In-Laws and Outlaws (17 page)

Tom shook his head.

“Why do you always call him Tom?” I asked Joel peevishly. “You call me Aunt Gillian and everybody else Aunt and Uncle, but you never say Uncle … oh.”

They both laughed at me. “That's why,” Tom said with a smile as we came to Connie's house. “Now you go up and change—I'll wait downstairs.”

As it turned out, we skipped Nancy's restaurant in Vineyard Haven; that otherwise lovely town is dry as a bone. We ended up at the yacht club in Edgartown, where the food and wine were good and the service exemplary. I was glad Tom had suggested it, even though his motives were still a mite questionable; it was nice getting away from the Decker compound for a couple of hours.

Halfway through the meal I said, “Tom, there's something I want to ask you. The night Raymond died—it was Annette who called the fire department? Is that right?”

“Yes, that's right. Why?”

“Well, why Annette? I can understand why the Kurlands didn't turn in the alarm, because of that little hill between their place and Connie and Raymond's—they might not have seen. But the Fergusons are right next door. There's nothing separating them except that grove of cedar trees.”

Tom frowned. “Oscar and Elinor were out that evening, if I remember correctly. Annette was too, and she saw the fire as she was coming home. I was in bed asleep and didn't know a thing about it until Annette came running in screaming that Raymond's house was on fire.” He paused. “By the time we got there, it was too late.”

“She called the fire department before she went to see if Raymond was in the house?”

“Yes,” Tom said with a puzzled look. “Wouldn't you?”

“No. I'd go look for Raymond first.”

He gave me a sad little smile. “Would you really? If you saw a blazing house, the first thing you'd do is go running into the flames looking for someone to rescue and think about calling the fire department later?”

“Put that way, maybe not.” I was silent a minute. “I'm sorry to spoil your dinner by bringing this up,” I said to Tom. “I know this is ground you must have covered a thousand times, but I'm still trying to figure out what happened. How could someone set fire to the house without waking Raymond up? I saw two smoke alarms near the room where he died. And he was sleeping downstairs—he should have been able to get out safely.”

Tom shook his head. “Not if he'd taken a pain pill. He'd broken his ankle several years ago and it still bothered him at times. The medication tended to make him groggy.”

“Yes, Connie told me about that. Did he take a pill that night?”

“I don't know.”

“Wasn't there an autopsy?”

Tom reached across the table and took my hand. “Gillian, there wasn't enough of him left to examine.” I flinched; he squeezed my hand. “I know, it's painful. But I saw what was left of the body myself. There was no possibility of a postmortem examination.”

“So there's no way of knowing?”

“No.”

I withdrew my hand. “Didn't the fire start right in the room where Raymond was sleeping? Why would someone risk getting caught like that?”

“Ah, Gillian, that might have been part of the ‘thrill' of killing. Someone who sees his mission in life as ridding the world of Deckers … someone that unstable might view the danger as some sort of personal test.”

“Like landing a boat in the dark and sneaking up to the house without being seen?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so.”

“Do you really think that's what happened?”

“What else could it have been?”

“It could have been someone in the family.”

We stopped talking when the waitress appeared to take away our plates and bring us coffee. Then Tom said, “Is that why you were asking about who called the fire department? Because you suspect Elinor and Oscar? Or Annette?”

“Oh, Tom, I don't suspect anyone, not really. I'm looking for reasons
not
to think it was someone in the family.”

We finished our coffee and left. Since we had a little time before the family conference was to begin, we walked around the harbor and watched the Chappaquiddick ferry leaving. Edgartown was pretty in the twilight, quiet and serene. We leaned our elbows on a railing running along one of the piers and looked at the fading sunlight on the water. The mainland was only seven miles away, but we could have been in an alternate world. Tom finally broke the silence by saying, “Can you really believe that a Decker would kill another Decker? I could believe in magic before I could believe that. They're just too close-knit, Gillian.”

“You said ‘they.' Do you already consider yourself outside the family?”

