Death on a Vineyard Beach (19 page)

“The point is,” said Charlie, “that Joe Begay never called himself any such thing. What'd he say he was? Part Navajo, part Hopi, and part everybody else that passed through? Half them people out there never heard of this Native Americans nonsense.”

“The point is,” said Linda, her voice rising, “that Luciano Marcus claims to own land that belongs to the Wampanoag people, and I intend to get it back. That cranberry
bog is sacred and should be controlled by the tribe! And you know that, Dad, as well as anybody, so stop giving me a hard time. It's bad enough having the whites against us. We don't need to be fighting among ourselves.”

“Hey,” said Charlie cheerfully, pointing with his cane. “There's an osprey up there, over the cliffs. Pretty, ain't it.”

I had been watching the hawk and feeling my heart stir for the brute beauty and valour and act, the falcon rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing in his ecstasy, rebuffing the wind, striding over the air.

I glanced down at Linda. She was looking along the beach and frowning as she saw some young people sitting in a bath of mud and seeming to have an enjoyable time. Vanderbeck smiled at her, and I saw some special fondness in his look. She was a tigress, burning bright. Did he love her? Had he loved her before his brother had married her, and did he still, in these years of her widowhood, after his own wife had passed on and left his house full of echoes?

Maggie Vanderbeck, also seeing the mud bathers ahead of us, trotted up and took her mother's arm, saying firmly: “Come on, Mom. Let's walk back. Otherwise you'll just get all worked up about those people and probably get in an argument with them.”

Linda shook her arm free. “Well, they shouldn't be there.”

“You're not a policeman, Mom. Help me out here, Uncle Bill.”

“Like I say, I used to take mud baths myself,” said Bill.

“Me, too,” said Charlie Pierce, cheerfully.

“There,” said Maggie. “You're outnumbered, Mom. Let's go back.”

Linda shook her head. “No wonder I'm having such a hard time getting anywhere. Even my own family gives me grief.” But with a last glance at the mud bathers, she turned, and we walked back whence we'd come.

Maggie Vanderbeck walked beside me. “Did you know that I've dated a guy who works for Luciano Marcus? Vinnie Cicilio. Do you know him? I met him up at UMass before he dropped out and came to work down here. Mom
doesn't approve of him, as you might guess.”

I said, “When you're old enough to go to college, you're supposed to be old enough to decide for yourself who you'll date.”

She grinned. “That's the theory, all right. But Mom doesn't agree with it. She thinks anybody working for Luciano Marcus is off-limits.”

“I hear that Vinnie isn't an upcoming Einstein, but that you're going to be a doctor. I take it then that your relationship isn't an intellectual one.”

She laughed. “A marriage of true minds? No, not that. Vinnie isn't really island material, either. Some friends in Edgartown took him clamming down at the Eel Pond, but he didn't like digging in the mud. And Jean Dings talked her dad into taking him duck hunting once last fall, but Vinnie didn't like freezing out there in the blind. He doesn't like to fish, because he doesn't like to take them off the hook, and he doesn't even like mud baths here at the cliffs. What he really wants is to be back in the city.”

“Doesn't sound like an ideal catch for an island girl.”

“Hey, he's a good date. He's a great dancer, and he likes women to like him, so he works hard at doing what they want, and isn't afraid to spend some money, which is more than you can say for a lot of guys.”

Including me. “Get 'em young and raise 'em the way you want them to be,” I said.

She scuffed at the sand with her bare foot. “Like you say, he's no Einstein, but he'll open the door for the girl he's with. He likes me and my friends, and he's glad when we get back home from college, so we can all get together.” She looked up at me, and smiled. “He's not somebody I plan to marry or get serious with, but he's a good date. If he liked spending money a little less and working for it a little more, he might be a catch for some girl.”

I wondered how Vinnie felt about her. And I wondered how the young Gay Head cop felt about her and Vinnie. Maggie did not seem to be lacking for men, and I could see why. She was a young beauty. If I were fifteen years younger and had never seen Zee, I might make a play for
her myself. As it was, I didn't feel quite like her father, but I did feel like, maybe, a big brother.

“So you and Vinnie aren't what they call an item, then?”

She laughed again. “No!”

“How about that young cop who's got the hots for you?”

“How'd you know about him?”

I created a conspiratorial voice. “I have my sources.”

“Well, I'll tell you one thing, at least: He's a Wampanoag, so Mom doesn't give me any grief about him at all.” She grinned up at me, and I had to smile back. Some women are born knowing how to juggle several men at once. It was a skill few of them declined to employ, and who could blame them for that.

I wondered if I was being juggled by Linda Vanderbeck.

  
16
  

On Tuesday, a morning of dim sun and an afternoon of warm drizzle, Zee finished her stint on the day shift. This gave her Wednesday off before she began the graveyard shift that night. The latter was an unfortunate name for a hospital working period, I suggested, not for the first time. Zee, who was used to jokes about grave matters, grave issues, and such, and who had, during the years we had known each other, been obliged to listen to most of my observations on life more than once, rewarded my wit with a small wifely smile.

“Let's go fishing in the morning,” she said. “Just in case there are still some blues around. They'll be gone before long. Did you notice we have a leak in the porch ceiling?”

“Ancient wisdom has it that you can't fix a leak while it's raining, and you don't need to when it's not.”

