The morning after her fishing trip with Brady, Zee was still unhappy and perplexed by Molly’s failure to show up for her date with him. I was more inclined to pass it off as nothing earthshaking.
“I’m always hearing about how girls suffer while they wait for boys to phone or ask them out on dates,” I said, “but guys have to put up with girls rolling their eyes and saying no thanks, or saying yes, then standing them up. It happens all the time.”
“But Molly isn’t the type to do that.”
“Every woman is the type. I asked you to marry me for years before you finally said yes.”
She lifted her chin. “Maybe I should have put it off longer.”
“Too late.”
“It’s never too late for a girl to go home to her mother.”
“Ha! I can just see you living with your mother.”
I had her there. “I feel sorry for Brady,” she said with a sigh.
“Brady’s a grown man,” I said. “Grown men don’t need to have people feeling sorry for them, they can feel sorry for themselves. Look at me. Don’t make too much of this. There’s probably a simple explanation.”
“I wish I knew what it was.” She fussed with her food.
“All will be revealed in time.” I stacked my dishes in the sink. “Since you’re going to be home this morning, I’m going to use the time to talk with some more people about Kathy Bannerman.”
I started with Shrink Williams. Dr. Cotton Williams lived on West Chop not far from the spiffy new Vineyard Haven Library. His office was attached to his house and had two doors—one for going in and one for going out. I didn’t know if many psychiatrists made a practice of having separate exit doors for their patients, but Shrink did. The theory, apparently, was that a patient would just as soon not have the next patient know that the first patient was one, too.
Shrink’s office hours started at ten, and I was the first one through the door, edging out a nervous woman who came mincing along the sidewalk right behind me. Inside, Shrink’s receptionist, an efficient-looking woman pushing sixty, frowned at her day-book and told me that I didn’t have an appointment.
“My name’s Jackson,” I said. “I have a badge in my pocket if you’d care to look at it, but I’d just as soon keep this informal. I only need to talk with the doctor for a moment. I’d like his advice on a case.” I showed her my best Joe Friday face.
I actually did have my old Boston PD shield with me, if it came to that, which I hoped it wouldn’t, since there are laws against pretending to be a police officer. Luck, in her willy-nilly way, chose to smile upon me.
“Just a moment, please.” The woman went out of sight and came back. “This way, please.” I followed her into an office, where she left me with Shrink.
He was about my age and didn’t look like the ladies’ man he was reputed to be. But who knows what women like, besides shoes?
“How can I help you, Officer Jackson?” Then he frowned. “Haven’t we met before?”
“Briefly, some time ago. I’m looking into the disappearance of a woman named Katherine Bannerman. She was here on the island last August, but hasn’t been seen since then. I’ve been told that you dated her, and I’m hoping that you can give me information that might be useful in locating her.” I showed him my photograph of Kathy Bannerman.
Shrink assumed a professional air. “If Mrs. Bannerman had been a client, of course our conversations would be confidential. Even so, I’m afraid I can’t be of much help to you because I only saw her socially for a short time.”
“When was that?”
His brow furrowed. “It would have been in late July of last year. We only went out a half dozen times.”
“Did she ever talk about leaving the island, or suggest someplace she might be planning to go?”
“No, not that I recall.”
“Did she mention going back to her family?”
“No. She told me she was living apart from her husband and her daughter, but never said anything about going back to them. Although she did speak fondly of her daughter.”
“Did she seem happy or unhappy?”
“You mean, was she depressed? Are you thinking that she might have committed suicide?”
I shrugged.
He shook his head. “I doubt it. She was very cheerful. Full of life. She was enjoying herself as a single woman.”
“You’re frowning.”
“Am I?” He shook his head. “I’m supposed to be able to disguise my feelings.”
“What feelings are we talking about?”
He smiled. “Wounded vanity? She stopped dating other men so she could go out with me, and that was fine. Then she stopped dating me so she could date someone else, and that wasn’t so fine.” He looked at me. “Just because I’m a psychiatrist doesn’t mean I’m immune to the kinds of emotions any man would have.”
Having been divorced by my first wife, I could understand how he might have felt. “And you never dated her again?”
“No.”
“Or talked with her?”
“We might have bumped into each other in the grocery store or somewhere and said hello. We weren’t enemies, but we didn’t talk.”
“Who did she date after she dated you?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t know him.”
“You saw them together?”
“Sure. There are only so many places on this island where you can dance or listen to music. I saw her with some guy.”
“You never heard his name?”
“No.”
“What did he look like?”
Again the shrug. “I really couldn’t say. Young, not bad-looking.”
“Blond or dark?”
“I didn’t really pay much attention. I had a date of my own, and I would have been paying attention to her.”
“Beard? Mustache?”
“I don’t remember. They were across the room.”
“Where did you see them?”
“At a club, as I remember. The Connection, maybe, or the Tin Roof, or maybe the Fireside. I’m really not sure.” He looked at his watch. “Look, I have a patient waiting.”
“Thanks for your time. You’ve been helpful.”
“I don’t see how.”
My smile was at least as real as his. “I know more than I did before,” I said.
