A Shoot on Martha's Vineyard Read online

  The baby pack I’d made, along with a knapsack full of baby stuff, allowed me to go anywhere I normally went on land and do all the things I normally do. If I had to temporarily put Joshua aside for any reason, I could put him in his snappy beach lounge chair. If I went shellfishing, I could put him in the mini-raft I’d rigged from inner tubes, and he could float beside me as I worked.

  “No problem,” I said, meaning it. Unless Joshua cried for no reason, in which case I was in trouble.

  I knew most of the cries: the hungry cry, the load-in-the-diaper cry, the need-to-burp cry, the mad cry, the I- need-to-be-cuddled cry, and the I’m-frustrated-about-something-but-I-can’t-figure-out-what-it-is Cry; but the cry-for-no-reason was always a bummer and always scared me.

  Fortunately, Joshua rarely resorted to his no-reason howl, and usually quieted down anyway, after some snuggling, so I hadn’t yet been obliged to tear my hair out.

  “I’m glad you like being a dad,” Zee now said.

  “It’s not bad,” I said. “How’s momming?”

  “If you were named Molly, I’d burst out in a chorus of ’My Blue Heaven.’ ”

  We listened to the sounds of the evening as darkness came at us from the east. There were birds in the air, and the wind hushed through the woods on three sides of us. On the far side of Nantucket Sound the lights of Cape Cod began to flicker.

  We went down to eat. Grilled bluefish, fresh-made bread, a rice and bean salad, and the house sauvignon blanc. Delish. Such stuff does not go to waste in our house. We wolfed it down.

  Zee patted her lips with her napkin. “And what else did Manny have to say to you this afternoon, other than wanting me to pick up my trusty shooting iron and head for the target range? What’s new in Edgartown?”

  Manny’s woodworking shop was on Fuller Street, and customers and friends were wandering in and out all day, so he was always more up on current downtown happenings than were we, who lived up in the woods and only went into the village when we had to.

  “Well, it seems Edgartown is going to have a visitor from America,” I said, forcing myself to speak in an even tone and avoid expletives. “Maybe you’ll want to go down and shake his hand.”

  “Who might it be? Anyone I know? I understand the president is vacationing out west this year, so it’s probably not him.” She narrowed her eyes and looked at me. “Do you plan to shake hands with this person, Jefferson?”

  “I think not. I don’t even want to get into spitting distance of him.”

  She thought, then arched a brow, then frowned. “I can only think of one person who’d put that look on your face. You don’t mean . . . you know who?”

  “Yes. Him.”

  “Not Lawrence Ingalls, state biologist!”

  “Shocking, but true. What gall. After keeping the beach closed for three summers, he has the nerve to show up in Edgartown!”

  “What ever for? Doesn’t he know that there are dart-boards in this town with his face on them?”

  “I think he’d be glad if he knew. He’d take it as more evidence that people who disagree with him are crackpots like that wacko Zack Delwood. He’s down here to talk to the No Foundation.”

  Zee found a toothpick and stuck it in her mouth. “The No Foundation, eh? He’ll have a friendly crowd, anyway.”

  The No Foundation was really the Marshall Lea Foundation, and was composed of a private group of citizens who raised money and purchased pieces of Vineyard property for the announced purpose of preserving the land for future generations to enjoy.

  Cynics had given them their No name because of the signs the foundation erected on all of their territories, informing readers that there was to be no hunting, no fishing, no trapping, no picnicking, no use of bicycles, etc., and sometimes no trespassing at all.

  It was, thus, no surprise to me that Loathsome Lawrence was to speak to the No’s. They were his kind of people. The kind known to their critics as No People People, who didn’t want any human beings walking around except where and when the No People People wanted them to walk. Naturally, the No People People also didn’t want ORVs on the beach.

  The critics of the No People People wanted to walk and drive where and when they themselves wanted to walk and drive, and viewed Loathsome Lawrence and his ilk with—what else?—loathing.

