First Light (8 page)

“I've been watching it all my life,” he said. “It's nothing new. My own mother.” He let out a long breath and shook his head.

I took his arm. “Come on, man. Let's go have some coffee.”

He took one more glance out at the patio, then allowed me to lead him away. “Sure,” he said. “Coffee. Just the thing.”

I
n the small hours when Zee crawled into bed with me after her night's fishing, I woke up and was happy, feeling her skin against mine. She spooned up behind me and her arm came around my chest.

“Catch anything?” I murmured.

“A couple little ones. I've got them on ice, but they're nothing worth weighing in. Brady got a good hit but it bit off his fly. He said it felt big.”

“You lose a lot of lures if you fish for blues without a leader,” I said. “I've lost my share, leaders and all. But you never know what size fish might win a prize, so you should take your biggest one to the morning weigh-in even if you're sure it's a loser.”

“I'm sure, but you're right about going to the weigh-in. Remember when Iowa won a daily with a four-pound blue?” She paused. “I'm going to invite Molly Wood to come to supper tonight, so she can meet Brady.”

Does Mother Nature abhor an unattached male? “Who's Molly Wood?”

“Molly's a visiting nurse who's down here for the summer. You'll like her. I think she and Brady both
need to meet somebody nice. Brady isn't seeing Alex anymore, and Molly's been a widow for over a year. It's time they got back into the loop.”

“The loop is good.” I rolled over toward her. “Let me demonstrate one of the benefits of being in it.”

She laughed. Her skin was sleek and warm. In the darkness I slid my hands over her, and her arms came around me. I heard her breath deepen as I put my lips to her breasts—golden apples of the sun, silver apples of the moon.

In the morning, Zee slept late. After the weigh-in, she was only going to work half a day, starting at noon, before coming home to play Cupid. Or did women play Aphrodite?

While she slept, I got supper together. Coquilles St. Jacques, an excellent dish that is always worth the time it takes to prepare. Normally I adhere to the principle that you should avoid any recipe over four inches long, but Coquilles St. Jacques is an exception to the rule. Although you have to do a good deal of chopping and stirring, you can make it well ahead of when you'll use it, and thus can take all the time you need. Mine was made of scallops we'd captured and frozen the previous winter, and was sure to be delish.

While I cooked, I thought about fishing, food, my sleeping wife, and the children playing outdoors with the cats. I also thought about Katherine Bannerman. When Zee woke and I could make some noise, I would do a little work on the tree house. Then, when I could be fairly sure that the rest of the world was up and around, I could start earning the money Banner-man had given me.

Joshua and Diana came in. “Pa.”

“What?”

“Can we help you cook?”

“Sure. You can go out in the garden and see if we have any green beans left. Pick what you find and bring them in here. Then you can wash them and trim them so we can have them for supper.”

I gave them a paper bag for a bean collector and they went out.

By the time Zee had gotten up and gone to the weigh-in with what turned out to be a nonwinner fish, supper was in the fridge, and the kids still had all of their fingers, even though they'd each plied a paring knife to trim the beans. I didn't like having them use knives when they were so young, but sooner or later they'd have to know how, so I sat with them and made sure they cut only the beans.

After Zee got home, Joshua, Diana, and I worked on the tree house for an hour. We finished the floor and got a start on framing the main room.

I liked the work because it brought back the excited feelings I'd had long ago when my sister and I helped my father build our tree house in Somerville. Joshua and Diana didn't mind wearing safety belts attached to upper tree limbs as they handed me nails and tools, and we weren't high enough for my acrophobia to kick in, so we made a good crew.

At ten I called a halt to construction and headed for West Tisbury.

One of the advantages of living in an insular place such as Martha's Vineyard is that you meet and know people you like but might never meet or know if you
lived on a bigger hunk of land. As you might guess, there's an opposite side of this coin, since you also meet people you'd just as soon not.

