“No, I don’t, Paul. She never mentioned it and I never asked.”
“Well, when did she get to the Vineyard?”
Whoops, I could feel it coming. I had a rough idea of the answer, but not an exact time. Two “I don’t knows’ in a row. Bad form with Paul Battaglia.
“How seriously should we be looking for this second stalker?”
I was about to make the third strike.
“Paul, I just don’t know the answer to that we’re trying to evaluate it now.”
“All right, Alex, be sure and let me know whenever you get some answers. Take care of yourself, that’s the most important thing right now. Oh is there any progress on that serial rapist, Upper West Side? I’m getting a lot of crap from that local community board can’t your guys wrap this one up?”
Yeah, and if I have a free hour this afternoon I’m going to go out looking for Judge Crater, too, I thought, as I told the District Attorney, “We’re trying, boss.”
Mike Chapman was sitting at my desk eating one of the sandwiches that Laura had ordered in for lunch when I returned from Battaglia’s office.
“How bad did it hurt?” he asked as I walked in, picking up the growing pile of messages from Laura’s desk.
“Not too bad,” I replied.
“The mayor must have given him the money he wanted. He’s clearly annoyed, but not wild. Have you heard about the plans for tomorrow?”
“Nope. What’s up?”
“I’m taking you to Martha’s Vineyard show you how a real police investigation gets done,” I said, chuckling at the thought of Mike meeting the town police. A few house burglaries when the summer people leave after Labor Day, loads of moped accidents in season, and endless cases of Driving Under the Influence all winter long, but I couldn’t remember a murder that had occurred on the Vineyard in my lifetime.
“Whoa, an overseas trip, and with the Cooperwoman! You know, I think Patrick McKinney is right. This whole thing with Lascar is just a ruse for you to get a weekend alone with me on an island, so we can…”
“Detective Chapman, if you don’t control yourself I’m going to leave you behind with that needle-nosed prick.
It’s not a weekend, it’s a day trip. I’ll have Laura make the plane reservations. It’ll save a lot of time if you leave your gun home we won’t have to deal with all that security stuff at the airport.
“And, Mike,” I added, “Battaglia asked me a question which raised an obvious point. Exactly when did Isabella get to the Vineyard? I’ve got an idea maybe Chief Flanders has thought of it-‘ ”Unlikely, unless his wife supplied it to him. He didn’t sound like he was into ideas,“ Chapman replied.
“Well, there are only two ways to get there. I mean, you’re right, we are going overseas. It’s not like most places in the country where a killer could just drive to a murder scene and then just drive away. You can only get to the Vineyard by sea and by air.”
“Yeah, Alex, but thousands of people still do it every year, don’t they? And they don’t need passports.”
I knew that the Vineyard had a small year-round population of about fifteen thousand, which swelled to almost eighty thousand in the summer vacation months of June, July, and August. Then, after Labor Day, the crowds departed and the little island regained its tranquillity, much to the delight of the locals.
“It becomes much more difficult to get to the island after the Labor Day weekend,” I explained to Mike.
“For example, all summer long, there are direct flights to Martha’s Vineyard from New York. Lots of flights, several times a day, from both La Guardia and Newark airports.
This time of year they’ve been eliminated. From now until next June, there’s only one scheduled airline that flies from Boston nine-seater planes, a few times a day and small private or chartered planes.
“Same with the ferry. The ferry goes from Woods Hole, on Cape Cod, to the Vineyard, but fewer times a day after the holiday weekend is over.”
“Where are we going with this travelogue, Coop?” Mike asked.
“You know what we’re looking for,” I responded to Mike.
“Who was with Isabella on the island, and was that guy or woman the one who killed her. Or maybe he witnessed the killing and fled, but knows who did it.”
“All right, do you know when she went up to your house?” It wouldn’t take much to draw Chapman into an investigation, I knew that from years of experience.
“She told me she was going at the end of last week, when she finished some business in Boston, probably Thursday or Friday. I assume Chief Flanders has already contacted the Ritz and knows when she checked out,” I offered.
“And she told me that if she had enough time, instead of flying, she was going to try to have a driver, a limo, take her down to Woods Hole it’s only ninety minutes by car from Boston and she wanted to arrive the ”old-fashioned“ way, by sailing across to the island.”
“Yeah,” laughed Mike.
“Just like the Pilgrims the limo, to the ferry, to the rented Mustang, to the chintz-lined cottage. The rental agency people should be able to tell us when Isabella picked up the car. Then, the next thing I do, if Flanders hasn’t, is to check the passenger manifests for the airline, starting at least a week ago. What’s it called?”
“Cape Air. Exactly. And there’s a tiny office at the airport for private planes, which all have to register and submit flight plans in order to come and go. The air arrival and departure part of this won’t take much time at all. The local police will know most of the names of islanders and regular commuters, you’ll have a few honeymooners and golf outings for the weekends, and then Isabella’s manager can look at the unknowns for familiar names that he might recognize, but which wouldn’t mean anything to us, right?”
I suggested to Mike.
“That covers the air, Sherlock,” Mike replied.
“But what about the water? Does the ferry take cars onto it, as well as foot passengers?”
“Yes, it does. Look, the big problem is boats. There are lots of marinas and plenty of little coves. A private boat could come from the Cape or the Hamptons, drop anchor, discharge and pick up a killer with no way to trace it.
That’s how most of the drugs get to an island, as you know. Anyway, you could even walk onto the ferry with a shotgun inside a Vuitton tote there’s no such thing as metal detectors on the boats.“ I was getting a second wind by this point, suddenly thinking that I knew of a way, even though a long shot, of tracking Isabella’s arrival.
“But, Mike, if she came by ferry, and she wasn’t alone, there’s another possibility,” I suggested.
“On a beautiful fall afternoon, most people who travel on the ferries head topside. There are hundreds of seats, a snack bar binoculars to scan the horizon the views of the Vineyard, crossing the sound from the Cape, are absolutely spectacular. Isabella Lascar would have been just like every other tourist on that boat, and whether it’s a first trip or the thousandth, I don’t know anyone who isn’t captivated by the beauty of that vista.”
“I’m afraid to ask what’s next. You’re gonna Want us to find and canvas everybody who was on the boat to see if they saw a movie star standing next to them and whether they can describe the person with-‘ ”No, much easier. Every single tourist and half of the regulars, make that trip with a camera, Mike,“ I said.
“People are always taking pictures of each other against the boat railing, like it was the QE2, or feeding the seagulls or just staring at the view.”
“You think people recognized Isabella and took her picture?” Mike asked.
“Hard to tell. I had seen her when she wasn’t preening for her public. We had gone all over Manhattan together and people failed to recognize her when she was casually dressed, without makeup and a serious hairdo.
“I mean, she looked absolutely beautiful whether or not she tried to hide it. She’d turn heads, even if people didn’t know exactly who she was.”