Naturally, the Nelson kids loved Tarzan and the Leopard Woman, and naturally, my own kids loved it even more than before, and after watching it on our tiny black-and-white TV screen all four of them were more enthusiastic than ever about the tree house and the rope bridge and tried to be of help to me, the master carpenter, as I continued to work on the bridge after they’d seen the movie. Unlike Tarzan, Boy, and Jane, who had to do their building with whatever materials the jungle had to offer, I had electricity and modern tools, rope instead of vines, and other modern advantages, so I actually made some progress.
David McCullough, the island’s finest writer, had once penned an excellent book on the building of the Brooklyn Bridge; it occurred to me that maybe he’d like to write one about our bridge, when we finished it, and I considered arranging for him to see Tarzan and the Leopard Woman as cultural preparation. I had never actually met David, but I knew he’d be a fan.
That evening, as Zee and I were sitting on our balcony, our backs to the slanting summer sun, I pointed out the day’s progress and asked Zee what she thought of my idea about inviting David to win another Pulitzer by writing about our bridge.
“An excellent plan,” said Zee. “I’m sure David will love it. He’s probably been wondering what to do next.”
There is no greater blessing than an agreeable wife. I looked at Oliver Underfoot and Velcro, who were sociably sitting on the balcony railing, staring at nothing in catish fashion. “What do you two think?”
They too thought it was a fine plan. That made it unanimous.
The next day I put the kids in the Land Cruiser and drove to Chilmark. The Highsmith place was on Middle Road, but I wasn’t sure exactly where, so I went first to the Chilmark police station for directions.
My route took me through West Tisbury, where we passed David McCullough’s house. I decided not to stop and suggest the new bridge book, but instead went on to the Panhandle, then left on Middle Road, where, after the kids and I admired the big-horned oxen who welcome down-islanders to Chilmark, I checked mailboxes all the way to Beetlebung Corner but saw nothing that identified the Highsmith house. I did, however, see a box with the name Willet. Behind it, up the hill, the house and barn had an unoccupied look, and I remembered that after their daughter’s death the surviving Willets had returned to the mainland.
The peripatetic Chilmark Police Department is locally famous for having its station moved from one location to another and then to another. I caught up with it at its latest address in what was once the old Menemsha School. The young officer unfolded a map and showed me that the Highsmith place was in fact next door to the Willet place, on an old road that had originally led up to a now long-abandoned stone quarry. Wouldn’t you know?
The policeman put his finger on the quarry and waxed nostalgic: “It’s been full of water as long as I can remember. We used to sneak up there and try to dive to the bottom but we never could get down that far. Some of the crazies drove an old jalopy in there once, and we never could dive deep enough to find it either. Last time I was up there, years ago, they had No Trespassing and No Swimming signs all around it, and now it’s part of the Highsmith place so you can’t get there anyway. I tell you, things have gone downhill since I was a kid. Nowadays half the island is forbidden territory.”
I thought he was pretty young to be so wistful about the golden past, when every gate had been open and you could go anywhere, but maybe time passes faster these days.
I didn’t tell him why I wanted to find the Highsmith place because I’m sometimes as covetous about information as anyone else. What is it that pleases us so much when we know something other people don’t know? Is it a feeling of power? Sooner or later, of course, people with secrets almost always reveal them to someone, which is a good thing for the police, who have cuffed many a perp who couldn’t keep his mouth shut about his crime and was ratted out by his listener.
After agreeing with Diana that we should seriously consider stopping at The Bite for a fried clam lunch, I drove back along Middle Road until I passed the Willet mailbox and came to a driveway leading up the hill to my left. The Highsmith mailbox had only a number on it, which explained why I had ignorantly passed it on my first trip. The driveway wound up through oak and underbrush to a grassy clearing on the hillside. Midway in the clearing was a large, newish house with an attached three-car garage, and beyond the house was the untended grassy remains of the road that presumably led on up to the old stone quarry.
