The Bee Balm Murders Read online

  “I’d love to see that,” said Elizabeth.

  “If you don’t mind mud, come down and watch.” He abruptly sat sideways in his chair, reached into his pocket, brought out a cell phone, opened it, and looked at the display. “Excuse me, Mrs. Trumbull. I’ve got to take this call.” He left the cookroom and returned a few minutes later, frowning.

  “Trouble?” Victoria asked.

  “I’m afraid so.” He tossed down the napkin he’d been holding and took the back stairs two at a time to his room. Seconds later, he returned, carrying yellow oilskins. His face was pale and a muscle twitched in his jaw. “A worker on the early shift climbed down into the trench for some reason and found a body.”

  Victoria laid down her fork. “How awful.” She set her napkin on the table and got to her feet. “Who is it?”

  “They didn’t say.”

  Elizabeth, too, stood. “What do you have to do?”

  Orion shook his head as though to clear it. “I’ve got to get to the site and see for myself what’s going on.”

  “How deep is the trench?”

  “Six feet. The ditching machine was filling in the trench right behind the worker who found the body. Ten minutes later, the trench would have been filled in. The body would never have been found.”

  Orion slipped his oilskin trousers over his jeans and shrugged into the hooded jacket. “Sorry to leave like this.”

  “Don’t even think about it,” said Elizabeth.

  “If it turns out not to have been an accident and you need help, Orion,” Victoria said, “let me know.”

  He glanced at her.

  “I’m a deputy police officer,” she added.

  “Ah,” said Orion, clearly not knowing exactly what to make of that. “I’ll be sure to keep you informed.”

  He pulled the hood up on his jacket and headed out, his oilskin trouser legs swishing as he walked.

  He clumped down the stone steps, patted the side of his wagon, got in, and sped out of Victoria’s drive.

  * * *

  Orion drove into Vineyard Haven, quiet this rainy Sunday morning, turned right at Five Corners, right again down an obscure side road across from the Tisbury Printer, and parked. Rain fell steadily.

  The muddy playing field was full of flashing red, white, and blue lights. It seemed as though every emergency vehicle on the Island had responded. State police. Tisbury police and ambulance. Marine conservation police. A Harley-Davidson with flashing blue lights. A hearse. A yellow pickup with a magnetic sign on the side that read TWO BRAVES CONSTRUCTION with the profile of an Indian chief in feather headdress.

  Orion located Dan’l Pease, head of the town’s Public Works Department, near the parking area. He was covered with mud and was leaning on a shovel. Rain washed down the mud on his oilskins in brown streams. Through the steady rain, Orion made out a blur of yellow-clad people milling around the far end of the trench. He turned back to Dan’l. “What’s the story?”

  “Hell. That damned son of mine,” replied Dan’l, stabbing his shovel into the muck. “Danny, clumsy as usual, dropped a wrench into the excavation. Jumped down to get it, yelled, ‘There’s a body down here!’ We fished him back out and called nine-one-one.” He gestured at the swarm of vehicles.

  “Who’s in charge of the investigation?” asked Orion.

  “State police. They’re trying to get everyone out of the way so they can do their thing.”

  Orion tugged his hood farther down to shield his face. “How did Danny expect to get out of the trench?”

  “You’re asking me?” Dan’l shrugged. “My kid doesn’t have the sense he was born with.”

  “Any idea who it is? Male or female?” asked Orion.

  “It’s a man, but we can’t tell much about him. Facedown in about a foot of water. Clearly dead. We left him for the cops to worry about.”

  “Let’s take a look,” said Orion.

  The trench had been excavated about a third of the way across the playing field. They slogged over to the far end where the body was.

  Sergeant Smalley of the state police stood by the trench. “Morning, Dan’l.”

  “Morning, John. You know Orion Nanopoulos? He’s laying the fiber-optics cable.”

  “How’re you doing?” said Smalley. “I don’t know what evidence we’ll find in this mess, but keep clear anyway.”

