Second Sight

by Philip R. Craig

  By the time I got to the Jacksons’ house, the sun was low over America and shadows were beginning to seep out from under the trees. J.W. and Zee were on the balcony sipping their evening martinis and watching the barn swallows and purple martins chase moths.

  “Long day?” said J.W.

  “You don’t know the half,” I said. I poured a martini for myself, spread some bluefish pâté on a cracker, and slumped into a chair. “You waited supper for me,” I said. “You didn’t need to. But thanks.” I gobbled the cracker. I realized I hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

  “We knew you’d be delayed,” said Zee. “Olive Otera called, looking for you. I told her you were rattling around in J.W.’s Land Cruiser. Figured she’d catch up with you. What’d you do this time?”

  I summarized my conversation with Olive Otera, and when I finished, J.W. shook his head. “Corpses all over our blessed isle. Something bad is brewing.” He told me about the FBI’s suspicions and the possibility of terrorist activity on the Vineyard.

  “But who’d kill some innocent fortune-teller?” I said.

  “Maybe she saw into somebody’s future. Saw them do something before they did it.”

  “Well,” I said, “I can tell you this: I don’t feel good about it. According to your friend Olive Otera, Princess Ishewa’s death might be my fault. And it makes me worry about Christa Doyle, too. I talked to someone today who saw her.”

  “Yeah?” said J.W. “Who?”

  I told him about my conversation with Buster, the tattoo artist. I took his sketch of Christa’s tattoo out of my shirt pocket, unfolded it, and spread it on the table. “This is what he drew on her hip. Buster said he’s done several of these eyes recently. All on young, pretty women, all on the left hip.”

  “Ha,” said J.W.

  “Ha?” I said.

  “Evangeline’s got one just like that,” he said. “It’s on her left hip, too. She told me she got it done a few years ago. Didn’t seem too eager to talk about it.”

  Zee was peering at the picture. “It’s the Eye of Horus,” she said.

  “Horace?” I said.

  Zee smiled. “Horus.” She pronounced it carefully for me. “He’s Egyptian. The falcon god. According to the legend, Horus lost his left eye in battle, and his wife restored it. This symbol represents protection from evil. Strength. Healing. Making whole. It was a powerful symbol for the ancient Egyptians. It’s all over the tombs.”

  “So Evangeline got one,” I said, “and some scandal sheet got a picture of her in a bikini, and now every teenybopper in America has got to get their very own Eye of Horus tattooed on their left hip. Buster, the tattoo guy, said he figured it was the latest fad.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” said J.W. doubtfully. He got up and poured more chilled vodka into our martini glasses.

  When he sat down, I said, “When she was in Oregon, Christa was living in some kind of commune. You got any communes on this island?”

  “Lots of college kids live together in those rented houses,” Zee said, “and from what I hear, they share everything, including their drugs and their bodily fluids.”

  “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” said J.W. “The late great Karl Marx.” He hesitated. “Is an ashram a commune?”

  “Technically,” I said, “I would think not. Why?”

  He told me about Alain Duval, the spiritual guru. “This guy, from what I can tell, attracts women like flies to a cow flop. Young women. Young, pretty women. Evangeline knows him.”

  “And she’s got a tattoo like Christa’s,” I said. “What about all these young, pretty ashram women? Do they all sport Eye of Horus tattoos on their left hips?”

  He shrugged. “Alas, I’ve had few opportunities to scrutinize uncovered hips, though it doesn’t sound like unpleasant work.”

  “You managed a peek at Evangeline’s hips,” said Zee. “How were they?”

  “Second-best I’ve ever seen,” said J.W. with a straight face.

  “I think I’d better pay this Duval guy a visit,” I said.

  J.W. shook his head. “You won’t get past the guards.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  “Be smart, Coyne. My impression is, Duval is not somebody you want for an enemy.”

  “Neither am I,” I said. “Tell me what to expect.”

  “Well,” said J.W., “he keeps his compound buttoned tight. Guards everywhere.”

