Vineyard Blues (13 page)

“Definitely arson,” said Jack Dings, who was sitting at a table in a room in Oak Bluffs, where he and his wife had been scribbling the first draft of what he identified as their report. “Pretty crude but effective. Old-style fuse box. Guy shut off the electricity, then scraped the insulation off wires leading to a couple of outlets. Then he stuck shiny new pennies under the fuses for those wires and turned on the juice again. Bingo.”

Bingo? “Bingo?” I asked.

Sandy Dings nodded. “Normally when there's a short, a fuse blows, but the pennies the guy puts in keep the circuits intact, and bingo. You got yourself two very hot spots in no time at all. Old, dry wood for fuel, plenty of oxygen, and lots of heat. Just what you need for a fire. And since there was nobody around to catch it early, the whole place went up.”

“You know yet who the body belonged to?”

She shook her head. “Should know something soon. We're still trying to get a line on that Appleyard guy you mentioned. Dental records, if we can find them.”

“If I get any information, I'll pass it along. Is this penny-behind-the-fuse trick an old one?”

Jack Dings looked surprised that I should ask. “Sure, old as fuses and pennies, I imagine. People who blow fuses and don't have extras on hand still do it now and then in their own houses, but it's dangerous as hell.”

Such ignorance on my part. It amazed me sometimes that I knew so little of what was common knowledge to others.

“This was an old place,” I said. “Maybe Ben Krane's been using pennies for years. Maybe whoever owned the place before Ben bought it used them. Maybe this fire was just the result of criminal stupidity, not arson.”

Dings shook his head. “Nope. It's arson, all right.”

“How do you know?”

“The pennies are brand new, for one thing, so whoever put them in there did it recently. And the kids I've interviewed have told me Krane hasn't been inside the place for weeks.”

“You've been asking them about Krane?”

He gave me an exasperated look. “Of course. Whenever there's arson, the owner is a prime suspect.”

“Do you think I'm the only person in the world who didn't know you could use pennies that way?”

“Hell,” said Sandy Dings, “it's probably on the Internet, along with a thousand and one other ways to start fires, make bombs, and wreck people's lives and property. Modern communication technology is a wonderful thing.”

“If Krane hadn't been inside the house lately, who had?”

Jack Dings smiled a humorless smile. “Well, there's the person we found in the basement, whoever he was. Or she was. And there was the houseful of kids who lived there. And there were their friends and associates who visited them. And there were all of those people who came to their parties. Not more than several hundred folks, all in all.”

I had a feeling I didn't like. “Does the lab have what's left of the satchel you found beside the body?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“You might ask them if they found some new pennies inside.”

“Oh? Why do you say that?”

“Because when Corrie Appleyard came to visit us, he played some magic tricks with my kids. Pulling coins out from behind their ears, that sort of thing. He used very shiny new pennies.”

Both Dingses studied me. “You don't look very happy,” said Sandy.

“I'm not. I hope I'm wrong about what I'm thinking.”

“And what might that be, aside from the possibility that the body belongs to your friend and the pennies behind the fuses were his, maybe making him the guy who set the fire?”

I don't like it when my emotions start to color my thinking, so I pushed my feelings aside. They didn't want to be pushed. I pushed harder and got them to move back a little, but they didn't leave.

“It's just that if Corrie did scrape those wires and put those pennies in those fuses, it's possible that he learned those tricks from my father, thirty years ago. They used to sit around and drink beer and sing and talk about their work. My father knew as much about fires as Corrie did about the blues, and they were both good listeners.”

Jack Dings almost looked sympathetic. “It's a weird world we live in, kid, but I been in this business so long now that nothing surprises me.”

It had been a while since anyone had called me kid, and I told him so.

“Don't feel flattered,” he said. “Everybody younger than me is just a kid as far as I'm concerned, and that takes in most of the people in the world.”

They were back at their work before I even got to the door. Out on the street, I sat in the Land Cruiser for a while, untangling my thoughts from my feelings. I didn't want to find out for sure that Corrie had torched the house and killed himself in the process, and I didn't like the notion that he'd learned the penny trick from my father. The prospect of driving home to Zee and the kids and working on the bedroom wing I was building was a lot more appealing than asking more people more questions about the fires, especially since I didn't like Krane and really didn't care if all of his houses burned down, or up, or both.

