“Do you have a phone number for her?”
“No.”
“An address? The name of somebody? Do you know which town she’s in? If she has a job?”
“No, no, Mr. Coyne. Nothing like that. All I can tell you is, she was on the Vineyard a few days ago. I said I’d like to go down, spend a day or two with her, or maybe go to the Celebration with her, and she said no, that wouldn’t work. That’s all I know.”
“It wouldn’t work,” I repeated. “As if she might be leaving?”
“It didn’t really sound like that. More like she was busy, had other friends. I guess she just didn’t want to see me. I don’t know what’s up with Christa. She’s pretty weird.”
“Weird how?”
“I don’t know. When I knew her, when she was living here in Belmont, she was fun, you know? We made jokes and stuff. We laughed a lot. She had a great mom and dad. I used to be a little jealous. Anyways, since she left, whenever I talk with her, it’s like, she hates her parents, and everything is so serious.”
“You mean you talk about serious things?”
“No, not like that. Just her tone. She sounds serious, you know? We don’t really ever talk about anything.”
I asked Alyssa Romano a few more questions, but she didn’t have any more insight. As far as she knew, Christa was on Martha’s Vineyard for the Celebration for Humanity, and that was it. I gave her my phone number and urged her to call me if she thought of anything, and I asked her not to tell Christa she’d spoken to me if they talked again. She promised.
I hoped she’d keep her promise to me, even if she’d broken her promise to Christa. Now that I knew where she was, I didn’t want to spook her.
For a minute or two I felt triumphant. In about two hours I’d discovered that Christa Doyle was alive, which all by itself was a cause for exultation, and I’d narrowed my search for her down from the entire world to a little island less than a two hours’ drive and a forty-minute ferry ride from my apartment. That, I thought, was damn good work for an amateur sleuth.
Then I began thinking about the work I still faced. Finding somebody who didn’t want to be found on Martha’s Vineyard in August, when the island swarmed with Summer People, was needle-in-a-haystack stuff. And this particular August, when the Celebration for Humanity, or whatever it was called, was coming up would make it even harder.
Well, if anybody could do it, it was J. W. Jackson.
J.W. was an ex–Boston cop who’d gotten shot, retired on his disability, moved to the Vineyard, married a beautiful islander named Zee, and sired a couple of nice kids. If you asked J.W. what he did, he’d tell you he was a fisherman, but I happened to know that he did some investigating now and then. He and I were friends. We fished together a couple times every year. Once we even worked on a case together.
I called his number. No answer, naturally. I didn’t really expect the Jacksons to be home on a pretty summer Saturday afternoon. They’d be out with their kids in their catboat or surf casting off the Chappie beaches or raking quahogs in one of the saltwater ponds.
I kept trying, and a half hour later Zee answered. She sounded happy to hear my voice and asked if I wanted to come down, do some fishing. The bonito and false albacore had started to show up, she said, and there were always stripers around.
I told her I’d rather wait till after Labor Day, when the Summer People went back to America, and she said she didn’t blame me, it was Grand Central Station down there. Anytime I wanted. They always had a bed for me at their house.
“I bet you want to talk to J.W.,” she said.
“Is he around?”
“Nope. He’s driving his, um, friend Evangeline around the island.”
“Evangeline?” I said. “You mean the singer?”
“Yep. Can you believe it?”
“Sure. Some people have all the luck, and J.W. is one of them.”
“Don’t tell anybody,” she said. “It’s supposed to be hush-hush. I’ll have him call you when he gets in.”
J.W. called an hour later. “What’s up?” he said.
“I’ve got a job for you. Right up your alley.”
“I’m retired, remember?”
“So what are you doing driving the world’s most glamorous singer around? They paying you for that?”
“Bet your ass,” he said. “You don’t think I’d do something like this for nothing, do you?”
“Listen,” I said. “What I’ve got is a more important job.” I told him about Mike and Neddie Doyle, how I’d tracked Christa down to the Vineyard, and how all I wanted was for J.W. to locate her for me so I could go down and talk to her.
“For the next week or so,” he said, “the best I can do is keep an eye out for her. You want real sleuthing, I can’t help you. I’m joined to Evangeline at the hip for about ten hours a day, seven days a week.”
“One hip or two?”
“Ha,” he said.
“That doesn’t sound so hard,” I said. “She’s an attractive woman.”
“Oh, she’s attractive,” he said. “That doesn’t make it easy.”
“You can’t do this for me, then?”
“Brady, believe me, I would if I could.”
“Know anybody who can?” I said.
He was quiet for a minute. “Every cop and spare security man on the island is working overtime, babysitting important people, guarding mansions, stuff like that. You send some PI down here who doesn’t know his way around, he’ll never get anywhere.” He cleared his throat. “There’s only one guy I can think of who might be up to the job.”
“Yeah?” I said. “Who’s that?”
“Stick out your forefinger,” he said, “and aim it at your face.”
“Me?” I laughed. “Hell, I’m no investigator. Anyway, I did my part of the job. I found out Christa was down there.”
“You know your way around here as well as any off-islander,” said J.W. “You’ve got a place to stay and a car to use and a couple of savvy local consultants.”