One person I was glad I knew was Gladys White, who lived with her husband, Tom, on Music Street. Tom and I had first met on Wasque Point years before, while both of us were waiting for the fish to arrive. Later I'd met Gladys at the farmers' market, where she sold, and I bought, excellent egg rolls and Oriental soups that she'd learned to make from her missionary parents, who'd been stationed in the Far East.

Gladys and Tom and their neighbors were no doubt happy that an earlier resident of their once rural pathway had purchased a piano and inspired a name change for the road. Music Street was certainly an improvement over Cow Turd Lane.

Gladys had known Katherine Bannerman and had been interviewed by Thornberry Security. When I knocked on her door, she seemed pleased to see me. From behind her came the wonderful smells of cooking foods.

“Come on into the kitchen, J.W. We can talk while I work.”

She turned, and I followed her.

“It's about Katherine Bannerman,” I said, and told her about the job I'd accepted from Bannerman and what I'd read in Thornberry's file.

“Well, I can't add much to it,” said Gladys, stirring a large pot of what smelled like some kind of sweet-and-sour soup. “I told those people everything I know.”

“Maybe you know something they didn't ask about.”

“Like what?”

“I don't know. According to the report, you told them she was a very nice woman who made friends quickly and worked with you on a support network for battered women.”

“That's right. She came here in June a year ago and contacted me not long afterward. I guess she read one of those information sheets we posted at Alley's store. We talked and she volunteered to work. Seemed to enjoy it. A very sympathetic woman. People took to her right away.”

“Do you think she may have been a battered wife herself?”

Gladys gave me a sharp look. “She certainly never said anything about it.”

“How did Thornberry's people happen to contact you?”

Gladys added something to the soup pot. “They found out that Kathy had sold her car. That happened in August. I guess that brought them to the island. They talked with Pete Blankenship, who'd bought the car. Kathy had told Pete that she was living up there in Chilmark and my name came up. But by that time, Kathy was gone, so I wasn't much use to them.”

“Where do you think she went?”

She turned from the stove, spoon in hand. “I haven't the slightest idea. It's perplexing. But Kathy wasn't much inclined to talk about herself. She'd answer questions, but she didn't volunteer much. Except about her daughter, that is. She never said much about her husband, but she loved to talk about Frankie.”

“Didn't she have any confidante, anybody special she might have talked to about other things?”

“Well,” said Gladys, “if she did, it wasn't me. I was her friend, but I wasn't that kind of friend. Most of our talk had to do with the support network we were working with. Kathy's a lot younger than me, so maybe she did girl-talk with somebody else.”

“She was an attractive woman. Did she have a man in her life?”

“You mean like somebody here on the island? Not that I know of, but, like I say, I wasn't the sort of friend she'd confide in about such things.”

“Who might have been that kind of friend?”

Gladys thought that question over, then said, “If I was to guess, I'd guess Myrtle Eldridge. Myrtle is about her age, and she's divorced. She and Kathy worked together on several projects and seemed to hit it off pretty well.”

“Where can I find Myrtle Eldridge?”

“Up on Menemsha Cross Road just past the place they used to have those Wednesday flea markets. She got the house when her husband ran off with that schoolteacher from Barnstable.” She glanced at her watch. “You might catch her at home right about now, in fact. She gives pottery lessons in her barn. Eldridge Pottery. The name's on a sign. You can't miss it.”

“I've seen it. Did Kathy ever talk about leaving the island and going someplace else? Back to her family, maybe?”

“No, she didn't. She didn't say she was going anywhere, and she didn't say she wasn't. I had the impression she was keeping her options open, thinking
things over. Maybe getting a life, as the young folks say.”

“She didn't bad-mouth her husband?”

“She didn't say much about him one way or another. Even if she wasn't wild about him, she might have gone back to him just so she could be with her daughter.”

“He says that didn't happen. That soup smells wonderful.”

“Come by the market sometime and I'll sell you some.”

“No free samples?”

