with you. Youâll want to write this down because itâs more than one sentence. Are you ready?â
âI doubt if Sergeant Agganis needs to hear anything you have to say.â
âI donât expect you to understand anything more complicated than tying your shoes, Olive, but I think Dom might. Ready or not, here I come.â
She opened a drawer and brought out a mini tape recorder. âIâd better use this. Your gibberish will need translation, and Iâm sure as hell not up to it.â She punched a button and sat back. âShoot.â
I told the machine what Iâd learned from Bonzo. When I was through, Olive said, âIs that all?â
âThatâs all.â
She shut off the machine. âItâs not much,â she said, but she was thinking.
âIf Dom can come up with a photo of Kirkland, he can show it to Bonzo, maybe Bonzo can ID him as the guy in the car.â
âWe donât need you telling us how to do our jobs. If you donât have anything else to say, the door is right over there. And stay out of police business!â
âSay thank you, Olive.â
âThank you and good-bye, emphasis on good-bye. â
I glanced back as I went out. Olive was rewinding the tape, looking thoughtful.
In spite of our mutual hostility, I knew she had to be good at her work or else Dom would have long since figured out a way to get rid of her. By the time she finished replaying the tape I was pretty sure that sheâd be considering the same possibilities that I was: that if the guy Bonzo had seen had been Kirkland, Kirkland had been in the parking lot twice and both times on purpose rather than by chance.
Like me, she might also go further and guess that the parking lot had been chosen because somebody knew it would be a pretty quiet spot this time of year and because Kirkland, an off-islander, knew heâd probably not be recognized even if somebody did see him there.
The questions I couldnât guess at were why the two people were meeting and whether the driver the first time was later the killer. Could be, since Kirkland may have been a passenger the first time and was definitely the driver when he was killed. Still, it was a start. There werenât that many green Range Rovers on the island, and most of them belonged to Saberfox. Of course, even if the man Bonzo had seen had indeed been Kirkland, it didnât necessarily mean anything.
But it felt like it did.
I drove home and planted peas. On Marthaâs Vineyard you plant your peas in March, so when other early-spring gardeners meet you and say, âGotcher peas in yet?â you can say, âYes.â By June, just after youâve finished eating the last of your asparagus, you can start eating fresh peas and pea pods. And not much later you can be eating your beans. Gardens are terrific. God was being pretty vindictive when he threw Adam and Eve out of theirs. No wonder there are so many people mad at Her.
I met Joshua and Diana when they came off the ferry not long before Zee came home from work, and all of us had some hot cocoa and cookies to keep us from starving before supper.
âPa?â
âWhat, Josh?â
âWhenâs school going to be out?â
âIn June. Thatâs about three more months. Why?â
âIâm tired of studying. I want to go to the beach.â
âMe, too, Pa.â Diana the huntress, ever on the prowl for more food, reached for another cookie.
âYouâll freeze your bippies if you go to the beach these days. Itâs cold out there.â
âNo, itâs not.â
âIf you donât think so, put on your bathing suits and go out and sit in the yard for a while.â
The children looked at each other with happy, surprised expressions.
âUh-oh,â said Zee. âNow youâve done it. Itâs too cold, kids. Youâll get sick.â
âBeing cold doesnât make you