  “Yeah, sure,” said Dan’l. He and Orion peered down into the trench from where they stood. At the foot of a ladder that had been lowered into the trench, a bulky figure in motorcycle leathers knelt in foot-deep water. The figure concealed whatever it was leaning over.

  “Who’s that?” asked Orion.

  “Doc Jeffers. Medical examiner,” said Smalley.

  “I don’t envy Doc his job today,” said Dan’l. Mud had oozed up over the toes of his boots. He lifted first one foot, then the other with a sucking sound.

  “Groundwater’s seeping into the trench fast,” said Orion. “The doc had better get out of there soon.”

  At that, Doc Jeffers rose to his feet. When he stood, his goggled eyes were level with the ground. “I’m done. Lift him out.” He passed up his black bag to Dan’l then climbed the ladder out of the trench. He was well over six feet tall. His leather outfit was wet and filthy. He bent down and scraped off as much mud as he could.

  “Were you able to identify him?” asked Smalley.

  “No idea. Never saw him before. He doesn’t have a wallet on him. No ID that I could find.” Doc Jeffers lifted his goggles to his forehead. His bright blue eyes and white eyebrows were a pale mask in his muddy face. He took out his handkerchief, wiped his face, then looked at the mud on his handkerchief. “What a mess.”

  “Cause of death?” asked Smalley.

  “Gunshot to the back of the head.” Doc Jeffers bared his teeth, white against his mud mask. “Any other questions will have to wait for the autopsy.” At the sound of squelching footsteps, he looked up. Two oilskin-clad figures were carrying a stretcher toward them.

  “Can’t wheel it through this muck,” said Doc Jeffers. “It’s all yours, Smalley. I’ve got to get cleaned up.”

  “They do the autopsy here on the Island?” asked Orion.

  “Hell, no. Toby takes the remains off Island to Boston in his hearse.” He grinned again. “The Steamship Authority makes him buy a passenger ticket for the deceased. Go figure.” He turned to the two stretcher bearers, one tall, one short, both Tisbury cops. “I’m done.” Doc Jeffers trudged off to his Harley.

  “Tisbury’s sent a couple of men to give us a hand,” Smalley said to Dan’l. He turned to the two bearers. “Thanks for helping out. Appreciate it.”

  “No problem, Sergeant,” said the shorter one.

  Between them, they hoisted the body out of the trench and laid it on the stretcher.

  “Heavy son of a bitch,” said the shorter cop.

  “We need another couple of guys to help carry,” said the taller. “Can’t wheel it in this.”

  “I’ll give you a hand,” said Orion.

  “Me, too,” said Dan’l.

  “We’ll be right back,” said the taller cop. “Getting a tarp to cover him.”

  The limp body lay on its back, faceup to the rain, which was washing away much of the mud. Orion took a quick look. A man in his sixties. Heavy jowls. Heavy bags under sightless gray eyes. Fleshy lips, parted to expose expensive dental work.

  Angelo Vulpone. Orion stood and straightened his back. Head of Vulpone Construction, Brooklyn. One of his potential investors. A potentially big investor. What in hell had he been doing here?

  Dan’l watched him. “You know the guy?” He wiped the back of his hand across his forehead.

  Orion stared down at the corpse. Rain trickled down his back and his forehead. Rivulets streamed into the creases of his cheeks. He smoothed his dripping mustache and absently wiped his hand on his wet jacket.

  Who’d killed Angelo? Why? And why here?

  CHAPTER 3

  The cops re
turned with a large blue tarp, and tucked it around the corpse.

  Orion, Dan’l, and the two Tisbury cops labored across the muddy field with the considerable weight of Angelo Vulpone. Twice they’d had to set the stretcher down to ease their muscles and switch sides.

  “You knew the guy, right?” said Dan’l on the first rest stop. Rain rattled on the blue tarp.

  “Can’t hear you,” said Orion, pushing his hood away from his ears.

  “You knew him,” Dan’l said.

  Orion shrugged.

  “He came around last night looking for you.”

