Paperwhite Narcissus (11 page)

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Authors: Cynthia Riggs

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“Ah!” said Calpurnia.
 
“Colley’s going to get another obituary, William.” Botts was dropping Victoria off at her house. “The question is, what form will this one take? So far he’s been hanged, bitten in half by a shark, and shot with his own gun.”
“Two for one with Miss Keene,” said Botts.
“Come in for a moment. Do you have time?”
Botts checked his watch. “Enough.”
Victoria brewed tea, and they seated themselves at the cookroom table.
“Whoever is writing those obituaries,” Victoria said, “has what might pass as a sense of humor and knows how to write.” She glanced at Botts. “We can rule you out, I suppose?”
“You suppose right.” Botts tapped his fingers on the table.
“The first obituary was typed. You have a typewriter.”
Botts said nothing.
“Tom Dwyer,” Victoria said. “Tom invited me to go fishing with him. I believe I’ll call him and accept.”
Botts raised his eyebrows. “Surf casting?”
“Certainly.”
Botts moved his mug in circles on the table. “Is it likely Dwyer wrote the obits?”
“Now that I think of it, it’s entirely possible, though I can’t imagine why.” Victoria reached for the phone book and flipped the pages.
“Do you think it’s wise to go off alone with him?” Botts continued to fiddle with his mug.
“The obituary writer and the killer are not the same person.” Victoria found Tom Dwyer’s number, picked up the phone, and dialed. “His answering machine,” she said, after a pause. “I’ll call later.”
“Whoever killed Fieldstone had to know boats. Dwyer knows boats.”
“He’s not the killer,” Victoria insisted. “The person who shot Candy Keene knew about the Thursday target practice. Candy never had a chance to tell us who lured her out that afternoon.”
“He also had to know how to make divinity fudge and where to obtain cyanide.”
“He may have bought the fudge,” said Victoria. “We can put Katie to work tracking down candy shops that sell divinity.”
Botts shook his head. “The killer wouldn’t have risked that. It’s an easy enough recipe.”
“We need to eliminate the shops first.” Victoria sipped her tea. “It’s not difficult to obtain cyanide. New Zealanders use it to kill possums.”
“Where did you get that information?”
“I have my sources,” said Victoria. “By the way, the two girls are coming over tomorrow on the noon boat from Woods Hole. Katie’s arranged to pick them up in Oak Bluffs at twelve forty-five and bring them here. Are you free around one o’clock?”
Botts stood up. “I’ll clear my calendar, Madam Reporter.”
 
Victoria suspected, when the phone rang, that it might be Colley and that Colley had received a fourth obituary. She was right.
“What does it say this time?” Victoria asked.
“How close are you to identifying this guy?”
“Close,” said Victoria. “What does it say?”
“Jee-sus Christ, Victoria.” She heard a rustling of papers. “This one says, ‘Colley Jameson, fifty-five, was found dead in
his hospital bed yesterday, apparently the victim of food poisoning. When found, Mr. Jameson, who was in the hospital for minor cosmetic surgery, had a partially eaten dish of Jello on a tray in front of him …’”
“That’s unkind,” Victoria said. “The hospital’s food is delicious.”
“The hospital’s food isn’t the issue, Victoria. What are you doing about this?”
“I’ll fax you a report the day after tomorrow from the office of the
West Tisbury Grackle
,” said Victoria. “We have a fax machine there. I’ve got a meeting tomorrow.”
 