“The consultants being you and Zee.”
“Right.”
“The place to stay being your place.”
“Of course. Anytime.”
“Your car?”
“It’s just sitting there rusting. They’ve given me a nice new Ford Explorer to drive the lady around in.”
“I really don’t want to do this,” I said.
“Ah, we’ll have a good time. Maybe even get out in the evening, catch some fish.”
“You’ll help me?”
“Like I said, I’ll consult with you, and so will Zee. I’ll make some phone calls for you, if you want. I can’t sleuth around, except maybe after dark when I’ve tucked Evangeline in for the night.”
I hemmed and hawed, but in the end I told J.W. I’d be on the noon ferry the next day. He said he’d have Zee pick me up at the dock in Vineyard Haven, and he’d meet me on their balcony for martinis around suppertime.
Chapter Five
J.W.
The next morning, while we read the Globe at breakfast, Zee agreed to drive me in the Land Cruiser over to the Carberg house so she could bring back my rusty vehicle for Brady’s use after she installed him in our guest room.
“I’m delighted to assist you in the performance of your obligations to the world’s most famous pop star,” she said.
“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. The fact that she’s one of the richest, most famous, sexiest, and most beautiful women in the world has nothing to do with my dedication to my work.”
She looked toward heaven. “Save me, Lord!”
A guy I know says that in California people don’t just belong to one out-of-the-mainstream spiritual or medical system or sect, but to at least two and sometimes to more. They pray, meditate, exercise, and eat according to several different disciplines at the same time. Oriental and Native American rituals and healing rites are particularly popular. California, the guy says, is the navel of the New Age.
If so, the New Age has two navels and Martha’s Vineyard is the second one. One of its year-round industries is catering to seekers of cosmic comfort and alternate medical cures. If you open any island newspaper or magazine you will find ads and sometimes articles concerning Buddhist meditation, aromatherapy, kung fu, hypnotherapy, acupuncture, alternative psychotherapies, tai chi, past-life regression, Black Elk’s vision, sun worship, yoga, animal communication, holistic medical practices, dance therapy, medicine drum therapy, writing therapy, art therapy, palm reading, card reading, tea ceremonies, and other mystical and magical arts and procedures.
One of the most fashionable of such practices was centered at what its adherents called a Temple of Light, more humbly referred to by its founder, Alain Duval, as simply “the ashram.”
I had never seen the ashram, and if I’d seen Alain Duval I didn’t know it, but I’d certainly heard of both.
Duval, according to his critics, had amassed a fortune by offering dubious spiritual counseling and guidance to a vast number of people from all walks of life. He was also said to have accepted or expected or even demanded sexual favors from the more attractive of his women followers. His enemies took pleasure from recent gossip that the master was beginning to fall from favor, and were quick to circulate and expand upon that and all other negative rumors concerning Duval.
Such criticism and hearsay surrounding leaders both sacred and profane are not unusual, of course, and don’t necessarily have any foundation in fact, although it is far from unknown for persons of lofty reputation to have feet of clay and to fall from favor.
According to Duval’s aficionados, known to themselves as the Followers of the Light, or simply the Followers, he lived a modest, almost saintly life, and had given all money donated to the ashram to the poor and needy. His personal needs, they said, were few and simple, and to meet them he literally depended on whatever alms were dropped in a bowl at the ashram’s doorway. Any donations not needed by Duval that day were passed on to those in greater need, and no woman ever experienced more than a purely spiritual love from the master.
Duval, I’d read in the local papers, was a principal instigator of the Celebration for Humanity. He was not only a religious figure, but was also known to wield influence in the political, the economic, and the entertainment worlds. Who better, in spite of rumors of his decline or womanizing, to persuade the great and the powerful to come together in an unprecedented gathering to dramatize Western civilization’s refusal to bow before the world’s terrorists, and indeed to promise the inevitable triumph of democracy and freedom?
Heady stuff, but I didn’t even know where the ashram was located other than what I’d heard yesterday from Evangeline while driving up and down Indian Hill Road. It was a price I paid for being spiritually undeveloped, not to say irreligious. I only went to church when a good musical program was on the bill.
But you don’t have to be religious to find a church, so I made a phone call to Father Joe Gould, who kept track of the island’s other religious activities when he wasn’t tending to his own.
“You’re interrupting my breakfast,” said Father Joe. “I suppose you know that.”
“You shouldn’t sleep so late,” I said. “I’ll make this quick because I know it’s unwise to get between a priest and his orange juice and omelet. How do I find the Temple of Light up in Chilmark?”
“Why? Are you planning on abandoning your sinful way of life and becoming a Follower? If you are, I can offer you a church that’s a lot older than Alain Duval’s hodgepodge.”
“I thought all religions were hodgepodges.”
“His is messier than most. A tidbit from India, a symbol from China, a prayer from the Middle East. All very mystical, but not of a piece. If you want consistency, come to St. Elizabeth’s.”
“Spend more of your money on good music and I might. Where can I find Mr. Duval and his ashram?”
