A Shoot on Martha's Vineyard (19 page)

“That's why. If she'd shot Ingalls, why would she try to shoot me for shooting him? Doesn't make any sense.”

“People I meet don't always act sensible,” said the chief. “Well, I see that my man down there at the four corners has got himself a little traffic jam. See you later.”

“You find Moonbeam yet?”

The chief gave me an expressionless look. “No.”

He walked down toward the backed-up cars.

I stared at nothing for a while, then walked to the Land Cruiser and drove back to Manny Fonseca's place.

“Hey, Manny,” I said. “I think maybe I know a way you can get a look at those elephant guns. Can you shake free from work if I call you tomorrow?”

Does a lawyer feel a keen moral duty to take any case that will make him rich? Will the psychologist he hires testify to anything the lawyer wants? Will the sun rise in the east and set in the west? Of course Manny could shake free from work.

I told him I'd be in touch, and drove to the police station to pick up the family pistols.

One thing was pretty certain: I was no longer the only star suspect in the case. I was sharing that billing with Moonbeam Berube.

As I came outside, I met an ex-suspect. Zack Delwood. He stood beside my truck, big fists clenched. “You're the one pointed the finger at me, ain't you? You did Ingalls in, but you sicced the cops on me! You and them is as thick as thieves!” He hunched his big shoulders and came at me. “I'm going to teach you to keep your mouth off me!”

I stepped away. “The chief's talked to Iowa and Walter. He knows you were with them when Ingalls got killed. And I never pointed the finger at you.”

“You're a liar.” He lumbered toward me as I backed away.

A fight right in front of the police station. Just what I needed.

I put my hand into the paper bag. “Let me show you something, Zack.” I gave him a glimpse of the pistols. He stopped. “I don't feel like mixing it up with you,” I said. “Go home.”

He glared. “You won't always have a gun, you son of a bitch. I'll see you again.”

He spat on the ground and walked away. I got into the Toyota, waited till my pulse stopped pounding, and drove home.

The next day the up-island clouds were gone and the whole island was under summer sun once again. Squalling Joshua made sure we were up early. Too early, in fact, for anything but family endeavors. I realized that I was glad of that, since of late my family hadn't spent much daylight time together.

Zee was scheduled to start working the evening shift later in the week. The evening and graveyard shifts weren't as hard as the day shift because fewer tourists rode mopeds at night and there were, consequently, fewer moped accidents for the police to mop up and the emergency ward to repair. The only problem with these shifts from our point of view was that I was sometimes asleep when Zee got home or I was getting up as she was going to sleep. Today, however, we were both home and awake, so after cleaning, calming, and feeding noisy, starving Joshua, we loaded up the Land Cruiser and took a morning outing to the far Chappy beaches, where no one but fishermen could intrude upon us. I felt good as we drove away from civilization.

We parked on East Beach, just north of the Yellow Shovel. The Yellow Shovel was a site whose code name was known only to us and Al Prada, who'd once found a child's yellow plastic shovel there and had, after adding it to his vast and ever-growing collection of kids' shovels found on the beach, made a cast and landed an unexpected bluefish. As he was pulling in his umpteenth fish, still all alone, Zee and I had happened by and joined him. It's
said that company doubles joy and halves sorrow, and so it was that we'd all had a fine time sharing the mini-blitz, and that afterward the spot was known to us cognoscenti as the Yellow Shovel. Over the years we'd caught other bluefish there, and now we were there with Joshua.

Nantucket Sound rolled east from us, and fishing boats were passing, headed to the Wasque rips and beyond. The air was warm and the sky was high and blue. We laid out the old bedspread we use as a beach blanket, put Joshua's portable playpen beside the bedspread, put him in it, and set up an umbrella to keep him from too much sun.

“Ah,” said Zee, stripping down to her wee bikini, “just what the doctor ordered.” She stretched her brown self out on the blanket.

“Nice bod,” I said, leering, as I peeled down to my own bathing suit.

“Come down here and say that, if you dare.”

I dared.

After a while, a 4 x 4 came along from Wasque, headed toward Cape Pogue. We untangled before it got to us. Iowa was driving and Walter was beside him. They were two guys who almost lived on the beach. They waved and kept driving. We waved back.

