed it to me this morning at breakfast when I told him what the Chief told me yesterday. When he heard that Ollie had been murdered, he panicked and admitted that he’d smashed those windows at Pierson’s place. He’s afraid that the police will think he went back to do more damage and got caught by Ollie, and that Harold killed him. He’s afraid he’ll get arrested! He says he’s going to go away. I told him that would just make him look more guilty.”

  The image of Harold going away didn’t displease me. “He needs a lawyer,” I said. “I imagine you can afford a good one. My advice is that you listen to him and do what he says.”

  Her long face and big teeth and fierce eyes were those of a wild mare defending her colt. “My son is a coward and a sloth and a bragging womanizer, but he’s the only son I have, and I know he’s no killer. And I have a lawyer. I have a firm of lawyers. And I’m intelligent enough to do what they advise. But they work in Boston, and they’ll need information to handle my son’s case if he’s charged.”

  I studied her. “They’ll have their favorite private investigators to do that, and the police are trained to solve crimes, so you don’t need me for anything. But you know that, so why are you here?”

  She gathered herself together, and I could see that being here was terribly hard for her, because, among other reasons, she was an aristocrat and I was without pedigree. I felt a distant touch of sympathy for her. Only a touch. “Because you live here,” she said, “and because you were a policeman once. I want somebody who knows this place, who knows how to investigate, and who I can trust!” She spoke through clenched equine teeth.

  I gave what she said a semisecond of consideration. “Trust? You and I don’t agree about much of anything, and I think your boy Harold is a waste of time. I’m a strange one for you to trust.”

  She had expected that bullet and she bit it. “Everybody thinks Harold is a waste of time and he probably is, but he’s not a killer. You and I may be at each other’s throat about keeping people off Chappy, but I’ve never known you to lie or tell tales. I need an honest man to work for me on this, someone who’ll find out the truth and report back to me.” She looked around at our battered old house and added, “There’ll be money in it. Looks like you could use it.”

  Her comment about lies showed that she didn’t know my character as well as she thought, but she was right about the money. When you live on Martha’s Vineyard and you don’t have a steady job, you can always use more money.

  I gave her a question instead of an answer. “What makes you so sure Harold didn’t do it?”

  She lifted her chin. “Because I’m his mother. I know him through and through. He’s weak. He doesn’t have the metal in him to commit murder.”

  Her vanity roused some pettiness in me and I said, “Cowards and cripples have committed murder, children on the honor roll have killed their kith and kin, dorks have done in other dorks. If you read the papers you know that every other killer has a mother who’ll swear he didn’t do it and who’ll hide him in the bathtub when the cops come after him. What makes Harold different? He has metal enough to be a vandal.”

  She formed her knobby hands into fists. “He’s nokiller. I know it!”

  I sat back and studied her. Then I said, “There’s something you’re not telling me. What is it?”

  She glared at me. “I’ve laid my soul in front of you and you’ve done nothing but insult me. Go to blazes! I’ve no more to say to you. I’ll find someone else. Damn you!” She opened her hands, placed them on the arms of the chair, and began to push herself erect.

  “Where was Harold when Ollie took his fall?” I asked. “He wasn’thome, was he?”

  The energy went out of her like air from a deflating balloon and she sank back into the chair. I leaned across the table.

  “You were home when Ollie bought it, but he wasn’t. If he’d been home, you wouldn’t be here because you’d be his alibi. Where was he?”

  She took a ragged breath and scrubbed her eyes with her hands. “I don’t know! He won’t tell me! He got home late. I don’t know what to do!”

  No tears came from her old eyes, but I felt as though some were sliding down her face like raindrops on windowpanes, and I could sense fear behind them.

  I got up and went into the house and came back with two cups of black coffee and a glass of cognac. I put a cup in front of each of us and the cognac beside hers.

  “Unless you have something against booze,” I said, “toss that brandy down in one shot. Don’t sip it, toss it down.”

  She did that and shuddered when the cognac hit her belly, then she dug a handkerchief out of her pocket and dabbed at her lips and eyes. “If we do that during a meal, we call it the Norman Hole,” she said. “If you’re filled up before the meat course, you toss back a shot of cognac and then you can eat for another hour. I don’t usually do it before lunch, though.”

  “Try some coffee,” I said, between sips of my own.

  She did that and for a while neither of us spoke. Then I said, “Before you decide that you really want to have some personal private investigator work for you, you should know some possibilities. The first is that he might find out things you don’t want to know. He might find evidence that Harold actually is guilty of murder, for instance.”

