Off Season (28 page)

Consistent with this wisdom, Joey Percell waited until the cold weather was gone.

He came in late April, when I was through scalloping and had relaxed my guard and was getting my gear in shape for the first bluefish of the season, which usually make their appearance about the middle of May, as they come north from the Carolinas. I planned to be ready for them.

I had been mulling over the news that the Commission had finally bought the Norton land and was going to allow all of its traditional uses to be
continued. This was a setback for the animal rights people, but not one that would defeat them, for they were a passionate bunch who would never lay down their flag.

I had also been thinking about the rumor that Nash Cortez was seriously courting Mimi Bettencourt. Well, why not? Vegetarian Mimi had lived with an omnivorous man before, so why not again? She and Nash could take turns using the typewriter to write letters to the editor contradicting each other's arguments about guns and gunners.

Joey was a pretty patient guy. As someone said of Italians, vengeance was a meal he preferred to eat cold. Four months had passed since last we'd met, and I was not thinking of Joey. Actually, I was thinking of Oliver Underfoot and Velcro. Following one of their periods of mad pursuit, with first one, then the other in the lead as they tore from room to room, they were now either sleeping or up to no good somewhere else in Zee's house. There was a lot of silence, which could mean either nap time or bad kittens at work. Both Oliver Underfoot and Velcro had grown immensely since I had given them to Zee. Oliver in particular promised to be a large cat, indeed, but his brain had not caught up with his body. Both of them were still all kitten.

I had spent the night in West Tisbury, and Zee had gone off to work at the hospital. I was washing up the breakfast dishes in her sunny kitchen, and listening for the sound of something being knocked off a bureau or rolled across the floor.

Instead, I heard the front door open. Unlike Zee, who locks things up, I leave them unlatched. I looked up as Joey Percell walked in and pushed the door shut behind him. He had a pistol in his hand.

I was flabbergasted and must have shown it.

“Surprise,” said Joey. His smile, below a large black moustache that I'd not seen on him before, was not a pleasant one.

My hands were in the rinse water. I left them there. I think my mouth was hanging open.

Joey flicked his hard eyes here and there as he crossed the living room and dining room and came to the door of the kitchen.

I finally got my brain and my tongue slightly in sync.

I said, “Before you start shooting up the joint, maybe you should know that there's a platoon of marines in the master bedroom. How did you manage to find me here? I figured that if you showed up, it would be at my place.”

“I figured you'd figure that. That's why I'm here instead of there. I been down here on this fucking island for almost a week following you and your girlfriend around till I got your routines straight. I was careless about you before, but not this time.”

I hadn't seen a thing, and told him so.

“You weren't supposed to see a thing. What do you think? I'm so bad at my work that you'd see me? And don't give me any of that marines in the bedroom kind of shit. You're here all by your lonesome.” He lifted the pistol. “And you're gonna die all by your lonesome.”

I thought he was probably right. I felt very cold and fatalistic. I was conscious of my hands in the warm rinse water. I closed one around the handle of Zee's nice big cast-iron frying pan.

My mouth said, “You don't want to shoot me, Joey. You'd never get off the island.”

“I got on it, I'll get off it. Hell, I been staying in the
motel in Vineyard Haven, and I got reservations on the noon boat. Mr. Antonelli, that's me. This moustache makes me look like a real wop, don't you think? Nobody knows who I really am or that I'm here. And nobody will find you till I'm long gone. Your little sugar baby is gonna have quite a shock when she gets home. I wish I could see it.”

“I'm not alone here,” my dry mouth said. “You've made a mistake.”

“No mistake, wise guy. You never should have fucked with me that second time. Nobody does that to me. I can't afford it. I got a reputation to uphold, you know?” He pointed the pistol at me. “Say goodbye, asshole.”

I barely got it out: “Goodbye, asshole.”

“Smart mouth to the end. You never learn, do you?” The muzzle of the pistol looked as big as Mammoth Cave. I could see his trigger finger tighten.