  “As if he were hiding something?”

  “As if he placed a high value on his privacy. Not unusual around here.” J.W. squinted at the sky for a moment, then said, “You got one of those pictures of Christa handy?”

  I went over to my briefcase where I’d dropped it on the balcony, slid out one of Christa’s photos, and handed it to him. He studied it for a minute. “I thought she might’ve looked familiar when you showed it to me before,” he said. “I still think so.” He tapped the picture. “I think I saw her at Duval’s.”

  “You sure?”

  “Nope. Not sure. This girl I saw, I didn’t get much of a look at her face.” He glanced at Zee. “She was, um, wearing a bikini.”

  Zee laughed. “You old goat.”

  “You didn’t notice her left hip?” I said.J.W. closed his eyes for a moment. “Nope. She was facing the other way. Saw her right hip. Didn’t notice any tattoo.” He opened his eyes. “I’m not sure it was her. Like I said—”

  “You weren’t looking at her face,” finished Zee.

  “Look,” I said. “My mission here is pretty straightforward. I just need to tell Christa about her father and see if I can persuade her to go home before he dies. So why don’t I just go to that ashram place and knock on the door and tell whoever answers that I want to talk to her? What’s wrong with that?”

  “Worth a try, I guess,” said J.W. doubtfully.

  “You think they’ll refuse me?”

  He shrugged. “Wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “Well, if they do, I’ll think of something else.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” said J.W. He leaned forward and put his hand on my arm. “Listen to me, old boy. I’ve got my hands full trying to babysit the singer. I don’t need to be worrying about you.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about me,” I said.

  “What I’m trying to say is, if you end up thinking about doing something stupid, at least wait for me.”

  “Oh, great,” said Zee. “The two of you doing something stupid together. Terrific. Let’s double the stupidity quotient.”

  J.W. looked at me. “Promise me, Coyne.”

  “I’ve made too damn many promises lately,” I said. “But I will consider your generous offer.”

  He shrugged. “Consider it seriously.” He picked up the martini pitcher, peered inside, and said, “Empty. Must be time for dinner.”

  Linguine with shrimp, clams, and scallops and a light, garlicky olive-oil-and-wine sauce. Crusty Portuguese bread. Greens from Zee’s garden. A local microbrew to wash it down. I proclaimed it delish, beating J.W. to the punch.

  I was sopping up the remnants of sauce with my last piece of bread when J.W. said, “Hey, Brady. Whaddya say. Let’s go fishin’.”

  I looked up at him. “Really?”

  He looked at Zee. “Okay with you?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Next time it’s my turn.”

  “I didn’t bring any gear,” I said.

  “I’ve got plenty,” said J.W., “if you don’t mind surf rods.”

  I grinned. “I don’t mind at all.”

  He glanced at his watch. “Tide turns in a couple hours. I’d love to be out at the gut at Cape Pogue about then.” He shook his head. “Can’t do it, though. That’d end up being an all-nighter. When I was younger I could fish all night and work all day and do it for a week. No more. What do you say to a few hours of casting off State Beach?”

  “Let’s go,” I said. “A little salt air will clean out my head.”

  We clamped four of J.W.’s surf-casting
rods, already rigged with plugs, on the rod rack of the old Land Cruiser I’d been driving, and ten minutes later we were standing in a sandy pullover beside the beach looking easterly. The flat water reflected the purple evening sky. Not a breeze stirred, and the wavelets lapped softly at the sand.

  “Well,” said J.W., “we’ve got the place to ourselves. That’s probably a bad sign. When everyone else is fishing in other places, I always figure they know something I don’t know.”

  “I don’t care,” I said. “It’ll be good just to throw a plug and think simple fishing thoughts for a while.”

  I took off my shoes and socks and left them in the car. Then I grabbed a rod armed with a top-water popper and went down to the beach. I heaved the plug way out there, and the monofilament line caught the fading light from the sky. It looked like the faint trail of a skyrocket arcing out toward the horizon and then falling softly onto the water.

