A Case of Vineyard Poison (17 page)

By the time Quinn and Dave got home from the beach and had showered and changed, I was on my third beer. I showed them the cooking stuff.

“You're on your own tonight, guys.”

“No problem,” said Dave. “We've never starved yet.”

Quinn put a hand on each of my shoulders and then stood back. “A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” he said, admiringly, looking at my clothes. “Except for the face, of course.”

At five-thirty, I brushed my teeth for the third time that day, and headed for West Tisbury.

I took a right on the Vineyard Haven Road, a left on Barnes Road, and another right on the West Tisbury Road, and headed up-island. I lived down-island, along with the other citizens of the Vineyard's three largest villages.
Up-island is so called because the prevailing winds oblige sailboats to tack if they want to fetch the towns at the west end of the island. Since Zee's house was quite a way from the nearest water, you really couldn't sail there, but she was up-island anyway.

As had been Captain Joshua Slocum, the world's first single-handed circumnavigator, who, long ago, had owned a place not too far from Zee's house.

I went through the center of West Tisbury, past the general store and the field of dancing statues, and drove on until I came to Zee's driveway.

Her little Jeep was parked in front of her house. I parked beside it, rubbed my sore back, took a deep breath, and walked to the front door.

A little woman wearing a yellow summer dress opened it to my knock. I looked down at her.

“You must be Zee's sister,” I said. “I was expecting her mother.”

She beamed and put out a tiny hand. “I'm Maria, and I am her mother. And you must be Jefferson. Please come in.”

She led me into the living room. Oliver Underfoot and Velcro came galloping into the room and immediately tangled themselves with my feet, buzzing. Zee came from the kitchen with a smile on her face. “I heard that opening ploy, Jefferson. Very politic. Good grief, what happened to your face?”

“A rhinoceros tried to run over me. I made them take him back to Africa.”

She put up a gentle hand and turned my head so she could look at my bruises. She was ever a healer. “No, really, what happened to you?” She stood on her toes and kissed me.

“Actually, it was a barroom brawl. I didn't want to admit it, because I wanted to make a good impression on your mother. I want you to know that it's your fault if she gets the wrong impression of me.”

“Thanks a lot. Maybe it would be better if she did get the wrong impression. If she got the right impression, she might try to call off the wedding.” She looked down at her mother. “Which story do you prefer? The rhinoceros or the barroom brawl? I'll leave the choice up to you.”

“I've never seen either one,” said her mother. “I guess I'll take the rhinoceros story, if I have to “choose.” She peered up at me. “On the other hand, once, when I was a girl, your father and a rival for my affections got into a fight and both of them ended up looking something like this young man looks. So maybe the barroom brawl is a better guess.”

Her voice still held the accents of the Azores. She was barely five feet tall, and looked no older than her daughter. I had only been half larking when I'd identified her as Zee's sister. She was obviously one of those people who never age as fast as the rest of us.

“I usually run from violence,” I said. “But this time it snuck up on me from behind.” I put on my best smile. “They say that if you want to know what a woman will look like in twenty years, you should look at her mother. Zee is the most beautiful woman I know, but I can see that the best is yet to come.”

“You are a very shameless fellow,” said Maria, blushing slightly. “Such a wicked flatterer probably shouldn't be trusted, but I can see why my daughter has been charmed. Sit down and let me get you something to drink. I believe Zeolinda says you like beer.”

“That'll be fine.”

I sat, and she went into the kitchen. Zee arched a fine brow and shook her head. “You
are
shameless, Jefferson!” Then she grinned and lowered her voice. “But it's working!”

The people who say flattery will get you nowhere couldn't be more wrong. When Maria Muleto came back with my beer and a glass of wine for herself, I was beginning to relax.

“Now tell me about yourself,” she said. “Since my daughter is set upon marrying you, I want to know everything.” She sat down on Zee's couch and curled her legs under her, like a young girl.

