Over Maya Dead Body

by Sandra Orchard

  Dad and Mom exchanged a what-do-you-think look and peered down the road. “I guess we could watch for his car as we’re driving and ask the driver to honk if we see him,” Dad finally said.

  Five minutes later we were on the road. Jack lived in a gorgeous rural area west of Tisbury Great Pond, about a half hour’s drive away in light traffic. This early in May, the tourists that would clog the roads by Memorial Day weekend were still few and far between. Of course, en route we had to drop off a few other passengers, but we still made good time.

  Soon after we turned onto Uncle Jack’s dirt road, Mom gasped.

  Relegated to the back of the van, I bobbed from one side to the other, trying to catch a view past everyone’s heads. When I finally did, my stomach dropped.

  A police cruiser, its lights flashing, sat outside Jack’s house.

  2

  A police officer burst out of Ashley’s cottage, on the other side of Jack’s driveway, as we hurriedly unloaded our luggage from the taxi van. “Excuse me, folks. Who are you here to visit?”

  “Jack Hill. What’s going on? Where is he?” Dad demanded.

  The officer pulled a notepad and pen from his pocket. “What’s your name and relationship to him, please?” His expression was an unreadable mask that sent chills down my spine.

  This was not good. I winged a prayer skyward for Jack’s protection, but I had an oppressive sense it was too little too late.

  “I’m Ward Jones,” Dad snapped. “This is my wife June.”

  The officer’s eyes widened ever so slightly. A common reaction, thanks to the comeback of old Leave it to Beaver reruns, since my parents sported the same names as the Beaver’s iconic parents.

  “We’ve been friends with Jack since college,” Dad went on, oblivious to the officer’s reaction. “Now what’s happened?”

  The officer looked to Aunt Martha and me, clearly expecting us to identify ourselves too.

  “I’m their daughter, Serena Jones.” To speed things along, I flashed my ID. “FBI Special Agent. And this is my great-aunt, Martha Chandler.”

  His eyes narrowed on my badge, and I second-guessed the impulse to flash it. “What is the reason for your visit?”

  “Jack’s engagement party,” Dad said, in the tone he usually reserved for recalcitrant students and my brother. “Tell us what’s going on.”

  Ashley stumbled out of her cottage with red-rimmed eyes.

  We all lurched toward her and spoke at once. “Ashley, are you okay?”

  Ashley tumbled down the porch steps into Dad’s embrace. “He’s dead. Uncle Jack’s dead!” She broke into uncontrollable sobs.

  Dad patted her back, a tear trickling down his cheek. His gaze sought Mom’s, telepathing anguish, as she and Aunt Martha looked on in stunned silence.

  Going into law-enforcement mode, I steeled myself against the emotions clawing at my chest and confronted the officer. “How did it happen, Officer . . . ?”

  “Phelps,” he said, then seemingly recognizing that I was asking as one law-enforcement professional to another, he drew me aside and lowered his voice. “He fell onto the rocks at Menemsha Hills, fractured his skull.”

  I swallowed a surge of bile. “So it was an accident?”

  “Appears so.” He squinted at Jack’s house, his jaw muscle twitching.

  My pulse quickened. “But you don’t think so?” I whispered. Menemsha Hills, with its picturesque lookout, had been one of Jack’s favorite hiking trails to shoot photos of sunsets over the water. And this time of year, it would be secluded.

  “It’s not my call,” he said.

  That was equivocation if I’d ever heard it.

  “I’m with the local Chilmark police detachment,” he explained. “The state police have to investigate all unattended deaths. Reinforcements from the mainland are helping the two troopers stationed on the island. But I volunteered to break the news to Ashley since I knew her from school.”

  A woman I didn’t recognize, her skin as pale as her cable-knit sweater, stepped out of Ashley’s cottage and hugged the porch pillar, a shell-shocked expression on her face.

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  “Marianne Delmar.”

  The fiancée. She was average height and build, with enough gray in her stylishly cut hair to suggest she was comfortable in her own skin. At least, until she’d heard the news about Jack. Her eyes were puffy from crying.

  “She’s the one that found Jack,” Officer Phelps added.

  My heart jumped. Found him? Or pushed him?