Casey called Victoria at home that evening. “Victoria, I know you’re mad at me, but I tried to reach you when the news came through about Candy Keene.”
“Oh?” said Victoria.
“You weren’t at home and you weren’t at the
Grackle
office.”
“I was in the field,” said Victoria. “But I had a scanner.”
“Well,” said Casey. “I didn’t know that. The state police have asked me to check for some stuff in Candy Keene’s house tomorrow morning and I wondered if you’d like to come with me?”
“I’m going fishing,” said Victoria.
There was a long silence from Casey.
“With Tom Dwyer,” Victoria said. “The mystery writer. The one with the piping plover recipe.”
“I know who he is. How come you’re going fishing with him?”
“He invited me.”
“I don’t think that’s real smart, Victoria. I mean, after all, you are …”
“Don’t you start that too,” said Victoria, and hung up.
Casey called back immediately. “Want me to take you to Edgartown tomorrow morning? For your fishing date?”
“No, thank you. He’s picking me up,” and Victoria hung up again.
Victoria awoke at four-thirty to the dawn chorus, every bird in the universe, it seemed, announcing the new day. A robin led off. Then doves and cardinals, Carolina wrens, blue jays, chickadees, and flickers chimed in until their songs drowned out the occasional early morning car on the Edgartown Road and the ever-present sound of surf on the south shore. Victoria had known all the birds, once, but now she could identify only the most common ones.
The headlights of Tom’s car turned in to her drive. She was waiting for him, a picnic basket next to her on the stone step.
He swung the passenger door open and helped her up into the high seat. “Morning, Victoria.”
“It’s going to be a lovely day,” she said, once she had unzipped her sweater. “Where will we be fishing?”
In the dim light from the dashboard she could see Tom’s profile, a smile around the pipestem clamped between his teeth. “You’re not to tell anyone, Victoria. Promise?”
She smiled. “I promise.”
“I’ve got a secret place on Chappy, around the corner from Wasque. There’s an offshore eddy where the fish congregate.”
“I suppose your secret place is in the midst of the piping plovers’ nests?”
“We can walk there instead of driving, if you’d like.”
“How far is it?”
Tom grinned. “From Katama? Not far. Four and a half, maybe five miles.”
The road ahead was gradually becoming more visible in the
growing light. “I’ve brought breakfast,” Victoria said, changing the subject. “Coffee, sandwiches, and some oranges.”
“Great.” Tom was still grinning.
“Does the Chappaquiddick ferry run this early?”
“We won’t be going over on the ferry. We’re driving along the beach.”
“One of these days the ocean will cut through the bar. I remember that happening when I was a child,” said Victoria. “Katama Bay poured into the ocean and swept the bar away and Chappaquiddick was cut off from the Vineyard.”
“Almost time for it to happen again,” said Tom.
They approached the outskirts of Edgartown and he turned onto Meetinghouse Way. “Avoiding traffic,” he said, although there wasn’t a car in sight.
He stopped at the South Beach parking area and got out of the car. “Letting air out of the tires so we can drive in soft sand,” he told her.
As Victoria waited, the sun came up over the horizon. Golden light shone through thin crests of curling breakers. Not a footprint marred the beach as far as she could see in either direction.
“Ready?” Tom asked, getting back into the vehicle.
“Ready,” said Victoria. “I’ve fastened my seat belt.”
Tom drove east, dunes on their left, the ocean on their right. Victoria opened her window and sat up straight to see better. The car wallowed in the soft sand, making Victoria feel slightly seasick. The scenery passed by faster than she could ever hope to walk.
Within a half-mile the dunes petered out and Victoria and Tom were on the thin barrier bar with nothing but beach grass on either side between them and water. To their left, Katama Bay stretched out in a wide steel-blue sheet. To their right, the Atlantic Ocean gnawed away at the slender strip of sand that formed their road.
Victoria felt as though she were riding a circus car on a tightrope. Occasionally, a wave sent swash skimming across the
