First Light (17 page)

“Either of you play golf?” I asked.

The cop gave me a quizzical look. “Yeah, I do. Why?”

“You'd hardly call the game he plays golf,” scoffed his partner. “You'd call it slice and burn.”

I pointed at the glove on the floor of the car. “I see that as a man's glove, what do you think?”

They took turns shining their flashlights on the glove and squinting at it. “Either that or a woman with big hands,” said the golfing cop.

“Left hand or right?”

He squinted harder. “Can't tell.”

“Neither can I, but Molly Wood, who owns this
car and has been missing for two days, has average-sized hands. Anyway, I don't think she plays golf.”

“Maybe the guy she went to the mainland with does.”

“Maybe. But if she went to the mainland with or without some guy, she never told anybody about it. She was supposed to be at work the last two days, but wasn't, and she missed a dinner date last night.”

The cop shrugged. “You never know what a woman will do.”

“Jeff might, but you sure don't,” snapped sharp-eared Zee. “Molly Wood is an honest, hardworking, responsible nurse. She would never abandon her patients and go off without telling anyone. You'll be smart to get your detectives over here to check this car out. That glove could belong to a kidnapper.”

The cop's ears got red.

“She's right, George,” said his partner. “I'll get on the wire.” He turned away and pulled a radio from his belt.

George pulled himself up straight. “Sorry, ma'am. I misspoke.”

Zee was edgy with worry. “Forget about it. No, don't forget about it. Remember what you said. It wasn't the brightest observation you ever made.”

A detective arrived, and we told him what we knew. He took notes, then walked around the car and shone his light inside.

“No blood that I can see, but we'd better get the state police here. Their lab might tell us something.”

“If you don't need us anymore,” I said, “we'll head for home. You have our address and phone number.”

“You think of anything that might help, call us.” We drove home through the darkness. A car passed us.

“Pa.”

“What?”

“That was a red car.”

“We don't need to find any more red cars, Josh.”

“Ma.”

“What, Diana?”

“I'm hungry.”

Everything changes. Nothing changes.

We arrived home just in time to get a phone call from Brady. I told him about the car, and he wondered if we were still going fishing. We agreed to try Wasque at first light. Then Zee and I got the kids into bed.

“I keep thinking we should be doing more,” said Zee. “I feel guilty sitting here while Molly's out there someplace.”

I thought of Auden's executioner's horse. “Life doesn't stop for disasters or miracles,” I said. “All the normal things keep on happening, too.”

“Oh, I know that. I know that babies are born while other people are dying. But knowing that doesn't help.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I'm going to make some corn muffins.”

Corn muffins. “Corn muffins?”

“Breakfast for you and Brady. If you're going to fish at sunup at Wasque, you won't feel like making them before you go. Besides, it'll give me something to do, so I won't have to think about Molly or that note.”

“The person who wrote that note is unlikely to show up here,” I said, repressing my anger.

So she made muffins, and then we went to bed, where it took both of us a long time to go to sleep. I set the alarm for three-thirty, and a half hour after it went off Brady's borrowed Range Rover was in our yard. We transferred his fishing gear to the Land Cruiser and went out into the black night, under the stars and a thin moon. Our headlights cast spectral shadows in the trees beside the driveway.

At the highway, we turned left and drove into Edgar-town. We were the only car on the road as we passed through the sleeping village and on south to Katama. There, I shifted into four-wheel drive, and we turned east along the beach. To our right, the Atlantic rolled south beyond the curvature of the earth. To our left, through the narrows dividing the harbor from Katama Pond, the lights of Edgartown twinkled. Ahead of us, the eastern sky was just beginning to brighten.

I told Brady of my hunt for information about Kathy Bannerman, and we talked about finding Molly's car and about the golf glove, and we brooded over their significance. We danced around death but finally faced the possibility.

I asked him for the names of any golfers who might have known Molly, and he gave me a couple.

