“Because an actor is dead? How callous.” Victoria looked around the table. “Do any of you intend to go on stage tonight?”

  “Count me out,” said Dawn.

  Howland nodded at Roderick Hill, his understudy. “You’re welcome to the monster’s role.” He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and unfolded it. “Here are your fangs.” He set the false teeth on the table in front of Roderick. “And your claws.”

  “I can’t handle it,” said Bruce Duncan, his elbows on the table, his forehead resting on his clasped hands.

  “I was close to Peg,” said Gerard Cohen. “I’d rather not go on tonight. Sorry, Dearborn.”

  “I know Henry Clerval’s lines,” said Bob Scott, a slight man with dirt-stained jeans and a shaggy beard. Scott opened and closed the play as the Arctic explorer. “Bruce and I don’t ever appear on stage at the same time.”

  Dearborn studied Scott. “I hope you’ll trim your beard, as I asked you to before.”

  Scott grinned. “The ladies like it rough the way it is.”

  Dearborn turned away without further comment. “Thank you, my friends. Those of you who intend to go on stage tonight, be at the playhouse at three. We’ll run through the play again, double time. That will give you a few hours of rest.” He rose from his seat. “I’ll notify the radio station that the play will go on, despite the tragic death of a key actress. Then I must round up actors to fill in for those of you unable to perform.”

  Dr. McAlistair gathered up papers and put them in her attache case. “Sergeant, I have more work to do here, but I’m exhausted. Can someone book a hotel room for me?”

  “I’m not sure we can find a vacancy this time of year on such short notice, but I’ll have someone check.”

  “I have a spare bedroom,” Victoria said. “If you don’t mind sharing a bath.”

  “If it’s not too much trouble, Mrs. Trumbull?”

  “She’s got a great old house. It’s haunted,” said Howland, not looking at Victoria.

  Jefferson Vanderhoop the Fourth was bent over the engine of his forty-foot lobster boat, which was moored in Lagoon Pond, when the Oak Bluffs harbormaster’s launch pulled alongside. A short, stocky, dark-skinned man was at the wheel. When he spoke, his cigarette stuck to his lower lip like a growth of some kind. A cap with NYPD in faded gold stitching was pulled down over thick black eyebrows. He left the controls, dropped a fender between the two boats, and looped a line over a cleat on the lobster boat.

  A small wooden skiff tethered behind Vanderhoop’s boat bobbed in the wake of the launch.

  The launch passenger, a weary-looking guy wearing a day-old beard, a rumpled state trooper’s uniform, and leather boots coated with dust, stood up and made his way unsteadily forward from the stern.

  A flock of gulls took off into the wind, circled overhead, then settled back on the water.

  Vanderhoop straightened up and wiped oily hands on a rag. He grinned at the harbormaster, who’d stepped on board the fishing boat. “What d’ya say, Domingo?”

  “How you doing, Jefferson. You know trooper Tim Eldredge?”

  Eldredge started to scramble awkwardly onto the deck of the larger boat.

  “Hey!” said Vanderhoop, glancing at Eldredge’s boots. “No hard soles on my boat.”

  Tim dropped back onto the launch, undid his boot laces, tugged off his boots, exposing holes in both socks where his big toes stuck out, and made his way slowly to Vanderhoop’s boat.

  Vanderhoop scowled at him. “Not been around boats much? You live here long?”

  Tim nodded. “Born here.”

  “What brings you to my boat?” Vanderhoop asked the harbormaster.

  Domingo leaned against the pilothouse, crossed one leg over the other, and pointed his cigarette at Tim. “His show.”

  “State police business?” asked Vanderhoop.

  “Yes, sir. Need to ask you a few questions.”

  “What’s up?” Vanderhoop looked from Tim to Domingo.

  Domingo put his hands in the pockets of his khaki trousers and shrugged.

  Tim took a plastic card out of his shirt pocket and began reading out loud. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say …”

  “Miranda?” cried Vanderhoop, standing up straight. “Why in hell are you reading Miranda to me?”

  Tim kept reading and finished,” … will be provided for you at government expense.”

  “What kind of asshole are you, anyway?” said Vanderhoop.

