Dead in Vineyard Sand Page 2

  I’d shot 108 and had never played again.

  But now Glen Norton was hounding me and even Zee seemed to think it might be good for me. Hmmmm.

  When my basket was full, I waded ashore and joined my family. By then most of the other beachgoers were heading home, their SUVs stuffed with sandy people, blankets, umbrellas, balls, beach bags, coolers, and inner tubes.

  Later, when I came ashore after a float and a splashing water fight with the children, I told Zee my golfing thoughts.

  “And what have you decided?” she asked, handing me a cracker topped with a dollop of smoked bluefish pâté.

  “I’ve decided it’s too expensive and that I’ve got a lot of better things to do in the summertime. Maybe I’ll play some in the fall, when more of the local guys play.”

  I got a Sam Adams out of the cooler and poured some down. Delish! Also illegal, but the beer police were not around.

  “Hey, Pa! Hey, Ma! Look!”

  Joshua and Diana had followed me ashore and were now standing and pointing out to sea. We looked where they were pointing and saw a dark head moving toward Wasque.

  A big seal. It swam then sank from sight, then came up again farther to the east, and swam some more.

  Sun, sand, surf, and now a seal. Being here had to be better than being on a golf course.

  But we’d no sooner gotten home and showered and changed and rinsed our wet things and hung them out on the solar dryer, than the phone rang. It was Glen Norton, inviting me to play, as his guest, the next afternoon.

  “A couple of my pals are coming down from Boston and we need a fourth,” he said in his usual cheery voice. “I know you’ll like the guys and have a good time. I have an extra set of sticks you can use.”

  “I haven’t swung a golf club since I was seventeen,” I said, feeling my mouth water as I watched Zee put ice in two glasses, pour the glasses full of vodka, and add an olive to each. “I don’t think your friends will want to stand around while I look for my ball in the woods.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. None of us will be playing par golf. Besides, you’re in good shape and I know you can hit the ball straight. I’ve seen you cast.”

  Zee sipped her drink, batted her eyelashes at me, smiled and licked her lips, and carried the glasses up the stairway to our balcony.

  I said, “I’m not sure casting and swinging a golf club use the same muscles.”

  Glen was full of the confidence that had probably helped make him rich by early middle age. “You’ll be doing me a favor and I’ll be doing you one. Once you taste the game, you’re not going to want to give it up. Trust me!”

  “Well . . .”

  “Great! See you at Waterwoods at four, then! Make sure you wear a shirt with a collar.” He rang off while I was still trying to say, “But . . .”

  I looked at the phone in my hand, wondering if Glen’s phone technique had also helped him earn his millions. Maybe if you acted like a deal was done, it really was done, often enough, at least, for you to come out ahead most of the time.

  I put crackers, cheese, and chutney on a plate and went upstairs to join Zee. The evening sun slanted over our shoulders, illuminating our garden, Sengekontacket Pond, and the barrier beach that carried the Edgartown–Oak Bluffs road. Beyond the beach, white boats moved over the blue waters of Nantucket Sound, and beyond them a hazy stream of clouds hung on the horizon above Cape Cod.

  Most of the cars had long since left the parking places beside the road, taking their owners away from the beach and back to their rented rooms and houses. Two ospreys circled above the pond, and a flight of cormorants passed above us, headed west.

  “Not a bad spot,” I said, glad as always that my father had been smart enough to buy the place when it had just been an old fishing camp, and that I had been smart enough to modernize it into a house fit for my family. I tasted my drink and told Zee about the telephone conversation.

  “Well, Vijay,” said Zee, “how much are you getting paid to play? You major players do get paid to show up, don’t you?”

  “If I get paid by the stroke, I should do just fine,” I said.

  “Isn’t Waterwoods the place where Joe Callahan liked to play when he was still president? Pretty posh for a tyro like you.”

  “I don’t think the Waterwoods people care how good you are as long as you can afford the fees. And I don’t have to worry about those because Glen is picking up my tab.”