  I was one of them. I sometimes thought that Zack Del-wood was right: that Lawrence Ingalls should probably be shot. It was about the only thing Zack and I agreed about. We not only rubbed each other wrong, but rumor had it that in his cups he had confided a desire to flatten my face just as he had flattened others in several barroom brawls. I made it a point to stay clear of him, because I had problems enough without having a flat face, to boot.

  The most irksome of these problems was, of course, Lawrence Ingalls. Maybe he shouldn’t be shot, but just be fired or given some job where he could never again have any affect on the lives of other human beings.

  Yeah, that was probably better. There was too much shooting in the world already.

  This was not a universally held view, as was soon apparent.

  — 4 —

  If you have to go into downtown Edgartown in the summer, the best time to do it is about seven in the morning. The streets are empty of pedestrians, you can always find a parking place, the dreaded meter maids are not yet at work, and the lovely houses and gardens are bright with morning light and there just for you. You can walk every-where and see things at your own pace without having to share space with cars, bikes, mopeds, or other sightseers.

  And you can get breakfast at the Dock Street Coffee Shop, where the cook has magic hands that can keep a steady stream of satisfied customers from waiting long for their food. His hands and arms move like those of an Oriental dancer as he plies his art. I sometimes take guests down there not only for the good breakfasts, but so they can watch the perfect grace and economy of his motions. He is like a conductor directing a symphony of food.

  Zee and I had found three stools together, and had put Joshua in his lounge on the one between us. The waitress looked at him.

  “I know your folks want juice and coffee to start with,” she said. “How about you?”

  Joshua said he’d already eaten.

  “You don’t look a thing like J. W.,” said the waitress. “I’ll give you credit for that.”

  Joshua said he’d heard that before and blew her a bubble.

  The waitress brought juice and coffee for two and took Zee’s order for a bagel and mine for the full-bloat break-fast—eggs over light, sausages, rye toast, and hash browns.

  You’ll find a lot of local people and a few touristas at the coffee shop in the early morning, and there are always copies of the Globe and Herald scattered along the counter, so if you want to know what’s going on, you can usually catch up with the latest news and gossip.

  Today the principal subject of conversation was the Red Sox, who had so far suffered no real major-league slump and thus still had aficionados and lesser fans enthusiastic about their prospects; the other subjects were the movie people on the island and Lawrence Ingalls’s appearance in town.

  Zee, who had strong skeptical opinions about this year’s edition of the Sox, was quickly engaged in conversation with the guy next to her, who was looking at the Globe sports page.

  “No D,” she was saying. “They can hit, but they can’t stop a ground ball. It’s always been a problem with them. Like a genetic deficiency passed down through a family.”

  The guy thought that the problem was with the bull pen. No middle relievers. But their D was no worse than a lot of other teams’ he could name, so they had as good a shot as anybody.

  Zee was not convinced. “They’ve never ever been great fielders. Remember Dick Stuart at first? Dr. Strange-glove? He could hit a ton but couldn’t catch a cold. The Sox always have at least one guy like that playing the infield, and they’ve got two this year.”

  “The real problem is they ain’t got no fourth starter,” said a guy two stools over.
“They got Clemens, who’s past his prime, and Wakefield and that other guy, but who they got after that? Nobody. They ought to trade Clemens for a couple of young arms while they can still get something for him.”

  Zee looked at him across the belly of the guy with the sports page. “Get rid of Roger? That’s nuts. The guy they should get rid of is that second baseman who thinks he’s playing soccer instead of baseball. He kicks the ball so well he should be playing for Liverpool.”

  I ate my high-cholesterol meal. I was happy. What could be more pleasantly American than high-fat food and baseball? Joshua couldn’t have agreed more. I touched his nose with my forefinger and he smiled. I let my ears roam along the counter.

  “They say this movie’s about hunting buried treasure. I heard about a real buried treasure that was supposed to be up there by the drawbridge in Vineyard Haven. A couple of sea captains buried it there, then dug up half of it and left the rest. My dad used to talk about it. I think maybe some ancestor of his was part of the crew or something. Name of the boat was the Splendid, or some such thing. All happened back in 1850 or so . . .”