  I hated myself for the thought. This was the woman Jack loved, had planned to spend the rest of his life with.

  Mom and Dad urged Ashley back inside the cottage, expressing their condolences as they reached Marianne.

  Aunt Martha broke away from the procession and joined Officer Phelps and me. “Was Marianne hiking with Jack?” she asked.

  He hesitated.

  “Oh, c’mon, young man,” Aunt Martha pressed. “You know as well as I do that it’ll be on tonight’s news. Or I could just march on inside and ask the poor grieving women myself. Is that what you want me to have to do?”

  He glanced toward the now empty porch and seemed to come to a decision. “Ms. Delmar said she and Jack had a brunch date planned. When he didn’t show, she and her daughter drove around looking for him and spotted his vehicle parked at Menemsha Hills.”

  “Did the coroner specify a time of death?” I interjected.

  “Between eight and eleven last night.”

  “And Marianne was where at that time?” Aunt Martha and I asked simultaneously. After all, we didn’t know her. And maybe Jack really didn’t either.

  “It’ll be up to the state police to establish the alibis of possible suspects . . . if it comes to that. But rest assured the scene is being thoroughly processed. There was no obvious evidence of foul play that I could see.”

  “You have a murder here . . . what? Once every twenty years? Would the cops know a murder if they saw one?” Aunt Martha griped.

  A redhead driving a sporty red Mazda careened into Ashley’s driveway, then sprang out of her car and stormed toward us in her designer boots, her gaze fixed on Officer Phelps. “Jack was killed, wasn’t he?”

  “This is Marianne’s daughter, Carly,” Phelps informed us, ignoring the young woman’s hysteria.

  She inhaled, puffing up her small stature an extra half inch, and raked her gaze over me, then Aunt Martha. “Who are you two?”

  “Friends of Jack’s.”

  “And of Ashley too, I suppose?” she snapped.

  Aunt Martha and I exchanged a glance. What was this woman’s problem with Ashley?

  She snorted. “I thought as much. Well, I’ll tell you something you probably don’t know. Jack had an appointment with his lawyer for Monday morning. He was going to add Mom to his will.”

  I nodded, since the plan seemed perfectly reasonable, given their pending nuptials.

  Officer Phelps jotted the information onto his notepad.

  “And you can bet your badge,” Carly went on, jabbing one perfectly manicured finger at his book, “Ashley and that lazy brother of hers weren’t happy about getting squeezed out of the picture.”

  Aunt Martha stomped her foot for real. “Are you accusing Ashley and Ben of murdering their own uncle?”

  “You bet your pink patoozies I am.”

  Ashley, who must’ve stepped back onto the porch to see what all the yelling was about, crumpled to the floor.

  Another guy plowed up the driveway past us, took the porch steps two at a time, and slid to his knees at Ashley’s side. He cradled her head and patted her cheek, urging her around as the rest of us stared at him dumbfounded. His dark chiseled features looked familiar. He scooped her into his arms. “Get out of my way,” he said to my parents and Marianne, who’d stopped frozen in the doorway.

  As he maneuvered past them, Aunt Martha and I hurried inside too.

  He set Ashley down on her sofa. “Will someone
please tell me what’s going on?”

  “Who are you?” Mom blurted.

  “Preston?” I said on an exhalation as my mental Rolodex locked on to why he looked so familiar. “Preston Sullivan Frasier?”

  His gaze skittered over everyone else before settling on me. He looked puzzled.

  And why would I think he’d remember me? We’d only gone out a few times, and that was ten years ago.

  “Preston,” Ashley whimpered, coming around. She threw her arms around him and sank into another crying jag as Dad broke the news about Jack’s death.

  “You must be Ashley’s fiancé,” Mom cut in, apparently catching sight of the rock on Ashley’s left ring finger the same moment as me.

  “No way!” I blurted before I could censor my surprise. Preston was an academic type who loved art and history and loathed sunbathing on a crowded beach, Ashley’s favorite pastime.

  Ashley pushed her face away from Preston’s damp shoulder and swiped at her stray tears. “I was going to surprise you with the news this weekend,” she said sheepishly.