  “Good for Glen. But if you get lucky, just be sure you don’t get conned into making bets on who wins the next hole.”

  “I take that as a vote of no confidence in my golfing abilities, untested though they may be.”

  “As long as you walk and carry your own clubs you’ll have my complete support,” she said. “I’ll even accept being a golf widow if it keeps you in shape.”

  I sighed. “How soon we forget. Why, just today I thought I’d offered ample evidence of my manly vigor.”

  She grinned. “Well, parts of you are in good shape. It’s the rest of you that needs work.”

  • • •

  The next afternoon I drove to Waterwoods. It was the island’s prettiest club, featuring tennis courts and a beautiful golf course that wound through low hills and overlooked marshes and a lovely great pond. If you didn’t want to play on the courts or fairways, you could have a fine meal in the restaurant and watch the bold golfers whack balls off the first tee. Most of them didn’t look much like the pros I sometimes watched on TV on stormy weekends. I was sure I would look just as bad, but knew I could never take the game as seriously.

  I met Glen on the practice green beside the clubhouse, where I accepted his spare clubs, shook hands with his friends, and girded my psychological loins.

  “Don’t worry about your game,” said Glen. “As long as we move right along, nobody cares how many strokes you take. You only get five minutes to find a lost ball.”

  We practiced putts, then we went to the driving range and teed up.

  My tee shot went long and straight down the middle, and I thought, Maybe I was right before. Maybe there really isn’t anything to this game.

  “I thought you said you hadn’t played in thirty years,” said Glen suspiciously.

  I shot 108. No improvement since my last round, but good enough to have Glen ask me to play with him again the next weekend and good enough for me to say yes.

  Back at the house, I told Zee about the plan and she frowned and asked, “Did you hear about the fight in the Fireside?”

  “No.”

  “Madge called me from the ER. A couple of bikers and a couple of golfers got into it pretty good. Three of them are in jail and the other one’s in the hospital. If you’re going to hang around with the golfing crowd, maybe you’d better watch your step. Or maybe you should just give up golf.”

  I gave her a kiss. “They were young guys and they were drinking, I’ll bet. I hang around with an older crowd. We still like our booze, but we’re past our punching stage. You don’t have to worry about me getting into a brawl.”

  Famous last words, as they say.

  3

  “The secret of my game,” I explained to Zee the following Monday, “is simplicity. I only use a putter, a seven-iron, and a three-wood. I do all my driving with the wood and all my chipping with the seven-iron.”

  “And all your putting with the putter, I’ll bet.”

  “You’re sharp. That’s why I like living with you.”

  A few minutes later, I had the house to myself, since the kids were in school and Nurse Zee had gone off to her job at the hospital’s emergency room.

  I used my time to do some weeding and pea picking. Off-islanders are usually surprised to learn that Vineyarders can pick peas in June, but thanks to the Gulf Stream, which usually keeps island winters milder than those on the mainland, we can often plant our peas in March and pick them three months later. Ours were actually snow peas, the kind you eat pods and all, and I planned to use them in a shrimp and snow peas stir-fry for supper.

  With the peas and most of the other ingredients safely in hand, all I needed was some shrimp, so I headed down into the village to get them. I could have substituted scallops, pounds of which I had stored in our freezer, but my mind was set on shrimp. By such small things are our fortunes altered.

  Many kinds of delicious fish and shellfish are readily available from the Vineyard’s great ponds and the surrounding seas, but shrimp are imported, so you have to buy them if you want to eat them. Thus, to the fish market I went, avoiding the newish Stop & Shop grocery store, whose outlandishly high prices offended my sensibilities.

  On the Vineyard, of course, all prices are outlandishly high. The explanation, always given with a perfectly straight face, is “freight.” The owners of the liquor stores will tell you that’s why a bottle of booze costs several dollars more here than on the mainland; a grocery store owner or a gas station owner will make the same claim for the mind boggling cost of his wares. The real reason, as everyone knows, is monopoly capitalism combined with collusion among competitors selling the same stuff.