Instead, I found a phone and called Sid Silva. He was, as usual, busy. Are chefs in resort hotels ever not busy? “I knew you'd call when I was in the middle of something,” he said, “so I brought the address with me when I came to work.” He gave it to me. It was for a house that hadn't burned down yet, as far as I knew. I thanked him and told him to go back to his peas and cukes.

Last summer, Peg Sharp, Linda Carlyle, and Perry Jonson had lived in one of Ben Krane's smaller hovels up in the woods near the state forest. I wondered how Krane managed to even find these dumps, but imagined that he, like other foragers for island properties, probably haunted the courthouse and town hall for just such information. Every trade has its tricks, so maybe if I were in the real estate biz I, too, would be alert and aware of its secrets of success. But as things were, I didn't know them, and didn't expect to learn them.

The house was at the end of a pair of worn tracks that wound through oak trees, oak brush, and scrub pine. It no doubt had once been someone's dream, but now it was just another minor nightmare of disintegrating shingles, sagging porch, and cluttered yard. A battered moped leaned against a wall, and there were a half-dozen pretty good automobiles scattered like cards in the clearing surrounding the house. As Professor John Skye and other university faculty have observed more than once, you can always tell college students from their teachers because the students have the new cars.

The house looked to have only two or three small bedrooms, but clearly was filled with unofficial sleepers who didn't mind violating Edgartown's zoning laws and health codes. As long as they didn't get too loud and annoy their neighbors, the cops would leave them alone, having other, more important matters to attend to. Ben Krane, who already had gotten his gigantic summer rental fee up front, didn't care either.

It was midmorning, but nobody seemed to be up. I parked and went to look at the moped. It was definitely Adam Washington's. I climbed onto the creaking porch and knocked on the door.

Nothing.

I knocked again, louder.

I heard muffled groans and some foul language, then the squeak of footsteps coming to the door.

A bleary face blinked at me.

“I want to talk to Adam Washington,” I said.

The face's mouth moved and a noise came out. It sounded sort of like that of a strangling cat. The face tried again. This time I thought I heard actual words.

“He's asleep. I'll tell him you're here.”

She turned and went off somewhere, yawning rather noisely. The future of the world, which all too soon would be in her hands and those of her peers, seemed imperiled.

I peeked through the half-opened door into a dark, cluttered room with peeling walls and soiled carpet. I waited and heard more muffled sounds and voices, then footsteps coming unsteadily toward the door. The door opened wider and Adam Washington stood there, swaying and red-eyed, in a pair of jeans that hung from his hips like drying sails.

“Wha . . . ?” said Adam, trying to focus those bloodshot eyes.

“I want to talk with you,” I said.

He got his eyes working and saw who I was. He stepped back but I got a foot in front of the door in case he was thinking of shutting it. I stepped close to him. “We can talk out here alone or in there with your friends,” I said, feeling impatient. “I don't give a damn which.”

His head was still half filled with sleep, and he hesitated.

“Shut up out there,” mumbled a foggy voice. “Go party someplace else, for God's sake.”

“I'll come out,” said Adam, and did that, shutting the door behind him and blinking at the daylight. His face had a tired, worn look that aged him beyond his years.

“What do you want?” he asked in a sulky voice.

“You know Peg Sharp?”

“Yeah.”

“You know Linda Carlyle and Perry Jonson?”

He got coy. “Maybe.”

I tried a tough voice. “No maybe about it, Adam. You know both of them.”

He wavered. “So what?”

“Where are they?”

He thought the noose was loosening and relaxed a bit. “Down south someplace. I haven't seen them for months.”

“I need an address and phone number.”

He shook his head. “I don't know either one.”

“But you know where Millicent Dowling is. I want to talk with her, too.”

He flared. “You keep her out of this!”

I pretended to flare back. “Fat chance, Adam. You're all in this together, one way or another.”

“Millie doesn't have anything to do with anything.”

“Where is she?”

He shook his head and gave me a complex look that I couldn't quite decipher. There was anger and fear in it, and maybe some guilt mixed with stubbornness and pride. I picked on the guilt and fear.

“There's an arson inspector on this case and insurance investigators are on their way if they aren't here already. There's a body lying in a lab over on the mainland, and there are some guys in homicide just waiting for the autopsy results. Anybody who knows anything about these fires is going to be grilled by tougher people than me, so if you know anything you'll be smart to start talking now, before you and your friends end up charged with murder and arson!”