  Looking at me, Preston tilted his head, recognition finally lighting his eyes. “Serena? Serena Jones. It’s good to see you.” He pushed to his feet and pulled me into a hug. “I wish it could’ve been under happier circumstances.”

  Carly snorted. “You should be happy. Your fiancée’s inheritance is secure.”

  “Carly!” her mother exclaimed as the rest of us gaped at the woman’s callousness.

  Everyone except Aunt Martha, that is. She grabbed Carly by the arm and herded her out the door. “It’s time for you to leave.”

  “With pleasure. C’mon, Mother,” Carly called over her shoulder as Aunt Martha shoved her across the threshold.

  “I’m sorry,” Marianne whispered, hurrying after her. “She easily gets emotionally distraught and tends to overreact.”

  Officer Phelps followed the pair out, no doubt to get the lowdown on the evil step-child-to-be’s fantastical theory in case that lack of “evidence of foul play” just meant the killer was smart.

  Aunt Martha closed the door behind them. “Pay her no mind,” she said to Ashley. “The grief clearly sent her over the edge.”

  Except . . . Carly had been right about one thing. Money was pretty much the number one motive for murder. “Where’s Ben?” I asked. Ashley’s brother spent most of the year backpacking around one country or another, freelancing human-interest stories to any outlet that would buy them. But I’d expected him to be home for the engagement party.

  “Oh no!” Ashley shot a worried glance at Preston. “I forgot. Uncle Jack was supposed to pick Ben up from the ferry this morning. We have to go get him.”

  “His flight must’ve been delayed,” I said.

  “She’s right,” Preston agreed. “Otherwise, he would’ve found his way here by now.”

  Ashley grabbed her cell phone and thumbed through some screens. “He hasn’t texted me.” She tried his number. “He’s not picking up.”

  “He could still be on the plane,” Preston soothed.

  “Or forgotten to turn his phone off airplane mode,” Dad interjected. “Do you know what flight he was coming in on?”

  “Uncle Jack would have it on his calendar in the kitchen.”

  “I’ll go look,” I volunteered.

  Phelps was still talking to Carly and Marianne in the driveway, so I slipped out the side door and crossed the yard. Like lots of people on the island, Jack never locked his house, and with any luck I’d be in and out before Phelps could hassle me.

  The side door opened into his kitchen. I let myself in, and my throat caught at the familiar home smell that hadn’t changed in all these years. I wrestled down the swell of emotion and focused on the wall calendar. It had the time of Ben’s ferry on it but nothing about his flight. The phone also hung on the wall. I scanned the countertops for a notepad, envelopes, anything that Jack might’ve jotted the information on. I should’ve known better. Uncle Jack had always been borderline compulsive about keeping everything in its place.

  The phone book drawer! I jerked open the cupboard drawer closest to the phone and found the mother lode. A three-messages-per-page book, complete with yellow carbon copy duplicates. And Jack, bless his compulsive soul, had written the date and time of every call he deemed important enough to keep a record of. His neighbor seemed to call a lot with one complaint or another about the latest “sculpture” Uncle Jack had added to his garden. Some areas of the Vineyard had bylaws restricting lawn ornaments and various other things, but not in this area. I snapped pics of a couple of the pages that recorded the neighbor’s rants and then flipped to the last used page. Tiny remnants of perforated paper indicated a page had been removed, complete with its duplicates. I carefully pried up the blank top layer of the next page to see if Jack had pressed hard enough for his message to appear on the carbon copy of the set below.

  My heart jumped. FBI-Boston was written neatly at the top with Monday’s date and the time of 9:05. Scrawled in the message area was a name I recognized—Isaak Jackson, a member of the Art Crime Team working out of Boston—along with the word vacation. Why was Jack calling the FBI’s art crime detective?

  I squinted at the memo below the first. A call with Isaak, maybe. The print was too faint to be sure. Same for the last memo, except it might’ve had Ben’s flight information. I could make out the word terminal, but not the number or time.

  At the creak of a floorboard in the next room, I glanced out the kitchen window. Officer Phelps was still at Carly’s car. So, who was in the house?

