Dead in Vineyard Sand, page 10
“Nobody looks like a photographer; not even photographers look like photographers, so it’ll be okay. Just stand around and listen and take a lot of pictures. That’s what photographers do: they take hundreds of pictures so they can get one good one.”
“I want to find out why Nathan Shelkrott got so stressed by the drowning at the beach.”
“Leave the questions to me. You just take pictures and keep your ears open.”
There was something odd in her tone, and I turned in my seat and looked at her. “What’s the problem, Susan? Something’s bothering you about the interview. What is it?”
“Am I so transparent?”
“We knew each other pretty well a long time ago.”
She nodded. “I remember. All right; the problem is that Tiffany isn’t the sweetest kid I’ve ever met, and the same goes for some of the others who were there that night.”
“They sounded innocent as lambs in your article.”
“Do you actually know any innocent teenagers?”
“I know a few.” Not too many, actually. I hadn’t been a squeaky-clean teen myself, for that matter. I’d done things I still wouldn’t tell my father if he were alive.
“You can judge Tiffany for yourself.”
We crossed the town line into Chilmark, came to the green mailbox, and turned onto a narrow, bumpy dirt road. There are such roads all over Martha’s Vineyard, leading off paved roads and winding through second-or third-growth forests and over hills that were bare of trees a hundred years earlier, when the island was covered with sheep and cattle pastures instead of summer houses. The roads are often kept bumpy to discourage unnecessary traffic and usually split up into even narrower branches leading first to this house and then the next and finally to the last of them, which nowadays, increasingly often, is a new palace with a view.
The Browns, according to a small, arrow-shaped sign, lived on the second branch of the main road. We went that way and came to the house, a big, rambling farmhouse with outbuildings in back, all of which were sided with weathered cedar shingles and sported gray-painted trim. It was classic Vineyard architecture. The lawns were cut and there was none of the clutter that so often spells poverty. Everything was almost too neat, like the pictures you see in magazines about fine living. To the south there was a distant view of the Atlantic, and to the west you could see Menemsha Pond, where, perhaps, Mr. Brown moored his boat during the summer. There was a flower garden on the sunny side of the house, with a white metal umbrella table and chairs in its center.
A woman and a teenage girl came out of the house. Both were wearing casual rich-girl clothes, old and comfortable but very pricey stuff. Both of them were blond and wore their hair fairly short. They looked almost like sisters until you looked again.
The woman put out her manicured hand. “How nice to see you again, Miss Bancroft.”
The women shook hands and Susan gestured at me. “This is J. W. Jackson. He’ll be taking photos, if you don’t mind.”
Barbara Brown looked at me and said coolly, “I didn’t expect a photographer. I’d prefer it if no photographs were taken. This has been a trying time for us all.” She placed a possessive hand on her daughter’s shoulder and I saw the shoulder shrink.
I put a smile on my face and said, “Just as you wish, Mrs. Brown,” and put my camera back in the case I’d slung over one shoulder.
“I remember you, Tiffany,” said Susan. “We met at a terrible time for you, but you were very coherent and helpful in spite of the shock.”
Tiffany looked wary. “I remember you too.”
“As I told you on the phone,” said Susan to Mrs. Brown, “I’m doing a follow-up story about the tragedy. I want to explore the after-effects of such an event. I plan to talk with the people at the beach party and with their families. I know it may be hard for Tiffany, but she was the most mature student I spoke to that night and her thoughts and feelings will be important in my story.”
“I have coffee in the kitchen,” said Barbara Brown, with the smile she no doubt used to extract charity money from the pockets of wealthy philanthropists. “Why don’t I bring some out and we can sit in the garden while you do your interview? Tiffany, why don’t you show Susan the way? Mr. Jackson, I do hope I haven’t offended you. If you’ll leave your equipment in your car, I’ll be pleased to have you join us for coffee.”
