She's Not There (28 page)

Next time I talked to Delby, I'd have to tell her there were plenty of black folk on Block Island, one of whom she knew fairly well.

I showed it to Fitzy when he got off the phone. He said, “There's a name for this.”

“What?”

“Incest.”

“That's a bit harsh.”

“Inbreeding, then.”

I didn't comment further.

“But so what,” he said. And his eyes went from hard to compassionate. “Esther found out something she wasn't meant to.” He looked into my eyes. “So did you, maybe.”

*   *   *

Back at the cottage, I called Joe and broke the news. First, about Esther's death. I let the jolt set in and when he emerged a few seconds later he said, “What in God's name was I thinking?” Then, he went back to being stunned. I waited. The next thing he said was, “I've got a couple of days ahead of me here, things I have to take care of. Then I'll be back, Poppy. Because if Esther's habit of keeping a history of that place has evolved into her finding secrets that were meant to remain secrets—at least in the eyes of someone who would murder her—Jesus. I could have prevented this.”

“I don't think so.”

“Esther said I should find out what the girl took. That day in the Patio.”

The girl hadn't taken anything. But for now I would let sleeping dogs lie.

I proceeded to break the other news—what I'd learned from the genealogy Esther had drawn and narrated, the story of his ancestors, Dutchy and Orange. I said to Joe, “At least we know no one would murder anyone to keep the history of your family from being known. The killer didn't take the genealogy.”

“The history of my family has never been a secret, it just wasn't … parlor talk. But, Poppy, shame and humiliation were thrust upon Cradle's descendents, and their descendents, and theirs, in order to keep an underclass alive. Orange and Dutchy were courageous people. So was their daughter and her husband. But the children of Cradle and Hiram Dodge and those children's children—right on down—they were the underclass. There was a statute that said the descendents of slaves could not own property, a statute passed by the brothers of Hiram Dodge. This island used to be as segregated as any town in Mississippi. Until 1961, we had a Negro school. Esther's mother was the last teacher. It was where my grandparents were educated, Willa and Ernie, Billy and Mick. Everybody went to school there. And there was no opportunity after finishing school. They couldn't buy land, couldn't even own a car, for God's sake. Most got out. My grandparents got out. When I came back I found the ownership law my father told me about was true. My father wasn't joking. It was still on the books. Which is what happens when everyone is mute.

“Keeping that group impoverished, Poppy, allowed the economy of the island to function. Someone had to clean the fish.”

“So what changed the law?”

“Me. When I found out it really did exist. From Esther. I pointed it out to the state legislator who represents Block Island. First he laughed. Thought I was joking just the way I'd thought my father was. When he realized I wasn't, he had the statute removed. So I bought a cliff top and built my house. I set everyone free by doing that, didn't I? I'm sorry, I'm not being caustic. It just came out that way.”

“I cannot believe what you are saying.”

“I know. But Poppy, Willa's family has worked in the grocery since the middle of the nineteenth century. She bought it. When Billy and Mick went to the owner of the
Debbie
about purchasing it, he gave it to them. They used to pay rent on it in catch. They still give the former owner a couple of lobsters every week. Because they feel like it. And Aggie bought the guesthouse where her mother and her grandmother used to do the laundry.

“There has been no shame in our history. Not the history. The shame was in the impotency it rendered. Children should be seen and not heard. The way it is. Because, in a way, they'd all remained children—powerless. But what we have to focus on now is that Esther found out something grievous to one individual having nothing to do with genealogy. And we've got to find out what it was so we'll know who killed her. That poor woman. This crime—”

I waited. “You okay, Joe?”

“Yes. I'm in, Poppy. I'm in now. I'm getting back there as soon as I can. The first thing I intend to do is—no. The first thing I'll do is apologize to you.”

I said, “No need. You don't know my life secrets either, Joe.”

“I'm not talking about what we choose to keep from each other. We'll stop doing that as soon as you trust me enough to marry me. Though how I can expect you to trust me.… I need to apologize for deserting you.”