“I imagine that Zee has told you just about everything.”

“She says you're retired. You look very young to be retired.”

“I'm only partly retired. I do some fishing to help eke things out.”

“She tells me that you were a policeman in Boston, but that you were wounded and left the force.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“She tells me that you were once married.”

“That was before I left the police force. Police wives never know whether their husbands are going to come home. They worry a lot. When I got shot, it was the last straw. My wife stayed with me until I was better, then divorced me. Later, she married a man who had a safer job.”

“And then you retired.”

“I had some disability money, so I came down here and became a fisherman.”

“Zeolinda was married to a doctor. Paul Madieras. I'm sure she's told you about him.” Something had changed
in her tone. Zee had once told me that her mother had loved having a daughter married to a doctor and had never forgiven her for the divorce.

“We don't talk about him very much,” I said. “I'm told he left her for a younger woman after Zee put him through medical school. It's an oft-told story.”

Her voice was cool. “He preferred a woman who could appreciate him. Zeolinda isn't always easy to get along with.”

I felt a flicker of anger. “Anybody who can't get along with Zee is a fool. When I think of that ex of hers at all, I think of him as Dr. Jerk.”

Maria's dark eyes blazed and she looked down at her wine. Well done, J.W. Diplomatic as always.

Maria looked up. “I love my daughter,” she said in a tight voice. “I want her to be happy, but I also want her to have some financial security. I want her to be able to stay home with her children, and not have to work when they are young, the way I had to. A woman should be in the home when her children are young.”

I did not point out that her daughter had turned out very well in spite of the fact that both of her parents worked. Was Maria comparing my meager money with Dr. Jerk's income? Could be.

“And there is the Church,” she went on. “I don't know about your religion, Jefferson, but we are Catholic, so there is the matter of who shall perform the marriage, and how the children will be trained religiously. I know you may think I'm interfering where I have no business to be, and I know that you young people may think that I'm completely old-fashioned and out of date, but this is important. When Zeolinda and Paul separated, there was an annulment, so both were free to remarry. Was
your marriage annulled as well? I want Zeolinda's marriage to be completely proper. You understand.”

I thought I understood very well indeed. We were in a mire, and there seemed no likely way out. I tried to keep my voice level, but didn't think I managed it. “My first wife and I were not married in the Catholic Church, so we needed no annulment when we were divorced. Zee and I are getting married in the yard outside John Skye's farmhouse. I think it will be quite a proper marriage. My sister and our friends will be there to help us celebrate. I want you and your family to be there, too. Zee has chosen a friend of hers to marry us. I believe she's a justice of the peace. As for the children we may have, my sister, who lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is not a Catholic, but sends her children to a Catholic school because it's the best school she can find. That makes sense to me. Should Zee and I have children, and I hope we do, I plan to send them to the best schools we can afford. If they're Catholic schools, that's fine. If they're not, that's fine, too. If Zee wants to raise our children as Catholics, that's okay with me, although they'll have to get used to living with a father who isn't one.”

She drank some of her wine and sat stiffly in her chair. “You are not a religious man, then?”

I said, “I think religions are metaphors for spiritual truth. Maybe that makes me religious.” If I'd stopped there, it might have been okay, but because I am by nature occasionally perverse and self-destructive, I kept talking. “Personally, I usually don't go to church unless there's music that I want to hear. Like it says in
Ivanhoe,
‘the closer to church, the farther from God.' ”

She got up. “I'd better help Zeolinda in the kitchen,” she said, and walked out of the room.

“How'd it go?” asked Quinn the next morning. I looked at him across the breakfast table. He looked back. “I withdraw the question,” he said, and returned his attention to his blueberry pancakes.

“That bad, eh?” asked Dave.

I wasn't sure whether it had been that bad or not. I was sure that it hadn't been good. Maria and I had been very polite all through supper, and afterward I'd left early.

“I invited them here for supper tonight,” I said.

