Dead in Vineyard Sand (3 page)

Famous last words, as they say.

“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.”

“I haven't written a plover letter for a year. No, something was bothering him enough to make him strike out. I just happened to be a convenient target. I wonder what was in his craw.”

She sipped her drink. “You're serious.”

“Yes.” Then I shrugged. “No matter. It's water under the bridge.”

*  *  *

The next day I met the Chief downtown, where he was trying to teach a young summer cop how to keep traffic moving on Main Street.

“Well, well,” he said. “I hear you drove your truck over Henry Highsmith's fancy bike, then beat him up when he complained.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“Not yet,” he said, “but it may not be long.” He nodded at a man coming down the sidewalk. “Morning, Dan.”

“Morning, Chief,” said Dan. “Your young cop is doing pretty well, I'd say. Morning, J.W. Hey, I hear you nearly sent Henry Highsmith to the hospital. What the hell happened, anyway?”

“It's a long story,” I said. “You know Annie Duarte?”

“Sure.”

“She's my publicist,” I said. “I can give you my version, but I expect that hers will be the one to make it into print.”

“I'm all ears.”

“Well,” I said, “it was like this . . .”

When I was finished, the Chief said, “There are always at least two stories, but yours isn't the one most people have heard, so keep your eyes open. We had a couple of fighting bikers in jail over the weekend and there are probably others who'd like to get a piece of you for beating up Highsmith.”

“But I didn't beat up Highsmith.”

“That doesn't make any difference,” said Dan, with a grin.

“You two can tell people my side of the story,” I said.

“We can do that,” said the Chief, “but a lot of people believe what they want to believe, so be careful until this dies down.”

What a world.

My old friend John Skye needed no extended explanations when I saw him later that day. We'd known each other too long for that. He was familiar with the Highsmiths because, like them, he was a notable academician when not vacationing on the Vineyard. And even here, ever the scholar, John was researching his next book.

“I can understand Henry being irrational,” he said, as we sipped beers behind his old farmhouse. “After all, he's married to a Hatter, and the Hatters have a long tradition of producing oddball family members. They're probably one reason so many people think professorial types are wacky, in fact.”

“Is his wife one of the Mad Hatters?”

“Not that I've ever noticed, but I don't live with her. Anyway, I don't think you should dwell on your scuffle. Go home and play with your kids.”

“They're still in school.”

“Not for long. Go prepare a celebration for the upcoming summer vacation.”

“An excellent thought.”

I knew just the thing: I would give my children a showing of my priceless video of
Tarzan and the Leopard Woman.
The film had been one of my father's favorites, and by what was surely a miracle, a guy I knew who ran a small movie theater in Maine had somehow gotten the original reels and had made video copies of the movie.
They were, as far as I knew, the only such videos, and I had one of them.