Good Lord, was he proposing? He picked a swell time for that. Then he said, “Any sign of Spike?”

“No.”

 

11

The next time I heard from Fitzy, he was smashed. He called me late that night, the night I talked to Joe, many hours after Esther's body had been removed to the coroner's office in Providence, after the Rhode Island State Police had swept through her house with their fine-tooth combs and vacuum cleaners. He was ranting, demanding I come to his office. I looked at my watch. Little after midnight. I said, “Fitzy, listen, I feel bad too. She didn't deserve this.”

He said, “It's not about Esther. It
was
about Esther, so I opened a bottle of scotch. Finished it. About to open another but not now. I got this … fax.” He hadn't been able to come up with the word right away. “I need you to come tell me I'm hallucinating.” He hung up.

I got in the ragtop. Before I left, I ran back into the cottage and grabbed the box of dry cat food. I stood out on the front porch and shook it. Spike's tail did not rise up from the grass. Damned cat had better be back before Joe got here, give him some comfort. He wasn't going to get much from me.

I found Fitzy behind his desk. He had on the same clothes he'd been wearing that morning. Hadn't gone to bed. There was an empty bottle of Johnnie Walker Red on the desk. I stood there looking at it and then at him.

He said, “I can't get up yet, Poppy. I'm not being rude. I'm afraid my head will break open if I move.” He looked at the bottle too. “Fred left a case on my doorstep. Grateful because I didn't arrest him. So, thank you, Fred.” He ran his fingers through his hair, something he did when he knew he had to sober up. “Jesus fucking Christ, our miserable governor is a piece of work, Poppy.”

“Is he?”

“Sit. You're going to give me a headache making me look up. I can only look down or it hurts.”

“Too late. You already have a headache. But I'll sit.”

He pulled open a desk drawer and took out a second bottle unopened. “Want some?”

“No, thanks.”

“Me neither.” He put it back. He slammed the desk drawer, his usual habit—slamming—and it forced him to grit his teeth. “Damn my head. So hear this. Governor spoke to Atlanta today. Disease control people. After we found Esther. Would you believe some asshole down there has decided that the problem we've got on the Block is some fatal disease like Legionnaires' carried by—who knows? The wind. Or a fish. A fucking fish. A disease-carrying fucking fish that will turn you into a corkscrew before it kills you.

“The governor of Rhode Island decided he's got two choices: One, does he want to admit we have a serial killer and end tourism to this little gold mine for the rest of the season, maybe a lot of seasons, depending on whether the psycho gets caught; or, two, does he want the island closed down for, say, three days and then show everybody the place is just as normal as can be and that the girls who died were doing some bulimia thing and ended up having heart attacks like that singer. What's her name?”

“Karen Carpenter. She weighed seventy-eight pounds when she died, not a
hundred
and seventy-eight.”

“Yeah. Tell me about it. As for Esther, the word has gone out—committed suicide. Clinically depressed, rumored to be recently jilted.
Their
rumor, the bastards. They know the autopsy will show something mixed with the wine. Drink cheap wine, someone can put cyanide in it and you won't notice.

“Governor made his decision. He chose number two. And now we've got—Poppy, are you ready to freak out?”

“Not really.”

“A travel ban. Implemented by the Coast Guard, who have presently barricaded the island.”

“You're hallucinating.”

“I wish.”

“They can't do that, Fitzy. We won't be able to get the girls off the island.”

“That's right.”

“And we can't get any kind of help in.”

“That's right too.”

“Joe's coming out.”

“Not any more he isn't.”

“Shit.”

“Miss him that much?”

“No. Fuck.”

What came to my mind was my shrink friend's warning: Be vigilant. Vigilance had just flown right out the window. Some corrupt governor had taken care of that.

“Fitzy, this is ludicrous.”

