A Vineyard Killing (8 page)

There are killings and there are killings, and they're not all the same. I should know.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” I asked.

“You don't look shocked.”

“No.”

“Another coffee?”

“Sure.”

When he came back from the kitchen, he began:

“It was a long time ago. There was a woman. The man and I were full of piss and vinegar. All of us were young. The man and I fought what some thought was a fair fight, though I knew it wasn't. Afterward the woman held his body, not me, in her arms. I ran before the police got there. I became John Reilley.”

When I said nothing, he went on. He seemed glad to talk.

“I had good hands, so I became a carpenter. It was a kind of work far removed from what I'd done before the killing, and I chose it in part so people who knew me before would probably never meet me. I grew this mustache. Not too big and not too small. Just enough to change my face a little. I've been careful to be friendly but not too friendly, and I always live alone. I want people to like me in a casual way, but not get so close that they'll pry into my background.

“I never stayed anywhere for long until I came here, but even here I didn't want to be too much in the public eye. I had too little money to buy a house, and I didn't want anyone, bank or credit company, for instance, checking into John Reilley's past.

“But I took to the Vineyard. It's beautiful and it's got a population that makes it easy to get lost: a few thousand people in the winter, a hundred thousand during the summer. People coming and going all the time. There's a lot of the kind of work I do and the money's good and people don't ask too many questions as long as you do your job. Everything is in flux, like it is out in northern California, where people are all from somewhere else and probably won't be doing what they're doing now for very long.”

“I've never been to northern California.”

“Pretty country. Lots of energy in the air. I was there before I came here, and I came here because it was as far from there as I could get and was a place I'd never been. I liked the island, so I rented that apartment and stayed in it long enough to get John Reilley a post office box and to start building this place. I've been here ever since, and somewhere along the line I realized I was tired of moving. Then I met Dodie and was even surer of that. I'm sixty years old, and for forty years I've been on the run. The only women I've known have been the touch-and-go kind. I want to settle down, but I guess that may not happen now that you're here. I'll be moving on if the police don't nail me first.”

His face had a fatalistic look that made me uncomfortable. “I told you I don't work for the police,” I said, “and I told you I'm not interested in where you live. I just want to know the kind of person you are. Or rather, Maria Donawa wants to know. How'd you meet Dodie?”

He made a small gesture. “Our lives are a series of happenstance events. Rick Black was dating Maria. Rick and I had worked together on a few jobs. One day after work we bumped into each other in the A&P. I was about to move on when Dodie and Maria came by, and Dodie and I got introduced. If I'd left a half minute sooner we'd never have met. Do you believe in fate?”

The Moirai and Norns seemed as active as ever, but I just shrugged and said, “You and Dodie began to date.”

He shook his head. “No. I liked her but I didn't have a place for a woman in my life. Then I met her again at the farmers' market and we talked. It was easy for both of us, but naturally I had to dance around some of her questions.”

“I can imagine.”

“Then one day Rick told me that Dodie had a small bit of work to do on her porch. He'd promised Maria that he'd take care of it, but he'd gotten a big job that kept him busy and he asked me to stand in for him. I said sure and that was the first time I went to her house. There wasn't much to the job, but afterward she gave me tea and cookies. That was how it started.”

“You hit it off.”

“Yes.” He gave me a challenging look. “Of course she doesn't know that I killed a man.”

“Did you ever go back to where that happened?”

“No. I didn't want to disgrace my family, and the woman involved cared about the other man, not me, so I never went back and I never wrote to anyone. By now they must think I'm dead or in prison. I went as far away as my money would take me, changed my name, and got a job. Now I'm here and you know what Maria asked you to learn.”

We sat in silence for a while. Then I said, “I've broken all of the commandments at one time or another, so I'm not in a position to judge the fight you had when you were young. I'm only interested in the way you are now, and I'm only interested in that because I know Dodie and I want her to be happy.”

“Well,” he said, “for what it's worth, in the last forty years John Reilley has never been in trouble, not anywhere for any reason. When it looks like trouble, I fade away. I'm antitrouble. Dodie makes me happy and I think I do the same for her. I'm healthy and I earn a good living and I'm tired of wandering. I'd like to settle down for good.”

“What can you tell me about Wall and Reston, the two guys who've been following me? I think they might actually be interested in finding you. Why might that be?”