  Tim put the card back in his pocket and pulled out a notebook. “Would you mind telling me where you were last night, Mr. Vanderhoop?”

  “What’s this about?” Vanderhoop gave his hands another wipe and tossed his rag onto the engine block. Stripped to the waist and barefoot, he stood about six-foot-three and probably weighed two hundred thirty pounds. The small amount of excess fat he carried formed a slight bulge over the belt of his jeans. His dark hair curled below his ears and he was clean-shaven.

  “Sorry, sir. I’m not at liberty to give out information at this point in time.”

  “I suppose my soon-to-be ex-wife filed a complaint?”

  “No, sir. This is strictly informal. Answers to a few questions. We can do it here on your boat, or, if you’d prefer, we can go back to the police barracks.”

  Vanderhoop leaned over the side of his boat and spat into the water. “Where was I last night?” He pointed down at his deck. “Right here.”

  “Can anyone verify that, sir?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Mind if I look around?”

  Vanderhoop set large, callused hands on his hips. “What?”

  “I’d like to look around your boat, sir.”

  “You got a search warrant or something?”

  “I can get one, if necessary,” said Tim.

  Domingo grinned and turned away.

  Tim continued. “I was hoping you’d cooperate.”

  Vanderhoop’s face flushed. “What is this, anyway?”

  Tim shook his head.

  Domingo dragged on his cigarette. Ash fell off and dropped on the deck.

  Vanderhoop glanced at the ash on his clean deck. “Got nothing to hide. Be my guest.” He waved a hand at the pilothouse. “Don’t mess up my stuff.”

  The wheel and controls of the boat were sheltered by the overhang of the pilothouse. Eldredge went down three steps into a tidy cabin. On his left was a spotless galley with stove, small sink, and ice chest. On the right, on a folded-down table, a chart was opened to Nantucket Sound. Forward of the galley an L-shaped bench and table on a telescoping leg formed a reading and eating nook. Eldredge studied everything that could hide a small boy. He squeezed through a narrow door. A small bathroom opened to the left. A showerhead on a hose hung above the toilet. A V-shaped berth tucked into the bow was made up with blankets and pillows, where Vanderhoop—or someone—obviously slept. A battery-operated reading lamp and a dozen poetry books sat on a shelf above the bunk.

  Eldredge lifted one side of the mattress. Underneath was a two-by-three-foot piece of plywood with a ring for a handle. He tugged it up and looked down into a storage locker. The locker seemed to be full of rope. An anchor. Chain.

  No boy. Definitely no boy.

  Eldredge retraced his steps to the stern.

  “Satisfied?” Vanderhoop grumbled.

  Tim looked down at his notes. “When was the last time you saw your son?”

  At that, Vanderhoop clenched his large hands into fists. “That bitch take my kid? I’ll wring her neck.”

  Tim repeated his question. “When did you last see Teddy?”

  “A week ago, maybe.”

  “Where was that, sir?”

  “Right here.” He pointed to the deck. “I motored over to the point. She dropped Teddy off, and we went out in the boat.”

  “Where is your son now, sir?”

  “With his goddamned fucking bitch mother.”

  “Where, sir?”

  “How am I supposed to know, goddamn it? She wanted to take the kid to California. I wanted the kid to stay right here.” And again he stabbed his finger at the deck of his boat. “My kid wanted to stay right here, too.”

  Tim switched direction. “Can you tell me anything about Peg Storm, sir?”

  “Peg?” Vanderhoop looked surprised. “Sure. Quiet. Next-door neighbor. Family lived on the point, three, four generations. No kids. Divorced. A small mutt named Sandy.” He shrugged.

  “Do you know her former husband, sir? You were neighbors, weren’t you?”

  Vanderhoop shook his head. “Lennie Vincent. Didn’t have much to do with him. Nothing social. Never cared much for him.”

  “Why was that, sir?”

  “Why I didn’t care for him? He’s a sleaze.”

  “Was he argumentative? Rude?”

  “Nothing like that. Just didn’t like the guy.”

  “Did you know anything about the play your son and Ms. Storm were in?”