The mother walked into the house and the daughter led Susan to the garden table. I took the camera bag to Susan’s car, tossed it into the backseat, and went up to the garden. There was so much fraud in the air that I felt like I was walking through a cloud.
Barbara Brown set the coffee tray on the table between herself and her daughter, and poured three cups. No coffee for Tiffany. I took mine black and made sure my chair was a bit outside the circle of women.
Susan, I thought, was up against two people who didn’t want to tell her anything that might reflect badly on them. In that respect they were like most people who were often in the spotlight. The rest of us can get away with sometimes foolish speech or acts because no one pays much attention to what we say or do, but the rich and famous cannot because their faux pas can be headline news.
I didn’t know how famous or rich the Browns really were, but Barbara Brown was clearly conscious of her social position and wasn’t about to stray far from her daughter’s side when a reporter was around. My impression was that Tiffany would have preferred Mom to be elsewhere.
Susan, however, was apparently used to such people and began her interview with more flattery about Tiffany’s maturity before easing on to nonthreatening ground: Tiffany’s memory of the earlier, happier portions of the beach party. No questions were asked about drugs, alcohol or, sex, and no information was volunteered.
A small, possibly cynical smile touched Tiffany’s lips as she described the fire and the hamburgers and hot dogs and chips and the music and the dancing and the early swimming. Just a bunch of teenage friends having a good time together.
No, they hadn’t all gotten there at the same time. Some had arrived a bit later. Greg and Belinda Highsmith were the last arrivals. Tiffany’s lips began to form a word, but she never spoke it. Her eyes shone.
Yes, she said to Susan, most of them attended St. James Manor, but a few were from other schools: Bitsy Evans was from Inverness, and Margy Collins and her brother Biff, Greg’s best friend, were from Tuttle and had come from Nantucket just for the party. There had been, let’s see, fourteen of them in all. They and their parents had met over the years and all were friends or acquaintances. There were no new kids there.
Barbara Brown sipped her coffee and emphasized the closeness of the participants and their families. All very good families, very good. Everyone had been devastated by Heather Willet’s death.
Susan could well understand that and their consternation at how such a tragedy could have happened.
Tiffany opened her mouth but it was Barbara who spoke, explaining that as it was getting dark, four of the kids went off for a final swim. Who were the four? Why, poor Heather, of course, and Belinda and Greg (those two poor dears are never far apart, are they, Tiffany?), and Biff Collins. Isn’t that right, Tiffany?
Yes, Mother.
Yes, and Biff is the captain of his swimming team and is going to be lifeguarding at Nantucket this summer, and he swam way out into the sound and came back and found Belinda and Greg running up and down the beach and calling for Heather. Isn’t that right, Tiffany?
Yes, Mother.
And then everybody was looking and Margy Collins called 911 on her cell phone and when the police and divers and the others finally got there they eventually found poor Heather off to the east by the rocks. It was almost midnight and it was all just terrible. Poor Tiffany and the others were so brave and Barbara was proud of them all, but it was an awful shock to everyone.
“And how have the survivors coped since then? Have there been any changes in thoughts or feelings about life?”
“Well,” said Barbara, “there was absolutely no question but that the children had taken a new look at life. It was like they had been thrust suddenly into adulthood, into a more mature understanding of things. They were still children, of course, but they were more thoughtful, more . . . more grown up and serious.”
Tiffany said that everyone had gone to the funeral back in Connecticut and that Heather’s parents had been devastated and that the kids had felt just terrible but hadn’t had much to say at first but now they were getting back together again, though things weren’t the same, you know?
“It’s been a weird summer,” she said, gesturing and knocking over the coffeepot. The coffee spilled on her mother’s thigh and Barbara gave a little scream and pushed away from the table and brushed furiously at her slacks.
“Damn! Look what you’ve done!” She caught her anger before it came out more strongly. “Please be more careful, dear! Oh, what a mess! Please excuse me. I’ll have to change.” She rose and tried a laugh. “Well, accidents do happen in the best of families. I’ll bring more coffee. No, please don’t get up. I’m fine. Just stay right there.”