  “You don’t have to go all the way up to Vineyard Haven,” replied another voice. “You just have to go over to Chappy and find the Blue Rock. There’s a treasure right there. All you have to do is dig it up.”

  I recognized the voice. It belonged to Moonbeam Berube. What was he doing downtown at breakfast-time? Had Connie thrown him out of the house again? She was a tiger when it came to protecting her children, and didn’t tolerate Moonbeam’s sometimes heavy-handed notions of parenthood, although so far she’d always taken him back after first kicking him out of the house for a few days.

  “The Blue Rock,” said another voice. “I never heard of that one. How come you haven’t dug it up yourself?”

  Laughter from listeners. “You got to know the story,” said Moonbeam. “This farmer was chasing a cow when he sees these here pirates burying a big chest in a hole near the beach. He hides behind the Blue Rock and watches. When the chest is in the hole, the chief pirate shoots the two guys helping him and dumps them in the hole. Then he pulls out some sort of package and calls on the devil to help him out and tosses the package into the hole. There’s flame and smoke and the farmer faints.

  “When he wakes up, the hole’s been filled in and there’s no pirates in sight. Since then, a lot of people have tried to dig up the chest, but every time they do, demons or some such keep them from finding it.”

  More laughter. “That’s a good one, Moonbeam. Now, where’d you say this Blue Rock is?”

  “If I knew, I sure wouldn’t be sitting here telling you thieves this story. I’d have dug up that box long ago and be living on Water Street instead of eating here with you guys.”

  “Not afraid of the devil himself, eh, Moonbeam?”

  “Depends on how much money’s involved.”

  Moonbeam would do about anything for money. Even work, if he had no other choice.

  “I’ll drink to that,” said someone.

  “Speaking of the devil himself,” said a third man, “you read that that bleeping Lawrence Ingalls is in town?”

  A number of unflattering remarks filled the air, attracting the attention of tourists, for whom Ingalls’s name meant nothing.

  “Somebody’s going to shoot that son of a bitch,” said a voice I recognized as Zack Delwood’s. “Goddamned fool. Who does he think he is?”

  “Closes the beach every damned summer!” said another voice. “No more morning fishing, no more Sunday picnics, no more shellfishing! Guy should be in jail, but no! He’s actually come here, to this very town! My God!”

  It was a familiar litany.

  The man beside me leaned toward me. “What’s all that about? I’d hate to be this Ingalls fellow, whoever he is.” Clearly a tourist.

  I sipped my coffee. My own hackles had risen at the very mention of Ingalls’s name, and I wanted time to lower them before answering. In my calmest voice, I reviewed the issue of beach closure, and the arguments on both sides.

  “Sounds to me like Ingalls may have a point,” said the tourist tentatively.

  “The only point Ingalls has is the one on his head,” growled the man on the other side of him, going on to describe Ingalls in a number of colorful ways.

  The tourist wisely said no more.

  I waved a fatherly finger at Joshua, who had been listening to everything. “Now, no matter what these guys say, Joshua, I want you to leave Ingalls alone while he’s down here. I know he deserves to be run over by a truck, but you’re too young to drive, so just stay out of it. Remember that God is just and will take care of him and his kind in due time. In their next lives they’re all going to be plover fledglings on Norton’s Point, surrounded by skunks and gulls and other creatures who love to eat plover eggs and little plovers. And they won’t have any predator fences to protect them.”

  “I’m glad you’ve decided to let God take care of him instead of shooting him yourself,” said Zee approvingly. She exchanged big smiles with Joshua. “Your dad apparently has a religious side that no one has known about up till now. Isn’t that nice? Maybe he’ll join the church and become a deacon or an elder or something. You and I could go and watch him every Sunday morning, wearing his robes and passing around the collection plate. Would you like that, Joshua?”

  Joshua said he’d think about it.

  “You’re so cute,” said his totally unprejudiced mom, letting him hold on to her finger. “Oh, what a grip you have!”