“No. It's politics. And want to know what I think? That things around here would have been goddamn different if that fat farm were a gymnastics camp. One skinny little dead gymnast, and the governor would have called in the National Guard, turned this place upside down, and taken all the little girls out himself.”

Fitzy opened his drawer again and this time took out the bottle. I picked up his phone.

I didn't have any trouble reaching the director of the Centers for Disease Control right then, at home in Atlanta. I have everyone's emergency number, including his. His name is Harry. He is a man I have consulted many times over the last ten years, during the time I was a lawyer in the Bronx and a DA in Florida, and especially while I've been with the FBI in Washington.

Harry said, “Poppy Rice, how the hell are ya? Not too good, I'll bet, considering it's, let's see … getting on one
A.M.
”

“I'm calling from Block Island, so that probably gives you an indication of why I happen to be disturbing you in the middle of the night.”

“Oh, Jesus. Shit. What are you doing there, for Christ's sake?”

“I'm on vacation.”

“You are? Damn, Poppy. If I'd known I'd have tipped you off. I'd have—”

“Harry, we have no plague here. There is no mystery germ, no little unheard-of bacterium attacking anyone. The only thing you can get on this island is Lyme disease, just like everywhere else. Instead of bugs we've got a serial killer who is on the loose. He is killing—”

He interrupted me because of the magic words and probably, too, because my voice was rising fairly uncontrollably. “Whoa, Nellie. You said serial killer, right? Nobody mentioned anything about murder, serial or otherwise. Just that three people had died, although the woman—”

“No, Harry. Three people have been
killed
. The woman was the victim of a copycat. The serial killer murdered two teenage girls.”

“Two girls dead, yes. I know about them. The woman, suicide. But maybe illness made her suicidal. That's what I'm to find out. Let me explain to you what came down, Poppy, before you yank my head off. A doctor on Block Island went screaming to the governor that two girls who were assumed to have died of an illegal drug overdose did not die of any drug overdose. He said they must have picked something up, some bacterium. So the governor consulted with his coroner's office and concluded that the victims may have succumbed to a contagious disease. An infection that causes the tympanic membranes to perforate while it's killing you. Often, we've seen—”

“Harry, the doctor in question is addicted to Demerol, and most of the time he's asleep on his feet. He must have reached the governor during his strung-out stage.”

“What did you just say?”

“I'm sorry. You heard right.”

“You've got a doctor there addicted to Demerol? Call the AMA. Turn him in to the authorities. Because, from my end, the wheels have been set in motion. I mean, they are
heavily
in motion. We don't fool around, you know that. We move fast and we—”

“Harry, there is a camp on Block Island for overweight teenage girls. The place is a travesty, take my word for it. The police officer in charge of this island cannot get it closed, but that's another story. I'll be glad to tell you about it over a beer someday. But meanwhile, there's some nut running around who has decided to torture and—”

“Torture?”

“Yes. He tortures these girls until he's killed them. He's giving them something that kills them in such a way that is none too pretty. Maybe an extra-large dose of Demerol, for all I know. Call my man Auerbach, and have him copy the autopsy reports for you and the documentation he's dredging up. Meanwhile, here's what I've concluded. Your decision not to let these girls out or allow investigators in has placed them all in grave jeopardy.”

He said, “Shit.”
Shit
was turning out to be a big word today. Then he said, “Poppy, listen, we're taking air samples now. Okay, then, if they check out negative, our team'll go out tomorrow and have a look around. You can tell them what's what. They come back, I'll push the lab to wrap things up in twenty-four hours. Island will be opened up again in two days. I can do that for you. Unless, of course, we actually find a bacterium. Then, like I said—”

“
There is no bacterium!
The FBI would have found it; they were in on the second autopsy. Ever since we learned that the Atlanta Centers for Disease Control don't know a goddamn thing about anthrax, we depend on ourselves, not your idiots.”

He took a breath. I could hear it go in and out. “The
crime lab
has checked this out?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you said you were on vacation.”