His eyes narrowed and he shook his head. “I don't know. I don't like it. I've never had people come looking for me before. First you, now maybe these guys Wall and Reston.”

“You don't know either one of them?”

“No.”

“Homicide cases are never terminated until someone is caught and found guilty. If that killing you were involved with was called murder, the case might be cold but it's not closed. Have you seen anybody on the island who knew you back then and might have recognized you here?”

“No. For forty years I've been looking at faces, but I've never seen one from those days.”

“And you haven't written to anybody or told anybody where you are.”

“Not in all that time. But here you are and here they are.” He rubbed his hand over his head and looked around the room. “I'd better be moving on. Damn!”

“Don't be in too much of a hurry,” I said. “Wall and Reston don't know where you are and they may not be after you at all. If they are, it probably has nothing to do with what happened forty years ago. More likely it's something that happened right here.”

“Like what?”

“Like you were in the deli when Donald Fox and his men came in, and you went out before they did.”

“So what?”

“So you knew he was there and had time to get your pistol and shoot at him.”

He threw up his hands. “I don't own a pistol. And why would I try to kill him?”

“I don't know. Maybe because he's trying to take Dodie's house away from her. What matters is what Fox's people may think. Fox says that he doesn't know anything about these guys tailing me, but maybe the two of them figure they'll get in good with the boss if they find the guy who shot his brother, and you're their prime suspect.”

He studied me, then shook his head. “No. It's got to be more than that. If they wanted to find me, they could have come to where I've been working. People don't know where I live, but a lot of them know where I am when I'm on a job.” He made a small, circular gesture with his forefinger then moved that hand across his chest from right to left as he thought. “It's something else,” he said.

“Like what?” I asked. But he only shook his head, so I went on. “Do you know a man named Kirkland?”

A wary look appeared on his face. “I've heard of him. What about him?”

“He's dead. He got himself stabbed in the parking lot behind the Fireside bar in Oak Bluffs.”

“Yeah, I read about that in the paper.”

“He was probably in the same parking lot a day or so before. He was in a Range Rover like the Saberfox people drive. You ever drive a Range Rover?”

He slowed his words, as though to keep better control of them. “I don't drive a car. I decided it was dangerous to go through the process of getting a license.”

I watched him carefully. “I've been wondering if Wall and Reston might be working on something having to do with Kirkland.”

He shook his head, but kept his eyes on mine. “I can't imagine a connection with me.”

“Dom Agganis asked me if I killed Kirkland. If I'm on Dom's list, even his long list, you probably are, too. And Agganis thinks the shooting and the stabbing are related. So do I, and maybe Wall and Reston do, too. They may even think that you and I are in cahoots.”

“But we're not, so why would they think that?”

“We were both there at the deli. You went out and a few minutes later Paul Fox gets shot. I don't say it has to make sense, but people think senseless thoughts all the time.” I set my cup aside and stood up. “Thanks for the coffee. Nice place you've got here. I can find my way out.”

At the doorway, he touched my arm. “I always use the peephole first, just in case somebody's looking down into the cellar hole. So far nobody ever has been.”

I slid a bit of wood aside and looked out. Nothing. I opened the door and went outside.

“What are you going to tell Maria?” he asked.

“I'll give her a report if I ever manage to catch up with you and ask you some questions. Meanwhile, all I can tell her is that you seem to be a steady worker and that the cops don't have your name on any of their lists.”

He inclined his head slightly. “Thanks.”

“Remember to be more careful with your tracks. If I could find you, maybe Wall and Reston can, too.”

“I've learned my lesson.” He smiled wryly.

I made a large circle through the forest before emerging onto the bike path beside the road. A slow check of the highway revealed no green Range Rover or other vehicle in sight. I got to the Land Cruiser and drove to Dodie Donawa's house.

My father used to sing about a girl who was “round and firm and fully packed.” Dodie Donawa fit that description well. Like her daughter, she was bright, blonde, fair-skinned, and cheerful. I could see why John Reilley might be taken by her and she by him, and could imagine them having a fine time together as they shared the last half of their lives.

If, that is, John was the man he appeared to be when I'd talked with him. Before I reported to Maria, I wanted Dodie's take on John. I don't normally have a lot of faith in intuition, but Jung thought highly of it and I thought highly of Jung. Besides, there's the cliché that women are intuitive, and I'm as good at clichés as the next guy, so I knocked on Dodie's door.

