Vineyard Stalker (22 page)

I sat in the truck and thought back over what I'd seen and heard during the past six days. I felt tired but forced myself to regroup and drove to the Noepe Hotel. No Hummer or Mini Cooper was in the parking lot. I considered having another talk with the desk clerk, but had no reason to think she's be less close-lipped than before and I lacked the energy to assault her professional wall of silence about the hotel and its guests. Instead, I drove home.

The house seemed to echo with emptiness broken only by insistent meowed requests for their evening treats by Oliver Underfoot and Velcro. I fed them and poured myself a double vodka on the rocks adorned with two jalapeño-stuffed green olives. I took the glass and a tray of crackers and bluefish pâté up to the balcony, and sat and sipped and nibbled, looking out across the garden to Sengekontacket Pond, where a flotilla of swans was sailing by.

Tomorrow, almost exactly twenty-four hours from now, Zee and the kids would be home. To half of my psyche it seemed an eternity, and to the other half no time at all. I needed to finish preparations for their homecoming supper.

On the barrier beach between the pond and Nantucket Sound a few cars lingered so their occupants could enjoy the last warm rays of the evening sun, and out on the sound boats were moving toward harbor. At the horizon, the dark blue sea met the blue-white evening sky and between them I could just see the dancing line that was the south side of Cape Cod.

I wondered whether Alfred Cabot was besotted with Sally Oliver or she was besotted with him. Or were they besotted with each other? Or was their relationship only a comfortable habit, with neither of them motivated by passion?

Although they didn't seem the types to become infatuated, unexpected fervors often pop up where you least expect them. I recalled the eminently respectable professor in Boston whose bland public life included a wife and children and regular church attendance, but whose secret life eventually led him to murder the prostitute upon whom he had squandered his life savings in thousand-dollar increments he called “grand days.”

I thought, too, of the cases of the powerful men, high in civic, financial, and governmental circles, who, when I was a Boston cop, had been discovered in diapers or less, having paid well to be whipped and humiliated by professionals in the sex trade.

As Fats said, “One never knows, do one?”

Whatever the quality of passion in their relationship, Cabot and Sally Oliver had presumably been man and mistress for a long time, so they were of value to one another. I wondered how much influence each held over the other. Clearly Sally didn't have enough to prevent Alfred from planning marriage with Melissa, but maybe Alfred's marriages made no difference to her; maybe she preferred her role as mistress and was indifferent to Alfred's wives. Clearly, too, Alfred had no intention of sacrificing marriage for Sally's sake or vice versa. Like many men, he apparently saw no need to choose between wife and girlfriend, since he probably thought of them as having little to do with one another.

Perhaps, however, his first two wives had disagreed with this generous view, since both had left him. Or maybe they had just been late in learning what Babs Carson and Melissa knew early: that Alfred was a blah.

The next morning dawned bright and sultry. No one would be up and around yet, so I filled the bird feeders, deadheaded some flowers, and prepared myself a full bloat breakfast: juice, coffee, bacon, eggs, and buttered toast. My arteries groaned but my taste buds danced a gleeful jig.

At nine o'clock I drove into Edgartown and, it being too early for most tourists to be abroad, immediately found a parking place not far from Prada Real Estate. I walked there and was gratified to see the Mini Cooper sitting in its accustomed place. I crossed the parking lot and examined it. Sally Oliver had a cute car but she didn't take very good care of it. There were small scratches in the paint on both sides. Nothing serious, but enough to make a true Mini Cooper fan wince.

I looked at the office windows and saw no one looking back. Sally was, I hoped, too busy at her work to notice me prowling around her car. I went back to the truck just as the chief of the Edgartown police came idling down the street in the department's newest cruiser. There being no traffic behind him, he paused. He was chewing on an empty pipe, wishing it was lit but unwilling to fill the car with smoke.

“A very handsome vehicle,” I said, admiringly. “My tax dollars at work once again.”

“Mine, too,” said the chief. “You're hanging around town a lot more than usual since Zee and the kids went to America. It's not natural. I'll be glad when she gets back and you start living up there in the woods again where you belong.”

“Tonight's the night,” I said. “They'll be home before supper. I don't suppose you know who killed Melissa Carson.”

He shook his head. “No, I don't. That's Dom Agganis's problem and West Tisbury's, not mine. She didn't die in Edgartown. I take it that you still have your nose in that mess. I thought you were supposed to be a fisherman.”

A pickup driven by a young man and full of shovels, rakes, and lawn mowers came down the street and slowed behind the cruiser. More Brazilians going to work.

“I am a fisherman,” I said. “I just haven't been fishing. So you don't know anything about the murder, eh? I thought you might be on the grapevine.”

“I don't ask, and they don't tell,” said the chief, glancing in his rearview mirror. “Well,
cherchez la femme
, or whatever. I gotta move before I get run over. See you later.”

I got into the truck and followed the pickup down the street to the four corners, where it went right on South Water Street and I went left on North Water, then left again on Winter and on out of town to Oak Bluffs via the beach road where early birds were already setting up their umbrellas and spreading their beach blankets on the sand. It was going to be a hot one and they were making sure they had parking places along the road and had staked claims to some beach space. I could think of worse places to be.

I drove through downtown OB and on to the state police office. Dom Agganis was behind his desk and Olive Otero was behind hers.

Without waiting to be asked, I sat down on one of the hard chairs that were there for visitors.

“Now that you're comfortable, what can we do for you, J.W.?” asked Dom in a grumpy tone.