bar, leaving a trail of foam that hissed as they drove through. The solid ground of Chappaquiddick seemed distant and it was. Safety was at least two miles ahead of them. Victoria felt a kick of adrenaline, excitement, or fear, she wasn’t sure which. Tom drove slowly, ten miles an hour, then five miles an hour, then three, dodging places where the sand looked especially soft. Two miles would take, how long? Ten minutes? Fifteen? The minutes were more like hours. During those few minutes the ocean could break through and sweep the road out from under them, and sweep them with it.
When they reached Chappaquiddick at last, Victoria let out breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Tom hadn’t spoken the entire time.
She broke the silence. “I’ve always come to Chappaquiddick by ferry. Never along the beach.”
“The way the surf is washing over the bar, it won’t be long before it cuts through. Then the only way over will be by ferry.” The sand was firmer now, mixed with gray soil. Tom took his pipe out from between his teeth. “I brought a rod for you.”
“I haven’t held a surf-casting rod for a long time,” said Victoria.
“You’ll catch enough fish for supper, I guarantee.”
Less than a mile farther, they reached Wasque, the southeastern corner of Chappaquiddick and of Martha’s Vineyard. Victoria looked out at the tidal rip that angled out from the shore, a churning maelstrom as far as she could see. “Is that where you found your half of the body?” she asked.
Tom pointed with his pipe. “Right there.”
“I’m glad we decided to drive, not walk,” Victoria admitted.
“We’re almost there. I don’t think I ran over any plovers on the way.”
“I suppose if you had, we could have tested your recipe. ‘Four and twenty plovers baked in a pie.”’
Tom laughed. “It was stew, not pie.”
He parked near the dunes, well away from the surf, helped
Victoria out of the car, and set up a folding aluminum chair for her near the water. He handed her an eight-foot-long surf-casting rod.
“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?” said Victoria.
“That’s why we’re here. To fish.” When he finished attaching a lure to Victoria’s line he cast it far out into the rip. “When you get a strike, start reeling in and call me.” He set her rod into a holder he’d jammed into the sand. He laughed when he saw her expression. “You can do it, kid.”
Victoria sat tensely, waiting for a bluefish to tear off with Tom’s expensive gear. After a while she relaxed slightly. Neither Tom nor she had gotten a strike. Tom reeled in her line and cast again.
“I’ve read most of your mysteries and like them,” Victoria said. “Especially the recipes.”
“Thank you. That’s a compliment coming from another writer. The
Enquirer
panned my last two.”
Victoria unzipped her sweater. The sun was well above the horizon now and the day was getting warm. “Who wrote the reviews?”
“Colley.”
Victoria frowned. “He doesn’t usually write book reviews.”
“He shouldn’t,” Tom said. “He has no idea how to critique. He thinks what he’s writing is clever, but it’s not. It’s mean-spirited.”
“As a writer himself, he should have some sensitivity for others.”
“Colley? Sensitive to others?” Tom shook his head.
“Surely with your success those reviews of his don’t affect you, do they?”
Tom took his pipe out of his mouth and tamped down the tobacco with a wooden match. “I didn’t think I’d be so bothered by his reviews, but I am. I’ve had writer’s block since the last review came out six months ago.”
“I can understand. We creative types are more sensitive than we want to admit.” Victoria patted her hair. “Where do
your
ideas come from?”
Tom turned and swept his arm toward the Island behind them. “Need you ask?”
“People are always saying to me,” she said, laughing, “‘It must be nice to live in such a quiet place.’ And they’re always asking, ‘What do you do in the winter?’”
Tom laughed, reeled in his line, and flung it out again, then reeled in Victoria’s and cast.
Victoria decided to bring up the subject that was on her mind. “You know about the obituaries Colley’s received, don’t you?”
Tom said, “Oh?”
“Four so far.”
“Hey,” Tom said. “I think you’ve got something on your line, Victoria.” He reeled it in. “Nope.” He detached a clump of seaweed and cast again. “I’d better check mine. When a blue hits you usually know, but they fool you sometimes. How about that breakfast of yours? I could do with a cup of coffee about now.”
Victoria tried to catch his eye, but he wasn’t looking at her. She opened the picnic basket and brought out the bacon and egg sandwiches she’d made so early this morning it had seemed like the middle of the night.
While they were eating, Victoria brought up the obituaries again, but Tom was as elusive as the blues.