There was an apartment over the garage where, I guessed, the Shelkrotts probably lived. The driveway circled in front of the garage and looped back onto itself. Looking to the south over the falling hillside, the house’s occupants had a panoramic view of southern Chilmark and of the ocean, which curved over the horizon and next touched land at Hispaniola, homeland of Pedro Martinez and many other baseball notables. Aspiring Major Leaguers in the United States should learn what the Dominicans eat and make that their diet.
There was a Volvo sedan with New York plates parked in front of the garage beside a middle-aged blue Chevy station wagon with Connecticut plates. I parked next to them, speculating that the Volvo belonged to the visiting uncle and the Chevy belonged to the Shelkrotts.
“You kids stay out here,” I said as we climbed out of the truck after I’d checked for dogs. “Don’t go far. I have to talk with some people here.”
“Can we walk around behind the garage?”
“Sure.”
As I approached the house I could see a garden behind the garage. There wasn’t much growing there yet, which suggested that it had been planted late, if at all. Everything in sight was neat and well maintained, but the place had an odd feeling that made me somehow uneasy, as though I were entering the world of the Fisher King.
A woman opened the door in answer to my knock. She had a faintly worried look on her face that made her look older than I guessed she was.
“Mrs. Shelkrott?”
“Yes?”
“My name is Jackson. I’ve just come from the Chilmark police station, and before that I was conferring with Sergeant Agganis of the state police about the shootings of Mr. and Mrs. Highsmith. I hope you don’t mind me bringing my children. They’re good about not disturbing things.”
She looked at them as they walked toward the garden.
“I don’t mind.”
“I don’t want to intrude,” I said, “but as you know, the police often interview people more than once during their investigations. Do you and your husband have time to answer a few questions?”
“Conferring” was a stretch, but otherwise my tongue was only slightly forked. Wilma Shelkrott was only partly skeptical.
“Are you a police officer?”
I patted my hip and smiled. “I have a badge, if you’d like to see it.”
That was true. It was my old Boston PD shield, long withdrawn from service.
I was pleased when she waved a hand and stepped aside. “Oh, no, that won’t be necessary. Please come in.”
I walked past her into an entrance hall with doors leading into three other rooms and a stairway leading up to a second floor. There was a coat closet beside a short deacon’s bench and a bust of Socrates over a bookcase filled with leather-bound volumes that looked more decorative than utilized. I don’t know many readers who bother to bind their books in leather; they tend to buy cheaper editions so when they wear them out they can afford new copies.
“Is your husband home?” I asked. “I want to talk with him too.”
She seemed to want to wring her hands, but didn’t. “I believe he’s in the garage. I’ll call him.”
I shook my head and held my smile. “Before you do that, perhaps I can have a few words with you, if you don’t mind.”
Her eyes were unhappy. “I can’t imagine how I can help you. All I can tell you is what I told the other officers who were here.”
I tried to seem comforting. “Sometimes when we go over information again we get a detail that we overlooked before.” I pulled a ballpoint pen and small notebook from my pocket, and flipped through a few pages. “Now, just to review the facts, how long have you and your husband been working for the Highsmiths and what duties have you performed for them?”
Wilma Shelkrott had answered that one before, and had no trouble repeating herself. They had come to work for the two Doctors Highsmith shortly after Mrs. Highsmith had given birth to Gregory, sixteen years before, and the young parents had realized that they would need help if they were both to progress in their academic careers, particularly since Abigail Highsmith had a long commute from New Haven to Providence, where she aspired to promotion at Brown.
Wilma attended to housework and child care, and Nathan cared for the house and grounds and the automobiles, and opened and closed the summer house before and after the season. She and her husband had, she said, always had excellent relations with the parents. What happened to the Highsmiths was terrible, simply terrible!
“How are the children doing?” I asked.
The furrows in her forehead deepened. “Their uncle Tom Brundy is with them here while his wife—that’s Mrs. Highsmith’s sister—is up in Boston with Mrs. Highsmith.”
“How is Mrs. Highsmith?”
