A Case of Vineyard Poison (26 page)

Then Dave noted my bloody clothes, and nudged Quinn.

“Jesus,” said Quinn, suddenly wide awake. “What happened to you?”

“Some bullet fragments. Scratches, mostly. More blood than damage.”

Quinn's reporter's eyes lit up. “You need some coffee,” he said. “Dave, get us some coffee. J.W., you come right over here and sit down. That's right, that's right. Now, start from the beginning.”

When I was done, Quinn looked at Dave. “My boy,” he said. “I think I'll delay my return to Boston till tomorrow afternoon so I can talk to some cops in the morning. There's a story here with meat on its bones. Murder on Martha's Vineyard. Poison, a shootout at midnight, two hundred grand. Great stuff! I'll give it to the
Globe
and then maybe to the
Inquirer.
Hey, if I mix you into the plot, I can probably sell it to the movies.”

Dave nodded. “I can see it. Overworked musician flees fame for R and R on renowned resort island. Discovers nefarious plot, saves the world, and returns to the concert stage as combined pianist and secret agent.”

“You got it,” said Quinn. “Blockbuster film followed by the spinoff TV series showing musician performing onstage in a different international city every week and solving crimes between concerts in secret agent persona.
A different beautiful location and girl every week. Great classical music combined with travel, sex, and violence. Something for every kind of brow, high, middle, or low.”

Dave clapped his hands with feigned enthusiasm. “Great! Who do you think we should cast as me?”

“Me,” said Quinn. “We can use your hands for the close-ups of the keyboard, but I'll do the rest. I have the face and form of a hero.”

“I think I'll go to bed while you two work out the details,” I said, and did.

The phone rang at seven the next morning. It was Zee. Her voice was full of alarm.

“What's this about you getting shot? Are you okay?”

“How did you find out about that?”

“I work at the hospital, remember? I have friends there and there's no way you can go up there and be treated for a gunshot and me not learn about it. Are you okay?”

“Of course I'm okay. I didn't really get shot. I only got nicked by some fragments. Besides, it was only a .22.”

“Only a .22, eh? Aren't you the one who thinks that .22's probably kill more people than all of the .45's, 9mm's, 357 Magnums, and all the other guns combined?”

It sounded like something I might say, so I said, “Maybe.”

“I'm coming right over!”

The phone clicked in my ear.

I debated whether it would be better for me to get dressed and look manly, or to crawl back into bed and look pitiable. I wasn't sure about manly, but I knew pitiable wouldn't work very well, so I got dressed. As I did, I noticed something. My back didn't hurt. I was sore
where the fragments of the bullet had cut me, but my back felt fine. From falling off the log? From having had something more immediate to worry about, like being shot to death, so that the back problem disappeared because by comparison it wasn't worth thinking about? Had it all been in my head? Who knew? Who cared? I was happy.

Out in the living room Quinn was already on the phone. He saw me, covered the speaker with a hand and said, “I'm talking to some people at the
Globe.
Guess what?”

“What?”

“That dead guy in the Drago Hotel? His name's been released. Your friend Glen Gordon. Shot with a .22. I think we'd better tell the O.B.P.D. that they might have the murder weapon in their possession.”

“Good idea.” Things were falling into place, and a lot of them were piling up on Denise Vale.

When Zee arrived, Maria was with her. Zee's eyes were red. She came to me and put her arms around me and put her head against my chest. I held her tight.

Maria studied her daughter, then stepped close and looked up at me. “Is this what Zeolinda can expect from you? Worry and trouble all the time? Never knowing what will happen to you? Is this the kind of life you plan to give her?”

Zee jerked away from me and whirled toward her mother. “Shut up, Mom! You just be quiet!”

Maria's eyes opened wide.

“Now, Zee,” I said. “Your mom's just worried about you . . .”

Zee spun back. “You too, Jefferson! You just close your mouth! I don't want any more of this ‘now, Zeolinda,
dear' stuff from either of you or anybody else! I never want to hear it again! I know what I want!”