Eliza and Patrick played golf, he said, and maybe Molly had run into a guy named Luis Martinez or another one named Philip Fredrickson, both part of the Isle of Dreams crowd. “But,” he said, “you can't question everybody on the island who plays golf.”

“I'm trying to narrow it down to the most likely
million,” I said, and told him again about the slashed tire and the note.

“Someone's pretty mad or pretty scared,” he said.

“Or did a number on the wrong car.”

“Yeah, maybe that's it. You made anybody mad lately?”

“Sure, but none of them acted scared.”

He was quiet for a while, then said, “Nate Fairchild has a knife and a temper.”

“Yes.”

At Leland's Point, just east of Wasque, we pulled to a stop. One of the good things about fishing is that you don't even have to fish. You can just sit there with your coffee and corn muffins and look. So we did that. Off to the right we could see a flicker of lights from the towers on Nantucket, and to our left were the lights of Cape Cod. Between was the darkness of Nantucket Sound topped by the gradually lightening sky.

I told Brady about my visits with Edna Paul and the Chief. “Maybe you're more Edna's type,” I said. “I'd like to know what's in Molly's room, but Edna wouldn't let me get my foot in the door. Maybe she'll fall for your boyish lawyer charm.”

We drank coffee and watched the water and the brightening sky. After a few minutes, Brady said, “Do you happen to have a photograph of Katherine Bannerman?”

“Right there in the glove compartment.”

He found the photo and flicked on his flashlight. Kathy Bannerman smiled up at us.

“Well?” I said. “What do you see?”

“They don't really look alike, but you know who she reminds me of?”

“Who?”

“Molly Wood.” He put the photo back in the glove compartment and turned off his flashlight. “Molly is probably fine. There's probably a perfectly logical explanation that we just don't know about.”

That was two
probably
s in a row. “You're probably right,” I said, making it three.

I turned on the radio and found the classical station over on the Cape. I let it come into my psyche, and it gradually drove questions about Kathy and Molly and the slashed tire from the front of my thoughts.

Then, suddenly, there was a stirring on the surface of the water about a half cast out. Blues!

“There!” I said. Both of us tumbled out of the truck. I snagged my rod from the roof rack and ran down to the water. Before Brady had even rigged up I'd made a cast and felt a fish hit. I set the hook and heard the singing of the line as the rod bent, and I started reeling the fish in. By the time I beached it and got the hook out of its mouth, Brady had shucked off his shoes and socks and was trotting down to the water.

The school moved closer to the beach and Brady made his cast.

Bingo!

They moved up the beach, and we followed, grinning and feeling good.

When the blitz ended, we had a half dozen nice seven- or eight-pounders up on the sand.

“Awesome,” said Brady.

I felt a smile on my face. “I don't know if there are any winners here,” I said, “but we should weigh in our biggest. We might get on the board. Stranger things have happened. And even if we don't score we might win a mystery prize.”

Suddenly the sun rose up out of the sea and light burst over us. It was Eden, and this was the first day.

At home, Zee admired our catch. “You might have a couple of dailies there, guys. Let's have breakfast, then I'll see you later. I'm only working until noon.”

“I'll take you,” I said, aware that far back in my mind, beneath the layers of civilized emotions I'd placed over it, was a fury that had been there since I'd seen that note.

“No, you won't,” said Zee. “We're not going to let some nut change our lives. I'll put my car where I can keep an eye on it.”

“I'm not worried about the car.”

She patted my cheek. “You don't need to worry about me, either. I'll be careful.”

I watched, narrow-eyed, as she drove away.

After we weighed in our biggest fish, Brady and I went back to the house. “Five-thirty,” I said to him. “Cocktails and supper with us before you and Zee head out.”

After Brady left, I took our fish out to the bench behind the shed and filleted them.

Then I phoned James Bannerman.

“Have you found her?” he said. “Do you know where she is?”