  Since islanders are stuck with this form of robbery, when they go to the mainland they always return with their cars packed full of merchandise; and even on the island, whenever possible, they take small revenges against their most loathed overchargers. Mine, and that of many islanders, was to avoid the Stop & Shop unless I absolutely had to go there. Thus my visit to the fish market rather than to the supermarket for my shrimp. I was in the good mood that the thought of food and drink often creates.

  The small parking lot was crowded, but I managed to find a slot, narrowly missing a sleek bicycle chained against a fence. Inside, I found myself confronted by a lean man in a bike helmet, bright yellow and blue shirt, and spandex pants.

  “You almost hit my bike!”

  I felt my good mood diminish slightly. “Almost, maybe, but not quite.”

  His eyes were bright. “You people need to be more careful!”

  Clerks and customers were turning our way. “Which people are those?” I asked.

  “You SUV drivers! Bikers have rights too, you know!”

  I peeked over his shoulder at a staring clerk. “A pound of medium shrimp, please.” The clerk continued to stare.

  The biker moved his head between mine and the clerk. “There really isn’t room for you to park there, you know! That’s only half a parking space!”

  I turned and looked out the window. The space looked big enough to me. I turned back.

  “I’m cooking shrimp for supper,” I said. “How about you?”

  “There ought to be a law against SUVs!” said the biker hotly. “They’re a blight on the face of the earth!”

  “A lot of people would agree that mine is,” I said. “It’s getting rustier by the year. Say, you wouldn’t be interested in a trade, would you? Your bike for my Land Cruiser?”

  Like Queen Victoria, he was not amused. “You’re not as funny as you seem to think!” He pointed a finger that almost but not quite touched my chest. “You polluter!”

  I thought suddenly that his peculiar, angry attack had less to do with me than with something else that must be on his mind, and that I was just a convenient target. Still, my tongue became momentarily uncontrolled by my reason. “Now, Lance,” I said, “don’t get all worked up. You’ll hurt yourself.”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d like to see me hurt! Well, it won’t happen! I can take care of myself! Now get away from me!”

  He put his hand against my chest and shoved. Astonished, I went backward two steps. He followed, red of face. “I said, get away from me!” He pushed again, and again I went backward.

  I heard my distant voice say, “Take it easy.”

  But instead, he stepped toward me and his hand reached my chest a third time.

  Later, I decided that I should have backed on out the door. Instead, as he touched me, an ancient instinct prevailed. Swifter than I could think, my hands had clamped on his arm and I was twisting it, turning, and locking the arm high across his back in a move I’d learned when I’d been a Boston cop, but hadn’t even thought of for years. He cried out and went down on his knees, hard. Customers stumbled away from us.

  I stood over him and willed my adrenaline rush away, but held the arm just inches from shoulder dislocation. I put my other hand on the back of his neck.

  “Calm down,” I said. “Relax.”

  His head was near the floor. I pushed it lower.

  His voice was an angry groan. “You’re breaking my arm, you bastard!”

  I eased up on his arm a bit. “Take a few deep breaths.” I took my hand off his neck.

  “Let me go, damn you!”

  “Let him go,” said a woman angrily. “You’re hurting him!” She was the only one of the observers to say a word.

  The biker was a muscular guy and I wasn’t sure whether he’d come up swinging, but I didn’t like holding him there.

  “Let’s pretend this didn’t happen,” I said. I released his arm and stepped away.

  He rested for a minute, then got to his feet, rubbing his arm and glaring at me, uncowed by his experience. “You can’t intimidate me, you Neanderthal!”

  Neanderthal? I’d always thought of myself as more the Cro-Magnon type.

  “I’m sorry about this,” I said. “Let’s forget it.”

  “Oh, no,” said the biker. “I won’t forget it! You can’t get away with this stuff!”

  “People like you should be in jail!” said the woman, shaking her purse at me. “You bully!”