“Ah,” nodded Quinn. “The old home court advantage. Good thinking, Ace.”

“Too bad you don't have a piano,” said Dave. “I could play background music. Something Portuguese and soothing.”

Quinn looked at him. “Aha. That's the first time I've heard you mention a piano since we got down here. I do believe that you have taken the cure and are about ready to return to the concert world or whatever it is you call that life you live.”

Dave gave a little nod. “You may be right.” He held up his right hand and flexed his fingers. “I think that after about one more trip to the fishing grounds I'll be ready to face the world with a smile.”

“We can do that,” I said.

“Sorry,” said Quinn. “You can't come. You have to
clean up this house and do the cooking for your guests. Dave and I will have to face the bluefish alone.”

I hated to admit it, but he had a point.

“You know, you just might help me out a little,” I said. “Vacuum the place, pick up your junk. That sort of thing.”

“You sound just like my ex-wife,” said Quinn. “Sorry, but Dave and I are guests, so we don't have to do any work. We're just down here to loaf. Come on, Dave, my boy, we're off to Wasque.”

Dave hesitated. I turned my back on Quinn and winked at Dave. “Go on,” I said. “If you stay, Quinn will stay too, and I'll have to listen to him moan and groan while I trip all over him. If he's around, it'll take me twice as long to get things done.” I dug the Toyota keys out of my pocket and tossed them to him. “Bring home a bluefish for supper.”

“Well . . .”

“You heard him,” said Quinn. “Let's get out of here before he changes his mind.”

“Just leave your car keys,” I said. “I might have to go somewhere.”

“No farther than the liquor store, I hope,” said Quinn, handing me his keys. “Try to buy a decent wine, for a change.”

When they were gone, I started some bread—since what is more winning than fresh, homemade bread?—then dragged out the vacuum cleaner (salvaged almost new from the dump years before, needing only a cord which I got from another vacuum cleaner otherwise quite worthless). While it was still in the cool of the morning, I vacuumed the whole house, then picked up bachelor-abandoned beer cans, magazines, newspapers,
and other clutter, and tidied up in general. Dave was pretty neat, but Quinn was not. He tended to live very informally, except for his car and his clothes, both of which he tended with great care.

“Image is everything,” he liked to say.

“What about women?” I'd asked him once. “How do you keep the pristine image intact when you live like a pig?”

“The secret is never to entertain at home,” he'd replied. “We go to their places, if we go anywhere. They love a mystery, and my apartment makes me one. They want to see it, and the more I don't let them, the more fascinating I become. Works like a charm. Of course some of their places are as sloppy as mine, or worse, but what the hell?”

Indeed. I didn't think of myself as a real neatnik, but compared to Quinn I was tidy to a fault, which only meant that I liked things more or less in order, or at least stacked in orderly piles.

While I worked, I wondered not for the first time why we pick up our houses when we know we're going to have visitors, even though the visitors must know the houses don't look like that most of the time. Vanity of some kind, apparently: we want to be thought of as better than we really are. We want to make a good impression. Or, to put a better spin on it, maybe we want to honor our guests by cleaning up for them.

When I thought the house was clean enough, I punched down the bread. I punch mine down four times, since it seems to improve the grain of the finished product. It was still only mid-morning, so I called Hazel Fine at the Vineyard Haven National Bank.

“Perfect timing,” she said. “I was about to call you. I
talked to a pal over at the Zimmerman National Bank in Hyannis, and he's interested in this business. No banker wants his firm to get involved in a scam, even if everything his own bank has done is completely legal and aboveboard. Another thing: it turns out my friend knows some people over at Frazier Information Systems, so he's going to try to talk to them. He's also going to try to track down the New Bedford, Woods Hole and Nantucket Salvage Company.”

“Sounds like he's going to be a busy guy. Will he talk to me after he does all of his checking?”

“Bankers aren't too quick to discuss their business with people they don't know. Especially people without any authority to be asking questions.”