“I found something,” I said. “I found out you
were here on the island about the time your wife disappeared. We're not going to get anywhere if you lie to me.”

I could almost hear his teeth grind together. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You get one more chance.”

“I didn't lie.”

“That's it. Find yourself another sap. I'll send your check back tomorrow.”

“Wait. I didn't mean to—”

“We can't work like this. You didn't tell me, and you didn't tell Thornberry.”

“I … I thought it would look bad for me. You know how the husband is always the prime suspect. Okay, I was there, but I never saw her, so I didn't see any reason to mention it.”

“I'll have to tell the cops. They need to know.”

“Do you have to? Listen, it was just an impulse. I didn't even know until later that she really was there, but I remembered how much she'd loved the place and I thought maybe she'd gone back to where she'd been happy. I went to the rooming house where we'd stayed. But Mrs. Grady was dead, and the new people didn't know anything. And I went to a couple of clubs and places like that where we'd gone all those years ago. I learned nothing. So I just came home. That's all there was to it, I swear.”

“You'll have to tell that story to the cops, because they'll be talking to you. What else haven't you told me?”

“Nothing. Don't waste your time on me. Find my wife.”

I hung up, wondering whether to believe him or not. His story was so frail that it sounded true, but maybe he knew that when he told it. I didn't take him off my list.

Joshua wanted to work on the tree house.

I decided that there was a good chance that Luis Martinez and Philip Fredrickson might not be in the Isle of Dreams offices until later in the day.

We worked until noon, and we got the roof shingled and the rail installed on the porch. The tree house was almost done, and not a bad job, either. It was pretty crowded when I was in it, but big enough when the kids were there by themselves.

“That's it for today,” I said. “Next time we'll build the ladder so we won't have to scramble up through these branches.”

“Pa?”

“What, Diana?”

“We're hungry.”

It's nice to have certainties in an uncertain world. We climbed down to the ground and went into the house for lunch.

When Zee got home an hour later, I left the kids with her and headed for Edgartown. The Chief was in his office. He didn't look surprised to see me.

“I was going to call you,” he said, “but I knew you were so nosy that you'd come by on your own. I hear you found Mrs. Wood's car. Good work. They dusted it for prints, but don't hold your breath for the results, because everybody who's ever been in that car likely left prints. They also searched the car, but they didn't find anything except that glove.”

“Was there something unusual about the glove?”

“The state cops have it at their lab. Dom tells me that it's custom-made and only sells at snazzy shops like they have down South and in Arizona, where they play all year. You know, those places that cost you a quarter million to join and have a five-year waiting list.”

“Who made it?”

“An outfit down in Georgia. The Mallet Corporation. You watch golf on TV, you've seen their ad: ‘Hit with a mallet.'”

The Mallet Corporation. Did the name sound familiar just because of TV ads? “Can they trace it to a buyer?”

“Doubtful. They make a million gloves a year. But I expect they'll look into it.” He peered at me. “You have that lean and hungry look that Cassius had. You're thinking too much.”

“I'm not dangerous, Chief. I'm just trying to remember where I heard of the Mallet Corporation.”

“I can't help you. I think they're headquartered down South somewhere. J.W., you did good work finding that car, but now you should go home or go fishing or go to the movies and leave this business to the police.”

“I won't get in your way, Chief.”

“It's not as though Molly Wood is the only woman who's ever gone missing on the Vineyard. Several have done it in the last five years, but most of them eventually showed up. She probably will, too.”

“Not all of them showed up?”

“No.”

“I don't want Molly Wood to be an exception.”

“You just thought of something,” said the Chief, staring up at my face.

I stared back. My mental computer had clicked on. Isle of Dreams was a local consortium, but its mother company was the Mallet Corporation, builder of prestigious golf courses around the country. Luis Martinez and Philip Fredrickson were working with Isle of Dreams, but they were off-islanders, which might just mean that they worked for Mallet. And if they did, they might play on Mallet courses and use Mallet-made gloves.