  “Is that right?” said Orion.

  “Got out of a black Lincoln over there.” Dan’l jerked his head in the direction of the parking area.

  “Alone?” asked Orion.

  “Let’s go,” called out the lead cop. “Only a short distance now.”

  Orion switched to the left rear, Dan’l to the right.

  “Okay, lift!” called out the cop.

  Orion bent his knees and straightened his back. He had to be careful. How much had Vulpone weighed, anyway, three hundred?

  Dan’l echoed his thoughts. Grunting, he lifted. “Weighs a goddamned ton.”

  They struggled over the next hundred feet of muck and set the stretcher down again.

  “Did he leave his name when you saw him last night?” Orion asked.

  “Nope. Got back in his fancy car and drove off.”

  “Was he alone?” Orion asked again.

  “Couldn’t tell. Tinted windows. But he got in the passenger side.”

  “I don’t suppose he said what he wanted of me?” Orion wiped his palm across his forehead.

  “Nope.”

  A gust of wind flattened Orion’s hood against the side of his face and sent a trickle of chilly water down his sweaty back. He shivered.

  “Exactly what did the guy say?” Orion asked.

  “You seem real curious about him,” said Dan’l.

  “Yeah. Well…” said Orion.

  “Came by right after you left, eight-fifteen, eight-thirty.” Dan’l wiped his face with his wet red bandanna. “Wasn’t real dark yet. He asked if the boss was around. I said I’m the boss here. He said, the big boss, Orion Nanopoulos.” Dan’l stretched his arms out to his side, then raised them over his head. “So, you’re the big boss?” He straightened his legs, bent down, and touched his toes. “This is shit work.”

  “Yeah,” said Orion. “Then what?”

  “I told him he just missed you. He wanted to know where you went. You probably went to get supper at the Ocean View, I said. I asked if he knew where it’s at.” Dan’l shrugged. “The guy said, ‘I can find it.’”

  “That was it?”

  “Yup.” Dan’l, eyes half-shut, a sort of smile on his face, looked at Orion.

  “Okay,” said the lead cop. “This should do it. One … two … three … lift!”

  They trudged through the last hundred feet of mud to the parking area, where Toby, the undertaker, waited in the hearse, warm and dry, engine running, listening to the generic rock on WMVY radio. The lead cop opened the back doors of the hearse and they slid in the stretcher. Toby, in the driver’s seat, watched them in the rearview mirror. He lifted a hand from the wheel in acknowledgment.

  “Guess that’s supposed to be a thank you,” said the lead cop. The two got back into their cruiser and took off, a rooster tail of muddy water settling in their wake.

  Orion’s back ached. He eased into the driver’s seat of his twenty-year-old Chevy wagon and leaned back. Should have known better than to lift one quarter of Angelo Vulpone one-handed, he told himself. Damned fool. He reached carefully into the glove compartment, found the aspirin bottle, chewed up and swallowed three without water, and leaned back again, eyes closed, waiting for the aspirin to take effect.

  A knock on his window. He opened his eyes. The guy from the Two Braves Construction pickup truck. He rolled down his window.

  “Can I help you?”

  “You the boss?”

  “I’m the fiber-optic boss,” Orion said.

  “The town guy said you’re the one I should talk to.” The man at Orion’s window was wearing the ubiquitous yellow oilskins. Raindrops trickled down his mahogany face.

  “Want to get out of the rain?” Orion indicated the side door, not wanting to bend that far unless he had to.

  “What’dya say we get a cup of coffee at Humphrey’s, and dry out.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Orion. “I’ll meet you there. What did you say your name was?”

  “I didn’t.” He pointed a wet finger at his wet chest. “You’re looking at Donald Minnowfish, antiquities officer for the tribe.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Orion rolled up the window and started the car. The inside of the windshield had fogged up during his conversation with Minnowfish, so he turned on the heater, the air conditioner, and the fan and waited until he could see out.

  Humphrey’s was less than a mile from the ball field. The Two Braves truck was already there as Orion pulled up.

