Vineyard Shadows (19 page)

I called Dom Agganis. The line was busy. He was probably talking with the Chief. I called Gordon R. Sullivan. His machine told me to leave a message and he'd get back to me. I told the machine what Quinn had told me and asked Sullivan to let me know if he knew anything more. I didn't have any particular reason to think that he would do it, but he might. Then I called Carla. Nobody home. She and the boys were probably all working.

I called John Skye's number. The phone there rang for quite a while before I hung up. I wasn't having much luck lately with my telephone, but not for lack of trying. AT&T would be proud of me. Maybe I should buy stock. Not willing to say die in spite of the evidence that I should, I called Rimini's cell phone.

Nothing. I realized I was very angry.

How much did I owe Tom Rimini? He'd brought bad trouble to my house, and since then he'd lied and lied and lied, and so had his girlfriend. They were armed with guns they knew how to use, and their stories were crooked as a dog's hind leg.

But if Sonny Whelen caught up with them, they were in trouble.

“I can't get through to Rimini on the phone,” I said to Zee, “so I'm going out to see him. He should know that Sonny and his boys have gone missing.”

“Let the police protect him!”

“I don't know what the police will do, but I do know that if I was in Rimini's place I'd want to know about Sonny dropping out of sight.”

I went out into the falling light and drove to the farm. When I entered the driveway I tapped my horn a couple of times so Rimini and Grace wouldn't be taken completely by surprise. It doesn't pay to startle armed people who are already nervous.

Rimini's Honda and Grace Shepard's Explorer were parked in front of the house. Apparently Grace no longer felt the need to hide her car.

I parked beside the Honda and looked around. There was no one in sight. The front door of the house was closed and there were no lights in the windows. The loft door above the big double barn doors was slightly ajar, but the barn doors behind which Grace Shepard had hidden her Explorer earlier were closed, as were the corral gates. Everything was quiet. I knocked on the door of the house, waited, then knocked again.

“Oh, it's you,” said Rimini's voice behind me.

I turned and saw him walking from the barn. Behind him, Grace was coming out of the now partially opened barn doors.

“We were wandering around looking the place over,” said Rimini.

“I phoned but nobody answered. So I came over. I just got some information I think you should have.”

“Sorry about the phone. We must have been out of the house. What information?”

“Sonny Whelen and some of his people have flown the coop. Nobody knows where they've gone. It's possible that they're coming here. It's possible that they're already here. I thought you should know.”

Rimini came up to me and stared. “Are you sure? Who told you that?”

“A reporter friend in Boston. He has a lot of sources.”

Rimini rubbed his chin and looked around. “You say some of his people are gone, too. Who? How many?”

“You know a guy called Sean? Sticks close to Sonny?”

He nodded. “Yes, I know who he is. I think he's a bodyguard.”

“Well, Sean is one. Todd is another. Pete McBride is another. McBride's buddy Bruno is another. There may be more, but those are the names I heard.”

“Oh.” Rimini turned as Grace Shepard came up to us. “Grace, did you hear what J.W.'s been saying? Sonny and . . .”

“I heard,” said Grace. She looked at me. “Are you sure about this, Mr. Jackson?”

“I'm sure about what I heard. I can't be sure what's going on. I did think you people should have the news, for what it's worth.”

She gave me a level stare. “And what do you think it is worth?”

I wondered what to make of her. “I think it's worth at least as much as that story you two told me about not knowing much about guns. What a pair of sorry liars you are.”

Rimini stepped away. “What . . . ?”

The woman only smiled. “We should have told you the truth, but it seemed simpler at the time to fib. We didn't expect you to check up on us. I'm sorry.”

“You're only sorry you got caught. You not only have a pistol, but you shoot at a gun club.”

She made a little bow. “I underestimated your resourcefulness, Mr. Jackson. I'll not make that mistake
again. Yes, it's true. I do have a pistol and I do know how to shoot it. I'm licensed to carry it, by the way, but of course you know that.”

“Yes. And I know that Tom, here, met you at your gun club, which means that he's not the stranger to shooting that he pretended to be, either.”

“Dear me, we have deceived you, haven't we? Yes, Tom and I can both shoot fairly well. That's why I brought the weapons down here.”

“They're not just psychological props, then?”

“No, although they do work in that regard, too.” She put her arm through Rimini's.

“I'm afraid I'm the nervous one,” said Rimini, in a voice I had come to distrust.

“You ought to be nervous,” I said. “In fact, you two should probably get out of here while the getting's good. If Whelen's coming to the island it's probably because he thinks he knows where you are.”

“Or maybe where you are, Mr. Jackson,” said the woman, almost flippantly.