It was a tough-sounding speech and it seemed to work, for to my surprise Adam Washington began to cry.

Washington's tears rolled from his swollen, red eyes, and he walked past me, out toward the Land Cruiser, sobbing. I went after him.

“I don't want them to know,” he moaned in a little voice.

“Know what?”

“What happened.”

“What did happen?”

His voice was watery and he was gulping for air. “It was my fault. I don't want them to know.”

“What do you mean it was your fault?”

“You know, or you wouldn't be here!”

I thought hard but could only come up with one possibility. “You mean the moped. What about it?”

“You know already. I loaned it to her. If I hadn't, she couldn't have done it! If they find out, they'll blame me, just like you're doing!”

“I'm not blaming anybody for anything yet,” I said in what I hoped was a comforting voice. “Now, take your time and tell me exactly what happened.”

He wiped at his nose with his forearm and flashed worried eyes at the house. “They won't be like you. You didn't lose anything in the house; they lost everything they had, and they'll blame me.”

There seemed to be plenty of guilt in his group. The boy I'd seen at the ruin had been full of it, too.

“Tell me what happened. Start with the girl. Who borrowed the moped?”

“Why, Millie, of course.”

“Millicent Dowling?”

My brain was full of half-formed ideas.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Millie. She borrowed the moped just like before. But this time she didn't bring it back.”

“I know. I saw it leaning against a tree there, where the last house burned down.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I went down there later and found it and drove it back here.” He wiped at his eyes. “I didn't want the cops or whoever to get it. I thought they'd trace it back to me and know I was involved, and then they'd find out Millie did it. I didn't want that, but now here you are anyway, so what good did it do me? Now everybody will know.”

“But you didn't think she did it until afterward, did you?”

“No! But now—”

I interrupted. “You say Millie borrowed the moped another time. When was that?”

“When the other fire started.” He suddenly gave me a cagey look. “Say, maybe I shouldn't be talking to you about this.”

“You'll talk to somebody,” I reminded him. “But maybe you're not in this as deep as you think. Maybe you're just an innocent guy who tried to do a friend a favor. Millicent Dowling is a friend, isn't she?”

He grasped at the straw. “Yeah. We're very close.”

“Of course. So you were glad to loan her your moped as a favor.”

“Yeah, I was. Both times I offered to drive her to wherever she wanted to go, because the bike's kind of tricky to start sometimes. But she said she'd rather go alone, so I said okay, started up the bike for her, and she went off.”

“Where to?”

“To spend the night with her grandparents, just like last time.”

“Her grandparents?”

“Yeah. They live in OB. She goes to see them now and then.”

“What's their name?”

It was too early in the morning for a poser like that, but Adam tried to think. “Box, maybe?”

“Box?”

“Something like that,” said Adam, wiping an arm across his nose. “I think that's it. Or maybe not . . .”

“So she borrowed it earlier this week, the night of the first fire?”

“Yeah. Then, when we heard about the fire, I got worried. But then she showed up the next morning.”

“Did she talk about the fire?”

“She said she heard the sirens clear up in OB.”

“Do you think now that she started the two fires?”

He began to fall to pieces again. “Jesus, I don't want to think that, but that's where I found the moped, so she must have been there. Somebody got killed in that fire!”

“Where's Millie now?”

He shook his head. “I don't know. She didn't come home, and I haven't heard from her. What I'm afraid of is . . . is . . .”

He couldn't say it, so I did. “That the body in the fire was hers?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that's what I think. Jesus, she's such a beautiful girl! I love her!” The sobs began again, as tears came down from his eyes like warm rain. I dug out my handkerchief and gave it to him. He held it against his face while his shoulders shook.

When I thought he was ready, I said, “We don't know yet who that body belongs to, but there's a good chance it wasn't Millie Dowling. Do you know where her grandparents live in OB?”

“I don't know. But Millie and Linda used to talk about how it was neat that the three of us were friends just like our grandparents were.”

A little web began to form out of the individual strands of my thoughts. “Linda who?” I asked.

“Linda Carlyle. You just asked me about her. She was a girl who worked here last year. We all sort of hung out together.”

“You and Millie hung out with Linda Carlyle and Perry Jonson?”