She glared at Tiffany and went into the house.
I looked at Tiffany. “She’s gone,” I said.
Tiffany looked at Susan. Her face was twisted. “I hate her! She’s such a phony! They’re all phonies! You know why Greg and Belinda were late? Because they had to sneak out of their house. Their parents didn’t want them going to parties! And you know why Heather went swimming with them and Biff? Because she had the hots for Greg, that’s why! She was naked when they found her. Did the cops tell you that? I bet they didn’t!”
Susan stared at her and the girl gave a laugh that sounded like the bark of a dog.
“Tell me about Heather,” I said.
“She was a bitch in heat,” said Tiffany. “I don’t miss her, and neither does anyone else!”
“Who brought the booze and dope?” I asked.
Tiffany gave me a look of contempt. “It was BYO, as usual. You use it, you bring it.”
“Do you all have a dealer?”
She studied me. “I’m going to deny all of this, you know. If they put my hand on the Bible, I’ll still deny it.”
“Fine. Do you have a dealer?”
She looked at the doorway through which her mother had gone. “I get what I need from my friends. I don’t need a dealer.”
“How about an obstetrician or a gynecologist?”
“No, but they’re not hard to find.”
The house door opened and Barbara Brown came out, bringing more coffee.
Tiffany closed her mouth. Susan scribbled on her notepad. I accepted another cup of black coffee. As I sipped it and Barbara Brown spoke to Susan, commenting about how the tragedy had brought everyone closer together and had sensitized them to the real values in life, I caught Tiffany’s eye and she gave me a smile that was so cynical that I could have choked on it when I swallowed.
15
“Well,” said Susan, as we drove away. “Quite a show, I’d say.”
“A lot of kids that age are mad at their parents.”
“The girl seemed just as bitter about her friends, if you can call them that.”
I thought of the motive that had brought me here and said, “When I get mad it’s usually because some part of my world seems in danger.”
“The wit and wisdom of Psych 101,” said Susan. “Well, did you learn what you wanted to learn?”
“Maybe. If we can believe Tiffany, the Highsmith kids sneaked out of the house that night and the Willett girl not only wanted sex with Greg but lost her bathing suit while she was off with him and the other two kids. Maybe his knowledge of that was what put Nathan Shelkrott in the hospital. Did you know she was naked when they found her? It wasn’t in your story.”
She nodded. “I knew about it and I saw the beer cans and vodka bottles, but I couldn’t be sure about sex and drugs so I didn’t write about them. I haven’t seen the final autopsy report, so I don’t know what it says, but unless the police decide to arrest somebody for something, I doubt if it would be much of a story even then.”
“You could write it using what Tiffany said just now.”
She shook her head. “I need collaboration. I can’t use the accusations of one upset teenager who’ll deny everything under oath. I need to talk with more people.”
“The kids have had time to agree on a story.”
“Yes, but Tiffany spilled the beans and some of the others may, too, whether or not they’ve all agreed to tell the same tale. I’ll see as many of them as I can, using the same follow-up-story ploy I used with the Browns. Now, though, I can use Tiffany’s little tantrum to maybe pry out some information I couldn’t have gotten before.”
“You still need a photographer?”
“It’ll take me a while to set up more interviews, and this time I’ll ask if I can bring a cameraman along. If anybody says it’s okay, you’re welcome to join me.”
Susan dropped me off at our house and I looked at my watch. It was the good $9.99 kind that did everything it was supposed to do and was cheap enough so you didn’t have to go into mourning if you broke or lost it. No one should ever pay more than $9.99 for a watch, but a lot of people do. Mine told me that I still had some time before I had to pick up Joshua and Diana and the Nelson kids.
I drove to the hospital and nobody followed me. Zee spoke before I could even open my mouth.
“I finally have some good news for you,” she said. “Mattie and I and all our kids are going on a shopping trip to New Bedford in a few days and we’re not taking our husbands.”
