“I know who he is,” I said. “How’d it happen?”
“He was in his own garage, I guess. Still in uniform. Somebody broke him all up when he came home. Ribs, arms, legs, face. Stuck his pistol up into him when they were done. Jesus!”
“Where’d you get all this?”
“I saw Tony D’Agostine downtown.”
Tony D’Agostine was a sergeant of police in Edgartown and not given to exaggeration.
“Thanks for telling me. Did you get both those doors fixed yesterday?”
Manny said he had. I rang off and called the Crandel house. Julia answered the phone in a cautious voice.
“J. W. Jackson,” I said. “Just checking up on things. Any problems since last we met?”
“Oh, it’s you. No, nothing’s happened. We went to the beach in the afternoon. We saw that man Vegas when we came home, but he was a long way up the street, and all he did was look. And there was a policeman outside the house all night.”
“Good. Just be careful, the same way you would if you were in the city, and you should be fine. If I can help you out in any way, let me know.”
“Maybe you can.” She hesitated. “Mr. Fonseca, the man who fixed our doors, said that you used to be a policeman and that sometimes you do things to help people. Is that right?”
“I haven’t been a policeman for a long time.”
“And he said you might be able to help us.”
But she surprised me. “I want you to investigate, to find out who’s working for Mackenzie Reed. If this man Alexandro Vegas is working for him, I want to know it. And if he isn’t, I need to know who is, because he isn’t just hounding Ivy, he’s scaring me, too. Ivy and I room together, and Jane Freed was my therapist before she was Ivy’s.”
I thought for about five seconds, then said, “I don’t think I’m the person you want. I think you want a private detective agency. I can give you the name of a good one that’s headquartered in Boston. Thornberry Security. They have a lot of people on the payroll, and they work on a national level. They’ll give you your money’s worth.”
“I’ll hire the Thornberry people if you think I should, but I already hired a private detective agency out in California, and they didn’t find anything useful at all.”
“Maybe there wasn’t anything to find.”
“Somebody is trying to hurt Ivy and me and our friends! I want to hire you to find out who it is. Mr. Fonseca says that you’ve done investigations for people, and that you’re good at it.”
“I’m not a private detective. I don’t have a license to do this kind of work.”
“I don’t care if you have a license. I need somebody right now, right here! I talked with Mr. Fonseca, and I talked with Uncle Stanley and Aunt Betsy on the phone last night, and they say that I can trust you. I need somebody I can trust. I’ll pay you whatever you want. Please.”
I thought of the things Alexandro Vegas had said, and of what had happened to the young cop named Larry.
“I don’t think I can help you,” I said.
“Please.
“I don’t think I—”
“Please! When we came home from the beach and saw that man way up the street, he wasn’t just looking. I could feel his eyes inside my clothes!” Her voice had a shiver in it.
I hesitated some more, then said, “All right, I’ll be up in an hour or so, and we can talk about it, at least. Have the coffee ready.”
The world does not stop turning because people have problems, so before heading for OB, I finished eating, made sure the cats were fed, and mixed up a batch of bran muffin dough for future breakfasts. I have not yet met other muffins that can match mine, which are the kind made of dough you mix and then keep in the fridge until you need it. When you have a yen for muffins, you scoop out as much dough as you need and bake up a fresh batch. Delish! I put some of the dough into a plastic container for Julia and Ivy. They could use a little happiness in their lives. Then I drove to the Oak Bluffs police station.
As I went in, Roger Goldman was coming out, carrying Kayla. He and I had a common interest in having our kids around us as much as possible. He hadn’t figured a way to take Kayla out when he had a fishing charter, but he was working on it.
“Hi, Kayla Frances Goldman,” I said. “How are things?”
Kayla buried her face in her father’s neck.
“Things could be better,” said Roger. “Do you know anybody I can hire to shoot the Vegas brothers?”
“Just make sure you don’t do it yourself. Lisa doesn’t need a jailbird for a husband.”
“I’ve got to go to work,” he said angrily. He made a fist and shook it and walked on.
Lisa was in her office, looking older than before. I told her what Manny had told me, and about Alexandro’s offhand threat to shove Larry’s gun up his ass.
“Sex seems to mean a lot to Alexandro,” I said. “My impression is that he doesn’t care if he does it with men, women, or goats.”
Lisa nodded. “It’s a weapon he likes. He used it against women before he went into prison, but now he’ll fuck anything living or dead. It’s all meanness for him. I think it’s because he got screwed to a standstill up in Cedar Junction. The word is he got to be some people’s girlfriend up there. He’s a huge man, but he isn’t as big as a dozen other guys who gang-banged him whenever they got horny. Since he got out, he’s been getting even. Sex is a weapon he likes to use to humiliate people. We haven’t been able to get anybody to testify against him, because the one time we had a woman who said she would, the woman’s kid disappeared for two days and only came back when she changed her mind. The boy was raped before he was dropped off at her door, but couldn’t say who did it because he’d been blindfolded all the time.”
“I don’t remember hearing about any kidnapping case.”
“It never got into the papers. She never reported it officially, but she did talk to me after she got her boy back and told me she was dropping charges against Alexandro. Then she and the boy left the island. The story got circulated, and since then nobody’s said a word against the Vegas boys. It’s enough to make you either hang up your badge or become a vigilante.”
I didn’t think Lisa would do either, but her smooth, girlish face wore a bitter expression.