He sighed. “I never was a Decker, at least not a very good one. I only married one, like you. And now that's ended. I spent nearly twenty years trying to play their game. That's long enough.”

Twenty years. “I'm sorry, Tom.”

“So am I, but for another reason. I should have broken off with the Deckers long ago, the way you did. But they are fascinating people, in their own way, aren't they? And there was another reason I couldn't do what you did.”

I could guess. “Ike.”

He nodded. “Ike. But now he's gone, and there's no real reason for me to stay any longer.” He smiled at me. “You seem to have built a satisfying life for yourself without the Deckers. It's time I did the same.”

I didn't know how satisfying my life was, but I could think of another reason why it had been easier for me to break away than Tom: my husband was dead, while his wife was very much alive. Also, I hadn't spent anything like twenty years in the bosom of the family, as Tom had. The break was bound to be more traumatic for him than it'd been for me.

The sun was almost gone; I was thinking it was time for us to be going when Tom said, “Don't go back to Chicago tomorrow. Take care of your business by phone and stay a little longer. We may never see each other again after this summer.”

I wouldn't mind seeing Tom again, since, as he said, he'd never been a very good Decker. “Oh, Tom, we'll see each other.”

He gave me that sad smile I'd seen so much of lately. “That's doubtful, don't you think? You'll be in Chicago and I'll be in Boston. I don't want to lose track of you again, Gillian. Not now. Stay.”

I didn't know what to say, so I retreated into silence. Tom put his arm around my shoulders and led me back toward the car. It was an intimate way to be walking, almost uncomfortably so. I could feel his body heat against my left arm, and I realized I'd never before thought of Tom so much as an individual, exclusive and unique to himself; before I'd seen only Annette's husband.

That was a mistake I intended not to repeat.

12

When we'd gathered at the Fergusons' at nine, I was in for a surprise: I met a third Connie Decker there. Connie the Mutable. The first Connie had been the quiet, placid woman content to live her life through her husband and her son. The second was the distraught and depressed Connie who'd lost the two people dearest to her and who needed pills to get through the day. But this Connie, Connie No. 3, was bubbling over with energy and news of what she and Mrs. Vernon had accomplished in their war against McDonald's. It was a time of changes indeed; that little old lady in the denim skirt and white sneakers had worked wonders.

“We decided not to bother with petitions,” Connie told me. “This battle's going to be fought in the courts. We're talking to people about passing new and more stringent local ordinances—if we can blanket the island quickly, there won't be any spot of land where Big Mac can legally set up shop. We spent the day in Oak Bluffs, and tomorrow we're going to Edgartown, and—”

“And the day after to Chilmark,” Joel said with a grin, “where both Auntie Connie and Mrs. Vernon will strip themselves nekkid when they carry their campaign to Lucy Vincent.”

Lucy Vincent was a nude beach. Connie laughed and blushed, the only middle-aged woman I knew who could get away with that. “Actually, someone else is covering the upisland communities. Mrs. Vernon and I have all we can handle here. Tom, you promised me your help.”

“You got it,” he said. “Just don't send me up to Chilmark.”

For some reason
up
on Martha's Vineyard was vaguely southwest;
down
was northeast. And to add to the fun,
down
was “in” while
up
was “out.” West Chop, on the northernmost tip of the island, was elitist and private and for the most part pretended not to know the rest of the island was inhabited. Connie and Mrs. Vernon's venturing into alien territory to fight a hamburger franchise was undoubtedly considered puzzling, bizarre, and simply
not done
.

“You don't want to bother with Chilmark anyway,” Michelle drawled. “There's nothing up there except psychiatrists.”

Rob hadn't arrived yet; Michelle said he'd gotten a phone call just as they were leaving. Joel's being there was a surprise; family conferences in the past hadn't included the children. But he was almost a young man, and Michelle had told me he'd grown up fast … when Bobby died. Joel was a puzzle. He'd lost his brother and two cousins, playmates he'd grown up with, yet he was going about his life, windsurfing and having fun, as if he were unaffected by their loss. And I knew that couldn't be true.

