Paperwhite Narcissus (8 page)

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Authors: Cynthia Riggs

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Botts tore another piece of paper out of his notebook.
“Thank you,” Victoria said. “You’ve been most helpful.”
 
That same afternoon, Phyllis and Tom Dwyer waited at the dock in Vineyard Haven for the three-thirty ferry from Woods Hole. Phyllis shaded her eyes from the glare of water reflecting off the sides of the approaching boat.
“There she is!” Phyllis waved. “She sees us.”
As the ferry pulled into its slip, the dark-haired girl on the upper deck waved back. Phyllis saw her run to the stairway that led down to the gangplank, and reappear at the open door, among the throng of passengers waiting for the gangplank to be secured. She carried a red-and-blue backpack and towed a wheeled suitcase.
The ferry was crowded with early vacationers, college students arriving on the Island to work at summer jobs, and high school students like Lynn who’d been off Island at boarding school.
Adults described Lynn as “interesting looking.” She had beautiful, shiny dark hair, and large, luminous brown eyes like her mother’s. She was short and chunky, not fat, but straight-sided with an athletic field-hockey build. Phyllis, her mother, had the same brown eyes, but unlike her daughter, she was slender and had pale blond hair.
Phyllis looked from her daughter to Tom, whose face was shaded by his hat. His unlit pipe was clenched between his teeth.
A hundred, two hundred passengers debarked before Lynn finally came down the ramp, her wheeled bag clicking on the planks. Phyllis rushed forward and embraced her daughter. Tom removed his pipe from his mouth and hugged Lynn gently.
“It’s great to be home,” Lynn said. “What a gorgeous day. It’s never like this in Hyannis.”
Tom helped her with her backpack and carried her suitcase to the parking lot. “Did you take the shuttle from school?”
“The shuttle was full of freshmen.” Lynn made a face. “Jamie’s dad gave me a ride in their Lexus. She lives in Falmouth.” Lynn took a deep breath, stretched her arms out, and looked up at the fishing rods on the racks on Tom’s vehicle. “You’ve been fishing already. Awesome!”
“You heard Tom found a body?” her mother asked.
Lynn shuddered. “Everybody at school’s been talking about nothing else all week. Not even finals. Gruesome.”
“Hop in,” said Tom. “We’re having baked bluefish for supper tonight.”
Lynn glanced quickly at him before she clambered into the back seat. “Do you think we could get a pizza instead? I mean …”
“Your call,” Tom said. “First night home we’ll serve whatever you’d like. Filet mignon, pizza.” He grinned. “The bluefish will keep for tomorrow.”
“Did you catch it the same time … ?”
Tom laughed. “Nope.” He checked both ways and pulled out of the parking lot.
“It’s hard to believe you’re a senior now,” Phyllis said. “Doesn’t seem possible.”
“Me either,” said Lynn. “I barely squeaked through chemistry and precalculus.”
They waited at Five Corners for the usual snarl of traffic. Tom removed his pipe from his mouth. “You may end up being a writer like your mother and me after all.”
Lynn leaned over the front seat. “That’s what I decided, Tom. Not fiction, like you, but journalism, like Mom. I’m going to apply for a summer intern job on the
Enquirer
.”
Tom and Phyllis exchanged glances.
“I don’t know, dear,” said Phyllis. “Colley isn’t someone I’d want to work for.”
“But the
Enquirer
is one of the greatest papers in New England,” said Lynn. “I can avoid Mr. Jameson. I mean, it’s not like I’m a star reporter or anything. I wouldn’t recognize him if I bumped into him. Please, Mom.”
“We’ll discuss it later,” said Tom.
This time it was a postcard, a photo of the Gay Head light taken around 1950 when the light still ran on kerosene and the lighthouse keeper had to wind the clock mechanism every night. The message was written in a tiny tight hand, and was addressed to “Editor, Social Notes.”
Colley was talking on the phone when Faith came into his office with the Monday afternoon mail. She plopped a large stack of letters on his desk. “Nothing like a good recipe to bring out reader response.” With that, she left his office and shut the door firmly behind her.
Colley was holding the phone between his shoulder and jaw, leaving both hands free to slit open the envelopes while he tried to talk. Ever since Tom Dwyer’s recipe had appeared in the
Enquirer,
Colley’s phone had been ringing constantly. His mail was running to two dozen or more letters a day, almost all of them critical of him, Colley, the editor, for printing the recipe.
The voice on the other end of the phone was high pitched and Colley tried unsuccessfully to invoke the paper’s First Amendment rights in what he hoped was a tone of reason. While he halfway listened, he opened his mail.
That’s when he came to the postcard.
The postcard was picture side up, and showed the lighthouse tinted a dark red, the grass colored a bilious green, the sky an unnatural blue. Next to the lighthouse was the lighthouse keeper’s house, the way it had looked a half-century before.
Colley didn’t realize what the card was at first. He turned it
over, and when he saw the black border, he stood up and dropped the phone onto his desk with a clatter.
The high-pitched voice on the other end said, “Hello! Hello!” but Colley continued to stare at the card and the person on the other end of the phone hung up and a robotlike voice announced something Colley didn’t hear.
The message side of the card read, “Colley Jameson, fifty-five, editor of the
Island Enquirer
, was found shot dead yesterday near the base of the Gay Head lighthouse. He was apparently climbing the fence and dropped his rifle, which must have discharged accidentally …”
