Vineyard Enigma

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Book: Vineyard Enigma Read Online Free PDF
Author: Philip R. Craig
table, as librarians prefer their customers to do, so the writings can be put back where they belong instead of elsewhere, and as I passed the desk, the woman sitting at the desk smiled.
    “Find what you were looking for, J.W.?”
    “I found out where I’m starting from, anyway.”
    “Come back soon.”
    “I will.”
    The young sun shone down on the clean streets of Edgartown, and the strolling early-season tourists looked happy as they window-shopped along the narrow streets and ogled the green lawns and flowers and the great white captains’ houses that lined North Water Street. Just across the harbor channel they could look at Chappaquiddick, or, if they were more adventurous, they could take the little three-car On Time ferry to the other side and go biking or driving along the winding Chappy roads.
    None of them knew of the body lying not ten miles away in a fine old West Tisbury farmhouse. And I wasn’t going to tell them about it.
    I got into my truck and went home, so I could be there when the kids got out of school.
    I wondered if Zee was still going to be abstracted when she got home from work, and thought old thoughts: Had family life begun to bore her? Had I begun to bore her? Was the wander-thirst upon her? Was her soul in Cathay? Did her fortieth birthday, although still a way in front of her, cast a shadow across her path? Forty had been easy for me, but maybe not even the thought of it was easy for her.
    For me, thirty had been the killer birthday, because it meant, somehow, that it was time for me to grow up instead of planning to do it later. Time for me to stop preparing to live and get going on the real thing. I had been depressed for several weeks, because I’d greatly enjoyed being a child.
    Maybe Zee was going through something similar. Maybe she was in one of those “there must be more to life than this” moods that can sometimes lead us to either comedy or tragedy.
    The cats, Oliver Underfoot and Velcro, welcomed me home. They were in the yard, taking advantage of the late-spring sun. I’d no sooner sat down on the porch steps to have a chat with them when I heard the phone ring. For once I was near enough to the door to avoid the mad dash that I often had to make to get there before the ringing stopped.
    Mattie Skye was the caller. “Plans have changed. Bring the kids with you when you come for supper. John will grill burgers and hot dogs. We’ll eat early, so your tads can get home to bed in time. Zee and I can catch up on woman things when you men have finished telling us all about finding Matthew Duarte.”
    “I imagine John and Mahsimba have already told you what there is to tell.”
    “If a story is worth hearing once, it’s worth hearing twice, and, besides, maybe you’ll remember something John forgot.”
    “Not likely.”
    “Five-thirty?”
    “Sounds good.”
    I hung up feeling hopeful. Maybe Mattie Skye could find out what was causing Zee’s mood.
    I opened a small can of cat food, divided it into two dishes, and went to the door.
    “Snack time!”
    The cats, with comforting predictability, came running.

6
    Zee was glad to learn of Mattie’s invitation, and Joshua and Diana were even more delighted because it was a school night and they were going visiting anyway, and, better yet, because they were going to see the Skye twins, two of their favorite people.
    While Zee got out of her working clothes and into her civvies, I leaned against the bedroom door frame and told her about meeting Mahsimba and finding Matthew Duarte’s body.
    Since Zee was a nurse and worked at the hospital emergency ward, suffering and death were not new to her; still, homicide is always interesting to most people, since they find it almost impossible to imagine why anyone would do such a thing, and Zee was instantly attentive.
    “Shot in the head, you say?”
    “That’s the initial report, anyway.”
    “When did it happen? Do they know?”
    “The medical examiner will give his best guess
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