Elinor was fighting a cold; she sat quietly in a corner and didn't have much to say. This was Oscar's meeting anyway; he kept the talk light and general, waiting for Rob to get there. Michelle looked tuned-out, in her elegant soft white floor-length dress; it dawned on me that I hadn't seen her in anything but white since we came to the Vineyard—her entire summer wardrobe was white. Tom had the fidgets, Connie was thinking about her own campaign instead of Oscar's, and I didn't really belong there. Their including me in the conference asssumed too much: that I would be around to see the consequences of the decisions made that night.

Oscar was saying maybe they'd better start without Rob when Rob himself came bursting in. He'd evidently run all the way over because he was gulping in air in deep gasps. And his eyes were glittering; I'd never seen him so animated.

“They've caught him,” he said, his voice hoarse with excitement. “The police have the killer in custody!”

Dead
silence; we froze into a tableau of astonishment and disbelief. The only sound in the room was Rob's labored breathing. Then Elinor sneezed and broke the spell, and everyone started talking at once.
Who is he
and
Which police
and Connie's high voice saying
Are you sure are you sure?

Rob gestured for silence. He took a deep breath and read from a piece of paper he'd brought with him; his hand was trembling. “That was Lowenstein on the phone. He—”

“Who?” Connie and I asked together.

“One of our private investigators,” Michelle said.

“He said they'd been checking on people who'd been released from mental institutions around six months ago,” Rob went on, “people with a history of violence. They've been searching these people's homes—yes, illegally—looking for anything that would tie them to us. Finally they hit pay dirt. A man named Matthew Zeitz—any of you ever heard the name?”

No one had.

“Well, this Zeitz is an electronics engineer who thinks his genius has never been properly appreciated. He's a bitter, violent man who almost killed his wife and who went beserk in his office and tried to kill his boss. He underwent treatment for a while and now is working again—different office. And evidently all is peaceful on the home front. Lowenstein thinks he picked us as a substitute target for his hostility … because we have the money and the recognition that have eluded him. Also, it would be safe to attack us since we don't know him.”

“Are you sure he's the right man?” Connie asked.

“No question of it, Connie. When Lowenstein searched his house, he found boxes full of newspaper and magazine clippings about the family. He found photographs of all our houses, both here and on the mainland.” He paused. “He even found snapshots of the kids, that Zeitz had taken himself. There are at least a dozen of Joel.”

Joel sat very still, his face white.

“Lowenstein also found a list. All our names were on it—all but Gillian's. And four of the names had been crossed off.” He paused a moment. “You know which ones, don't you? Bobby, Ike, Lynn, and Raymond. There's no doubt about it. This is the man.”

Oscar asked, “How did the police get him? And where is this—Boston?”

Rob nodded. “Boston. Lowenstein took a few of the photos and clippings and stuffed them in an envelope. He left the list behind. Then he went to the police.” He consulted his piece of paper. “To a Captain McCarthy. He told McCarthy he'd been following Zeitz when Zeitz left an envelope behind in a restaurant. The photos and clippings were enough for McCarthy to get a search warrant, and when they found the list … well. Zeitz flew into a rage and tried to strangle one of the police detectives—completely out of control, according to McCarthy. The arrest was made about an hour ago.”

Matthew Zeitz. All this agony had been caused by a nobody named Matthew Zeitz? A stranger. A lunatic. A Matthew Zeitz.

“I called Captain McCarthy,” Rob continued. “He says Zeitz will probably never go to trial because, in the captain's words, he's nutty as a fruitcake. Completely over the edge. Zeitz didn't even know his wife when she came to the police station.”

“What's going to happen?” Michelle asked.

“Unofficially, McCarthy told me Zeitz would probably spend the rest of his life in a state mental institution. If he's ever declared legally sane, then he'll have to stand trial for murder. So …”

So it was safer to stay crazy.

“Then it's over,” Tom breathed. “It's really over!”