Colley didn’t read beyond that, but slapped the postcard onto his desk, hung up the phone, then thought better of it. He picked the phone up again and dialed Victoria Trumbull.
“Now what?” Victoria said when he identified himself.
“Get over here immediately. Take a cab.”
“The bus is running.” Victoria pronounced each word distinctly. “I can ride free because I’m elderly. Too old to work for the
Enquirer
.”
“Come off it,” Colley said. “I’ll expect you within a half-hour.”
“Don’t count on it.” As soon as she hung up, Victoria called William Botts.
“I’ll pick you up in ten minutes,” Botts said. “What’s his problem now?”
“From the way he sounded, I’d guess he got another obituary. If so, it would be his third.”
“Five minutes then,” said Botts.
Victoria was waiting on the stone step by the kitchen door when Botts arrived. He sped down the Edgartown Road, swooping down into the glacial swales and up the other side in a way that made Victoria’s stomach lurch. In less than twenty minutes he’d covered the nine miles into Edgartown and had dropped Victoria off in front of the
Enquirer
’s office.
Victoria strode up the brick walk leading to the front door, jauntily swinging her stick.
“Go right on up, Mrs. Trumbull. He’s expecting you,” said Faith.
Victoria went up the narrow steps slowly, holding the railing. This was no time to fall and break something. She marched down the aisle between the reporters’ desks, nodding to her right and left.
Through the glass partition of the editor’s office, she saw Colley hang up the phone and get up from his desk. He opened the door as she approached.
Victoria moved the chair at right angles to the window and sat. “I take it you received another obituary?”
Colley slid the postcard across to her.
Victoria examined the card, holding it by its edges in both hands to keep from smearing any fingerprints. “It’s time you went to the police. You’ve got to take this seriously.” She looked up at him. “This is from someone with a peculiar sense of humor, someone close to you, and someone close to the killings.”
“Not ‘killings,”’ said Colley. “There’s only been one death and the Coast Guard is calling that death a boating accident. No one was killed in the shooting.”
“His death was no accident. You and I both know that. Why did you call me? I don’t work for you.”
Colley squirmed in his seat. “You made a crack about giving me your rate card.”
“I was joking.”
“You’ve had some lucky successes in solving little Island puzzles. I thought you might like the challenge of tracking down the obit writer. I’ll pay you what I paid you for your column.”
“Thirty-five dollars?” Victoria rose out of her chair. “No thank you. My rates are more competitive.”
“How much?” said Colley.
Victoria headed for the door. “I’ll mail you a proposal.”
“Fax it to me.”
“I don’t have a fax machine.”
“Oh, hell,” said Colley. “How about seventy dollars? Twice what I paid you for your column.”
“Seventy dollars an hour?” said Victoria. “That’s still hardly competitive.”
“Jee-sus Christ, Victoria. You know every goddamned person on this Island, their parents and grandparents, all their skeletons, the great-aunts in their attics. You’re the only one I know who can figure this out without making a big scene about it. The shooting didn’t kill anyone, and the Coast Guard is handling the boating accident. Who’s writing these goddamned letters?”
“Eighty-five dollars an hour,” said Victoria.
“Fine.”
“Plus expenses.”
“Fine.”
“Plus an assistant at thirty-five dollars an hour.”
“Anything.”
“I want it in writing.” Victoria returned to the chair and sat again. “Before I leave.”
“Okay, okay.”
“A retainer. In advance, of course.”
“Jee-sus!”
Victoria motioned to the computer next to Colley’s desk. His screen saver was flashing a series of pictures of Colley with various dignitaries. “I assume you can type that yourself?”
“Who’s your assistant?”
“That’s to be determined.”
Colley’s intercom buzzed. “Mr. Dwyer is here to see you, Mr. Jameson. He’s on his way up.”
“Oh, hell,” said Colley. “The piping plover freak.”
“I read his recipe in the latest
Enquirer
,” said Victoria.
“Yeah,” said Colley. “So has everybody else.”
“It was actually quite funny,” said Victoria.
“Glad you think so.” Colley gestured to the pile of mail on one side of his otherwise tidy desk. “You’re the only person on
the Island who sees any humor in it.” He picked up a few envelopes and riffled through them.
“They’re blaming
me,
not Dwyer. That wasn’t
my
idea to stew up piping plovers.”
“The dish would probably be delicious made with chicken.” From where she sat, Victoria could see the mystery writer striding down the aisle. She knew him slightly and knew he was one of the fishermen who’d found the lower half of what she thought of as
her
body. Tom was a young man, probably no more than fifty. He was well over six feet tall and was wearing the Australian bush hat she’d never seen him without. He was grinning as he burst into Colley’s office, showing large white teeth. Colley ignored his outstretched hand and Victoria offered hers, which Tom shook instead.
He pulled up a chair in front of Colley’s desk and sat down, his legs spread, still grinning. “Nothing like jerking the chains of the conservation types.” He pointed at the stack of letters on Colley’s desk. “Today’s mail?”
Colley muttered something and swiveled in his chair.
Victoria said, “The piping plovers were there before your beach buggies. Why can’t you walk to your fishing spots?”
“Hey,” said Tom, turning to her. “Want to come fishing with me tonight? I’ve got an extra rod.”
Colley scowled.
“I can’t,” said Victoria. “I’ve just accepted an assignment.”
 