“Why, J.W.,” she said, “what brings you here?”

“John Reilley,” I said.

Her blue eyes widened. “Are you playing John Alden?”

“No. Sorry.”

“Well, come in and enlighten me.”

Her living room was furnished with soft, comfortable chairs and a couch facing a television set. There were doilies on the arms of the chair and couch, and in the next room I could see a baby grand piano.

From another room came the sound of Baroque music, something repetitive enough to be Bach, who often seemed to have done his creating on automatic pilot. But what can you expect from a guy who was probably so busy thinking about his twenty-two children that he often forgot that he'd been writing a particular piece of music a quarter of an hour too long?

Dodie waved me into a chair and plumped herself down on the couch. “Now, what about John?”

“Somebody asked me about him and all I knew was that he seems to be a nice guy and a good worker, and that he rides a moped. I'm hoping you can tell me more about him.”

“Who wants to know?”

“Dom Agganis, among others. You know Dom? Sergeant of the State Police. You probably met him when you got caught toting your hog leg into the hospital.”

“I know him, but I never even knew that pistol was in my pocket!”

“You've convinced me,” I said. “Anyway, John was in the area when somebody shot Paul Fox up at the five corners, and Dom is interviewing people who were there. He's already talked to me, for instance.”

“If you ask me, it's too bad the man missed! That Donald Fox is a nasty man and his brother is just as bad. Coming around here like he does, drooling over Maria! Who does he think he is? I wish they'd all go back to wherever it is they came from.”

“A lot of people probably agree with you about that, but—”

“That Paul Fox broke up my Maria and that nice Rick Black, you know. I thought Rick and Maria might get married, then along comes that Paul Fox and the first thing you know, he's going off with her! I don't like it! Rick looked after her like a mother hen, but this Fox boy just waltzes her around like she's a beauty queen.”

“Maria is a grown woman, Dodie. She—”

“Oh, she's old enough to know better, but she's behaving like a schoolgirl! Won't listen to a word I have to say!”

I managed to get the conversation back on the subject that interested me. “What can you tell me about John Reilley, Dodie? I'll listen to whatever you have to say about him.”

She took a deep breath and put her troublesome daughter to one side for the moment. She smiled. “John is wonderful. He and I can talk for hours. Or we can just sit and have a cup of coffee and listen to music or watch TV. He always uses that cup right over there.” She pointed at a mug on a sideboard. “Says he likes it. And he likes the same shows that I do.”

“He ever tell you what brought him to the Vineyard?”

“He said he came because he'd never been here, but now that he's here he wants to stay.” She leaned forward. “If he'll just pop the question, I don't see why he and I can't live right here in the house.” Then she frowned. “If that blasted Donald Fox doesn't steal it out from under me, that is!”

“Where was John living before he came here?”

“What?” Dodie came back from angry thoughts of Donald Fox. “Oh. He was out in California. Up north of San Francisco in a place called Inverness. You know, like the city in Scotland. I looked it up in my atlas. He says it's a beautiful place, but the Vineyard is just as pretty.”

“I think you may have something to do with him thinking that, Dodie.”

Dodie blushed.

“I've talked with John a few times,” I said. “I hear some kind of an accent in his voice, but I can't make it out. Where's he from originally, do you know?”

She frowned. “Now that you mention it, I don't think he ever said just where he grew up. But I think what you hear is a teeny bit of Southern drawl in his voice. When I was a girl, I had an aunt down in Louisiana and I used to visit her now and then. When I came home again, my friends would make fun of me because I was talking Southern myself without even realizing it. It's easy to do, you know; you jus' relax yo' mouth lak this.” We both laughed.

“I think you're right,” I said. “I think that is a trace of Southern I hear when John talks. Not much, but a little. Maybe a little something else, too. Some little accent I can't quite identify. He ever mention his family?”

“Gracious, J.W., you're beginning to make me wonder if I know anything about him at all! He and I are so easy together that I never noticed that he wasn't telling me things like that. Probably because I told him so much that he didn't have a chance!”

“Or maybe he just never thought it was important. And maybe it isn't. I know it isn't important to me what sort of life Zee had before I met her. When we decided to marry, we started from there and we don't talk much about what happened before. It was a different time and we were different people. Does John hunt or fish?”