  Vanderhoop’s face reddened. “I don’t know where this is leading, Eldredge, but I’ll tell you this. My kid was a nice, normal kid. Liked the water. Teddy and me, we got along good. Until my wife took it into her head the kid should be an actor. What she wanted. Be a movie star. She didn’t make it, so she’s going to turn my kid …” He pounded his chest.” … into some freaking actor.”

  Domingo finished a last drag on his cigarette and flicked it into the water. He lifted his cap and scratched his head.

  Vanderhoop’s expression went from angry to surly. “She take my kid? Did she?” he repeated, stepping toward Eldredge.

  Tim Eldredge lowered his notebook. “Your son is missing.”

  Vanderhoop pounded a fist into the palm of his hand. “She does whatever she goddamned wants. Teddy’s my kid, too. I got rights. She better not snatch my kid. I’ll kill her first.”

  Domingo cleared his throat.

  Vanderhoop turned on him. “You can quote me on that, goddamn it, Domingo. She takes my kid, I’ll kill the bitch.”

  CHAPTER 7

  It was still early when Casey and her deputy, Victoria, Howland, and Dr. McAlistair left the jail, but the temperature was already in the seventies. Main Street’s sidewalks were crowded with shoppers. People strolled across the street between cars that were inching toward the harbor parking lot. An in-line skater whizzed past, almost slamming into a woman in shorts and sandals getting out of the passenger side of a parked car.

  “What’s the best way around this mess, Victoria?” Casey asked before they got into the Bronco. “You know the back streets of Edgartown better than I ever will.”

  Victoria had been born in a house on Main Street, a block from the jail. The buildings in Edgartown that had been ramshackle in her childhood were spruced up now, and the street was paved with asphalt and lined with brick sidewalks. Victoria had trouble believing the rents summer people were willing to pay to vacation in houses that had been derelict in her youth.

  The slow flow of traffic had stopped. “Turn left, away from Main Street,” Victoria said. “I’ll show you the way as we go.”

  Casey negotiated the narrow one-way streets in the center of town, past white clapboard houses until they reached the straight road to West Tisbury.

  Raggedy blue chicory and bright tawny lilies grew wild by the side of the road. The scent of sweet fern and pine drifted in through the open windows of the vehicle.

  Casey yawned. “My day off. Look at that gorgeous sky. Perfect beach day.” She yawned again. “I’ve gotta grab a nap before I take Patrick and his buddies to the beach.”

  “Patrick is the chief’s son,” Howland explained to Alison. “He’s about Teddy’s age.”

  “Ah,” said Alison. Victoria, watching her from the front seat, saw her turn from Howland to stare out the window.

  “Patrick is nine, a year older than Teddy,” said Casey. “Teddy’s mother must be worried sick.”

  “Yes,” Alison murmured.

  “According to Smalley, she’s on a flight back to the Island now,” Howland explained.

  “I can’t even imagine how she feels. If anything ever happened to Patrick I’d go crazy.”

  “Yes,” said Alison again.

  Victoria examined the sky. “Better go to the beach soon. We’re likely to have thunderstorms later.” She indicated a row of low clouds, faint on the horizon to the northwest, mostly hidden by low scrub oak and pine.

  Alison leaned over the front seat. “Is there a beach within walking distance of your house, Mrs. Trumbull?”

  Victoria nodded. “About three miles from me.”

  “Maybe for you, Victoria.” Howland grinned. “I’ll stop by in an hour or so, Alison, and take you to my beach. How much time do you need to spend on Island?”

  “I’m not sure. Ordinarily, in the case of a death under unusual circumstances, the undertaker transports the body to Boston for autopsy. But since I’m already here, and Ms. Storm’s body is still here, and Teddy is still missing, the state police probably will want me to stay.”

  They passed a farm, where rows of sweet corn, beans, and tomatoes ripened in the July sun, and entered the state forest. Silvery snags of red pine towered above dusky green scrub oak.

  “I expected the Island to be more built up,” Alison said.

  Howland grunted. “It’s built up, all right. Our population swells from thirteen thousand in winter to a hundred fifty thousand now.”

  “What do you do with them all?”

  “Shopping,” said Victoria.