It was almost an hour before Victoria got her first strike. Her rod arced and her line whizzed out. She called to Tom, who jabbed his own rod into its holder and rushed to her, and, by gosh, she’d hooked a bluefish. She reeled in the line until she was too tired to turn the small handle any more, then Tom did the rest.
“You’ll eat tonight, Victoria. I’ll fillet your fish for you.”
While he was cleaning the fish, Victoria tried once again. “You knew, didn’t you, that Colley fired that nice young reporter?”
“Katie? Yes. Damn shame. She’s a good writer.”
“Colley fired me, too.”
“So I heard.” Tom took his unlit pipe out of his mouth and relit it.
“I’m working with William Botts on the
Grackle
.”
Tom nodded.
Victoria tried a more direct approach. “What’s your feeling about Colley? Besides the fact that he’s not a competent reviewer, that is.”
“Tough job, being an editor.” Tom turned away. “I’d better tend my own line if I hope to have any supper.”
“Do your daughter and your wife like to fish?”
“Yes, they both do. They’re both good cooks, too. Lynn is my wife’s daughter from her first marriage, you know.”
“Oh.” Victoria felt unaccountably embarrassed.
“Sometimes they come fishing with me.” Tom reeled in and cast again. “Not as often as I’d like. Lynn’s sixteen now and has her own life. I usually fish with Simon Newkirk.” Tom tinkered with his pipe.
Victoria shifted slightly in her chair. As she did, she saw her rod bend. “Another one!” she called out.
Tom reeled in her second fish. “Nice one. I may have to beg one of your blues for my own supper.” Tom looked over at his rod, and his own line was streaming out. “They’re running now.”
For the next hour, Tom worked both of their lines. Victoria kept all five fish she’d caught. Tom had filleted them and stashed them in a plastic bag. The fillets would freeze nicely. But she hadn’t been able to get a word out of him, one way or the other, about the obituaries. Tom had written them, she was sure. But why? What did he have against Colley that would make him play such an odd joke?
Victoria stared at the horizon line, where sea and sky met, puzzling. She was missing something, some piece that would explain things. Whoever had sent those notes to Colley had a peculiar sense of humor. Tom’s piping plover recipe was that sort of humor. Was Tom hoping to jump-start his own blocked
writing? Writer’s block could be devastating. She shook her head.
Tom took his pipe out of his mouth. “Had enough, Victoria? The tide’s about to change. The fish will stop running when it does.”
“Are we going to return along the same way we came?” Victoria tried to keep the concern out of her voice as she thought of that fragile ribbon of sand road.
Tom checked his watch. “We’d better take the ferry. With the tide coming in, the bar can break through any time.”
Victoria rose from her seat and carried her bag of fillets to the car. “Thank you for inviting me. And for doing all the work.”
Tom took his pipe out of his mouth. “It’s a pleasure to fish with a pro.”
 
Victoria didn’t believe in taking naps. When she got home, she settled into her mouse-colored wing chair with McCavity in her lap and a pad of notepaper and a pen. She intended to draft a poem about this morning’s expedition. She had enough material for two or three poems. A sonnet and perhaps a sestina. She liked the challenge of formal poetry. Sestinas had a netlike quality that would work well with the motif of fishing.
But it had been a long and early morning.
She woke with a jerk when she heard a knock on the kitchen door, startling McCavity, who was dozing in her lap. Victoria ran a hand over her hair and eased herself out of her chair.
Botts had arrived a half-hour before Katie and the two girls were expected.
“Catch any fish?” he asked.
“Five.”
“Surf casting? You caught five fish surf casting?”
“I don’t know why you should be surprised. I used to fish quite often when I was a girl.” Before they sat down she asked, “Have you had lunch yet?”
“I ate about an hour ago,” Botts said. “I’m not sure I’d have the stamina you do.”
“I had a bit of help casting and reeling the fish in. And Tom filleted them for me. How about some tea?”
“Please.”
Victoria put the water on to boil, heated up some soup for herself, and when the tea had brewed, joined Botts in the cookroom with the tea, her soup, and a pilot cracker.

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