“Are you leaving your credit card at home?”
“Absolutely not. I’m just leaving you.”
“Thanks for that, at least. I don’t suppose you know where Nathan Shelkrott is.”
Zee picked up a pile of papers. I tried but failed to read them upside down. “When he left here,” she said, “Nathan was headed for home.”
Home was the Highsmith place, I guessed, up on Middle Road in Chilmark. Whatever Henry Highsmith’s other qualities might have been, he had good taste in real estate. Middle Road is about as pretty a road as you can find on Martha’s Vineyard and Chilmark is its prettiest township.
“You’re snooping,” said Zee, sounding neither surprised nor enthusiastic. “It’s because of that car business, isn’t it?”
“I’d like to know who was in it. Has anybody followed you?”
“Not that I know of. I’m sure that both the police and I would be happier if you left the detecting to them.”
“If you notice anybody following you, I want you to drive to a police station without stopping.”
She put a hand on my arm. “All right, but I don’t want you to worry about me. What happened this morning?”
“I may have learned some things that the police don’t know.” I told her about Tiffany and her mother, then asked, “Did you know that Heather Willet was naked when they found her body?”
She nodded. “I was on duty when they brought her here.”
All of the dead bodies on the Vineyard are brought to the hospital before traveling on to the medical examiner or to funeral homes.
“Did you think there was anything significant about the body being naked?”
“No, because skinny-dipping isn’t a lost art.” She paused. “And neither is teenage sex.”
“Did you see any indication that she might have had sex?”
“I didn’t make a thorough examination. Besides, she’d been in the water for hours and water is an effective cleanser. For what it’s worth, the ME didn’t find any indication that the girl had had any recent sex.”
I didn’t know whether or not to be surprised. “Recent?”
She shrugged. “She wasn’t a virgin.”
“I didn’t read about that in the papers.”
“It wasn’t in the papers. Probably out of respect for the family. The girl was dead, after all, so what difference did it make?”
None, probably. I wondered if Mommy and Daddy had known about their little girl’s private life. How old had Heather been? Fifteen?
“What did you make of the contusions and abrasions on the body?”
Zee looked up at me. “You’re awfully interested in Heather Willet all of a sudden.”
“Humor me.”
She went back to her papers. “Like I said, I didn’t do a thorough examination, but the bruises on her head looked consistent with a fall against a hard object. They found the body in the water just outside those rocks on the east end of the beach, remember, and if she’d been drinking . . .”
“Had she?”
“The ME said yes, although I don’t think the girl was officially drunk. Anyway, I thought it was possible that she’d been drinking and had wandered away from the other kids and had fallen and hit her head on a rock and drowned. The abrasions looked consistent with damage caused by the body being tumbled against rocks. The ME came to the same conclusion.”
“No sign of foul play.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? What’s Henry Highsmith’s death got to do with Heather Willet? You should keep your focus.” She gave me a worried look, such as wives give when their husbands go through midlife crises.
“My focus is just fine,” I said. “Here’s what we have so far: First, Henry Highsmith tries to start a fight with me in the fish shop for no good reason and then he and his wife both get themselves shot. Then some guys in a car follow me and call me a killer. Today I learn that the two Highsmith kids sneaked out of their house a couple of weeks earlier to attend a beach party where, according to Tiffany Brown, Heather Willet, who has the hots for the Highsmith boy, goes off with him and his sister and another kid and ends up naked and dead. You tell me that Wilma Shelkrott brought her husband to the hospital because she was afraid he was having a heart attack brought on by the party. That’s two deaths and two hospitalizations involving the Highsmiths. I’d like to know why Nathan Shelkrott panicked because of the beach party.”
She spread her hands. “Maybe he felt responsible somehow. Maybe the parents left the Shelkrotts in charge of the kids, and the kids escaped and ended up in the middle of a party where booze and drugs were involved and a friend drowned. Maybe he was afraid he and his wife would get fired.”