  I reeled in the plug with a series of sharp tugs, and way the hell out there it kicked up a fuss on the water. I prefer top-water fishing, especially when surf casting. I like to see what’s going on. When there are bluefish around, you can see them coming, splashing and slashing at the plug, whacking it and sometimes throwing it into the air, and the trick is to try to ignore them and keep reeling until you feel one of them hook itself.

  Well, J.W. said not to expect blues. It was still a couple of weeks too early for them to show up in Vineyard waters. But he’d heard that the false albacore and bonito had started to appear, and there were always stripers.

  And so I worked my way along the beach, moving to my right, casting and walking, up to my ankles in the cool water, the wet sand scrunching between my toes, the night air damp on my arms. After a while, thoughts of Christa Doyle and Princess Ishewa and Eye of Horus tattoos receded as the deserted beach and the dark, mysterious ocean and the rhythms of casting and reeling filled my head.

  The buzz of civilization had faded to a subaudible hum. Out there where I couldn’t quite see it, my cup-faced plug was making plooping sounds as I reeled it in. Overhead the sky was a bowl of stars reflecting on the water.

  When I thought to look back toward the Land Cruiser, I realized I’d walked a long way. I couldn’t see J.W.’s silhouette on the edge of the water. I’d assumed he would follow along behind me. But apparently he didn’t want to fish water I’d already covered so he’d headed down the beach in the other direction.

  Fishing together didn’t mean actually being together. At its best, fishing is a private occupation, and J.W. understood that the same way I did. We didn’t need to talk and make jokes while we fished. We both liked the solitude of the beach at night. We were fishing together even when we were a mile apart.

  After a while, I figured it was time to head back to the car. I cast my way along the beach, moving to my left now, heaving out the plug, taking a few steps as I reeled it in, casting again, chugging the plug across the water. By now I had lost that anticipation I always start with, that keyed-up expectation that any moment something would hit my lure. It was plain that the fish hadn’t come out to play along State Beach tonight.

  I was just a hundred yards or so from where we’d parked when I heard a shout. It sounded like J.W. He must’ve hooked a fish.

  He shouted again. I reeled in and began jogging along the wet sand in his direction. If he’d hooked a fish that was big enough to yell about, I wanted to see it.

  I was nearly back to our parking place when I heard the roar of an engine and the squeal of tires, and an instant later headlights zipped by, moving fast along the road that paralleled the beach.

  I found J.W. standing beside his Land Cruiser clenching and unclenching his fists.

  “What happened?” I said.

  “Bastards,” he muttered. “They were gonna steal our rods.”

  The two spare rods were still clamped in the rod rack on the roof of the Land Cruiser. “You got here in the nick of time, then,” I said.

  “Something bit off my plug,” he said. “So I came back for another one. Otherwise they would’ve gotten them. One of these rods is Zee’s favorite. She’d’ve killed me. There were three of ’em. One was nosing around our rods, and two were in the front seat of their getaway car. I yelled and they took off.” He shook his head. “Damn off-islanders. No local would think of swiping somebody’s surf rod.”

  “Did you get a look at them? What about the vehicle?”

  “I couldn’t see what color it was or anything. Too dark. Some kind of SUV, is all I could tell you. Spewed up a helluva lot of sand getting out of here.” He hesitated. “When he jumped in the back, the dome light went on, and I caught a glimpse of two in the front.” He shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you what any of them looked like. My impression is they were young guys. College age, I’d say.”

  I put my rod in its rack, then leaned against the fender of the Land Cruiser. “You sure they were after the rods?”

  He turned and glared at me. “What the hell else would they be after?”

  “Calm down,” I said. “They didn’t get anything.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s the principle of it. We never lock our cars down here. Never worry about our rods or anything. None of us. We go out at night, we leave the house unlocked. It’s how we live on the Vineyard. Even the Summer People understand that. But this particular summer…” He blew out a breath and slouched against the car beside me. “It makes me mad, that’s all.”