  “Like father, like son,” I said modestly.

  The guy with the sports page folded it, pushed back his empty plate, looked at Zee, and said, “Have faith. They’re only three games out,” and left.

  “Talk to me in October,” Zee called after him.

  “I thought you told me you thought they had a real chance this year,” I said.

  “Yeah, but I couldn’t tell him that. Besides, they do have a leaky infield and you know it.”

  A man came past us and sat down in the seat the Sox fan had just left. The waitress cleared away the fan’s plate and cup, gave the counter a fast wipe, smiled at him, and asked him what he’d have.

  He’d have tea, juice, and a bagel. Healthy food, of course. His voice was deep and manly. I’d heard it before. Tarzan had seated himself beside us. The waitress smiled some more and headed for the juice dispenser. Tarz had whatever it took to make women like him on sight. Zee and I both looked at him. Zee smiled.

  “Well, hello,” she said.

  “Hi,” said Drew Mondry. Then he leaned toward Joshua. “And how are you, partner? Anybody ever tell you you’re the best-looking kid on the block?”

  Joshua smiled his wide smile and gurgled.

  What better way for Tarz to win Jane’s maternal heart? Better even than roses and champagne, probably. Zee’s smile grew wider.

  “He is a cutie,” she agreed, beaming at her son. “Aren’t you, sweetie?”

  Sweetie could not deny it.

  “Beautiful day,” said Mondry. “I took an early run up to Oak Bluffs and back, and the ocean was shot with fire when the sun came up. I can see why people love it here.” He looked at me. “George Martin tells me you really know your way around the island. Any chance you might find time to do some work with me?”

  I had been thinking sourly about people who ran up to Oak Bluffs and back before breakfast, and was caught quite off guard by the question. I chewed a sausage and swallowed before answering in the most casual voice I could manage.

  “What kind of work?”

  “I’m still checking possible locations and I need a guide to show me around. George has to go off island for a few days to tend to some business, so he won’t be available. He suggested you. I’ll make it worth your while.” Then he laughed. “That is to say the company will make it worth your while. I get to spend it, but it’s their money. George told me to get you if I could. He gave you quite a recommendation.”

  There are people who are natura
lly charismatic and have no need to practice or polish their charm. Drew Mondry was one such. I felt his power now, and was annoyed to discover that I was responding to it. My impulse to resist, however, was countered by my interest in making some money.

  I looked at Joshua. “What do you think, Josh? You want to do some sight-seeing?”

  Sure, said Joshua.

  “Any objection to me coming along too?” asked Zee.

  “Love to have you,” said Drew Mondry. “It’ll give me a chance to talk you into being an extra.”

  Terrific. But I forced that reaction away. Why shouldn’t Zee be an extra if she wanted to? It would probably be a lot of fun for her.

  “And I’ll tell you what else,” said Mondry, giving Joshua a grin. “You might be an extra too, little guy.” He glanced at Zee. “How old is he?”

  “He arrived in May,” said Zee, flashing her great smile.

  Mondry turned back to Joshua and gave him a California grin. “You’ll be a star before you’re six months old! How does that sound?”

  Joshua didn’t ask me my opinion of this offer. He thought being a star sounded just fine, as long as he didn’t have to leave his mom to do it.

  “When do you want to start?” I asked Mondry.

  “You’ll do it? Great!” He leaned back and behind Zee’s back stuck out a hand that I couldn’t not shake. “I really appreciate this, J.W!”

  For a moment I actually felt like I was doing some sort of great service for mankind. Charm can do that to you.

  “Just tell me when you’re ready to go,” I said.

  “How about today?” How about that?

  “Why not?” I said, then wondered if a time would come when I might be sorry to learn the answer to that question.

  — 5 —

  “I like this,” said Mondry, stepping out of the Range Rover in front of our house. He looked around, his brilliant eyes taking in the flowers along the fence and in the hanging baskets, the garden with its late-summer veggies, the bird feeders, and the house itself, with its screened porch and its balcony. “Yeah, this is really nice.”