Third Strike (20 page)

We got out. J.W. stood there, shaking his head. A meadow of brown grass and low-growing shrubs rolled away to some woods a hundred yards or so from the road. A stone wall demarcated the meadow from the woods. The meadow was open. The woods were dense.

“I don't know,” said J.W. “Any thoughts?”

“Me?” I said. “Nope. So far, about all I would surmise is that Lundsberg was not focusing on buildings or population centers. These two places are the opposite of that.”

J.W. nodded. “Remote. Or as remote as you can find on the Vineyard. Places to go to get away from people. You could walk across that meadow and disappear into those woods.”

He nodded. “Let's keep looking.”

We got back into the car. J.W. spread his map across both of our laps and pointed to one of the circles he'd drawn. The state forest was marked in green, and along its northern edge there was a jog in the outline. J.W. had circled that area. “There's nothing there,” he said, jabbing at the circle. “No roads go in. No hiking trails, even. It's just woods and fields. We could poke around in there for a week, and even if there was something to be seen, we might not see it. Let's skip that one and head over here.” He pointed to his next circle.

On J.W.'s map, it was located inside the green state forest area off Old County Road in West Tisbury.

As he drove, I followed along on the map. We took a dirt road into the western part of the state forest, and pretty soon J.W. turned onto a pair of ruts that weren't on his map.

The ruts ended abruptly at a line of boulders that somebody had rolled there to keep vehicles from proceeding any farther. J.W. stopped, and we got out.

On the other side of the boulders a pair of ruts disappeared into the woods.

“Aha,” said J.W.

“Quoting Sherlock Holmes?” I said.

“Quoting Kermit the Frog,” he said, “who also said, The game is afoot.”

“I don't think Kermit said that,” I said. “Kermit said, When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

“That was Yogi Berra,” said J.W.

“Well,” I said, “this appears to be a fork with just a single tine on it, so shall we take it?”

“We shall.”

“Lead on, MacDuff.”

“Now you're quoting Casey Stengel,” said J.W.

The old ruts headed east, back toward the middle of the state forest. The deeper we went into the woods, the narrower was the old roadway, until we found ourselves walking single file along a barely discernible trail.

After ten minutes or so, I said, “You sure this is right?”

“From what I remember on Lundsberg's map,” said J.W., “he was pinpointing an area that would be about a mile down this trail. We should be getting to it, whatever it is.”

“Are you seeing footprints or anything?”

He chuckled. “I've got my hands full just following the trail.”

A minute later he stopped and pointed. “Somebody went up there recently,” he said.

The ground sloped upward, and I saw where some weeds had been crushed down as if they'd been stepped on.

J.W. got down on his hands and knees, and after a minute he looked up at me. “There's a heel print here where the ground is soft. It's not that old, either. Look.”

I looked, and I saw what he saw. “Looks like a boot,” I said. “The edges are pretty distinct. Made within the past couple of days, I bet. You can sort of see the rest of the print. It sinks pretty deep. A heavy person with a good-sized foot made it.”

J.W. grinned at me. “Bwana,” he said.

We were able to follow the trail of stepped-on weeds, occasional boot prints, and here and there a broken branch, to the top of a little brushy knoll. Through the bushes we could see the ocean off to our right. Straight in front of us, maybe a quarter of a mile away, was the Vineyard airport.

As we stood there on the knoll, a plane suddenly came from behind us, so low that I instinctively ducked. It was a two-engine prop plane, the kind that would carry twelve passengers.

It touched down on a runway and taxied directly away from us.

I turned to J.W. and patted my heart. “Scared me,” I said.

He nodded, but his frown told me he wasn't paying much attention to me.

“What is it?” I said to him.

“Look here.” He showed me some places where tree branches and bushes had been cut off. They created the opening in the foliage through which we had been looking toward the airport.

“All these other places we've been exploring,” I said.

He nodded. “There are a couple we haven't checked out yet, but from where they are on the map, I already know what we'll find.”

“Vantage points overlooking the airport,” I said. “What do you make of it?”

J.W. shook his head. “Ex-Prez Callahan is flying in tonight, right?”

“That's the rumor.”

He spread his hands open, suggesting that the conclusion was obvious.

“You think…?”

“I'd like to know what was in those crates that Larry Bucyck saw them unloading on Lundsberg's dock the other night.” He turned and headed back down the trail. “Come on.”

I followed him back to the Land Cruiser. We climbed in and J.W. started it up.

“I assume we're going straight to state-police headquarters without passing Go,” I said.

“Why?”

“Why?” I said. “To tell them what we know. To report it to the authorities.”

“No,” he said. “I mean, why do you assume that?”

“Because it's the prudent and responsible thing to do?”

“And what exactly do we know that we should report?” he said. “That we found some broken twigs in the woods?”

“Well, yeah, that,” I said, “plus there was Lundsberg's map, and there is what Frazier told us, and there's what happened to Larry Bucyck, and there's Doyle and Mortison, and…” I shook my head.

He turned and looked at me. “And?”

“That's not enough?”

He smiled. “You don't know Olive Otero and Dom Agganis the way I do. They're good cops, all right. But they're cautious. By the book. Plus, I've had some, um, run-ins with them over the years. This morning, that fiasco at Lundsberg's place, that was the worst.”

I nodded. “That was bad. On the other hand, yesterday we did produce Larry Bucyck's dead body for them.”

“Big difference,” he said, “a dead body, a few broken branches in the woods.”