“I believe that’s Master Duval, not Mister Duval. His Vineyard shrine is off of Indian Hill Road on the old Exeter estate. I think the whole place has been turned over to Duval and his ashram. Why can’t I get a deal like that? Is it because nobody calls me the Truth and the Light, like they do him?”
“That could be it. But how can you ask for more? You already have church ladies waiting on you hand and foot, cleaning your house, cooking your meals, treating you as though you actually know what you’re doing.”
“I do know what I’m doing. Right now, for instance, I know I’m trying to have a quiet breakfast while I watch the morning news.”
“No wonder they say that the church is in decline. I leave you in the hands of God.”
“It’s a good place to be.”
When Zee drove me to the Carberg house, another young Edgartown cop had replaced Marty at the head of the driveway. I showed her my nifty new ID card and she waved us by. At the house, Zee dropped me off and gave me a kiss.
“Do your manly duty, however painful.”
“I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more.”
“Lovelace would be proud. Brady and I will see you tonight for cocktails if you’re not too busy with your pop star to join us.”
“You might like her if you met her.”
“But I haven’t met her.”
As Zee drove away in my Land Cruiser, Evangeline came out of the house. Behind her, Hale Drummand stared broodingly after her then went back inside.
“Right on time,” she said to me, smiling. She was wearing a different wig, different dark glasses, and casual clothes that failed to disguise a figure that I found very fine. She looked after the departing Toyota. “Who was that?”
“That was my wife. My own truck won’t be available for a few days, so I’ll be taking this Explorer home at night if that’s okay with you.”
“That will be fine. Hale has a car of his own if we should need it after you’re gone in the evening.”
“Thanks.” We got into the white Ford. “What’s your pleasure today? I can take you to Alain Duval’s ashram, if you want to go there.”
“That’s fast work. How’d you locate it?” The pleasure in her voice sounded forced to me.
“I have friends in high places. Shall we?”
She hesitated, then said, “Yes, but later. First, take me to the stage. I want to see the setup and talk with people there about the program, and especially about the sound system. I don’t want to work with bad sound.”
“You haven’t been down there?”
“No. I just got here the evening before we met. Do you know the way?”
“I know about where it is. It won’t be hard to find. The road will be the one protected by the First Airborne Division.”
In fact, it wasn’t guarded by the 1st Airborne but by a couple of police cars, some island cops, and some civilians who looked just like federal agents.
I showed my valuable ID card to anyone who wanted to see it while Evangeline sat beside me pretending to read a movie fan magazine. If any of the guards recognized her, none of them said so.
Finally waved through, we drove down the long paved driveway that led to Peter Fredericks’s eighty acres of prime Vineyard property. From time to time we passed other security people, who eyed us as they held their cell phones to their ears. If anyone managed to smash through the security at the front gate, he’d still never make it to the stage in the sheep pasture.
When we came to the pasture and its towering stage, we found a lot of busy people doing things. Carpenters were hammering and sawing, wires were being strung, a crew from the electric company was rigging temporary power lines in from the highway, and another crew was working on a huge generator at the far end of the field, just in case the power lines failed.
Sound people had set up speakers, light people were rigging strobes, and what I guessed was a group of pyrotechnicians was standing by a truck decorated with pictures of fireworks, calculating the best way to detonate the grand finale without starting a forest fire.
The scen
e reminded me of an anthill. Every person seemed to know what he or she was doing, but I hadn’t the slightest idea how to make sense of it all.
Evangeline, on the other hand, knew exactly where to go and whom to see. I followed her as she went through the many busy people directly to a middle-aged man wearing a tennis cap. He was sitting in a small van totally filled with electronic equipment. A large glass window in front of him looked toward the stage. Beyond him a younger man with glasses and a ponytail was doing something with the dials on a panel.
“How’s it going, Harry?” Evangeline swung lithely up into the van. There didn’t seem to be much room for anyone else inside, so I stood guard by the open rear doors.
Harry looked up, squinted, and said, “Sorry, lady, but no civilians allowed.”
She whipped off her dark glasses and smiled. He squinted some more, then grinned. “Vangie! Is that you, darlin’? Give us a kiss!” She did that and he returned it. “I heard you were coming, kid, but I thought you were still across the briny in that castle of yours. Say, did you hear your pal Flurge and the Bristol Tars are going to be here, too?”
She nodded. “Why do you think I came? Flurge asked me to. The Bristol Tars and I are the last act on Saturday. We’re gonna do our thing together and then get everybody else up onstage to join in. People will be dancing in the aisles and screaming so loud they won’t even be able to hear us or the fireworks going off. It’s going to be something nobody’s ever seen before!”
“That’s what they say. Beamed around the world.”
She peered deeper into the truck. “Where’s Scott? I thought you two were joined at the hip.”
Harry shook his head. “Scott tied one on and drove his car into a tree just a couple of days before he was supposed to come east and hook up with me here. Busted himself up pretty good. Just lucky for me that Frank, here, came by about that time looking for work. Let me introduce you two.” Harry gestured at the man beyond him. “This is Frank Dyer, Ev. This is the one and only Evangeline. Say hello.”
Second Sight Page 5