I drove the old Land Cruiser, and on the way to Aquinnah I told Brady what I knew about Joe Begay.
“Who do you think he works for?” asked Brady, when I finished. He shook out a cigarette and dug for a lighter.
“I’ve often wondered but never asked. He says he’s retired.”
“All right, who do you think he doesn’t work for?”
“I have no idea, but he knows a lot of people. Still, I’m surprised that he got back to me this fast.”
“Maybe he picked up some chatter when he asked about Dyer and what he heard made him decide to speed things up.”
“Or maybe Dyer was just easy to trace.”
“Or maybe both.”
“Do you think that maybe we’re using too many ‘maybes’ in this conversation?”
Brady looked out his window. “Maybe,” he said.
The road behind us was empty of cars. Above us the night sky was darkening, disdaining all that man is, all mere complexities, the fury and the mire of human veins.
Toni Begay met us at the door and gave me a kiss. “Joe’s reading bedtime stories to the kids. He’ll be out in a minute. Come in.”
I introduced Brady to her and her to him. “Toni runs a tourist shop up on the cliffs,” I said. “What makes it different from some other shops is that most of her Native American stuff is actually made by Native Americans instead of Koreans and Chinese.”
“J.W. is a bit behind the nominal times,” said Toni to Brady. “In this house and in my shop we’re in a post–Native American period. We’ve decided to be Indians again, and to sell Indian crafts. Joe says Native Americans are any people born in America. He’s not high on political correctness.”
“Hear, hear,” said Brady. “Me neither.”
Joe appeared and shook Brady’s hand. “You’re not wearing a tie. You sure you’re a lawyer?”
“My clients sometimes wonder,” said Brady. “No doubt about you, though. You look like an Indian’s supposed to look.”
“I thought the same thing the first time I saw him!” said Toni with a smile.
Joe Begay was tall, with wide shoulders and not much in the way of hips. His hair was black as ebony. He looked at me. “I don’t remember what I thought the first time I saw you.”
“Just another seventeen-year-old wannabe warrior you had to try to keep alive, probably.”
Begay nodded. “Probably something like that.” He waved us toward the door. “Let’s go outside where I can smoke while I tell you about Frank Dyer.”
We sat on the porch, where Begay rolled a cigarette and lit up. In my marijuana days I had learned to roll a good joint, so I recognized Begay’s work as first-class.
“I’ll give you the shorthand version,” said Begay. “Dyer is a California boy. Grew up near L.A. Average kid from a middle-of-the-road family. Dad was a Korean vet; mom stayed home with Frank and his sisters. Good student, played high school football, patriotic, idealistic. Went to a community college and majored in electronics.”
Begay blew a smoke ring. It floated into the darkness. “Nothing unusual so far. Now it gets more interesting. He met a girl, got jilted, joined the army to forget her, trained in Special Forces, attended the Gulf War. Saw a lot of dead people, including civilians. Lost idealism and patriotism.
“Came home, tried religion. Didn’t take. Hung out with militia types for a while. Joined Followers of the Light just about the time your boss Evangeline was Duval’s main squeeze. Made the grade as a Simon Peter. Earns outside money as an electrician and soundman for local shows. Came east and got work on the Celebration set.”
He stopped talking.
I looked at him. “That’s it?”
“That’s the short version. What else do you want to know?”
“How about what he did during the Gulf War,” said Brady.
“Cleared mines, among other things. He didn’t get them all, of course. He saw some kids get blown apart. They were herding goats, according to the report I got. Did you know that there are still a lot of land mines in Zimbabwe, left over from when it was Rhodesia and the whites lolutionaries? Thirty years later people and elephants are still getting their legs blown off every now and then.”
Nature is violent, but only man is vile.
“Why did Dyer become a Follower of the Light?” I asked. “Did he decide to try religion again?”
“I don’t know. Could be, I guess. Duval offers enlightenment and sex mixed together. After what he saw in Kuwait and Iraq, maybe that’s just what Dyer wants.”
“While you’re guessing,” said Brady, “why do you think Duval has so many toughs working for him as Simon Peters? Why does he need guys like that?”