I got right to it. “Olive told you about Cabot knowing Fred McMahan but telling the OB police that he didn't?”

“I've seen the police report, but we don't know that he knew McMahan. Except for you saying it, of course, and I don't think the DA would think much of that evidence.”

“I promised my snitch anonymity. The snitch can be squeezed, but I don't want that to happen.”

“This is a murder case, so what you want doesn't mean much.”

I said, “If we get to the point where a murder charge depends on me IDing the snitch, I'll do it, but not before. Humor me until then, because if Cabot does know McMahan, it means he's likely to be the guy who hired him. If you can catch up with McMahan or, better yet, his pal Angie, you may be able to put pressure on them to talk. I personally think Angie is the weak link.”

“Yeah, Olive told me that idea of yours. Of course, we'd need a reason to grill Angie.”

“Like I told you before, my sources tell me that he and McMahan went up to Boston to get charges of birdshot taken out of their fannies. Your colleagues up there might ask Angie about that. When you get shot, you're supposed to report it, but I doubt if he did.”

Dom nodded. “That might serve as a reason to chat with him.”

“I imagine you can find him at home in Charlestown. I think he lives with his mama.”

“Yes, he does,” said Olive. “I checked that out last night. He wasn't home, though. Perhaps he was still having himself repaired. He may be home by now.”

“If he doesn't want to talk,” I said, “you might threaten to hang a murder charge on him. Tell him that he's a suspect in Melissa's killing. That might make him more malleable. Hell, he might even have done it.”

“But you don't think so.”

I looked at Dom. “There's another thing. Cabot and Sally Oliver are lovers. They have been for years, going back to when Cabot was married before.”

Dom glanced at Olive, who spread her hands, palms up.

“Is that a fact?” he said, looking back at me.

“So I'm told.”

“By the same high administrative source that told you about Cabot and McMahan?”

“No, by several people. Roland Nunes and Robert Chadwick are two of them. They both heard Melissa talk about it. I don't think you'll have any trouble verifying it.”

Agganis rubbed his big chin. “The plot thickens.”

“It thickens even more. I just took a peek at Sally Cabot's Mini Cooper. The sides are both scratched.”

“So?”

“So, you remember telling me that nobody saw a car parked by the road the night Melissa was killed? Has anybody told you anything different since we talked?”

“No. But it's not a problem if Nunes killed her. He could have just followed her out and snuffed her.”

“I think he loved her.”

“You know what Wilde said about men and love. Maybe Nunes got the hots for her and she told him to forget the whole thing.”

“Maybe. That morning, did anybody pay any attention to the trail across the road from the one that leads into Nunes's place? It's a continuation of the ancient way that crosses his land. I remember there were bumper to bumper cars parked in front of it when I got there. Maybe it got overlooked.”

Dom looked at Olive, who shook her head.

“Maybe it's in somebody's report,” said Dom. “If so, I don't remember it.”

“The trail is about the width of the one leading into Nunes's place. Too narrow for a normal car and a lot too narrow for Cabot's Hummer, but about wide enough for a Mini Cooper if you don't mind scratching it up a little. You could park in there and nobody would see you.”

“And Sally Oliver has a scratched-up Mini. Are you saying Sally Oliver killed Melissa Carson?”

“You're the policeman. You don't need me to do your thinking. Did Robert Chadwick tell you about the voices he heard that night?”

“Yeah. We interviewed him. I remember he mentioned voices.”

“He told me one of them was a man's voice. If he'd only heard a woman's voice, or women's voices, I'd say you should put Sally Oliver on the top of your suspects list, but he heard a man's voice, too. The voices stopped, then started again.”

“Ergo…?”

“Ergo, a man was there that night. The only man I know of who might have been in that car is Cabot, as either the driver or a passenger. If your lab gets its hands on Sally's car, can it tell if the scratches came from the bushes that line that trail across from Nunes's? If it can, you'll have a good reason to have Sally and Al come in the office for some serious conversation.”

“And their lawyers will be right there with them, telling them to say nothing. Besides, Nunes might have been the man who was there.”

“If Cabot hired McMahan and Angie, the DA may think he's got enough to go to a grand jury.”

“We haven't proved that relationship yet.”

“Sally is Cabot's longtime squeeze and she wants Nunes to sell.”

“We'd have to prove that she talked Cabot into hiring McMahan.”

“Melissa was cuddling up to Nunes and maybe telling Cabot that she had as much money as he did so he and his girlfriend could take a hike.”

“Speculation.”

“She told Cabot where she was going that night, and Chadwick heard a man's voice outside his wall.”

“Like I say, it could have been Nunes's voice.”

“Cabot knew where Melissa was and Sally's car was on the trail across the street.”

“You don't know that. Besides, maybe she parked it there earlier in the week.”

“Maybe Iraq really had WMDs. Either she was in the car or Cabot was in it or they both were in it.”

“You have smoke but no fire.”

“Sure. Maybe Jack the Ripper did it.”

We sat in silence for a time, then Dom tapped a finger on his desk and said, “I don't think we have enough.”

“We can call the lab about the scratches on the car,” said Olive. “If they can do the job, we may be able to get a warrant for the Mini before she takes it to a car wash or paint shop, if she hasn't done that already.”

“We can do that,” said Dom.

“Maybe I can help,” I said.

Dom looked at me and shook his head. “No.”

“They'll be afraid of you if they see you coming,” I said. “But they're not afraid of me. I may be able to learn something their lawyers won't let them tell you.”

“No,” said Dom. “Leave this to us. Go home and wait for your wife and kids to get back. I mean it.”