I had time for one more stop before heading home so Zee could go to work. I drove to Oak Bluffs and parked off Kennebeck Street behind the Fireside Bar. I knocked on the back door, and Bonzo opened it. He was holding a push broom, and he smiled his wide vacant smile when he saw me. “J.W.! What a nice surprise!”
Long before I knew him, Bonzo had been a very promising young man. Unfortunately, he had gotten hold of some bad acid and thereafter had become a kind, mindless, cheerful fellow whose greatest pleasures were fishing and watching birds, and whose dim thoughts prevented him from doing work more complicated than sweeping floors and wiping tables. He lived with his adoring mother, who had taught forever in the island schools and who cared for him like the large child that he was. Still, though Bonzo was missing some of his original parts, you could never be sure what he’d remember and what he wouldn’t. For instance, he remembered every bird he’d ever photographed and every fish he ever caught.
“I’d like to talk to you, Bonzo.”
Bonzo leaned on his broom, smiled, and considered this proposition. Then he frowned and said, “I’m working right now, J.W. Won’t be long before we open for lunch, and the place has to be clean, and I have to do it.” He blinked at me.
“It’ll only take a minute, Bonzo.”
“Oh, okay. Let’s talk. It’s been a while since you been in for a beer, J.W.”
“I’m a married man, Bonzo. I stay at home these days, instead of going out on the town.”
He nodded. “I know. You’re married to Zee. It’s good that you got married, J.W. Especially to Zee. Zee is a nice lady.”
I showed him the photograph of Kathy Banner-man. “Last year this woman was on the island. You ever see her in the Fireside?”
He studied the picture, then nodded. “Gee,” he said. “Last year. That was a long time ago, J.W, but yeah, I seen her here a few times.”
“Did you ever see her with Shrink Williams?”
He smiled his biggest smile. “Sure I did. They was here, and then afterward she was here with the man that the doctor didn’t like her to be with. She’s pretty, J.W., and nice, too. She gave me a dollar every time she was here.”
“Who was the other man?”
He gave an elaborate shrug. “Gosh, I don’t know everybody, you know. Especially in the summer when this place is full of those tourists and college kids. He’s a man I don’t know is all I can tell you.”
“Has he been back since you saw him with her?”
Bonzo stared through a fog toward his memories, then nodded. “Yeah, he comes in sometimes. I seen him this summer sometimes. In the evening, after dinner.”
“But you don’t know his name?”
“His name?” Bonzo shook his head. “I don’t know his name. We get a lot of people that come in here, and I don’t know the names of most of them. Only the people who are here year-round. I know some of their names. The regulars, you know what I mean?”
“I know what you mean, Bonzo. What does this man look like? Can you describe him?”
But that was too much for him. “He’s just ordinary, like everybody else.”
I tried for some details but didn’t get any. The man wasn’t tall, short, dark, blond, clean-shaven, or bearded. His hair wasn’t long or short, his eyes could have been blue or brown, and there was nothing unusual about his clothes, his behavior, or his spending habits.
He was ordinary.
But he was still around. Not a regular, but still around. “When does he come in, Bonzo? Any particular time?”
“In the evening sometimes, like I told you, J.W. Don’t you remember me telling you that?”
“I remember now, Bonzo. If he comes in again, will you telephone me? I’d like to meet him.”
“Telephone you? Sure. Your number’s in the book. I can do that. You want me to tell him to wait for you?”
“No, just phone me. What did you mean when you said that Dr. Williams didn’t like Kathy to be with the man?”
“Well, he didn’t like it. I’m not dumb. I can tell things.”
“How do you know? Did they have an argument?”
He drew himself up. “No, they didn’t do anything like that. Dr. Williams never does that. What he does is, he comes in after the women and the other men and watches them from across the room. That’s what I mean. He watches and he watches and he looks funny and almost never drinks his beer, and when they leave he waits and leaves too. He always does that. He did that with this lady in the picture, and he always does it.”
Stop. Rewind. “What do you mean, Bonzo? You mean Shrink Williams has done that other times? Not just with this woman?”
He looked pleased. “You got it, J.W. You’re smart, just like me. He does it all the time. He brings them ladies here himself, then later when they come in with other men, he follows them in and he follows them out, but he never says nothing to them at all. He just watches them. You want to know something else?”
“Sure.”
“He never leaves a tip. He’s a doctor, and doctors make lots of money, but he never leaves a tip. Never at all. That’s why I always remember him. Otherwise, he’s just ordinary. You know what I mean?” Then he brightened. “Say, J.W., I bet you’re looking for the woman in that picture!”
“That’s right, Bonzo.”
He clapped his hands. “I knew it when I saw you with that man.”
“What man?”
“That man you was talking with here the other morning. I remember him from before. He’s been looking for her, too.”
“Yes. She’s his wife. He said he’d been on the island several times this summer, trying to find her.”
Bonzo nodded. “That’s right. And last year, too, just before Labor Day. I remember, because it was right when the bluefish came back. He was looking for her then, too.”
That was news I hadn’t gotten from either Banner-man or Thornberry’s report.