She hugged me again, and I looked over her head at her mother. Maria gazed at her only daughter, then shook her head, and said, “Here I am, acting just like my mother did when I told her I was going to marry your daddy. And there you are, acting just like I did. God preserve us all.” Then she smiled an ironic smile, stepped forward; and put her arms around us both. I hooked an arm around her, and after a while Zee did the same. The three of us stood there for quite a time.

By noon, Quinn had made his calls, and we thought we had figured out a lot of what had happened. Zee and Maria were a patient audience as we gave them our theories.

“The mistake I made,” I said, “was figuring Glen Gordon for the really bad apple in the barrel, when all the time it was Denise Vale. Glen was a con man and a thief, but he wasn't a killer. It was Denise, not Glen, who killed Kathy Ellis. Denise and Kathy met at Kathy's house and Kathy was never very happy afterward. My guess is that Kathy was having second thoughts about the scam and Denise was trying to put some starch in her spine. When Denise realized that Kathy was really going to spill the beans, she slipped her some water hemlock. Not a bad ploy, all in all, considering Kathy's dietary habits. Hard to prove it was murder even if someone got suspicious. Glen may have thought he was running the show, but Denise was using him from the beginning. I wouldn't be surprised if she planned from the start to keep the money for herself.”

Quinn nodded. “And that woman who rented the room in the Drago Hotel where Glen Gordon checked
in his chips. The desk clerk thought she was a hooker, but we're willing to bet that the woman was Denise Vale in some other disguise. She'd been an actress in college, remember, so she knew about wigs and makeup and all. And we'll also put money on Denise being Marilyn Grimes.” He glanced at me. “Did I tell you that I tracked down the real Marilyn Grimes and the real Cecil Jones? The NYU Alumni Association was glad to give me their addresses. They both live in New Jersey and had no idea that Glen Gordon had borrowed their names.”

Zee looked at me. “I thought you didn't recognize Marilyn Grimes when you saw her on the bank's video tape.”

“I didn't. She had a false front plate that made her mouth and teeth look different, she wore a wig, and she used makeup to make her look about ten years older than she really was. But once I thought about the two of them being the same person, in my imagination I took off the wig, took out the front plate, scrubbed off the makeup, and,
voila!
there was Denise Vale. Glen Gordon also wore makeup when he was Cecil Jones, but it wasn't nearly as effective as Denise's.”

“The way we figure it,” said Quinn, “is that she wanted him to be recognized through his disguise. Of course, she didn't tell him that, Of course, but that's what she wanted.”

“Why?” asked Zee.

“Because she wanted him to be recognized and take the rap. He was going to be the best kind of fall guy: the dead kind, shot in a cheap Boston hotel room by a hooker the cops could never track down.”

“You mean she planned to kill him all along?”

“I don't know about all along, but toward the end she
did. She told me that when she left the island she went to New Bedford, but what she really did was go up to Boston and rent that room at the Drago. Then she had Gordy go up there. He told everybody he was going up to a rock concert, but he was really going up there to meet her and go off with the two hundred thou. Instead, she killed him and took the money for herself.”

“I don't get it,” said Maria. “Once she had the money and was out of the hotel, why didn't she just take off with it? That's what I would have done.”

“Gee, Mom,” said Zee. “I didn't know you were so criminally inclined!”

“I'm not,” said Maria. “You know what I mean. Why didn't she just leave the country, or go somewhere and take a new name?”

“Because,” said Quinn, “if she'd done that, the cops would be looking for her. She funneled a hundred thou through her own checking account, remember. If she'd gone missing, the fuzz would have wanted to talk to her.”

“They would have anyway, wouldn't they?”

“Yeah, but what they would have found was a working girl still slinging beer in a local saloon. Quite a different thing from a woman who had disappeared along with two hundred thousand dollars. They would have brought her in and I expect that she would have confessed to having been a fool for letting her boyfriend, that wicked Glen Gordon, exploit her like he did. She would admit that she wrote the check, but claim that she didn't know anything more about how the scheme worked. She might do a little time for her part in the scam, but probably not. Probably the poor used thing would get probation. And probably, after a year or two, she'd go back to New York to live with her mama. And
probably after that, she'd disappear into the great American wilderness.”