“Is that what happened to Larry?” I asked.
She shrugged. “It looks like he got home after the detail at the Crandel place last night. Tired, probably, and not paying attention. Somebody was waiting for him inside his own garage, probably hunkered down behind the pickup in the other stall. As near as we can figure it, whoever it was came up behind him with a sack and dropped it over his head, then beat the shit out of him with a crowbar and stuck his piece up his rear and left him there. We got a call saying something had happened. Muffled voice from a public phone in Vineyard Haven. We’re trying to find out if anybody saw anyone at the phone, but so far no luck.”
“Was he raped?”
Lisa looked at me. “Don’t know yet. They’ve flown him up to Boston. He’s in bad shape.”
“He’s in a coma. They say he may have permanent brain damage. It makes me sick. We’ll pull Alexandro in again, but a fat lot of good it will do.”
“If he raped Larry, maybe the semen will ID him.”
“We’ll see.”
I left her there with her troubles, glad once again that I was no longer a policeman, and drove to the Crandel house.
There was now a peephole in the front door. More of Manny Fonseca’s work, no doubt. Julia apparently looked through it before opening the door to my knock.
“Thanks for coming,” she said. “Ivy’s got your coffee waiting.”
We went into the living room. Its large, comfortable chairs and couches, its Oriental rugs and filled bookshelves, its paintings and photographs of generations of Crandels, spoke of informal, genteel living, which was in sharp contrast to the tension in the air. Ivy Holiday was standing by the fireplace, her movie-star face bruised with a frown.
“You did come,” she said. “I wasn’t sure you would.”
I pointed at a tray holding a coffeepot, cream and sugar, and cups. “I’ll have one of those.”
She poured and we all sipped.
“I may be able to help you while you’re here on the island,” I said, “but I don’t think I can do much with regard to your admirer, Mackenzie Reed, because he’s in a California hoosegow and I’m right here.”
“You can find out if this Vegas man is working for him,” said Julia.
“Maybe. The Vegas boys are bad news all by themselves. They don’t need any help from Mackenzie Reed.”
“Somebody is working for him,” said Julia bitterly. “We can’t go on not knowing who it might be. We need help. Somebody is out there.”
I could imagine how she felt, and it may have been that imagination that moved my tongue. “All right,” said my mouth, “I’ll help you as best I can. There’ll be some expenses.”
“Don’t worry about the expenses,” said Julia. “Thank you.” The women exchanged glances.
I was irked with myself. “Don’t thank me yet.” I took a slow sip of coffee. “I’ll need names and telephone numbers of any lawyers the two of you have, and the PI outfit you hired out there, and I’ll need to have both of you call them and tell them who I am so they’ll talk to me.”
“I’m not sure this is necessary,” said Ivy. “It’s probably just a waste of time and money. I’m not afraid of this Alexandro guy, and Mackenzie Reed’s in prison, and maybe there’s nobody else involved.”
Julia had apparently heard that before, but she had the Crandel stubbornness. “You may not be worried, Ivy, but I think you should be. I’m going to do this!”
Ivy gave her a thoughtful look, then shrugged, shook her head, and smiled. “All right, if it’s that important to you.” Ivy glanced at her watch. “There’s a three-hour time difference; we can make those calls as soon as people are up in L.A.”
“And do the same with anybody else you think I might be able to get information from,” I said.
“Maybe Buddy could help,” said Julia.
“Who’s Buddy?” I asked.
“My cousin,” said Julia. “He’s out there. He’s working for an agency. He knows as much as we do about what’s happened, and maybe he can help you find people who know more.”
“He and I dated,” said Ivy. “That’s how I met Julia. Buddy and I broke up after a while, but we stayed friends. Okay, we’ll phone Buddy, too. He knows lots of people out there.”
Julia went to a wall and took down a photograph that was hanging there. She brought it to me and pointed at a face. “There. That’s Buddy.”
I looked at the face. It was a typical Crandel face, smooth and well boned. Smiling Buddy was standing beside smiling Julia amid other smiling people who all looked Crandelish. I turned the photo over. It had been taken three years previously.
“That’s my mom,” said Julia, pointing to a woman who looked like a slightly younger version of Betsy Crandel. “And that’s Aunt Anna, Buddy’s mom. Buddy and I were going out to Hollywood, and Mom wanted a last picture of the family all together. Every time all of us kids are together, she wants one of these pictures, just in case we’re never together again. She must have dozens of them stored away in boxes!”
“You leave your mom alone,” said Ivy with a smile. “Besides, someday one of these pictures really will be the last one when you’re all in the same place at the same time, and she’ll have a picture of the historic event.”
“Three years ago was the last time you were all together?” I asked.
Julia nodded. “The last time. We try to get together here every summer, but for the last couple of years somebody’s always been missing.” She pointed to young people in the photo. “My littlest brother is down in Washington sitting behind a desk in the Pentagon, and my sister, here, is in the Middle East now, working for the U.N. It’s hard to coordinate all our vacations.”
Julia put the photo back on its hook, and I finished my coffee and put my cup on the tray.
“Make your calls out to the Coast,” I said. “I’ll phone you about noon and get the names and addresses I need. And if I were you, I’d call Thornberry Security in Boston. Meanwhile, be careful.”
I went out into the bright September day, wishing my thoughts were half so crisp and clear.