“We haven’t heard since last night. There were no changes. Mrs. Brundy calls every evening to give us the latest developments.”
“It must be hard on everyone.”
“Yes.”
I flipped a few pages, and looked at a new one. “I understand that your husband was recently hospitalized overnight. We’re told you thought he might be having a heart attack but that his symptoms turned out to have been caused by stress. You’ve said that you and your husband had excellent relations with the Highsmiths; can you tell me what caused him so much anxiety?”
Her eyes held mine. “I’m afraid I really don’t know.”
I looked back at her. “I think you may know more than you’re telling me. At the hospital you mentioned the swimming accident at the beach. Why would your husband have been so disturbed about that? The Highsmith children were safe, after all.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what I meant. The accident had just happened and everyone was disturbed and shocked.”
“You knew the girl who drowned?”
She hesitated. “Why do you ask that?”
“She lived next door. She was about the same age as Belinda Highsmith. The children surely knew one another as summer neighbors.”
“Yes, I knew who she was. When they were younger, she used to come over to play with Gregory and Belinda once in a while.” She paused and rubbed her chin. Her eyes seemed to focus elsewhere. “Not so much the last couple of years.”
“They were at the beach party together. The Willet girl had gone off with Belinda and Gregory and another boy when she drowned.”
“Yes, I heard about that. I can’t tell you anything about it. I know they weren’t close friends anymore.”
“Tell me about Gregory and Belinda.”
“I mean what kind of kids are they? Do you get along with them? What are they like?”
She lifted her chin. “I took care of them from the time they were babies, but now they don’t ask for my advice. I’m no psychologist, so don’t ask me to analyze them. They’re very close, I can tell you that.”
“They sneaked out of this house to attend the beach party.”
She stared. “Where did you hear that?”
“From one of their friends. Is it true?”
She took a deep breath. “Yes. Their parents were at a party and Nathan and I were in the house. Gregory and Belinda got out of a back window. We never knew they were gone until the police brought them home.”
“Could that have caused your husband to have an anxiety attack? Were the two of you afraid that the Highsmiths would hold you responsible for their children having escaped from your care?”
“No. No, they didn’t blame us. They knew how their children could be.”
“How was that? How could they be?”
“You know: rebellious, wild, holding nothing sacred. Like teenagers are these days. Not like when I was their age.”
It was a complaint that had probably been voiced by older generations since caveman days.
I stared at her. “But you said at the hospital that your husband’s condition might have been triggered by the beach party. If he wasn’t stressed by fear of being reprimanded, what was it that caused his chest pains?”
She rubbed that furrowed brow. “It was just the kids. You know, just the kids doing God knows what down on the beach and the Willet girl dying because they were crazy and didn’t care what happened as long as it happened to somebody else. Nathan couldn’t stand it.”
I studied her. “And now,” I said, “someone has murdered Henry Highsmith and has tried to murder Abigail Highsmith. How does Nathan feel about that? How do you feel?”
She had the look of a dead woman. “I feel like the world is ending, and so does Nathan.”
I hardened my voice. “Do you know anyone who hates the Highsmiths enough to murder them?”
Her voice came out of her mouth like a wind from a cold cave. “There’s evil in the world. It’s everywhere. No one is safe. No one can explain it. No one knows where it will come from next. Nothing makes any sense. I don’t understand anything anymore.”
She turned away and walked out of the room.
I watched her until she was out of sight, then went outside and to the garage. I thought I heard my children’s voices off to the west. They seemed to be agreeing that they’d found a trail. I hoped they wouldn’t follow it.
There was a doorway beside the three closed garage doors. I entered and found myself at the foot of a stairway leading up to what I took to be an apartment. To my left was a door leading into the garages. I went through it and found myself in a woodworking area. A man was standing at a bench, painting fence pickets. He turned as I came in.
“Mr. Shelkrott?”
“Yes.”
“I’m investigating the Highsmith shootings. I’ve just talked with your wife and now I’d like to talk with you.”
A curtain seemed to fall over his face.