Begay snubbed out his cigarette. “J.W. didn’t ask me about Duval, he asked me about Dyer. Right now I know the same things about Duval that everybody knows or thinks he knows: He’s charismatic, he preaches a religion that lets him and his people have lots of sex and call it a spiritual experience, he plays poor but lives rich, and he’s one of the people behind this Celebration for Humanity. You want more, I’ll look for it, but I doubt if there’s much that the tabloids haven’t dug up already.”
“I think there’s a good chance he’s going to try to get his hands on his daughter,” I said, and told him who she was.
“You and her mother didn’t mention the girl this morning,” said Begay, “but if he does try that, he won’t be the first father who snatches his own kid.” He paused. “I doubt if he’s going to do it, though.”
I tried to think his thoughts, but failed. “Why not?”
“Because he lives in this country and he’s a very public person. Usually when parents kidnap their own children they take them to another country or they try to disappear in their own. They change names and dye the kid’s hair. If Duval kidnaps the girl, he can’t hide. Ergo, I don’t think he’d kidnap her. I think it’s more likely he’d try to get legal rights to share custody of her.” He looked at Brady. “You’d know more about that than I would.”
“It wouldn’t be easy,” said Brady. “He and her mother were never married, and he’d have to prove he’s her father and that the girl would be better off having a closer relationship with him. And that’s just for starters.”
“Well, something’s going on,” I said. “Drummand is dead, and whoever killed him had his reasons.”
Begay straightened in his chair. He projected a regal calm. “There’s a lot you haven’t mentioned to me, J.W. Who’s Drummand?”
I told him what I knew and what I thought about what had happened to Drummand.
When I finished, he was silent for a while, then said, “If Duval planned to kidnap his daughter, an overzealous Simon Peter might have killed Drummand to get the girl for his boss. But I can’t see Duval planning any such thing.”
“Maybe Duval isn’t interested in kidnapping the girl,” said Brady thoughtfully. “Maybe somebody else is.” We looked at him and he returned our stares. “Why do people get kidnapped?” he asked rhetorically.
“For starters, there’s sex, revenge, political pull, or money,” I said. “Evangeline is worth millions and she’d exchange it all for Janie.”
Begay nodded. “If somebody is after the girl, he knows who her mother is, and maybe who her father is, and he knows one or both of them will pay through the nose to get her back. Could be that Drummand got in the way and got himself killed. Makes sense to me. But who’s the kidnapper?”
“A Simon Peter,” said Brady. “Drummand made friends with some of them when he infiltrated the Followers out in California. One of those friends told him his shoelace was untied and when Drummand looked down, the guy hit him with a rock.”
“More likely several Simon Peters,” I said. “There were a lot of footprints on the shore where Drummand beached his canoe. They were made by more than one man.”
“Where’s the girl now?” asked Begay.
“At my place,” I said. “Overnighting with Diana. Nobody knows she’s there. She’s safe enough.” But my words brought me worry even as I spoke them.
“I’m not sure how much or little people know,” said Brady. “Earlier today someone was tailing me in a green Land Rover like I saw up at Duval’s place. I lost the tail by stopping at the state police station. I had the impression whoever it was could find me anytime they wanted.”
Begay frowned and stood up. “I think you two had better go home right now.”
Brady and I didn’t argue, but headed for the Land Cruiser. Above us the sky was full of stars, but below, on the island, it was black as the pit. My headlights lanced through the darkness as I drove fast toward Edgartown.
“Did anyone follow you again after you left the station?” I asked.
“Not that I saw.”
But it was possible that he hadn’t seen what was really there. Maybe there were several cars involved, both in front and in back of him. The green Land Rovers could have been only a feint while the real trackers were in other cars, keeping in touch by phone and taking turns at following my old Land Cruiser. If you have the manpower, it isn’t too hard to tail people, especially if they don’t know they’re being tailed.
Had the tailers seen Brady turn down my driveway? Had they looked at the name on my mailbox? Had they speculated? Had they watched Brady and me drive away to visit Joe Begay? Had they waited until they were sure we were really gone, and then…?
For the first time in my life I wished the island’s narrow, winding roads were autobahns. I put the pedal closer to the floor. Beside me, Brady said not a word, but raised an arm and gripped the handle above his door.
My headlights split the night, and the dark shapes of trees on either side of the road fled away behind us.