“I don’t want to work for that self-centered creep,” said Botts after they’d returned to his office and Victoria explained that he was now her paid assistant.
“You won’t be working for him. You’ll be working for me. I doubt if you’re making thirty-five dollars an hour with your romance novels.” Victoria leaned over and patted the black dog, who turned onto his back, his tongue out. “How does he get up and down those stairs?”
Botts indicated a trapdoor, originally used for dropping hay down to the horses. Over the open trapdoor was a tripod with a pulley and rope. “He rides up and down in a laundry basket,” said Botts. “Assuming I agree to work for you, where do you intend to start?”
Victoria straightened up. “The two girls must have been the last people to see Fieldstone alive. We’ve got to talk to them.”
The phone rang, and Botts answered. He listened and raised his shaggy eyebrows. “I’ll probably be here another half hour,” he said into the phone. He glanced up at Victoria, who was still standing. “I can’t speak for Mrs. Trumbull,” and he hung up.
“What can’t you speak for me about?”
“That was Katie Bowen, the
Enquirer
reporter with the sexy voice.”
“Oh?”
“She wants to tell you something and will be here in ten minutes.”
“Did she say what she wants to tell me?”
Botts shook his head.
Victoria sat down in the armchair. The black dog turned back onto his stomach. “What’s his name?” Victoria asked.
“Milton. As in John Milton.”
Victoria leaned forward and patted John Milton, who thumped his tail on the floor.
In less than ten minutes, she heard the barn door open and Katie appeared at the top of the stairs.
Every time Victoria saw Katie, she had a queer sense of time standing still. Katie had the same dark eyes, dark hair, and husky voice as her great-grandmother, who’d gone to school with Victoria. Victoria didn’t feel ninety-two, and whenever she greeted Katie, she was twenty again, sorting tissue-paper dress patterns with Katie’s great-grandmother.
“I’m so relieved you’re still here, Mrs. Trumbull.” Katie burst into tears. John Milton looked up. Botts came out from behind his
desk, moved a stack of papers off a wooden kitchen chair, and offered it to Katie, who sat down next to Victoria. “Colley fired me.”
“Congratulations,” said Botts.
Victoria offered her a paper napkin printed with green frogs from her cloth bag and Katie blew her nose.
“Why did he fire you?”
“I was unreliable, he said. I’m not, Mrs. Trumbull!” Katie hiccuped.
Botts leaned against his desk, his arms crossed over his chest. “Had he been making passes at you?”
Katie nodded. “He’s older than my father. I told him I had a boyfriend.”
“Well,” said Victoria. “Another name for the
Grackle
’s masthead.”
Botts stared at Victoria. “But …”
“We can give Katie a raise over what she was making on the
Enquirer,
can’t we, now that we have money in our coffers.” A statement, not a question.
Botts put both hands in the air, turned his back to Victoria, stepped over the dog, went to the back of the loft and stared out of the big hay window, returned to his desk, and sat down again. “
We
, eh?”

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