  “His isn’t. No one will find anything like that. But he needs protection.”

  “Protection from what? The law? Even if he isn’t guilty of murder, he must be involved in something else he doesn’t want you to know about. Are you sure you want to know what it is?”

  She said nothing, but again I felt fear emanating from her. I wondered what was under the rock that she didn’t want to turn over.

  “You want your investigator to report only to you, but if he finds evidence that throws suspicion on Harold, he’ll have an obligation to give it to the police. Can you handle that?”

  Maternity replied, “You won’t find that evidence.”r />
  “You’re talking like I’ve agreed to work for you. I haven’t. I’m telling you what you need to know if you hire any agent worth his salt. Your detective won’t know what he’ll find until he looks, and he may not legally be able to keep it confidential. You have to accept that.”

  She nodded. “I understand. I agree.”

  “The time may come when you don’t. If that happens, you may want your agent to break off the investigation and keep his mouth shut, but he may not want to.”

  She smiled a hard, horsey smile. “I could fire him. People won’t work if they don’t get paid.”

  I shrugged. That was the general rule, but there were exceptions. “Usually not,” I said.

  “Do we have a deal, then? Will you work for me?”

  “I’ll tell you something about detectives,” I said, looking as far as I could into her eyes. “They expect people to lie to them whenever the people think it serves their interests. They expect the criminals and their friends to lie but they also expect their clients to lie. I expect that you’re lying to me right now.”

  She glared at me. “That’s a terribly cynical way to live. I’ve told you the truth!”

  “You haven’t told me everything. You haven’t told me something I need to know to do this job.”

  “I have told you everything! I’m afraid they’ll accuse Harold of killing Ollie Mattes.”

  “I think you’re holding back.”

  “No! But I need help. I can’t protect him myself.” She was angry, but her anger, though directed at me, seemed rooted elsewhere. Perhaps in some fear she’d not speak of.

  I was suddenly impatient with her. “You’ll have to get the help you need somewhere else,” I said, “because I won’t work with anyone who isn’t straight with me.”

  She had been rich a long time and thought everyone and everything had a price. She swallowed her fury and said, “We don’t have to like each other. Work for me for just a week. Money is no problem. All my husbands had money and I had my own before I married them.”

  She mentioned an amount and asked if that would cover a week’s work. It was considerably more than I’d ever made in any other week, and I wondered if my eyes widened when I heard the figure.

  I said, “That’s a lot of money, but I’m not interested. I’ll give you some advice, though. Whoever works for you will also be working with your lawyers and their investigators and they’ll have to cooperate. Your personal investigator will be handicapped if your other people won’t talk to him.”

  She straightened in her chair. “I’ll make sure they cooperate with one another. How much money do you want?”

  “You can probably buy me if you offer enough,” I said, “but I don’t feel like being bought. I don’t want to work with you. Are you sure you don’t mind having people know that you’re working to protect Harold? He hasn’t been charged with anything, and your friends might wonder why your people are asking questions about him.”

  “My enemies might wonder the same thing,” she said in a bitter, thoughtful voice.

  “One last piece of free advice. Don’t lie to your people like you’re lying to me. They’ll expect you to, but don’t do it. It won’t help your son if he’s innocent.”

  “He is innocent, and I’m not lying!”

  I believed half of that. “If you say so. There’s a very good private investigation organization in Boston called Thornberry Security. I suggest that you give them a call.”

  She pushed herself out of her chair. “You’re probably right to refuse this job,” she said. “We’ve never gotten along before and we probably wouldn’t if you went to work for me. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”

  I stood. “I hope your son is innocent.”

  She inclined her hoary, horsey head. “Thank you for your time.” She turned away, then turned suddenly back and surprised me by bursting into tears. “Please help me!” she cried. “Please! I need your help. Don’t turn me away!”

  I was shocked into pity. I saw my hands go out and touch her shaking shoulders and pull her close. My arms went around her and I heard my voice say, all on its own, as if at a distance, “All right. All right. I’ll do what I can. Don’t worry. Don’t worry.”

  She was tough, and after a while she pulled away, embarrassed. “Sorry. I hate emotional people.”

  “Don’t be sorry.” I went into the house and came out with a clean handkerchief. She blew her nose and wiped her red eyes. “Thank you.”

  “I’ll come over tomorrow and talk with Harold. With luck we’ll find out where he was when Ollie was killed.”

  I watched her drive away and wondered if I should have taken the job. I didn’t like Harold Hobbes, but on the other hand, the money was good and a murder involving the rich or famous is always a thought teaser.

