Free Vineyard Deceit by Philip Craig Page A

dining room. I strolled there and found linen-clothed tables set with silver and summer flowers. The head table was opposite the doors to the veranda. I went out through the doors and found more linen-clothed tables. Not even the Damon dining room was large enough to hold a hundred guests. Some people would be obliged to eat in the open air. I wondered if they would mind. Personally I preferred the view from the veranda, but I imagined that many would consider that lovely vista of blue water and boats greatly inferior to one of the Padishah of Sarofim seated with various Damons at the head table.
    In the library I found Ms. Johanson looking exquisite in an evening dress of blue, which set off her blond hair nicely. Gold gleamed from her wrists and throat. She would fit right in with the evening’s crowd. She was reading something on a clipboard. Just as good pilots, before taking off, do not depend on their memories but on checklists, so Miss Johanson was checking off her duties. Having forgotten a lot of things myself, from time to time, I approved. She looked up. I raised a friendly hand. She stared, then looked down at her clipboard and up again.
    â€œJackson, yes?”
    Alas. She’d had to read my name to remember it. On the other hand, she had remembered it after reading it.
    â€œJackson. Yes.”
    She looked me over and nodded. “Very good. Are you an island policeman, Jackson?”
    â€œOnly a special officer. I’ve retired from real work.”
    â€œIndeed?” She glanced at her clipboard and turned a page. “Ah, yes. You were once on the Boston PD, I see.”
    â€œLong ago.”
    â€œYou were shot and you retired on a disability pension.”
    â€œI could never keep secrets from a woman like you.”
    â€œYou are to be on duty in the ballroom, principally. Should anyone speak to you, be casual. Smile, move off as soon as you can. Keep alert to anything unusual. Drink only soda water. After the guests leave there will be food in the kitchen for you, should you want it.” She glanced at a small golden watch on her left wrist. “The guests should begin arriving about six. Have you any questions?”
    â€œOnly one. Your first name.”
    She looked at me the way women look whenever some man is impertinent and stupid. “My subordinates address me as Ms. Johanson.”
    I waited. She frowned and looked down at her clipboard.
    â€œHelga,” she said after a moment, touching a hand to her hair. “My name is Helga. Now go to work, please, Mr. Jackson.”
    I went.
    A few minutes before six, Edward C. Damon, his wife by his side, their daughter and her husband close behind, all gloriously yet tastefully attired and bejeweled, descended from their rooms upstairs. As they did, the front door opened and Amelia Muleto was bowed in by the butler. There were embraces between the members of the two parties, those careful kinds that occur when no one wants tulle crushed or makeup smudged. I was standing in the ballroom, half hidden by a marble statue of Nimuë that stood at one side of the doorway. No one saw me or my glass of soda with lemon peel. And I did not see Zee.
    Amelia wore a dress of silver gray silk which was both elegant and simple. The gray sash at her waist matched her hair, and I saw her suddenly as a lady of high caste,quite a change from the vegetable and flower gardener I’d come to know over the years.
    I stepped away from Nimuë, which was more than Merlin had been able to manage, and walked across the hall. Amelia looked up and saw me and smiled. She gave me her hand and lifted her head for a kiss which I, caught off guard but ever suave, gave her.
    â€œYou look splendid,” I said. “But where is your lovely niece?”
    She looked distressed. “Oh, dear. I tried to call you, but you weren’t in. There was an emergency at the hospital. Zee had to fly to Boston with a patient. The hospital phoned me about noon.