  The hairs on my neck prickled. My back was to the archway between the kitchen and the next room, with table and chairs the only cover between it and me. Reaching for my gun, I spun and ducked in one motion.

  “Drop the weapon or I’ll drop you,” a deep male voice ordered.

  3

  “FBI, drop your weapon,” I ordered, glaring at the massive man looming over me with his Glock, held in latex gloved hands, pointed at the kitchen chair uselessly shielding my chest. Then recognition dawned. “Isaak?”

  The agent’s eyes narrowed.

  I laid my gun on the floor and, straightening, raised my hands in surrender. “Serena Jones. With the FBI Art Crime Team, St. Louis. We met at the conference in New York. Remember?” As the youngest agent on the twelve-member team, I should be pretty memorable.

  But a couple more heartbeats passed before he said “right” and holstered his gun. “What are you doing here?”

  “Jack Hill is an old family friend.” I lowered my hands and returned my gun to its holster too. “What are you doing here?”

  “Hill’s niece gave me permission to search the place,” he said quickly.

  Ohh-kay. So, no search warrant. Tension tightened my chest. Was he trying to save time? Or looking for something without cause? “What are you searching for?”

  “Anything that may tell me what Jack knew about an antiquities smuggling ring.”

  “A smuggling ring? What are you talking about?”

  “He called headquarters on Monday. Said that his nephew had information. Asked about making a deal.”

  No. No. This couldn’t be good. “Is Ben in jail?”

  “Who’s Ben?”

  “Jack’s nephew.” I willed my hammering heart to slow. “His ferry was supposed to arrive this morning.”

  “Supposed to?”

  “Ben hasn’t shown up.”

  Isaak rammed the butt of his hand into the doorjamb and let out an expletive.

  “What did Jack tell you about this smuggling ring? Do you think they killed him?” My throat tightened. “Got to Ben?”

  Isaak shook his head. “No clue. I never talked to Jack. He left a message with headquarters, because I’m supposed to be on vacation with my family. But when I picked up my messages and found out he lives here, I decided to take a couple of hours to meet with him. Only . . .” Isaak waved his hand about the empty room.

  I swallowed hard, a chill skitterin
g down my spine. With the rise in global terrorism and reports purporting that antiquities smuggling had become the second-largest source of income for at least one major terrorist group, the government paid close attention to the slightest whiff of antiquities smuggling these days. And not just the FBI. Homeland Security, Customs, the coast guard, and no doubt the CIA were on high alert.

  “Whatever Jack uncovered must’ve got him killed.” Maybe Ben too. The pressure in my chest intensified. Antiquities smuggling was an appealing way to make cash. Artifacts didn’t set off metal detectors or attract gun- or drug-sniffing dogs. And with the ever-growing thirst of collectors, terrorists had little trouble finding eager buyers. Not that we should be surprised by their initiative. The Nazis and Khmer Rouge had financed their endeavors the same way.

  “The police say Hill’s death was an accident,” Isaak said. “He fell down the stairs to the rocky beach and hit his head.”

  Swallowing hard, I blocked out the image. “But”—I glanced out the window at Officer Phelps still talking to Carly—“you told them what was going on, didn’t you? That maybe he didn’t just fall.”

  Isaak blew out a huff of frustration and stalked back to the living room. “Yeah, but the police didn’t find evidence of anyone else being there.”

  I hurried after him. “But someone’s been here. A page was torn from his message book. We need to get an evidence team in here.”

  “State police already has one on the way.”

  Of course, they would. Probably weren’t happy about Isaak getting here first.

  A massive drafting table dominated Jack’s living room, flanked by a second smaller table covered with photographs. Jack was an architect, the “Hill” in Hill and Dale Architects Ltd., and still very much old school. Not only didn’t he use a computer to do his drafting, he still used 35mm film to take photographs. My gaze skittered to a photograph on the wall of Ashley and me digging a moat around our sand castle.

  I could still remember the day he took it. I blinked back tears.

  Isaak flicked through a stack of photos of the interior of an uber-luxurious home Jack was probably redesigning or perhaps had designed. “He’s got dozens of photos of homes whose owners could easily afford to collect antiquities, but I’m not seeing anything suspicious in any of these.” He tossed the photos back on the table.