Vineyard Chill (16 page)

“They go inside the house?”

“I saw a pickup there one morning, if that's what you mean.”

“That's what I mean.” I nodded toward her
Sibley.
“Are you a birder?”

“Used to get out more. Now I mostly watch them from my front porch. I haven't added to my list for a long time.”

“Did you hear where they found the girl's body?”

“I did. Up on the old Ormstead farm.”

“Do you know the place? I know the girl went up there at least once to go bird-watching.”

Her little white-haired head bobbed up and down. “Did she now? I used to go birding up there before the Marshall Lea Foundation bought it and put up all those damned No Trespassing signs they like so much.” She waved in the general direction of Gordon Brown's house. “Went up there a lot with Gert Brown when she and Gordy first bought here. That was before she went queer in the head, of course. Back then, she was just a young woman who liked birds, so I showed her around, took her on bird counts and that sort of thing. Took Gordy, too.” She sipped her tea and shook her head. “Now there's a sorry story. Some screw goes loose in her brain and she's hardly been out of the house since. Still strong as an ox, but loose in the flue. I visited her a few times, but pretty soon I quit that. She was too miserable to be with. Un-Christian of me, I'm sure, but I can only take so much whining and vitriol.”

“He seems used to it.”

When she again tipped her head to one side and looked at me, I was reminded somehow of a little white hen. “I guess he is. Tell you one thing, though. He misses having a real, healthy woman around. I see him watching women passing by in the summertime and he has that lonesome look on his face. I imagine he's remembering Gert when they were first married. She was a pretty woman then, big and full of life and energy.” She drank some tea. “Those days are long past. Now she gives him grief just for going shopping. Too bad. Like the kids say these days, sometimes life sucks.”

“Sometimes it does,” I said. “Did Gordon try to spend time with Nadine? When he collected the rent, for instance? Or maybe when she was going to work or coming home?”

“Sure, he talked with her when he could. She was a beauty and he's a man. But if you're thinking Gordy Brown might have done her in, you're wrong. I've known him for over twenty years and he doesn't have a mean bone in his body. You're too young to remember Caspar Milquetoast, but that's Gordy. He makes Caspar look like Charles Atlas. As nice a man as you'd want to meet, too. Takes my trash to the dump when he goes, for instance. Good neighbor.”

I drained my cup. “The police may be by to talk with you again. You might think back on Nadine and the people she associated with. Maybe you'll remember something you forgot the first time you talked with them.”

When I left I had a glow in my belly from the tea. I was glad to have it because the air was getting colder and the wind seemed to be coming up, chilling things even more. I turned up my coat collar as I walked to the Land Cruiser.

I didn't know where two of the three young men Susan Bancroft had mentioned were working, but I thought I could find the deputy sheriff. I drove to Edgartown and parked by the County of Dukes County Jail, which also houses the sheriff's office.

The County of Dukes County is the legal name of the county that consists of Martha's Vineyard and Cuttyhunk. Normally, one would think, the title of the county would be, simply, Dukes County, and originally it was. But because an act passed by the legislature in 1695 gave the county name as Dukes County, the legal name thus became the County of Dukes County and continues to be that to this day. Thus the Vineyard sports the County of Dukes County Courthouse, the County of Dukes County Jail, the County of Dukes County Airport, and, officially, the County of Dukes County sheriff and sheriff's deputies. Tourists are sometimes perplexed by this nomenclature, but natives are mostly just amused.

The deputy I was looking for was named Reggie Wilcox and, according to Susan Bancroft, looked like Rock Hudson. Rock had been dead for quite a few years by then, but I thought that Susan was probably referring to his appearance when he'd been a movie star, before he'd been brought low by AIDS. I figured somebody in the sheriff's office would know where I could find Wilcox if he was on duty, so I went in.

At first glance the county jail looks like a nice private residence on Main Street, but if you look twice you can see the barred windows in front, and if you drive down Pine Street you'll see the caged area in back where the inmates sometimes loll in the summer sun, working on their tans. There have been a number of jail breaks over the years by huddled inmates yearning to breathe free, but none of them has ever come to much because there's really no place to run or hide once an escapee makes it out the window. Each has been quickly recaptured and returned to his cell to serve out an even longer term than before.