  They dipped down into a swale and up the other side, and there, on the left, was Victoria’s gray-shingled house, set back from the road and almost hidden by trees. Casey pulled into the drive and stopped. Howland, still barefoot and still in his stained costume, walked gingerly around the larger sharp chunks of crushed oyster shell that paved the driveway and held out his hand for Alison, who stepped down from the high vehicle.

  Victoria slid out of her seat. Her dressy plaid suit was wrinkled, the once-perky bow at the neck of her blouse drooped, her stockings bagged around her knees and ankles. Even with the hole cut out of her shoe, her sore toe throbbed.

  Her granddaughter, Elizabeth, burst out of the door. “Gram, where have you been?”

  “At the jail.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  Victoria didn’t answer directly. “This is Dr. McAlistair, Elizabeth. She’ll be staying with us tonight, possibly longer.”

  Elizabeth, who was as tall as Alison, almost as lean, and about twenty years her junior, held out her hand.

  “I didn’t expect to be away this long,” Victoria explained. “Dr. McAlistair is a forensic scientist from Falmouth.”

  “Why the jail? Forensic scientist? What’s happening?”

  “I’ll let you guys explain,” said Casey. “I’m taking Howland back to his car.”

  Elizabeth examined Howland’s costume, from the stained black shirt and trousers to his feet. “Blood? Barefoot?”

  “Don’t ask.” Howland got into the front seat of the police vehicle and Casey drove off.

  “I hope someone’s going to tell me what’s happening.”

  “Before I do any explaining, I want a bath,” said Victoria.

  Elizabeth threw up her hands in frustration.

  After Alison was settled in her room, after Victoria emerged from her bath in her worn corduroy trousers and turtleneck, Elizabeth finally learned about Peg’s death and Teddy’s disappearance.

  “Peg had a dog, didn’t she?” asked Elizabeth, as they ate their lunch.

  Victoria set down her sandwich. “No one found the dog.”

  A half-hour later, a state police car pulled up in front of Victoria’s, and Sergeant Smalley knocked on the kitchen door. Alison answered. She had changed into a bathing suit and long-sleeved cotton shirt that gave the impression she was wearing nothing under it. Both bathing suit and shirt were borrowed from Elizabeth. Smalley glanced quickly at her long legs, which she had deliberately not covered for Howland’s benefit, and when Smalley looked up guiltily, she smiled. After her legs, her smile was her best feature.

  Smalley cleared his throat. “Sorry to barge in on you like this, Dr. McAlistair. As you know, we found Ms. Stone at the foot of her cellar stairs. But I’m not comfortable with the idea of a fall killing her. I’d like you to examine the body.”

  “She’s at the mortuary now?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Rose Haven, the funeral home. Since you’re on Island, we’d like you to do a preliminary exam.”

  “Quite right. Give me a few minutes to change.”

  While Alison was upstairs, Victoria worked on her weekly column for The Island Enquirer. She stopped, her fingers poised above the typewriter keys. Smalley was in the kitchen, pacing back and forth.

  “I’m not comfortable, either, with the idea that Peg fell to her death,” Victoria said. “I can’t understand why she would shut the door at the top of the cellar stairs behind her.”

  He turned. “You’re absolutely right, Mrs. Trumbull.”

  “She had a dog. Perhaps she wanted to keep her dog from following her? But her cellar stairs are steep and shutting the door would be awkward.”

  “Could be why she fell.” Smalley looked up and smiled as Alison appeared, dressed in Elizabeth’s jeans and T-shirt. She carried the attaché case she’d brought with her.

  “I don’t know how long we’ll be, Mrs. Trumbull,” Alison said. “Not more than two hours, I should think.”

  “I’ll call Howland to cancel your beach date.”

  “Thank you.”

  There was no answer at Howland’s. He showed up at Victoria’s a few minutes later, and Victoria glanced up from her typewriter. “Alison’s gone to Rose Haven with Sergeant Smalley. You’ve been outranked.”

  “By Sergeant Smalley? Not likely.”

  “May I use something about the autopsy in my column? I have space I need to fill.”

  “Afraid not, Victoria.” Howland started toward the door. “Anyway, she’s not performing an autopsy, she’s doing a cursory exam. The Island doesn’t have facilities for an autopsy.”

  “Are you heading to Rose Haven now?” Victoria struggled to her feet.