He gave me a quizzical look. “Yeah. How'd you know about Perry?”

“I heard about him from some other people. I heard that Perry got beat up trying to fight a guy who'd hurt Linda, and that he and Linda are still together down in Atlanta. You just told me you love Millie. How close were the rest of you to one another?”

He wiped at his eyes with my handkerchief. “Well, Perry and me were pals, but Millie and Linda were like sisters, you know? They were like twins, even. I mean, not in the way they looked, but like they were on the same waves all the time. Millie was sick when Linda left last year.”

“Are you all in college together?”

“We were a year ago, but Linda and Perry didn't come back this past fall. Linda was all messed up, and Perry stayed out to be with her. Or that's what Millie told me, anyway.”

“Your grandfather's name was Ernie Washington. What was Linda's grandfather's name?”

He looked surprised. “Why, old Corrie's her granddad. Corrie Appleyard. I thought you knew that, being a friend of the family. Grandpa and Corrie have been friends since they were kids.”

Free-flying bits of information began to hit the web forming in my brain. The bits were flies, and I was the spider. I could feel their vibrations as they hit, and wrapped them in webbing so I could devour them at my leisure.

“Do you know how I can get in touch with Corrie's family?” I asked.

“No. But I can probably find out from Grandpa.”

I put a hand on Adam's shoulder. “Do that. And here's what else you can do. I want you to talk to Millie's friends. If she's staying with one of them, I want to talk with her. If she's not, I want you to find out her grandparents' name and where they live. She must have mentioned it to somebody.”

He nodded. “Okay.” He didn't seem very willing to defend his guess that their name was Box.

“The quicker, the better,” I said. “I'm in the telephone book. Call me as soon as you find out something.”

Another nod.

“And don't worry about being to blame for this mess. You're not, as far as I can see. You're just a friend who loaned his moped to a girl.”

I got the number of the phone in the house, left Adam Washington to his thoughts, hopes, and fears, and drove home. There, I looked in the phone book for someone named Box. No luck, but no surprise, either. I tried directory assistance. No luck again.

Box? How had he come up with a name like that?

I walked out and looked at my construction project. It was as incomplete as my thoughts about the arson case, but while I was stymied by the case, I could at least make progress on the kids' rooms, so I got my tools and went to work.

Joshua, the helper child, wearing his small carpenter's apron, banged on some nails and held the far end of boards I sawed. He hit his hand with his little hammer, cried just like a lot of grown-up men would like to do under the same circumstances, and got needed sympathy and first aid from his mom, Nurse Zee, who eyed me with a sardonic and skeptical gaze when I told him that such injuries were all in a day's work for a builder and that with practice he'd stop hitting himself so often. To appease his mother, I also told him he could quit for the day if he wanted to, but he was soon back at his pounding and board holding. Such a manly little chap.

As I worked on a wall, keeping an eye on my assistant just in case he did try to do something really dangerous, like use my power saws, I was reminded of the Quick Erection Company and wondered how things were going with Susanna Quick and Mr. Black.

There seemed to be far too many predatory males on the island of late, and I was frustrated and irked by the thought of them. With luck, I might at least identify Susanna's stalker before too long, and with even more luck I might put him out of business. The Krane brothers, on the other hand, were probably beyond my scope, because they dealt with grown-up women, who, it could be argued, were consenting partners in their practices. I might think the Krane boys were feral and their women were victims, but they were all adults and responsible for their own actions, and that, according to my value system, made their relationships none of my business.

It wasn't the first time my thoughts and my emotions failed to agree, and it wasn't the first time the conflict gave me grief.

I worked until noon and made some progress with, or in spite of, Joshua's help, then took a break for lunch.

We ate out on the lawn tables under the yellow sun. On the far side of the distant barrier beach we could see the white sails moving over the dark blue waters of Nantucket Sound. It was a lovely island day, with the wind whispering through the trees. It said nothing of arson or other evils, but spoke only of beauty and gentleness.

Joshua, tired from his morning's work and full of food, decided to nap right there in his chair, and fell instantly asleep, the way innocent children often do, but corrupt adults rarely manage.

I picked him up and carried him inside to his bed, so the summer sun wouldn't burn his tender hide. Then I went back and cleared the table of plates and glasses and returned yet again to sit beside Zee, who was holding her daughter in her lap, but looked like she might have something to say to me.

She did.