  “Supposing,” I said, “they weren’t surf-rod thieves.”

  “So they’re looking for beer in the backseat. What’s the difference?”

  “I’ve been driving this car around the island for the past two days,” I said, “spreading the word that I’m looking for Christa Doyle, talking to people who end up crashing into oak trees. And you, the owner of this unique and easily identified vehicle, you’ve been witness to two murders. Something’s going on around here, and you—and for all we know, I—are in the middle of it.”

  J.W. was silent for a minute. Then he said, “You’re right. It could be something like that.”

  “On the other hand,” I said, “you scared them off. How dangerous could they be?”

  “Don’t be naive,” he growled. “Just because they fled doesn’t mean they were scared.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was a little before eleven. “You sleepy?” I said.

  “I’m too pissed to be sleepy. Why?”

  “How about showing me where that Duval guy hangs out.”

  “The ashram?” He narrowed his eyes at me. “I told you not to do something stupid without me.”

  “I won’t do anything stupid. And if you haven’t noticed, I am with you.”

  “I got a feeling our definitions of stupid might not be the same.” He shrugged. “What the hell. It’s over in West Tisbury. Hop in.”

  We headed up-island. I tried to memorize J.W.’s route, but he seemed to take some shortcuts, and in the darkness I lost my sense of direction. But fifteen or twenty minutes later, when we passed the entrance to the Fairchild place, where an old client used to live, I knew where we were.

  J.W. took a right onto a two-lane paved road. “This is Indian Hill Road,” he said.

  “Got it,” I said.

  He went slowly, and a minute later he stopped and said, “See that little sign?”

  “The one that says EXETER?”

  “Do you see any other signs?”

  “I see that one.”

  “That driveway goes over a hill and down toward the water and ends at Duval’s place.”

  “I don’t see any guards,” I said.

  “Don’t mean they ain’t there.”

  J.W. executed a three-point turn, a neat trick on the narrow roadway in the lumbering old Land Cruiser, and twenty minutes later we pulled into his driveway.

  “Lucky me,” he said, “I get to crawl into bed with the best hips on the island.”

  “Me,” I said, “I think I’ll call Evie, if you don’t mind me using your phone.�
��

  “Just behave yourself,” he said.

  Evie answered with that familiar mumbly little hum in her throat. “Mmm, hi, swee’ie.”

  “How’d you know it was me? Or do you call everybody sweetie?”

  “I got that caller ID thingie, remember?”

  “Wake you up?”

  “Kinda. It’s okay.”

  “I just wanted to hear your voice.”

  “And what did you want my voice to say?”

  “It doesn’t have to say anything particular. I just wanted to hear it.”

  “So how’s it going?” she said. “Find that girl yet?”

  “Getting warm, I think. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Well, okay.”

  We were silent for a minute.

  “So,” said Evie, “what do you want to talk about?”

  “I don’t want to talk,” I said. “I just wanted to—to connect.”

  “Connect, huh?” She chuckled.

  “There you go, talking dirty.”

  “The telephone is a poor substitute for the real thing.”

  “That’s what I’ve been thinking,” I said.

  “Well, I miss you,” she said.“G’night, then.”

  I hung up the phone, smiled into the darkness, and fell asleep instantly.

  Chapter Fifteen

  J.W.

  On Tuesday morning I had the Eye of Horus on my mind. Across the breakfast table from me Diana the huntress swallowed her mouthful of cereal. “Pa?”

  “What?”

  “Can Janie come and spend the day with us? She likes the tree house a lot and Ma’s got the day off, so we can play here first then go to the beach again. Can she?” She looked at me with Zee’s large, dark eyes.

  “You have to ask your mother. I have to work and she’s the one who’ll be at home with you guys.” I looked at Zee, who was sitting beside Brady having coffee with her bagel.

  “She already said to ask you,” said Diana.

  Ah, the old parental irresponsibility ploy.

  Zee smiled at me.

  “Well,” I said, looking back at Diana, “you tell her that it’s fine with me.”