Reggie Wilcox, I learned, was at the County of Dukes County Courthouse, where he was part of the security at a trial that was taking place. I drove down to the courthouse, parked behind it in the lot, and, as I approached the door of the building, encountered Sergeant Tony D'Agostine of the Edgartown police coming out. Tony wore a look of mild disgust and I had no trouble guessing why.

“Have you given your testimony?”

“I have.”

“Is His Honor letting the perps return to the streets faster than you can take them off?” I asked.

“As always,” said Tony. “They're back at work before we are.”

“Who are the innocent victims of false arrest this time?”

“Oh, just some of the local druggies. The judge doesn't want to ruin their future lives by finding them guilty of anything, so he's doing the usual: continuing the cases with the promise of dismissing them if the perps stay clean for such and such a time. The accused are wearing borrowed neckties and they've cut their hair so the judge won't have any reason to think they're scumbags.”

“Is it Walking Sam?”

“It is.”

Walking Sam was the name by which His Honor Judge Wigglesworth was known because of his propensity to let everyone go unless it was practically impossible not to do so. He was not the cops' favorite judge, but the perps and their lawyers loved him.

“Well, maybe the wheels of justice are just grinding a little slower than they're supposed to.”

“With Walking Sam on the bench, the wheels aren't turning at all,” said Tony. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for Reggie Wilcox.”

“I believe you'll find him holding up a wall inside.”

“While I've got you at my disposal, what do you think of Reggie?”

Tony looked up and down the street, as though searching for a crime that might be taking place outside the courthouse. “What do you mean?”

“I mean he shot a boy over in New Bedford, then got this job as a deputy. What do you think of him?”

“The official verdict was that the shooting was justifiable. As far as I know, Wilcox has been doing his job over here. Cops don't have a lot of time to decide whether or not to shoot, as you know as well as anybody, and Wilcox said the boy made a gesture that looked like he was reaching for a weapon.”

“He was shot in the back.”

“Wilcox said the boy turned just as he fired.”

Things can happen fast in dark alleys. I had an extra belly button and the bullet that had made it still resting near my spine from a shooting in Boston when I'd been on the PD there. There was never a time when I wasn't a little worried that it might move.

So I wasn't ready to put the Bad Cop flag on Reggie Wilcox, although I knew that there were a few police officers who used their badges and weapons to bully and brutalize other people.

“You spend any time with Reggie?” I asked.

“I've run into him down at the wharf a couple of times. Had a beer. That's about it. Seemed like an okay guy. Didn't talk about New Bedford. I think maybe he wants to forget what happened.”

I thought that was understandable.

“Is he married?”

“I heard his wife left him after the shooting,” said Tony. “He didn't say so, but that's the scuttle.”

“Does he have a girlfriend?”

“I think he may be going out with a woman named Joyce Something-or-other. Lives up in Vineyard Haven.”

“Did you hear that he and Nadine Gibson were hot for each other?”

Tony looked at me with more interest. “No. Were they?”

“So I hear. That's what I want to talk with him about.”

“Well, like I say, you'll find him inside, holding up a wall so the ceiling won't fall on Walking Sam.”

Tony went on out to the street. I entered the building and passed through security and into the courtroom.

There were several people in the room, including the judge, the lawyers, the accused and their friends and families, and people for whom watching trials, continuances, and dismissals was free entertainment. Reggie Wilcox, or Rock Hudson (Susan was right!), was standing near a side door trying to look interested in the mostly inaudible conversations between participants in the proceedings. He looked as tall as a tree.

After a time Walking Sam announced a short adjournment and I caught up with Reggie in a hallway. I gave him my name and told him I was investigating the Gibson case.

“You a detective?” he asked in a cool voice.

“No. I was a cop for a few years, but I got through a long time ago.”

“Where?”

“Boston.”

“Why'd you quit?”

“I killed a woman. I didn't like it, so I decided to let somebody else save the world. I came down here and went fishing.”

His handsome lips flickered in what might have been a brief, bitter smile. “You kill her in the line of duty, or was it a private fight?”

“Line of duty. She shot me first, but I had a lot of time in the hospital to think things over, so when I got out I retired and moved here.”

“How'd it happen?”

“Robbery. It was night. I chased her down an alley that dead-ended. She came running back out, blazing away. It wasn't until afterward that I found out she was a woman. Nineteen years old.”

“Justifiable use of force?”