“These constant interruptions are destroying our marriage,” said Zee. “Go catch us a fish.” She lay back and closed her eyes.

I got to my feet and looked down at her. No wonder Drew Mondry wanted her in his movie. Botticelli would have wanted her in his, if they'd had them in his day.

I looked at Joshua, who took his attention off his own feet, which were waving in the air, to look back. “You're in charge,” I said.

I got my rod off the roof rack, walked down the beach a little way, and made my cast. No bluefish took my good Roberts plug. I cast again. Again, no bluefish. I cast again. Still no bluefish.

I fished for half an hour and caught nothing. Back at
the bedspread, Zee kept a partially shut eye on Joshua, who was back to keeping his own eyes on his fascinating feet. I fished some more. One of the nicest things about fishing is that you don't have to catch fish to have fun. If you just want fish, you can get them easier and cheaper at the A & P.

Another thing about fishing when there are no fish is that you can look around at the scenery, feel the breeze, and, if you like, think about something else. I thought about my plans for later in the day.

When I walked back to the truck, Zee was changing a diaper.

“What is it about this kid?” she asked. “I'm sure he didn't inherit this habit from me. He must have gotten it from you.”

“All us manly men are full of that stuff,” I said.

“How could I have forgotten? I knew that. Every woman knows that.” She picked up powdered, sweet-smelling Joshua and touched her finger to his nose. “When the girls start hanging around you in a few years, I'm going to tell them all about this diaper business. What do you think of that?”

Shameless Joshua smiled up at her and said he thought it was a good idea.

We lay down on the bedspread and let the August sun improve our tans. Things were good, the way they were supposed to be. I turned off my brain and was happy lying there, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, beside warm, brown-skinned Zee.

But life wears a Janus face; like the two-faced god, it tenders as many endings as beginnings, and offers portals that lead to both light and darkness. So after the sun reached its zenith and we finished lunch, it was time to leave the lovely, lonely beach and head back to a more cluttered, less pristine reality. We packed up and headed home.

As we passed Wasque Point and its eternal fishermen, and went west on Norton's Point Beach, past the dozens
of parked 4 x 4's and the hundreds of people soaking up the August sun, I told Zee what I planned to do.

“Do you really need to get into the house?” she asked. “Won't it look suspicious, especially to that new state cop?”

“Otero can't get much more suspicious,” I said. “And I do want to get into the house. Maybe something in Ingalls's past got him killed, and maybe there's something in the house that will give me a clue.”

“I don't like it,” she said.

I pulled out onto the pavement at Katama and shifted into two-wheel drive. “It's not illegal and it's not dangerous,” I said.

“I still don't like it,” said Zee, her jaw seeming to become harder. “I don't want that Otero woman to have another reason for squinting her eyes at you!”

Had Olive Otero really been squinting at me? I looked at Joshua, who was in his mother's lap.

“What do you think, Josh?” I asked. “Should I go or not?”

Smart Joshua, recognizing a no-win situation when he was in one, said nothing.

“There,” I said to Zee. “He agrees with me.” “He does not.”

“Anyway, Moonbeam has Olive Otero's attention now; I don't. So there's nothing to worry about.”

We drove away from the kite-filled beach sky, past the walkers and cyclists on the bike path beside the road, through lovely Edgartown with its white and gray-shingled houses and gardens of bright flowers, and on to our house in the woods, down at the end of our long, sandy driveway. There we unpacked the mountain of gear you need to have whenever you travel with a baby, and I made my phone calls.

First to Lawrence Ingalls's house. A woman answered.

“My name's Fonseca,” I said. “I'm calling to express my condolences. I was working and couldn't get to the funeral.”

She had a detached-sounding voice. “Thank you. I'm Barbara Singleton. I'm afraid that all the family members have left the island, but if you'll give me your name again, I'll be glad to let them know of your call.”

“Thanks. Like I say, my name is Manuel Fonseca. I talked to Larry just last week, and I was supposed to come up there to the house today. But then this terrible thing happened . . .” I let my voice trail off.

“You're right. It has been terrible. We're all very distressed.”