“He doesn't hunt, but he goes fishing sometimes. And sometimes he and I go clamming on my license. I tell him to get his own permit because he's a senior citizen and it's free, but I don't think he's done it yet.

“But he sure knows how to cook what we catch. He's at least as good a cook as I am. Says he learned because he didn't want to be one of those guys who ate cold beans. He likes that New Orleans style, and it makes me drool just thinking about it. You like to cook, J.W.?”

I nodded. “I learned for pretty much the same reason. Before I got married I used to cook for myself as though I was going to have company, so I wouldn't get in the habit of eating out of cans just because I was alone. Does John have any favorite dishes he likes to make?”

“He makes wicked-good red beans and rice, and his gumbo beats the band. He's made a Cajun fan out of me, for sure. And he always dries the dishes afterwards. I wash and he dries. It's nice to have a man do that.”

Dodie had the form of one who loves to eat. I didn't think she'd lost any weight since John Reilley had come into her life.

I also didn't think she could tell me much more about John than she'd already told. The most important things to her were that he could cook and talk and was wonderful. Maybe that was all that was important. I was more interested in her verification of the slight echoes of a Southern accent in his voice and in what she'd said about his fondness for New Orleans food.

I got up and thanked her and went to the door. On the porch, I turned and said, “I'd like to talk with Maria. Will you have her give me a call when she gets in?”

“I certainly will. But I'm sure she feels the same way about John as I do.”

“I'm sure she does. One more thing. Has John ever said anything about Donald Fox?”

Her smile went away. “Only that it'll be a cold day in hell before Fox gets his hands on my house!”

“He said that, did he?”

She nodded. “And I think he meant it, too.” She leaned forward. “I like a masterful man, you know what I mean?”

“All of us masterful men appreciate those feelings in our women,” I said.

“Oh, you! Be on your way!” She laughed and shut the door.

I was at the end of the walk when a man stepped in front of me. His clothes were those of a working guy, and there was sawdust on his shoes. He was lean and muscular and had an angry look in his eye.

“I know you. You're Jackson. You're the latest Romeo!”

His tone was that of a man looking for trouble.

I said, “What are you talking about?”

He thrust out a sharp chin. “She went to your place. I followed her. Your name's on your mailbox. Don't lie to me, you dirty old man.”

I wondered what burr was under his saddle, but was just annoyed enough to say, “I'm not so old. Who are you?”

“Don't mess with me or my woman, you son of a bitch!”

Jealousy wears a green face. “You must be Rick Black,” I said.

“She told you about me, did she?” He stepped nearer. “You stay away from her. You hear me? You and all the others!”

I stepped back and showed him my wedding ring. “Maria is a grown woman. She can decide who she wants to see. But it won't be me, because I already have all the woman I can handle.”

But the ring seemed to enflame rather than soothe him. “You married bastards are the worst scum of all!” His voice was an explosion. He swung hard at my jaw.

I avoided most of the impact but his hard knuckles still gave me a jolt. He followed with a left hand that I caught on my right forearm. He was strong and fast, but he was a carpenter, not a boxer. I got away from him and held up both hands, palms out.

“You're after the wrong man, Black! Stop it!”

But he didn't stop. He came storming after me, full of rage and frustration. I backed onto Dodie's lawn, catching most of his blows on my arms. Then, when he kept coming, I suddenly stepped forward inside his swing. I got my arms around him and brought my knee up. He made an agonized sound and the strength went out of him. I let him fall. He lay doubled up on the ground clutching his crotch and groaning that groan emitted by every man who's ever taken a hard one in the balls.

I was breathing hard and feeling both glad that he was down and I was standing, and bad that it had come to this.

After a minute I knelt beside him and said, “Maria Donawa is a pretty girl, but she means nothing to me and I mean nothing to her. She came to see me on business. I advise you to remember that she doesn't belong to you or anybody else. You forget that and the next time you tangle with some guy, he may kill you or you may kill him. Either way it'll be for nothing. How are you feeling?”

He just groaned. There were tears of pain on his face. I wondered if I'd hurt him badly and wished I'd tried some other way of stopping him. Too late now.

I stood and glanced at the house. Dodie hadn't noticed a thing. I walked to the truck and drove home.