“I guess when you put it that way,” I said, “Olive and Dom are probably fed up with our stories. They probably think you and I have been crying wolf a lot lately. To me it adds up. But without some kind of proof, or somebody who's actually in on it to explain it, it just sounds like…supposition.”

“That's not what it sounds like,” he said. “It's what it is. Supposition. At best. We don't know anything. We've got proof of nothing.” J.W. put the Land Cruiser in gear and headed back toward Old County Road. “I got an idea,” he said.

“I bet you do,” I said. “See if we can find somebody with Uzis to shoot at us.”

“That's a good idea, too,” he said, “and maybe it'll work out that way. But if we can't make that happen, the least we can do is come up with some concrete evidence we can hand over to Agganis. That'll show him that we weren't hallucinating about what we saw at Dr. Lundsberg's place last night. Then maybe he'll listen to us.”

“Good plan,” I said, “except where are we going to find concrete evidence?”

“Stick with me,” he said.

“Is the game afoot?”

“The game is definitely afoot,” he said, “and an arm and a leg.”

“Zounds,” I said.

He turned right onto Old County Road, heading north toward Vineyard Haven.

“Back to the church?” I said.

He nodded. “I got my lock picks with me.”

“As a lawyer and an officer of the court,” I said, “I am compelled to tell you that any evidence gained by an illegal search, plus all evidence that results from that evidence, is tainted. Fruit of the poisoned tree and inadmissible in a court of law.”

“Thank you, Clarence Darrow,” said J.W. “Right now the admissibility of evidence is the least of my concerns.”

I shrugged. “Me, too.”

Fifteen or twenty minutes later we were on the road that went past Father Zapata's church. When we came to the sandy driveway that angled into the parking lot beside the church building, J.W. slowed down enough for us to see that no vehicles appeared to be parked there. But he kept going, driving slowly past the scrubby woods and an occasional shingled house, and he didn't stop for about a quarter of a mile, where we came upon a low white ranch-style building with swings and seesaws and jungle gyms in the side lot and a sign reading
HAPPY TOT DAY CARE
out front.

No vehicles were parked in that lot, either. Day-care centers were evidently closed on Sundays.

J.W. turned onto the Happy Tot driveway and drove around behind the building. He nosed the Land Cruiser up to the back of the building beside a Dumpster and turned off the ignition.

He opened the glove compartment and withdrew a black leather case.

I pointed at it. “Your lock-picking implements?”

He nodded and slipped the lock-picking kit into his shirt pocket.

“They teach you to pick locks in the army?”

“Self-taught,” he said. He rummaged around in the glove compartment again and came out with a cell phone. He turned it on and looked at it. “Still got some battery. You got your cell with you?”

I patted my pocket. “Yes.”

“Got my number on your speed dial?”

“All I've got is Zee's number from last summer when I called you from the ferry landing.”

“That's what I meant,” he said. “This is her phone.”

We got out of the Land Cruiser. J.W. held up the ignition key for me to see, then bent down and shoved it into the dirt under the right front tire. He smoothed over the dirt, then looked up at me with his eyebrows arched.

I nodded.

We began moving through the woods parallel to the road, heading back to the church. We stayed close enough to the road that we could see passing vehicles, but far enough from it that nobody driving a passing vehicle would see us. When we came to a house, we went around it, keeping trees and bushes between us and the yard. The last thing we needed was to be reported as Peeping Toms or vagrants.

We approached the church from the woods behind it. We moved slowly to the edge, crouched behind some bushes, and verified that no cars had arrived in the lot since we'd driven past. The doors and windows of the building were shut and presumably locked. The place looked deserted.

“I'm going to go in and see what's in that padlocked room,” J.W. whispered. “You stand watch out here. I got the phone set on vibrate. You do the same. If anything happens, anybody shows up, friend or foe, hit my cell number, let it buzz twice, then disconnect and get the hell out of here. Slip into the woods and head back to the Land Cruiser. I'll meet you there. If I don't show up in some reasonable amount of time, don't hesitate to just drive away.”

“Why are you whispering?” I whispered.

He smiled. “Because we are being furtive and clandestine.”

“If you want me to come inside,” I said, “vibrate me.”

We took another look around, then scooted to the back of the building. J.W. went to the back door. It would open directly on to the front-to-back corridor where the locked room was located.

I crouched behind an azalea bush at the rear corner of the building. From there I could see the road and the driveway and most of the parking lot. If anybody drove in, I'd spot him in time to warn J.W. and give him a chance to get out.

It seemed to take him forever to get the back door unlocked, but when I looked at my watch, it had been only about five minutes. I didn't know whether that was efficient or bumbling lock-picking, but I was impressed that he'd done it at all.

He looked over at me, gave me a thumbs-up, and slipped inside, where another lock-picking challenge faced him.

I waited there behind the azalea, alternating my attention between my watch and the entry to the church parking lot. I didn't know whether padlocks were more or less challenging than door locks, but another ten or fifteen minutes came and went and J.W. neither reappeared nor sent me a cell-phone signal.

Then a van turned into the driveway.

I didn't hesitate. I hit Zee's speed-dial number on my cell, let it vibrate a couple times, and disconnected.

The van turned its side to me at the front of the building, and I saw that it was Father Zapata's landscaping truck. It reminded me that Larry had seen a van at Dr. Lundsberg's, and men were loading crates into it. I was willing to bet it was the same van.