Actually, I didn't think Barbara Singleton sounded too distressed at all. I tried to make sure that I did. Not too distressed, mind you; just distressed enough.

“Yeah,” I said. “Look, Mrs. Singleton, I know this is the worst possible time to be calling, but Larry and me were working on a little business deal, and I'm afraid that if I don't tell somebody about it, I may lose out.”

There was a pause. Then, “I'm afraid I don't understand, Mr. Fonseca. What business deal?”

“It ain't a big one, maybe, but it means something to me. It's them guns of his. I buy, sell, and collect weapons, and Larry told me about them big-game rifles he's got. Said he might be interested in selling them to me. I was supposed to come up and look at them today, and if I was interested we could maybe make a deal.”

Barbara Singleton's voice was cool. “I really don't think this is the time for such—”

I interrupted and talked fast. “Now, I understand that I can't just come up there and make a deal with you, Mrs. Singleton, or probably with anybody else, either, until the will gets read and the family decides what they're going to do with the estate and all. But Larry and me did talk about them rifles and I'd sure hate to lose out on at least having a look at them while they're still there. That's all I want to do, Mrs. Singleton, just get a look at them before some dealer or auction house or whatever maybe takes them off some place and sells them when I can't be there.
I sure would appreciate it, Mrs. Singleton, if I could come up there this afternoon like Larry and me planned I should do. I ain't gonna take nothing or buy nothing. All I want to do is look at them rifles so later, when things settle out, I can bid on 'em or buy 'em from the family. I sure would appreciate that chance, Mrs. Singleton. And you don't have to worry about me being some kind of con artist or crook, Mrs. Singleton. Just call the Edgartown police if you want to, and they'll vouch for me. You ain't taking any chances having me up there, I'll tell you for sure. And I won't be there long, neither. Just long enough to take a quick look at them rifles.”

I thought my Manny Fonseca imitation had gone on long enough, maybe too long, so I shut up.

There was a silence at the other end of the line. Then, to my relief, Barbara Singleton said, “Well, if you and Larry talked about this, I guess it'll be all right. You can look at the rifles, but of course you can't buy them or take them or anything like that. When can I expect you?”

“I'll be up there in an hour. Thanks a lot!”

Zee and Joshua eyed me from the kitchen door. “Isn't it against the law to pretend to be somebody else?” asked Zee, frowning.

I felt a smug smile on my face. “As a matter of fact, it isn't. Anybody can say they're anybody. You could claim to be Greta Garbo or Eleanor Roosevelt or the Virgin Mary and it wouldn't be illegal unless you were using the name for unlawful purposes.”

“Isn't that what you're doing?”

“No. Nothing illegal is going to happen. Trust me.”

“I just don't want you to get into trouble,” she said. “And don't quote Zorba to me.” She looked down at Joshua. “I don't want your dad to be a jailbird, that's all.”

Joshua thought that one over, but didn't say a word.

I called Manny Fonseca, told him we were supposed to be in Chilmark in an hour, and asked him to pick me up on the way and to drive his truck.

Ten minutes later, his truck came down the driveway and turned around. I got in and we headed up-island. Manny was happy.

“So you talked 'em into letting me see them rifles, eh? Good work.”

I told him how I'd done it, and he slapped his hand against the steering wheel. “Couldn't have done it better myself, by God!”

“You just remember that you're the one who called her,” I said. “I'm only a friend who came along for the ride. Call me J.W. and leave off the Jackson. She might not fancy having me there if she knows who I am.”

“You got it,” said Manny. He put a hand to his hip and shoved the pistol on his belt into a more comfortable spot. Manny always went heeled. Because, as he said, you just never know.

It was true that you just never know, but I wasn't so sure that having a pistol in your pocket would take care of the unexpected very often. I apparently lived a much less dangerous life than did Manny or other gun-toters who needed to constantly bear arms, for my problems were usually better met by other means. Of course, showing my bag of guns to Zack Delwood had stopped him, and if Lawrence Ingalls's pistol had been in his own pocket instead of in somebody else's, things might have worked out better for him. So Manny wasn't completely wrong; you really didn't ever know.