In the living room behind him something hit the floor with a thud, and there was a rush of sound toward Joey's back. He spun around and fired a shot that would have hit a human dead center, but instead passed well over the heads of Oliver Underfoot and Velcro as they tore into the kitchen, away from their latest mischief. Velcro, terrified by the sound of the pistol, leaped and clamped all four feet onto Joey's leg, further distracting him just enough for me to take two long strides and lay the frying pan onto his ear.

Joey went down like Humpty Dumpty and didn't move.

Zee was impressed when I told her the story. She hugged Velcro and Oliver Underfoot and then hugged me again, and then went to her living room door and put her finger on the bullet hole that was
above the knob. Then she cried and said, “Is this how it's going to be when we get married? You having people coming to kill you?”

“Of course not,” I said. “They've got Joey on attempted murder charges this time. And I figure they'll make them stick.”

But Zee wasn't listening. She had Velcro and Oliver Underfoot in her arms again and was kissing them and thanking them and calling them brave kittens.

Later, she allowed me to fix us each a double vodka on the rocks, and we sat in front of her fireplace. She leaned against me. “I don't want anything to happen to you,” she said. “You know, the weird thing is, I was in the emergency room when they brought him in. I helped work on him before they flew him off to the mainland. And after he tried to shoot you! Maybe it's a good thing I didn't know about that until later. You must have really whacked him. He has a fractured skull.”

“I whacked him as well as I could.”

“Can they keep him in jail?”

“He'll be in the hospital for a while, I imagine. After that somebody will try to post bail for him. But I don't think Joey's going to slip out of this noose. I think my testimony will put him away for quite a while. Unless, of course, he decides to talk about his work with the mob. If he does that, maybe he can make a deal with the D.A. and the Feds.”

“Yes, he'll be in bed for quite a while. And my frying pan did it! Oh, I'm glad you're all right!”

“Me too.”

“He won't come back here again, will he?”

“He hasn't had very good luck on the Vineyard. No, I think he'll stay far away from here.”

Oliver Underfoot climbed into Zee's lap and began
to buzz. Soon Velcro also appeared and attached herself to the front of my shirt.

“Dueling buzzers,” said Zee.

In late May, Dom Agganis told me that Joey Percell had made a deal to talk about his boss in Providence and was going to enter the witness protection program. Two weeks later, they found Joey hog-tied in the trunk of his burning car in a junkyard north of New Bedford. Whoever had put him there had shot him several times too, just to make sure.

“I guess somebody else besides me found out about Joey's plans,” said Dom. “Saves the cost of his trial, anyway.”

It was a beautiful sunny day and Dom was off duty. The bluefish had been in for three weeks, and it was two hours before the last of the east tide.

“Say,” I said. “You want to go fishing?”

“Does a wolf howl at the moon?”

So we headed for Wasque.

THE MARTHA'S VINEYARD MYSTERY SERIES BY PHILIP R. CRAIG

A Beautiful Place to Die

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #1)

Death in Vineyard Waters

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #2)

Vineyard Deceit

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #3)

Vineyard Fear

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #4)

Off Season

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #5)

A Case of Vineyard Poison

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #6)

Death on a Vineyard Beach

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #7)

A Deadly Vineyard Holiday

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #8)

A Shoot on Martha's Vineyard

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #9)

A Fatal Vineyard Season

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #10)

Vineyard Blues

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #11)

Vineyard Shadows

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #12)

Vineyard Enigma

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #13)

A Vineyard Killing

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #14)

Murder at a Vineyard Mansion

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #15)

Vineyard Prey

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #16)

Dead in Vineyard Sand

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #17)

Vineyard Stalker

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #18)

Vineyard Chill

(Martha's Vineyard Mystery #19)

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1994 by Philip R. Craig

Originally published in hardcover as
Off Season

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ISBN 978-1-5011-5297-9 (ebook)