“We can fix this one when we get home from slaughtering the bluefish.”

“You're on.”

I was lying on the living room couch, reading a book. She swung a leg over me and knelt on my chest. “Now I am,” she said, taking the book and dropping it on the floor.

The next morning, early, we drove to Edgartown, passed through empty streets down to Collins Beach, unchained the dinghy, and rowed out to the
Shirley J.
The rain had blown away in the night, the wind was now next to nothing, and the waterfront was barely coming awake. Out in the harbor, the yachts swung at their moorings, quiet but for the occasional sound of a halyard slapping against a mast. A few pot fishermen were busy on the docks, getting ready to head out into Nantucket Sound. It was already promising to be a hot and muggy day.

I cranked up the outboard, Zee loosed the bowline and hung it on the stake, and we motored out of the harbor past the lighthouse. To our right, the shore of Chappaquiddick curved toward the east.

Zee slid off the cabin into the cockpit, and stood with one hand on the crutched boom, a slim figure garbed in shorts, a shirt knotted around her belly, and a kerchief over her hair, as was her wont when she went fishing. She looked around, letting her eyes sweep the shore and sea. She looked happy.

At the Cape Pogue Gut, I put the boat's nose on the beach, and we got out with our rods. A pickup was coming along the inside of the elbow, bringing a fisherman or two to the gut, after the long drive from Wasque. A sure sign that fish were scarce all along East Beach.

But there were some at the Cape Pogue Gut, and Zee had one of them ashore when the pickup arrived, bearing Iowa and Walter.

Either would go fishing any time, any place, for whatever kind of fish were there. They fished for blues, bass, Spanish mackerel, and bonito; they fished for herring, cod, flounder, and scup; they fished for sharks; when there was ice on the ponds, they cut holes in it and fished; they jigged for squid.
When there were no finny fish to catch, they raked for quahogs; they dug for clams; they tonged for oysters; and they scraped mussels off rocks and mud banks. Sometimes, for variety, if they could bum a ride, they would go out with the swordfishermen, or the conch fishermen, or the lobster-men. If it lived in the water, they hunted it.

“My God!” shouted Iowa, climbing out and glaring at Zee, as she cut the throat of her nice five-pound blue. “What are you doing here, woman? You're supposed to be home in the kitchen, not out here catching men's fish! Dad-blamed women getting uppitier and uppitier every day! Pretty soon there won't be any place left for a man to be alone!”

“Now, now,” said Zee. “What would your wife say if she heard you coming on to me like that? Especially since I'm a married woman now.”

“To hell with your husband,” said Iowa. “He doesn't deserve you.” They met and exchanged hugs, and he got his rod off the roof rack. “You leave us any fish?”

“Jeff's got one on.”

“Well, if he's got one on, it means anybody can catch one. And look at that! While I gab with you, Walter's on already! Everybody's on but me!”

He hustled down to the water's edge and made his cast.

The fish were not there long, but at least there were fish. After they were gone, and the sun was climbing over the eastern clouds, we all stood and drank coffee beside Iowa's pickup.

To the west, sailboats and party fishing boats were beginning to motor out of Edgartown harbor and pass by us to the north. We watched Albert Enos, alone on the
Lucky Lil,
go east toward the conching grounds.

“Where's Jimmy?” asked Walter.

“Jimmy got through,” I said. The island phrase “got through” is nice because it gives no indication of causality. The person may have been fired or may have quit; all the listener knows is that the person is no longer on the job.

Walter grunted at my news, but clearly was not surprised.

“Took a ride with Albert last week,” said Iowa. “Guess there's money to be made in conchs, but you sure have to
earn it. Latest thing is the government wanting to cut back on the pots you can have out. If it's not one thing, it's another. No wonder Jimmy Souza went broke, and him not the only one, either.”

“Damned shame,” said Walter. “Glad I retired before it happened to me. Hey, we're burning daylight. What do you say we switch to lighter tackle and go back over to the Jetties. Maybe some mackerel and bonito have showed up. Just because Dick Dirgins wasn't getting anything there when we came by doesn't mean he's not getting anything now.”

“True,” said Iowa, finishing his coffee. “So why are we standing here? Let's see what's happening under the lighthouse. We can do that on our way.” Iowa emptied his cup, and climbed into the pickup. “You want to come with us, Mrs. Jackson? Hang around with a couple of real he-men instead of this yachtsman here?”

Zee took my arm. “No, I'm going to stay with Jefferson. We have to go home and try to find a leak in our roof.”

“Whatever happened to romance?” asked Iowa, and he and Walter drove off.

“Two of the good guys,” smiled Zee.

Indeed they were.

We were home again well before the morning winds rose enough to hoist a sail. While I filleted the fish for smoking, Zee was up on the roof with a bucket of tar, trying to find and plug the pesky leak. In not too much longer, our work was finished, and Zee came down from the roof.

“The next time it rains, we'll know how well I did.”

In the kitchen, we washed off the smells of fish and tar.

“And now the beach awaits,” I said.

“I thought you were private investigating, these days.”

“I'll private investigate tomorrow. Today, I'd rather be on the beach with you.”

“No wonder you don't have a normal job,” she said, shaking her head and putting her arms around me. “You can't keep regular hours. Okay, the beach it is. But I have to be home in time to go down to the club later. Manny's meeting me at five-thirty.”