“Get out of here, J.W. And say hi to Zee for me.”

I got.

Myrtle Eldridge's pottery class consisted of two women covered with clay from the wheels in front of them and a slightly cleaner girl who looked like she should be in school. The future of ceramics seemed in danger if they were the next generation of potters. The only person in the room wearing a clean apron came over to meet me. She was a woman about my age, one of those who wear their hair and their skirts a little longer than most women do, and shun makeup. She had dark, busy eyes. “Hi. Can I help you? Are you interested in making pottery?”

“Yes, you may be able to help me, but no, I'm not interested in making pottery. My name is Jackson. Can you spare a few minutes?”

“I'm Myrtle Eldridge, and I know who you are. I've seen you at the West Tisbury Library book fair.” She brushed at a strand of hair. “Somebody pointed you out to me. You're married to Zee Madieras.” She
glanced at her students. “What do you want to talk about, Mr. Jackson?”

“Katherine Bannerman.”

Her sharp eyes grew careful as they looked up into mine. “Some private detectives talked with me about her some time ago. I told them everything I could.”

“I have their report.” I told her about the job I'd taken and that I'd gotten her name from Gladys White. “Gladys said that you were close to Kathy, and that she may have confided in you.”

She studied me, then nodded coolly. “We talked.”

“Did she mention going away? Back to her husband, maybe, or maybe someplace else?”

“I don't think she'd have gone back to him.”

“Why do you say that?”

She shrugged. “Men aren't dependable. I should know. My husband left me, and my boyfriend has wandering eyes. They wandered on Kathy Banner-man, among others. If you want to know the truth, I think she probably looked back.”

I decided to leave that one alone. “What did Kathy say about her husband?”

Myrtle's voice was icy. “Look, I don't really want to help him find her, Mr. Jackson. If she wants him to find her, she'll let him know.”

I nodded. “The deal I have with her husband is that if I find her I won't tell him where she is unless she okays it. He says that all he wants to know is that she's all right.”

“Sure he does.”

I shifted to safer ground. “How did you two meet?” She seemed glad to talk about that. “In the stamp
line at the Post Office. She had one of the support-group flyers that Gladys White puts up on the bulletin boards all over the island. We got to chatting, and she started working with us. We got on pretty well. Common interests, common problems, you know?”

“What kind of problems?”

“What do you think? Men.”

I should have guessed. “Did she ever talk with you about going off-island?”

Myrtle shook her head. “No, and I think she would have, if she had plans. But on Labor Day weekend last year, she just left without a word to anybody. Something must have come up suddenly.”

“You haven't heard from her since?”

“No, and I'm a little surprised by that.” There was a touch of hurt in her voice.

“Did she have a man in her life while she was here on the island?”

She ran a hand through her long brown hair. “She wanted to make up for lost time, she said, and I knew what she meant. We'd both married slugs, if you know what I mean.”

“Maybe I do.”

She looked at me, and the corner of her mouth turned up. “And maybe you don't, because you're not the slug type. Zee Madieras wouldn't marry a slug.”

While I was deciding how to respond to that, she went on: “Anyway, since we were each alone and she didn't know the island scene, I took her to the Hot Tin Roof and to the Atlantic Connection, where she could meet people and dance.”

“And did that happen?”

“Yes. Men liked her and she liked them. She liked being out and around. She was sort of innocent, you know?”

“How do you mean?”

She smiled. “There's only one guy I ever heard of who didn't inhale, but Kathy hadn't even tried it, so we did some dope. She liked it, and we hung around with some people who liked it, too.”

“Anybody special?”

“No. She met a lot of men, and dated some, but she didn't go home with any of them. Or if she did, she didn't tell me.”

“Would she have told you?”

Myrtle shrugged. “I think so. I'd have told her. I think she just liked having a social life for a change. She didn't have one back with hubby, I guess. He was a drone, just like my ex.”

A picture of Bannerman's gravestone leaped into my head. On it was written: