Vineyard Blues (9 page)

Zee and Joshua were just sitting down to lunch. We joined them. Gazpacho and ham sandwiches made with homemade white bread. Delish! Like their parents, Joshua and Diana would eat almost anything, even good food, so we had no cater-to-the-kids problem.

“Well?” said Zee, dishing out the gazpacho for her ravenous offspring.

It was only noon but it already seemed like I'd put in a full day. I munched a mouthful of sandwich and swallowed, then told Zee what I'd been up to. Except for Judith Gomes's arson threat. I rarely tell anybody everything. In this case, I didn't want Zee to worry for no good reason. She had enough on her mind, what with having a steady job, two little kids, and a husband like me.

“So now what?” asked Zee, interested in where my inquiries were taking me in spite of her dislike of the idea that I was working for Ben Krane.

“I want to see Jack and Sandy Dings, the arson investigators, in case they know something I can use or I know something they can use. And I'm going to call Quinn.”

“Quinn? What about?”

Quinn was a reporter for
The Boston Globe
. We'd met and hit it off when I was working in Boston, as cops and reporters sometimes do, and had remained friends ever since.

“I want to get information on Corrie Appleyard. I didn't find any in the library, but Quinn will know how to get it. You know Quinn. He's got a nose for news.”

The mention of Corrie's name created a momentary silence at the table. Then Zee said, “I wonder if that was really him in the house.”

But both of us, I thought, believed that it was.

“We'll have to wait for the report from the medical examiner,” I said.

She nodded. But then, being a nurse, who like other nurses had seen more death and damaged bodies than most people do, she shook off her melancholy and moved on. “What do you want to know about Corrie?”

“I don't know, but I want to know all I can.”

“But if that's him, he's just a victim. He didn't start the fire.”

“I know. But I still want to learn what I can.”

She nodded. “I know how your brain works. You think the past is prologue.”

She was right, of course. I usually do think that. Coincidence happens, but it's more likely, I think, that our fates are rooted in our past actions, our dispositions, our habits. Our futures are decided because of who we are and what we do, how we live and who we know, more than by simple happenstance, although fortuity plays its part. Our fates, dear Brutus, as Old Bill might have written, lie not in chance, but in ourselves.

“If nothing else,” I said, “I'd like to know if Corrie has a family. I have his guitar out in the truck, and it should go to his kin, if he has any. Quinn can find info on Corrie, if there's any to find.”

“If you want to know about Corrie, there's another person you might ask,” said Zee between slurps of gazpacho.

“Who?”

“Cousin Henry Bayles.”

Cousin Henry Bayles. Last seen being embraced by Corrie after the concert in the church.

“Cousin Henry is not known for answering questions,” I said. “They say that reporters tried to interview him when he first came to the island, and he threatened to loose his dog on them. I think he still has that dog.”

“Well, he and his wife and Corrie seemed pretty close, and friends know about friends, so maybe he knows Corrie's family, too.”

“Sound reasoning, except for the fact that Cousin Henry doesn't take to strangers asking him questions.”

“You're not quite a stranger.”

True. I'd once talked with Cousin Henry for about twenty minutes and had lived to tell the tale.

“I think I'll save Cousin Henry till last,” I said. “I don't want to stretch my luck.”

“Pa and I had ice cream,” said Diana to Joshua.

Women! They talk when they shouldn't and don't when they should! Joshua looked at me with big eyes. I looked at Zee, who took a bite of sandwich and said nothing.

“Don't worry,” I said to Joshua. “You can go with me this afternoon and we'll get you some ice cream, too.”

“I want some more,” said Diana.

“I'll get some and bring it home and we can all eat it later,” I said.

“You're an easy mark,” said Zee. “These two have you wrapped around their fingers.”

“Piff. I'm hard as nails.”

Zee shook her head and smiled a womanly smile.

After the table was cleared, I called Quinn from the bedroom phone. I got his answering machine. What a world. I told the machine who I was and what I wanted and hung up. I'd barely gotten out of the room when the phone rang. It was Quinn.

“What do you want to know about Corrie Appleyard, and why do you want to know it?”

“You sound like you recognize the name. I didn't know you were a blues fan.”

“I'm a little bit a fan of the blues, but, more important, I am a knight of the keyboard, a member of the fourth estate. I'm supposed to know things. Besides, when I was a kid reporter I covered a couple of his gigs in Boston clubs. What's your interest in him?”

“I think he may have just died in a fire down here in Paradise.”

I could almost see his ears perk up. “Whoa! Died in a fire, eh? Gimme the details.”

“Don't get in an uproar, Quinn. I said I
think
he may have died. The official report from the medical examiner hasn't come in yet, so the ID of the body isn't certain. If Corrie shows up, you don't want to be the guy who announced his death.”

“But you think it's him. Give me the story.”

So I told him about Corrie coming to the island and giving the concerts, and I told him about the fires that were turning Ben Krane's houses into piles of rubble.

“Got yourself an arsonist, too, eh? Better and better.” Quinn was already writing his lead in his mind. “Maybe I can get the boss to send me down there. I could stand some time on the island. Are the bluefish still around?”

“They're still around, but before you con your boss into letting you come down here on company time, I need to have you dig up everything you can about Corrie Appleyard.”

“Why?” asked Quinn. “Or is that a secret?”

“It's no secret,” I said, and told him about my job with Ben Krane.

“Sticking your nose where it doesn't belong again, eh? You should have stayed a cop. Maybe you'd have become a real detective instead of just pretending.”

“No insults, Quinn, or I'll make you take care of both my kids the next time you come down.”

Quinn had women in his life, but no children that I knew of. Now he feigned horror. “Oh, no, not that! Not both of your little angels at once! I have a better idea. You take care of the kids and I'll take Zee out and show her what a fine time she can have with a real man. She'll thank us both. Incidentally, how's the new wing coming along?”

“It's coming. It'll be done by fall.”

“You should be working on that instead of playing gumshoe, because the quicker you get it done, the quicker the kids will have their own rooms, and the quicker you'll have a guest bedroom again where Brady and I can bunk while Brady chases bass with his fly rod and I romance Zee the way she deserves to be romanced.”

“You wouldn't know what to do with a real woman, Quinn, but I'll let you know when the kids are out of the guest room. You really think you might come down for this arson story?”

“There are worse places to work than Martha's Vineyard in the summertime when the bluefish are still around. But before I come, I'll dig up what I can find about Corrie Appleyard. You after anything in particular?”

“No. But if you can find his family, that would be good, because I have his guitar and it should go to them. And the medical examiner can probably use any dental records you can track down.”

“Anything else?”

“No. I'm just nosing around.”

“I'll be in touch. Thanks for the tip on the story.”

“Think nothing of it. A free press is the best defense against tyranny.”

“How true.” He hung up.

I went out into the yard, where Zee was playing pattycake with our children.

“How's Quinn?”

“He sends you a leer. He wants me to give up the job with Ben Krane and finish the addition so he and Brady Coyne can come down and sponge off us.”

“That sounds like Quinn, and I think he's got the right idea. You should take his advice.”

“This job may not take long, and I can use the money for building materials.”

“I've got money.”

“So do I, although not much. But your money and my money are already allocated, so Krane's money will help.”

Her voice was getting more and more crisp. “I can unallocate some of mine, if that's what it takes to keep you from working with Ben Krane.”

I looked down at her. Her face was angry, and the sight of that anger angered me.

“What is it about Ben Krane that sets you off?”

“Ben Krane is a vile man!”

“His secretary thinks he's a saint!”

“Ask her if she still feels that way in a year!”

“She's been working for him for six years and she still thinks he's God!”

Zee got up and brushed at her shorts. “She must be a slow learner.” She walked into the house.

I felt arms around my leg and looked down at Diana.

“Play, Pa.”

“No,” said her brother. “Pa's getting ice cream with me.” He put his arms around my other leg.

Family discord in both generations, and no solution in sight. Ye gods!

I knelt and took Diana's hands in mine. “Joshua's right. I told him I'd get ice cream for him just like I got it for you this morning. I'll bring more back when we come home, and we can all have some after supper.”

So the male Jacksons, one full of discontent, drove away, leaving the female Jacksons, both full of discontent, at home. Justice is elusive in this world, as any woman will tell you.

First things first: a quick trip into town to get ice cream. More black raspberry for me, strawberry for Joshua. I am an ice cream fan, and always enjoy it when I eat it, but for some reason rarely get around to buying any unless urged to do so by my children, who love it greatly and request it almost every time we go into any of the Vineyard's villages.

When he was finished with his cone, Joshua wiped his own face fairly well. He was getting better at the job as he grew up.

“How was it?” I asked him.

“Good.”

“We'll get more later to take home. But first I have to talk to some people.”

“Okay, Pa.” He took my hand. His was a bit sticky. We walked to the truck and I strapped him in and we drove to Arbutus Park, listening to the classical station from the Cape. They were playing something that sounded Haydnish. They don't get better than Papa Haydn, who must have inspired Mozart, Beethoven, and everybody else who came after him. I wondered what it was like to be a genius. I would never know.

The sour smell of burning was still in the air as we approached the ruin of Ben Krane's latest incinerated house. A burned building never smells sweet and sharp like fireplace smoke or the smoke of burning leaves in the fall; its odor is rancid and foul. Probably because of the insulation, furniture, and other stuff that goes up with the structure.

Goes up. I pondered once again the endless up/down colloquialisms in our language: A stream dries up, never down, but we can drive up or down a street; people can be asked to shut up, but never to shut down; engines start up and shut down; buildings are boarded up, never down; and businesses are closed down and opened up; we come up with ideas, but come down with sicknesses. Up and down.

Houses burn up and burn down at the same time, but the things inside of the houses, both the inanimate and animate, never burn down; they always burn up. Because they have souls, maybe?

I don't believe in souls, but I thought of the burial of Beowulf, and of how the smoke from his funeral pyre rose to the sky, carrying his soul to that heavenly Geatish great hall where heroes live forever. Maybe there was a big nightclub up there where musicians plied their trade for eternity, and maybe Corrie Appleyard was there right now with his mystic guitar, singing the heavenly blues, if there was such a thing.

I pulled off the dirt road and parked not far from the blackened remains of the house. There was a police car parked ahead of me and I saw Sergeant Tony D'Agostine of the Edgartown PD standing by the house with a man wearing boots, helmet, and a long yellow coat. A woman similarly garbed was not far away, holding a clipboard and writing something.

“Stay here,” I said to Joshua.

“I want out,” he said.

“Stay here for now. There's a lot of broken glass around, and I don't want you to get hurt.”

“I won't get hurt.”

“Stay. I'll be right back. If it looks safe, you can get out.” I turned the key so the music would play from the radio. “Meanwhile, listen to this. It sounds like Vivaldi. Vivaldi is always good.”

I got out and walked over to Tony. He nodded.

“I'm looking for Jack and Sandy Dings,” I said.

The man in the helmet said, “I'm Dings.” He was a tall man who looked to be about fifty years old, although these days I have a hard time telling how old anybody is. The young kids want to look like adults and the adults want to look like kids. Dings looked like an adult.

“J. W. Jackson,” I said. We shook hands. His was sooty, like his face.

“What can I do for you?” asked Dings.

“I've been hired by the guy who owns this place,” I said. “He wants me to find out who's torching his buildings. I was hoping you and I might work together.”

Dings's face became expressionless. “Are you a private arson investigator of some kind, Mr. Jackson?”

“No. I'm not a private investigator of any kind. I'm just a civilian.”

The woman came over. “I'm Sandy Dings,” she said. “I'm afraid this isn't a civilian job, Mr. Jackson.”

“You may be right. For sure, I don't know a thing about arson.”

“Then you'll probably just be in the way,” said Jack Dings. “I suggest that you go back to your boss and tell him I said to leave this investigation to professionals. When we know what happened here, we'll let him know.”

“That's what I told him when he hired me, but he hired me anyway.”

Sandy Dings's eyes were hard. “Doesn't trust the fire marshals, eh?”

“I don't know who Ben Krane trusts, but he wants to find the guy who's torching his places, and he's paying me to do it.”

“Well, you won't be getting much information from us. When our report is done, we'll give it to our boss and he'll probably give it to yours. We won't have much to say until then. Now, if you'll excuse us.” They both turned away.

“If you won't give me any information, maybe I can give you some. Has the body been identified yet?”

They turned back. “Do you know who it was?” asked the woman.

“No, but I can make a guess. I think it was a man named Corrie Appleyard. He was staying at the house, but supposedly had left the island on the seven-thirty boat, before the fire started.”

Jack Dings looked at me. “What makes you think it was him?”

“Because I found his guitar leaning against that tree over there. Corrie was a musician. I don't think he would have left his guitar behind if he was going off island.”

“You took the guitar?” His voice became cold. “That wasn't too smart. You tampered with evidence, Mr. Jackson. I think you're in trouble. Where's the guitar?”

“Right over there in my truck.”

“Give it to me.”

“Sure.”

He followed me to the Land Cruiser and I gave him the case. “I'm trying to track down his family,” I said. “I imagine they'll want that when you're through with it.”

“Show me where you found this.”

“Pa,” said Joshua, “is there glass?”

I had almost forgotten Joshua. “Not too much. Just be careful where you walk.” I turned off the radio and got him out of his seat belt. “This is my son, Joshua,” I said to Dings. “Shake hands, Joshua.”

Joshua shook Dings's sooty paw and said, “How do you do?” Dings, slightly off balance, said, “Hello.”

“And that's his wife, right over there,” I said. “Now stay away from the house and watch out for glass on the ground.” Joshua wandered off, looking at things that little kids look at.

“Come on,” I said to Jack Dings, and took him to the tree where I'd found the case. “It was right here, with a moped.”

“You should have left it right where you found it.”

“Don't be so sour. You'll notice that the moped is gone. If I'd left the guitar, it'd probably be gone, too. People scrounge around after a disaster; you know that. They don't think of it as looting, they think of it as salvage. The moped belonged to a kid named Adam Washington, who was staying here. He probably came by and took off to wherever he's staying now. It was probably the only thing of his that was saved.”

Dings just grunted, but it seemed to me that he wasn't as angry as he had been before.

“What I'm wondering,” I said, “is why the guitar case was out here, but Corrie's satchel wasn't.”

“Maybe because there was a satchel beside the body,” said Sandy Dings, who had come over. “You sure this was Appleyard's guitar?”

“I'm sure.”

“You a friend of his?”

“He and my father knew each other years ago when my dad was with the Somerville Fire Department. I met him again earlier this week; it was the first time I'd seen him in about thirty years. He was on the island to give a couple of concerts, and he came by our place because he and my dad used to batch there a long time back. He didn't know my dad was dead.”

Jack Dings frowned. “Jackson . . . When I was just getting started in the department, I knew a Rosy Jackson in Somerville. Later he had a wall fall on him during a warehouse fire.”

More evidence that the world is small and that we should always watch our language because we never know who we might be talking to. “That was my father,” I said.

He studied me. “Now that I think about it, when I look at you I can see the resemblance. Your old man was good at his work. He wasn't on the arson squad, but he probably could have been. He was a pro. You say you're getting in touch with this Appleyard fella's family?”

“No, but a reporter I know in Boston is looking into it for me. Was there anything in that satchel you found? An address book or some such thing?”

“There wasn't much left of it,” said Sandy Dings, “but maybe the lab can come up with something.” She turned and looked at the remains of the house. “Fire started in the wiring, looks like. No accelerants involved as far as I can tell. The wiring in these old houses is pretty bad a lot of times. We have more checking to do.”

“You know that this is the third house belonging to Ben Krane that's burned this year?”

“Yeah,” said Tony D'Agostine. “I told them that first thing. Like it said in the old James Bond book, once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.”

I hadn't pegged Tony for a literary man.

“I agree,” I said.

Sandy Dings shrugged. “Could be. The fire last spring was definitely arson, according to what I hear. We didn't handle that job, but now we'll be taking a good look at the records and I'll talk with the investigator.” She squinted at me. “Your boss; what kind of a guy is he, if you don't mind me asking?”

“I don't mind. I'm working for him, but I'm not his guardian angel or his PR man. My wife doesn't like him, but hasn't told me why. His secretary lauds him to the sky, but the lady doth praise too much, methinks. He has the reputation of being a sharp businessman, a slumlord, and a lawyer who specializes in defending perps who belong in jail.”

“Amen to that last,” said Tony. “First, he runs a bail bondsman service, and he's got them out on the street again almost before we can get them in. Then in court the average cop and assistant DA aren't up to his kind of snuff, and the guilty walk. It's enough to make you give up the law-and-order business.”

Sandy Dings listened to this, then looked at me again. “Is he the type to torch his own places?”

“If he's burning down his own places, why did he hire me to find out who's doing it?”

“Because he may figure that'll put us on some trail other than his. Maybe you're supposed to drag a red herring over his tracks.”

“You mean because I'm an amateur and don't know what I'm doing.”

She nodded. “Worse yet, an honest amateur. You'll work hard but all you'll really find out is nothing. And while you're at it, you'll get in our way enough to keep us from nailing him, if he really did it.”

It was possible. “Well, I'll try to stay out of your way,” I said.

“Don't just try. Do it.”

I nodded. “I'm going to talk to some people who know Ben better than I do. If I learn anything, I'll let you know.”

“I'd be happier if you'd keep out of the whole business,” said Jack Dings. He studied me. “But you're not going to do that, are you?”

“No.”

“I didn't think so.”

“Well,” said Tony. “That being the case, J.W., you should talk with Ben's ex-wives. They should have some opinions about him. See his brother, too. Maybe Peter Hot-Pants can give you some skinny on Ben. They're close, I understand.”

“You're a mind reader as well as a member of the literati,” I said to him. Then I looked at the two Dingses. “Like I said, if I learn anything, I'll let you know.”

“Do that,” said Jack, “but don't get in our way or tamper with any more evidence, or I'll have officer D'Agostine here toss you into the hoosegow and you'll have to get your boss to bail you out.”

I rounded up Joshua, who had managed not to damage himself or anything else while on the loose, and went back to the truck.

So far I hadn't done much to earn Ben Krane's money. So far, of course, I didn't actually have any of Ben Krane's money.

I headed back downtown.