  I said, “I came in here for a pound of shrimp, not for a wrestling match.”

  “Give him his order so he’ll get out of here,” said the biker in an icy voice, letting his burning eyes leave mine for a moment to look at the clerk.

  Instead of accepting the suggestion, the clerk put his hand on his telephone. “Do you want me to call the police, Dr. Highsmith?”

  “Yes,” said the woman. “Call the police!”

  “No,” said Highsmith, working his shoulder. “Just give him his order and get him out of here.”

  The clerk frowned but let go of the phone and moved over behind the shrimp display.

  The customers and the other clerk watched silently as I paid for my shrimp. As I went out the door, Highsmith shouted, “And don’t touch my bike! I’ll be watching you!”

  “So will I!” said the woman.

  I felt my feet pause, but willed them on.

  I got into the Land Cruiser, carefully backed out of the parking space, and drove home.

  So that was the infamous letter-writing Henry Highsmith. Captain Spandex himself. It was the first time I’d actually met him in the flesh. I wondered who the woman customer was. Whoever she was, she’d either not seen the beginnings of the brief skirmish between Highsmith and me, or she didn’t consider it sufficient motive for my retaliation.

  If the latter, I thought she was probably right. The store clerk had also seemed to agree. I was getting older; was I getting testier at the same time? The thought did not please me. Years before, after killing a thief who had almost killed me, I’d retired from the Boston PD and come to the Vineyard precisely so I’d not get involved with violence. That plan hadn’t quite worked out, though, and now my overreaction to Highsmith had happened too fast for me to stop it. So much for good intentions.

  There is a beast within many of us. Usually, but not always, it broods far down in the psyche. Some few psychopaths let it roam at will, but most of us generally build a cage around it and keep it under control. Mine seemed to have gotten a clawed paw through the bars far enough to scratch Henry Highsmith. I didn’t like it.

  When Zee got home, the first thing she said was, “I hear that you beat up Henry Highsmith at the fish market. I thought you promised not to get into a brawl.”

  The Martha’s Vineyard hospital is also the island’s premier gossip center. Every rumor or whisper somehow arrives there almost instantly, and immediately becomes common knowledge.

  “That’s not quite what happened,” I said.

  “Hilda MacCleer told me that you knocked Highsmith down for no reason at all, then tried to break his arm.”

  “I didn’t knock him down. I didn’t even hit him. And I didn’t try to break his arm.”

  “Hilda got it right from Annie Duarte. Annie was in the fish market and saw the whole thing. She says you tried to wreck his bicycle too.”

  Interestinger and interestinger. “Maybe Annie can become information minister for Iraq if Saddam Hussein ever gets back in power.”

  Zee put her arms around my neck and leaned back in my arms. “All right, Jefferson, let’s hear your version so I can spread it around the hospital tomorrow.”

  I told her what had happened.

  “Ah,” said Zee. “Why don’t you fix us a couple of drinks and meet me on the balcony? Where are the kids?”

  The kids were in the tree house we’d built out back in the big beech tree, playing something. Doctor, maybe? No, not Doctor!

  Before I poured the vodka I went to the porch and spoke to the tree: “What are you playing?”

  “Crazy Eights,” said both voices almost in harmony.

  “Who’s winning?”

  “I am,” said both voices almost in harmony. Laughter fell from the tree house like diamonds.

  I fixed the drinks and took them up to the balcony. It was a lovely evening and the beauty should have been enough to occupy my attention. When Zee joined me, however, she said, “You’re clouding. What are you thinking about?”

  Until she mentioned the cloud, I hadn’t been aware of it, but I knew she was right. I told her I’d been speculating about Henry Highsmith.

  “And what was the nature of your speculation?”

  “I was wondering why he was so upset that he put his hands on me just because I’d gotten close to his bike.”

  “Maybe he recognized you as the enemy because you drive a rusty old Land Cruiser.”

  “You think so?”

  “Maybe he recognized your face. Maybe he’d read one of your plover letters and knew that you were evil.”