“And what about the money?”

I shrugged. “Ah, the money. I expect that the money is scattered here and there in safety deposit boxes in various banks under various names. In a few years, when Denise was sure the cops weren't watching her very carefully anymore, she would have collected the money. Or maybe she's already invested it in stocks and bonds.”

“But that's not going to happen now. What
is
going to happen?”

“The cops have my testimony about last night, they have the .22 that killed Glen Gordon, and they have a scenario that will allow them to start an investigation of the whole scheme. One thing they might do is check out the room and the phone that was headquarters for the salvage company. Maybe Denise left some fingerprints there. Maybe they can prove that Marilyn Grimes and Denise were the same person. Maybe the desk clerk at the Drago Hotel can identify Denise as the hooker who rented the room where Glen Gordon was killed. Maybe they can find the keys to the safety deposit boxes where Denise is keeping the money until the heat dies down.”

“That's a lot of maybes.”

“The future is spelled MAYBE. They'll probably get her for assault with a deadly weapon, at least, or maybe even for attempted murder . . .”

“Yours,” Zee said.

“Mine,” I agreed. “I think they may get her for killing Glen Gordon, too. Murder, maybe. Manslaughter, maybe, since nobody saw it happen.”

“Maybe self-defense,” said cynical Quinn. “She may get herself a lawyer who'll convince the jury that Gordon tried to kill her before she killed him.”

I nodded. “In fear of her life, as they say.”

Maria shook her head. “This world. It can be so mean and ugly sometimes.”

Zee cocked her head to one side. “What about that hundred thou in my account that got you going on this case?”

“Ah. Well, nobody's perfect, not even our moneyman, Glen Gordon. Your account number is one digit different than Denise Vale's account number. Glen goofed. He punched the wrong number when he moved the money from the dormant account that weekend. But by Sunday night he found the error and corrected it. Still, if he hadn't made the mistake in the first place, I probably never would have started nosing around.” I paused and smiled at Zee. “On the other hand, you could argue that if you hadn't been using those eighteen-inch leaders during that bluefish blitz . . .”

“Oh no you don't!” said Zee, holding up a fist. “We're not going to get started on that again!”

I looked at Maria. “Or maybe you're right. Maybe there is a God who keeps an eye on things and gets involved now and then.”

She brightened. “You can bet on it. And more times than now and then, too.”

David Greenstein came into the room. He looked at Quinn. “The car's all packed up, and we're ready to roll. A little traveling music, please.” He walked over to the tape deck, put in a cassette, and punched the play button. Piano music tumbled out of the speakers and filled the air. Something joyful. It sounded like Vivaldi, who must have had a bad day sometime in his life, but never showed it in his compositions. The music filled the room, gay, lovely, and pure.

Maria listened a moment, then read the title on the cassette container.
“David Greenstein in Carnegie Hall.”

We followed Quinn and Dave out to the car. But they were not to leave quite as quickly as they planned. A pickup truck was coming down my long driveway. It stopped in front of Quinn's car, and Miles Vale got out.

“You shot my little girl,” he said. “The cops came by last night and told me all about it. I been awake ever since, wondering what to do.”

He looked at me with fierce eyes, then reached back into the cab and pulled out a shotgun.

Zee clutched at my arm, but I pushed her away. She came back, and I pushed her again, so hard that she fell against Dave.

“Hold her,” I said. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to one side.

“Let me go!” she said, trying to tear his arms away. But he only gripped her tighter. Quinn and Maria stood very still. We all stared at Miles.

He held the shotgun in front of him as though it were a magic wand, and looked first at me, then at the gun, then back at me.

“I been in the house with this thing ever since the cops left,” he said, in a dull voice. “I thought that I might shoot you with it. Then I thought I might shoot myself. I been in some scraps in my life, but so far I never shot nobody, not even when I was in the army.