“I'm being more careful than you are,” I said, letting my irritation show. “Besides, I've no real reason to think he's after me or my family, but I know he's after Tom, and he may not like you being down here with him.”

Rimini patted the woman's arm and seemed to gather his courage. “Look,” he said in a voice I thought was intended to persuade me of his moral fiber, “we appreciate everything you've done for us and we're sorry we lied about the guns, but we think this whole thing is going to work out. Until it does, we're safe here. Just give us another day or so. No one knows where we are. Even if Sonny comes looking for us, he won't find us. Please don't make us leave now. Besides, if we try to leave and if Sonny is watching the ferry lines, he'll see us.”

There was something to that last argument. If Sonny had any reason to believe that Rimini and the woman planned to run, he had enough men to watch the ferry slips.

I knew I should have sent Rimini on his way the first time he'd lied to me, but my promise to Carla had stopped me before, and, in conjunction with the real threat from Whelen, it stopped me again.

“All right,” I said, not liking a thing about the situation I had allowed to develop, and as angry at myself as I was at Rimini, “two more days. Then you go. One more thing: are you willing to testify against Sonny, if the authorities decide to go after him?”

He put his teeth over his lower lip, then nodded. “Yes, if it will get me out of all this.”

“Okay, I'll see what I can do about getting you into a witness protection program. You and Carla may have to move out of state and make a clean start, but considering the mess you've made for yourself in Jamaica Plain that might not be a bad thing.”

He nodded again. “You're right. Do it. I'll cooperate as long as I know my family's safe.”

The caring family man acted as though his mistress wasn't standing right beside him. Her face was bland, but her eyes were bright.

There was something odd about their attitudes. I stared at him. “Are you sure you haven't let it slip that you're here? That nobody knows?”

“I swear. Nobody knows.”

Ananias fell down and died, but Rimini stood and gave me stare for stare.

“If you say so,” I said. “I don't know what you're up to, but I'll call you if I hear anything else that you should know. I'll let the phone ring four times, then hang up
and call back. If you want to hear what I have to say, pick up the second time.”

I turned and walked to the Land Cruiser, feeling eyes watching me through the evening light. I was surprised to find myself experiencing the prickly fear I'd felt long ago in that far-off war when my patrol crossed openings in the forest that were excellent sites for ambush. At the truck, I paused and glanced around but saw no one other than Grace Shepard and Tom Rimini in front of the house. Maybe Rimini's nerves were having an effect on mine. I drove away and the feeling disappeared.

When I got home, Zee said, “Dom Agganis phoned. He wants you to call him back.”

“What was it about?”

“He didn't say. What happened up at the farm?”

I told her. She was not happy.

“They're a pair of liars, Jeff. You can't trust them.”

“I know. But they'll be gone soon.”

Long ago, before my father bought it, when our house was just a hunting camp for guys who probably sat around and drank and played cards more than they actually shot at anything, somebody had put a couple of pegs over the front door where you could hang a shotgun. I had never seen a gun there before, but one was there now. My father's 12-gauge pump.

Zee's eyes followed mine. I said nothing.

“The kids can't reach it,” she said in a flat voice, “but you and I can.”

She was standing straight and firm. I put my big hand on her shoulder. “Yes. Good. I'll make that call, then I'll rustle up some supper.”

“It's on the stove.”

“Good, again.”

I called the State Police office in Oak Bluffs.

“J. W. Jackson on the box,” I said in my best Brit accent when Agganis answered.

“I don't remember anybody using that phrase when I was in England,” said Agganis, unimpressed.

“I've never been in England,” I said, “so I'm susceptible to making errors about British usage.”

“And other things.”

“Zee says you called.”

“I did. I had a chat with the Chief in Edgartown earlier in the day, then made a couple of calls to other people about this business of Sonny Whelen going missing. Your reporter friend has some good contacts, apparently, because what he told you was right on the money. You don't suppose he knows where Sonny's gone, do you?”

“You can ask him.”

“Somebody will probably do that if they haven't already. The point is that we don't know where any of those guys you mentioned, Whelen, McBride, and the other two, are, but we're keeping our eyes open for them and I thought you might like to know that at least one familiar face has arrived on our golden shores.”

“Who?”

“None other than Willard Graham, ex–DEA agent. The guy who hassled Rimini. You gave me a copy of his picture and I had some other copies printed up and spread around. One of our guys saw him drive off the boat earlier today.”

“Where'd he go?”

“We don't know. You know how things are there at the five corners. Graham took a right and a truck got in front of our guy. By the time our man got to the intersection with the Edgartown road, Graham was out of sight. One choice being as good as another, our guy headed for
Chilmark but never saw Graham. He could have gone anywhere.”

“You get a description of the car?”

“A blue Lincoln sedan.” He gave me the license number.