  Minnowfish was seated at a small table by the window when Orion entered, a fat briefcase next to his chair. “You buying?” he asked.

  “Why not,” said Orion. “How do you take it?”

  “Double cream, double sugar. And, say,” he said as Orion turned to go to the counter, “get me a jelly donut, will you?”

  “Right,” said Orion over his shoulder.

  They went through the ritual of small talk, a necessary prelude to whatever Minnowfish really intended to say. The body at the bottom of the trench, of course. The weather. The mud. They stirred their respective coffees and discussed where Orion was from, what Two Braves Construction did. Minnowfish started in on the Red Sox and how they were going to demolish the Yankees this season. Orion assumed his pleasant look and stirred his coffee some more. Minnowfish took a couple of bites of his donut and then they got down to business.

  Minnowfish wiped powdered sugar from his mouth and reached down for the briefcase. He had intense gray-green eyes and close-cropped, light brown, tightly curled hair. “You know, don’t you, that you need permits from the tribe before excavating?”

  “I’m not excavating,” said Orion. “The town is. I’m simply laying cable in their trench.”

  “Still, you need a permit.” He opened the briefcase and took out a thick sheaf of forms.

  “What for?” said Orion, who’d researched every possible requirement for permits. He’d applied for them all, even ones he didn’t think were needed. He’d done that even though he had no intention of excavating anything.

  “Wampanoag antiquities,” said Minnowfish. “Artifacts. Fire rings. Campsites.”

  “But the ball field is new land,” said Orion. “They filled in a marsh to create it in the 1970s, before the Wetlands Act. There couldn’t have been campsites.”

  Minnowfish shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. You need a permit from the land manager, according to the 1906 Antiquities Act.” He pointed to his chest with his thumb. “That’s me.”

  “It’s town land, isn’t it? Not tribal land.”

  “You excavate that field without a permit and you’ll find out whose land it is.” Minnowfish’s dark face had become a shade darker.

  Orion could see this talk turning into a confrontation, and he’d lose if that happened. “Tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t you send a tribal rep to work alongside us and watch out for artifacts. We’ll give you GPS coordinates, documenting exactly where the artifact shows up, and your rep can turn everything we find over to the tribe along with where we found it. Would that work for you? That way, we don’t have to go through all that paperwork nonsense.” He realized immediately that he shouldn’t have used the word “nonsense.”

  Minnowfish finished his donut, wiped his fingers on a paper napkin, wadded up the napkin, took another, wiped his mouth, wadded that one up, tossed it onto the table.

  Orion waited. He hadn’t touched his donut.

 
“You said you’re not digging?”

  “That’s right. Whatever the guy from the town said, they’re doing the excavating, not us.”

  Minnowfish stood. “I’ll have someone from the tribe bird-dog you.”

  “Good plan,” said Orion. “Want my donut?”

  “Might as well. Thanks.”

  * * *

  The aspirin wasn’t helping much. Orion knew from experience that he’d better keep moving, not lie down, which is what he wanted desperately to do. He needed to think, to talk to someone. When he first arrived on the Island, he’d leased the second floor of a building a block off Main Street. He didn’t look forward to returning to his empty office where there was no one to talk to. So he headed up Island on State Road and found himself looking forward to getting home to Victoria Trumbull.

  Victoria was typing her column for the newspaper with great rapidity using the forefingers of both hands and her right thumb on the space bar. She looked up with a smile, which faded when she saw his face.

  “You’re hurting.” She pushed the typewriter aside.

  “Just my back. It’ll pass.” At her sympathetic voice he already felt marginally better.

  “Was the death an accident?”

  Orion sat down carefully next to her, keeping his back straight. “He was shot.”

  “A local man?”

  Orion sighed. “You said something about your being a police deputy.”

  “I’ve helped our local police chief on a few occasions,” said Victoria. “She appointed me her deputy.”

  “She?” asked Orion.

  “Casey, our chief of police. Mary Kathleen O’Neill.”

  “Ah.”