“That was the finding. I think it was right.” I added, “My wife stuck around until she knew I was going to be okay, then left me.”

Wilcox seemed to relax a bit. “I been in those shoes,” he said. “But I like the work, so I got on down here.” He studied me, then asked, “How long does it take you to get over killing somebody?”

“I don't know,” I said. “It doesn't bother some people at all, but time helps the rest of us. It comes back to me sometimes but I try to keep it out of my mind. I'm married again and that makes it easier. I've got a family to think about.”

“We have a few things in common,” he said. “What can I tell you about Nadine Gibson? I hear they think she was killed.”

“They found the body in an old cellar up in Oak Bluffs, under some lumber. She didn't put herself there; she had help. It could have been murder or it might have been an accident that scared whoever was with her enough to hide her there. I've talked with her landlord and with the lady who reported her missing. Now I'm talking with other people who were with her not long before she disappeared. Your name came up.”

He nodded. “I talked with the OBPD after she disappeared. She and I seemed to hit it off even before her boyfriend took off, and afterward we went out a couple of times. I was just beginning to feel good about our prospects when she dropped out of sight. I was a cop long enough to know I'd be questioned. Hell, I'd have put the new boyfriend on the top of my list if I'd been in their shoes.”

“But you couldn't tell them anything.”

He shook his head. “She never said a word about going away. In fact, she and I were going to the movies the next week. That's what made the whole thing weird.”

“Did you ever argue?”

“We didn't know each other long enough to argue.”

“A couple of other guys were interested in her. You know anything about them? You ever meet them?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I know who they are. They hang out up at the Fireside, where she worked. I couldn't blame them for carrying the torch for her and we never got tangled up over her. We all kidded her and told her to get rid of her architect so the rest of us would have a chance. She didn't nix that idea completely. She and I had a couple of beers at the Newes, and she may have gone someplace with one of those other two guys, or maybe both of them, even before she finally sent the boyfriend on his way.”

“It sounds like the split wasn't a sudden thing.”

He shrugged. “People don't usually break up all at once. It happens because of the straw that breaks the camel's back. When my wife left me it wasn't only because of the shooting I was involved in. That was just the last thing that went wrong between us. If it hadn't been that, it would have been something else. Nadine and her boyfriend had been slipping apart for weeks. She worked a lot of nights and he worked days, so they didn't see much of each other. Maybe that had something to do with it.”

My ex left me because years of worrying whether or not I'd come home in one piece had finally gotten to be too much for her. It was a common problem in police marriages, where the divorce rate is high. My getting shot was just that last straw that Wilcox had mentioned.

I said, “Are you telling me that three young guys scrambling for the affections of one pretty woman never got nose to nose over her?”

Not many people can look down into my eyes, but he could and did. “No,” he said. “All I'm telling you is that I never did that. I avoid trouble. I had enough of that in New Bedford. Maybe the other two guys met under the oak tree at dawn, but I didn't.”

“Not even for Nadine?”

“Not even for Nadine. I figured she was a big girl who could make up her own mind about who she wanted to be with.”

“Did either of the other guys try to discourage you from hanging around?”

He stood up straight, and I had to tip my head farther back to meet his eyes. “Would you pick a fight with me?”

“I don't pick fights,” I said.

“Neither did either of them,” said Reggie.

“How about Nadine?” I asked. “How was she treated while all of this romancing was going on? A lot of domestics have the woman getting beat up.”

His eyes hardened. “If anyone had tried that, I'd have visited the guy who did it.”

“I thought you avoided trouble.”

“I'd have made an exception.” His voice was grim.

About then a voice announced that the judge was returning to the bench. Reggie Wilcox went toward the courtroom and I walked out of the courthouse into the chilly March air. I thought about what Reggie had said and was pleased that my ploy had worked: by telling him of my woes in Boston I'd gotten him to speak more freely than otherwise might have been the case. Still, I wondered if I should believe what he had told me.

What had Nadine looked like that last day of her life? Had she been beaten and bruised by someone's hard hands? Had that been what had killed her? Had one of the men in her life become so enraged by her refusal to be his alone that he'd struck her down? The motive for many a murder is jealousy.

I looked at my watch and saw that I should be going home if I wanted to be there when the children got out of school. Still, I had time for one exploratory journey. I drove back to the Harbor View Hotel's parking lot and saw that the yellow Mercedes convertible was gone.