  The next morning, as I listened to the local news on WMVY, I learned that Norton’s Point Beach was going to be closed that very day by the Fish and Wildlife experts, that the busy Silencer had struck again in Oak Bluffs, and that the island had suffered a second homicide within the week. Harold Hobbes had been found bludgeoned to death in his own driveway. His mother, Maud Mayhew, returning home from a CHOA meeting the previous evening, had found the body and phoned the police.

  3

  As I read of Harold Hobbes’s death, I experienced a powerful feeling of guilt, as though I were somehow responsible. The irrationality of this notion annoyed me as much as the feeling itself. I pushed it away, but it was instantly replaced by an equally irrational and powerful feeling of duty, of obligation to discover who had done this to a man I’d promised to protect. He was an old woman’s only son. She must be devastated. I pushed at this feeling, too, but with no effect, because I could imagine my own emotions if anything should happen to Joshua or Diana.

  Still, I attempted to do away with my guilt through action. I finished refurbishing our fishing gear, did some repairs on the tree house with the help of Joshua and Diana and the supervision of the two cats, Oliver Underfoot and Velcro, and even climbed on our roof and made another search for the source of the persistent leak in the corner of the living room that dripped every time we had a wet northeaster. Naturally I couldn’t find it because you can never find a leak that’s not leaking at that moment. Annoying. Even more annoying was the fact that all my busywork failed to ease my mind, so just before noon I gave up, loaded the kids into my rusty Land Cruiser, and drove to the Edgartown police station.

  Four-year-old Diana the huntress was always pleased to go for a ride, especially if it eventually led to something to eat. She had gotten that sobriquet, in fact, because of her seemingly permanent search for food. One meal was scarcely over before she was ready for the next one. A dark-haired, dark-eyed miniature of her slender mother, she could eat like a horse and never show it.

  Big brother Joshua also liked to go for rides, but he was less insistent on a culinary reward at journey’s end. For him the ride was enough in itself, for he was a transportation buff who liked cars, boats, bikes, planes, and all other known vehicles. It was a fascination I could not grasp, nor could I guess the gene pool from which it came. All children are mysteries in one way or another.

  “Pa?”

  “Yes, Diana.”

  “Can we get ice cream?”

  How predictable. “Sure. But first I have to talk with the Chief.”

  At the station I left my offspring playing crazy eights in the backseat of the truck and went inside.

  The Chief’s office was full of cops, including Sergeant Dom Agganis of the state police. I guessed they were discussing the recent unpleasantness on Chappaquiddick. In Massachusetts, the state police handle all homicide investigations outside Boston, which has its own homicide people. This can create tension between the state cops and the local cops, who often know more about the particulars of a crime than the state cops do.

  Fortunately for Edgartown, Dom Agganis and the Chief got along very well. Fortunately for me, I got along with both Dom and the Chie
f. The only cop in the office that I didn’t get along with was Dom’s second-in-command, Officer Olive Otero. Olive and I had never, ever hit it off. We were like flint and steel; the first time we met, sparks flew and they’d flown ever since. Why that was, I could not say. Nor, I guessed, could Olive. Olive saw me come toward the Chief’s office and tried to push the door shut in my face. I got a sandal out just in time to stop it.

  “This is a meeting of police,” said Olive, giving my foot a kick with her shiny black shoe and shoving harder on the door.

  Dom Agganis, hearing his subordinate’s voice, turned and put his big hand on the door. “Olive is correct,” he said. “Your business will have to wait a few minutes.”

  “If you’re talking about Harold Hobbes,” I said, “I might have something you can use.”

  “I doubt that,” said Olive.

  “Find a chair,” said Dom. “I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

  Olive sneered and shut the door.

  I looked at Kit Goulart, who was behind the reception desk and listening to every word. Kit was over six feet tall and the size of a horse. Her husband was of the same dimensions. Together they made a team that could probably outpull a yoke of oxen.

  “Round one goes to Otera,” said Kit. She pointed to a bench against the wall. “Go to a neutral corner and when the bell rings, come out fighting.”

  Instead I took a peek at my truck. The kids were still playing. Crazy eights is a good game for all ages. I turned back to Kit.

  “Has the law collected Mickey Gomes, or is he still on the loose?”

  “Oh, they collected him, all right. He was just where they figured he’d be: hiding in the woods behind the girl’s house and getting hungry.”

  “He hasn’t broken out again?”

  “No, they took away his screwdriver and replaced the screen with bars on his favorite escape window, so Mickey will be staying put for a while, much to his girlfriend’s disappointment, no doubt.”